Ambient Sound Helps: Audiovisual Crowd Counting in Extreme Conditions

Visual crowd counting has been recently studied as a way to enable people counting in crowd scenes from images. Albeit successful, vision-based crowd counting approaches could fail to capture informative features in extreme conditions, e.g., imaging at night and occlusion. In this work, we introduce a novel task of audiovisual crowd counting, in which visual and auditory information are integrated for counting purposes. We collect a large-scale benchmark, named auDiovISual Crowd cOunting (DISCO) dataset, consisting of 1,935 images and the corresponding audio clips, and 170,270 annotated instances. In order to fuse the two modalities, we make use of a linear feature-wise fusion module that carries out an affine transformation on visual and auditory features. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments using the proposed dataset and approach. Experimental results show that introducing auditory information can benefit crowd counting under different illumination, noise, and occlusion conditions. The dataset and code will be released. Code and data have been made availabl

A chaotic image encryption scheme owning temp-value feedback

This paper presents a novel efficient chaotic image encryption scheme, in which the temp-value feedback mechanism is introduced to the permutation and diffusion procedures. Firstly, a simple trick is played to map the plain-image pixels to the initial condition of the Logistic map. Then, a pseudorandom number sequence (PRNS) is obtained from iterating the map. The permutation procedure is carried out by a permutation sequence which is generated by comparing the PRNS and its sorted version. The diffusion procedure is composed of two reversely executed rounds. During each round, the current plain-image pixel and the last cipher-image pixel are used to produce the current cipher-image pixel with the help of the Logistic map and a pseudorandom number generated by the Chen system. To enhance the efficiency, only expanded XOR operation and modulo 256 addition are employed during diffusion. Experimental results show that the new scheme owns a large key space and can resist the differential attack. It is also efficient.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Permo-Triassic detrital records of South China and implications for the Indosinian events in East Asia

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41602105, 41672106 and 41530966) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016M590655), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Ocean University of China. Peter Cawood acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council grant FL160100168.Provenance analyses of Lower to Middle Triassic strata from the Greater Youjiang Basin along with the Permian strata of Hainan Island, provide a record of the collisional assembly of the South China Craton and Indochina Block and their incorporation into Asia. Detrital zircons from Lower and Middle Triassic samples show similar overall age spectra ranging from Archean to Triassic with major age groups at 300–250 Ma, 480–420 Ma, and 1200–900 Ma, as well as at 400–300 Ma in one Triassic sample. Permian siltstones from Hainan Island, to the southeast of the Greater Youjiang Basin, record different age spectra with major age groups at 400–300 Ma and 530–420 Ma and subordinate components at 1200–900 Ma and 1900–1700 Ma. These age data in combination with available paleocurrent data and regional geological relations suggest that Precambrian detrital zircons were derived from the Precambrian basement or recycled from the overlying early Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that contain Precambrian detritus. Early Paleozoic detrital zircons were derived from igneous rocks in the South China Craton. Devonian-Triassic detrital zircons in the Triassic strata were likely sourced from coeval magmatic activity related to closure of Paleo-Tethys branch ocean that lay to the southwest, whereas 400–300 Ma detrital zircons in the Permian siltstones of Hainan Island were likely derived from a Paleozoic magmatic arc source that extended along the eastern-southeastern margin of China from Hainan Island to Japan in response to subduction of the Paleo-Pacific oceanic crust. Detrital zircon, trace element, and sandstone modal data for Permo-Triassic strata from the Greater Youjiang Basin indicate that the basin evolved from a trailing-edge passive margin setting to a peripheral foreland basin during closure of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean and collision between Indochina and South China. The initiation time of the foreland basin decreases from southeast to southwest across the basin, probably reflecting oblique collision. In contrast, the Permian strata on Hainan Island record a provenance history distinct from the Greater Youjiang Basin, which is related to late Paleozoic to Mesozoic subduction of the Paleo-Pacific Plate beneath South China.PostprintPeer reviewe

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting among cancer patients in Shanghai: a cross-sectional study

Background and purpose: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) can cause severe damage to body functions and even lead to death. The prevention of CINV is critically important in patients receiving emetogenic chemotherapy regimen. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and treatment of CINV in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai and explore risk factors of CINV to improve its management. Methods: The clinical data of 376 cancer patients in Grade-A tertiary hospitals in Shanghai from October 2022 to December 2022 were collected retrospectively. The questionnaire was used to conduct a cross-sectional study. The univariate and multivariable logistic regression models were used to evaluate the influencing factors of CINV. Results: The management and coincidence of the guideline in 2022 significantly improved compared to five years ago. For patients receiving high-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the coincidence of the guideline increased from 21.6% to 67.0%. For patients receiving moderate-emetic-risk chemotherapy regimen, the neurokinin-1 (NK-1) receptor antagonist was not significantly associated with CINV. Multivariable analysis showed that the chemotherapy regimen was the only risk factor for CINV during the whole period (P<0.05). Conclusion: The chemotherapy regimen is the main risk factor for CINV. To control CINV better, clinical practitioners should focus on the intrinsic risk of chemotherapy regimens preferentially, estimate the risk and adhere better to guidelines

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Recovery of nutrients and volatile fatty acids from pig manure hydrolysate using two-stage bipolar membrane electrodialysis

Animal manure should be regarded as a resource rather than a waste as it contains abundant nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and organic matter. In this study, a laboratory-scale bipolar membrane electrodialysis (BMED) system was set up to assess the recovery of ammonium (NH4+), phosphate (PO43−) and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from both synthetic and real pig manure hydrolysate for the first time. Synthetic hydrolysate was used as feed first to investigate the ionic migrations in the BMED system. After 5.5 h of operation, 52% of NH4+ migrated to the base compartment, and 98% of PO43− and 95% of VFAs migrated to the acid compartment. A BMED model was established to quantify the ion flux balance in the membrane stack. It substantiated that the low recovery efficiencies of NH4+ and the impurity of acid solution were primarily caused by the undesired diffusion of ions through bipolar membranes. Subsequently, a novel two-stage BMED operation based on the inflection point of voltage was developed to minimize the NH4+ loss and separate PO43− and VFAs from the acid compartment. Through this operation, the recovery efficiency of NH4+ increased to 78%, and 75% of PO43− and 87% of VFAs were separated from Cl− and SO42− in the acid compartment. Finally, real pig manure hydrolysate was tested and the variations of ions in the BMED were consistent as those using synthetic wastewater. This study demonstrates that it is feasible to recover valuable nutrients and VFAs from pig manure hydrolysate using two-stage BMED technology

Detrital record of Indosinian mountain building in SW China: Provenance of the Middle Triassic turbidites in the Youjiang Basin

Sandstone petrology, geochemistry, and detrital zircon U–Pb ages and trace elements are integrated to investigate the provenance of Middle Triassic strata from the Youjiang Basin, SW China. Variations in abundance of volcanic lithic fragments and ratios of Th/U, Zr/Sc and Th/Sc suggest that sandstones from the southwestern portion of the basin display less sedimentary recycling and have a lower felsic average source composition than time-equivalent strata from the central, eastern and northern portions of the basin. All sandstones exhibit an overall similar detrital zircon U–Pb age distribution pattern with major age groups at 1200–900 Ma, 480–420 Ma and 300–240 Ma together with some Devonian–Carboniferous and Neoproterozoic grains. Combined with the compiled paleocurrents, the detrital zircon ages suggest multiple-sourced components. Pre-Devonian detrital zircons were likely derived from the recycled late Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic clastic rocks and from magmatic and metamorphic rocks related to the early Paleozoic orogeny in the southeastern segment of the South China Craton. Late Paleozoic–Triassic detrital zircons together with the presence of well preserved volcanic lithic fragments were considered to indicate first-cycled detrital input from a subduction–collisional mountain belt to the southwest of the craton. These provenance data argue for an Indosinian mountain building event following the closure of a Paleo-Tethys branch ocean rather than for a thermotectonic reactivation event as recently proposed for the Indosinian orogeny in the southwestern China. In association with this orogeny the Youjiang Basin evolved into a foreland basin