High-Performance Light Field Reconstruction with Channel-wise and SAI-wise Attention

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019. Light field (LF) images provide rich information and are suitable for high-level computer vision applications. To acquire capabilities of modeling the correlated information of LF, most of the previous methods have to stack several convolutional layers to improve the feature representation and result in heavy computation and large model sizes. In this paper, we propose channel-wise and SAI-wise attention modules to enhance the feature representation at a low cost. The channel-wise attention module helps to focus on important channels while the SAI-wise attention module guides the network to pay more attention to informative SAIs. The experimental results demonstrate that the baseline network can achieve better performance with the aid of the attention modules

Application of disease burden to quantitative assessment of health hazards for a decentralized water reuse system

© 2016 Elsevier B.V. The aim of this article is to introduce the methodology of disease burden (DB) to quantify the health impact of microbial regrowth during wastewater reuse, using the case study of a decentralized water reuse system in Xi'an Si-yuan University, located in Xi'an, China. Based on field investigation findings, Escherichia coli (E. coli), Salmonella and rotavirus were selected as typical regrowth pathogens causing potential health hazards during the reuse of reclaimed water. Subsequently, major exposure routes including sprinkler irrigation, landscape fountains and toilet flushing were identified. Mathematical models were established to build the relationship between exposure dose and disease burden by calculating the disability adjusted life year (DALY). Results of disease burden for this case study show that DALYs attributed to E. coli were significantly greater than those caused by other pathogens, and DALYs associated with sprinkler irrigation were higher than those originating from other routes. A correlation between exposure dose and disease was obtained by introducing a modified calculation of morbidity, which can extend the assessment endpoint of health risk to disease burden from the conventional infection rate

Functional human T-cell immunity and osteoprotegerin ligand control alveolar bone destruction in periodontal infection

Periodontitis, a prime cause of tooth loss in humans, is implicated in the increased risk of systemic diseases such as heart failure, stroke, and bacterial pneumonia. The mechanisms by which periodontitis and antibacterial immunity lead to alveolar bone and tooth loss are poorly understood. To study the human immune response to specific periodontal infections, rye transplanted human peripheral blood lymphocytes (HuPBLs) from periodontitis patients into NOD/SCID mice. Oral challenge of HuPBL-NOD/SCID mice with Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans, a well-known Gram-negative anaerobic microorganism that causes human periodontitis, activates human CD4(+) T cells in the periodontium and triggers local alveolar bone destruction. Human CD4(+) T cells, but not CD8(+) T cells or B cells, are identified as essential mediators of alveolar bone destruction. Stimulation of CD4(+) T cells by A. actinomycetemcomitans induces production of osteoprotegerin ligand (OPG-L), a key modulator of osteoclastogenesis and osteoclast activation. In vivo inhibition of OPG-L function with the decoy receptor OPG diminishes alveolar bone destruction and reduces the number of peridontal osteoclasts after microbial challenge. These data imply that the molecular explanation for alveolar bone destruction observed in perio dental infections is mediated by microorganism-triggered induction of OPG-L expression on CD4(+) T cells and the consequent activation of osteoclasts. Inhibition of OPG-L may thus have therapeutic value to prevent alveolar bone and/or tooth loss in human periodontitis.open11263sciescopu

Bio-Inspired Aggregation Control of Carbon Nanotubes for Ultra-Strong Composites

High performance nanocomposites require well dispersion and high alignment of the nanometer-sized components, at a high mass or volume fraction as well. However, the road towards such composite structure is severely hindered due to the easy aggregation of these nanometer-sized components. Here we demonstrate a big step to approach the ideal composite structure for carbon nanotube (CNT) where all the CNTs were highly packed, aligned, and unaggregated, with the impregnated polymers acting as interfacial adhesions and mortars to build up the composite structure. The strategy was based on a bio-inspired aggregation control to limit the CNT aggregation to be sub 20--50 nm, a dimension determined by the CNT growth. After being stretched with full structural relaxation in a multi-step way, the CNT/polymer (bismaleimide) composite yielded super-high tensile strengths up to 6.27--6.94 GPa, more than 100% higher than those of carbon fiber/epoxy composites, and toughnesses up to 117--192 MPa. We anticipate that the present study can be generalized for developing multifunctional and smart nanocomposites where all the surfaces of nanometer-sized components can take part in shear transfer of mechanical, thermal, and electrical signals

A practical shear wall layout optimization framework for the design of high-rise buildings

National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Grants 51378457, 51778558; Center for Balance Architecture, Zhejiang University

An isolate of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 originally classified as subtype I represents a complex mosaic comprising three different group M subtypes (A, G, and I)

Full-length reference clones and sequences are currently available for eight human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) group M subtypes (A through H), but none have been reported for subtypes I and J, which have only been identified in a few individuals. Phylogenetic information for subtype I, in particular, is limited since only about 400 bp of env gene sequences have been determined for just two epidemiologically linked viruses infecting a couple who were heterosexual intravenous drug users from Cyprus. To characterize subtype I in greater detail, we employed long-range PCR to clone a full-length provirus (94CY032.3) from an isolate obtained from one of the individuals originally reported to be infected with this subtype. Phylogenetic analysis of C2-V3 env gene sequences confirmed that 94CY032.3 was closely related to sequences previously classified as subtype I. However, analysis of the remainder of its genome revealed various regions in which 94CY032.3 was significantly clustered with either subtype A or subtype G. Only sequences located in vpr and nef, as well as the middle portions of pol and env, formed independent lineages roughly equidistant from all other known subtypes. Since these latter regions most likely have a common origin, we classify them all as subtype I. These results thus indicate that the originally reported prototypic subtype I isolate 94CY032 represents a triple recombinant (A/G/I) with at least 11 points of recombination crossover. We also screened HIV-1 recombinants with regions of uncertain subtype assignment for the presence of subtype I sequences. This analysis revealed that two of the earliest mosaics from Africa, Z321B (A/G/?) and MAL (A/D/?), contain short segments of sequence which clustered closely with the subtype I domains of 94CY032.3. Since Z321 was isolated in 1976, subtype I as well as subtypes A and G must have existed in Central Africa prior to that date... (D'après résumé d'auteur

Effect of the filament discharge current on the microstructure and performance of plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtered TiN coatings

© 2017 Elsevier B.V. Titanium nitride (TiN) coatings were synthesized by plasma-enhanced magnetron sputtering (PEMS) on 316L austenitic stainless steel and YG8 cemented carbide substrates. The plasma enhancement process involved the use of hot filaments as additional sources of electrons for the magnetron discharge. The structural, morphology, crystallinity, thickness, abrasion resistance and adhesion of the TiN coatings, as well as the nanohardness and Young's modulus were investigated at different filament discharge currents. The results showed that with increasing discharge current, the deposition rate of the coating decreased, the structural morphology of the TiN coatings became finer and denser and the columnar grain size decreased. The critical load for failure in scratch adhesion tests of the coatings on stainless steel and YG8 substrates were over 22 N and 141 N, respectively. The nanohardness and Young's modulus both improved significantly from 8 GPa and 200 GPa to 38 GPa and 500 GPa, respectively, after the discharge current increased from 6 A up to 12 A. The adhesion and the abrasion resistance of the coating on cemented carbide increased, and those on stainless steel decreased, with increasing filament discharge current. It was found that matching the Young's modulus of the coating to that of the substrate was important to improve the adhesion and abrasion resistance of the coating. The results demonstrate that TiN coatings can be prepared by PEMS at appropriate filament discharge currents, resulting in coatings with uniform thickness, dense structure and high hardness, abrasion resistance and adhesion