DiffTalk: Crafting Diffusion Models for Generalized Audio-Driven Portraits Animation

Talking head synthesis is a promising approach for the video production industry. Recently, a lot of effort has been devoted in this research area to improve the generation quality or enhance the model generalization. However, there are few works able to address both issues simultaneously, which is essential for practical applications. To this end, in this paper, we turn attention to the emerging powerful Latent Diffusion Models, and model the Talking head generation as an audio-driven temporally coherent denoising process (DiffTalk). More specifically, instead of employing audio signals as the single driving factor, we investigate the control mechanism of the talking face, and incorporate reference face images and landmarks as conditions for personality-aware generalized synthesis. In this way, the proposed DiffTalk is capable of producing high-quality talking head videos in synchronization with the source audio, and more importantly, it can be naturally generalized across different identities without any further fine-tuning. Additionally, our DiffTalk can be gracefully tailored for higher-resolution synthesis with negligible extra computational cost. Extensive experiments show that the proposed DiffTalk efficiently synthesizes high-fidelity audio-driven talking head videos for generalized novel identities. For more video results, please refer to \url{https://sstzal.github.io/DiffTalk/}.Comment: Project page https://sstzal.github.io/DiffTalk

A (giant) void is not mandatory to explain away dark energy with a Lemaitre - Tolman model

Lema\^itre - Tolman (L--T) toy models with a central observer have been used to study the effect of large scale inhomogeneities on the SN Ia dimming. Claims that a giant void is mandatory to explain away dark energy in this framework are currently dominating. Our aim is to show that L-T models exist that reproduce a few features of the $\Lambda$CDM model, but do not contain the giant cosmic void. We propose to use two sets of data - the angular diameter distance together with the redshift-space mass-density and the angular diameter distance together with the expansion rate - both defined on the past null cone as functions of the redshift. We assume that these functions are of the same form as in the $\Lambda$CDM model. Using the Mustapha-Hellaby-Ellis algorithm, we numerically transform these initial data into the usual two L-T arbitrary functions and solve the evolution equation to calculate the mass distribution in spacetime. For both models, we find that the current density profile does not exhibit a giant void, but rather a giant hump. However, this hump is not directly observable, since it is in a spacelike relation to a present observer. The alleged existence of the giant void was a consequence of the L-T models used earlier because their generality was limited a priori by needless simplifying assumptions, like, for example, the bang-time function being constant. Instead, one can feed any mass distribution or expansion rate history on the past light cone as initial data to the L-T evolution equation. When a fully general L-T metric is used, the giant void is not implied.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, substantially revised to match the published version, figs. 9 and 19 changed to match the caption

Establishing homogeneity of the universe in the shadow of dark energy

Assuming the universe is spatially homogeneous on the largest scales lays the foundation for almost all cosmology. This idea is based on the Copernican principle, that we are not at a particularly special place in the universe. Surprisingly, this philosophical assumption has yet to be rigorously demonstrated independently of the standard paradigm. This issue has been brought to light by cosmological models which can potentially explain apparent acceleration by spatial inhomogeneity rather than dark energy. These models replace the temporal fine tuning associated with Lambda with a spatial fine tuning, and so violate the Copernican assumption. While is seems unlikely that such models can really give a realistic solution to the dark energy problem, they do reveal how poorly constrained radial inhomogeneity actually is. So the bigger issue remains: How do we robustly test the Copernican principle independently of dark energy or theory of gravity?Comment: 40 pages, 15 figures. Accepted review article to appear in a special volume of the "Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences" about Dark Energy and Dark Matte

Performance of supercritical methanol in polyurethane degradation

Polyurethane is a group of block copolymer which is composed of diisocyanate, chain extender, and polyol, including polyurethane foam, polyurethane elastomer, waterborne polyurethane, etc. This research focused on thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU) which is formed with 4,4’-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI), poly(1,4-butanediol-hexanedioic acid) diolpolyester(PBA) and extended with 1,4-butanediol(BDO).The degradation of TPU was carried out with the help of methanol as the supercritical solvent. The SEM of the reaction residues revealed the process of the depolymerisation. The products were measured by GC-MS and found out to be PBA, BDO and 4,4’-methylene diphenyl carbamate(MDC) which is themethylate of MDI.GC-FID, HPLC-UV and GPC were used to further analysis. The experimental results showed that supercritical methanol performed outstandingly in TPU recycling, it needed lower temperature and shorter time than regular methods. At 230°C/70min, over 90% raw materials of TPU could be recovered

Performance of supercritical methanol in polyurethane degradation

Polyurethane is a group of block copolymer which is composed of diisocyanate, chain extender, and polyol, including polyurethane foam, polyurethane elastomer, waterborne polyurethane, etc. This research focused on thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer (TPU) which is formed with 4,4’-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI), poly(1,4-butanediol-hexanedioic acid) diolpolyester(PBA) and extended with 1,4-butanediol(BDO).The degradation of TPU was carried out with the help of methanol as the supercritical solvent. The SEM of the reaction residues revealed the process of the depolymerisation. The products were measured by GC-MS and found out to be PBA, BDO and 4,4’-methylene diphenyl carbamate(MDC) which is themethylate of MDI.GC-FID, HPLC-UV and GPC were used to further analysis. The experimental results showed that supercritical methanol performed outstandingly in TPU recycling, it needed lower temperature and shorter time than regular methods. At 230°C/70min, over 90% raw materials of TPU could be recovered

Place-based Land Policy and Spatial Misallocation: Theory and Evidence from China

<p>Place-based policies may create spatial misallocation. We investigate a major policy in China that aims to reduce regional development gaps by distributing more urban land quotas to underdeveloped inland regions. We first show evidence that this policy decreased firm-level TFP in more developed eastern regions relative to inland regions. We then build a prefecture-level quantitative spatial equilibrium model with migration, land constraints, and agglomeration. The model reveals that this policy led to substantial national TFP and output losses. The regional output gap shrank, but workers from underdeveloped regions reduced their migration to developed regions and earned less. Counterfactuals show that national TFP and urban output would have been 6.4% and 2.3% higher in 2010 if the policy change had not been implemented, and workers from underdeveloped regions would have 1.1% higher incomes. This inland-favoring policy reduced geographical output gaps but at the cost of hurting workers from underdeveloped regions. Instead, regional monetary transfer policies could reduce regional inequality without increasing spatial misallocation.</p&gt

Optical Single Sideband Signal Reconstruction Based on Time-Domain Iteration

Due to its low cost, simple architecture and robustness to fiber dispersion, single sideband (SSB) transmission with direct detection (DD) system is an attractive solution for 80-km inter data center interconnect (DCI). However, it will suffer performance penalty caused by the signal-to-signal beating interference (SSBI). Kramers-Kronig (KK) receiver has been extensively investigated for SSBI elimination by reconstructing the SSB signal. The nonlinear operations in KK algorithm require up-sampling to cope with spectral broadening, which results in high complexity for practical application. Optical signal phase retrieval method based on the minimum phase signal has also been investigated for SSB signal recovery, in which the SSB and DC-Value properties are iteratively imposed on the amplitude signal in frequency domain. In this paper, we propose a low complexity iterative algorithm for minimum phase signal recovery without up-sampling in time domain. Finite impulse response (FIR) filter is applied to iteratively generate the SSB signal and update the phase component. Based on the proposed scheme, the transmission of 30GHz SSB 16-QAM discrete multitone (DMT) signal over 80km single mode fiber (SMF) is successfully demonstrated with the bit error rate (BER) below the hard-decision forward error correction (HD-FEC) threshold of 3.8 × 10^{-3}. The experimental results show that, the BER performance of KK scheme with up-sampling factor of 2, frequency-domain iteration scheme and our proposed scheme is almost the same. However, compared with the KK scheme, the proposed method can save the numbers of adders and multipliers by the factors of 29 and 7, while the factors are 5.5 and 4 comparing to the frequency-domain iteration scheme

Transcriptomic Analysis of the Anthocyanin Biosynthetic Pathway Reveals the Molecular Mechanism Associated with Purple Color Formation in Dendrobium Nestor

Dendrobium nestor is a famous orchid species in the Orchidaceae family. There is a diversity of flower colorations in the Dendrobium species, but knowledge of the genes involved and molecular mechanism underlying the flower color formation in D. nestor is less studied. Therefore, we performed transcriptome profiling using Illumina sequencing to facilitate thorough studies of the purple color formation in petal samples collected at three developmental stages, namely—flower bud stage (F), half bloom stage (H), and full bloom stage (B) in D. nestor. In addition, we identified key genes and their biosynthetic pathways as well as the transcription factors (TFs) associated with purple flower color formation. We found that the phenylpropanoid–flavonoid–anthocyanin biosynthesis genes such as phenylalanine ammonia lyase, chalcone synthase, anthocyanidin synthase, and UDP-flavonoid glucosyl transferase, were largely up-regulated in the H and B samples as compared to the F samples. This upregulation might partly account for the accumulation of anthocyanins, which confer the purple coloration in these samples. We further identified several differentially expressed genes related to phytohormones such as auxin, ethylene, cytokinins, salicylic acid, brassinosteroid, and abscisic acid, as well as TFs such as MYB and bHLH, which might play important roles in color formation in D. nestor flower. Sturdy upregulation of anthocyanin biosynthetic structural genes might be a potential regulatory mechanism in purple color formation in D. nestor flowers. Several TFs were predicted to regulate the anthocyanin genes through a K-mean clustering analysis. Our study provides valuable resource for future studies to expand our understanding of flower color development mechanisms in D. nestor

Comparative Study of the Nutritional Value and Degradation Characteristics of Amaranth Hay in the Rumen of Goats at Different Growth Stages

The objective of this study was to investigate the rumen degradation characteristics of grain amaranth hay (Amaranthus hypochondriacus) at four different growth stages. The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional value of grain amaranth hay at different growth stages by chemical composition, in vivo digestibility, and in situ degradability. Three Boer goats with permanent ruminal fistulas were selected in this study. Amaranthus hay at four different growth stages (squaring stage (SS), initial bloom stage (IS), full-bloom stage (FS) and mature stage (MS)) was crushed and placed into nylon bags. Each sample was set up with three replicates, and two parallel samples were set up in fistulas at each time point. The rumen degradation rates of dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fibre (NDF) and acid detergent fibre (ADF) were determined at 0, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48 and 72 h. The results were as follows: (1) The concentration of CP in SS was the highest and was significantly higher than that in other stages (p p p p < 0.05) and reached 65.728% at 72 h. The effective degradability of DM and CP in SS was the highest. In conclusion, among the four stages, IS was superior in chemical composition and rumen degradability characteristics