An Optimization-based Matching Method and its Application in Merging Administrative Boundary Data

This presentation was given as part of the GIS Day@KU symposium on November 13, 2019. For more information about GIS Day@KU activities, please see http://gis.ku.edu/gisday/2019/As a critical data management task, conflation in GIS aims to determine the corresponding features from different datasets that in reality represent the same entities. This is called feature matching, which is used as a guidance to merge attributes of corresponding features between datasets. Based on the classification of features, there are point, polyline, and polygon matching methods. This study focuses on matching polygons and explores optimization–based matching methods for conflating two datasets.PLATINUM SPONSORS: KU Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science KU Institute for Policy & Social Research GOLD SPONSORS: KU Libraries State of Kansas Data Access & Support Center (DASC) SILVER SPONSORS: Bartlett & West Kansas Applied Remote Sensing Program KU Center for Global and International Studies BRONZE SPONSORS: Boundles

Initiating Cognitive Listening Attributes in Diagnosing EFL Learners’ Listening Sub-skills on the Basis of CSE

Bases on Field’s mode of cognitive listening attributes(2013), this study proposes a modified cognitive hierarchic of listening attributes and applies it in diagnosing and remedying EFL learner’s weak listening sub-skills during the whole process of CSE-based diagnostic listening test. Results show that the modified cognitive hierarchic of listening attributes and the dynamic hierarchic interaction between them play a key role in diagnosing and remedying EFL learner’s weakness in listening comprehension. It also proves that the marriage of CSE and cognitive hierarchic listening attributes can serve as a helpful guidance and reference for learners and instructors to get weak listening sub-skills promoted

Chicken cyclophilin A is an inhibitory factor to influenza virus replication

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The importance of enhancing influenza resistance in domestic flocks is quite clear both scientifically and economically. Chicken is very susceptible to influenza virus. It has been reported that human cellular cyclophilin A (CypA) impaired influenza virus infection in 293T cells. Whether chicken CypA (chCypA) inhibits influenza virus replication is not known. The molecular mechanism of resistance in chicken to influenza virus remains to be studied.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The chCypA gene was isolated and characterized in the present study. It contained an ORF of 498 bp encoding a polypeptide of 165 amino acids with an estimated molecular mass of 17.8 kDa sharing high identity with mammalian CypA genes. The chCypA demonstrated an anti-influenza activity as expected. ChCypA protein was shown to be able to specifically interact with influenza virus M1 protein. Cell susceptibility to influenza virus was reduced by over-expression of chCypA in CEF cells. The production of recombinant influenza virus A/WSN/33 reduced to one third in chCypA expressing cells comparing to chCypA absent cells. ChCypA was widely distributed in a variety of chicken tissues. It localized in cytoplasm of chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cells. Avian influenza virus infection induced its translocation from cytoplasm into nucleus. ChCypA expression was not significantly up-regulated by avian influenza virus infection. The present study indicated that chCypA was an inhibitory protein to influenza virus replication, suggesting a role as an intrinsic immunity factor against influenza virus infection.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The present data demonstrates that chCypA possesses anti-influenza virus activity which allows the consideration of genetic improvement for resistance to influenza virus in chickens.</p

Latency-Aware Collaborative Perception

Collaborative perception has recently shown great potential to improve perception capabilities over single-agent perception. Existing collaborative perception methods usually consider an ideal communication environment. However, in practice, the communication system inevitably suffers from latency issues, causing potential performance degradation and high risks in safety-critical applications, such as autonomous driving. To mitigate the effect caused by the inevitable latency, from a machine learning perspective, we present the first latency-aware collaborative perception system, which actively adapts asynchronous perceptual features from multiple agents to the same time stamp, promoting the robustness and effectiveness of collaboration. To achieve such a feature-level synchronization, we propose a novel latency compensation module, called SyncNet, which leverages feature-attention symbiotic estimation and time modulation techniques. Experiments results show that the proposed latency aware collaborative perception system with SyncNet can outperforms the state-of-the-art collaborative perception method by 15.6% in the communication latency scenario and keep collaborative perception being superior to single agent perception under severe latency.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, Accepted by European conference on computer vision, 202

Cyclosporin A Inhibits the Influenza Virus Replication through Cyclophilin A-Dependent and -Independent Pathways

The immunosuppressive drug cyclosporin A (CsA) has inhibitory effects on the replication of several viruses. The antiviral effects are through targeting the interaction between viral proteins and host factor cyclophilin A (CypA). CypA has been identified to interact with influenza A virus M1 protein and impair the early stage of the viral life cycle. In order to identify the effect of CsA on influenza virus replication, a CypA-depleted 293T cell line, which was named as 293T/CypA−, was constructed. The cytopathic effect (CPE) assay and the growth curve results indicated that CsA specifically suppressed the influenza A virus replication in a dose-dependent manner. CsA treatment had no effect on the viral genome replication and transcription but selectively suppressed the viral proteins expression. Further studies indicated that CsA could impair the nuclear export of viral mRNA in the absence of CypA. In addition, the antiviral activity of CsA was independent of calcineurin signaling. Finally, CsA could enhance the binding between CypA and M1. The above results suggested that CsA inhibited the replication of influenza A virus through CypA-dependent and -independent pathways

Research on unbalance response characteristics of gas turbine blade-disk rotor system

Taken a gas turbine rotor system as the research object, this paper has established dynamical model based on transfer matrix method. Natural vibration characteristics are solved with different transfer matrix models, and are compared with that gotten by finite element method. Then unbalanced response is researched. The effects of eccentric factors are discussed on unbalanced vibration. Furthermore, the application is explored in rotor dynamic balancing. The results show there is much minor deviation between natural frequencies of transfer matrix method and finite element method, and vibration modes of two methods coincide quite well. It illustrates the model established in the research is reliable. For input side of blade-disk rotor, unbalanced vibration occurs more easily in lower frequency. While unbalanced vibration of output side is more sensitive at higher frequency. With the increase of eccentric mass, unbalanced vibration of blade-disk rotor is more heavily, and the displacement rotates around a fixed node. The application of opposite unbalanced mass can decrease the amplitude of vibration in lower frequency. Hence, it can be used to achieve the balance of rotor dynamics. This research provides the theoretical basis and technological fundament for gas turbine rotor dynamics design

Do Chinese firms benefit from government ownership following cross-border acquisitions?

Chinese firms’ increasing cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) in recent years seem to challenge the explanatory power of received theories of multinational enterprise (MNE) due to their relatively unique characteristics and the active role of the Chinese government. In this study, we seek to revisit and contextualize the OLI paradigm in conjunction with the institution-based view and examine how Chinese firms’ post-CBA long term performance is associated with government ownership. Our study shows that Chinese firms with more government ownership demonstrate better post-CBA long term performance. However, the above relationship is differentially moderated by such firm-level boundary conditions as political connections and financial slack, and the country-level institutional boundary conditions (i.e., the host country formal institutions and the home-host country cultural distance). We discuss our findings in detail and explore theoretical and practical implications for both Chinese firms and other emerging economy (EE) firms

The Changing Patterns in Grasslands and Soil Fertility along the Eastern Eurasian Steppe Transect across China–Mongolia–Russia

This paper analyses the adaptation and change in species along the north-south Eastern Eurasian Steppe Transect across China – Mongolia – Russia and considers the implications for climate change and management. The plant community diversity, above-ground biomass, N:P ratios of community and of dominant species, soil N (nitrogen), soil P (phosphorus) and AP (available phosphorus) contents were studied along a 1400 km north-south transect. The main findings were: (1) the community diversity and productivity decreased with the increase in latitude and a significant negative correlation was found between the many plant characteristics and latitude (P \u3c 0.05) – decreasing diversity, biomass and N:P ratios; (2) soil AP content was lowest in Inner Mongolia, whereas no significant change in soil total P with latitude was found in China-Mongolia-Russia transect, a significant positive correlation was detected between the soil nutrient (N and AP) and latitude (P \u3c 0.05); (3) a significant positive correlation was evident between plant community P content and soil AP content (P \u3c 0.01), but a negative correlation was found between community N:P ratio and soil AP content (P \u3c 0.05). The soil AP content can be used as a soil properties indicator to reflect the plant communities P content and N: P ratio. It is suggested that greater human activities in Inner Mongolia may be an important factor affecting soil AP content, community N:P and plant growth