Self-Reference Deep Adaptive Curve Estimation for Low-Light Image Enhancement

In this paper, we propose a 2-stage low-light image enhancement method called Self-Reference Deep Adaptive Curve Estimation (Self-DACE). In the first stage, we present an intuitive, lightweight, fast, and unsupervised luminance enhancement algorithm. The algorithm is based on a novel low-light enhancement curve that can be used to locally boost image brightness. We also propose a new loss function with a simplified physical model designed to preserve natural images' color, structure, and fidelity. We use a vanilla CNN to map each pixel through deep Adaptive Adjustment Curves (AAC) while preserving the local image structure. Secondly, we introduce the corresponding denoising scheme to remove the latent noise in the darkness. We approximately model the noise in the dark and deploy a Denoising-Net to estimate and remove the noise after the first stage. Exhaustive qualitative and quantitative analysis shows that our method outperforms existing state-of-the-art algorithms on multiple real-world datasets

A Temporal Densely Connected Recurrent Network for Event-based Human Pose Estimation

Event camera is an emerging bio-inspired vision sensors that report per-pixel brightness changes asynchronously. It holds noticeable advantage of high dynamic range, high speed response, and low power budget that enable it to best capture local motions in uncontrolled environments. This motivates us to unlock the potential of event cameras for human pose estimation, as the human pose estimation with event cameras is rarely explored. Due to the novel paradigm shift from conventional frame-based cameras, however, event signals in a time interval contain very limited information, as event cameras can only capture the moving body parts and ignores those static body parts, resulting in some parts to be incomplete or even disappeared in the time interval. This paper proposes a novel densely connected recurrent architecture to address the problem of incomplete information. By this recurrent architecture, we can explicitly model not only the sequential but also non-sequential geometric consistency across time steps to accumulate information from previous frames to recover the entire human bodies, achieving a stable and accurate human pose estimation from event data. Moreover, to better evaluate our model, we collect a large scale multimodal event-based dataset that comes with human pose annotations, which is by far the most challenging one to the best of our knowledge. The experimental results on two public datasets and our own dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and strength of our approach. Code can be available online for facilitating the future research

Mechanical properties and energy absorption of ceramic particulate and resin-impregnation reinforced aluminium foams

The mechanical properties of aluminium foams can be improved by matrix reinforcement and resin-impregnation methods. In the present study, aluminium foams were reinforced by both ceramic particulate reinforcing of the aluminium matrix and resin-impregnating pores. The mechanical properties and the energy absorption of the reinforced aluminium foams were investigated by dynamic and quasi-static compression. Results indicated that the ceramic particle additions of CBN, SiC and B4C in aluminium foams increase the peak stress, elastic modulus and energy absorption of the aluminium foams, under both conditions of dynamic and quasi-static compression. Moreover, the aluminium foams with and without ceramic particle additions exhibited obvious strain rate sensitivity during dynamic compression. Furthermore, the resin-impregnation improves the mechanic properties and energy absorption of aluminium foams significantly. However, aluminium foams with resin-impregnation showed negligible strain rate sensitivity under dynamic compression. It is reported that both the ceramic particle addition and resin-impregnation can be effective techniques to improve the mechanical and the energy absorption properties of aluminium foams.<br /

Ti6Ta4Sn alloy and subsequent scaffolding for bone tissue engineering

Porous titanium (Ti) and titanium alloys are promising scaffold biomaterials for bone tissue engineering, because they have the potential to provide new bone tissue ingrowth abilities and low elastic modulus to match that ofnatural bone. In the present study, a new highly porous Ti6Ta4Sn alloy scaffold with the addition of biocompatible alloying elements (tantalum (Ta) and tin (Sn)) was prepared using a space-holder sintering method. Thestrength of the Ti6Ta4Sn scaffold with a porosity of 75% was found to be significantly higher than that of a pure Ti scaffold with the same porosity. The elastic modulus of the porous alloy can be customized to match that ofhuman bone by adjusting its porosity. In addition, the porous Ti6Ta4Sn alloy exhibited an interconnected porous structure, which enabled the ingrowth of new bone tissues. Cell culture results revealed that human SaOS2osteoblast-like cells grew and spread well on the surfaces of the solid alloy, and throughout the porous scaffold. The surface roughness of the alloy showed a significant effect on the cell behavior, and the optimum surfaceroughness range for the adhesion of the SaOS2 cell on the alloy was 0.15 to 0.35 mm. The present study illustrated the feasibility of using the porous Ti6Ta4Sn alloy scaffold as an orthopedic implant material with a specialemphasis on its excellent biomechanical properties and in vitro biocompatibility with a high preference by osteoblast-like cells.<br /

Cardiac Specific Overexpression of Mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 Induces Myocardial Apoptosis and Cardiac Dysfunction.

Myocardial apoptosis is a significant problem underlying ischemic heart disease. We previously reported significantly elevated expression of cytoplasmic Omi/HtrA2, triggers cardiomyocytes apoptosis. However, whether increased Omi/HtrA2 within mitochondria itself influences myocardial survival in vivo is unknown. We aim to observe the effects of mitochondria-specific, not cytoplasmic, Omi/HtrA2 on myocardial apoptosis and cardiac function. Transgenic mice overexpressing cardiac-specific mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 were generated and they had increased myocardial apoptosis, decreased systolic and diastolic function, and decreased left ventricular remodeling. Transiently or stably overexpression of mitochondria Omi/HtrA2 in H9C2 cells enhance apoptosis as evidenced by elevated caspase-3, -9 activity and TUNEL staining, which was completely blocked by Ucf-101, a specific Omi/HtrA2 inhibitor. Mechanistic studies revealed mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 overexpression degraded the mitochondrial anti-apoptotic protein HAX-1, an effect attenuated by Ucf-101. Additionally, transfected cells overexpressing mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 were more sensitive to hypoxia and reoxygenation (H/R) induced apoptosis. Cyclosporine A (CsA), a mitochondrial permeability transition inhibitor, blocked translocation of Omi/HtrA2 from mitochondrial to cytoplasm, and protected transfected cells incompletely against H/R-induced caspase-3 activation. We report in vitro and in vivo overexpression of mitochondrial Omi/HtrA2 induces cardiac apoptosis and dysfunction. Thus, strategies to directly inhibit Omi/HtrA2 or its cytosolic translocation from mitochondria may protect against heart injury

Self-reductive synthesis of MXene/Na0.55Mn1.4Ti0.6O4 hybrids for high-performance symmetric lithium ion batteries.

Increasing environmental problems and energy challenges have created an urgent demand for the development of green and efficient energy-storage systems. The search for new materials that could improve the performance of Li-ion batteries (LIBs) is one of today's most challenging tasks. Herein, a stable symmetric LIB based on the bipolar material-MXene/Na0.55Mn1.4Ti0.6O4 was developed. This bipolar hybrid material showed a typical MXene-type layered structure with high conductivity, containing two electrochemically active redox couples, namely, Mn4+/Mn3+ (3.06 V) and Mn2+/Mn (0.25 V). This MXene/Na0.55Mn2O4-based symmetric full cell exhibited the highest energy density of 393.4 W h kg−1 among all symmetric full cells reported so far, wherein it is bestowed with a high average voltage of 2.81 V and a reversible capacity of 140 mA h g−1 at a current density of 100 mA g−1. In addition, it offers a capacity retention of 79.4% after 200 cycles at a current density of 500 mA g−1. This symmetric lithium ion full battery will stimulate further research on new LIBs using the same active materials with improved safety, lower costs and a long life-span

DETERMINISTIC DEPLOYMENT for DIRECTIONAL SENSOR NODES

Porezni sustav Republike Hrvatske se sastoji od više poreznih oblika koji se primjenjuju po različitim poreznim stopama na različite vrste poreznih osnovica. Porez na dobit je jedan od tih oblika i ima značajnu ulogu u poreznom sustavu. Obzirom da se porez na dobit primjenjuje na ostvareno dobit iz gospodarske djelatnost, njegova stopa i primjena utječe na događanja u gospodarstvu i jedan je od najčešćih poreza kod kojih se pojavljuje porezna evazija. Kako postojeći zakoni ne stimuliraju reinvestiranje dobiti poduzeća, često se kod poduzetnika pronalaze različiti načini izbjegavanja plaćanja ovog poreza, kroz donacije, stipendije ili kroz ulaganja u obrtna sredstva poduzeća. Porez na dobit ima i ulogu u privlačenju investicija u gospodarstvo, pa je zbog toga jako bitno po kojoj stopi se ovaj porez obračunava i na koji način se plaća. Kako bi se privukle investicije, bilo domaće bilo inozemne, bitno je što konkurentnije odrediti poreznu stopu i poreznu osnovicu za primjenu ovog poreza. Republika Hrvatska se izvjestan vremanski period nalazi u gospodarskoj krizi, a izlazak iz nje i pokretanje gospodarstva se traži u stranim investicijama. Obzirom da je gospodarstvo Republike Hrvatske otvoreno i nalazi se na globalnom tržištu, države u okruženju su mu konkurencija. U ovom radu će se analizirati stope poreza na dobit u nekim zemljama članicama Europske Unije, ali i zemalja koje to nisu, ali su izravna konkurencija Republici Hrvatskoj u privlačenju inozemnih investicija

Thioredoxin reductase was nitrated in the aging heart after myocardial ischemia/reperfusion.

The age-related loss of anti-oxidant defense reduces recovery from myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury (MI/R) in aged people. Our previous data showed that inactivation of thioredoxin (Trx) was involved in enhanced aging MI/R injury. Thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), the enzyme known to regulate Trx, is less efficient with age. The aim of the current study was to determine why TrxR activity was reduced and whether reduced TrxR activity contributed to enhanced aging MI/R injury. Both Trx and TrxR activity were decreased in the aging heart, and this difference was further amplified after MI/R. However, MI/R injury did not change TrxR expression between young and aging rats. Increased nitrogen oxide (NOx) but decreased nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability (decreased phosphorylated vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein) was observed in aging hearts. Peroxynitrite (ONOO⁻) was increased in aging hearts and was further amplified after MI/R. TrxR nitration in young and aging hearts was detected by immunoprecipitation (anti-nitrotyrosine) followed by immunoblotting (anti-TrxR). Compared with young hearts, TrxR nitration was increased in the aging hearts, and this was further intensified after MI/R. The ONOO⁻ decomposition catalyst (FeTMPyp) reduced TrxR nitration and increased TrxR and Trx activity. More importantly, FeTMPyp attenuated the MI/R injury in aging hearts as evidenced by decreased caspase-3 and malondialdehyde (MDA) concentration and increased cardiac function. Increased ONOO⁻ nitrated TrxR in the aging heart as a post-translational modification, which may be related to the enhanced MI/R injury of aging rats. Interventions that inhibit nitration and restore TrxR activity might be a therapy for attenuating enhanced MI/R injury in aging heart