Face Recognition with Facial Occlusion Based on Local Cycle Graph Structure Operator

Facial occlusion is a difficulty in the field of face recognition. The lack of features caused by occlusion may reduce the face recognition rate greatly. How to extract the identified features from the occluded faces has a profound effect on face recognition. This chapter presents a Local Cycle Graph Structure (LCGS) operator, which makes full use of the information of the pixels around the target pixel with its neighborhood of 3 × 3. Thus, the recognition with the extracted features is more efficient. We apply the extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier to train and test the features extracted by LCGS algorithm. In the experiment, we use the olivetti research laboratory (ORL) database to simulate occlusion randomly and use the AR database for physical occlusion. Physical coverings include scarves and sunglasses. Experimental results demonstrate that our algorithm yields a state-of-the-art performance

Impaired Toll-like receptor 2-mediated Th1 and Th17/22 cytokines secretion in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells from patients with atopic dermatitis

Background: Impaired Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2) function has been associated with the pathogenesis of atopic dermatitis (AD). However, there are only few studies reporting on the TLR2-induced immunological responses of circulating leucocytes of AD patients. We thus investigated the expression and secretion of Th1, Th2 and Th17/22 cytokines triggered by TLR2 ligands in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from AD patients. Expression of TLR2, 1, 6 and high-affinity receptor for IgE (Fc epsilon RI) were further investigated to evaluate the outcome of immune response in AD. Methods: Expression of TLR2, 1, 6 and Fc epsilon RI in PBMCs from AD patients and healthy individuals were measured by qPCR. Subsequent to stimulation with TLR2 ligands PGN and Pam3CSK4, expression and secretion of Th1, Th2 and Th17/22 cytokines were investigated by qPCR and ELISA. Results: The levels of TLR2, 1, 6 mRNA were not altered in both groups of subjects while that of Fc epsilon RI was increased in AD patients. Subsequent to the activation by TLR2 ligands, PBMCs from AD patients significantly released less IFN-gamma, IL-17F and IL-22 than those from healthy controls while no detectable level of release was observed with the other cytokines. In contrast, significantly higher levels of mRNA expression for TNF-alpha, IL5, IL-17A and IL-22 were observed in TLR2 activated PBMCs of AD patients than those of healthy control. Conclusions: PBMCs from AD patients are defective in the secretion of Th1 and Th17/22 cytokines in response to TLR2 ligands. The inconsistent increased expression of the mRNA for the corresponding Th1 cytokines and the Th2 cytokines IL-5 suggested that there may be alterations of downstream signaling events in the cytokine release mechanisms of PBMCs that are associated with the development of AD.National Natural Science Foundation of China [81401299, 81271755]; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province [2014A030313711]; Shenzhen Research Grant [JCYJ20130329110752139, JCYJ20130329110752142]SCI(E)[email protected]; [email protected]

Assessment of Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure Induced by Base Stations in Several Micro-Environments in France

Recently, the monitoring of the radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure induced by cellular networks has received a great deal of attention. In this work, a set of 70 microenvironments (MEs) located in urban and rural areas are selected in France under, on the one hand, the French Beyond5G project, and on the other hand, the 5G expOsure, causaL effects and rIsk perception through citizen engagement (GOLIAT) EU project. The purpose of this study is to assess the RF-EMF DL exposure in residential areas, downtowns, business areas, train stations, and public transport rides. For that, we employ the personal ExpoM-RF4 dosimeter placed inside a backpack to perform the measurements in different MEs. To take into consideration the effect of the presence of the human body near the dosimeter, we propose a correction approach that is mainly based on comparing the measurements given by ExpoM-RF4 to the ones provided by a reference system using the Tektronix real-time spectrum analyzer (RTSA) far from the body. Then, we use metrics, such as the quadratic mean, standard deviation, and median of the electric (E) field to carry out a comparative study between different MEs with different RF bands. It was found that the RF-EMF exposure levels for all MEs are well below the maximum allowable exposure limit prescribed by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). In addition, we perform clustering analyses using the K-Means technique to group the MEs with comparable exposure levels. The results show that the exposure level is low, but generally higher in MEs located in Paris than in the other considered areas (i.e., Massy and three villages, namely Igny, Bures-sur-Yvette and Gif-Sur-Yvette). For example, we observe that outdoor MEs can be grouped into three clusters, where the average total E fields (ATEFs) are 0.77 V/m, 0.35 V/m, and 0.08 V/m for the MEs belonging to the first, second and third clusters, respectively. Note that the first cluster here mainly contains the MEs located in Paris. This can be explained by the important number of antennas deployed in that area to serve the huge amount of users. We also observe few locations with exceptions confirming the presence of heterogeneous environments in the vicinity of some areas.</p

Impaired large-scale cortico–hippocampal network connectivity, including the anterior temporal and posterior medial systems, and its associations with cognition in patients with first-episode schizophrenia

Background and objectiveThe cortico–hippocampal network is an emerging neural framework with striking evidence that it supports cognition in humans, especially memory; this network includes the anterior temporal (AT) system, the posterior medial (PM) system, the anterior hippocampus (aHIPPO), and the posterior hippocampus (pHIPPO). This study aimed to detect aberrant patterns of functional connectivity within and between large-scale cortico–hippocampal networks in first-episode schizophrenia patients compared with a healthy control group via resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and to explore the correlations of these aberrant patterns with cognition.MethodsA total of 86 first-episode, drug-naïve schizophrenia patients and 102 healthy controls (HC) were recruited to undergo rs-fMRI examinations and clinical evaluations. We conducted large-scale edge-based network analysis to characterize the functional architecture of the cortico–hippocampus network and investigate between-group differences in within/between-network functional connectivity. Additionally, we explored the associations of functional connectivity (FC) abnormalities with clinical characteristics, including scores on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and cognitive scores.ResultsCompared with the HC group, schizophrenia patients exhibited widespread alterations to within-network FC of the cortico–hippocampal network, with decreases in FC involving the precuneus (PREC), amygdala (AMYG), parahippocampal cortex (PHC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), perirhinal cortex (PRC), retrosplenial cortex (RSC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), angular gyrus (ANG), aHIPPO, and pHIPPO. Schizophrenia patients also showed abnormalities in large-scale between-network FC of the cortico–hippocampal network, in the form of significantly decreased FC between the AT and the PM, the AT and the aHIPPO, the PM and the aHIPPO, and the aHIPPO and the pHIPPO. A number of these signatures of aberrant FC were correlated with PANSS score (positive, negative, and total score) and with scores on cognitive test battery items, including attention/vigilance (AV), working memory (WM), verbal learning and memory (Verb_Lrng), visual learning and memory (Vis_Lrng), reasoning and problem-solving (RPS), and social cognition (SC).ConclusionSchizophrenia patients show distinct patterns of functional integration and separation both within and between large-scale cortico–hippocampal networks, reflecting a network imbalance of the hippocampal long axis with the AT and PM systems, which regulate cognitive domains (mainly Vis_Lrng, Verb_Lrng, WM, and RPS), and particularly involving alterations to FC of the AT system and the aHIPPO. These findings provide new insights into the neurofunctional markers of schizophrenia

Rapid and Unconditional Parametric Reset Protocol for Tunable Superconducting Qubits

Qubit initialization is a critical task in quantum computation and communication. Extensive efforts have been made to achieve this with high speed, efficiency and scalability. However, previous approaches have either been measurement-based and required fast feedback, suffered from crosstalk or required sophisticated calibration. Here, we report a fast and high-fidelity reset scheme, avoiding the issues above without any additional chip architecture. By modulating the flux through a transmon qubit, we realize a swap between the qubit and its readout resonator that suppresses the excited state population to 0.08% $\pm$ 0.08% within 34 ns (284 ns if photon depletion of the resonator is required). Furthermore, our approach (i) can achieve effective second excited state depletion, (ii) has negligible effects on neighbouring qubits, and (iii) offers a way to entangle the qubit with an itinerant single photon, useful in quantum communication applications.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figure

AnnexinA5 Might Suppress the Phenotype of Human Gastric Cancer Cells via ERK Pathway

Gastric cancer is one of the most fatal diseases around the world. However, the mechanism of the development of gastric cancer is still not clarified. In addition, the anticancer drugs have cytotoxicity with different degrees. AnnexinA5, a member of the annexin family, has a great binding ability with the membrane phospholipid in a calcium dependent manner and is involved in the development of various cancers. This study aims to explore the influence of annexinA5 on human gastric cancer cells and whether it has the potential to be an auxiliary treatment to gastric cancer. In this study, the role of annexinA5 was detected from both the endogenous and the exogenous aspects on the gastric cancer cell lines MGC-803 and MKN-45. The cells were divided into a knockdown group in which RNA interference technique was used to suppress annexinA5 expression and a protein-supplementing group in which annexinA5 protein was added in the culture supernatant. After the suppression ratio of RNA interference was determined and the IC50 of annexinA5 protein was decided respectively, the cells’ proliferation was detected by MTT assay, colony formation assay, and the expression of PCNA. FCM assay and PI staining methods were applied to test cell apoptosis and necrosis. To investigate whether ANXA5 influence cell metastasis, wound healing assay and transwell assay were employed. To further detect the mechanism of annexinA5 action, the signal pathway was examined with Western Blot method. When ANXA5 gene was knocked down, cell proliferation and metastasis were promoted, while cell apoptosis was suppressed. On the other hand, after the annexinA5 protein was applied to the gastric cancer cells, cell proliferation and metastasis were inhibited, while cell apoptosis and necrosis were promoted. AnnexinA5 played its role via ERK signal pathway. ANXA5 acted as tumor suppressor gene in the gastric cancer by suppressing ERK signal pathway and has the potentiality to be an auxiliary anticancer agent

Imagerie électromagnétique non linéaire : d'algorithmes basés sur les ondelettes préservant la parcimonie à l'apprentissage en profondeur

This work deals with nonlinear ill-posed electromagnetic imaging from time-harmonic data within a two-dimensional scattering experiment, the focus being on two approaches in the framework of the contrast-source inversion (CSI). The first approach is a group sparsity penalized CSI in the wavelet domain, the second is an unrolled deep learning scheme. In the first approach, dependency exists between wavelet coefficients at different scales, referred to as parent-child relationship, which yields a wavelet quadtree structure so that wavelet coefficients are both pixel-wise and group-wise sparse. Emphasis is on the dual-tree complex wavelet transform (CWT) to achieve this result. A '2;1 norm added to the standard cost function is to enforce group sparsity onto the wavelet coefficients of the spatially-varying contrast. The replication strategy is combined with the proximal method to solve the overlapping group penalized problem. The second approach is inspired by the unrolled method. By embedding the CSI iterations into the deep learning model, the domain knowledge is incorporated into the learning process. In both cases, thorough numerical tests are carried out to evaluate performance, stability, robustness, and reliability with comparisons with more standard solutions (like CSI, discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and U-net), which exhibit the advantage of the proposed approaches under many aspects.Ce travail traite de l'imagerie électromagnétique mal-posée non-linéaire à partir de données en régime harmonique dans une expérience de diffraction bidimensionnelle, en mettant l'accent sur deux approches dans le cadre de l'inversion de source de contraste (CSI). La première approche est un CSI pénalisé par la parcimonie de groupe dans le domaine des ondelettes, la seconde est un schéma d'apprentissage profond dit déroulé. Dans la première approche, une dépendance existe entre les coefficients d'ondelettes à différentes échelles, appelée relation parent-enfant, ce qui donne une structure quadtree d'ondelettes, de sorte que les coefficients d'ondelettes sont parcimonieux tant au niveau des pixels qu'au niveau des groupes. L'accent est mis sur l'utilisation de la transformée en ondelettes complexe (CWT) à double arborescence en vue d'obtenir correctement la représentation parcimonieuse par groupe recherchée. Une norme l2,1 ajoutée à la fonction coût standard applique la parcimonie de groupe aux coefficients d'ondelettes du contraste. La stratégie de réplication est combinée avec la méthode proximale afin de résoudre le problème pénalisé de groupes qui se chevauchent. La seconde approche est inspirée de la méthode déroulée. En intégrant les itérations CSI dans le modèle d'apprentissage profond, la connaissance du domaine est intégrée au processus d'apprentissage. Dans les deux cas, des tests numériques approfondis sont effectués afin d'évaluer les performances, la stabilité, la robustesse et la fiabilité, en menant des comparaisons avec des solutions considérées plus standard (comme CSI, la transformée en ondelettes discrète ou DWT, et U-net), et celles-ci illustrent l'avantage des deux approches proposées en de nombreux aspects