Low-Mid Adversarial Perturbation against Unauthorized Face Recognition System

In light of the growing concerns regarding the unauthorized use of facial recognition systems and its implications on individual privacy, the exploration of adversarial perturbations as a potential countermeasure has gained traction. However, challenges arise in effectively deploying this approach against unauthorized facial recognition systems due to the effects of JPEG compression on image distribution across the internet, which ultimately diminishes the efficacy of adversarial perturbations. Existing JPEG compression-resistant techniques struggle to strike a balance between resistance, transferability, and attack potency. To address these limitations, we propose a novel solution referred to as \emph{low frequency adversarial perturbation} (LFAP). This method conditions the source model to leverage low-frequency characteristics through adversarial training. To further enhance the performance, we introduce an improved \emph{low-mid frequency adversarial perturbation} (LMFAP) that incorporates mid-frequency components for an additive benefit. Our study encompasses a range of settings to replicate genuine application scenarios, including cross backbones, supervisory heads, training datasets, and testing datasets. Moreover, we evaluated our approaches on a commercial black-box API, \texttt{Face++}. The empirical results validate the cutting-edge performance achieved by our proposed solutions.Comment: published in Information Science

The Genomes of Oryza sativa: A History of Duplications

We report improved whole-genome shotgun sequences for the genomes of indica and japonica rice, both with multimegabase contiguity, or almost 1,000-fold improvement over the drafts of 2002. Tested against a nonredundant collection of 19,079 full-length cDNAs, 97.7% of the genes are aligned, without fragmentation, to the mapped super-scaffolds of one or the other genome. We introduce a gene identification procedure for plants that does not rely on similarity to known genes to remove erroneous predictions resulting from transposable elements. Using the available EST data to adjust for residual errors in the predictions, the estimated gene count is at least 38,000–40,000. Only 2%–3% of the genes are unique to any one subspecies, comparable to the amount of sequence that might still be missing. Despite this lack of variation in gene content, there is enormous variation in the intergenic regions. At least a quarter of the two sequences could not be aligned, and where they could be aligned, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rates varied from as little as 3.0 SNP/kb in the coding regions to 27.6 SNP/kb in the transposable elements. A more inclusive new approach for analyzing duplication history is introduced here. It reveals an ancient whole-genome duplication, a recent segmental duplication on Chromosomes 11 and 12, and massive ongoing individual gene duplications. We find 18 distinct pairs of duplicated segments that cover 65.7% of the genome; 17 of these pairs date back to a common time before the divergence of the grasses. More important, ongoing individual gene duplications provide a never-ending source of raw material for gene genesis and are major contributors to the differences between members of the grass family

Wavelength-Tunable Single-Longitudinal-Mode Narrow-Linewidth Thulium/Holmium Co-Doped Fiber Laser with Phase-Shifted Fiber Bragg Grating and Dual-Coupler-Ring Filter

A wavelength-tunable single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) narrow-linewidth thulium/holmium co-doped fiber laser (THDFL) was developed in this study. The lasing wavelength was determined by combining a phase-shifted fiber Bragg grating (PS-FBG) and a uniform FBG (UFBG). SLM oscillation was achieved by incorporating a dual-coupler ring filter with the PS-FBG. At a pump power of 2.0 W, the THDFL exhibited excellent SLM lasing performance with a stable optical spectrum. It operated at an output wavelength of ~2050 nm with an optical signal-to-noise ratio of >81 dB, an output power fluctuation of 0.15 dB, a linewidth of 8.468 kHz, a relative intensity noise of ≤−140.32 dB/Hz@≥5 MHz, a slope efficiency of 2.15%, and a threshold power of 436 mW. The lasing wavelength tunability was validated experimentally by stretching the PS-FBG and UFBG simultaneously. The proposed THDFL had significant potential for application in many fields, including free-space optical communication, LiDAR, and high-precision spectral measurement

Eight-Wavelength-Switchable Narrow Linewidth Erbium-Doped Fiber Laser Based on Cascaded Superimposed High-Birefringence Fiber Bragg Grating

A narrow-linewidth eight-wavelength-switchable erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed, and its performance is demonstrated. A cascaded superimposed high-birefringence fiber Bragg grating is used to determine the lasing wavelengths. The combination of a Fabry–Pérot filter and a single-coupler ring is adopted to achieve the single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) oscillation. By introducing the enhanced polarization-hole-burning effect to suppress the gain competition between different wavelength lasers, the stable lasing output is guaranteed. When the pump power is 200 mW, by adjusting the polarization controller to balance the gain and loss in the laser cavity, 24 switchable lasing modes are achieved, including 8 single-wavelength operations and 16 dual-wavelength operations with orthogonal polarization states. For single-wavelength operations, every laser is in the SLM lasing state, with a high stabilized optical spectrum, a linewidth of approximately 1 kHz, an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) as high as 73 dB, a relative intensity noise of less than −150 dB/Hz, and very good polarization characteristics. For dual-wavelength operations, the lasers also have a stable spectrum and an OSNR as high as 65 dB. The proposed fiber laser has a wide range of applications, including long-haul coherence optical communication, optical fiber sensing, and dense wavelength-division-multiplexing

Carcinoma-associated fibroblast-derived lysyl oxidase-rich extracellular vesicles mediate collagen crosslinking and promote epithelial-mesenchymal transition via p-FAK/p-paxillin/YAP signaling

Abstract Carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) are the main cellular components of the tumor microenvironment and promote cancer progression by modifying the extracellular matrix (ECM). The tumor-associated ECM is characterized by collagen crosslinking catalyzed by lysyl oxidase (LOX). Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) mediate cell-cell communication. However, the interactions between sEVs and the ECM remain unclear. Here, we demonstrated that sEVs released from oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC)-derived CAFs induce collagen crosslinking, thereby promoting epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). CAF sEVs preferably bound to the ECM rather than being taken up by fibroblasts and induced collagen crosslinking, and a LOX inhibitor or blocking antibody suppressed this effect. Active LOX (αLOX), but not the LOX precursor, was enriched in CAF sEVs and interacted with periostin, fibronectin, and bone morphogenetic protein-1 on the surface of sEVs. CAF sEV-associated integrin α2β1 mediated the binding of CAF sEVs to collagen I, and blocking integrin α2β1 inhibited collagen crosslinking by interfering with CAF sEV binding to collagen I. CAF sEV-induced collagen crosslinking promoted the EMT of OSCC through FAK/paxillin/YAP pathway. Taken together, these findings reveal a novel role of CAF sEVs in tumor ECM remodeling, suggesting a critical mechanism for CAF-induced EMT of cancer cells

Synthesis of uniform ordered mesoporous TiO 2 microspheres with controllable phase junctions for efficient solar water splitting

As a benchmark photocatalyst, commercial P25-TiO 2 has been widely used for various photocatalytic applications. However, the low surface area and poorly porous structure greatly limit its performance. Herein, uniform ordered mesoporous TiO 2 microspheres (denoted as Meso-TiO 2 -X; X represents the rutile percentage in the resultant microspheres) with controllable anatase/rutile phase junctions and radially oriented mesochannels are synthesized by a coordination-mediated self-assembly approach. The anatase/rutile ratio in the resultant microspheres can be facilely adjusted as desired (rutile percentage: 0-100) by changing the concentration of hydrochloric acid. As a typical one, the as-prepared Meso-TiO 2 -25 microspheres have a similar anatase/rutile ratio to commercial P25. But the surface area (78.6 m 2 g -1 ) and pore volume (0.39 cm 3 g -1 ) of the resultant microspheres are larger than those of commercial P25. When used as the photocatalyst for H 2 generation, the Meso-TiO 2 -25 delivers high solar-driven H 2 evolution rates under air mass 1.5 global (AM 1.5 G) and visible-light (? > 400 nm), respectively, which are significantly larger than those of commercial P25. This coordination-mediated self-assembly method paves a new way toward the design and synthesis of high performance mesoporous photocatalysts. - 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry.This work was supported by the State Key Basic Research Program of the PRC (2016YFA0204000, 2017YFA0207300 and 2018YFA0209401), NSFC of China (Grant No. U1463206, 21603036 and 21733003), and Key Basic Research Program of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (17JC1400100). The authors acknowledge the International Scienti?c Partnership Program ISPP at King Saud University for funding this research work through ISPP# 0018.Scopu

Application of a microfluidic-based perivascular tumor model for testing drug sensitivity in head and neck cancers and toxicity in endothelium

A drug sensitivity test prior to clinical treatment is necessary for individualized cancer therapy. A useful in vitro model that mimics the in vivo tumor microenvironment is required to select optimal anti-cancer agents. To promote the microfluidic technology moving from the laboratory to the clinic, we developed a microfluidic-based perivascular tumor model that makes it possible to assess drug sensitivity in 3D cultured tumor spheroids and toxicity in endothelium in parallel. The sensitivity and toxicity of PTX, 5-FU, and CDDP were assessed using the microfluidic model. It was found that high concentrations of single drugs destroyed the human umbilical vein endothelial cell line (HUVEC) layer, although they can effectively induce apoptosis of head and neck cancer cells. A combination of low concentrations of these drugs presented a good curative effect on tumor cells and low toxicity to the HUVEC layer. Then, we applied the model to test anti-cancer drug sensitivity in cancer patients. Individual differences to candidate drug combinations were found among these patients. This suggests that different chemotherapy plans should be made for individual patients. This study demonstrated that the microfluidic model might be a useful platform for individual drug tests prior to clinical treatment

Multiplexed profiling of single-cell extracellular vesicles secretion

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important intercellular mediators regulating health and diseases. Conventional methods for EV surface marker profiling, which was based on population measurements, masked the cell-to-cell heterogeneity in the quantity and phenotypes of EV secretion. Herein, by using spatially patterned antibody barcodes, we realized multiplexed profiling of single-cell EV secretion from more than 1,000 single cells simultaneously. Applying this platform to profile human oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines led to a deep understanding of previously undifferentiated single-cell heterogeneity underlying EV secretion. Notably, we observed that the decrement of certain EV phenotypes (e.g., (CD63+) V) was associated with the invasive feature of both OSCC cell lines and primary OSCC cells. We also realized multiplexed detection of EV secretion and cytokines secretion simultaneously from the same single cells to investigate the multidimensional spectrum of cellular communications, from which we resolved tiered functional subgroups with distinct secretion profiles by visualized clustering and principal component analysis. In particular, we found that different cell subgroups dominated EV secretion and cytokine secretion. The technology introduced here enables a comprehensive evaluation of EV secretion heterogeneity at single-cell level, which may become an indispensable tool to complement current single-cell analysis and EV research