Permanence and Global Attractivity of a Discrete Logistic Model with Impulses

By piecewise Euler method, we construct a discrete logistic equation with impulses. The constructed model is more easily implemented at computer and is a better analogue of the continuous-time dynamic system. The dynamic behaviors of the constructed model are investigated. Sufficient conditions which guarantee the permanence and the global attractivity of positive solutions of the model are obtained. Numerical simulations show the feasibility of the main results

Robust Estimation of 3D Human Poses from a Single Image

Human pose estimation is a key step to action recognition. We propose a method of estimating 3D human poses from a single image, which works in conjunction with an existing 2D pose/joint detector. 3D pose estimation is challenging because multiple 3D poses may correspond to the same 2D pose after projection due to the lack of depth information. Moreover, current 2D pose estimators are usually inaccurate which may cause errors in the 3D estimation. We address the challenges in three ways: (i) We represent a 3D pose as a linear combination of a sparse set of bases learned from 3D human skeletons. (ii) We enforce limb length constraints to eliminate anthropomorphically implausible skeletons. (iii) We estimate a 3D pose by minimizing the $L_1$-norm error between the projection of the 3D pose and the corresponding 2D detection. The $L_1$-norm loss term is robust to inaccurate 2D joint estimations. We use the alternating direction method (ADM) to solve the optimization problem efficiently. Our approach outperforms the state-of-the-arts on three benchmark datasets

Optimization of Coastal Cruise Lines in China

The paper analyzes the current state of the Chinese cruise market and presents the idea of building a business model of coastal cruising. The cruise demand of middle-income families, which includes the desired travel days, ports of call, is surveyed. The data of the previous non-cruise travels and the data of future cruises of middle-income families are used to develop a model designed to identify the maximum passenger volume with minimum operating costs while taking cruise itineraries and schedules into account. A matrix coding genetic algorithm was designed to solve the model. The case study found that a voyage of 4.79 days results in equilibrium, that the annual demand is 200,840 passengers, and that the daily voyage cost is 0.843 million Yuan

Optimization of Coastal Cruise Lines in China

The paper analyzes the current state of the Chinese cruise market and presents the idea of building a business model of coastal cruising. The cruise demand of middle-income families, which includes the desired travel days, ports of call, is surveyed. The data of the previous non-cruise travels and the data of future cruises of middle-income families are used to develop a model designed to identify the maximum passenger volume with minimum operating costs while taking cruise itineraries and schedules into account. A matrix coding genetic algorithm was designed to solve the model. The case study found that a voyage of 4.79 days results in equilibrium, that the annual demand is 200,840 passengers, and that the daily voyage cost is 0.843 million Yuan

Inference of SNP-Gene Regulatory Networks by Integrating Gene Expressions and Genetic Perturbations

In order to elucidate the overall relationships between gene expressions and genetic perturbations, we propose a network inference method to infer gene regulatory network where single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is involved as a regulator of genes. In the most of the network inferences named as SNP-gene regulatory network (SGRN) inference, pairs of SNP-gene are given by separately performing expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) mappings. In this paper, we propose a SGRN inference method without predefined eQTL information assuming a gene is regulated by a single SNP at most. To evaluate the performance, the proposed method was applied to random data generated from synthetic networks and parameters. There are three main contributions. First, the proposed method provides both the gene regulatory inference and the eQTL identification. Second, the experimental results demonstrated that integration of multiple methods can produce competitive performances. Lastly, the proposed method was also applied to psychiatric disorder data in order to explore how the method works with real data

Testing alternative theories of gravity with space-based gravitational wave detectors

We use gravitational waves (GWs) from binary black holes (BBHs) and neutron stars inspiraling into intermediate-mass black holes to evaluate how accurately the future space-based GW detectors such as LISA, Taiji and TianQin and their combined networks can determine source parameters and constrain alternative theories of gravity. We find that, compared with single detector, the detector network can greatly improve the estimation errors of source parameters, especially the sky localization, but the improvement of the constraint on the graviton mass $m_g$ and the Brans-Dicke coupling constant $\omega_{BD}$ is small. We also consider possible scalar modes existed in alternative theories of gravity and we find the inclusion of the scalar mode has little effect on the constraints on source parameters, $m_g$, and $\omega_{BD}$ and the parametrized amplitude $A_B$ of scalar modes are small. For the constraint on the graviton mass, we consider both the effects in the GW phase and the transfer function due to the mass of graviton. With the network of LISA, Taiji and TianQin, we get the lower bound on the graviton Compton wavelength $\lambda_g\gtrsim 1.24 \times 10^{20}$ m for BBHs with masses $(10^6+10^7)M_\odot$, and $A_B< 5.7\times 10^{-4}$ for BBHs with masses $(1+2)\times 10^5M_\odot$; $\omega_{BD}>6.11\times10^{6}$ for neutron star-black hole binary with masses $(1.4+400)M_{\odot}$.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures, 4 tables. Typos corrected and references updated. Published in PR

Glucagon Receptor Antagonism Ameliorates Progression of Heart Failure.

Mice were treated with a fully human monoclonal glucagon receptor antagonistic antibody REMD2.59 following myocardial infarction or pressure overload. REMD2.59 treatment blunted cardiac hypertrophy and fibrotic remodeling, and attenuated contractile dysfunction at 4 weeks after myocardial infarction. In addition, REMD2.59 treatment at the onset of pressure overload significantly suppressed cardiac hypertrophy and chamber dilation with marked preservation of cardiac systolic and diastolic function. Initiation of REMD2.59 treatment 2 weeks after pressure overload significantly blunted the progression of cardiac pathology. These results provide the first in vivo proof-of-concept evidence that glucagon receptor antagonism is a potentially efficacious therapy to ameliorate both onset and progression of heart failure