179 research outputs found
Adaptive Semantic-Visual Tree for Hierarchical Embeddings
Merchandise categories inherently form a semantic hierarchy with different
levels of concept abstraction, especially for fine-grained categories. This
hierarchy encodes rich correlations among various categories across different
levels, which can effectively regularize the semantic space and thus make
predictions less ambiguous. However, previous studies of fine-grained image
retrieval primarily focus on semantic similarities or visual similarities. In a
real application, merely using visual similarity may not satisfy the need of
consumers to search merchandise with real-life images, e.g., given a red coat
as a query image, we might get a red suit in recall results only based on
visual similarity since they are visually similar. But the users actually want
a coat rather than suit even the coat is with different color or texture
attributes. We introduce this new problem based on photoshopping in real
practice. That's why semantic information are integrated to regularize the
margins to make "semantic" prior to "visual". To solve this new problem, we
propose a hierarchical adaptive semantic-visual tree (ASVT) to depict the
architecture of merchandise categories, which evaluates semantic similarities
between different semantic levels and visual similarities within the same
semantic class simultaneously. The semantic information satisfies the demand of
consumers for similar merchandise with the query while the visual information
optimizes the correlations within the semantic class. At each level, we set
different margins based on the semantic hierarchy and incorporate them as prior
information to learn a fine-grained feature embedding. To evaluate our
framework, we propose a new dataset named JDProduct, with hierarchical labels
collected from actual image queries and official merchandise images on an
online shopping application. Extensive experimental results on the public
CARS196 and CUB
Experimental Quantum Communication Overcomes the Rate-loss Limit without Global Phase Tracking
Secure key rate (SKR) of point-point quantum key distribution (QKD) is
fundamentally bounded by the rate-loss limit. Recent breakthrough of twin-field
(TF) QKD can overcome this limit and enables long distance quantum
communication, but its implementation necessitates complex global phase
tracking and requires strong phase references which not only add to noise but
also reduce the duty cycle for quantum transmission. Here, we resolve these
shortcomings, and importantly achieve even higher SKRs than TF-QKD, via
implementing an innovative but simpler measurement-device-independent QKD which
realizes repeater-like communication through asynchronous coincidence pairing.
Over 413 and 508 km optical fibers, we achieve finite-size SKRs of 590.61 and
42.64 bit/s, which are respectively 1.80 and 4.08 times of their corresponding
absolute rate limits. Significantly, the SKR at 306 km exceeds 5 kbit/s and
meets the bitrate requirement for live one-time-pad encryption of voice
communication. Our work will bring forward economical and efficient intercity
quantum-secure networks.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figures, 3 table
Advantages of Asynchronous Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution in Intercity Networks
The new variant of measurement-device-independent quantum key distribution
(MDI-QKD), called asynchronous MDI-QKD or mode-pairing MDI-QKD, offers similar
repeater-like rate-loss scaling but has the advantage of simple technology
implementation by exploiting an innovative post-measurement pairing technique.
We herein present an evaluation of the practical aspects of decoy-state
asynchronous MDI-QKD. To determine its effectiveness, we analyze the optimal
method of decoy-state calculation and examine the impact of asymmetrical
channels and multi-user networks. Our simulations show that, under realistic
conditions, aynchronous MDI-QKD can furnish the highest key rate with MDI
security as compared to other QKD protocols over distances ranging from 50 km
to 480 km. At fiber distances of 50 km and 100 km, the key rates attain 6.02
Mbps and 2.29 Mbps respectively, which are sufficient to facilitate real-time
one-time-pad video encryption. Our findings indicate that experimental
implementation of asynchronous MDI-QKD in intercity networks can be both
practical and efficient
Isolation, identification, molecular docking analysis, and cytoprotection of seven novel angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitory peptides from miiuy croaker byproducts-swim bladders
For efficiently utilizing the processing byproducts of miiuy croaker to prepare novel angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitory (ACEi) peptides, in vitro gastrointestinal (GI) digestion method was screened and employed to prepare swim bladder hydrolysate with the highest ACEi activity. Subsequently, seven novel ACEi peptides were isolated from the hydrolysate and identified as DEGPE, EVGIQ, SHGEY, GPWGPA, GPFGTD, SPYGF, and VIGPF with molecular weights of 545.49, 544.58, 591.55, 583.63, 592.59, 569.60, and 531.63 Da, respectively. SHGEY and SPYGF exhibited remarkable ACEi activity with IC50 values of 0.86 ± 0.12 and 0.37 ± 0.06 mg/mL. Molecular docking experiment illustrated that the significant ACEi activity of SHGEY and SPYGF with the affinity of -8.7 and -9.7 kcal/mol mainly attributed to effectively combining with the ACEi active sites by hydrophobic interaction, electrostatic force and hydrogen bonding. Moreover, SHGEY and SPYGF could significantly up-regulate the nitric oxide (NO) production and decrease the endothelin-1 (ET-1) secretion in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), but also abolished the negative impacting of norepinephrine to the levels of NO and ET-1. Furthermore, SHGEY and SPYGF showed significant protection to HUVECs against H2O2 damage by increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity to lower the contents of reactive oxide species and malondialdehyde. Consequently, ACEi peptides derived from miiuy croaker swim bladders, especially SHGEY and SPYGF, are health-promoting ingredients for functional products as a supplementary treatment to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases
Beating the fault-tolerance bound and security loopholes for Byzantine agreement with a quantum solution
Byzantine agreement, the underlying core of blockchain, aims to make every
node in a decentralized network reach consensus. Classical Byzantine agreements
unavoidably face two major problems. One is fault-tolerance bound, which
means that the system to tolerate malicious players requires at least
players. The other is the security loopholes from its classical
cryptography methods. Here, we propose a strict quantum Byzantine agreement
with unconditional security to break this bound with nearly fault
tolerance due to multiparty correlation provided by quantum digital signatures.
Our work strictly obeys the original Byzantine conditions and can be extended
to any number of players without requirements for multiparticle entanglement.
We experimentally demonstrate three-party and five-party quantum consensus for
a digital ledger. Our work indicates the quantum advantage in terms of
consensus problems and suggests an important avenue for quantum blockchain and
quantum consensus networks.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures. All comments are welcome
The association between post-stroke depression, aphasia, and physical independence in stroke patients at 3-month follow-up
Objective: Few studies have examined the association between post-stroke depression (PSD), aphasia, and physical independence in Chinese patients. This study investigated the above association in stroke patients in China at 3-month follow-up.
Methods: Altogether 270 patients within 14 days after ischemic stroke were recruited and followed up at 3 months. PSD, aphasia, and physical functional status were measured using the Stroke Aphasia Depression Questionnaire (SADQ), Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), and modified Rankin Scale (mRS), respectively. Patients with mRS total score \u3e2 were considered as having “physical dependence.”
Results: Out of 248 patients at 3-month follow up, 119 (48%) were rated as having physical dependence. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that female (p = 0.04; OR = 2.2; 95% CI: 1.0–5.1), more severe stroke at admission (p \u3c 0.01; OR = 1.4; 95% CI: 1.3–1.5), and more severe PSD at 3 months (p = 0.01; OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.01–1.1) were independently associated with physical dependence at 3 months.
Conclusions: Greater PSD and stroke severity were independently associated with physical dependence at 3months after stroke. Aphasia was also associated with physical dependence but the relationship was not significant. Early and effective depression screening, treatment and stroke rehabilitation appear to be important to improve the physical outcome and reduce the burden of stroke survivors
A Fuzzy MCDM Approach for Green Supplier Selection from the Economic and Environmental Aspects
Due to the challenge of rising public awareness of environmental issues and governmental regulations, green supply chain management (SCM) has become an important issue for companies to gain environmental sustainability. Supplier selection is one of the key operational tasks necessary to construct a green SCM. To select the most suitable suppliers, many economic and environmental criteria must be considered in the decision process. Although numerous studies have used economic criteria such as cost, quality, and lead time in the supplier selection process, only some studies have taken into account the environmental issues. This study proposes a comprehensive fuzzy multicriteria decision making (MCDM) approach for green supplier selection and evaluation, using both economic and environmental criteria. In the proposed approach, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is employed to determine the important weights of criteria under vague environment. In addition, a fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) is used to evaluate and rank the potential suppliers. Finally, a case study in Luminance Enhancement Film (LEF) industry is presented to illustrate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed method
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