HAMILTONIAN-BASED FREQUENCY-AMPLITUDE FORMULATION FOR NONLINEAR OSCILLATORS

Complex mechanical systems usually include nonlinear interactions between their components which can be modeled by nonlinear equations describing the sophisticated motion of the system. In order to interpret the nonlinear dynamics of these systems, it is necessary to compute more precisely their nonlinear frequencies. The nonlinear vibration process of a conservative oscillator always follows the law of energy conservation. A variational formulation is constructed and its Hamiltonian invariant is obtained. This paper suggests a Hamiltonian-based formulation to quickly determine the frequency property of the nonlinear oscillator. An example is given to explicate the solution process

Scoot: A perceptual metric for facial sketches

While it is trivial for humans to quickly assess the perceptual similarity between two images, the underlying mechanism are thought to be quite complex. Despite this, the most widely adopted perceptual metrics today, such as SSIM and FSIM, are simple, shallow functions, and fail to consider many factors of human perception. Recently, the facial modeling community has observed that the inclusion of both structure and texture has a significant positive benefit for face sketch synthesis (FSS). But how perceptual are these so-called "perceptual features"? Which elements are critical for their success? In this paper, we design a perceptual metric, called Structure Co-Occurrence Texture (Scoot), which simultaneously considers the block-level spatial structure and co-occurrence texture statistics. To test the quality of metrics, we propose three novel meta-measures based on various reliable properties. Extensive experiments verify that our Scoot metric exceeds the performance of prior work. Besides, we built the first largest scale (152k judgments) human-perception-based sketch database that can evaluate how well a metric consistent with human perception. Our results suggest that "spatial structure" and "co-occurrence texture" are two generally applicable perceptual features in face sketch synthesis

An Updated Search of Steady TeV γ−\gamma-Ray Point Sources in Northern Hemisphere Using the Tibet Air Shower Array

Using the data taken from Tibet II High Density (HD) Array (1997 February-1999 September) and Tibet-III array (1999 November-2005 November), our previous northern sky survey for TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources has now been updated by a factor of 2.8 improved statistics. From $0.0^{\circ}$ to $60.0^{\circ}$ in declination (Dec) range, no new TeV $\gamma-$ray point sources with sufficiently high significance were identified while the well-known Crab Nebula and Mrk421 remain to be the brightest TeV $\gamma-$ray sources within the field of view of the Tibet air shower array. Based on the currently available data and at the 90% confidence level (C.L.), the flux upper limits for different power law index assumption are re-derived, which are approximately improved by 1.7 times as compared with our previous reported limits.Comment: This paper has been accepted by hepn

Follow-Up of Patients with Multidrug Resistant Tuberculosis Four Years after Standardized First-Line Drug Treatment

Background: In 2004, an anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug resistance survey in Heilongjiang province, China, enrolled 1574 (79%) new and 421 (21%) retreatment patients. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB was detected in 7.2% of new and 30.4% of retreatment patients. All received treatment with standardized first-line drug (FLD) regimens. Methodology/Principal Findings: We report treatment outcomes of the 2004 cohort, and long-term outcomes as assessed in the second half of 2008. The reported cure rate for MDR-TB patients was 83% (94/113) among new and 66% (85/128) among retreatment patients (P<0.001). Ten of the 241 MDR-TB patients died during treatment. Of the remaining 231, 129 (56%) could be traced in 2008. The overall recurrence rates among new and retreatment cases were 46% and 66%, respectively (P=0.03). The overall death rates among new and retreatment cases were 25% and 46%, respectively (P=0.02). Forty percent of the traced new cases and 24% of the retreatment cases were alive and without recurrent TB (P=0.01). Of the 16 patients who failed or defaulted from treatment in 2004, only two patients were not re-diagnosed with TB by 2008. Of the 111 (86%) patients with an initial successful treatment outcome 63 (57%) had developed recurrent TB, 40 (36%) had died, 27 (24%) of them died of TB. The follow-up period of four years precluded follow-up of all patients. In a highly conservative sensitivity analysis in which we assumed that all non-included patients were alive and did not have recurrent TB, the recurrence and death rate were 33% and 21%. Conclusions/Significance: Documentation of cure based on conventional smear microscopy was a poor predictor of long term outcomes. MDR-TB patients in Heilongjiang province in China had high recurrence and death rates four years after treatment with standardized FLD regimens, reinforcing the need for early diagnosis and treatment of MDR-TB, including assessment of treatment outcomes with more sensitive laboratory method

ASS1 Overexpression:A Hallmark of Sonic Hedgehog Hepatocellular Adenomas; Recommendations for Clinical Practice

Until recently, 10% of hepatocellular adenomas (HCAs) remained unclassified (UHCA). Among the UHCAs, the sonic hedgehog HCA (shHCA) was defined by focal deletions that fuse the promoter of Inhibin beta E chain with GLI1. Prostaglandin D2 synthase was proposed as immunomarker. In parallel, our previous work using proteomic analysis showed that most UHCAs constitute a homogeneous subtype associated with overexpression of argininosuccinate synthase (ASS1). To clarify the use of ASS1 in the HCA classification and avoid misinterpretations of the immunohistochemical staining, the aims of this work were to study (1) the link between shHCA and ASS1 overexpression and (2) the clinical relevance of ASS1 overexpression for diagnosis. Molecular, proteomic, and immunohistochemical analyses were performed in UHCA cases of the Bordeaux series. The clinico-pathological features, including ASS1 immunohistochemical labeling, were analyzed on a large international series of 67 cases. ASS1 overexpression and the shHCA subgroup were superimposed in 15 cases studied by molecular analysis, establishing ASS1 overexpression as a hallmark of shHCA. Moreover, the ASS1 immunomarker was better than prostaglandin D2 synthase and only found positive in 7 of 22 shHCAs. Of the 67 UHCA cases, 58 (85.3%) overexpressed ASS1, four cases were ASS1 negative, and in five cases ASS1 was noncontributory. Proteomic analysis performed in the case of doubtful interpretation of ASS1 overexpression, especially on biopsies, can be a support to interpret such cases. ASS1 overexpression is a specific hallmark of shHCA known to be at high risk of bleeding. Therefore, ASS1 is an additional tool for HCA classification and clinical diagnosis