Deep Laplacian Pyramid Networks for Fast and Accurate Super-Resolution

Convolutional neural networks have recently demonstrated high-quality reconstruction for single-image super-resolution. In this paper, we propose the Laplacian Pyramid Super-Resolution Network (LapSRN) to progressively reconstruct the sub-band residuals of high-resolution images. At each pyramid level, our model takes coarse-resolution feature maps as input, predicts the high-frequency residuals, and uses transposed convolutions for upsampling to the finer level. Our method does not require the bicubic interpolation as the pre-processing step and thus dramatically reduces the computational complexity. We train the proposed LapSRN with deep supervision using a robust Charbonnier loss function and achieve high-quality reconstruction. Furthermore, our network generates multi-scale predictions in one feed-forward pass through the progressive reconstruction, thereby facilitates resource-aware applications. Extensive quantitative and qualitative evaluations on benchmark datasets show that the proposed algorithm performs favorably against the state-of-the-art methods in terms of speed and accuracy.Comment: This work is accepted in CVPR 2017. The code and datasets are available on http://vllab.ucmerced.edu/wlai24/LapSRN

Suppression of epidemic spreading in complex networks by local information based behavioral responses

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61473001, 11105025, and 11331009) and the Doctoral Research Foundation of Anhui University (Grant No. 02303319). Y.C.L. was supported by AFOSR under Grant No. FA9550-10-1-0083.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Bifurcation and chaos of a flag in an inviscid flow

A two-dimensional model is developed to study the flutter instability of a flag immersed in an inviscid flow. Two dimensionless parameters governing the system are the structure-to-fluid mass ratio M⁎ and the dimensionless incoming flow velocity U⁎. A transition from a static steady state to a chaotic state is investigated at a fixed M⁎=1 with increasing U⁎. Five single-frequency periodic flapping states are identified along the route, including four symmetrical oscillation states and one asymmetrical oscillation state. For the symmetrical states, the oscillation frequency increases with the increase of U⁎, and the drag force on the flag changes linearly with the Strouhal number. Chaotic states are observed when U⁎ is relatively large. Three chaotic windows are observed along the route. In addition, the system transitions from one periodic state to another through either period-doubling bifurcations or quasi-periodic bifurcations, and it transitions from a periodic state to a chaotic state through quasi-periodic bifurcations

The Anti-hepatitis B Virus Activity of Boehmeria nivea Extract in HBV-viremia SCID Mice

Boehmeria nivea extract (BNE) is widely used in southern Taiwan as a folk medicine for hepato-protection and hepatitis treatment. In previous studies, we demonstrated that BNE could reduce the supernatant hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in HBV-producing HepG2 2.2.15 cells. In the present study, we established an animal model of HBV viremia and used it to validate the efficacy of BNE in vivo. In this animal model, serum HBV DNA and HBsAg were elevated in accordance with tumor growth. To evaluate the anti-HBV activity of BNE, HBV-viremia mice were built up after one subcutaneous inoculation of HepG2 2.2.15 tumor cells in severe combined immunodeficiency mice over 13 days. The levels of serum HBV DNA were elevated around 105–106 copies per milliliter. Both oral and intraperitoneal administration of BNE were effective at inhibiting the production of HBsAg and HBV DNA, whereas tumor growth was not affected by all test articles. Intraperitoneal administration of BNE appeared to have greater potential to inhibit serum HBV DNA levels compared with oral administration under the same dosage. Notably, reduced natural killer cell activity was also observed after high dosage of BNE administration, and this correlated with reduced serum HBV DNA. In conclusion, BNE exhibited potential anti-HBV activity in an animal model of HBV viremia

Detection of Myocardial Infarction using ECG and Multi-Scale Feature Concatenate

Diverse computer-aided diagnosis systems based on convolutional neural networks were applied to automate the detection of myocardial infarction (MI) found in electrocardiogram (ECG) for early diagnosis and prevention. However; issues; particularly overfitting and underfitting; were not being taken into account. In other words; it is unclear whether the network structure is too simple or complex. Toward this end; the proposed models were developed by starting with the simplest structure: a multi-lead features-concatenate narrow network (N-Net) in which only two convolutional layers were included in each lead branch. Additionally; multi-scale features-concatenate networks (MSN-Net) were also implemented where larger features were being extracted through pooling the signals. The best structure was obtained via tuning both the number of filters in the convolutional layers and the number of inputting signal scales. As a result; the N-Net reached a 95.76% accuracy in the MI detection task; whereas the MSN-Net reached an accuracy of 61.82% in the MI locating task. Both networks give a higher average accuracy and a significant difference of p \u3c 0.001 evaluated by the U test compared with the state-of-the-art. The models are also smaller in size thus are suitable to fit in wearable devices for offline monitoring. In conclusion; testing throughout the simple and complex network structure is indispensable. However; the way of dealing with the class imbalance problem and the quality of the extracted features are yet to be discussed

Induction of protective immunity in swine by recombinant bamboo mosaic virus expressing foot-and-mouth disease virus epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Plant viruses can be employed as versatile vectors for the production of vaccines by expressing immunogenic epitopes on the surface of chimeric viral particles. Although several viruses, including tobacco mosaic virus, potato virus X and cowpea mosaic virus, have been developed as vectors, we aimed to develop a new viral vaccine delivery system, a bamboo mosaic virus (BaMV), that would carry larger transgene loads, and generate better immunity in the target animals with fewer adverse environmental effects.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We engineered the BaMV as a vaccine vector expressing the antigenic epitope(s) of the capsid protein VP1 of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). The recombinant BaMV plasmid (pBVP1) was constructed by replacing DNA encoding the 35 N-terminal amino acid residues of the BaMV coat protein with that encoding 37 amino acid residues (T¹²⁸-N¹⁶⁴) of FMDV VP1.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The pBVP1 was able to infect host plants and to generate a chimeric virion BVP1 expressing VP1 epitopes in its coat protein. Inoculation of swine with BVP1 virions resulted in the production of anti-FMDV neutralizing antibodies. Real-time PCR analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the BVP1-immunized swine revealed that they produced VP1-specific IFN-γ. Furthermore, all BVP1-immunized swine were protected against FMDV challenge.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Chimeric BaMV virions that express partial sequence of FMDV VP1 can effectively induce not only humoral and cell-mediated immune responses but also full protection against FMDV in target animals. This BaMV-based vector technology may be applied to other vaccines that require correct expression of antigens on chimeric viral particles.</p