Holographic entanglement of purification for thermofield double states and thermal quench

We explore the properties of holographic entanglement of purification (EoP) for two disjoint strips in the Schwarzschild-AdS black brane and the Vaidya-AdS black brane spacetimes. For two given strips on the same boundary of Schwarzschild-AdS spacetime, there is an upper bound of the separation beyond which the holographic EoP will always vanish no matter how wide the strips are. In the case that two strips are in the two boundaries of the spacetime respectively, we find that the holographic EoP exists only when the strips are wide enough. If the width is finite, the EoP can be nonzero in a finite time region. For thermal quench case, we find that the equilibrium time of holographic EoP is only sensitive to the width of strips, while that of the holographic mutual information is sensitive not only to the width of strips but also to their separation.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, major correction of section

Res2Net: A New Multi-scale Backbone Architecture

Representing features at multiple scales is of great importance for numerous vision tasks. Recent advances in backbone convolutional neural networks (CNNs) continually demonstrate stronger multi-scale representation ability, leading to consistent performance gains on a wide range of applications. However, most existing methods represent the multi-scale features in a layer-wise manner. In this paper, we propose a novel building block for CNNs, namely Res2Net, by constructing hierarchical residual-like connections within one single residual block. The Res2Net represents multi-scale features at a granular level and increases the range of receptive fields for each network layer. The proposed Res2Net block can be plugged into the state-of-the-art backbone CNN models, e.g., ResNet, ResNeXt, and DLA. We evaluate the Res2Net block on all these models and demonstrate consistent performance gains over baseline models on widely-used datasets, e.g., CIFAR-100 and ImageNet. Further ablation studies and experimental results on representative computer vision tasks, i.e., object detection, class activation mapping, and salient object detection, further verify the superiority of the Res2Net over the state-of-the-art baseline methods. The source code and trained models are available on https://mmcheng.net/res2net/.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure

CpGPAP: CpG island predictor analysis platform

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Genomic islands play an important role in medical, methylation and biological studies. To explore the region, we propose a CpG islands prediction analysis platform for genome sequence exploration (CpGPAP).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>CpGPAP is a web-based application that provides a user-friendly interface for predicting CpG islands in genome sequences or in user input sequences. The prediction algorithms supported in CpGPAP include complementary particle swarm optimization (CPSO), a complementary genetic algorithm (CGA) and other methods (CpGPlot, CpGProD and CpGIS) found in the literature. The CpGPAP platform is easy to use and has three main features (1) selection of the prediction algorithm; (2) graphic visualization of results; and (3) application of related tools and dataset downloads. These features allow the user to easily view CpG island results and download the relevant island data. CpGPAP is freely available at <url>http://bio.kuas.edu.tw/CpGPAP/</url>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The platform's supported algorithms (CPSO and CGA) provide a higher sensitivity and a higher correlation coefficient when compared to CpGPlot, CpGProD, CpGIS, and CpGcluster over an entire chromosome.</p

Third-codon transversion rate-based _Nymphaea_ basal angiosperm phylogeny -- concordance with developmental evidence

Flowering plants (angiosperms) appeared on Earth rather suddenly approximately 130 million years ago and underwent a massive expansion in the subsequent 10-12 million years. Current molecular phylogenies have predominantly identified _Amborella_, followed by _Nymphaea_ (water lilies) or _Amborella_ plus _Nymphaea_, in the ANITA clade (_Amborella_, Nymphaeales, Illiciaceae, Trimeniaceae and Austrobaileyaceae) as the earliest angiosperm. However, developmental studies suggest that the earliest angiosperm had a 4-cell/4-nucleus female gametophyte and a diploid endosperm represented by _Nymphaea_, suggesting that _Amborella_, having an 8-cell/9-nucleus female gametophyte and a triploid endosperm, cannot be representative of the basal angiosperm. This evolution-development discordance is possibly caused by erroneous inference based on phylogenetic signals with low neutrality and/or high saturation. Here we show that the 3rd codon transversion (P3Tv), with high neutrality and low saturation, is a robust high-resolution phylogenetic signal for such divergences and that the P3Tv-based land plant phylogeny cautiously identifies _Nymphaea_, followed by _Amborella_, as the most basal among the angiosperm species examined in this study. This P3Tv-based phylogeny contributes insights to the origin of angiosperms with concordance to fossil and stomata development evidence

The Association between Virus Prevalence and Intercolonial Aggression Levels in the Yellow Crazy Ant, Anoplolepis Gracilipes (Jerdon).

The recent discovery of multiple viruses in ants, along with the widespread infection of their hosts across geographic ranges, provides an excellent opportunity to test whether viral prevalence in the field is associated with the complexity of social interactions in the ant population. In this study, we examined whether the association exists between the field prevalence of a virus and the intercolonial aggression of its ant host, using the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) and its natural viral pathogen (TR44839 virus) as a model system. We delimitated the colony boundary and composition of A. gracilipes in a total of 12 study sites in Japan (Okinawa), Taiwan, and Malaysia (Penang), through intercolonial aggression assay. The spatial distribution and prevalence level of the virus was then mapped for each site. The virus occurred at a high prevalence in the surveyed colonies of Okinawa and Taiwan (100% infection rate across all sites), whereas virus prevalence was variable (30%-100%) or none (0%) at the sites in Penang. Coincidentally, colonies in Okinawa and Taiwan displayed a weak intercolonial boundary, as aggression between colonies is generally low or moderate. Contrastingly, sites in Penang were found to harbor a high proportion of mutually aggressive colonies, a pattern potentially indicative of complex colony composition. Our statistical analyses further confirmed the observed correlation, implying that intercolonial interactions likely contribute as one of the effective facilitators of/barriers to virus prevalence in the field population of this ant species

Scanning Near-shore Intertidal Terrain Using Ground LiDAR

Intertidal zone refers to the area under and above the water during high and low tides. Traditionally, this zone is not within the scope of land management authorities. Moreover, in accordance with principals set out by existing plans, intertidal zones are excluded from management zones. Boundaries should therefore be set at the land and sea border. Traditionally, methods in determining this have included the traditional theodolite (total station) method, mapping and aerial photography (photogrammetry). However, existing operational restrictions lower efficiency, in addition to increasing time and operational costs. Therefore this paper explores the practicality of a user- friendly, ground-based high resolution laser scanning technology. This method offers easy operation and high-density characteristics with an instrument platform that can be installed on elevated rooftops. High accuracy and resolution is achieved using a stop-and-go method producing Digital Terrain Model (DTM) data. The range of the completed data is 61km in length, 2.5km in width, and -0.5m depth, with a sampling error of approximately ±2cm. Through the implementation discussed in this research, accurate information about the changes of topography in intertidal areas can be obtained