Inharmonious Region Localization by Magnifying Domain Discrepancy

Inharmonious region localization aims to localize the region in a synthetic image which is incompatible with surrounding background. The inharmony issue is mainly attributed to the color and illumination inconsistency produced by image editing techniques. In this work, we tend to transform the input image to another color space to magnify the domain discrepancy between inharmonious region and background, so that the model can identify the inharmonious region more easily. To this end, we present a novel framework consisting of a color mapping module and an inharmonious region localization network, in which the former is equipped with a novel domain discrepancy magnification loss and the latter could be an arbitrary localization network. Extensive experiments on image harmonization dataset show the superiority of our designed framework. Our code is available at https://github.com/bcmi/MadisNet-Inharmonious-Region-Localization

UPPRESSO: Untraceable and Unlinkable Privacy-PREserving Single Sign-On Services

Single sign-on (SSO) allows a user to maintain only the credential at the identity provider (IdP), to login to numerous RPs. However, SSO introduces extra privacy threats, compared with traditional authentication mechanisms, as (a) the IdP could track all RPs which a user is visiting, and (b) collusive RPs could learn a user's online profile by linking his identities across these RPs. This paper proposes a privacypreserving SSO system, called UPPRESSO, to protect a user's login activities against both the curious IdP and collusive RPs. We analyze the identity dilemma between the security requirements and these privacy concerns, and convert the SSO privacy problems into an identity transformation challenge. In each login instance, an ephemeral pseudo-identity (denoted as PID_RP ) of the RP, is firstly negotiated between the user and the RP. PID_RP is sent to the IdP and designated in the identity token, so the IdP is not aware of the visited RP. Meanwhile, PID_RP is used by the IdP to transform the permanent user identity ID_U into an ephemeral user pseudo-identity (denoted as PID_U ) in the identity token. On receiving the identity token, the RP transforms PID_U into a permanent account (denoted as Acct) of the user, by an ephemeral trapdoor in the negotiation. Given a user, the account at each RP is unique and different from ID_U, so collusive RPs cannot link his identities across these RPs. We build the UPPRESSO prototype on top of MITREid Connect, an open-source implementation of OIDC. The extensive evaluation shows that UPPRESSO fulfills the requirements of both security and privacy and introduces reasonable overheads

Remarks on the Pressure Regularity Criterion of the Micropolar Fluid Equations in Multiplier Spaces

This study is devoted to investigating the regularity criterion of weak solutions of the micropolar fluid equations in . The weak solution of micropolar fluid equations is proved to be smooth on when the pressure satisfies the following growth condition in the multiplier spaces , . The previous results on Lorentz spaces and Morrey spaces are obviously improved

Flexible Interactive Guided Image Matting

Image matting is an important computer vision problem. Many existing matting methods leverage a hand-made trimap to provide auxiliary information, which is expensive and time-consuming for real-world applications. In recent years, some trimap-free methods have been proposed, which completely get rid of any user input. However, their performance lag far behind trimap-based methods due to the ambiguity problem. This paper proposes a matting method that uses flexible interactive guidance as user hints, which means the proposed method can use trimap, scribblemap, clickmap, and bounding box as guidance information or can even work without any guidance input. Our goal is to maintain accuracy while simplifying input. To achieve this, we propose Progressive Trimap Deformation (PTD) scheme that gradually transforms the input trimaps into scribblemaps during training. To enable bounding box input, based on the same network, this paper proposes Progressive Bounding Box Deformation (PBD) scheme that gradually turns trimaps into bounding box masks during training. To further ensure the stability of training and enhance performance, this paper also introduces the Random Deformation Degree scheme. Experiments show that the proposed method can achieve competitive results compared with existing trimap-based and trimap-free methods

Nanocarrier-based targeting of metabolic pathways for endometrial cancer: Status and future perspectives

Cancer is the second-most lethal global disease, as per health reports, and is responsible for around 70% of deaths in low- and middle-income countries. Endometrial cancer is one of the emerging malignancies and has been predicted as a public health challenge for the future. Insulin resistance, obesity, and diabetes mellitus are the key metabolic factors that promote risks for the development of endometrial cancer. Various signaling pathways and associated genes are involved in the genesis of endometrial cancer, and any mutation or deletion in such related factors leads to the induction of endometrial cancer. The conventional way of drug delivery has been used for ages but is associated with poor management of cancer due to non-targeting of the endometrial cancer cells, low efficacy of the therapy, and toxicity issues as well. In this context, nanocarrier-based therapy for the management of endometrial cancer is an effective alternate choice that overcomes the problems associated with conventional therapy. In this review article, we highlighted the nanocarrier-based targeting of endometrial cancer, with a special focus on targeting various metabolic signaling pathways. Furthermore, the future perspectives of nanocarrier-based targeting of metabolic pathways in endometrial cancer were also underpinned. It is concluded that targeting metabolic signaling pathways in endometrial cancer via nanocarrier scaffolds is the future of pharmaceutical design for the significant management and treatment of endometrial cancer

Distribution, Enrichment and Modes of Occurrence of Arsenic in Chinese Coals

Arsenic is one of the toxic trace elements in coals, which is harmful to both the ecological environment and human health. Based on published literature and the data obtained by our research group, a total of 5314 As concentrations of Chinese coals were analyzed. The arithmetic mean of arsenic content in Chinese coals is 6.97 mg/kg. Choosing the percentage of provincial coal resources in national coal resources as the weighting factor, the weighted average of arsenic content in Chinese coals is 5.33 mg/kg. The content of arsenic in Chinese coals increases from the north to the south. High arsenic content in coal primarily occurs in southwestern Yunnan and certain coalfields in the Guizhou Province. Additionally, arsenic is enriched in the coals from some regions, i.e., the western Yunnan, Guangxi, Tibet, southwestern Liaoning, Jilin, and Henan. The arsenic content in coals of different coal-forming periods shows an overall regularity: Paleogene and Neogene > Late Triassic > Late Permian > Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous > Early and Middle Jurassic > Late Carboniferous and Early Permian. The modes of occurrence of arsenic in coals include sulfide-association, organic-association, arsenate-association, silicate-association, and soluble- and exchangeable-association. Generally, arsenic in Chinese coals exists predominantly in arsenic-bearing pyrite. Meanwhile, the organic arsenic content is relatively high in coal samples with a lower (<5.5 mg/kg) arsenic content and a low or medium ash yield (<30%)

No-tillage with straw mulching promotes the utilization of soil nitrogen by rice under wheat–rice and oilseed rape–rice cropping systems

IntroductionTo investigate the effects of no-tillage with straw mulching on the absorption and utilization of soil nitrogen (N), fertilizer N, and straw N by rice under paddy-upland rotations.MethodsA field experiment with three cropping systems: fallow–rice rotation without straw mulching (FRN), wheat–rice rotation with wheat mulching in rice season (WRS), and oilseed rape–rice rotation with oilseed rape straw mulching in rice season (ORS) was conducted from 2015 to 2017, along with a mini-plot experiment with 15N-labeled urea and straws, which was conducted in 2017.ResultsNo-tillage with straw reduced rice N uptake up to 20 days after transplanting, the total amount of fertilizer N uptake of WRS and ORS rice plants was 46.33 and 61.67 kg/ha, respectively, which was 9.02 and 45.10% higher than that of FRN plants. Soil N was the main source for rice growth, followed by fertilizer N. Soil N uptake by WRS and ORS rice plants was 21.75 and 26.82% higher than that of FRN plants, accounting for 72.37 and 65.47%, respectively, of the total N accumulated in rice plants. Straw mulching increased the N utilization efficiency of tillering, panicle, and total fertilizer by 2.84–25.30%; however, base fertilizer was dependent on straw mulching. The total amount of N released from WRS and ORS straw mulching in the rice season was 34.97 and 24.82 kg/ha, respectively; however, only 3.04 and 4.82% of it was absorbed by the rice plants, accounting for only 0.62 and 0.66% of the total accumulated N.DiscussionNo-tillage with straw mulching under paddy-upland rotations increased the N utilization of rice, especially for the absorption of soil N. These results provide theoretical information for the effective utilization of straw and rational N application practices in rice-based cropping systems