A Schnyder-type drawing algorithm for 5-connected triangulations

We define some Schnyder-type combinatorial structures on a class of planar triangulations of the pentagon which are closely related to 5-connected triangulations. The combinatorial structures have three incarnations defined in terms of orientations, corner-labelings, and woods respectively. The wood incarnation consists in 5 spanning trees crossing each other in an orderly fashion. Similarly as for Schnyder woods on triangulations, it induces, for each vertex, a partition of the inner triangles into face-connected regions (5~regions here). We show that the induced barycentric vertex-placement, where each vertex is at the barycenter of the 5 outer vertices with weights given by the number of faces in each region, yields a planar straight-line drawing.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 31st International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2023

Explore and Tell: Embodied Visual Captioning in 3D Environments

While current visual captioning models have achieved impressive performance, they often assume that the image is well-captured and provides a complete view of the scene. In real-world scenarios, however, a single image may not offer a good viewpoint, hindering fine-grained scene understanding. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel task called Embodied Captioning, which equips visual captioning models with navigation capabilities, enabling them to actively explore the scene and reduce visual ambiguity from suboptimal viewpoints. Specifically, starting at a random viewpoint, an agent must navigate the environment to gather information from different viewpoints and generate a comprehensive paragraph describing all objects in the scene. To support this task, we build the ET-Cap dataset with Kubric simulator, consisting of 10K 3D scenes with cluttered objects and three annotated paragraphs per scene. We propose a Cascade Embodied Captioning model (CaBOT), which comprises of a navigator and a captioner, to tackle this task. The navigator predicts which actions to take in the environment, while the captioner generates a paragraph description based on the whole navigation trajectory. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our model outperforms other carefully designed baselines. Our dataset, codes and models are available at https://aim3-ruc.github.io/ExploreAndTell.Comment: 12 pages; 10 figures; ICCV 202

UniTime: A Language-Empowered Unified Model for Cross-Domain Time Series Forecasting

Multivariate time series forecasting plays a pivotal role in contemporary web technologies. In contrast to conventional methods that involve creating dedicated models for specific time series application domains, this research advocates for a unified model paradigm that transcends domain boundaries. However, learning an effective cross-domain model presents the following challenges. First, various domains exhibit disparities in data characteristics, e.g., the number of variables, posing hurdles for existing models that impose inflexible constraints on these factors. Second, the model may encounter difficulties in distinguishing data from various domains, leading to suboptimal performance in our assessments. Third, the diverse convergence rates of time series domains can also result in compromised empirical performance. To address these issues, we propose UniTime for effective cross-domain time series learning. Concretely, UniTime can flexibly adapt to data with varying characteristics. It also uses domain instructions and a Language-TS Transformer to offer identification information and align two modalities. In addition, UniTime employs masking to alleviate domain convergence speed imbalance issues. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of UniTime in advancing state-of-the-art forecasting performance and zero-shot transferability

A Schnyder-Type Drawing Algorithm for 5-Connected Triangulations

International audienceWe define some Schnyder-type combinatorial structures on a class of planar triangulations of the pentagon which are closely related to 5-connected triangulations. The combinatorial structures have three incarnations defined in terms of orientations, corner-labelings, and woods respectively. The wood incarnation consists in 5 spanning trees crossing each other in an orderly fashion. Similarly as for Schnyder woods on triangulations, it induces, for each vertex, a partition of the inner triangles into face-connected regions (5 regions here). We show that the induced barycentric vertex-placement, where each vertex is at the barycenter of the 5 outer vertices with weights given by the number of faces in each region, yields a planar straight-line drawing

Grand Schnyder Woods

We define a far-reaching generalization of Schnyder woods which encompasses many classical combinatorial structures on planar graphs.Schnyder woods are defined for planar triangulations as certain triples of spanning trees covering the triangulation and crossing each other in an orderly fashion. They are of theoretical and practical importance, as they are central to the proof that the order dimension of any planar graph is at most 3, and they are also underlying an elegant drawing algorithm.In this article we extend the concept of Schnyder wood well beyond its original setting: for any integer $d$ we define a ``grand-Schnyder'' structure for (embedded) planar graphs which have faces of degree at most $d$ and non-facial cycles of length at least $d$. We prove the existence of grand-Schnyder structures, provide a linear construction algorithm, describe 4 different incarnations (in terms of tuples of trees, corner labelings, weighted orientations, and marked orientations), and define a lattice for the set of grand Schnyder structures of a given planar graph. We show that the grand-Schnyder framework unifies and extends several classical constructions: Schnyder woods and Schnyder decompositions, regular edge-labelings (a.k.a. transversal structures), and Felsner woods

InfoMetIC: An Informative Metric for Reference-free Image Caption Evaluation

Automatic image captioning evaluation is critical for benchmarking and promoting advances in image captioning research. Existing metrics only provide a single score to measure caption qualities, which are less explainable and informative. Instead, we humans can easily identify the problems of captions in details, e.g., which words are inaccurate and which salient objects are not described, and then rate the caption quality. To support such informative feedback, we propose an Informative Metric for Reference-free Image Caption evaluation (InfoMetIC). Given an image and a caption, InfoMetIC is able to report incorrect words and unmentioned image regions at fine-grained level, and also provide a text precision score, a vision recall score and an overall quality score at coarse-grained level. The coarse-grained score of InfoMetIC achieves significantly better correlation with human judgements than existing metrics on multiple benchmarks. We also construct a token-level evaluation dataset and demonstrate the effectiveness of InfoMetIC in fine-grained evaluation. Our code and datasets are publicly available at https://github.com/HAWLYQ/InfoMetIC.Comment: Accepted by ACL 2023 main conferenc

Cracking Potential of Alkali-Activated Concrete Induced by Autogenous Shrinkage

Alkali activated concrete (AAC) has not received broader industry acceptance, one reason of which lies in the uncertainties in the durability against shrinkage and potential cracking. Many studies reported that AAC exhibit larger autogenous shrinkage than OPC concrete. However, it is unable to deduce that AAC should show higher cracking potential than OPC concrete only based on the higher autogenous shrinkage of AAC. The cracking potential of concrete is determined by multiple factors including autogenous shrinkage, creep/relaxation, elastic modulus, and tensile properties of the concrete. However, very few studies have considered these parameters. Furthermore, the influence of precursors (e.g. slag or fly ash) on the cracking potential of AAC induced by autogenous shrinkage is also rarely studied. The aim of this study, therefore, is to investigate the autogenous shrinkage-induced cracking potential of slag and fly ash-based AAC. The free autogenous shrinkage of the specimens is measured by Autogenous Deformation Testing Machine (ADTM). The autogenous shrinkage-induced stress and cracking of the concrete under restraint condition is tracked by Thermal Stress Testing Machine (TSTM). Additionally, the influence of precursors on the autogenous shrinkage induced cracking potential is discussed.Accepted Author ManuscriptMaterials and Environmen

Internal curing of alkali-activated slag-fly ash paste with superabsorbent polymers

This study investigates the influences of internal curing on reducing the autogenous shrinkage of alkaliactivated slag/fly ash (AASF) paste. The influences of internal curing with superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) on the reactions and microstructure of AASF paste are investigated. It is found that the SAPs absorb liquid mainly before the initial setting time of the paste. Afterwards, the liquid is gradually released, keeping the internal relative humidity of the paste close to 100%. The internal curing with SAPs can significantly mitigate the autogenous shrinkage of AASF paste, especially after the acceleration period of the reaction. The mitigating effect of internal curing is due to the mitigated self-desiccation in the paste, rather than the formation of a denser microstructure or expansive crystals. The cracking potential of AASF under restrained condition is also greatly mitigated by internal curing. Despite the slight reductions in the elastic modulus and the compressive strength, great improvement is obverted in the flexural strength of the paste. This work confirms the effectiveness of internal curing of AASF with SAPs and further provides a promising way to reduce the autogenous shrinkage of AASF without compromising its mechanical properties.Zhenming Li and Xuhui Liang would like to acknowledge the funding supported by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) under grant No. 201506120072 and No. 201806050051. This work is supported also by the grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). José Granja and Miguel Azenha would like to acknowledge Por tuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) to fund the Research Project IntegraCrete (PTDC/ECM-EST/1056/2014 - POCI 01-0145-FEDER-016841). The grant UID/ECI/04029/2019 - ISISE, funded by national funds through the FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) is also acknowledged

Effects of Ankle Orthoses, Taping, and Insoles on Postural Stability of Individuals with Chronic Ankle Instability: A Systematic Review

Chronic ankle instability (CAI) is a prevalent condition characterized by recurring instances of the ankle giving way and persistent symptoms, including pain and diminished function. Foot and ankle external supports are commonly used in clinical practice and research for treating CAI. This systematic review aimed to assess the effects of foot and ankle external supports on the postural stability of individuals with CAI to guide clinical practice and inform future research. A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases from 1 January 2012 to 1 November 2022. Eighteen studies involving individuals with CAI were chosen in this systematic review. The quality of the included studies and risk of bias were assessed using Cochrane Collaboration’s tool for randomized controlled trials, the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale for case–control studies, and the DELPHl-list for crossover trial studies. The external supports included in this review were ankle orthoses (elastic, semi-rigid, and active orthoses), taping (kinesiotaping and fibular reposition taping), and insoles (textured and supportive insoles). The outcome measures included static and dynamic postural stability tests, such as the single-leg stance test, star excursion balance test, Y-balance test, single-leg landing test, lateral jump test, walking test, and running test. The results showed that elastic orthoses, Kinesiotaping, and textured insoles demonstrated potential benefits in improving postural stability in individuals with CAI. Elastic orthoses decreased ankle joint motion variability, kinesiotaping facilitated cutaneous receptors and proprioceptive feedback, while textured insoles increased tactile stimulation and foot position awareness. However, the effects of semi-rigid orthoses, fibular reposition taping, and arch support insoles were inconsistent across studies. Future research should explore the long-term effects of these external supports, analyze the effects of different characteristics and combinations of supports, and employ standardized outcome measures and testing protocols for assessing postural stability