Robust video fingerprinting based on visual attention regions

This paper presents a robust video fingerprinting based on visual attention regions. Video fingerprints, which are a set of short feature vectors, are unique to video clips and used for video identification. The performance of video fingerprinting is usually measured in terms of robustness and accuracy of identification. In our proposed approach, we extract video fingerprints using visual attention regions which remain the same for the perceptually same scenes with different types of distortions and different for different scenes. The experimental results show that the proposed video fingerprinting is effective for constructing video fingerprints that are robust against various content-preserving distortions and accurate in identifying different video clips. ?2009 IEEE.EI

Usnic acid ameliorates bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice via inhibition of inflammatory responses and oxidative stress

Purpose: To Investigate the effect of usnic acid (UA) on bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice, and the underlying mechanism. Methods: Male Kunming mice with bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis (PF) were exposed to different concentrations of usnic acid. Lung coefficient and histopathological changes were determined, while MDA, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, and expression levels of hydroxyproline, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukins-1β & 6, and transforming growth factor-β1 were assayed in lung homogenates. Results: UA significantly mitigated lung coefficient and histopathological changes in mice. Compared to the bleomycin group, MDA level was significantly reduced while the content of SOD markedly increased after UA pretreatment (p < 0.05). Moreover, UA significantly reduced the expression levels of all the parameters, relative to bleomycin group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: These results indicate that UA protects mice against bleomycin-induced PF via a mechanism associated with attenuation of pro-oxidant stress and inflammation. Therefore, UA has therapeutic potential for the management of pulmonary fibrosis

Robust Adaptive Control of STATCOMs to Mitigate Inverter-Based-Resource (IBR)-Induced Oscillations

The interaction among inverter-based resources (IBRs) and power network may cause small-signal stability issues, especially in low short-circuit grids. Besides, the integration of static synchronous compensators (STATCOMs) in a multi-IBR system for voltage support can deteriorate small-signal stability. However, it is still challenging to understand the impact mechanism of STATCOMs on IBR-induced oscillation issues and to design STATCOMs' control for damping these oscillation issues in a multi-IBR system, due to complex system dynamics and varying operating conditions. To tackle these challenges, this paper proposes a novel method to reveal how STATCOMs influence IBR-induced oscillation issues in a multi-IBR system from the viewpoint of grid strength, which can consider varying operating conditions. Based on this proposed method, we find critical operating conditions, wherein the system tends to be most unstable; moreover, we demonstrate that robust small-signal stability issues of the multi-IBR system with STATCOMs can be simplified as that of multiple subsystems under critical operating conditions, which avoids traversing all operating conditions and establishing system's detailed models. On this basis, an adaptive control-parameter design method is proposed for STATCOMs to ensure system's robust small-signal stability under varying operating conditions. The efficacy of proposed methods is validated by a 39-node test system

4-Benz­yloxy-2-bromo-1-meth­oxy­benzene

In the title compound, C14H13BrO2, the phenyl ring is oriented at a dihedral angle of 72.6 (3)° with respect to the bromo­meth­oxy­phenyl ring. The crystal structure is stabilized by weak inter­molecular C—H⋯O inter­actions

A cylindrical core-shell-like TiO2 nanotube array anode for flexible fiber-type dye-sensitized solar cells

A versatile anodization method was reported to anodize Ti wires into cylindrical core-shell-like and thermally crystallized TiO2 nanotube (TNT) arrays that can be directly used as the photoanodes for semi- and all-solid fiber-type dye-sensitized solar cells (F-DSSC). Both F-DSSCs showed higher power conversion efficiencies than or competitive to those of previously reported counterparts fabricated by depositing TiO2 particles onto flexible substrates. The substantial enhancement is presumably attributed to the reduction of grain boundaries and defects in the prepared TNT anodes, which may suppress the recombination of the generated electrons and holes, and accordingly lead to more efficient carrier-transfer channels

Coenzyme Q deficiency causes impairment of the sulfide oxidation pathway

Coenzyme Q (CoQ) is an electron acceptor for sulfide‐quinone reductase (SQR), the first enzyme of the hydrogen sulfide oxidation pathway. Here, we show that lack of CoQ in human skin fibroblasts causes impairment of hydrogen sulfide oxidation, proportional to the residual levels of CoQ. Biochemical and molecular abnormalities are rescued by CoQ supplementation in vitro and recapitulated by pharmacological inhibition of CoQ biosynthesis in skin fibroblasts and ADCK3 depletion in HeLa cells. Kidneys of Pdss2kd/kd mice, which only have ~15% residual CoQ concentrations and are clinically affected, showed (i) reduced protein levels of SQR and downstream enzymes, (ii) accumulation of hydrogen sulfides, and (iii) glutathione depletion. These abnormalities were not present in brain, which maintains ~30% residual CoQ and is clinically unaffected. In Pdss2kd/kd mice, we also observed low levels of plasma and urine thiosulfate and increased blood C4‐C6 acylcarnitines. We propose that impairment of the sulfide oxidation pathway induced by decreased levels of CoQ causes accumulation of sulfides and consequent inhibition of short‐chain acyl‐CoA dehydrogenase and glutathione depletion, which contributes to increased oxidative stress and kidney failure