RCDPT: Radar-Camera fusion Dense Prediction Transformer

Recently, transformer networks have outperformed traditional deep neural networks in natural language processing and show a large potential in many computer vision tasks compared to convolutional backbones. In the original transformer, readout tokens are used as designated vectors for aggregating information from other tokens. However, the performance of using readout tokens in a vision transformer is limited. Therefore, we propose a novel fusion strategy to integrate radar data into a dense prediction transformer network by reassembling camera representations with radar representations. Instead of using readout tokens, radar representations contribute additional depth information to a monocular depth estimation model and improve performance. We further investigate different fusion approaches that are commonly used for integrating additional modality in a dense prediction transformer network. The experiments are conducted on the nuScenes dataset, which includes camera images, lidar, and radar data. The results show that our proposed method yields better performance than the commonly used fusion strategies and outperforms existing convolutional depth estimation models that fuse camera images and radar.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures and 1 tabl

Improving Students’ Speaking Skill through the Picture and Picture Cooperative Learning Model

The present research is conducted in an elementary school in Tan Shan city, Hong Kong, at the academic year of 2020-2021, on 40 students consisting of 16 boys and 24 girls. The research result shows that the application of the picture and picture cooperative learning model can improve the speaking skill of elementary school students. This is indicated by the increasing of students’ speaking skill score. In the first cycle, the average score was 62.2, students who did not complete were 62.5%, and those who completed 37.5% (in the low category). In cycle II, the average score was 80.8, 12.5% ​​were incomplete and 87.5% were completed. This proves an increase. Likewise, students’ attendance, students’ activity in listening to the teacher’s explanation, students’ activity in asking questions to the teacher, students’ activity in answering teacher questions, students’ activity in commenting on the content of the picture, and students’ activity in concluding subject matter, increased in the cycle II. Based on the results of the analysis above, the conclusion is that students’ speaking skill increases through the application of the picture and picture cooperative learning model

Analysis of Oligonucleotides by Matrixâ Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Timeâ ofâ Flight Mass Spectrometry

MALDIâ MS is one of the most useful techniques available for determining biomolecule mass. It offers high mass accuracy, good sensitivity, simplicity, and speed. Because singly charged ions of oligonucleotides are typically observed, MALDIâ MS spectra are easy to interpret. This unit presents protocols for sample preparation and purification, matrix preparation, and matrix/analyte sample preparation. It provides an introduction to the instrumentation and its calibration, and a discussion of some of the useful applications of MALDIâ MS analysis in the study of oligonucleotides. This technique is typically used for 120â mer or smaller oligonucleotides.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143629/1/cpnc1001.pd

Force-insensitive optical cavity

We describe a rigidly-mounted optical cavity which is insensitive to inertial forces acting in any direction and to the compressive force used to constrain it. The design is based on a cubic geometry with four supports placed symmetrically about the optical axis in a tetrahedral configuration. To measure the inertial force sensitivity, a laser is locked to the cavity while it is inverted about three orthogonal axes. The maximum acceleration sensitivity is 2.5\times10^-11/g (where g=9.81 ms^-2), the lowest passive sensitivity to be reported for an optical cavity.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, journa

Thin Fisher Zeroes

Biskup et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84 (2000) 4794] have recently suggested that the loci of partition function zeroes can profitably be regarded as phase boundaries in the complex temperature or field planes. We obtain the Fisher zeroes for Ising and Potts models on non-planar (``thin'') regular random graphs using this approach, and note that the locus of Fisher zeroes on a Bethe lattice is identical to the corresponding random graph. Since the number of states appears as a parameter in the Potts solution the limiting locus of chromatic zeroes is also accessible.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Sodium vacancy ordering and the co-existence of localized spins and itinerant charges in NaxCoO2

The sodium cobaltate family (NaxCoO2) is unique among transition metal oxides because the Co sits on a triangular lattice and its valence can be tuned over a wide range by varying the Na concentration x. Up to now detailed modeling of the rich phenomenology (which ranges from unconventional superconductivity to enhanced thermopower) has been hampered by the difficulty of controlling pure phases. We discovered that certain Na concentrations are specially stable and are associated with superlattice ordering of the Na clusters. This leads naturally to a picture of co-existence of localized spins and itinerant charge carriers. For x = 0.84 we found a remarkably small Fermi energy of 87 K. Our picture brings coherence to a variety of measurements ranging from NMR to optical to thermal transport. Our results also allow us to take the first step towards modeling the mysterious ``Curie-Weiss'' metal state at x = 0.71. We suggest the local moments may form a quantum spin liquid state and we propose experimental test of our hypothesis.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Optical pulse distortion and manipulation through polarization effects and chromatic dispersion

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-129).Pulse distortion and shaping mechanisms play a significant role in optical fiber communication and sensing. In this thesis we shall investigate techniques which alleviate pulse deterioration due to polarization effects, and utilize large chromatic dispersion for system performance enhancement. We first demonstrate a method of mitigating polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in fiber optic communication systems. PMD has been a known effect for over a decade. However, it was not an impediment to system performance until recent advances in communication system bit rates. Today, with 10 Gb/s and 40 Gb/s channel rates appearing in new system equipment, PMD prohibits the use of many fiber cables already installed. Current PMD compensation techniques that require feedback control have difficulty meeting the speed and reliability requirements of telecom standards. In the first part of this thesis we investigate alternative compensation schemes which reduce the complexity of the feedback schemes. We next exploit the recent availability of ultra-long length chirped fiber Bragg gratings (FBG). Their enormous chromatic dispersion enables methods of improving current techniques in sensing and high speed optical sampling. In one experiment, we modulate the frequency of a standard distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser, and then apply the dispersion of the ultra-long FBG. Picosecond pulses are formed, whose repetition rate is independent of the laser cavity length. Since the gain of the laser is not modulated, the timing jitter is fundamentally limited only by the frequency noise of the laser. Finally, we again utilize the large delay of an ultra-long chirped FBG to implement arbitrary dynamic optical filtering of pulse spectra. In sensing applications such as fiber gyroscopes and optical coherence tomography (OCT), a wide Gaussian spectrum is ideal for low error in the gyro, and high image resolution in OCT. A modelocked fiber laser provides very wide spectra, but the shape can be irregular. We stretch the modelocked pulse temporally with an FBG, and access the frequency components in the time domain. We can then selectively suppress frequencies with an amplitude modulator to synthesize a Gaussian spectrum. Polarization effects and chromatic dispersion will inevitably appear in many optical systems. It is the goal of this thesis to show that their effects can be minimized or utilized for system performance enhancement.by Patrick Chien-pang Chou.Ph.D

Infection of Ophiocordyceps sinensis fungus causes dramatic changes in the microbiota of its Thitarodes host

The Chinese cordyceps is a unique and valuable parasitic complex of Thitarodes/Hepialus ghost moths and the Ophiocordyceps sinensis fungus for medicine and health foods from the Tibetan Plateau. During artificial cultivation of Chinese cordyceps, the induction of blastospores into hyphae is a prerequisite for mummification of the infected Thitarodes larvae. To explore the microbial involvement in the induction of mycelia-blastospore transition, the microbiota of the hemolymph and gut from Thitarodes xiaojinensis larvae with or without injected O. sinensis blastospores were investigated by culture-dependent and -independent methods. Twenty-five culturable bacterial species and 14 fungal species, together with 537 bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and 218 fungal OTUs, were identified from the hemolymph and gut of samples from five stages including living larvae without injected fungi (A) or with high blastospore load (B), mummifying larvae without mycelia coating (C), freshly mummifying larvae coated with mycelia (D), and completely mummified larvae with mycelia (E). Two culturable bacterial species (Serratia plymuthica, Serratia proteamaculans), and 47 bacterial and 15 fungal OTUs were considered as shared species. The uninfected larval hemolymph contained 13 culturable bacterial species but no fungal species, together with 164 bacterial and 73 fungal OTUs. To our knowledge, this is the first study to detect large bacterial communities from the hemolymph of healthy insect larvae. When the living larvae contained high blastospore load, the culturable bacterial community was sharply inhibited in the hemolymph but the bacterial and fungal community greatly increased in the gut. In general, high blastospore load increased bacterial diversity but sharply decreased fungal diversity in the hemolymph and gut by OTUs. The bacterial loads of four culturable species (Chryseobacterium sp., Pseudomonas fragi, S. plymuthica, S. proteamaculans) increased significantly and O. sinensis and Pseudomonas spp. became dominant microbes, when the infected larvae became mummified, indicating their possible involvement in the larval mummification process. The discovery of many opportunistic pathogenic bacteria in the hemolymph of the healthy larvae, the larval microbial diversity influenced by O. sinensis challenge and the involvement of dominant bacteria during larval mummification process provide new insight into the infection and mummification mechanisms of O. sinensis in its Thitarodes hosts

S=1/2 chains and spin-Peierls transition in TiOCl

We study TiOCl as an example of an S=1/2 layered Mott insulator. From our analysis of new susceptibility data, combined with LDA and LDA+U band structure calculations, we conclude that orbital ordering produces quasi-one-dimensional spin chains and that TiOCl is a new example of Heisenberg-chains which undergo a spin-Peierls transition. The energy scale is an order of magnitude larger than that of previously known examples. The effects of non-magnetic Sc impurities are explained using a model of broken finite chains.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures (color); details on crystal growth added; to be published in Phys. Rev.

Comparative global immune-related gene profiling of somatic cells, human pluripotent stem cells and their derivatives: implication for human lymphocyte proliferation.

Human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs), including embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced PSCs (iPSCs), represent potentially unlimited cell sources for clinical applications. Previous studies have suggested that hPSCs may benefit from immune privilege and limited immunogenicity, as reflected by the reduced expression of major histocompatibility complex class-related molecules. Here we investigated the global immune-related gene expression profiles of human ESCs, hiPSCs and somatic cells and identified candidate immune-related genes that may alter their immunogenicity. The expression levels of global immune-related genes were determined by comparing undifferentiated and differentiated stem cells and three types of human somatic cells: dermal papilla cells, ovarian granulosa cells and foreskin fibroblast cells. We identified the differentially expressed genes CD24, GATA3, PROM1, THBS2, LY96, IFIT3, CXCR4, IL1R1, FGFR3, IDO1 and KDR, which overlapped with selected immune-related gene lists. In further analyses, mammalian target of rapamycin complex (mTOR) signaling was investigated in the differentiated stem cells following treatment with rapamycin and lentiviral transduction with specific short-hairpin RNAs. We found that the inhibition of mTOR signal pathways significantly downregulated the immunogenicity of differentiated stem cells. We also tested the immune responses induced in differentiated stem cells by mixed lymphocyte reactions. We found that CD24- and GATA3-deficient differentiated stem cells including neural lineage cells had limited abilities to activate human lymphocytes. By analyzing the transcriptome signature of immune-related genes, we observed a tendency of the hPSCs to differentiate toward an immune cell phenotype. Taken together, these data identify candidate immune-related genes that might constitute valuable targets for clinical applications