Elucidation of the reinforcement mechanism of functionalized nanoparticles in silica loaded rubber compounds

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High-Fidelity 3D Head Avatars Reconstruction through Spatially-Varying Expression Conditioned Neural Radiance Field

One crucial aspect of 3D head avatar reconstruction lies in the details of facial expressions. Although recent NeRF-based photo-realistic 3D head avatar methods achieve high-quality avatar rendering, they still encounter challenges retaining intricate facial expression details because they overlook the potential of specific expression variations at different spatial positions when conditioning the radiance field. Motivated by this observation, we introduce a novel Spatially-Varying Expression (SVE) conditioning. The SVE can be obtained by a simple MLP-based generation network, encompassing both spatial positional features and global expression information. Benefiting from rich and diverse information of the SVE at different positions, the proposed SVE-conditioned neural radiance field can deal with intricate facial expressions and achieve realistic rendering and geometry details of high-fidelity 3D head avatars. Additionally, to further elevate the geometric and rendering quality, we introduce a new coarse-to-fine training strategy, including a geometry initialization strategy at the coarse stage and an adaptive importance sampling strategy at the fine stage. Extensive experiments indicate that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art (SOTA) methods in rendering and geometry quality on mobile phone-collected and public datasets.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Pathology Steered Stratification Network for Subtype Identification in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a heterogeneous, multifactorial neurodegenerative disorder characterized by beta-amyloid, pathologic tau, and neurodegeneration. There are no effective treatments for Alzheimer's disease at a late stage, urging for early intervention. However, existing statistical inference approaches of AD subtype identification ignore the pathological domain knowledge, which could lead to ill-posed results that are sometimes inconsistent with the essential neurological principles. Integrating systems biology modeling with machine learning, we propose a novel pathology steered stratification network (PSSN) that incorporates established domain knowledge in AD pathology through a reaction-diffusion model, where we consider non-linear interactions between major biomarkers and diffusion along brain structural network. Trained on longitudinal multimodal neuroimaging data, the biological model predicts long-term trajectories that capture individual progression pattern, filling in the gaps between sparse imaging data available. A deep predictive neural network is then built to exploit spatiotemporal dynamics, link neurological examinations with clinical profiles, and generate subtype assignment probability on an individual basis. We further identify an evolutionary disease graph to quantify subtype transition probabilities through extensive simulations. Our stratification achieves superior performance in both inter-cluster heterogeneity and intra-cluster homogeneity of various clinical scores. Applying our approach to enriched samples of aging populations, we identify six subtypes spanning AD spectrum, where each subtype exhibits a distinctive biomarker pattern that is consistent with its clinical outcome. PSSN provides insights into pre-symptomatic diagnosis and practical guidance on clinical treatments, which may be further generalized to other neurodegenerative diseases

Experimental Investigation on OSB Webbed Laminated Bamboo Lumber Box Shaped Joists

A novel bamboo-wood box beam was introduced in this paper, which consisted of laminated bamboo lumber flanges and OSB webs. Four-point bending tests were conducted on composite beams to investigate the effects of shear span ratio and stiffeners on failure mode and strength. The results showed that the composite beams with shear span ratio less than two failed in web shear failure, but for the others, the beams failed in twist and delamination of OSB in flanges. The load carrying capacity of beams decreased with the increase of shear span ratio. However, the mechanical performance of beams can be improved moderately by the presence of stiffeners, and theultimate bearing capacity and initial stiffness was increased by 16.5% and 13.1% respectively

Impact of human papillomavirus vaccine on cervical cancer epidemic: Evidence from the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results program

IntroductionSince 2006, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been recommended for females aged 9–26 years in the United States. Aiming to evaluate the early effect of the HPV vaccine on cervical cancer, this study assessed the incidence of cervical cancer by age and histology before and after the introduction of HPV vaccination.MethodsData on cervical cancer incidence from 1975–2019 were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program. Joinpoint regression was used to determine temporal trends over time. Future cervical cancer incidence (2015–2039) was projected using Bayesian age-period-cohort analysis. Age-period-cohort (APC) models were created to evaluate age, period, and cohort effects.ResultsFor overall cervical cancer and cervical squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), incidence rate showed decreasing trends (–0.7%, and –1.0% annually, respectively), whereas cervical adenocarcinoma (AC) incidence continuously increased (2.6% annually). The incidence trends for AC were stable in the 20–24 and 25–29-year age groups, whereas there was an increasing trend in older age groups. Similarly, the projected trend for AC in females aged 20–30 years exhibited a decline, whereas an increase was predicted in the 31–40–year age group, especially in the 35–44 year age group. The birth cohort and period effects in SCC and AC were extracted from APC models.DiscussionDuring the period of 1975–2019, the incidence of cervical AC remained almost unchanged in the age groups receiving HPV vaccines while increased in the age groups not receiving HPV vaccines. The birth cohort effects of SCC and AC of the cervix provided evidence supporting the effectiveness of the HPV vaccine in preventing cervical cancer