Learning a Deep Color Difference Metric for Photographic Images

Most well-established and widely used color difference (CD) metrics are handcrafted and subject-calibrated against uniformly colored patches, which do not generalize well to photographic images characterized by natural scene complexities. Constructing CD formulae for photographic images is still an active research topic in imaging/illumination, vision science, and color science communities. In this paper, we aim to learn a deep CD metric for photographic images with four desirable properties. First, it well aligns with the observations in vision science that color and form are linked inextricably in visual cortical processing. Second, it is a proper metric in the mathematical sense. Third, it computes accurate CDs between photographic images, differing mainly in color appearances. Fourth, it is robust to mild geometric distortions (e.g., translation or due to parallax), which are often present in photographic images of the same scene captured by different digital cameras. We show that all these properties can be satisfied at once by learning a multi-scale autoregressive normalizing flow for feature transform, followed by the Euclidean distance which is linearly proportional to the human perceptual CD. Quantitative and qualitative experiments on the large-scale SPCD dataset demonstrate the promise of the learned CD metric

Inactivation and adaptation of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria when exposed to free nitrous acid

Inactivation and adaptation of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) to free nitrous acid (FNA) was investigated. Batch test results showed that AOB and NOB were inactivated when treated with FNA. After an 85-day operating period, AOB in a continuous pre-denitrification reactor did not adapt to the FNA that was applied to treat some of the return activated sludge. In contrast, NOB did adapt to FNA. NOB activity in the seed sludge was only 11% of the original activity after FNA batch treatment, at 0.75 mg HNO2-N/L. NOB activity in the pre-denitrification reactor was not affected after being exposed to this FNA level. Nitrosomonas was the dominant AOB before and after long-term FNA treatment. However, dominant NOB changed from Nitrospira to Candidatus Nitrotoga, a novel NOB genus, after long-term FNA treatment. This adaptation of NOB to FNA may be due to the shift in NOB population makeup

Protecting Entanglement of Two V-type Atoms in Dissipative Cavity by Dipole-Dipole Interaction

In this work, we study a coupled system of two V-type atoms interacting with a dissipative single-mode cavity, which couples with an external environment. Firstly, in order to diagonalize Hamiltonian of dissipative cavity, we introduce a set of new creation and annihilation operators according to theorem Fano. Then, we obtain the analytical solution of this model by solving the time dependent Schrodinger equation. We also discuss in detail the influences of the cavity-environment coupling, the SGI parameter, the initial state and the dipole-dipole interaction between the two atoms on entanglement dynamics. The results show that, with the SGI parameter increasing, the entanglement will decay quicker for the initially maximal entangled state but it will decay slower for the initially partial entangled state. For the initially product state, the larger the SGI parameter, the more entanglement will be generated. The strong coupling can protect entanglement to some extent, but the dipole-dipole interaction can significantly protect entanglement. Moreover, the dipole-dipole interaction can not only generate entanglement very effectively, but also enhance the regulation effect of {\theta} on entanglement for the initially partial entangled and product states.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figure

Gene diagnosis of Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy in a Chinese family by a genescan method

This study aims to perform gene diagnosis for Chinese family patients with Oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy (OPMD). Genomic DNAs were extracted from the pedigrees members. Gene diagnosis was performed for these pedigrees' members by approaches, such as DNA sequencing and Gene Scan. Sequence analysis and PABPN1 genotyping showed that the mutated allele in affected members of this family has nine trinucleotide repeats of GCG (GCG)(9), whereas the normal allele contains six trinucleotide repeats of GCG (GCG)(6). The above results suggest that mutated GCG repeats in PABPN1 gene may cause OPMD in this family, and PABPN1 genotyping could be used as a convenient, highly effective, and reliable gene diagnostic test for OPMD patients. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 24:422-425, 2010. (C) 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Department of Health, Xiamen City, Fujian, China [WSK0611, WQK0701

The Application of Solar Indirect System in Passive House in Cold Region and Severe Cold Region of CHINA

AbstractThis paper, the future developing prospect of application of passive house in China was provided,solar indirect system combined with fresh air ventilation system with heat recovery was used in designing to provide heat to meet fresh air load in the passive house, taking the Xining city as an example. The aperture areas of solar collector in different conditions were calculated by changing the influence factors such as the tilt angle of the collector and the solar fraction. This paper analyzed the relationship of the solar collector aperture area with the tilt angle of the collector and the solar fraction. On the basis of the analysis, it is safe to draw a conclusion that the program of using solar indirect system combined with fresh air ventilation system with heat recovery in passive house in cold region and severe cold region of China is economically feasible

RAPD and Internal Transcribed Spacer Sequence Analyses Reveal Zea nicaraguensis as a Section Luxuriantes Species Close to Zea luxurians

Genetic relationship of a newly discovered teosinte from Nicaragua, Zea nicaraguensis with waterlogging tolerance, was determined based on randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of nuclear ribosomal DNA using 14 accessions from Zea species. RAPD analysis showed that a total of 5,303 fragments were produced by 136 random decamer primers, of which 84.86% bands were polymorphic. RAPD-based UPGMA analysis demonstrated that the genus Zea can be divided into section Luxuriantes including Zea diploperennis, Zea luxurians, Zea perennis and Zea nicaraguensis, and section Zea including Zea mays ssp. mexicana, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, Zea mays ssp. huehuetenangensis and Zea mays ssp. mays. ITS sequence analysis showed the lengths of the entire ITS region of the 14 taxa in Zea varied from 597 to 605 bp. The average GC content was 67.8%. In addition to the insertion/deletions, 78 variable sites were recorded in the total ITS region with 47 in ITS1, 5 in 5.8S, and 26 in ITS2. Sequences of these taxa were analyzed with neighbor-joining (NJ) and maximum parsimony (MP) methods to construct the phylogenetic trees, selecting Tripsacum dactyloides L. as the outgroup. The phylogenetic relationships of Zea species inferred from the ITS sequences are highly concordant with the RAPD evidence that resolved two major subgenus clades. Both RAPD and ITS sequence analyses indicate that Zea nicaraguensis is more closely related to Zea luxurians than the other teosintes and cultivated maize, which should be regarded as a section Luxuriantes species

A heterozygous moth genome provides insights into herbivory and detoxification

How an insect evolves to become a successful herbivore is of profound biological and practical importance. Herbivores are often adapted to feed on a specific group of evolutionarily and biochemically related host plants1, but the genetic and molecular bases for adaptation to plant defense compounds remain poorly understood2. We report the first whole-genome sequence of a basal lepidopteran species, Plutella xylostella, which contains 18,071 protein-coding and 1,412 unique genes with an expansion of gene families associated with perception and the detoxification of plant defense compounds. A recent expansion of retrotransposons near detoxification-related genes and a wider system used in the metabolism of plant defense compounds are shown to also be involved in the development of insecticide resistance. This work shows the genetic and molecular bases for the evolutionary success of this worldwide herbivore and offers wider insights into insect adaptation to plant feeding, as well as opening avenues for more sustainable pest management.Minsheng You … Simon W Baxter … et al