Seeing through the Mask: Multi-task Generative Mask Decoupling Face Recognition

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic make people wear masks more frequently than ever. Current general face recognition system suffers from serious performance degradation,when encountering occluded scenes. The potential reason is that face features are corrupted by occlusions on key facial regions. To tackle this problem, previous works either extract identity-related embeddings on feature level by additional mask prediction, or restore the occluded facial part by generative models. However, the former lacks visual results for model interpretation, while the latter suffers from artifacts which may affect downstream recognition. Therefore, this paper proposes a Multi-task gEnerative mask dEcoupling face Recognition (MEER) network to jointly handle these two tasks, which can learn occlusionirrelevant and identity-related representation while achieving unmasked face synthesis. We first present a novel mask decoupling module to disentangle mask and identity information, which makes the network obtain purer identity features from visible facial components. Then, an unmasked face is restored by a joint-training strategy, which will be further used to refine the recognition network with an id-preserving loss. Experiments on masked face recognition under realistic and synthetic occlusions benchmarks demonstrate that the MEER can outperform the state-ofthe-art methods

A Survey of Face Recognition

Recent years witnessed the breakthrough of face recognition with deep convolutional neural networks. Dozens of papers in the field of FR are published every year. Some of them were applied in the industrial community and played an important role in human life such as device unlock, mobile payment, and so on. This paper provides an introduction to face recognition, including its history, pipeline, algorithms based on conventional manually designed features or deep learning, mainstream training, evaluation datasets, and related applications. We have analyzed and compared state-of-the-art works as many as possible, and also carefully designed a set of experiments to find the effect of backbone size and data distribution. This survey is a material of the tutorial named The Practical Face Recognition Technology in the Industrial World in the FG2023

Identification and characterization of class 1 integrons among Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates from patients in Zhenjiang, China

SummaryObjectivesThe role of integrons in the spread of antibiotic resistance has been well established. The aim of this study was to investigate the resistance profiles of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from patients in Zhenjiang to 13 antibiotics, and to identify the structure and dissemination of class 1 integrons.MethodsThe Kirby–Bauer disk diffusion assay was used to determine the rate of P. aeruginosa resistance. Class 1 integrons from multidrug-resistant isolates were amplified by PCR, and their PCR products were sequenced. We also analyzed the integron structures containing the same gene cassettes by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Isolates were genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE).ResultsThe resistance rates were between 29.6% and 90.1%. The prevalence of class 1 integrons was 38.0%. These integrons included five gene cassettes (aadB, aac6-II, blaPSE-1, dfrA17, and aadA5). The dfrA17 and aadA5 gene cassettes were found most often.ConclusionsClass 1 integrons were found to be widespread in P. aeruginosa isolated from clinical samples in the Zhenjiang area of China. The antibiotic resistance rates in class 1 integron-positive strains of P. aeruginosa were noticeably higher than those in class 1 integron-negative strains. PFGE showed that particular clones were circulating among patients

Methadone Dosage and Plasma Levels, SNPs of OPRM1 Gene and Age of First Drug Use Were Associated With Outcomes of Methadone Maintenance Treatment

Objective: To explore the association between methadone dosage, plasma drug concentration, SNPs of μ-opioid receptor gene (OPRM1), ATP-binding cassette subfamily B member 1 gene (ABCB1), and methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) response.Method: A total of 240 Chinese Han participants receiving MMT were recruited from Shanghai. Nine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the OPRM1 gene and three SNPs of the ABCB1 gene were genotyped, plasma methadone concentration was detected, and a morphine urine test was taken from all subjects.Results: Methadone dosage, plasma methadone concentration, and negative rate of morphine urine test of retention participants were significantly higher, although the addiction severity index (ASI) was not significantly different between the two groups. A allele and AA genotype carriers of rs562859 (OPRM1 gene) had better compliance of MMT, and AA genotype carriers had a higher negative rate of morphine urine test. However, the difference was not significant after adjusting influence factors (age, sex, and methadone dosage). GG genotype carriers of rs3192723 (OPRM1 gene) had a significantly lower negative rate of morphine urine test, and the difference was still significant after adjusting influence factors. Logistic regression analysis showed that methadone-free trough concentration (OR = 0.910, p = 0.023) and AA genotype of rs526859 (OR = 0.580, p = 0.037) were associated with better compliance of MMT. After Bonferroni correction, only free trough concentration of methadone was negatively correlated with MMT compliance. The SNPs rs6912029 (OR = 0.021, p = 0.066) and rs6902403 (OR = 0.910, p = 0.007) of the OPRM1 gene, age at first use (OR = 1.118, p = 0.005), and average methadone dosage (OR = 1.033, p = 0.045) were associated with MMT effect. After Bonferroni correction, average methadone dosage was no longer correlated with MMT effect.Conclusion: Dosage of methadone, plasma methadone concentration, several SNPs (rs3192723, rs6912029, rs6902403) of the OPRM1 gene, and age of first drug use were associated with better MMT outcomes

Quantitative proteomic analysis of Rhodococcus ruber responsive to organic solvents

Rhodococcus ruber with organic tolerance has potential applications in biotransformation and bioremediation. To explore the possible organic tolerance mechanism, the response of R. ruber SD3 to toluene and phenol was investigated using a quantitative proteomics approach with isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. A total of 362 and 488 differentially expressed proteins were identified in the toluene treatment group and the phenol treatment group as compared to the control group, respectively. Functional annotation and metabolic pathway enrichment showed that transporter, degradation pathway and two-component system were closely related to organic solvent tolerance of R. ruber SD3. The quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction experiment indicated the mRNA levels of stress proteins with an increased expression of 3.23 times upon toluene stress as compared to the control. The expression of 4-nitrophenol 2-monooxygenase in the phenol treatment group was ∼123 times higher than the counterpart in the control group. The study revealed the possible tolerance mechanism of R. ruber SD3 to organic solvents stress and provided some potential targets for the engineering of R. ruber SD3 to improve its organic solvent tolerance

Two new species of Araneus Clerck, 1757 (Araneae, Araneidae) and first description of A. wulongensis male from China

Volume: 886Start Page: 61-7

A Novel PbS Nanparticle Based Electrochemical Codeine Sensor

In the present study, we describe an electrochemical sensor for codeine detection by using the DNA aptamers against codeine. In the sensing protocol, a dually-labeled DNA Aptamer probe was designed to belabeled at one end with HS, and at its another end with an dabcyl as anelectrochemical tag to produce electrochemical signal from recongization occurrence. One special electrochemical marker was prepared by modifying PbS nanoparticle with -cyclodextrins (ab. PbS-CD), which employed as electrochemical signal provider and would conjunct with the codeine probe modified electrode through the host–guest recognition of to dabcyl. With codeine adding, aptamer folding allows the PbS-CD into soultion which caused a increased current signal. This sensor have the ability to detect 5.7pM codeine

A Novel PbS Nanparticle Based Electrochemical Codeine Sensor

In the present study, we describe an electrochemical sensor for codeine detection by using the DNA aptamers against codeine. In the sensing protocol, a dually-labeled DNA Aptamer probe was designed to belabeled at one end with HS, and at its another end with an dabcyl as anelectrochemical tag to produce electrochemical signal from recongization occurrence. One special electrochemical marker was prepared by modifying PbS nanoparticle with -cyclodextrins (ab. PbS-CD), which employed as electrochemical signal provider and would conjunct with the codeine probe modified electrode through the host–guest recognition of to dabcyl. With codeine adding, aptamer folding allows the PbS-CD into soultion which caused a increased current signal. This sensor have the ability to detect 5.7pM codeine