A Platoon Regulation Algorithm to Improve the Traffic Performance of Highway Work Zones

This paper presents a cooperative traffic control strategy to increase the capacity of non-recurrent bottlenecks such as work zones by making full use of the spatial resources upstream of work zones. The upstream area is divided into two zones: the regulation area and the merging area. The basic logic is that a large gap is more efficient in accommodating merging vehicles than several small and scattered gaps with the same total length. In the regulation area, a non-linear programming model is developed to balance both traffic capacity improvements and safety risks. A two-step solving algorithm is proposed for finding optimal solutions. In the merging area, the sorting algorithm is used to design lane changing trajectories based on the regulated platoons. A case study is conducted, and the results indicate that the proposed model is able to significantly improve work zone capacity with minor disturbances to the traffic

Rethinking Data Augmentation in Knowledge Distillation for Object Detection

Knowledge distillation (KD) has shown its effectiveness for object detection, where it trains a compact object detector under the supervision of both AI knowledge (teacher detector) and human knowledge (human expert). However, existing studies treat the AI knowledge and human knowledge consistently and adopt a uniform data augmentation strategy during learning, which would lead to the biased learning of multi-scale objects and insufficient learning for the teacher detector causing unsatisfactory distillation performance. To tackle these problems, we propose the sample-specific data augmentation and adversarial feature augmentation. Firstly, to mitigate the impact incurred by multi-scale objects, we propose an adaptive data augmentation based on our observations from the Fourier perspective. Secondly, we propose a feature augmentation method based on adversarial examples for better mimicking AI knowledge to make up for the insufficient information mining of the teacher detector. Furthermore, our proposed method is unified and easily extended to other KD methods. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework and improve the performance of state-of-the-art methods in one-stage and two-stage detectors, bringing at most 0.5 mAP gains.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Calibration of the Radical Installation Limit Error of the Accelerometer in the Gravity Gradient Instrument

Gravity gradient instrument (GGI) is the core of the gravity gradiometer, so the structural error of the sensor has a great impact on the measurement results. In order not to affect the aimed measurement accuracy, limit error is required in the installation of the accelerometer. In this paper, based on the established measuring principle model, the radial installation limit error is calibrated, which is taken as an example to provide a method to calculate the other limit error of the installation under the premise of ensuring the accuracy of the measurement result. This method provides the idea for deriving the limit error of the geometry structure of the sensor, laying the foundation for the mechanical precision design and physical design

Mathematical Modeling of the Working Principle of Gravity Gradient Instrument

Gravity field is of great significance in geoscience, national economy and national security, and gravitational gradient measurement has been extensively studied due to its higher accuracy than gravity measurement. Gravity gradient sensor, being one of core devices of the gravity gradient instrument, plays a key role in measuring accuracy. Therefore, this paper starts from analyzing the working principle of the gravity gradient sensor by Newton's law, and then considers the relative motion between inertial and non-inertial systems to build a relatively adequate mathematical model, laying a foundation for the measurement error calibration, measurement accuracy improvement

Ambient Temperature and Stroke Occurrence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract: Biologically plausible associations exist between climatic conditions and stroke risk, but study results are inconsistent. We aimed to summarize current evidence on ambient temperature and overall stroke occurrence, and by age, sex, and variation of temperature. We performed a systematic literature search across MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science, and GEOBASE, from inception to 16 October 2015 to identify all population-based observational studies. Where possible, data were pooled for meta-analysis with Odds ratios (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) by means of the random effects meta-analysis. We included 21 studies with a total of 476,511 patients. The data were varied as indicated by significant heterogeneity across studies for both ischemic stroke (IS) and intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Pooled OR (95% CI) in every 1 degree Celsius increase in ambient temperature was significant for ICH 0.97 (0.94–1.00), but not for IS 1.00 (0.99–1.01) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) 1.00 (0.98–1.01). Meta-analysis was not possible for the pre-specified subgroup analyses by age, sex, and variation of temperature. Change in temperature over the previous 24 h appeared to be more important than absolute temperature in relation to the risk of stroke, especially in relation to the risk of ICH. Older age appeared to increase vulnerability to low temperature for both IS and ICH. To conclude, this review shows that lower mean ambient temperature is significantly associated with the risk of ICH, but not with IS and SAH. Larger temperature changes were associated with higher stroke rates in the elderly

Disseminated tuberculosis in a child during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case report and literature review

BackgroundDisseminated tuberculosis is an uncommon but devastating form of tuberculosis, possibly developing with the immune response of patients. COVID-19 infection may produce an immunosuppressive effect with possible implications for tuberculosis dissemination.Case presentationA 17-year-old female patient with a history of tuberculous pleurisy presented to the hospital with a high fever and life-threatening dyspnea after contracting a COVID-19 infection. Her condition deteriorated rapidly with grand mal epilepsy and acute gastrointestinal bleeding with a grossly depressed CD4 T-cell count, which was indicative of her profoundly immunosuppressed state. After identifying Mycobacterium tuberculosis in her cerebrospinal fluid and a subcutaneous abscess in her left lower back, she was diagnosed with disseminated tuberculosis involving both lungs, the central nervous system, the terminal ileum, the liver, bilateral adnexal tissue, and subcutaneous soft tissue in accordance with the chest and abdominal CT. Empirical treatment was initiated with dexamethasone (5 mg/day) and an anti-tuberculosis regimen of isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide, amikacin, and meropenem, which was replaced with faropenem after she left the hospital. The therapeutic effect was considered satisfied in the second month of follow-up.ConclusionTo the best of our knowledge, we report the first case report of disseminated tuberculosis after COVID-19 infection. Tuberculosis may disseminate and progress during the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring more significant studies to provide better diagnosis and treatment options for the co-infection

Toxicity and Hypolipidemic Activity of Lansiumamide B in Mice

Objective: To explore the hypolipidemic activity and toxic side effect of lansiumamide B (LB) from chicken-heart shaped wampee (Clausena lansium) seeds in C57BL/6J mice fed on a high-fat-diet (HFD) model. Methods: The no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of LB in mice was assessed by oral acute toxicity test. HFD-fed mice were intragastrically administered with LB at 1/100, 1/50 and 1/25 NOAEL for 4 weeks. To evaluate the lipid-lowering activity of LB, body mass, serum lipids, insulin resistance, and oxidative stress indicators were measured. Results: The NOAEL of LB was 2 g/kg mb. LB significantly reduced body mass in HFD-fed mice. Compared with the HFD model group, body mass decreased by 15.51% and Lee’s index declined by 3.25% in the high-dose LB group; the concentration of high-density lipid-cholesterol (HDL-C) increased by 38.04%, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and catalase (CAT) in the serum increased by 41.86%, 41.95%, and 105.50%, respectively. Conclusion: LB within the NOAEL range has significant lipid-lowering activity in mice without obvious toxicity

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) versus conventional in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in couples with non-severe male infertility (NSMI-ICSI) : protocol for a multicentre randomised controlled trial

Funding This study was supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC1000201; 2018YFC1002104) and the National Science Foundation of China (81730038). The study funders had no rule in the study design, implementation, analysis, manuscript, preparation or decision to submit this article for publication.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The prognostic value of deep earlobe creases in patients with acute ischemic stroke

Background and purposeData on earlobe crease (ELC) among patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) are limited. Here, we determined the frequency and characteristics of ELC and the prognostic effect of ELC among AIS patients.MethodsA total of 936 patients with acute AIS were enrolled during the period between December 2018 and December 2019. The patients were divided into those without and with ELC, unilateral and bilateral ELC, and shallow and deep ELC, according to the photographs taken of the bilateral ears. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the effect of ELC, bilateral ELC, and deep ELC on poor functional outcomes at 90 days (a modified Rankin Scale score ≥2) in AIS patients.ResultsAmong the 936 AIS patients, there were 746 (79.7%) patients with ELC. Among patients with ELC, there were 156 (20.9%) patients with unilateral ELC and 590 (79.1%) with bilateral ELC and 476 (63.8%) patients with shallow ELC and 270 (36.2%) with deep ELC. After adjusting for age, sex, baseline NIHSS score, and other potential covariates, patients with deep ELC were associated with a 1.87-fold [odds ratio (OR) 1.87; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.13–3.09] and 1.63-fold (OR 1.63; 95%CI, 1.14–2.34) increase in the risk of poor functional outcome at 90 days in comparison with those without ELC or shallow ELC.ConclusionELC was a common phenomenon, and eight out of ten AIS patients had ELC. Most patients had bilateral ELC, and more than one-third had deep ELC. Deep ELC was independently associated with an increased risk of poor functional outcome at 90 days