2,577 research outputs found
Wavelet Channel Attention Module with a Fusion Network for Single Image Deraining
Single image deraining is a crucial problem because rain severely degenerates
the visibility of images and affects the performance of computer vision tasks
like outdoor surveillance systems and intelligent vehicles. In this paper, we
propose the new convolutional neural network (CNN) called the wavelet channel
attention module with a fusion network. Wavelet transform and the inverse
wavelet transform are substituted for down-sampling and up-sampling so feature
maps from the wavelet transform and convolutions contain different frequencies
and scales. Furthermore, feature maps are integrated by channel attention. Our
proposed network learns confidence maps of four sub-band images derived from
the wavelet transform of the original images. Finally, the clear image can be
well restored via the wavelet reconstruction and fusion of the low-frequency
part and high-frequency parts. Several experimental results on synthetic and
real images present that the proposed algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art
methods.Comment: Accepted to IEEE ICIP 202
Haemoglobin A1C Levels Constantly Below Lower Reference Limit in a Diabetic Patient With Microcytic Anaemia
Introduction: Haemoglobin A1C (A1C), as a parameter of long-term glycaemic control, has been adopted to guide diabetic therapy all over the world. However, falsely high or low A1C could be troublesome in daily practice.
Case description: A 75-year-old male diabetic patient affected by a reasonably inferred life-long history of microcytic anaemia was found to have abnormally low A1C values in the previous 5 months. Subsequent laboratory assessment with brilliant cresyl blue staining and haemoglobin electrophoresis detected haemoglobin H disease as the underlying cause of both the microcytic anaemia and the disturbed A1C measurement.
Discussion: Enhanced erythrocyte destruction such as in haemoglobin H disease could explain a falsely decreased A1C level very well. Upon facing a questionable A1C value, physicians dealing with diabetes should consider the possibility of undiscovered underlying causes rather than too tightly glycaemic control
Develop a Regional Multi-Source Database System for Safety Data Management and Analysis in RITI Communities in Washington State
Rural, Isolated, Tribal, and Indigenous (RITI) communities across the United States are disadvantaged from a transportation safety perspective. Particular concern is focusing on rural road safety. Since RITI communities often do not have the capability and resources to sufficiently solve roadway safety problems, several challenges are encountered for addressing transportation safety issues in RITI communities, including: (1) Crashes are often distributed along roads in RITI areas without known patterns; (2) Strategies to address safety issues are diverse for different RITI communities and draw from several safety areas. As a result, there is a critical need to realize equitably-augmented safety solutions that address the needs of these underserved and underinvested RITI communities. To address this gap, this project aims to develop a regional multi-source database system for traffic safety data management and analysis of RITI communities in Washington State. The existing crash data sources in RITI communities in Washington was identified and documented. The crash data on rural routes was extracted from the raw data from Washington State Department of Transportation and integrated into the multi-source database system, including traffic flow characteristics, crash attributes and contribution factors, crash-related trauma data and medical records, weather conditions, etc. The Colville tribe also provided the crash data in their tribal communities under a confidentiality agreement. A multi-source database fusion and integration system architecture was designed. Microsoft SQL Server 2012 was used to implement the database and manage the data. A six-step data quality control method was employed to clean the data by wiping out the outliers from spatial and temporal aspects. The tribal crash data was made accessible to authorized users so they can download the datasets by using password, while the WSDOT crash data was set to be public for all the users. A safety analysis module was developed for visualizing the data in the regional multi-source database system in RITI communities. The data visualization platform is developed based on the Vaadin Framework. The users can interact with the interface for data analysis. A safety performance index and a potential safety improvement index were also developed. By combining the two indexes, one can easily identify crash hotspots and the key influencing factors to consider in an improvement package.USDO
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Plasma Heme Oxygenase-1 Concentration is Elevated in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Background: Circulating concentrations of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) have been recently reported to be elevated in several chronic disorders. However, no study has ever examined the association between circulating HO-1 concentrations and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods and Findings: 581 cases with newly-diagnosed T2DM (New-T2DM) and 611 comparison controls were recruited in this two-phase case-control study, comprising 420 cases and 429 controls collected in the first phase study and 161 cases and 182 controls in the second phase replication study. Analyses, using both separated data and combined data from the two-phase studies, show that plasma HO-1 concentrations were significantly increased in New-T2DM cases compared to controls (P less than 0.001). Plasma HO-1 concentrations were significantly correlated with plasma glucose concentrations, HOMA-beta and HOMA-IR (P less than 0.001). After adjustment for age, sex, BMI and family history of diabetes, the ORs for New-T2DM in the highest quartile of plasma HO-1 concentrations, compared with the lowest, was 8.23 (95% CI 5.55â12.21; P for trend <0.001). The trend remained significant after additional adjustment for fasting plasma glucose/insulin, HOMA-beta/HOMA-IR, TC/TG, smoking, drinking and history of hypertension, and even in further stratification analysis by age, sex, BMI, smoking, drinking and history of hypertension. Conclusions: Elevated plasma HO-1 concentrations are associated with higher ORs for New-T2DM, which add more knowledge regarding the important role of oxidative stress in T2DM. More consequent studies were warranted to confirm the clinical utility of plasma HO-1, especially in diagnosis and prognosis of T2DM and its complications
Anisotropic c-f hybridization in the ferromagnetic quantum critical metal CeRhGe
Heavy fermion compounds exhibiting a ferromagnetic quantum critical point
have attracted considerable interest. Common to two known cases, i.e.,
CeRhGe and YbNiP, is that the 4f moments reside along chains
with a large inter-chain distance, exhibiting strong magnetic anisotropy that
was proposed to be vital for the ferromagnetic quantum criticality. Here we
report an angle-resolved photoemission study on CeRh6Ge4, where we observe
sharp momentum-dependent 4f bands and clear bending of the conduction bands
near the Fermi level, indicating considerable hybridization between conduction
and 4f electrons. The extracted hybridization strength is anisotropic in
momentum space and is obviously stronger along the Ce chain direction. The
hybridized 4f bands persist up to high temperatures, and the evolution of their
intensity shows clear band dependence. Our results provide spectroscopic
evidence for anisotropic hybridization between conduction and 4f electrons in
CeRhGe, which could be important for understanding the electronic
origin of the ferromagnetic quantum criticality
Quasi-Two-Dimensional Fermi Surface and Heavy Quasiparticles in CeRh2As2
The recent discovery of multiple superconducting phases in CeRh2As2 has
attracted considerable interest. These rich phases are thought to be related to
the locally noncentrosymmetric crystal structure, although the possible role of
a quadrupole density wave preceding the superconductivity remains an open
question. While measurements of physical properties imply that the Ce 4f
electrons could play an essential role, the momentum-resolved electronic
structure remains hitherto unreported, hindering an in-depth understanding of
the underlying physics. Here, we report a high-resolution angle-resolved
photoemission study of CeRh2As2. Our results reveal fine splittings of
conduction bands, which are directly related to the locally noncentrosymmetric
structure, as well as a quasi-two-dimensional Fermi surface, implying weak
interlayer hopping and possible nesting instabilities. Our experiments also
uncover the fine structures and pronounced temperature evolution of the Kondo
peak, demonstrating strong Kondo effect facilitated by excited crystal electric
field states. Our results unveil the salient electronic features arising from
the interplay between the crystal structure and strong electron correlation,
providing spectroscopic insight for understanding the heavy fermion physics and
unconventional quadrupole density wave in this enigmatic compound
Emerging tick-borne infections in mainland China: an increasing public health threat
Since the beginning of the 1980s, 33 emerging tick-borne agents have been identified in mainland China, including eight species of spotted fever group rickettsiae, seven species in the family Anaplasmataceae, six genospecies in the complex Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, 11 species of Babesia, and the virus causing severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome. In this Review we have mapped the geographical distributions of human cases of infection. 15 of the 33 emerging tick-borne agents have been reported to cause human disease, and their clinical characteristics have been described. The non-specific clinical manifestations caused by tick-borne pathogens present a major diagnostic challenge and most physicians are unfamiliar with the many tick-borne diseases that present with non-specific symptoms in the early stages of the illness. Advances in and application of modern molecular techniques should help with identification of emerging tick-borne pathogens and improve laboratory diagnosis of human infections. We expect that more novel tick-borne infections in ticks and animals will be identified and additional emerging tick-borne diseases in human beings will be discovered
On the Origin of the Dichotomy of Early-Type Galaxies: The Role of Dry Mergers and AGN Feedback
Using a semi-analytical model for galaxy formation, combined with a large
N-body simulation, we investigate the origin of the dichotomy among early-type
galaxies. We find that boxy galaxies originate from mergers with a progenitor
mass ratio and with a combined cold gas mass fraction . Our model accurately reproduces the observed fraction of boxy systems as
a function of luminosity and halo mass, for both central galaxies and
satellites. After correcting for the stellar mass dependence, the properties of
the last major merger of early-type galaxies are independent of their halo
mass. This provides theoretical support for the conjecture of Pasquali et al
(2007) that the stellar mass of an early-type galaxy is the main parameter that
governs its isophotal shape. We argue that the observed dichotomy of early-type
galaxies has a natural explanation within hierarchical structure formation, and
does not require AGN feedback. Rather, we argue that it owes to the fact that
more massive systems (i) have more massive progenitors, (ii) assemble later,
and (iii) have a larger fraction of early-type progenitors. Each of these three
trends causes the cold gas mass fraction of the progenitors of more massive
early-types to be lower, so that their last major merger was dryer. Finally,
our model predicts that (i) less than 10 percent of all early-type galaxies
form in major mergers that involve two early-type progenitors, (ii) more than
95 percent of all boxy early-type galaxies with M_* < 2 \times 10^{10} h^{-1}
\Msun are satellite galaxies, and (iii) about 70 percent of all low mass
early-types do not form a supermassive black hole binary at their last major
merger. The latter may help to explain why low mass early-types have central
cusps, while their massive counterparts have cores.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted for publication in MNRA
Evolved Massive Stars at Low-metallicity V. Mass-Loss Rate of Red Supergiant Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud
We assemble the most complete and clean red supergiant (RSG) sample (2,121
targets) so far in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) with 53 different bands of
data to study the MLR of RSGs. In order to match the observed spectral energy
distributions (SEDs), a theoretical grid of 17,820 Oxygen-rich models
(``normal'' and ``dusty'' grids are half-and-half) is created by the
radiatively-driven wind model of the DUSTY code, covering a wide range of dust
parameters. We select the best model for each target by calculating the minimal
modified chi-square and visual inspection. The resulting MLRs from DUSTY are
converted to real MLRs based on the scaling relation, for which a total MLR of
yr is measured (corresponding to a
dust-production rate of yr), with a
typical MLR of yr for the general population of
the RSGs. The complexity of mass-loss estimation based on the SED is fully
discussed for the first time, indicating large uncertainties based on the
photometric data (potentially up to one order of magnitude or more). The
Hertzsprung-Russell and luminosity versus median absolute deviation diagrams of
the sample indicate the positive relation between luminosity and MLR.
Meanwhile, the luminosity versus MLR diagrams show a ``knee-like'' shape with
enhanced mass-loss occurring above , which may
be due to the degeneracy of luminosity, pulsation, low surface gravity,
convection, and other factors. We derive our MLR relation by using a
third-order polynomial to fit the sample and compare our result with previous
empirical MLR prescriptions. Given that our MLR prescription is based on a much
larger sample than previous determinations, it provides a more accurate
relation at the cool and luminous region of the H-R diagram at low-metallicity
compared to previous studies.Comment: 16 pages, 19 figures, accepted by A&
Approaches and challenges to the study of loessâIntroduction to the LoessFest Special Issue
In September 2016, the annual meeting of the International Union for Quaternary Research's Loess and Pedostratigraphy Focus Group, traditionally referred to as a LoessFest, met in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA. The 2016 LoessFest focused on thin loess deposits and loess transportation surfaces. This LoessFest included 75 registered participants from 10 countries. Almost half of the participants were from outside the United States, and 18 of the participants were students. This review is the introduction to the special issue for Quaternary Research that originated from presentations and discussions at the 2016 LoessFest. This introduction highlights current understanding and ongoing work on loess in various regions of the world and provides brief summaries of some of the current approaches/strategies used to study loess deposits
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