MDM-YOLO: Research on Object Detection Algorithm Based on Improved YOLOv4 for Marine Organisms

Vision-based underwater object detection technology is a hot topic of current research. In order to address the issues of low accuracy and high missed rate of marine life detection, an object detection algorithm called MDM-YOLO (Marine Detection Model with YOLO) for marine organisms based on improved YOLOv4 is proposed. To improve the network's capacity for feature extraction, a multi-branch architecture CSBM is integrated into the backbone. Based on this, the feature fusion structure introduces shuffle attention to reinforce the focus on important information. The experimental results demonstrate that the MDM-YOLO algorithm increases the mean average precision (mAP) by 2.31 % compared to the YOLOv4 algorithm on the Underwater Robot Picking Contest (URPC) dataset. Moreover, on the RSOD dataset and PASCAL VOC dataset, MDM-YOLO obtained an mAP of 87.54 % and 86.87 %, respectively. According to these advancements, the MDM-YOLO model is more suitable for the identification of items on the seafloor

Realtime Dynamic 3D Facial Reconstruction for Monocular Video In-the-Wild

With the increasing amount of videos recorded using 2D mobile cameras, the technique for recovering the 3D dynamic facial models from these monocular videos has become a necessity for many image and video editing applications. While methods based parametric 3D facial models can reconstruct the 3D shape in dynamic environment, large structural changes are ignored. Structure-from-motion methods can reconstruct these changes but assume the object to be static. To address this problem we present a novel method for realtime dynamic 3D facial tracking and reconstruction from videos captured in uncontrolled environments. Our method can track the deforming facial geometry and reconstruct external objects that protrude from the face such as glasses and hair. It also allows users to move around, perform facial expressions freely without degrading the reconstruction quality

An assessment of the benefits of yellow Sigatoka (Mycosphaerella musicola) control in the Queensland Northern Banana Pest Quarantine Area

The banana leaf spotting disease yellow Sigatoka is established and actively controlled in Australia through intensive chemical treatments and diseased leaf removal. In the State of Queensland, the State government imposes standards for de-leafing to minimise the risk of the disease spreading in 6 banana pest quarantine areas. Of these, the Northern Banana Pest Quarantine Area is the most significant in terms of banana production. Previous regulations imposed obligations on owners of banana plants within this area to remove leaves from plants with visible spotting on more than 15 per cent of any leaf during the wet season. Recently, this leaf disease threshold has been lowered to 5 per cent. In this paper we examine the likely impact this more-costly regulation will have on the spread of the disease. We estimate that the average net benefit of reducing the diseased leaf threshold is only likely to be $1.4 million per year over the next 30 years, expressed as the annualised present value of tightened regulation. This result varies substantially when the timeframe of the analysis is changed, with shorter time frames indicating poorer net returns from the change in protocols. Overall, the benefit of the regulation change is likely to be minor

Differentiating inhibition selectivity and binding affinity of isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 variant inhibitors

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1/2 gain-of-function variants catalyze the production of the oncometabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate and are validated targets for leukemia treatment. We report binding and inhibition studies on 13 IDH1/2 variant inhibitors, including clinical candidates and drugs, with wild-type (wt) IDH1 and its cancer-associated variant, IDH1 R132H. Interestingly, all the variant inhibitors bind wt IDH1 despite not, or only weakly, inhibiting it. Selective inhibition of the IDH1 R132H variant over wt IDH1 does not principally relate to the affinities of the inhibitors for the resting forms of the enzymes. Rather, the independent binding of Mg2+ and 2-oxoglutarate to the IDH1 variant makes the variant more susceptible to allosteric inhibition, compared to the tighter binding of the isocitrate–Mg2+ complex substrate to wt IDH1. The results highlight that binding affinity need not correlate with inhibition selectivity and have implications for interpretation of inhibitor screening results with IDH and related enzymes using turnover versus binding assays

From Rayleigh-B\'enard convection to porous-media convection: how porosity affects heat transfer and flow structure

We perform a numerical study of the heat transfer and flow structure of Rayleigh-B\'enard (RB) convection in (in most cases regular) porous media, which are comprised of circular, solid obstacles located on a square lattice. This study is focused on the role of porosity $\phi$ in the flow properties during the transition process from the traditional RB convection with $\phi=1$ (so no obstacles included) to Darcy-type porous-media convection with $\phi$ approaching 0. Simulations are carried out in a cell with unity aspect ratio, for the Rayleigh number $Ra$ from $10^5$ to $10^{10}$ and varying porosities $\phi$, at a fixed Prandtl number $Pr=4.3$, and we restrict ourselves to the two dimensional case. For fixed $Ra$, the Nusselt number $Nu$ is found to vary non-monotonously as a function of $\phi$; namely, with decreasing $\phi$, it first increases, before it decreases for $\phi$ approaching 0. The non-monotonous behaviour of $Nu(\phi)$ originates from two competing effects of the porous structure on the heat transfer. On the one hand, the flow coherence is enhanced in the porous media, which is beneficial for the heat transfer. On the other hand, the convection is slowed down by the enhanced resistance due to the porous structure, leading to heat transfer reduction. For fixed $\phi$, depending on $Ra$, two different heat transfer regimes are identified, with different effective power-law behaviours of $Nu$ vs $Ra$, namely, a steep one for low $Ra$ when viscosity dominates, and the standard classical one for large $Ra$. The scaling crossover occurs when the thermal boundary layer thickness and the pore scale are comparable. The influences of the porous structure on the temperature and velocity fluctuations, convective heat flux, and energy dissipation rates are analysed, further demonstrating the competing effects of the porous structure to enhance or reduce the heat transfer

M2-like macrophages in the fibrotic liver protect mice against lethal insults through conferring apoptosis resistance to hepatocytes.

Acute injury in the setting of liver fibrosis is an interesting and still unsettled issue. Most recently, several prominent studies have indicated the favourable effects of liver fibrosis against acute insults. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanisms governing this hepatoprotection remain obscure. In the present study, we hypothesized that macrophages and their M1/M2 activation critically involve in the hepatoprotection conferred by liver fibrosis. Our findings demonstrated that liver fibrosis manifested a beneficial role for host survival and apoptosis resistance. Hepatoprotection in the fibrotic liver was tightly related to innate immune tolerance. Macrophages undertook crucial but divergent roles in homeostasis and fibrosis: depleting macrophages in control mice protected from acute insult; conversely, depleting macrophages in fibrotic liver weakened the hepatoprotection and gave rise to exacerbated liver injury upon insult. The contradictory effects of macrophages can be ascribed, to a great extent, to the heterogeneity in macrophage activation. Macrophages in fibrotic mice exhibited M2-preponderant activation, which was not the case in acutely injured liver. Adoptive transfer of M2-like macrophages conferred control mice conspicuous protection against insult. In vitro, M2-polarized macrophages protected hepatocytes against apoptosis. Together, M2-like macrophages in fibrotic liver exert the protective effects against lethal insults through conferring apoptosis resistance to hepatocytes

Non-Gaussianity due to Possible Residual Foreground Signals in WMAP 1st-year Data Using Spherical Wavelet Approaches

We perform multi-scale non-Gaussianity detection and localization to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) first-year data in both wavelet and real spaces. Such an analysis is facilitated by spherical wavelet transform and inverse transform techniques developed by the YAWtb team. Skewness and kurtosis as test statistics are calculated on scales from about $1^{\circ}$ to $30^{\circ}$ on the sky as well as toward different directions using anisotropic spherical Morlet wavelet (SMW). A maximum deviation from Gaussian simulations with a right tail probability of $\sim 99.9$ is detected at an angular scale of $\sim12^{\circ}$ at an azimuthal orientation of $\sim 0^{\circ}$ on the sky. In addition, some significant non-Gaussian spots have been identified and localized in real space from both the combined Q-V-W map recommended by the WMAP team and the Tegmark foreground-cleaned map. Systematic effects due to beams and noise can be rejected as the source of this non-Gaussianity. Several tests show that residual foreground contamination may significantly contribute to this non-Gaussian feature. It is thus still premature to do more precise tests on the non-Gaussianity of the intrinsic CMB fluctuations before we can identify the origin of these foreground signals, understand their nature, and finally remove them from the CMB maps completely.Comment: 10 pages in emulateapj format; accepted for publication in Ap

Whole-genome association studies on alcoholism comparing different phenotypes using single-nucleotide polymorphisms and microsatellites

Alcoholism is a complex disease. As with other common diseases, genetic variants underlying alcoholism have been illusive, possibly due to the small effect from each individual susceptible variant, gene × environment and gene × gene interactions and complications in phenotype definition. We conducted association tests, the family-based association tests (FBAT) and the backward haplotype transmission association (BHTA), on the Collaborative Study of the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) data provided by Genetic Analysis Workshop (GAW) 14. Efron's local false discovery rate method was applied to control the proportion of false discoveries. For FBAT, we compared the results based on different types of genetic markers (single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) versus microsatellites) and different phenotype definitions (clinical diagnoses versus electrophysiological phenotypes). Significant association results were found only between SNPs and clinical diagnoses. In contrast, significant results were found only between microsatellites and electrophysiological phenotypes. In addition, we obtained the association results for SNPs and microsatellites using COGA diagnosis as phenotype based on BHTA. In this case, the results for SNPs and microsatellites are more consistent. Compared to FBAT, more significant markers are detected with BHTA

Andreev Reflection without Fermi surface alignment in High Tc_{c}-Topological heterostructures

We address the controversy over the proximity effect between topological materials and high T$_{c}$ superconductors. Junctions are produced between Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+\delta}$ and materials with different Fermi surfaces (Bi$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ \& graphite). Both cases reveal tunneling spectra consistent with Andreev reflection. This is confirmed by magnetic field that shifts features via the Doppler effect. This is modeled with a single parameter that accounts for tunneling into a screening supercurrent. Thus the tunneling involves Cooper pairs crossing the heterostructure, showing the Fermi surface mis-match does not hinder the ability to form transparent interfaces, which is accounted for by the extended Brillouin zone and different lattice symmetries

Remarks on Hawking radiation as tunneling from the BTZ black holes

Hawking radiation viewed as a semiclassical tunneling process from the event horizon of the (2 + 1)-dimensional rotating BTZ black hole is carefully reexamined by taking into account not only the energy conservation but also the conservation of angular momentum when the effect of the emitted particle's self-gravitation is incorporated. In contrast to previous analysis of this issue in the literature, our result obtained here fits well to the Kraus-Parikh-Wilczek's universal conclusion without any modification to the Bekenstein-Hawking area-entropy formulae of the BTZ black hole.Comment: 12pages, no figure, use JHEP3.cls. Version better than published one in JHE