110 research outputs found
Reduced scale model test on cable membrane roof of Shangai Expo Central Axis
p. 2008-2018In this paper a reduced scale model test on cable membrane roof of Shanghai Expo Central Axis is introduced. The membrane pre-stresses, cable forces and membrane geometry at the initial state are carefully inspected. Numerical form-finding analysis is also carried out and its result is compared with the inspecton. The behaviors of the membrane roof under breaking of cables are observed. Test proves the practicability of the project in aspects of system safety, analysis and inspection.Zhang, Q.; Yang, Z.; Chen, L.; Tang, H.; Zhu, B. (2010). Reduced scale model test on cable membrane roof of Shangai Expo Central Axis. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/718
Navigation as Attackers Wish? Towards Building Byzantine-Robust Embodied Agents under Federated Learning
Federated embodied agent learning protects the data privacy of individual
visual environments by keeping data locally at each client (the individual
environment) during training. However, since the local data is inaccessible to
the server under federated learning, attackers may easily poison the training
data of the local client to build a backdoor in the agent without notice.
Deploying such an agent raises the risk of potential harm to humans, as the
attackers may easily navigate and control the agent as they wish via the
backdoor. Towards Byzantine-robust federated embodied agent learning, in this
paper, we study the attack and defense for the task of vision-and-language
navigation (VLN), where the agent is required to follow natural language
instructions to navigate indoor environments. First, we introduce a simple but
effective attack strategy, Navigation as Wish (NAW), in which the malicious
client manipulates local trajectory data to implant a backdoor into the global
model. Results on two VLN datasets (R2R and RxR) show that NAW can easily
navigate the deployed VLN agent regardless of the language instruction, without
affecting its performance on normal test sets. Then, we propose a new
Prompt-Based Aggregation (PBA) to defend against the NAW attack in federated
VLN, which provides the server with a ''prompt'' of the vision-and-language
alignment variance between the benign and malicious clients so that they can be
distinguished during training. We validate the effectiveness of the PBA method
on protecting the global model from the NAW attack, which outperforms other
state-of-the-art defense methods by a large margin in the defense metrics on
R2R and RxR
An antibody-based microarray assay for small RNA detection
Detection of RNAs on microarrays is rapidly becoming a standard approach for molecular biologists. However, current methods frequently discriminate against structured and/or small RNA species. Here we present an approach that bypasses these problems. Unmodified RNA is hybridized directly to DNA microarrays and detected with the high-affinity, nucleotide sequence-independent, DNA/RNA hybrid-specific mouse monoclonal antibody S9.6. Subsequent reactions with a fluorescently-labeled anti-mouse IgG antibody or biotin-labeled anti-mouse IgG together with fluorescently labeled streptavidin produces a signal that can be measured in a standard microarray scanner. The antibody-based method was able to detect low abundance small RNAs of Escherichia coli much more efficiently than the commonly-used cDNA-based method. A specific small RNA was detected in amounts of 0.25 fmol (i.e. concentration of 10 pM in a 25 µl reaction). The method is an efficient, robust and inexpensive technique that allows quantitative analysis of gene expression and does not discriminate against short or structured RNAs
A Survey on Semantic Processing Techniques
Semantic processing is a fundamental research domain in computational
linguistics. In the era of powerful pre-trained language models and large
language models, the advancement of research in this domain appears to be
decelerating. However, the study of semantics is multi-dimensional in
linguistics. The research depth and breadth of computational semantic
processing can be largely improved with new technologies. In this survey, we
analyzed five semantic processing tasks, e.g., word sense disambiguation,
anaphora resolution, named entity recognition, concept extraction, and
subjectivity detection. We study relevant theoretical research in these fields,
advanced methods, and downstream applications. We connect the surveyed tasks
with downstream applications because this may inspire future scholars to fuse
these low-level semantic processing tasks with high-level natural language
processing tasks. The review of theoretical research may also inspire new tasks
and technologies in the semantic processing domain. Finally, we compare the
different semantic processing techniques and summarize their technical trends,
application trends, and future directions.Comment: Published at Information Fusion, Volume 101, 2024, 101988, ISSN
1566-2535. The equal contribution mark is missed in the published version due
to the publication policies. Please contact Prof. Erik Cambria for detail
Automated Driving Systems Data Acquisition and Processing Platform
This paper presents an automated driving system (ADS) data acquisition and
processing platform for vehicle trajectory extraction, reconstruction, and
evaluation based on connected automated vehicle (CAV) cooperative perception.
This platform presents a holistic pipeline from the raw advanced sensory data
collection to data processing, which can process the sensor data from multiple
CAVs and extract the objects' Identity (ID) number, position, speed, and
orientation information in the map and Frenet coordinates. First, the ADS data
acquisition and analytics platform are presented. Specifically, the
experimental CAVs platform and sensor configuration are shown, and the
processing software, including a deep-learning-based object detection algorithm
using LiDAR information, a late fusion scheme to leverage cooperative
perception to fuse the detected objects from multiple CAVs, and a multi-object
tracking method is introduced. To further enhance the object detection and
tracking results, high definition maps consisting of point cloud and vector
maps are generated and forwarded to a world model to filter out the objects off
the road and extract the objects' coordinates in Frenet coordinates and the
lane information. In addition, a post-processing method is proposed to refine
trajectories from the object tracking algorithms. Aiming to tackle the ID
switch issue of the object tracking algorithm, a fuzzy-logic-based approach is
proposed to detect the discontinuous trajectories of the same object. Finally,
results, including object detection and tracking and a late fusion scheme, are
presented, and the post-processing algorithm's improvements in noise level and
outlier removal are discussed, confirming the functionality and effectiveness
of the proposed holistic data collection and processing platform
Transcriptomic analysis of cell envelope inhibition by prodigiosin in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a leading threat to public health as it is resistant to most currently available antibiotics. Prodigiosin is a secondary metabolite of microorganisms with broad-spectrum antibacterial activity. This study identified a significant antibacterial effect of prodigiosin against MRSA with a minimum inhibitory concentration as low as 2.5 mg/L. The results of scanning electron microscopy, crystal violet staining, and confocal laser scanning microscopy indicated that prodigiosin inhibited biofilm formation in S. aureus USA300, while also destroying the structure of the cell wall and cell membrane, which was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. At a prodigiosin concentration of 1.25 mg/L, biofilm formation was inhibited by 76.24%, while 2.5 mg/L prodigiosin significantly reduced the vitality of MRSA cells in the biofilm. Furthermore, the transcriptomic results obtained at 1/8 MIC of prodigiosin indicated that 235and 387 genes of S. aureus USA300 were significantly up- and downregulated, respectively. The downregulated genes were related to two-component systems, including the transcriptional regulator LytS, quorum sensing histidine kinases SrrB, NreA and NreB, peptidoglycan biosynthesis enzymes (MurQ and GlmU), iron-sulfur cluster repair protein ScdA, microbial surface components recognizing adaptive matrix molecules, as well as the key arginine synthesis enzymes ArcC and ArgF. The upregulated genes were mainly related to cell wall biosynthesis, as well as two-component systems including vancomycin resistance-associated regulator, lipoteichoic acid biosynthesis related proteins DltD and DltB, as well as the 9 capsular polysaccharide biosynthesis proteins. This study elucidated the molecular mechanisms through which prodigiosin affects the cell envelope of MRSA from the perspectives of cell wall synthesis, cell membrane and biofilm formation, providing new potential targets for the development of antimicrobials for the treatment of MRSA
The M-T hook structure increases the potency of HIV-1 fusion inhibitor sifuvirtide and overcomes drug resistance
Objectives Peptides derived from the C-terminal heptad repeat (CHR) of HIV-1 gp41 are potent fusion inhibitors. We have recently demonstrated that the unique M-T hook structure preceding the pocket-binding motif of CHR peptide-based inhibitors can greatly improve their antiviral activity. In this study, we applied the M-T hook structure to optimize sifuvirtide (SFT), a potent CHR-derived inhibitor currently under Phase III clinical trials in China. Methods The peptide MT-SFT was generated by incorporating two M-T hook residues (Met-Thr) into the N-terminus of sifuvirtide. Multiple structural and functional approaches were used to determine the biophysical properties and antiviral activity of MT-SFT. Results The high-resolution crystal structure of MT-SFT reveals a highly conserved M-T hook conformation. Compared with sifuvirtide, MT-SFT exhibited a significant improvement in the ability to bind to the N-terminal heptad repeat, to block the formation of the six helix bundle and to inhibit HIV-1 Env-mediated cell fusion, viral entry and infection. Importantly, MT-SFT was fully active against sifuvirtide- and enfuvirtide (T20)-resistant HIV-1 variants and displayed a high genetic barrier to developing drug resistance. Conclusions Our studies have verified that the M-T hook structure offers a general strategy for designing novel HIV-1 fusion inhibitors and provide new insights into viral entry and inhibitio
Translithospheric magma plumbing system of intraplate volcanoes as revealed by electrical resistivity imaging
AbstractThe magma plumbing systems of volcanoes in subduction and divergent tectonic settings are relatively well known, whereas those of intraplate volcanoes remain elusive; robust geophysical information on the magma pathways and storage zones is lacking. We inverted magnetotelluric data to image the magma plumbing system of an intraplate monogenetic volcanic field located above the stagnant Pacific slab in northeast China. We identified a complex, vertically aligned, low-resistivity anomaly system extending from the asthenosphere to the surface consisting of reservoirs with finger- to lens-like geometries. We show that magma forms as CO2-rich melts in a 150-km-deep asthenospheric plume crossing the whole lithosphere as hydrated melt, inducing underplating at 50 km depth, evolving in crustal reservoirs, and erupting along dikes. Intraplate volcanoes are characterized by low degrees of melting and low magma supply rates. Their plumbing systems have a geometry not so different from that of volcanoes in subduction settings
In situ tuning of dynamical Coulomb blockade on Andreev bound states in hybrid nanowire devices
Electron interactions in quantum devices can exhibit intriguing phenomena.
One example is assembling an electronic device in series with an on-chip
resistor. The quantum laws of electricity of the device is modified at low
energies and temperatures by dissipative interactions induced by the resistor,
a phenomenon known as dynamical Coulomb blockade (DCB). The DCB strength is
usually non-adjustable in a fixed environment defined by the resistor. Here, we
design an on-chip circuit for InAs-Al hybrid nanowires where the DCB strength
can be gate-tuned in situ. InAs-Al nanowires could host Andreev or Majorana
zero-energy states. This technique enables tracking the evolution of the same
state while tuning the DCB strength from weak to strong. We observe the
transition from a zero-bias conductance peak to split peaks for Andreev
zero-energy states. Our technique opens the door to in situ tuning interaction
strength on zero-energy states
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