Change Point Modeling of Covid-19 Data in the United States

To simultaneously model the change point and the possibly nonlinear relationship in the Covid-19 data of the US, a continuous second-order free knot spline model was proposed. Using the least squares method, the change point of the daily new cases against the total confirmed cases up to the previous day was estimated to be 04 April 2020. Before the point, the daily new cases were proportional to the total cases with a ratio of 0.287, suggesting that each patient had 28.7% chance to infect another person every day. After the point, however, such ratio was no longer maintained and the daily new cases were decreasing slowly. At the individual state level, it was found that most states had change points. Before its change point for each state, the daily new cases were still proportional to the total cases. And all the ratios were about the same except for New York State in which the ratio was much higher (probably due to its high population density and heavy usage of public transportation). But after the points, different states had different patterns. One interesting observation was that the change point of one state was about 3 weeks lagged behind the state declaration of emergency. This might suggest that there was a lag period, which could help identify possible causes for the second wave. In the end, consistency and asymptotic normality of the estimates were briefly discussed where the criterion functions are continuous but not differentiable (irregular)

Integrating Higher-Order Dynamics and Roadway-Compliance into Constrained ILQR-based Trajectory Planning for Autonomous Vehicles

This paper addresses the advancements in on-road trajectory planning for Autonomous Passenger Vehicles (APV). Trajectory planning aims to produce a globally optimal route for APVs, considering various factors such as vehicle dynamics, constraints, and detected obstacles. Traditional techniques involve a combination of sampling methods followed by optimization algorithms, where the former ensures global awareness and the latter refines for local optima. Notably, the Constrained Iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (CILQR) optimization algorithm has recently emerged, adapted for APV systems, emphasizing improved safety and comfort. However, existing implementations utilizing the vehicle bicycle kinematic model may not guarantee controllable trajectories. We augment this model by incorporating higher-order terms, including the first and second-order derivatives of curvature and longitudinal jerk. This inclusion facilitates a richer representation in our cost and constraint design. We also address roadway compliance, emphasizing adherence to lane boundaries and directions, which past work often overlooked. Lastly, we adopt a relaxed logarithmic barrier function to address the CILQR's dependency on feasible initial trajectories. The proposed methodology is then validated through simulation and real-world experiment driving scenes in real time.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

UPSCALE: Unconstrained Channel Pruning

As neural networks grow in size and complexity, inference speeds decline. To combat this, one of the most effective compression techniques -- channel pruning -- removes channels from weights. However, for multi-branch segments of a model, channel removal can introduce inference-time memory copies. In turn, these copies increase inference latency -- so much so that the pruned model can be slower than the unpruned model. As a workaround, pruners conventionally constrain certain channels to be pruned together. This fully eliminates memory copies but, as we show, significantly impairs accuracy. We now have a dilemma: Remove constraints but increase latency, or add constraints and impair accuracy. In response, our insight is to reorder channels at export time, (1) reducing latency by reducing memory copies and (2) improving accuracy by removing constraints. Using this insight, we design a generic algorithm UPSCALE to prune models with any pruning pattern. By removing constraints from existing pruners, we improve ImageNet accuracy for post-training pruned models by 2.1 points on average -- benefiting DenseNet (+16.9), EfficientNetV2 (+7.9), and ResNet (+6.2). Furthermore, by reordering channels, UPSCALE improves inference speeds by up to 2x over a baseline export.Comment: 29 pages, 26 figures, accepted to ICML 202

Genome-Wide Identification of Hsp70 Genes in the Large Yellow Croaker (<i>Larimichthys crocea</i>) and Their Regulated Expression Under Cold and Heat Stress

Heat shock proteins 70 (Hsp70) are required for key cellular processes and responses to environmental changes, however, there are an unknown number of hsp70 gene family members in the large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea). In the present study, 17 hsp70 genes were identified through the genome of the large yellow croaker. These genes are divided into seven evolutionarily distinct groups according to a phylogenetic tree. The orthologs of these hsp70 genes were found in humans and zebrafish. The expression patterns of the hsp70 gene family in the large yellow croaker under cold and heat stress were studied by examining transcriptome data. Six out of 17 genes were significantly unregulated or downregulated after cold or heat stress. There were two genes significantly upregulated and two genes downregulated in the liver after cold treatment, while after heat treatment, five genes were significantly upregulated, and no genes were significantly downregulated. Three expression patterns were detected: strictly heat-inducible hsp70, constitutively expressed and moderately heat-inducible hsp70, and constitutively expressed and less stress-dependent hsp70 genes. All the findings will contribute to a better understanding of the biological function of hsp70s in defending against thermal challenges

Sulfoxaflor Applied via Drip Irrigation Effectively Controls Cotton Aphid (Aphis gossypii Glover)

Aphis gossypii Glover is a major pest of cotton and can severely affect cotton yield and lint quality. In this study, the efficacy of sulfoxaflor applied via drip irrigation and foliar spray on controlling cotton aphids was evaluated in 2016 and 2017 in Xinjiang, China. The distribution of sulfoxaflor in cotton roots, stems, leaves, and aphids, as well as its effects on two natural enemies of aphids, were also investigated. Results showed that sulfoxaflor applied through drip irrigation mainly concentrated in leaves and provided effective control of cotton aphids for 40 days, compared to 20 days when applied through foliar spray. Furthermore, drip application resulted in much lower sulfoxaflor concentrations in aphids than foliar spray. As a result, ladybird beetle and lacewing populations were higher in drip applied plants than in foliar sprayed plants. Additionally, the cost of drip irrigation was lower than foliar spray as cotton plants are commonly irrigated via drip irrigation in Xinjiang. Our results showed that application of sulfoxaflor through drip irrigation is an effective way of controlling cotton aphids in Xinjiang due to a prolonged control period, safety to two natural enemies, and lower cost of application

Figure 5 from: Zhao L, Yi D, Li C, Sun D, Xu H, Gao T (2017) Phylogeography and population structure of - grypotus (Richardson, 1846) as revealed by mitochondrial control region sequences. ZooKeys 705: 143-158. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.705.13001

The 137 individuals of Johnius grypotus were collected from seven localities from the Bohai Sea to the East China Sea. A 549 base pair (bp) fragment of the hypervariable region of the mtDNA control region was sequenced to examine genetic diversity and population structure. The populations of J. grypotus showed high haplotype diversity (h) with a range from 0.7500 to 0.9740 and low nucleotide diversity (π) with a range from 0.0024 to 0.0067. Low and non-significant genetic differentiation was estimated among populations except for North Yellow Sea population, which has a significant genetic difference with other populations. The demographic history examined by mismatch distribution analyses and Bayesian skyline plot (BSP) analyses revealed that a sudden population expansion occurred almost 20 to 40 thousand years before. Relatively recent population expansion in the last glacial period, large dispersal of eggs or larvae carried by coastal current, and the homogeneity of living environment may have an important influence on the population genetic pattern

The Impact of Food Labels on Consumers’ Sustainable Food Choices

In recent years, food sustainability has become a larger issue in the discussion surrounding climate change. In our research, we examine the effectiveness of different food labels on consumers’ sustainable food choices: we compare text-based labels measuring carbon output, and labels measuring climate-friendliness using the recognizable 5-star rating scale. We expect to find that labels using the 5-star scale are easier for consumers to understand as opposed to carbon emission labels. We therefore also expect to see that consumers more frequently choose more sustainable food options when observing the 5-star scale labels than when they observe the text-based labels. Conducting an one-way ANOVA and a post-hoc Tukey test, we find a significant difference between our two experimental conditions and control condition (p<0.01); the difference between the experiment conditions is not significant (p = 0.08). These results indicate that both experimental conditions had more participants choosing more sustainable food options than the control condition, but that text-based labels are as effective as the 5-star scale labels at getting participants to choose more sustainable food options. This finding indicates that it is important to measure specific concepts when designing food labels, to enable these labels to communicate their meanings effectively. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”Arts, Faculty ofPsychology, Department ofUnreviewedUndergraduat