TextANIMAR: Text-based 3D Animal Fine-Grained Retrieval

3D object retrieval is an important yet challenging task, which has drawn more and more attention in recent years. While existing approaches have made strides in addressing this issue, they are often limited to restricted settings such as image and sketch queries, which are often unfriendly interactions for common users. In order to overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel SHREC challenge track focusing on text-based fine-grained retrieval of 3D animal models. Unlike previous SHREC challenge tracks, the proposed task is considerably more challenging, requiring participants to develop innovative approaches to tackle the problem of text-based retrieval. Despite the increased difficulty, we believe that this task has the potential to drive useful applications in practice and facilitate more intuitive interactions with 3D objects. Five groups participated in our competition, submitting a total of 114 runs. While the results obtained in our competition are satisfactory, we note that the challenges presented by this task are far from being fully solved. As such, we provide insights into potential areas for future research and improvements. We believe that we can help push the boundaries of 3D object retrieval and facilitate more user-friendly interactions via vision-language technologies.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2304.0573

A new species of Megophrys (Amphibia: Anura: Megophryidae) from Vietnam

Nguyen, Truong Quang, Pham, Cuong The, Nguyen, Tao Thien, Luong, Anh Mai, Ziegler, Thomas (2020): A new species of Megophrys (Amphibia: Anura: Megophryidae) from Vietnam. Zootaxa 4722 (5): 401-422, DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4722.5.

Tendon-Driven Gripper with Variable Stiffness Joint and Water-Cooled SMA Springs

In recent years, there has been an increase in the development of medical robots to enhance interventional MRI-guided therapies and operations. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) surgical robots are particularly attractive due to their ability to provide excellent soft-tissue contrast during these procedures. This paper describes a novel design for a tendon-driven gripper that utilizes four shape memory alloy (SMA) spring actuators and variable stiffness joints controlled by SMA coils for use in MRI surgical robot applications. The contact force of the gripper link is determined by the mechanical properties of the SMA spring actuators (SSA) and the angle of each linkage, and the joint stiffness can be adjusted by varying the electrical current applied to the SMA coil. To enhance the efficiency of the SSAs, a new cooling system using water has been proposed and implemented. To validate the effectiveness of our proposed gripper, we conducted three types of experiments, namely, a single SSA experiment, a single SMA coil experiment, and a whole gripper experiment. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed water-cooling system can effectively solve temperature issues of SMA, and the joint stiffness in the austenite state is higher than that in the martensite state. Moreover, our experiments show that the presented gripper is capable of grasping and holding objects of various shapes and weights

A new species of Xenophrys (Amphibia: Anura: Megophryidae) from Truong Son Range, Vietnam

Luong, Anh Mai, Hoang, Chung Van, Pham, Cuong The, Nguyen, Tao Thien, Orlov, Nikolai, Ziegler, Thomas, Nguyen, Truong Quang (2022): A new species of Xenophrys (Amphibia: Anura: Megophryidae) from Truong Son Range, Vietnam. Zootaxa 5150 (3): 333-356, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5150.3.

Investigation on the Microscopic/Macroscopic Mechanical Properties of a Thermally Annealed Nafion^® Membrane

The Nafion® electrolyte membrane, which provides a proton pathway, is an essential element in fuel cell systems. Thermal treatment without additional additives is widely used to modify the mechanical properties of the membrane, to construct reliable and durable electrolyte membranes in the fuel cell. We measured the microscopic mechanical properties of thermally annealed membranes using atomic force microscopy with the two-point method. Furthermore, the macroscopic property was investigated through tensile tests. The microscopic modulus exceeded the macroscopic modulus over all annealing temperature ranges. Additionally, the measured microscopic modulus increased rapidly near 150 °C and was saturated over that temperature, whereas the macroscopic modulus continuously increased until 250 °C. This mismatched micro/macroscopic reinforcement trend indicates that the internal reinforcement of the clusters is induced first until 150 °C. In contrast, the reinforcement among the clusters, which requires more thermal energy, probably progresses even at a temperature of 250 °C. The results showed that the annealing process is effective for the surface smoothing and leveling of the Nafion® membrane until 200 °C

Importance of Mangroves for Bat Research and Conservation: A Case Study from Vietnam with Notes on Echolocation of Myotis hasselti

Mangrove ecosystems play important ecological roles, including the mitigation of global climate change and biodiversity conservation. However, they have received little attention from scientists for the research and conservation of bats and general biodiversity. In Vietnam, bat species inhabiting mangroves have been relatively unstudied, while this ecosystem is located along the country’s coastal zones and has declined dramatically due to the development of agriculture, wind energy and other threats. To initially fill this gap, five bat surveys were conducted between September 2019 and November 2021 within Ha Long Bay and Ben Tre province, which contain representative mangrove areas of northern and southern regions of Vietnam, respectively. Bats were captured using mist nets, mobile nets and hand nets. Their echolocation calls were recorded and analyzed using the PCTape system and Selena software, respectively. Five species were captured and recorded: Cynopterus brachyotis, Macroglossus minimus, Myotis hasselti, Myotis pilosus and Taphozous melanopogon. They are all new to both Ha Long Bay and Ben Tre province. Four species (C. brachyotis, M. minimus, M. hasselti and M. pilosus) have been rarely documented from other ecosystems in Vietnam but have commonly been recorded and captured in mangrove areas. Of these species, M. pilosus is a globally “Vulnerable” species. While searching for prey, Myotis hasselti emitted high energy echolocation calls sweeping from about 96 to about 24 kHz with a signal duration of about 5 ms. This species sometimes uses social calls of a horseshoe-shaped structure, which last about 15 ms and are emitted about 26 ms in front of a search call. Results from our surveys indicated the importance and potential of mangroves for bat research and conservation

FIGURE 3 in The Vietnamese population of Megophrys kuatunensis (Amphibia: Megophryidae) represents a new species of Asian horned frog from Vietnam and southern China

FIGURE 3. Megophrys rubrimera sp. nov. in preservative (holotype VNMN 2017.002). (A) lateral view of head, (B) palmar surface of left hand, and (C) plantar surface of right foot. Scale bar 5.0 mm

(Fe, Ni, Co)9S8@CS catalyst decorated on N-doped carbon as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Fe, Ni, and Co and their alloys are widely studied for oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution in electrocatalytic water splitting under alkaline conditions, and their pentlandite sulfide was found to enhance the catalytic activity for the reactions. In this study, the synthesis of pentlandite sulfide of Fe, Ni, and Co was tried by a ball milling and subsequent pyrolysis. It was proved that the ball milling method is a promising way for a pentlandite formation and simultaneous carbon encapsulation. An aniline monomer played a role of carbon source for carbon encapsulation, and ammonium persulfate provided sulfur for a sulfide formation. Three kinds of compounds were synthesized by varying the Ni/Co ratio, and their structural characteristics and electrochemical activity were investigated and compared each other. X-ray diffraction patterns showed that they consisted of pentlandite sulfide and metal alloy phase. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that nanoparticles enwrapped by carbon shell were uniformly distributed on N-doped carbon. Electrochemical activity was studied under alkaline condition, and the overpotential of 260 mV at 10 mA/cm2 was obtained in 1 M KOH solution for oxygen evolution reaction. After 500 cycles, the overpotential increased slightly to 310 mV. From this study, it was revealed that the electrochemical activity of (Fe, Ni, Co)9S8 depends on structural parameters not elemental composition.11Nsciescopu

FIGURE 8. Adult male Megophrys kuatunensis holotype, AMNH 30126 in The Vietnamese population of Megophrys kuatunensis (Amphibia: Megophryidae) represents a new species of Asian horned frog from Vietnam and southern China

FIGURE 8. Adult male Megophrys kuatunensis holotype, AMNH 30126. (A) Dorsal view, and (B) ventral view. Scale bar 10.0 mm