Deep Video Generation, Prediction and Completion of Human Action Sequences

Current deep learning results on video generation are limited while there are only a few first results on video prediction and no relevant significant results on video completion. This is due to the severe ill-posedness inherent in these three problems. In this paper, we focus on human action videos, and propose a general, two-stage deep framework to generate human action videos with no constraints or arbitrary number of constraints, which uniformly address the three problems: video generation given no input frames, video prediction given the first few frames, and video completion given the first and last frames. To make the problem tractable, in the first stage we train a deep generative model that generates a human pose sequence from random noise. In the second stage, a skeleton-to-image network is trained, which is used to generate a human action video given the complete human pose sequence generated in the first stage. By introducing the two-stage strategy, we sidestep the original ill-posed problems while producing for the first time high-quality video generation/prediction/completion results of much longer duration. We present quantitative and qualitative evaluation to show that our two-stage approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods in video generation, prediction and video completion. Our video result demonstration can be viewed at https://iamacewhite.github.io/supp/index.htmlComment: Under review for CVPR 2018. Haoye and Chunyan have equal contributio

Implicitly Constrained Semi-Supervised Least Squares Classification

We introduce a novel semi-supervised version of the least squares classifier. This implicitly constrained least squares (ICLS) classifier minimizes the squared loss on the labeled data among the set of parameters implied by all possible labelings of the unlabeled data. Unlike other discriminative semi-supervised methods, our approach does not introduce explicit additional assumptions into the objective function, but leverages implicit assumptions already present in the choice of the supervised least squares classifier. We show this approach can be formulated as a quadratic programming problem and its solution can be found using a simple gradient descent procedure. We prove that, in a certain way, our method never leads to performance worse than the supervised classifier. Experimental results corroborate this theoretical result in the multidimensional case on benchmark datasets, also in terms of the error rate.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. The Fourteenth International Symposium on Intelligent Data Analysis (2015), Saint-Etienne, Franc

Apparent non-canonical trans-splicing is generated by reverse transcriptase in vitro

Trans-splicing, the in vivo joining of two RNA molecules, is well characterized in several groups of simple organisms but was long thought absent from fungi, plants and mammals. However, recent bioinformatic analyses of expressed sequence tag (EST) databases suggested widespread trans-splicing in mammals^1-2^. Splicing, including the characterised trans-splicing systems, involves conserved sequences at the splice junctions. Our analysis of a yeast non-coding RNA revealed that around 30% of the products of reverse transcription lacked an internal region of 117 nt, suggesting that the RNA was spliced. The junction sequences lacked canonical splice-sites but were flanked by direct repeats, and further analyses indicated that the apparent splicing actually arose because reverse transcriptase can switch templates during transcription^3^. Many newly identified, apparently trans-spliced, RNAs lacked canonical splice sites but were flanked by short regions of homology, leading us to question their authenticity. Here we report that all reported categories of non-canonical splicing could be replicated using an in vitro reverse transcription system with highly purified RNA substrates. We observed the reproducible occurrence of ostensible trans-splicing, exon shuffling and sense-antisense fusions. The latter generate apparent antisense non-coding RNAs, which are also reported to be abundant in humans^4^. Different reverse transcriptases can generate different products of template switching, providing a simple diagnostic. Many reported examples of splicing in the absence of canonical splicing signals may be artefacts of cDNA preparation

Manipulating infrared photons using plasmons in transparent graphene superlattices

Superlattices are artificial periodic nanostructures which can control the flow of electrons. Their operation typically relies on the periodic modulation of the electric potential in the direction of electron wave propagation. Here we demonstrate transparent graphene superlattices which can manipulate infrared photons utilizing the collective oscillations of carriers, i.e., plasmons of the ensemble of multiple graphene layers. The superlattice is formed by depositing alternating wafer-scale graphene sheets and thin insulating layers, followed by patterning them all together into 3-dimensional photonic-crystal-like structures. We demonstrate experimentally that the collective oscillation of Dirac fermions in such graphene superlattices is unambiguously nonclassical: compared to doping single layer graphene, distributing carriers into multiple graphene layers strongly enhances the plasmonic resonance frequency and magnitude, which is fundamentally different from that in a conventional semiconductor superlattice. This property allows us to construct widely tunable far-infrared notch filters with 8.2 dB rejection ratio and terahertz linear polarizers with 9.5 dB extinction ratio, using a superlattice with merely five graphene atomic layers. Moreover, an unpatterned superlattice shields up to 97.5% of the electromagnetic radiations below 1.2 terahertz. This demonstration also opens an avenue for the realization of other transparent mid- and far-infrared photonic devices such as detectors, modulators, and 3-dimensional meta-material systems.Comment: under revie

An Anti-Human ICAM-1 Antibody Inhibits Rhinovirus-Induced Exacerbations of Lung Inflammation

Human rhinoviruses (HRV) cause the majority of common colds and acute exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Effective therapies are urgently needed, but no licensed treatments or vaccines currently exist. Of the 100 identified serotypes, ∼90% bind domain 1 of human intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) as their cellular receptor, making this an attractive target for development of therapies; however, ICAM-1 domain 1 is also required for host defence and regulation of cell trafficking, principally via its major ligand LFA-1. Using a mouse anti-human ICAM-1 antibody (14C11) that specifically binds domain 1 of human ICAM-1, we show that 14C11 administered topically or systemically prevented entry of two major groups of rhinoviruses, HRV16 and HRV14, and reduced cellular inflammation, pro-inflammatory cytokine induction and virus load in vivo. 14C11 also reduced cellular inflammation and Th2 cytokine/chemokine production in a model of major group HRV-induced asthma exacerbation. Interestingly, 14C11 did not prevent cell adhesion via human ICAM-1/LFA-1 interactions in vitro, suggesting the epitope targeted by 14C11 was specific for viral entry. Thus a human ICAM-1 domain-1-specific antibody can prevent major group HRV entry and induction of airway inflammation in vivo

Wall roughness induces asymptotic ultimate turbulence

Turbulence is omnipresent in Nature and technology, governing the transport of heat, mass, and momentum on multiple scales. For real-world applications of wall-bounded turbulence, the underlying surfaces are virtually always rough; yet characterizing and understanding the effects of wall roughness for turbulence remains a challenge, especially for rotating and thermally driven turbulence. By combining extensive experiments and numerical simulations, here, taking as example the paradigmatic Taylor-Couette system (the closed flow between two independently rotating coaxial cylinders), we show how wall roughness greatly enhances the overall transport properties and the corresponding scaling exponents. If only one of the walls is rough, we reveal that the bulk velocity is slaved to the rough side, due to the much stronger coupling to that wall by the detaching flow structures. If both walls are rough, the viscosity dependence is thoroughly eliminated in the boundary layers and we thus achieve asymptotic ultimate turbulence, i.e. the upper limit of transport, whose existence had been predicted by Robert Kraichnan in 1962 (Phys. Fluids {\bf 5}, 1374 (1962)) and in which the scalings laws can be extrapolated to arbitrarily large Reynolds numbers

Taxonomic and phylogenetic evaluation of Limnothrix strains (Oscillatoriales, Cyanobacteria) by adding Limnothrix planktonica strains isolated from central China

Six Limnothrix strains, isolated for the first time from a shallow eutrophic lake in central China, were taxonomically and phylogenetically evaluated by investigating their polyphasic characteristics, including morphological features, cellular ultrastructures, and 16S rRNA gene sequences. All the six strains were morphologically similar, and their trichomes were in average 1.7 mu m wide and cells 4.0 mu m long, and having small gas vesicles within cells, and therefore identified as Limnothrix planctonica (Woloszynska) Meffert. Cellular ultrastructures of them showed that peripheral thylakoids with 3-5 parallel layers were parietally distributed in the cells. The phylogenetic results based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that all the Limnothrix strains, including the six in this study and those from the Genbank, formed two distinct clusters. The similarity in 16S rDNA sequences between these two clusters was lower than 90%, indicating that these Limnothrix strains belong to different genera. This is the first report on the morphology and phylogeny of L. planctonica strains, providing the new information on taxonomy of the genus Limnothrix.Six Limnothrix strains, isolated for the first time from a shallow eutrophic lake in central China, were taxonomically and phylogenetically evaluated by investigating their polyphasic characteristics, including morphological features, cellular ultrastructures, and 16S rRNA gene sequences. All the six strains were morphologically similar, and their trichomes were in average 1.7 mu m wide and cells 4.0 mu m long, and having small gas vesicles within cells, and therefore identified as Limnothrix planctonica (Woloszynska) Meffert. Cellular ultrastructures of them showed that peripheral thylakoids with 3-5 parallel layers were parietally distributed in the cells. The phylogenetic results based on the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that all the Limnothrix strains, including the six in this study and those from the Genbank, formed two distinct clusters. The similarity in 16S rDNA sequences between these two clusters was lower than 90%, indicating that these Limnothrix strains belong to different genera. This is the first report on the morphology and phylogeny of L. planctonica strains, providing the new information on taxonomy of the genus Limnothrix

Understanding the nature of "superhard graphite"

Numerous experiments showed that on cold compression graphite transforms into a new superhard and transparent allotrope. Several structures with different topologies have been proposed for this phase. While experimental data are consistent with these models, the only way to solve this puzzle is to find which structure is kinetically easiest to form. Using state-of-the-art molecular-dynamics transition path sampling simulations, we investigate kinetic pathways of the pressure-induced transformation of graphite to various superhard candidate structures. Unlike hitherto applied methods for elucidating nature of superhard graphite, transition path sampling realistically models nucleation events necessary for physically meaningful transformation kinetics. We demonstrate that nucleation mechanism and kinetics lead to $M$-carbon as the final product. $W$-carbon, initially competitor to $M$-carbon, is ruled out by phase growth. Bct-C$_4$ structure is not expected to be produced by cold compression due to less probable nucleation and higher barrier of formation