MRN: Multiplexed Routing Network for Incremental Multilingual Text Recognition

Multilingual text recognition (MLTR) systems typically focus on a fixed set of languages, which makes it difficult to handle newly added languages or adapt to ever-changing data distribution. In this paper, we propose the Incremental MLTR (IMLTR) task in the context of incremental learning (IL), where different languages are introduced in batches. IMLTR is particularly challenging due to rehearsal-imbalance, which refers to the uneven distribution of sample characters in the rehearsal set, used to retain a small amount of old data as past memories. To address this issue, we propose a Multiplexed Routing Network (MRN). MRN trains a recognizer for each language that is currently seen. Subsequently, a language domain predictor is learned based on the rehearsal set to weigh the recognizers. Since the recognizers are derived from the original data, MRN effectively reduces the reliance on older data and better fights against catastrophic forgetting, the core issue in IL. We extensively evaluate MRN on MLT17 and MLT19 datasets. It outperforms existing general-purpose IL methods by large margins, with average accuracy improvements ranging from 10.3% to 35.8% under different settings. Code is available at https://github.com/simplify23/MRN.Comment: Accepted by ICCV 202

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Whole-genome resequencing reveals genetic diversity and selection signals in warm temperate and subtropical Sillago sinica populations

Abstract Background Genetic diversity and heterogeneous genomic signatures in marine fish populations may result from selection pressures driven by the strong effects of environmental change. Nearshore fishes are often exposed to complex environments and human activities, especially those with small ranges. However, studies on genetic diversity and population selection signals in these species have mostly been based on a relatively small number of genetic markers. As a newly recorded species of Sillaginidae, the population genetics and genomic selection signals of Sillago sinica are fragmented or even absent. Results To address this theoretical gap, we performed whole-genome resequencing of 43 S. sinica individuals from Dongying (DY), Qingdao (QD) and Wenzhou (WZ) populations and obtained 4,878,771 high-quality SNPs. Population genetic analysis showed that the genetic diversity of S. sinica populations was low, but the genetic diversity of the WZ population was higher than that of the other two populations. Interestingly, the three populations were not strictly clustered within the group defined by their sampling location but showed an obvious geographic structure signal from the warm temperate to the subtropics. With further analysis, warm-temperate populations exhibited strong selection signals in genomic regions related to nervous system development, sensory function and immune function. However, subtropical populations showed more selective signalling for environmental tolerance and stress signal transduction. Conclusions Genome-wide SNPs provide high-quality data to support genetic studies and localization of selection signals in S. sinica populations. The reduction in genetic diversity may be related to the bottleneck effect. Considering that low genetic diversity leads to reduced environmental adaptability, conservation efforts and genetic diversity monitoring of this species should be increased in the future. Differences in genomic selection signals between warm temperate and subtropical populations may be related to human activities and changes in environmental complexity. This study deepened the understanding of population genetics and genomic selection signatures in nearshore fishes and provided a theoretical basis for exploring the potential mechanisms of genomic variation in marine fishes driven by environmental selection pressures

A Field Study of Soil Plugging of Jacked Pile and Its Effect on the Pile Resistance

Both a static pile load test and cone penetration test were conducted in a field to investigate the effect of soil plugging on the ultimate bearing capacity of a pile. Both the force equilibrium method and Terzaghi’s method were adopted for the theoretical analysis of the soil plugging effect during the pile setting process. Consequently, a new equation was proposed for the estimation of the height of soil plugging. It is observed that the process of pile settlement can be divided into three stages: (i) the soil plugging is initially formed; (ii) the soil plugging reaches its maximum height; and (iii) force equilibrium is reached with a constant soil plugging height. The proposed method in this paper provides an alternative method for the assessment of the height of soil plugging and its effect on the ultimate bearing capacity of the jacked pile

Table_1_Whole-genome survey reveals interspecific differences in genomic characteristics and evolution of Pampus fish.docx

Pampus belongs to the Perciformes, Stromateoidei, and Stromateidae and are widely distributed throughout the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. In this study, we employed next-generation sequencing to generate comprehensive genomic data for Pampus punctatissimus and Pampus echinogaster and subsequently compared the obtained genomic information with the published data of Pampus argenteus. P. echinogaster was identified to be the largest genome size (602 Mb), heterozygosity (1.38%), and repetitive sequence ratio (33.06%), while similar genome sizes between P. punctatissimus (540 Mb) and P. argenteus (550 Mb) were observed. A total of 402,921 and 628,298 SSRs were identified for P. punctatissimus and P. echinogaster, respectively. Additionally, 1,876, 638, and 394 single-copy homologous genes were identified from P. punctatissimus, P. echinogaster, and P. argenteus, respectively. The KEGG enrichment results of the unique single-copy genes to the three species were significantly different in genetic information processing, protein processing, and metabolic functions. The complete mitochondrial genomes of P. punctatissimus and P. echinogaster were successfully assembled, and the resulting phylogenetic relationships align with the currently reported taxonomic status of species in the Stromateoidei. Additionally, population size analysis using PSMC revealed that P. punctatissimus experienced one bottleneck effect, while P. echinogaster underwent two bottleneck events during the Pleistocene Glacial Epoch.</p

Transcriptome Analysis of Immune Responses and Metabolic Regulations of Chinese Soft-Shelled Turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) against Edwardsiella tarda Infection

The Chinese soft-shelled turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) is an important aquatic species in southern China that is threatened by many serious diseases. Edwardsiella tarda is one of the highly pathogenic bacteria that cause the white abdominal shell disease. Yet, little is known about the immune and metabolic responses of the Chinese soft-shelled turtle against E. tarda infection. In the paper, gene expression profiles in the turtle liver were obtained to study the immune responses and metabolic regulations induced by E. tarda infection using RNA sequencing. A total of 3908 differentially expressed unigenes between the experimental group and the control group were obtained by transcriptome analysis, among them, were the significantly upregulated unigenes and downregulated unigenes 2065 and 1922, respectively. Further annotation and analysis revealed that the DEGs were mainly enriched in complement and coagulation cascades, phagosome, and steroid hormone biosynthesis pathways, indicating that they were mainly associated with defense mechanisms in the turtle liver against E. tarda four days post infection. For the first time, we reported on the gene profile of anti-E. tarda response in the soft-shelled turtle, and our research might provide valuable data to support further study on anti-E. tarda defense mechanisms in turtles

SVTR: Scene Text Recognition with a Single Visual Model

Dominant scene text recognition models commonly contain two building blocks, a visual model for feature extraction and a sequence model for text transcription. This hybrid architecture, although accurate, is complex and less efficient. In this study, we propose a Single Visual model for Scene Text recognition within the patch-wise image tokenization framework, which dispenses with the sequential modeling entirely. The method, termed SVTR, firstly decomposes an image text into small patches named character components. Afterward, hierarchical stages are recurrently carried out by component-level mixing, merging and/or combining. Global and local mixing blocks are devised to perceive the inter-character and intra-character patterns, leading to a multi-grained character component perception. Thus, characters are recognized by a simple linear prediction. Experimental results on both English and Chinese scene text recognition tasks demonstrate the effectiveness of SVTR. SVTR-L (Large) achieves highly competitive accuracy in English and outperforms existing methods by a large margin in Chinese, while running faster. In addition, SVTR-T (Tiny) is an effective and much smaller model, which shows appealing speed at inference. The code is publicly available at https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/PaddleOCR.Comment: Accepted by IJCAI 202

A potential risk factor of essential hypertension in case-control study: MicroRNAs miR-10a-5p

Background: Essential hypertension is a multifactorial disease with high morbidity. The researches on the influence of genes on the disease are still in its infancy, and the mechanism of gene regulation is not clear. MiRNAs are key molecules that regulate the expression control of protein-coding or protein-non-coding RNA. It may be an important biological molecule risk factor for essential hypertension. Methods: A case-control study with 98 EH and 98 non-EH was conducted in our experiment. The candidate miRNAs including miR-10a-5p and miR-497-5p were detected and verified by qRT-PCR. Results: The expression level of miRNA in EH cases was significantly lower than the healthy control (P = 0.005). In addition, the relative expression of miR-10a-5p was closely positive correlated with DBP (r = 0.162, P = 0.023) and SBP (r = 0.223, P = 0.002). After adjusting confound factors, the result of the logistic regression indicated that hypo-expression of miR-10a-5p is a risk factor for EH (OR(95%CI) = 1.676(1.302,2.157), adjusted P < 0.0001). And the ROC analysis shows that the combined line with BMI and miR-10a-5p was a values marker for EH (AUC: 0.728, P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Lower expression of miR-10a-5p, as the key role, is significantly related to the risk of EH and maybe as a potential biomolecule for EH