Shrinking the Semantic Gap: Spatial Pooling of Local Moment Invariants for Copy-Move Forgery Detection

Copy-move forgery is a manipulation of copying and pasting specific patches from and to an image, with potentially illegal or unethical uses. Recent advances in the forensic methods for copy-move forgery have shown increasing success in detection accuracy and robustness. However, for images with high self-similarity or strong signal corruption, the existing algorithms often exhibit inefficient processes and unreliable results. This is mainly due to the inherent semantic gap between low-level visual representation and high-level semantic concept. In this paper, we present a very first study of trying to mitigate the semantic gap problem in copy-move forgery detection, with spatial pooling of local moment invariants for midlevel image representation. Our detection method expands the traditional works on two aspects: 1) we introduce the bag-of-visual-words model into this field for the first time, may meaning a new perspective of forensic study; 2) we propose a word-to-phrase feature description and matching pipeline, covering the spatial structure and visual saliency information of digital images. Extensive experimental results show the superior performance of our framework over state-of-the-art algorithms in overcoming the related problems caused by the semantic gap.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figure

The design and simulation of an autonomous system for aircraft maintenance scheduling

International audienceOperational support is a key issue for aircraft maintenance, which aims to improve operational efficiency and reduce operating costs under the premise of ensuring flight safety. Although many works have emerged to achieve this aim, they mostly address the concept of maintenance systems, the relationship between stakeholders and the loop of maintenance information separately. Hence, the cooperation between stakeholders could be impeded especially when urgent decisions should be made, relying on historical data and real-time data. In this paper, we propose an innovative design of an autonomous system supporting the automatic decision-making for maintenance scheduling. The design starts from the proposition of the analysis framework, to concept formulation of the system, to information transitional level interface, and ends with an instance of system module interactions. The underlying architecture illustrates the high-level fusion of technical and business drives; optimizes strategies and plans with regard to maintenance costs, service level and reliability. An agent-based simulation system is developed as a proof to illustrate the feasibility of the system principle and algorithms. Furthermore, the simulation experiment analyzing the impact of maintenance sequence strategies on maintenance costs and service level has demonstrated the algorithm functionality and the feasibility of the proposed approach

How do online users perceive health risks during public health emergencies? Empirical evidence from China

BackgroundThe global COVID-19 pandemic has posed a major threat to human life and health, and new media technologies have intensified the spread of risk perception.PurposeThis study aimed to explore the impact of risk information ground on online users’ perceived health risks, and further explore the mediating role of psychological distance and the moderating role of self-efficacy.MethodsA total of 25 Internet users from different provinces in China were interviewed in-depth, NVIVO.11 was used to qualitatively analyze the interview text data and construct a theoretical model. A total of 492 interviewees were recruited in order to complete a scenario questionnaire, SPSS-27 was used to perform orthogonal experiments, generate eight combinatorial scenarios, analyze demographic data, and clean and prepare data for testing hypotheses. SmartPLS 3.0 was used to test the conceptual model using the structural equation model (SEM) of the partial least squares (PLS).ResultsThe analysis of the SEM model shows that all planned hypotheses (Information fluency → Information diagnosability, Information extensibility → Information diagnosability, Information diagnosability → Psychological distance, Platform interactivity → Scenario embeddedness, Network connectivity → Scenario embeddedness, Scenario embeddedness → Psychological distance, Psychological distance → Risk perception, Psychological distance → Self-efficacy → Risk perception, Information fluency → Information diagnosability → Psychological distance → Risk perception, Information extensibility → Information diagnosability → Psychological distance → Risk perception, Platform interactivity → Scenario embeddedness → Psychological distance → Risk perception, Network connectivity → Scenario embeddedness → Psychological distance → Risk perception) are confirmed.ConclusionThis study found that the information ground factors significantly affect online users’ perceptions of health risks, psychological distance mediates the effect of information ground factors on risk perception, and self-efficacy negatively moderates the effect of psychological distance on risk perception

Using RNase sequence specificity to refine the identification of RNA-protein binding regions

Massively parallel pyrosequencing is a high-throughput technology that can sequence hundreds of thousands of DNA/RNA fragments in a single experiment. Combining it with immunoprecipitation-based biochemical assays, such as cross-linking immunoprecipitation (CLIP), provides a genome-wide method to detect the sites at which proteins bind DNA or RNA. In a CLIP-pyrosequencing experiment, the resolutions of the detected protein binding regions are partially determined by the length of the detected RNA fragments (CLIP amplicons) after trimming by RNase digestion. The lengths of these fragments usually range from 50-70 nucleotides. Many genomic regions are marked by multiple RNA fragments. In this paper, we report an empirical approach to refine the localization of protein binding regions by using the distribution pattern of the detected RNA fragments and the sequence specificity of RNase digestion. We present two regions to which multiple amplicons map as examples to demonstrate this approach