DPL: Decoupled Prompt Learning for Vision-Language Models

Prompt learning has emerged as an efficient and effective approach for transferring foundational Vision-Language Models (e.g., CLIP) to downstream tasks. However, current methods tend to overfit to seen categories, thereby limiting their generalization ability for unseen classes. In this paper, we propose a new method, Decoupled Prompt Learning (DPL), which reformulates the attention in prompt learning to alleviate this problem. Specifically, we theoretically investigate the collaborative process between prompts and instances (i.e., image patches/text tokens) by reformulating the original self-attention into four separate sub-processes. Through detailed analysis, we observe that certain sub-processes can be strengthened to bolster robustness and generalizability by some approximation techniques. Furthermore, we introduce language-conditioned textual prompting based on decoupled attention to naturally preserve the generalization of text input. Our approach is flexible for both visual and textual modalities, making it easily extendable to multi-modal prompt learning. By combining the proposed techniques, our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on three representative benchmarks encompassing 15 image recognition datasets, while maintaining parameter-efficient. Moreover, our DPL does not rely on any auxiliary regularization task or extra training data, further demonstrating its remarkable generalization ability.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 8 table

A vulnerability assessment of urban emergency in schools of Shanghai

Schools and students are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards, especially pluvial flooding in cities. This paper presents a scenario-based study that assesses the school vulnerability of emergency services (i.e., Emergency Medical Service and Fire & Rescue Service) to urban pluvial flooding in the city center of Shanghai, China through the combination of flood hazard analysis and GIS-based accessibility mapping. Emergency coverages and response times in various traffic conditions are quantified to generate school vulnerability under normal no-flood and 100-y pluvial flood scenarios. The findings indicate that severe pluvial flooding could lead to proportionate and linear impacts on emergency response provision to schools in the city. Only 11% of all the schools is predicted to be completely unreachable (very high vulnerability) during flood emergency but the majority of the schools would experience significant delay in the travel times of emergency responses. In this case, appropriate adaptations need to be particularly targeted for specific hot-spot areas (e.g., new urbanized zones) and crunch times (e.g., rush hours)

Erratum: Effect of Porosity and Crystallinity on 3D Printed PLA Properties. Polymers 2019, 11, 1487

The authors wish to make a change to the published paper [1]. In the original manuscript, there are mistakes on the scale bar of Figures 2 and 3. The unit of the scale bar should be “μm”, not “nm”. The corrected Figures 2 and 3 are presented below

Fenofibrate suppresses corneal neovascularization by regulating lipid metabolism through PPARα signaling pathway

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the potential underlying mechanism of anti-vascular effects of peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor α (PPARα) agonist fenofibrate against corneal neovascularization (CNV) through the changes of lipid metabolism during CNV.Methods: A suture-induced CNV model was established and the clinical indications were evaluated from day 1 to day 7. Treatments of vehicle and fenofibrate were performed for 5 days after suture and the CNV areas were compared among the groups. The eyeballs were collected for histological analysis, malondialdehyde (MDA) measurement, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase 2′-deoxyuridine 5′-triphosphate nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining, western blot, quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) assays and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining to elucidate pathological changes and the underlying mechanism.Results: Lipi-Green staining and MDA measurement showed that lipid deposition and peroxidation were increased in the CNV cornea while the expression of long-chain acyl-coenzyme A synthetase 1 (ACSL1), carnitine palmitoyltransterase 1A(CPT1A) and medium-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase (ACADM), which are key enzymes of fatty acid β-oxidation (FAO) and targeted genes of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) pathway, were decreased in CNV cornea. Fenofibrate suppressed lipid accumulation and peroxidation damage in the CNV cornea. Fenofibrate upregulated the expression levels of PPARα, ACSL1, CPT1A, and ACADM compared with vehicle group. IHC staining indicated that fenofibrate also decreased the expression of VEGFa, VEGFc, TNFα, IL1β and CD68.Conclusion: Disorder of lipid metabolism may be involved in the formation of suture-induced CNV and fenofibrate played anti-neovascularization and anti-inflammatory roles on cornea by regulating the key enzymes of lipid metabolism and ameliorating lipid peroxidation damage of cornea through PPARα signaling pathway

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Thermal and Nano-Additive Based Approaches to Modify Porosity, Crystallinity, and Orientation of 3D-Printed Polylactic Acid

Additive manufacturing (AM) has evolved as a convenient technology for rapid fabrication of prototype tooling and complex geometry components. Among all AM techniques, FFF is the most widely used for making polymeric structures. However, the process consistency and control of properties in the manufactured articles remains a challenging issue. The current study aims to investigate physical changes in polylactic acid (PLA) during 3D printing. The correlations between porosity, crystallinity and mechanical properties of the printed parts were studied. Moreover, the effects of bed-plate temperature were investigated. Experimental results confirmed the anisotropy of printed objects due to the occurrence of orientation phenomena during filament deposition and the formation both of ordered and disordered crystalline structures (α and δ, respectively). A post-3D printing heat treatment cycle was demonstrated as an effective method to improve mechanical properties by optimizing the crystallinity (transforming the α form into the δ form) and overcoming the anisotropy of the 3D printed object. The second approach to enhance the physical and chemical properties of neat PLA is by using nano-additives such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon black (CB). As the concentration of carbon nanotubes increased the mechanical and electrical properties were improved even with low volume ratio of CNTs. In molten polymer and under shear force CNTs tended to align parallel to the shear direction leading to significant increase in electrical properties in the direction of alignment. Also, a change in the enthalpy of cold crystallization was observed. The enthalpy of cold crystallization of PLA/CNT samples was lower than pure PLA because of a change in the type of crystallites formed during cold crystallization. The presence of carbon nanotubes reduced the crystallization domain leading to the formation of unstable crystalline phase δ, which was remarkably disordered compared to that of the regular α form. The increase in the rigidity of the material was attributed to the presence of CNTs restricting the mobility of the PLA chain mobility in the amorphous phase. A process model was developed to simulate the extrusion of the nanotube loaded polymer and the resulting electrical conductivity property; this brought new perspectives because it highlighted the role of shear force in the alignment of CNTs. The experimental and numerical simulation data were in excellent agreement. This study introduces, for the first time, the influence of semi-crystalline polymer crystals on the performance of products in 3D printing. It has inspired further research efforts in this field. The use of nano-carbon additives for modifying PLA to enhance its electrical and mechanical properties also alters its crystalline structure. Subsequent work mainly focuses on obtaining better thermodynamic properties, such as improved thermal conductivity and heat dissipation, as well as thermal shock resistance, while ensuring the mechanical and electrical performance of the material using additives

Optimization of Warehouse Picking Based on TSP

Modern warehouse management has entered the era of information intelligence, which requires the establishment of a set of accurate, reasonable and efficient warehouse management methods, to improve the efficiency of workers. In this paper, a series of TSP (Traveling salesman problem) algorithms are used to further optimize the process efficiency of goods removal from the warehouse. Based on Freudian algorithm, the distance problem between cargo grid and recheck station was solved in the first problem. Founded on the genetic algorithm in TSP, specific application problems were solved in two, three and four questions. For problem 1, by observing the relation between the coordinates given and the actual route, all the coordinates of cargo grid were divided into two kinds: odd and even columns, and the two kinds of coordinates were processed, respectively. After coordinate processing, the distance matrix between each lattice can be obtained by using Freudian algorithm. At the same time, due to the small number of recheck stations and their regular distribution, the distance matrix between each recheck station and each cargo grid can be obtained by manually classifying the coordinates of the recheck stations and applying Freud algorithm again. Output all the matrices in the same EXCEL table, the distance matrix between the 3013 elements can be obtained. (See Appendix 1 for the distance matrix and Appendix 1 for the algorithm). For problem 2, this problem is a unidirectional TSP problem by macro analysis. Firstly, the distance matrix of the required point was called from the solution of problem 1, which was imported into LINGO program to establish 0-1 decision variables, and the objective function is established to solve according to the principles of single-direction connection and loop-breaking, to obtain the connection sequence and loop distance. Select the cargo lattice back to the initial recheck station and connect it with the nearest recheck station, to complete the task of breaking the ring, solving the connection sequence and the total distance length. The outbound time can be divided into three parts: (1) journey time; (2) Pick up time; (3) Packing time, group calculation, sum can get the result. The total distance is 382.5m (about 1254.92 ft) and the total minimum time is 462 seconds (about 7 and a half minutes). For problem 3, distance matrix of the required point was called from the solution of problem 1, and imported into LINGO program, afterwards, 0-1 decision variable and objective function were established according to the principles of single-direction connection and loop-breaking to solve, and then the connection sequence and loop distance was obtained. Select the cargo lattice back to the initial recheck station and connect it with the nearest recheck station, to complete the task of breaking the ring, solving the connection sequence and the total distance length. Compared with Question 2, Question 3 specifies the available recheck station and the total time needed to complete the shipment. During the calculation of each task order, it was classified and discussed (double-starting point operation), and the overall optimization was carried out according to the starting point and end point of each task order, and the total shortest time was 2288.6 seconds (about 38 minutes) (See the attachment for the results of this question). For question 4, queuing theory is needed. To reduce the total outbound time, it is necessary to give priority to orders with abbreviated time. Firstly, the shortest outbound time of 49 task orders should be calculated, and the time should be arranged in order from short to long. After that, according to the order of the task list, nine pickers pick goods in a certain order. Hence, a variable should be introduced to preserve the status of the recheck table and the remaining time currently occupied

Modelling the factors that affect medical students’ occupational identity in long COVID: an integrated perspective of motivation, opportunity and ability

Abstract The medical workforce plays a critical role in building resilience in the medical system and society to respond to long COVID. The threat of career pressure and the proliferation of social media disinformation have combined to reduce medical workers’ occupational identity, triggering a wave of medical staff resignations all over the world. There is an urgent need to investigate the development of medical students’ occupational identity. Based on characteristics of medical students, this study builds on the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability (MOA) framework and develops a comprehensive theoretical model to illustrate the predictors of medical students’ occupational identity to find ways to stabilize the subsequent medical workforce pool. The results show that medical students’ occupational identity is affected by motivation, opportunity and ability factors. The results call for improving motivation cultivation and practice environment. The newly discovered role of media exposure not only provides a new way to enhance occupational identity, but also contributes to the follow-up exploration of the relationship between media environment and occupational identity

A mediation analysis of the role of total free fatty acids on pertinence of gut microbiota composition and cognitive function in late life depression

Abstract Background Extensive evidence demonstrates correlations among gut microbiota, lipid metabolism and cognitive function. However, there is still a lack of researches in the field of late-life depression (LLD). This research targeted at investigating the relationship among gut microbiota, lipid metabolism indexes, such as total free fatty acids (FFAs), and cognitive functions in LLD. Methods Twenty-nine LLD patients from the Cognitive Outcome Cohort Study of Depression in Elderly were included. Cognitive functions were estimated through the Chinese version of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). Blood samples were collected to evaluate serum lipid metabolism parameters. Fecal samples were evaluated for gut microbiota determination via 16S rRNA sequencing. Spearman correlation, linear regression and mediation analysis were utilized to explore relationship among gut microbiota, lipid metabolism and cognitive function in LLD patients. Results Spearman correlation analysis revealed significant correlations among Akkermansia abundance, total Free Fatty Acids (FFAs) and MoCA scores (P < 0.05). Multiple regression indicated Akkermansia and total FFAs significantly predicted MoCA scores (P < 0.05). Mediation analysis demonstrated that the correlation between decreased Akkermansia relative abundance and cognitive decline in LLD patients was partially mediated by total FFAs (Bootstrap 95%CI: 0.023–0.557), accounting for 43.0% of the relative effect. Conclusion These findings suggested a significant relationship between cognitive functions in LLD and Akkermansia, as well as total FFAs. Total FFAs partially mediated the relationship between Akkermansia and cognitive functions. These results contributed to understanding the gut microbial-host lipid metabolism axis in the cognitive function of LLD