End-to-End Learning for Simultaneously Generating Decision Map and Multi-Focus Image Fusion Result

The general aim of multi-focus image fusion is to gather focused regions of different images to generate a unique all-in-focus fused image. Deep learning based methods become the mainstream of image fusion by virtue of its powerful feature representation ability. However, most of the existing deep learning structures failed to balance fusion quality and end-to-end implementation convenience. End-to-end decoder design often leads to unrealistic result because of its non-linear mapping mechanism. On the other hand, generating an intermediate decision map achieves better quality for the fused image, but relies on the rectification with empirical post-processing parameter choices. In this work, to handle the requirements of both output image quality and comprehensive simplicity of structure implementation, we propose a cascade network to simultaneously generate decision map and fused result with an end-to-end training procedure. It avoids the dependence on empirical post-processing methods in the inference stage. To improve the fusion quality, we introduce a gradient aware loss function to preserve gradient information in output fused image. In addition, we design a decision calibration strategy to decrease the time consumption in the application of multiple images fusion. Extensive experiments are conducted to compare with 19 different state-of-the-art multi-focus image fusion structures with 6 assessment metrics. The results prove that our designed structure can generally ameliorate the output fused image quality, while implementation efficiency increases over 30\% for multiple images fusion.Comment: repor

Information loss in local dissipation environments

The sensitivity of entanglement to the thermal and squeezed reservoirs' parameters is investigated regarding entanglement decay and what is called sudden-death of entanglement, ESD, for a system of two qubit pairs. The dynamics of information is investigated by means of the information disturbance and exchange information. We show that for squeezed reservoir, we can keep both of the entanglement and information survival for a long time. The sudden death of information is seen in the case of thermal reservoir

A Novel Model of Atherosclerosis in Rabbits Using Injury to Arterial Walls Induced by Ferric Chloride as Evaluated by Optical Coherence Tomography as well as Intravascular Ultrasound and Histology

This study aim was to develop a new model of atherosclerosis by FeCl3-induced injury to right common carotid arteries (CCAs) of rabbits. Right CCAs were induced in male New Zealand White rabbits (n = 15) by combination of a cholesterol-rich diet and FeCl3-induced injury to arterial walls. The right and left CCAs were evaluated by histology and in vivo intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) examinations of 24 hours (n = 3), 8 weeks (n = 6), and 12 weeks (n = 6) after injury. Each right CCA of the rabbits showed extensive white-yellow plaques. At eight and 12 weeks after injury, IVUS, OCT, and histological findings demonstrated that the right CCAs had evident eccentric plaques. Six plaques (50%) with evident positive remodeling were observed. Marked progression was clearly observed in the same plaque at 12 weeks after injury when it underwent repeat OCT and IVUS. We demonstrated, for the first time, a novel model of atherosclerosis induced by FeCl3. The model is simple, fast, inexpensive, and reproducible and has a high success rate. The eccentric plaques and remodeling of plaques were common in this model. We successfully carried out IVUS and OCT examinations twice in the same lesion within a relatively long period of time

Influence of cloud microphysical processes on black carbon wet removal, global distributions, and radiative forcing

Parameterizations that impact wet removal of black carbon (BC) remain uncertain in global climate models. In this study, we enhance the default wet deposition scheme for BC in the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to (a) add relevant physical processes that were not resolved in the default model and (b) facilitate understanding of the relative importance of various cloud processes on BC distributions. We find that the enhanced scheme greatly improves model performance against HIPPO observations relative to the default scheme. We find that convection scavenging, aerosol activation, ice nucleation, evaporation of rain or snow, and below-cloud scavenging dominate wet deposition of BC. BC conversion rates for processes related to in-cloud water–ice conversion (i.e., riming, the Bergeron process, and evaporation of cloud water sedimentation) are relatively smaller, but have large seasonal variations. We also conduct sensitivity simulations that turn off each cloud process one at a time to quantify the influence of cloud processes on BC distributions and radiative forcing. Convective scavenging is found to have the largest impact on BC concentrations at mid-altitudes over the tropics and even globally. In addition, BC is sensitive to all cloud processes over the Northern Hemisphere at high latitudes. As for BC vertical distributions, convective scavenging greatly influences BC fractions at different altitudes. Suppressing BC droplet activation in clouds mainly decreases the fraction of column BC below 5&thinsp;km, whereas suppressing BC ice nucleation increases that above 10&thinsp;km. During wintertime, the Bergeron process also significantly increases BC concentrations at lower altitudes over the Arctic. Our simulation yields a global BC burden of 85&thinsp;Gg; corresponding direct radiative forcing (DRF) of BC estimated using the Parallel Offline Radiative Transfer (PORT) is 0.13&thinsp;W&thinsp;m−2, much lower than previous studies. The range of DRF derived from sensitivity simulations is large, 0.09–0.33&thinsp;W&thinsp;m−2, corresponding to BC burdens varying from 73 to 151&thinsp;Gg. Due to differences in BC vertical distributions among each sensitivity simulation, fractional changes in DRF (relative to the baseline simulation) are always higher than fractional changes in BC burdens; this occurs because relocating BC in the vertical influences the radiative forcing per BC mass. Our results highlight the influences of cloud microphysical processes on BC concentrations and radiative forcing.</p

The association of PBX1 polymorphisms with overweight/obesity and metabolic alterations in the Korean population

Pre-B-cell leukemia transcription factor 1 (PBX1), which is located on chromosome 1q23, was recently reported to be associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus. We examined whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the PBX1 gene are associated with overweight/obesity in a Korean population. We genotyped 66 SNPs in the PBX1 gene and investigated their association with clinical phenotypes found in 214 overweight/obese subjects and 160 control subjects using the Affymetrix Targeted Genotyping chip array. Seven SNPs (g.+75186C>T, g.+78350C>A, g.+80646C>T, g.+138004C>T, g.+185219G>A, g.+191272A>C, and g.+265317T>A) were associated with the risk of obesity in three models (codominant, dominant, and recessive) (P=0.007-0.05). Haplotype 1 (CAC) and 3 (TAC) of block 3 and haplotype 2 (GGAAT) of block 10 were also strongly associated with the risk of obesity. In the control group, subjects that had homozygote for the major allele for both g.+185219G>A and g.+191272A>C showed lower high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) level compared to those possessing the minor allele, suggesting that the association between the homozygote for the major allele for both g.+185219G>A and g.+191272A>C and HDL-C is attributable to the increased risk of obesity. This study suggests that the PBX1 gene is a possible risk factor in overweight/obese patients

Finite element analysis and calculation method of residual flexural capacity of post-fire RC beams

Fire tests and subsequent bending tests of fourreinforced concrete (RC) beamswere performed. Based on these tests, the post-fire performance of RCbeams was further studied using finite element simulation through reasonable selection of suitable thermal and thermodynamic parameters of steel and concrete materials. A thermodynamic model of RC beams with three sides under fire was built using finite element analysis(FEA)software ABAQUS. The FEA model was validated with the results of fire tests. Different factors were taken into account for further parametric studies in fire using the proposed FE model.The results show that the main factors affecting the fire resistance of the beamsare the thickness of the concretecover, reinforcement ratio of longitudinal steel,the fire exposure timeandthe fire exposure sides. Based on the strength reduction formula at high temperature of steel and concrete, animproved section method was proposed to develop a calculation formula to calculate the flexural capacity of RC beams after fire. The theoretical calculation method proposed in this paper shows good agreement with FEA results, which can be used to calculate the flexuralcapacity of RC beams after fire