Hybrid Transformer Based Feature Fusion for Self-Supervised Monocular Depth Estimation

With an unprecedented increase in the number of agents and systems that aim to navigate the real world using visual cues and the rising impetus for 3D Vision Models, the importance of depth estimation is hard to understate. While supervised methods remain the gold standard in the domain, the copious amount of paired stereo data required to train such models makes them impractical. Most State of the Art (SOTA) works in the self-supervised and unsupervised domain employ a ResNet-based encoder architecture to predict disparity maps from a given input image which are eventually used alongside a camera pose estimator to predict depth without direct supervision. The fully convolutional nature of ResNets makes them susceptible to capturing per-pixel local information only, which is suboptimal for depth prediction. Our key insight for doing away with this bottleneck is to use Vision Transformers, which employ self-attention to capture the global contextual information present in an input image. Our model fuses per-pixel local information learned using two fully convolutional depth encoders with global contextual information learned by a transformer encoder at different scales. It does so using a mask-guided multi-stream convolution in the feature space to achieve state-of-the-art performance on most standard benchmarks.Comment: Presented at the Advances in Image Manipulation Workshop at ECCV 202

Extracting Radiant Cooling From Building Exhaust Air Using the Maisotsenko Cycle Principle

Indirect evaporative cooling has exciting implications for air based thermal comfort. With recent advances in the research and commercialization of Maisotsenko Cycle (M-Cycle), or dew-point, evaporative cooling, thermodynamics can be fully leveraged to provide effectively free air cooling. However, few studies seek to generate cool surfaces by evaporation for radiant cooling. As a method to reduce building energy consumption, such an evapo-radiative system would maintain occupant thermal comfort at higher ventilation air temperatures and provide cooling at low cost. This study explores an analytical model for an M-Cycle evapo-radiative cooling system that derives a 1-D temperature profile throughout an experimental module and compares the outputs to experimental data to begin the model validation process

Impact of caspase-1/11, -3, -7, or IL-1β/IL-18 deficiency on rabies virus-induced macrophage cell death and onset of disease

Rabies virus is a highly neurovirulent RNA virus, which causes about 59000 deaths in humans each year. Previously, we described macrophage cytotoxicity upon infection with rabies virus. Here we examined the type of cell death and the role of specific caspases in cell death and disease development upon infection with two laboratory strains of rabies virus: Challenge Virus Standard strain-11 (CVS-11) is highly neurotropic and lethal for mice, while the attenuated Evelyn-Rotnycki-Abelseth (ERA) strain has a broader cell tropism, is non-lethal and has been used as an oral vaccine for animals. Infection of Mf4/4 macrophages with both strains led to caspase-1 activation and IL-1β and IL-18 production, as well as activation of caspases-3, -7, -8, and -9. Moreover, absence of caspase-3, but not of caspase-1 and -11 or -7, partially inhibited virus-induced cell death of bone marrow-derived macrophages. Intranasal inoculation with CVS-11 of mice deficient for either caspase-1 and -11 or -7 or both IL-1β and IL-18 led to general brain infection and lethal disease similar to wild-type mice. Deficiency of caspase-3, on the other hand, significantly delayed the onset of disease, but did not prevent final lethal outcome. Interestingly, deficiency of caspase-1/11, the key executioner of pyroptosis, aggravated disease severity caused by ERA virus, whereas wild-type mice or mice deficient for either caspase-3, -7, or both IL-1β and IL-18 presented the typical mild symptoms associated with ERA virus. In conclusion, rabies virus infection of macrophages induces caspase-1- and caspase-3-dependent cell death. In vivo caspase-1/11 and caspase-3 differently affect disease development in response to infection with the attenuated ERA strain or the virulent CVS-11 strain, respectively. Inflammatory caspases seem to control attenuated rabies virus infection, while caspase-3 aggravates virulent rabies virus infection

IL-6 selectively suppresses cDC1 specification via C/EBPβ

Cytokines produced in association with tumors can impair antitumor immune responses by reducing the abundance of type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1), but the mechanism remains unclear. Here, we show that tumor-derived IL-6 generally reduces cDC development but selectively impairs cDC1 development in both murine and human systems through the induction of C/EBPβ in the common dendritic cell progenitor (CDP). C/EBPβ and NFIL3 compete for binding to sites in the Zeb2 -165 kb enhancer and support or repress Zeb2 expression, respectively. At homeostasis, pre-cDC1 specification occurs upon Nfil3 induction and consequent Zeb2 suppression. However, IL-6 strongly induces C/EBPβ expression in CDPs. Importantly, the ability of IL-6 to impair cDC development is dependent on the presence of C/EBPβ binding sites in the Zeb2 -165 kb enhancer, as this effect is lost in Δ1+2+3 mutant mice in which these binding sites are mutated. These results explain how tumor-associated IL-6 suppresses cDC1 development and suggest therapeutic approaches preventing abnormal C/EBPβ induction in CDPs may help reestablish cDC1 development to enhance antitumor immunity

Annual transcriptome of a key zooplankton species, the copepod Calanus finmarchicus

The copepod Calanus finmarchicus (Crustacea, Copepoda) is a key zooplanktonic species with a crucial position in the North Atlantic food web and significant contributor to ocean carbon flux. Like many other high latitude animals, it has evolved a programmed arrested development called diapause to cope with long periods of limited food supply, while growth and reproduction are timed to take advantage of seasonal peaks in primary production. However, anthropogenic warming is inducing changes in the expected timing of phytoplankton blooms, suggesting phenological mismatches with negative consequences for the N. Atlantic ecosystem. While diapause mechanisms are mainly studied in terrestrial arthropods, specifically on laboratory model species, such as the fruit fly Drosophila, the molecular investigations of annual rhythms in wild marine species remain fragmentary. Here we performed a rigorous year-long monthly sampling campaign of C. finmarchicus in a Scottish Loch (UK; 56.45°N, 5.18°W) to generate an annual transcriptome. The mRNA of 36 samples (monthly triplicate of 25 individuals) have been deeply sequenced with an average depth of 137 ± 4 million reads (mean ± SE) per sample, aligned to the reference transcriptome, and filtered. We detail the quality assessment of the datasets and provide a high-quality resource for the investigation of wild annual transcriptomic rhythms (35,357 components) in a key diapausing zooplanktonic species

Hepatitis A outbreak disproportionately affecting men who have sex with men (MSM) in the European Union and European Economic Area, June 2016 to May 2017

Free PMC Article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6205254/Between 1 June 2016 and 31 May 2017, 17 European Union (EU) and European Economic Area countries reported 4,096 cases associated with a multi-country hepatitis A (HA) outbreak. Molecular analysis identified three co-circulating hepatitis A virus (HAV) strains of genotype IA: VRD_521_2016, V16-25801 and RIVM-HAV16-090. We categorised cases as confirmed, probable or possible, according to the EU outbreak case definitions. Confirmed cases were infected with one of the three outbreak strains. We investigated case characteristics and strain-specific risk factors for transmission. A total of 1,400 (34%) cases were confirmed; VRD_521_2016 and RIVM-HAV16-090 accounted for 92% of these. Among confirmed cases with available epidemiological data, 92% (361/393) were unvaccinated, 43% (83/195) travelled to Spain during the incubation period and 84% (565/676) identified as men who have sex with men (MSM). Results depict an HA outbreak of multiple HAV strains, within a cross-European population, that was particularly driven by transmission between non-immune MSM engaging in high-risk sexual behaviour. The most effective preventive measure to curb this outbreak is HAV vaccination of MSM, supplemented by primary prevention campaigns that target the MSM population and promote protective sexual behaviour.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio