Centralized Feature Pyramid for Object Detection

Visual feature pyramid has shown its superiority in both effectiveness and efficiency in a wide range of applications. However, the existing methods exorbitantly concentrate on the inter-layer feature interactions but ignore the intra-layer feature regulations, which are empirically proved beneficial. Although some methods try to learn a compact intra-layer feature representation with the help of the attention mechanism or the vision transformer, they ignore the neglected corner regions that are important for dense prediction tasks. To address this problem, in this paper, we propose a Centralized Feature Pyramid (CFP) for object detection, which is based on a globally explicit centralized feature regulation. Specifically, we first propose a spatial explicit visual center scheme, where a lightweight MLP is used to capture the globally long-range dependencies and a parallel learnable visual center mechanism is used to capture the local corner regions of the input images. Based on this, we then propose a globally centralized regulation for the commonly-used feature pyramid in a top-down fashion, where the explicit visual center information obtained from the deepest intra-layer feature is used to regulate frontal shallow features. Compared to the existing feature pyramids, CFP not only has the ability to capture the global long-range dependencies, but also efficiently obtain an all-round yet discriminative feature representation. Experimental results on the challenging MS-COCO validate that our proposed CFP can achieve the consistent performance gains on the state-of-the-art YOLOv5 and YOLOX object detection baselines.Comment: Code: https://github.com/QY1994-0919/CFPNe

Nonlinear Recurrent Neural Network Predictive Control for Energy Distribution of a Fuel Cell Powered Robot

This paper presents a neural network predictive control strategy to optimize power distribution for a fuel cell/ultracapacitor hybrid power system of a robot. We model the nonlinear power system by employing time variant auto-regressive moving average with exogenous (ARMAX), and using recurrent neural network to represent the complicated coefficients of the ARMAX model. Because the dynamic of the system is viewed as operating- state- dependent time varying local linear behavior in this frame, a linear constrained model predictive control algorithm is developed to optimize the power splitting between the fuel cell and ultracapacitor. The proposed algorithm significantly simplifies implementation of the controller and can handle multiple constraints, such as limiting substantial fluctuation of fuel cell current. Experiment and simulation results demonstrate that the control strategy can optimally split power between the fuel cell and ultracapacitor, limit the change rate of the fuel cell current, and so as to extend the lifetime of the fuel cell

Genome Characterization and Phylogenetic Analysis of Bovine Hepacivirus in Inner Mongolia, Northeastern China

Bovine hepacivirus (BovHepV) is a new member of the genus Hepacivirus in the family Flaviviridae , which has been detected in cattle in more than seven countries. The purpose of this study was to identify and genetically characterize BovHepV in cattle in Inner Mongolia, northeastern (NE) China. A total of 116 serum samples from cattle were collected from HulunBuir in Inner Mongolia from April to May, 2021, and were divided into three pools for metagenomic sequencing. The samples were verified with semi-nested RT-PCR with primers based on the BovHepV sequences obtained from metagenomic sequencing. The complete genomes of BovHepV were amplified, and were used for genome characterization and phylogenetic analysis. BovHepV was detected in two pools through metagenomic sequencing. Five BovHepV positive samples were identified in Yakeshi of HulunBuir, thus indicating a prevalence of 8.8% (5/57). Two 8840 nucleotide long BovHepV strains YKS01/02 were amplified from the positive samples and showed 79.3%–91.9% nucleotide sequence identity with the discovered BovHepV strains. Phylogenetic analysis classified the YKS01/02 strains into BovHepV subtype G group. This study reports the first identification of BovHepV in cattle in northeastern China, and expands the known geographical distribution and genetic diversity of BovHepV in the country

The cellular source for APOBEC3G's incorporation into HIV-1

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human APOBEC3G (hA3G) has been identified as a cellular inhibitor of HIV-1 infectivity. Viral incorporation of hA3G is an essential step for its antiviral activity. Although the mechanism underlying hA3G virion encapsidation has been investigated extensively, the cellular source of viral hA3G remains unclear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Previous studies have shown that hA3G forms low-molecular-mass (LMM) and high-molecular-mass (HMM) complexes. Our work herein provides evidence that the majority of newly-synthesized hA3G interacts with membrane lipid raft domains to form Lipid raft-associated hA3G (RA hA3G), which serve as the precursor of the mature HMM hA3G complex, while a minority of newly-synthesized hA3G remains in the cytoplasm as a soluble LMM form. The distribution of hA3G among the soluble LMM form, the RA LMM form and the mature forms of HMM is regulated by a mechanism involving the N-terminal part of the linker region and the C-terminus of hA3G. Mutagenesis studies reveal a direct correlation between the ability of hA3G to form the RA LMM complex and its viral incorporation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Together these data suggest that the Lipid raft-associated LMM A3G complex functions as the cellular source of viral hA3G.</p

Focusing on the Experiences of Voluntary Child Protection Workers

학위논문(석사)--서울대학교 대학원 :사회과학대학 사회복지학과,2020. 2. 박정민.중국 농촌유수아동의 생활환경을 개선하기 위하여, 중국 민정부(民政部)는 2016년에 Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection (農村留守兒童關愛保護)이라는 프로그램을 도입하였다. 이 프로그램의 대상자는 농촌유수아동이고, 프로그램의 목적은 농촌유수아동의 안전문제, 신체 건강, 심리 건강과 교육에 관한 수요를 만족시켜주는 것이다. 프로그램 서비스를 농촌지역에 효율적으로 전달하기 위하여, 중국정부는 전국 매개 농촌지역마다 미성년자보호사업 전문요원(未保專幹)을 한 명씩 배치하여 그 지역의 농촌유수아동들을 관리하게끔 하였다. 하지만 Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection Program이 2016년부터 도입된 후, 지금까지 학술계에서는 이 프로그램의 실행 과정에 대한 연구가 이루어지지 않고 있다. 이에 본 연구는 Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection Program 실행에 영향을 주는 주된 문제들을 발견하고 이를 심층적으로 분석하기 위하여 중국 길림성에 위치한 왕칭현의 농촌지역에서 근무하는 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들을 대상으로 연구를 설계하였다. 자료수집은 주로 왕칭현의 농촌지역의 100 명의 미성년자보호사업 전문요원을 대상으로 한 설문조사와 같은 지역의 10명의 미성년자보호사업 전문요원을 대상으로 한 심층 인터뷰, 및 관련 정책 문서 검토를 통해 이루어 졌다. 위와 같은 방법론을 적용하여 수행한 본 연구의 결과는 아래와 같다. 첫째, 프로그램의 실제 대상자범위는 계획했던 프로그램 대상자보다 더 크다. 계획했던 프로그램 대상자는 농촌유수아동만 포함되지만, 실제로 프로그램 대상자에 포함되어 있는 아동들은 농촌유수아동을 제외하고, 조손 가정 아동, 한 부모가정 아동, 부모님이 장애가 있거나 중증 환자인 가정의 아동, 장애아동 등이 있었다. 둘째, 계획했던 프로그램 서비스중에서, 아동의 보호자 확인 (100%), 아동의 위탁 보호자 확인 (98%), 아동 보호 문제에 대한 보호자의 인식 개선 (80%), 신체 건강 서비스 (95%), 가난한 아동을 위한 교육 보조금 (71%), 무료 교육비 (100%), 학교 급식 보조금 (100%) 등 서비스는 높은 완성률로 현장에 전달되었다. 하지만 일시 보호 (32%), 데이 케어 (17%), 심리 건강 서비스 (5%), 방과후 교육 프로그램 (0%) 등 서비스는 완성률이 낮거나 거의 현장에 전달되지 않았다. 계획한 서비스를 제외하고, 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들이 추가로 제공한 서비스는 가사 도우미로 일하기 (N=14), 명절 행사 조직하기 (N=14), 야외 활동 조직하기 (N=11), 어린이 가족을 위한 보조금 제공 (N=5), 어린이 가족을 위한 스폰서 소개 (N=3), Household Registration Book 신청 (N=1) 등이 있다. 셋째, 프로그램 실행 과정 중, 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들이 현장에서 수행하는 역할은 매니저, 조정자 (문제 식별), 조정자 (임파워먼트), 중개자 (연계), 계획가 등이 있었다. 하지만 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들이 스스로 인지하는 역할은 현장에서 수행하는 역할을 제외하고도, 관료 (규칙 중심)와 중개자 (후속 관리) 등을 포함하고 있었다. 이러한 분석결과를 토대로, 본 연구는 아래와 같은 제안을 하려고 한다. 첫째, 중국 정부는 우선 정부로부터 혜택을 받을 수 있는 빈곤층 아동의 범위를 확대해야 한다. 정부는 농촌 지역의 빈곤층 아동을 유형별로 특정 수를 파악한 다음, 유형별로 욕구 평가를 수행하여서 정부가 농촌 아동의 빈곤층 아동의 욕구와 문제에 대응하는 맞춤형 복지 정책을 개발할 것을 권장한다. 둘째, 정부는 서비스를 더 잘 수행하기 위해 재무 및 인적 자원을 증가시켜야 한다. 정부는 농촌 주민과 전문 심리상담사를 고용하거나 학교 교사와 협력하여 미성년자보호사업 전문요원 단독으로 만 제공하기 어려운 서비스를 수행하도록 한다. 셋째, 서비스 대상자를 선별하는 과정에서, 정부는 프로그램 규정을 적절히 완화하여 black-identity 아동들도 서비스 대상자로 포함할 것을 권장한다. 따라서 정부는 도움이 필요한 모든 아동들이 프로그램 서비스를 받을 수 있도록 보장해야 한다. 넷째, 정부는 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들의 전문 역량을 강화시키고 업무 책임을 확장해야 한다. 또한 정부는 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들이 업무에 대한 의지를 높이기 위해 미성년자보호사업 전문요원한테 재정보조금을 제공할 수 있다. 다섯째, 정부는 매 5개 또는 6개 농촌마을마다 아동복지센터를 하나씩 설립하여 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들의 근무장소 및 아동들을 위한 활동 장소로 마련해야 한다. 여섯째, 아동 복지 분야에서 일하는 프로그램 슈퍼바이저와 공무원은 아동복지이슈에 관한 전문 교육을 받아야 한다. 일곱 번째, 아동복지 전문인력은 일선 근무 현장, 지방 정부, 중앙 정부, 즉 사회의 모든 수준에서 많이 필요하기 때문에 아동 복지 전문가의 수를 늘려야 한다. 그러나 이 연구에는 몇가지 한계가 있다. 첫째, 본 연구의 표본은 상대적으로 규모가 작은 왕칭현에서 수집하였기때문에 본 연구결과는 중국의 모든 도시에 일반화 될 수 없다. 둘째, 본 연구는 무작위 샘플링 방법으로 샘플을 수집한 것이 아니라 오히려 연구조사 참여하기를 원하는 미성년자보호사업 전문요원들만 대상으로 하여 샘플을 수집하였기때문에 이것은 표본 추출 편향을 일으킬 수 있다.In Chinese society today, rural left-behind children, due to their prodigious quantities and poor living situation, have become an integral part of disadvantaged children in China. In 2016, the Ministry of Civil Affairs Bureau of China launched the Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection Program as an effort to remedy the adverse living situation of rural left-behind children. The target population of this program were rural left-behind children and the program was designed to satisfy rural left-behind childrens needs with respect to safety, physical health, psychological health, and education. In order to deliver services to remote rural areas, the government designated a voluntary child protection worker in every village to take care of rural left-behind children. However, since the program was first launched in 2016, there has been no research that has evaluate the program implementation process from a scientific point of view, making it impossible to discover any problems of the program in order to strengthen future program implementation. Therefore, the present study was conducted as an implementation process evaluation of the Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection Program to understand how specific program elements are exercised in reality. Additionally, this study explored the roles of voluntary child protection workers based on the roles of social workers. The primary data were obtained from voluntary child protection workers, who have first-hand experience of the programs implementation in Wangqing, Jilin Province, China. In order to collect data, the researcher conducted a survey with 100 voluntary child protection workers and conducted in-depth interviews with 10 voluntary child protection workers. Also, the document review on relevant government reports was adopted to collect relevant information about the program implementation process. The main research results of this study are as follows. First, the scope of actual service recipients is broader than the target population. The actual service recipients include not only rural left-behind children but also children raised by grandparents, children in single-parent families, children whose parents have a disability or serious illness, and disabled children. Second, concerning the completion rate of work plans, services such as confirming guardianship of children (100%), confirming entrusted guardians for children (98%), improving guardians awareness of child protection issues (80%), physical health services (95%), education subsidies for poor children (71%), free education tuition and fees (100%), and subsidies for school lunches (100%) are being delivered at a high completion rate. However, services such as temporary care (32%), day care (17%), psychological health services (5%), and after-school study programs (0%) have a low completion rate or are barely being delivered at all. Additional services delivered by voluntary child protection workers include working as a housework assistant (N=14), organizing festival events (N=14), organizing outdoor activities (N=11), providing financial subsidies for childrens families (N=5), introducing sponsors for childrens families (N=3), and applying for the Household Registration Book (N=1). Third, concerning the roles of voluntary child protection workers in the programs implementation, their actual roles in practice include manager, enabler (problem-identification), enabler (empowerment), broker (liaison) and planner. According to voluntary child protection workers perceptions on their roles, in addition to performing actual roles, most of them think they should have bureaucratic (rule-centered) roles and those of a broker (follow-up management). Based on the research results, seven suggestions were proposed for future program implementation and for the development of the child welfare system in China. First, the government needs to expand the scope of children in poverty who can receive benefits from the government. It is recommended for the government to grasp the specific number of each type of children in poverty in rural areas and then conduct a needs assessment, based on which the government can develop tailored welfare policies that are responsive to poor rural childrens needs and issues. Second, the government should increase financial and human resources to better carry out diverse services. The government can hire local villagers and professional psychological counselors, or cooperate with school teachers to carry out services which are hard to be delivered solely by voluntary child protection workers alone. Third, during the process of screening service recipients, the government can appropriately loosen the program requirements to recruit black-identity children as service recipients. In such, the government should ensure all children who are worthy of assistance can receive program services. Fourth, the government should improve the professional competency of voluntary child protection workers and expand their work responsibilities. Also, the government can give voluntary child protection workers financial subsidies to increase their willingness to work. Fifth, the government should set up a dedicated child welfare center for every five or six villages as a workplace for voluntary child protection workers and an activity place for children. Sixth, supervisors and government staff working in child welfare area need to receive professional training regarding child welfare issues. Lastly, since the professional child welfare manpower is much needed in front-line workplaces, in the local governments, and at the central government, the number of child welfare professionals should be increased quickly to meet societys needs for them at all levels. However, there are some limitations in this study to be admitted. First, the research findings in Wangqing, a relatively small and underdeveloped county, cannot be generalized to all cities nationwide. Thus, to understand the current programs implementation in big cities, further research is needed. Second, this study did not use a random sampling method to recruit samples; rather, only those who were willing to participate in the survey were recruited as samples, which can cause sampling bias.Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Literature Review 6 2.1 Rural Left-Behind Children 6 2.1.1 Definition of Rural Left-Behind Children 6 2.1.2 Living Situation of Rural Left-Behind Children 7 2.2 Rural Left-Behind Children Care and Protection Program 10 2.2.1 Services for Safety 11 2.2.2 Services for Physical and Psychological Health 12 2.2.3 Services for Education 13 2.3 Roles of Social Workers 13 Chapter 3. Methods 19 3.1 Study Area 19 3.2 Sample Recruitment and Sample Size 20 3.3 Data Collection Methods 21 3.3.1 Document Review 22 3.3.2 Open-ended Interview 22 3.3.3 Survey 23 3.4 Data Analysis 26 3.5 Ethical Statement 27 Chapter 4. Results 28 4.1 Background Characteristics of Voluntary Child Protection Workers 28 4.2 Matching Degree between Target Population and Actual Service Recipients 34 4.2.1 Actual Service Recipients in Practice 35 4.2.2 Service Recipient Recruitment Procedures 41 4.3 Matching Degree between Planned Services and Actually Delivered Services 46 4.4 Roles of Voluntary Child Protection Workers 52 Chapter 5. Conclusions 58 5.1 Major Findings 58 5.2 Implications 62 5.3 Limitations 72 Bibliography 73 Appendices 82 국문초록 99Maste

Technology Route Options of China’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Analysis Based on the TOPSIS Method

Developing production technology pathways of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) that align with China’s national conditions and aviation transportation needs is crucial for promoting the SAF industry and achieving China’s carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. This article first projects the future SAF demand in China for the coming decades. Using SAF demand data as an input, this article employs the TOPSIS analysis method to comprehensively evaluate the suitability of four SAF production technology pathways at different stages of development in China, which are Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA), Alcohol-to-Jet (AtJ), Natural Gas + Fischer–Tropsch Synthesis (G + FT), and Power-to-Liquid (PtL). The research results reveal the following trends: HEFA-based processes are the most suitable technology pathways for China in the near term; the G + FT route, based on energy crops, appears the most likely to support civil aviation needs in the medium to long term. In the long run, the PtL route holds significant potential, especially with the decreasing costs of green electricity, advancements in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology, and improvements in SAF synthesis methods. In the final section of this article, we provide recommendations to drive the development of the SAF industry in China

Accumulation of cytoplasmic beta-catenin correlates with reduced expression of E-cadherin, but not with phosphorylated Akt in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: immunohistochemical study

Accumulation of β-catenin in cytoplasm occurs frequently during the pathogenesis of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The mechanism leading to this alteration, however, is largely unknown. In the present study, immunohistochemistry was performed for β-catenin, E-cadherin and Ser473 phosphorylated Akt (P-Akt) in 44 tissue samples of ESCC and corresponding normal esophageal epithelium. Exon 3 of the β-catenin gene was analyzed by using single-strand conformation polymorphism and direct sequencing. In addition to the reduced expression of E-cadherin and membranous β-catenin observed in 65.9% and 68% of ESCC tested, respectively, cytoplasmic accumulation of β-catenin was also detected in 68% (30/44) cases. However, only two cases were found to have the same β-catenin gene mutation. The data showed that cytoplasmic accumulation of β-catenin was significantly associated with reduced expression of E-cadherin (P &lt; 0.05) and that of membranous β-catenin (P &lt; 0.05). Furthermore, cytoplasmic β-catenin was correlated significantly with lymph node metastasis (P &lt; 0.05). In contrast, although strong staining of P-Akt occurred in 14 of 44 cases (32%), there was no significant correlation between the positive staining of P-Akt and cytoplasmic β-catenin. Taken together these results suggest that the lost membranous β-catenin might translocate to cytoplasm depending on reduced expression of E-cadherin, while Akt seems unlikely to play a role in this process

Overexpression of EB1 in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) may promote cellular growth by activating β-catenin/TCF pathway

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has a multifactorial etiology involving environmental and/or genetic factors. End-binding protein 1 (EB1), which was cloned as an interacting partner of the adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) tumor suppressor protein, was previously found overexpressed in ESCC. However, the precise role of EB1 in the development of this malignancy has not yet been elucidated. In this study, we analysed freshly resected ESCC specimens and demonstrated that EB1 was overexpressed in approximately 63% of tumor samples compared to matched normal tissue. We report that overexpression of EB1 in the ESCC line EC9706 significantly promotes cell growth, whereas suppression of EB1 protein level by RNA interference significantly inhibited growth of esophageal tumor cells. In addition, EB1 overexpression induced nuclear accumulation of β-catenin and promoted the transcriptional activity of β-catenin/T-cell factor (TCF). These effects were partially or completely abolished by coexpression of APC or ΔN TCF4, respectively. Also, we found that EB1 affected the interaction between β-catenin and APC. Furthermore, EB1 overexpression was correlated with cytoplasmic/nuclear accumulation of β-catenin in primary human ESCC. Taken together, these results support the novel hypothesis that EB1 overexpression may play a role in the development of ESCC by affecting APC function and activating the β-catenin/TCF pathway

The roles of APOBEC3G complexes in the incorporation of APOBEC3G into HIV-1.

The incorporation of human APOBEC3G (hA3G) into HIV is required for exerting its antiviral activity, therefore the mechanism underlying hA3G virion encapsidation has been investigated extensively. hA3G was shown to form low-molecular-mass (LMM) and high-molecular-mass (HMM) complexes. The function of different forms of hA3G in its viral incorporation remains unclear.In this study, we investigated the subcellular distribution and lipid raft association of hA3G using subcellular fractionation, membrane floatation assay and pulse-chase radiolabeling experiments respectively, and studied the correlation between the ability of hA3G to form the different complex and its viral incorporation. Our work herein provides evidence that the majority of newly-synthesized hA3G interacts with membrane lipid raft domains to form Lipid raft-associated hA3G (RA hA3G), which serve as the precursor of mature HMM hA3G complex, while a minority of newly-synthesized hA3G remains in the cytoplasm as a soluble LMM form. The distribution of hA3G among the soluble LMM form, the RA LMM form and the mature forms of HMM is regulated by a mechanism involving the N-terminal part of the linker region and the C-terminus of hA3G. Mutagenesis studies reveal a direct correlation between the ability of hA3G to form the RA LMM complex and its viral incorporation.Together these data suggest that the Lipid raft-associated LMM A3G complex functions as the cellular source of viral hA3G