TET-GAN: Text Effects Transfer via Stylization and Destylization

Text effects transfer technology automatically makes the text dramatically more impressive. However, previous style transfer methods either study the model for general style, which cannot handle the highly-structured text effects along the glyph, or require manual design of subtle matching criteria for text effects. In this paper, we focus on the use of the powerful representation abilities of deep neural features for text effects transfer. For this purpose, we propose a novel Texture Effects Transfer GAN (TET-GAN), which consists of a stylization subnetwork and a destylization subnetwork. The key idea is to train our network to accomplish both the objective of style transfer and style removal, so that it can learn to disentangle and recombine the content and style features of text effects images. To support the training of our network, we propose a new text effects dataset with as much as 64 professionally designed styles on 837 characters. We show that the disentangled feature representations enable us to transfer or remove all these styles on arbitrary glyphs using one network. Furthermore, the flexible network design empowers TET-GAN to efficiently extend to a new text style via one-shot learning where only one example is required. We demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in generating high-quality stylized text over the state-of-the-art methods.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 2019. Code and dataset will be available at http://www.icst.pku.edu.cn/struct/Projects/TETGAN.htm

Effect of expanded polystyrene content and press temperature on the properties of low-density wood particleboard

In this study, three-layer low-density (about 400 kg/m3) particleboards consisting of a mixture of wood particles and expanded polystyrene (EPS) were manufactured. EPS bead was incorporated in the core layer as a light filler. The influence of EPS content (0 %, 2,5 %, 5 %, 7,5 %, 10 % and 12,5 %) and press temperature (110 °C and 140 °C) on the microstructure, density profile, bending properties, internal bond and thickness swelling of the panels was investigated. Results showed that incorporation of EPS beads filled in the voids between wood particles, improved the core layer integrity, and generated a more pronounced density profile. Consequently, the bending properties and internal bond of panels adding EPS were remarkably improved, and the thickness swelling was decreased. However, the variation of the amount of EPS from 2,5 % to 12,5 % had no significant effect on the bending properties and thickness swelling. Comparing the two press temperatures, although higher temperature (140 °C) was more favourable in control panels without EPS as filler, it had a negative effect on the properties of panels with addition of EPS filler, especially for high EPS contents (10 % and 12,5 %), attributing to the shrinkage of EPS bead under press temperature that is much higher than its glass transition temperature (104 °C)

Chinese Language Teacher Professional Growth: A Case Study

Chinese language teachers grow with certain characteristics in their professional development. Knowing these characteristics can reveal a teacher’s developmental needs which can inform the teachers and the teacher development facilitators. This case study examines the professional development of one Chinese language teacher that works in a high school in the United States. The Five-Stage Theory is employed to direct the examination of the teacher’s growing path. Findings cover the challenges, efforts to cope with the changes, successes, and failures

Design and synthesis of novel nucleotide analogs and protein conjugates for DNA sequencing

Sequencing by Synthesis (SBS), a DNA sequencing methodology based on the DNA polymerase reaction, is a promising paradigm for deciphering large-scale genomes. This thesis describes the design and synthesis of a variety of nucleotide reversible terminators (NRTs) with different characteristics. One set of NRTs possesses a phosphate moiety attached to the 2’ position of the sugar to block further incorporation in polymerase reaction, with the potential for fluorescent tag attachment at the same site or on the base through a cleavable linker for detection. The other set of NRTs possesses an azido-methyl moiety that blocks the 3’-hydroxyl group for detection by surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Each NRT has been tested in proof-of-principle SBS experiments. In addition, a set of 5’-phosphate tagged nucleotides has been developed and tested for nanopore electronic detection. A new set of NRTs, 2’-O-monophosphate 3’-hydroxyl nucleoside 5’-triphosphates (2’-P-NTPs) has been synthesized and its application for SBS has been investigated (chapter 2). These NRTs contain a phosphate at the 2’ position of the sugar ring, which serves as the removable capping group during the polymerase reaction. This moiety is positioned close to the 3’-hydroxyl group so as to block further nucleotide incorporation in the polymerase reaction. It nonetheless should allow improved binding to the polymerase relative to nucleotides with blocking groups at the 3’ position, since polymerases have strict requirements for the 3’-OH binding pocket. 2’-P-NTPs can be incorporated into the growing nucleic acid strand at temperatures ranging from 37oC to 65oC with Stoffel fragment modified 19 (SfM19) polymerase. After incorporation, the phosphate capping moiety on the 2’ position of the DNA extension product can be efficiently removed by enzymatic phosphatase reaction permitting the next incorporation step. Fluorescently labeled 2’-P-NTPs have the potential for sequencing DNA and direct sequencing of RNA-like templates. As an alternative to fluorescence-based SBS, a Raman spectroscopy detection method was developed using an azido moiety (N3) as both a 3’-OH blocking group and a label with an intense, narrow and unique Raman shift at 2125 cm-1, where virtually all biological molecules are transparent (chapter 3). First the four 3’-O-azidomethyl nucleotide reversible terminators (N3-dNTPs) were demonstrated to produce surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) at 2125 cm-1. These 4 nucleotide analogues were used as substrates for the polymerase to perform a complete 4-step SBS reaction. SERS was used to monitor the appearance of the azide-specific Raman peak at 2125 cm-1 as a result of polymerase mediated primer extension by a single N3-dNTP and disappearance of this Raman peak upon cleavage of the azido label to permit the next nucleotide incorporation, thereby determining the DNA sequence. Due to the small size of the azido label, the N3-dNTPs are efficient substrates for the DNA polymerase. In the SBS cycles, the natural nucleotides are restored after each incorporation and cleavage, producing a growing DNA strand that bears no modifications and will not impede further polymerase reactions. Thus, with further improvements in SERS for this moiety, this approach has the potential to provide an attractive alternative to fluorescence-based SBS. Chapter 4 describes the design, synthesis and characterization of a new set of 5’-phosphate labeled nano-tag nucleotides (NTNs) for single molecule electronic SBS by nanopore detection. Four modified oligonucleotide polymers that produce distinct electrical current blockade signals in nanopores were designed as the nano-tags. While most of the NTNs flow rapidly through the pore, those complementary to the nucleotide on the DNA template are captured by the polymerase and will have at least 10-fold longer dwell times in the pore, which affords enough time for measuring and discriminating the signals. Since the nano-tags are automatically removed during the polymerase extension reaction in real time, only natural DNA strands are produced. Thus this SBS method should decrease the overall sequencing time and increase the read length

Special Transition and Extraordinary Phase on the Surface of a Two-Dimensional Quantum Heisenberg Antiferromagnet

Continuous phase transitions exhibit richer critical phenomena on the surface than in the bulk, because distinct surface universality classes can be realized at the same bulk critical point by tuning the surface interactions. The exploration of surface critical behavior provides a window looking into higher-dimensional boundary conformal field theories. In this work, we study the surface critical behavior of a two-dimensional (2D) quantum critical Heisenberg model by tuning the surface coupling strength, and discover a direct special transition on the surface from the ordinary phase into an extraordinary phase. The extraordinary phase has a long-range antiferromagnetic order on the surface, in sharp contrast to the logarithmically decaying spin correlations in the 3D classical O(3) model. The special transition point has a new set of critical exponents, $y_{s}=0.86(4)$ and $\eta_{\parallel}=-0.32(1)$, which are distinct from the special transition of the classical O(3) model and indicate a new surface universality class of the 3D O(3) Wilson-Fisher theory.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; v2: substantially revised, new fitting form in extraordinary phas

Le marché des marges sociales

Les marges sociales sont aujourd’hui de plus en plus nombreuses et agglutinent des catégories dont la distinction n’a pas toujours été aussi évidente au regard des sciences sociales. Leur construction en tant que catégories — « fous », « criminels », « malades », « travailleurs pauvres », etc. — nous a particulièrement préoccupés depuis l’avènement de la société industrielle, soucieuse d’un découpage entre normal, pathologique, déviant, marginal, inclus, exclu. Comment appréhender les marges ..

Integrating multi-origin expression data improves the resolution of deep phylogeny of ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii)

The actinopterygians comprise nearly one-half of all extant vertebrate species and are very important for human well-being. However, the phylogenetic relationships among certain groups within the actinopterygians are still uncertain, and debates about these relationships have continued for a long time. Along with the progress achieved in sequencing technologies, phylogenetic analyses based on multi-gene sequences, termed phylogenomic approaches, are becoming increasingly common and often result in well-resolved and highly supported phylogenetic hypotheses. Based on the transcriptome sequences generated in this study and the extensive expression data currently available from public databases, we obtained alignments of 274 orthologue groups for 26 scientifically and commercially important actinopterygians, representing 17 out of 44 orders within the class Actinopterygii. Using these alignments and probabilistic methods, we recovered relationships between basal actinopterygians and teleosts, among teleosts within protacanthopterygians and related lineages, and also within acanthomorphs. These relationships were recovered with high confidence

Effect of the Citrus Lycopene β-Cyclase Transgene on Carotenoid Metabolism in Transgenic Tomato Fruits

Lycopene β-cyclase (LYCB) is the key enzyme for the synthesis of β-carotene, a valuable component of the human diet. In this study, tomato constitutively express Lycb-1 was engineered. The β-carotene level of transformant increased 4.1 fold, and the total carotenoid content increased by 30% in the fruits. In the transgenic line, the downstream α-branch metabolic fluxes were repressed during the three developmental stages while α-carotene content increased in the ripe stage. Microarray analysis in the ripe stage revealed that the constitutive expression of Lycb-1 affected a number of pathways including the synthesis of fatty acids, flavonoids and phenylpropanoids, the degradation of limonene and pinene, starch and sucrose metabolism and photosynthesis. This study provided insight into the regulatory effect of Lycb-1 gene on plant carotenoid metabolism and fruit transcriptome