KV Inversion: KV Embeddings Learning for Text-Conditioned Real Image Action Editing

Text-conditioned image editing is a recently emerged and highly practical task, and its potential is immeasurable. However, most of the concurrent methods are unable to perform action editing, i.e. they can not produce results that conform to the action semantics of the editing prompt and preserve the content of the original image. To solve the problem of action editing, we propose KV Inversion, a method that can achieve satisfactory reconstruction performance and action editing, which can solve two major problems: 1) the edited result can match the corresponding action, and 2) the edited object can retain the texture and identity of the original real image. In addition, our method does not require training the Stable Diffusion model itself, nor does it require scanning a large-scale dataset to perform time-consuming training

WaveDM: Wavelet-Based Diffusion Models for Image Restoration

Latest diffusion-based methods for many image restoration tasks outperform traditional models, but they encounter the long-time inference problem. To tackle it, this paper proposes a Wavelet-Based Diffusion Model (WaveDM) with an Efficient Conditional Sampling (ECS) strategy. WaveDM learns the distribution of clean images in the wavelet domain conditioned on the wavelet spectrum of degraded images after wavelet transform, which is more time-saving in each step of sampling than modeling in the spatial domain. In addition, ECS follows the same procedure as the deterministic implicit sampling in the initial sampling period and then stops to predict clean images directly, which reduces the number of total sampling steps to around 5. Evaluations on four benchmark datasets including image raindrop removal, defocus deblurring, demoir\'eing, and denoising demonstrate that WaveDM achieves state-of-the-art performance with the efficiency that is comparable to traditional one-pass methods and over 100 times faster than existing image restoration methods using vanilla diffusion models

AT2018dyk Revisited: a Tidal Disruption Event Candidate with Prominent Infrared Echo and Delayed X-ray Emission in a LINER Galaxy

The multiwavelength data of nuclear transient AT2018dyk, initially discovered as a changing-look low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) galaxy, has been revisited by us and found being in agreement with a tidal disruption event (TDE) scenario. The optical light curve of AT2018dyk declines as a power-law form approximately with index -5/3 yet its X-ray emission lags behind the optical peak by $\sim140$ days, both of which are typical characteristics for TDEs. The X-ray spectra are softer than normal active galactic nuclei (AGNs) although they show a slight trend of hardening. Interestingly, its rising time scale belongs to the longest among TDEs while it is nicely consistent with the theoretical prediction from its relatively large supermassive black hole (SMBH) mass ($\sim10^{7.38} M_{\odot}$). Moreover, a prominent infrared echo with peak luminosity $\sim7.4\times10^{42}~\text{erg}~\text{s}^{-1}$ has been also detected in AT2018dyk, implying an unusually dusty subparsec nuclear environment in contrast with other TDEs. In our sample, LINERs share similar covering factors with AGNs, which indicates the existence of the dusty torus in these objects. Our work suggests that the nature of nuclear transients in LINERs needs to be carefully identified and their infrared echoes offer us a unique opportunity for exploring the environment of SMBHs at low accretion rate, which has been so far poorly explored but is crucial for understanding the SMBH activity.Comment: 9 pages, 6figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Revealing in situ stress-induced short- and medium-range atomic structure evolution in a multicomponent metallic glassy alloy

Deformation behaviour of multicomponent metallic glasses are determined by the evolution/reconfiguration of the short- and medium-range order (SRO and MRO) atomic structures. A precise understanding of how different atom species rearrange themselves in different stress states is still a great challenge in materials science and engineering. Here, we report a systematic and synergetic research of using electron microscopy imaging, synchrotron X-ray total scattering plus empirical potential structure refinement (EPSR) modelling to study in situ the deformation of a Zr-based multicomponent metallic glassy alloy with 5 elements. Systematic and comprehensive analyses on the characteristics of the SRO and MRO structures in 3D and the decoupled 15 partial PDFs at each stress level reveal quantitatively how the SRO and MRO structures evolve or reconfigure in 3D space in the tensile and compressive stress states. The results show that the Zr-centred atom clusters have low degree of icosahedra and are the preferred atom clusters to rearrange themselves under the tensile and compressive stresses. The Zr-Zr is the dominant atom pair in controlling the shear band's initiation and propagation. The evolution and reconfiguration of the MRO clusters under different stress states are realised by changing the connection modes between the Zr-centred atom clusters. The coordinated changes of both bond angles and bond lengths of the Zr-centred clusters are the dominant factors in accommodating the tensile or compressive strains. While other solute-centred MRO clusters only play minor roles in the atomic structure reconfiguration/evolution. The research has demonstrated a synergetic and multimodal materials operando characterization methodology that has great application potential in design and development of high performance multiple-component engineering alloys

Dissonance in harmony: The UV/optical periodic outbursts of ASASSN-14ko exhibit repeated bumps and rebrightenings

ASASSN-14ko was identified as an abnormal periodic nuclear transient with a potential decreasing period. Its outbursts in the optical and UV bands have displayed a consistent and smooth "fast-rise and slow-decay" pattern since its discovery, which has recently experienced an unexpected alteration in the last two epochs, as revealed by our proposed high-cadence Swift observations. The new light curve profiles show a bump during the rising stages and a rebrightening during the declining stages, making them much broader and symmetrical than the previous ones. In the last two epochs, there is no significant difference in the X-ray spectral slope compared to the previous one, and its overall luminosity is lower than those of the previous epochs. The energy released in the early bump and rebrightening phases ($\sim10^{50}$ erg) could be due to collision of the stripped stream from partial tidal disruption events (pTDEs) with an expanded accretion disk. We also discussed other potential explanations, such as disk instability and star-disk collisions. Further high-cadence multi-wavelength observations of subsequent cycles are encouraged to comprehend the unique periodic source with its new intriguing features.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 10 pages, 6 figure

Design, Fabrication, and Properties of 2-2 Connectivity Cement/Polymer based Piezoelectric Composites with Varied Piezoelectric Phase Distribution

The laminated 2-2 connectivity cement/polymer based piezoelectric composites with variedpiezoelectric phase distribution were fabricated by employing Lead Zirconium Titanate ceramicas active phase, and mixture of cement powder, epoxy resin, and hardener as matrix phase with a mass proportion of 4:4:1. The dielectric, piezoelectric, and electromechanical coupling properties of the composites were studied. The composites with large total volume fraction ofpiezoelectric phase have large piezoelectric strain constant and relative permittivity, and thepiezoelectric and dielectric properties of the composites are independent of the dimensional variations of the piezoelectric ceramic layer. The composites with small total volume fraction of piezoelectric phase have large piezoelectric voltage constant, but also large dielectric loss. The composite with gradually increased dimension of piezoelectric ceramic layer has the smallest dielectric loss, and that with the gradually increased dimension of matrix layer has the largest piezoelectric voltage constant. The novel piezoelectric composites show potential applications in fabricating ultrasonic transducers with varied surface vibration amplitude of thetransducer

Research on Embedded Sensors for Concrete Health Monitoring Based on Ultrasonic Testing

In this article, embedded ultrasonic sensors were prepared using 1–3-type piezoelectric composite and piezoelectric ceramic as the piezoelectric elements, respectively. The frequency bandwidth of the novel embedded ultrasonic sensors was investigated. To obtain the relationship between the receiving ultrasonic velocity and compressive strength, as well as their response signals to crack damage, the sensors were fabricated and embedded into the cement mortar before testing. The results demonstrated that the piezoelectric composite sensor had wider frequency bandwidth than the piezoelectric ceramic sensor. The compressive strength and ultrasonic velocity had a positive linear relationship, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9216. The head wave amplitude of the receiving ultrasonic signal was sensitive to the changing crack damage and gradually decayed with the increasing degree of cement damage. Thus, the novel embedded ultrasonic sensors are suitable for concrete health monitoring via ultrasonic non-destructive testing

The Impact of Extended Heat Exposure on Rapid Sulphoaluminate Cement Concrete Up To 120°C

This study examined the stability of rapid sulphoaluminate cement concrete (R-SACC) when exposed to heat for extended periods of time. The physicochemical processes present in R-SACC as a function of temperature were determined through various tests. The general behavior of rapid sulphoaluminate cement (R-SAC) at a range of temperatures is summarized. The results show that observing color change could be a simple way to identify deterioration of R-SACC, along with the rebound hammer. The matrix formation of ettringite was broken and the mass of the hydrated product decreased with heat exposure; the major mineral composition of the paste consisted of CaSO4, CaCO3 and β-C2S; and the interface between aggregate and paste in the R-SACC become loosely structured with cracks. Between 50°C and 120°C, the rapid sulphoaluminate cement (R-SAC) paste first expanded and then shrank, and the shrinkage rate of R-SAC was much greater than that of R-SACC

Effects of lactic and citric acid on early-age engineering properties of Portland/calcium aluminate blended cements

In this study, Portland/calcium aluminate blended cement (PC/CAC) was combined with citric acid or lactic acid as additives to investigate the effects of the aforementioned carboxylic acids on the hydration reactions of PC/CAC as a potential fast hardening and low cost repair material for concrete. Mortar specimens with the carboxylic acid additives of either 0.5%, 1% or 3% by weight, prepared with a binder:sand:water ratio (by weight) of 1:3:0.5, were subjected to flexural and compressive strength tests at early ages up to 28 days. In order to understand the phase composition of the hydrates in the PC/CAC systems, XRD analyses were conducted on ground PC/CAC mortars with and without carboxylic acid at 7, 14 and 28 days. In combination with this, SEM images of selected mortar specimens were also taken at the same times for visual analyses of hydrates. Citric acid did not have any beneficial effect on enhancing the calcium silicate phase as initially assumed and instead reduced the strength of PC/CAC cement at all levels of concentration. The experiment analyses revealed that Portlandite crystals were the major hydrate phase in PC/CAC with lactic and citric acids. Lactic acid below 2% wt. improved both compressive and flexural strength gained at early ages due to improved crystallinity of the calcium hydroxide crystals. Combined with its inherent rapid setting time, PC/CAC blended cements have a potential to be developed into a suitable repair material for concrete