2D-3D Interlaced Transformer for Point Cloud Segmentation with Scene-Level Supervision

We present a Multimodal Interlaced Transformer (MIT) that jointly considers 2D and 3D data for weakly supervised point cloud segmentation. Research studies have shown that 2D and 3D features are complementary for point cloud segmentation. However, existing methods require extra 2D annotations to achieve 2D-3D information fusion. Considering the high annotation cost of point clouds, effective 2D and 3D feature fusion based on weakly supervised learning is in great demand. To this end, we propose a transformer model with two encoders and one decoder for weakly supervised point cloud segmentation using only scene-level class tags. Specifically, the two encoders compute the self-attended features for 3D point clouds and 2D multi-view images, respectively. The decoder implements interlaced 2D-3D cross-attention and carries out implicit 2D and 3D feature fusion. We alternately switch the roles of queries and key-value pairs in the decoder layers. It turns out that the 2D and 3D features are iteratively enriched by each other. Experiments show that it performs favorably against existing weakly supervised point cloud segmentation methods by a large margin on the S3DIS and ScanNet benchmarks. The project page will be available at https://jimmy15923.github.io/mit_web/.Comment: ICCV 2023 (main + supp). Website: https://jimmy15923.github.io/mit_web

Enhancing momentum profits in the Taiwan Stock Market: The role of extreme absolute strength

Abstract(#br)We show that stocks with extreme absolute strength are highly volatile and thus attenuate the profitability of momentum in Taiwan, a market that has been widely documented as an exception of the momentum phenomenon. An enhanced momentum strategy that removes these stocks from the winner and loser portfolios generates significant profitability in the intermediate term. A major advantage of the enhanced momentum strategy is its robust profitability over time. More importantly, it is free from the momentum crashes. We provide further evidence to show that return dispersion and information uncertainty are closely related to momentum profitability in the cross-section when stocks with extreme absolute strength are removed

Investigation of inversion, accumulation and junctionless mode bulk Germanium FinFETs

The characteristic performance of n-type and p-type inversion (IM) mode, accumulation (AC) mode and junctionless (JL) mode, bulk Germanium FinFET device with 3-nm gate length (LG) are demonstrated by using 3-D quantum transport device simulation. The simulated bulk Ge FinFET device exhibits favorable short channel characteristics, including drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL<10mV/V), sub threshold slope (SS∼64mV/dec.). Electron density distributions in ON-state and OFF-state also show that the simulated devices have large ION/IOFF ratios. Homogenous source/drain doping is maintained and only the channel doping is varied among different operating modes. Also, a constant threshold voltage |VTH|∼0.31V is maintained. Moreover, the calculated quantum capacitance (CQ) values of the Ge nanowire emphasizes the importance of quantum confinement effects (QCE) on the performance of the ultra-scaled devices

RhoGDIβ-induced hypertrophic growth in H9c2 cells is negatively regulated by ZAK

We found that overexpression of RhoGDIβ, a Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor, induced hypertrophic growth and suppressed cell cycle progression in a cultured cardiomyoblast cell line. Knockdown of RhoGDIβ expression by RNA interference blocked hypertrophic growth. We further demonstrated that RhoGDIβ physically interacts with ZAK and is phosphorylated by ZAK in vitro, and this phosphorylation negatively regulates RhoGDIβ functions. Moreover, the ZAK-RhoGDIβ interaction may maintain ZAK in an inactive hypophosphorylated form. These two proteins could negatively regulate one another such that ZAK suppresses RhoGDIβ functions through phosphorylation and RhoGDIβ counteracts the effects of ZAK by physical interaction. Knockdown of ZAK expression in ZAK- and RhoGDIβ-expressing cells by ZAK-specific RNA interference restored the full functions of RhoGDIβ

Evolutionary conservation of DNA-contact residues in DNA-binding domains

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA-binding proteins are of utmost importance to gene regulation. The identification of DNA-binding domains is useful for understanding the regulation mechanisms of DNA-binding proteins. In this study, we proposed a method to determine whether a domain or a protein can has DNA binding capability by considering evolutionary conservation of DNA-binding residues.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our method achieves high precision and recall for 66 families of DNA-binding domains, with a false positive rate less than 5% for 250 non-DNA-binding proteins. In addition, experimental results show that our method is able to identify the different DNA-binding behaviors of proteins in the same SCOP family based on the use of evolutionary conservation of DNA-contact residues.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study shows the conservation of DNA-contact residues in DNA-binding domains. We conclude that the members in the same subfamily bind DNA specifically and the members in different subfamilies often recognize different DNA targets. Additionally, we observe the co-evolution of DNA-contact residues and interacting DNA base-pairs.</p

ZAK negatively regulates RhoGDIβ-induced Rac1-mediated hypertrophic growth and cell migration

RhoGDIβ, a Rho GDP dissociation inhibitor, induced hypertrophic growth and cell migration in a cultured cardiomyoblast cell line, H9c2. We demonstrated that RhoGDIβ plays a previously undefined role in regulating Rac1 expression through transcription to induce hypertrophic growth and cell migration and that these functions are blocked by the expression of a dominant-negative form of Rac1. We also demonstrated that knockdown of RhoGDIβ expression by RNA interference blocked RhoGDIβ-induced Rac1 expression and cell migration. We demonstrated that the co-expression of ZAK and RhoGDIβ in cells resulted in an inhibition in the activity of ZAK to induce ANF expression. Knockdown of ZAK expression in ZAK-RhoGDIβ-expressing cells by ZAK-specific RNA interference restored the activities of RhoGDIβ

Correlation of Copper Interaction, Copper-Driven Aggregation, and Copper-Driven H2O2 Formation with Aβ40 Conformation

The neurotoxicity of Aβ is associated with the formation of free radical by interacting with redox active metals such as Cu2+. However, the relationship between ion-interaction, ion-driven free radical formation, and Aβ conformation remains to be further elucidated. In the present study, we investigated the correlation of Cu2+ interaction and Cu2+-driven free radical formation with Aβ40 conformation. The Cu2+-binding affinity for Aβ40 in random coiled form is 3-fold higher than that in stable helical form. Unexpectedly but interestingly, we demonstrate in the first time that the stable helical form of Aβ40 can induce the formation of H2O2 by interacting with Cu2+. On the other hand, the H2O2 generation is repressed at Aβ/Cu2+ molar ratio ≥1 when Aβ40 adopts random coiled structure. Taken together, our result demonstrates that Aβ40 adopted a helical structure that may play a key factor for the formation of free radical with Cu2+ ions