A Generalized Framework for Video Instance Segmentation

The handling of long videos with complex and occluded sequences has recently emerged as a new challenge in the video instance segmentation (VIS) community. However, existing methods have limitations in addressing this challenge. We argue that the biggest bottleneck in current approaches is the discrepancy between training and inference. To effectively bridge this gap, we propose a Generalized framework for VIS, namely GenVIS, that achieves state-of-the-art performance on challenging benchmarks without designing complicated architectures or requiring extra post-processing. The key contribution of GenVIS is the learning strategy, which includes a query-based training pipeline for sequential learning with a novel target label assignment. Additionally, we introduce a memory that effectively acquires information from previous states. Thanks to the new perspective, which focuses on building relationships between separate frames or clips, GenVIS can be flexibly executed in both online and semi-online manner. We evaluate our approach on popular VIS benchmarks, achieving state-of-the-art results on YouTube-VIS 2019/2021/2022 and Occluded VIS (OVIS). Notably, we greatly outperform the state-of-the-art on the long VIS benchmark (OVIS), improving 5.6 AP with ResNet-50 backbone. Code is available at https://github.com/miranheo/GenVIS.Comment: CVPR 202

Spirocyclic chromanes exhibit antiplasmodial activities and inhibit all intraerythrocytic life cycle stages

AbstractWe screened a collection of synthetic compounds consisting of natural-product-like substructural motifs to identify a spirocyclic chromane as a novel antiplasmodial pharmacophore using an unbiased cell-based assay. The most active spirocyclic compound UCF 201 exhibits a 50% effective concentration (EC50) of 350 nM against the chloroquine-resistant Dd2 strain and a selectivity over 50 using human liver HepG2 cells. Our analyses of physicochemical properties of UCF 201 showed that it is in compliance with Lipinski's parameters and has an acceptable physicochemical profile. We have performed a limited structure-activity-relationship study with commercially available chromanes preserving the spirocyclic motif. Our evaluation of stage specificities of UCF 201 indicated that the compound is early-acting in blocking parasite development at ring, trophozoite and schizont stages of development as well as merozoite invasion. SPC is an attractive lead candidate scaffold because of its ability to act on all stages of parasite's aexual life cycle unlike current antimalarials

Collective Adaptive Responses Through Coping and Sensemaking Under Stress

This study explores adaptive response mechanisms as an appraisal of confronted stress through people’s activities of sending and receiving tweets with other Twitter users to share their thoughts, opinions or information on responses to a man-made disaster. We propose a model with a theoretical integration that represents the varying relations between stress and individuals’ responses over time. Using Twitter data from April 16, 2014, on the Sewol ferry disaster in Korea, our study found that the development of the collective response was characterized by individuals’ recurrent attempts to make sense of the causes and outcomes of an unexpected event in terms of time-dependent flows during the occurrence of the event. Collective sensemaking recurred when people could not make sense of the causes and results of unexpected events to facilitate the coping process. Our model provides insights into when and how a trigger event such as a disaster influences the development of shared collective response patterns

A Relative Value Trading System Based on a Correlation and Rough Set Analysis for the Foreign Exchange Futures Market

This paper describes the conceptual framework of a relative value (RV)-based trading system focused on the data characteristics of the foreign exchange futures market using a correlation and rough set analysis. RV trading is an investment strategy that can generate potential profits based on the RV of two securities, regardless of market direction. We select pairs with a positive correlation, negative correlation, or no correlation based on the correlation coefficients between foreign exchange futures contracts. To implement and experiment with the proposed system, trading rules are generated using a rough set analysis that employs technical indicators derived from the RVs of the pairs. The performance of the proposed trading system is analyzed using the momentum and buy-and-hold trading strategies as benchmarks. The experimental results and analyses demonstrate that the level of the correlation of the pairs must be considered when developing stable and profitable RV trading systems in a foreign exchange futures market

4-Nitro Styrylquinoline Is An Antimalarial Inhibiting Multiple Stages Of Plasmodium Falciparum Asexual Life Cycle

Drugs against malaria are losing their effectiveness because of emerging drug resistance. This underscores the need for novel therapeutic options for malaria with mechanism of actions distinct from current antimalarials. To identify novel pharmacophores against malaria we have screened compounds containing structural features of natural products that are pharmacologically relevant. This screening has identified a 4-nitro styrylquinoline (SQ) compound with submicromolar antiplasmodial activity and excellent selectivity. SQ exhibits a cellular action distinct from current antimalarials, acting early on malaria parasite\u27s intraerythrocytic life cycle including merozoite invasion. The compound is a fast-acting parasitocidal agent and also exhibits curative property in the rodent malaria model when administered orally. In this report, we describe the synthesis, preliminary structure-function analysis, and the parasite developmental stage specific action of the SQ scaffold

Spirocyclic Chromanes Exhibit Antiplasmodial Activities And Inhibit All Intraerythrocytic Life Cycle Stages

We screened a collection of synthetic compounds consisting of natural-product-like substructural motifs to identify a spirocyclic chromane as a novel antiplasmodial pharmacophore using an unbiased cell-based assay. The most active spirocyclic compound UCF 201 exhibits a 50% effective concentration (EC50) of 350 nM against the chloroquine-resistant Dd2 strain and a selectivity over 50 using human liver HepG2 cells. Our analyses of physicochemical properties of UCF 201 showed that it is in compliance with Lipinski\u27s parameters and has an acceptable physicochemical profile. We have performed a limited structure-activity-relationship study with commercially available chromanes preserving the spirocyclic motif. Our evaluation of stage specificities of UCF 201 indicated that the compound is early-acting in blocking parasite development at ring, trophozoite and schizont stages of development as well as merozoite invasion. SPC is an attractive lead candidate scaffold because of its ability to act on all stages of parasite\u27s aexual life cycle unlike current antimalarials

Prefetching Method for Low-Latency Web AR in the WMN Edge Server

Recently, low-latency services for large-capacity data have been studied given the development of edge servers and wireless mesh networks. The 3D data provided for augmented reality (AR) services have a larger capacity than general 2D data. In the conventional WebAR method, a variety of data such as HTML, JavaScript, and service data are downloaded when they are first connected. The method employed to fetch all AR data when the client connects for the first time causes initial latency. In this study, we proposed a prefetching method for low-latency AR services. Markov model-based prediction via the partial matching (PPM) algorithm was applied for the proposed method. Prefetched AR data were predicted during AR services. An experiment was conducted at the Nowon Career Center for Youth and Future in Seoul, Republic of Korea from 1 June 2022 to 31 August 2022, and a total of 350 access data points were collected over three months; the prefetching method reduced the average total latency of the client by 81.5% compared to the conventional method

4-Nitro styrylquinoline is an antimalarial inhibiting multiple stages of Plasmodium falciparum asexual life cycle

Drugs against malaria are losing their effectiveness because of emerging drug resistance. This underscores the need for novel therapeutic options for malaria with mechanism of actions distinct from current antimalarials. To identify novel pharmacophores against malaria we have screened compounds containing structural features of natural products that are pharmacologically relevant. This screening has identified a 4-nitro styrylquinoline (SQ) compound with submicromolar antiplasmodial activity and excellent selectivity. SQ exhibits a cellular action distinct from current antimalarials, acting early on malaria parasite's intraerythrocytic life cycle including merozoite invasion. The compound is a fast-acting parasitocidal agent and also exhibits curative property in the rodent malaria model when administered orally. In this report, we describe the synthesis, preliminary structure-function analysis, and the parasite developmental stage specific action of the SQ scaffold

An image analysis algorithm for malaria parasite stage classification and viability quantification.

With more than 40% of the world's population at risk, 200-300 million infections each year, and an estimated 1.2 million deaths annually, malaria remains one of the most important public health problems of mankind today. With the propensity of malaria parasites to rapidly develop resistance to newly developed therapies, and the recent failures of artemisinin-based drugs in Southeast Asia, there is an urgent need for new antimalarial compounds with novel mechanisms of action to be developed against multidrug resistant malaria. We present here a novel image analysis algorithm for the quantitative detection and classification of Plasmodium lifecycle stages in culture as well as discriminating between viable and dead parasites in drug-treated samples. This new algorithm reliably estimates the number of red blood cells (isolated or clustered) per fluorescence image field, and accurately identifies parasitized erythrocytes on the basis of high intensity DAPI-stained parasite nuclei spots and Mitotracker-stained mitochondrial in viable parasites. We validated the performance of the algorithm by manual counting of the infected and non-infected red blood cells in multiple image fields, and the quantitative analyses of the different parasite stages (early rings, rings, trophozoites, schizonts) at various time-point post-merozoite invasion, in tightly synchronized cultures. Additionally, the developed algorithm provided parasitological effective concentration 50 (EC50) values for both chloroquine and artemisinin, that were similar to known growth inhibitory EC50 values for these compounds as determined using conventional SYBR Green I and lactate dehydrogenase-based assays