Hierarchical Video Generation from Orthogonal Information: Optical Flow and Texture

Learning to represent and generate videos from unlabeled data is a very challenging problem. To generate realistic videos, it is important not only to ensure that the appearance of each frame is real, but also to ensure the plausibility of a video motion and consistency of a video appearance in the time direction. The process of video generation should be divided according to these intrinsic difficulties. In this study, we focus on the motion and appearance information as two important orthogonal components of a video, and propose Flow-and-Texture-Generative Adversarial Networks (FTGAN) consisting of FlowGAN and TextureGAN. In order to avoid a huge annotation cost, we have to explore a way to learn from unlabeled data. Thus, we employ optical flow as motion information to generate videos. FlowGAN generates optical flow, which contains only the edge and motion of the videos to be begerated. On the other hand, TextureGAN specializes in giving a texture to optical flow generated by FlowGAN. This hierarchical approach brings more realistic videos with plausible motion and appearance consistency. Our experiments show that our model generates more plausible motion videos and also achieves significantly improved performance for unsupervised action classification in comparison to previous GAN works. In addition, because our model generates videos from two independent information, our model can generate new combinations of motion and attribute that are not seen in training data, such as a video in which a person is doing sit-up in a baseball ground.Comment: Our supplemental material is available on http://www.mi.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/assets/publication/hierarchical_video_generation_sup/ Accepted to AAAI201

Optimal Double Sided Gate Control of IGBT for Lower Turn-off Loss and Surge Voltage Suppression

The current density of power semiconductor devices continues to increase and, carrier injection has been enhanced by several methods even though turn-off loss tends to be increased. In order to address this problem, we propose a double sided gate IGBT and optimal gate control method for lower turn-off loss. TCAD simulation numerically shows that the proposed IGBT successfully decreases turn-off loss. Furthermore, the turn-off loss is further decreased with optimal control of the double sided gate without surge voltage increase. In addition, we consider the effects of stray inductance on the performance of double sided gate IGBT.CIPS 2016 International Conference on Integrated Power Electronics Systems, Mar 8-10, 2016, Nuremberg, German

Open Set Domain Adaptation by Backpropagation

Numerous algorithms have been proposed for transferring knowledge from a label-rich domain (source) to a label-scarce domain (target). Almost all of them are proposed for a closed-set scenario, where the source and the target domain completely share the class of their samples. We call the shared class the \doublequote{known class.} However, in practice, when samples in target domain are not labeled, we cannot know whether the domains share the class. A target domain can contain samples of classes that are not shared by the source domain. We call such classes the \doublequote{unknown class} and algorithms that work well in the open set situation are very practical. However, most existing distribution matching methods for domain adaptation do not work well in this setting because unknown target samples should not be aligned with the source. In this paper, we propose a method for an open set domain adaptation scenario which utilizes adversarial training. A classifier is trained to make a boundary between the source and the target samples whereas a generator is trained to make target samples far from the boundary. Thus, we assign two options to the feature generator: aligning them with source known samples or rejecting them as unknown target samples. This approach allows extracting features that separate unknown target samples from known target samples. Our method was extensively evaluated in domain adaptation setting and outperformed other methods with a large margin in most settings.Comment: Accepted by ECCV201

Failure rate calculation method for high power devices in space applications at low earth orbit

This paper discusses the universal calculation method for space proton induced failure rate on high power device. High energetic particles can be the reason of power device failure in both terrestrial and space. T-CAD simulation result gives a threshold charge value for the device destruction which is triggered by energetic proton from space. The amount of threshold charge depends on applied voltage for high power device. The probability of charge generation in silicon due to proton penetration is considered as well. This probability function variation depends on the thickness of device and incident energy of proton which studied before at there. Last consideration on this paper is 3.3 kV PiN diode\u27s Single Event Upset Cross section and failure rate which was calculated by proposed method in Low earth orbit environment condition

Eukaryotic Components Remodeled Chloroplast Nucleoid Organization during the Green Plant Evolution.

Chloroplast (cp) DNA is thought to originate from the ancestral endosymbiont genome and is compacted to form nucleoprotein complexes, cp nucleoids. The structure of cp nucleoids is ubiquitously observed in diverse plants from unicellular algae to flowering plants and is believed to be a multifunctional platform for various processes, including cpDNA replication, repair/recombination, transcription, and inheritance. Despite its fundamental functions, the protein composition for cp nucleoids in flowering plants was suggested to be divergent from those of bacteria and algae, but the evolutionary process remains elusive. In this research, we aimed to reveal the evolutionary history of cp nucleoid organization by analyzing the key organisms representing the three evolutionary stages of eukaryotic phototrophs: the chlorophyte alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii , the charophyte alga Klebsormidium flaccidum , and the most basal land plant Marchantia polymorpha . To clarify the core cp nucleoid proteins in C. reinhardtii , we performed an LC-MS/MS analysis using highly purified cp nucleoid fractions and identified a novel SAP domain-containing protein with a eukaryotic origin as a constitutive core component. Then, homologous genes for cp nucleoid proteins were searched for in C. reinhardtii , K. flaccidum , and M. polymorpha using the genome databases, and their intracellular localizations and DNA binding activities were investigated by cell biological/biochemical analyses. Based on these results, we propose a model that recurrent modification of cp nucleoid organization by eukaryotic factors originally related to chromatin organization might have been the driving force for the diversification of cp nucleoids since the early stage of green plant evolution

Comparison of Two Electrosurgical Modes for Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection of Superficial Colorectal Neoplasms: A Prospective Randomized Study

Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is reportedly one of the standard treatment strategies for large superficial colorectal neoplasms in Japan because of its high en bloc resection rate. A few technical issues regarding ESD should be considered, one of which is the selection of the Endo-cut I mode versus the Swift-coagulation mode as the electrosurgical unit mode setting during submucosal dissection. We seek to determine which of these two modes is more suitable for submucosal dissections of colorectal tumors with regard to procedure time and safety

Factors Predicting a Favorable Disease Course Without Anti-TNF Therapy in Crohn’s Disease Patients

Determining factors that predict a favorable disease course without anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) agents would help establish a more cost-effective strategy for Crohn’s disease (CD). A retrospective chart review was performed for CD patients with disease durations > 10 years who had not received anti-TNF agents as first-line therapy. Patients were divided into 2 groups: those who received neither anti-TNF agents nor bowel resection (G1), and those who had received an anti-TNF agent and/or bowel resection (G2). The patient backgrounds, therapies and clinical courses were compared between the groups. A total of 62 CD patients met the inclusion criteria (males: 71%; median duration of follow-up: 19 years). Six patients were included in G1; they were significantly less likely to have upper gastrointestinal lesions than G2 (p=0.007). A multivariate analysis revealed that the significant factors for avoidance of bowel resection without anti-TNF treatment were non-stricturing and non-penetrating behaviors, and absence of upper gastrointestinal lesions at the diagnosis (hazard ratios 0.41 and 0.52; p=0.004 and 0.04, respectively). In consideration of the long treatment course of CD, patients with non-stricturing and non-penetrating behaviors and no upper gastrointestinal lesions should not be treated with anti-TNF agents as first-line therapy

Switching between Three Types of Mesalazine Formulation and Sulfasalazine in Patients with Active Ulcerative Colitis Who Have Already Received High-Dose Treatment with These Agents

Background and aim: Oral mesalazine and sulfasalazine (SASP) are key drugs for treating ulcerative colitis (UC). The efficacy of switching from one of the several mesalazine formulations to another is largely unknown. This study assessed the efficacy of switching among three types of mesalazine formulation and SASP for UC therapy. Methods: UC patients receiving high-dose mesalazine/SASP who switched to other formulations due to disease activity were considered eligible. Efficacy was evaluated 2, 6, and 12 months after switching. Results: A total of 106 switches in 88 UC patients were analyzed. The efficacy at 2 months after switching was observed in 23/39 (59%) cases from any mesalazine formulation to SASP, in 18/55 (33%) cases from one mesalazine to another, and in 2/12 (17%) cases from SASP to any mesalazine formulation. Nine of 43 effective cases showed inefficacy or became intolerant post-switching. Delayed efficacy more than two months after switching was observed in four cases. Steroid-free remission was achieved in 42/106 (39%) cases—within 100 days in 35 of these cases (83%). Conclusions: Switching from mesalazine to SASP was effective in more than half of cases. The efficacy of switching between mesalazine formulations was lower but may be worth attempting in clinical practice from a safety perspective

The nucleoside and nucleotide mixture (OG-VI) rescues intestinal-like epithelial cells from the cytotoxicity of chemotherapeutic agents

Immune cells and cells undergoing rapid turn-over can obtain exogenous nucleotides via salvage synthesis. We evaluated whether or not the balanced nucleoside and nucleotide mixture OG-VI, could rescue intestinal epithelial-like Caco-2 cells from the cytotoxic effects of several chemotherapeutic agents, in the presence and absence of glutamine (Gln). Cells were exposed to 5-fluorouracil (5FU), methotrexate (MTX) or 6-mercaptopurine (6MP), after which proliferation and cell cycle analyses were performed. Following exposure to the chemotherapeutic agents, we observed that cells treated with OG-VI proliferated well, whereas those without the supplement did not proliferate. Furthermore, following treatment with either 5FU or MTX, we observed that the number of cells in the G0/G1 phase decreased and those in the S phases increased. However, these cell cycle alterations were prevented by the addition of OG-VI. With the exception of 6MP-treated cells, we did not observe any effects on proliferation or cell cycle regulation that could be ascribed to the presence of Gln. Thus, we have demonstrated that OG-VI rescues cells from the cytotoxic effects of several chemotherapeutic agents