Visual Comfort Assessment for Stereoscopic Image Retargeting

In recent years, visual comfort assessment (VCA) for 3D/stereoscopic content has aroused extensive attention. However, much less work has been done on the perceptual evaluation of stereoscopic image retargeting. In this paper, we first build a Stereoscopic Image Retargeting Database (SIRD), which contains source images and retargeted images produced by four typical stereoscopic retargeting methods. Then, the subjective experiment is conducted to assess four aspects of visual distortion, i.e. visual comfort, image quality, depth quality and the overall quality. Furthermore, we propose a Visual Comfort Assessment metric for Stereoscopic Image Retargeting (VCA-SIR). Based on the characteristics of stereoscopic retargeted images, the proposed model introduces novel features like disparity range, boundary disparity as well as disparity intensity distribution into the assessment model. Experimental results demonstrate that VCA-SIR can achieve high consistency with subjective perception

7-Chloro-5-(2-ethoxy­phen­yl)-1-methyl-3-propyl-2,6-dihydro-1H-pyrazolo[4,3-d]pyrimidine

In the title compound, C17H21ClN4O, the benzene ring is oriented at dihedral angles of 1.59 (3) and 1.27 (3)° with respect to the pyrimidine and pyrazole rings, while the dihedral angle between the pyrimidine and pyrazole rings is 0.83 (3)°. An intra­molecular N—H⋯O hydrogen bond results in the formation of a planar (r.m.s. deviation 0.004 Å) six-membered ring

Regulatory Effect of Melatonin on Cytokine Disturbances in the Pristane-Induced Lupus Mice

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) develops in relation to many environmental factors. In our opinion, it is more important to investigate the effect of melatonin on the environmental- related SLE. In the present study, 0.5 ml pristane were used to induce SLE in female BALB/c mice. Melatonin (0.01, 0.1, 1.0 mg/kg) was orally administered immediately after pristane-injection for 24 weeks. IgM anti ssDNA and histone antibodies were detected after 0, 1, 2, 4, 8 weeks pristane injection. The levels of IL-2, IL-6 and IL-13 were detected after 24 weeks. Renal lesions were also observed. The results showed that melatonin antagonized the increasing levels of IgM anti ssDNA and histone autoantibodies. Melatonin could also decrease the IL-6 and IL-13 production and increase the IL-2 production. Besides, melatonin could lessen the renal lesions caused by pristane. These results suggested that melatonin has a beneficial effect on pristane-induced lupus through regulating the cytokines disturbances

Stationary random vibration analysis of vehicle-track coupled system with nonlinear stiffness of railpads

According to time-temperature superposition (TTS) and WLF formula, the temperature-dependent and frequency-dependent kinetic parameters of the railpads of WJ-7 fasteners were predicted based on the experimental results at a certain frequency and under the different temperatures. By combining the pseudo excitation method and symplectic mathematics scheme, the impact of railpads frequency-dependent and temperature-dependent stiffness on the random variation of the coupled vehicle-track system was investigated efficiently. The results suggest that, within the range of environment temperature and frequency-dependent extent of railpads in the railway, the PSD peak of the vertical random vibration acceleration of the wheelsets and rail gets the largest increase of 3.3 times at least, and the increment of their 1st dominant frequency also reaches up to 20.6 Hz or more. Therefore, in order to accurately analyze the random vibration responses of the vehicle-track coupled system, experiments must be conducted to obtain the accurate kinetic parameters of the polymer materials like railpads