3,390 research outputs found
Deep Thermal Imaging: Proximate Material Type Recognition in the Wild through Deep Learning of Spatial Surface Temperature Patterns
We introduce Deep Thermal Imaging, a new approach for close-range automatic
recognition of materials to enhance the understanding of people and ubiquitous
technologies of their proximal environment. Our approach uses a low-cost mobile
thermal camera integrated into a smartphone to capture thermal textures. A deep
neural network classifies these textures into material types. This approach
works effectively without the need for ambient light sources or direct contact
with materials. Furthermore, the use of a deep learning network removes the
need to handcraft the set of features for different materials. We evaluated the
performance of the system by training it to recognise 32 material types in both
indoor and outdoor environments. Our approach produced recognition accuracies
above 98% in 14,860 images of 15 indoor materials and above 89% in 26,584
images of 17 outdoor materials. We conclude by discussing its potentials for
real-time use in HCI applications and future directions.Comment: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing
System
Fronto-cerebellar connectivity mediating cognitive processing speed
Processing speed is an important construct in understanding cognition. This study was aimed to control task specificity for understanding the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive processing speed. Forty young adult subjects performed attention tasks of two modalities (auditory and visual) and two levels of task rules (compatible and incompatible). Block-design fMRI captured BOLD signals during the tasks. Thirteen regions of interest were defined with reference to publicly available activation maps for processing speed tasks. Cognitive speed was derived from task reaction times, which yielded six sets of connectivity measures. Mixed-effect LASSO regression revealed six significant paths suggestive of a cerebello-frontal network predicting the cognitive speed. Among them, three are long range (two fronto-cerebellar, one cerebello-frontal), and three are short range (fronto-frontal, cerebello-cerebellar, and cerebello-thalamic). The long-range connections are likely to relate to cognitive control, and the short-range connections relate to rule-based stimulus-response processes. The revealed neural network suggests that automaticity, acting on the task rules and interplaying with effortful top-down attentional control, accounts for cognitive speed
The long journey from the giant-monopole resonance to the nuclear-matter incompressibility
Differences in the density dependence of the symmetry energy predicted by
nonrelativistic and relativistic models are suggested, at least in part, as the
culprit for the discrepancy in the values of the compression modulus of
symmetric nuclear matter extracted from the energy of the giant monopole
resonance in 208Pb. ``Best-fit'' relativistic models, with stiffer symmetry
energies than Skyrme interactions, consistently predict higher compression
moduli than nonrelativistic approaches. Relativistic models with compression
moduli in the physically acceptable range of K=200-300 MeV are used to compute
the distribution of isoscalar monopole strength in 208Pb. When the symmetry
energy is artificially softened in one of these models, in an attempt to
simulate the symmetry energy of Skyrme interactions, a lower value for the
compression modulus is indeed obtained. It is concluded that the proposed
measurement of the neutron skin in 208Pb, aimed at constraining the density
dependence of the symmetry energy and recently correlated to the structure of
neutron stars, will also become instrumental in the determination of the
compression modulus of nuclear matter.Comment: 9 pages with 2 (eps) figure
Direct observation of active material concentration gradients and crystallinity breakdown in LiFePO4 electrodes during charge/discharge cycling of lithium batteries
The phase changes that occur during discharge of an electrode comprised of LiFePO4, carbon, and PTFE binder have been studied in lithium half cells by using X-ray diffraction measurements in reflection geometry. Differences in the state of charge between the front and the back of LiFePO4 electrodes have been visualized. By modifying the X-ray incident angle the depth of penetration of the X-ray beam into the electrode was altered, allowing for the examination of any concentration gradients that were present within the electrode. At high rates of discharge the electrode side facing the current collector underwent limited lithium insertion while the electrode as a whole underwent greater than 50% of discharge. This behavior is consistent with depletion at high rate of the lithium content of the electrolyte contained in the electrode pores. Increases in the diffraction peak widths indicated a breakdown of crystallinity within the active material during cycling even during the relatively short duration of these experiments, which can also be linked to cycling at high rate
Development of a food composition database for assessing nitrate and nitrite intake from animal-based foods
Scope:
Nitrate and nitrite are approved food additives in some animal-based food products. However, nitrate and nitrite in foods are strictly regulated due to health concerns over methaemoglobinaemia and the potential formation of carcinogenic nitrosamines. In contrast, plants (like leafy vegetables) naturally accumulate nitrate ions; a growing body of research reveals beneficial metabolic effects of nitrate via its endogenous conversion to nitric oxide. To refine the association of dietary nitrate and nitrite intake with health outcomes, reliable measures of nitrate and nitrite intake from dietary food records are required. While a vegetable nitrate content database has been developed, there is a need for a comprehensive up-to-date nitrate and nitrite content database of animal-based foods.
Methods and Results:
A systematic literature search (1980–September 2020) on the nitrate and nitrite content of animal-based foods is carried out. Nitrate and nitrite concentration data and other relevant information are extracted and compiled into a database. The database contains 1921 entries for nitrate and 2077 for nitrite, extracted from 193 publications. The highest median nitrate content is observed in chorizo (median [IQR]; 101.61 [60.05–105.93] mg kg-1). Canned fish products have the highest median nitrite level (median [IQR]; 20.32 [6.16–30.16] mg kg-1). By subgroup, the median nitrate value in industrial processed meat products (e.g., uncured burger, patties and sausages), whole milk powder and in particular red meat are higher than cured meat products. Processed meat products from high-income regions have lower median nitrate and nitrite content than those of middle-income regions.
Conclusion:
This database can now be used to investigate the associations between nitrate and nitrite dietary intake and health outcomes in clinical trials and observational studies
Effects of anharmonic strain on phase stability of epitaxial films and superlattices: applications to noble metals
Epitaxial strain energies of epitaxial films and bulk superlattices are
studied via first-principles total energy calculations using the local-density
approximation. Anharmonic effects due to large lattice mismatch, beyond the
reach of the harmonic elasticity theory, are found to be very important in
Cu/Au (lattice mismatch 12%), Cu/Ag (12%) and Ni/Au (15%). We find that
is the elastically soft direction for biaxial expansion of Cu and Ni, but it is
for large biaxial compression of Cu, Ag, and Au. The stability of
superlattices is discussed in terms of the coherency strain and interfacial
energies. We find that in phase-separating systems such as Cu-Ag the
superlattice formation energies decrease with superlattice period, and the
interfacial energy is positive. Superlattices are formed easiest on (001) and
hardest on (111) substrates. For ordering systems, such as Cu-Au and Ag-Au, the
formation energy of superlattices increases with period, and interfacial
energies are negative. These superlattices are formed easiest on (001) or (110)
and hardest on (111) substrates. For Ni-Au we find a hybrid behavior:
superlattices along and like in phase-separating systems, while for
they behave like in ordering systems. Finally, recent experimental
results on epitaxial stabilization of disordered Ni-Au and Cu-Ag alloys,
immiscible in the bulk form, are explained in terms of destabilization of the
phase separated state due to lattice mismatch between the substrate and
constituents.Comment: RevTeX galley format, 16 pages, includes 9 EPS figures, to appear in
Physical Review
Relationship of dietary nitrate intake from vegetables with cardiovascular disease mortality: a prospective study in a cohort of older Australians
Purpose Short-term trials indicate inorganic nitrate and nitrate-rich vegetables may have vascular health benefits. However, few observational studies have explored the relationship between nitrate intake and long-term cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the association of nitrate intake from vegetables with CVD mortality in a sample of older Australians. Methods A subgroup of participants without diabetes or major CVD at baseline (1992–1994) were included from the Blue Mountains Eye Study, a population-based cohort study of men and women aged ≥ 49 years. Diets were evaluated using a validated food frequency questionnaire at baseline, 5 years and 10 years of follow-up. Vegetable nitrate intake was estimated using a comprehensive vegetable nitrate database. Cox proportional hazard regression was used to explore the association between vegetable nitrate intake and CVD mortality. Results During 14 years of follow-up, 188/2229 (8.4%) participants died from CVD. In multivariable-adjusted analysis, participants in quartile 2 [69.5–99.6 mg/day; HR 0.53 (95% CI 0.35, 0.82)], quartile 3 [99.7–137.8 mg/day; HR 0.51 (95% CI 0.32, 0.80)], and quartile 4 [\u3e 137.8 mg/day; HR 0.63 (95% CI 0.41, 0.95)] of vegetable nitrate intake had lower hazards for CVD mortality compared to participants in quartile 1 (\u3c 69.5 mg/day). Conclusions In older Australian men and women, vegetable nitrate intake was inversely associated with CVD mortality, independent of lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors. These findings confirm a recent report that intake of vegetable nitrate lowers the risk of CVD mortality in older women and extend these findings to older men
On Time-dependent Backgrounds in Supergravity and String Theory
Time-dependent solutions of supergravity and string theory are studied. The
examples are obtained from de Sitter deformation of gauge/gravity dualities,
analytical continuation of static solutions, and ``exactly solvable''
worldsheet models. Among other things, it is shown that turning on a Hubble
parameter in the background of a confining gauge theory in four dimensions can
restore chiral symmetry. Some of the solutions obtained from analytical
continuation have the interpretation of a universe with a bounce separating a
big bang from a big crunch singularity. In the worldsheet context, it is argued
why string propagation close to a Milne-type cosmological singularity might be
physically non-singular.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figure, v2: refs adde
BAs and boride III-V alloys
Boron arsenide, the typically-ignored member of the III-V arsenide series
BAs-AlAs-GaAs-InAs is found to resemble silicon electronically: its Gamma
conduction band minimum is p-like (Gamma_15), not s-like (Gamma_1c), it has an
X_1c-like indirect band gap, and its bond charge is distributed almost equally
on the two atoms in the unit cell, exhibiting nearly perfect covalency. The
reasons for these are tracked down to the anomalously low atomic p orbital
energy in the boron and to the unusually strong s-s repulsion in BAs relative
to most other III-V compounds. We find unexpected valence band offsets of BAs
with respect to GaAs and AlAs. The valence band maximum (VBM) of BAs is
significantly higher than that of AlAs, despite the much smaller bond length of
BAs, and the VBM of GaAs is only slightly higher than in BAs. These effects
result from the unusually strong mixing of the cation and anion states at the
VBM. For the BAs-GaAs alloys, we find (i) a relatively small (~3.5 eV) and
composition-independent band gap bowing. This means that while addition of
small amounts of nitrogen to GaAs lowers the gap, addition of small amounts of
boron to GaAs raises the gap (ii) boron ``semi-localized'' states in the
conduction band (similar to those in GaN-GaAs alloys), and (iii) bulk mixing
enthalpies which are smaller than in GaN-GaAs alloys. The unique features of
boride III-V alloys offer new opportunities in band gap engineering.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables, 61 references. Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev. B. Scheduled to appear Oct. 15 200
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