3D Depthwise Convolution: Reducing Model Parameters in 3D Vision Tasks

Standard 3D convolution operations require much larger amounts of memory and computation cost than 2D convolution operations. The fact has hindered the development of deep neural nets in many 3D vision tasks. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of applying depthwise separable convolutions in 3D scenario and introduce the use of 3D depthwise convolution. A 3D depthwise convolution splits a single standard 3D convolution into two separate steps, which would drastically reduce the number of parameters in 3D convolutions with more than one order of magnitude. We experiment with 3D depthwise convolution on popular CNN architectures and also compare it with a similar structure called pseudo-3D convolution. The results demonstrate that, with 3D depthwise convolutions, 3D vision tasks like classification and reconstruction can be carried out with more light-weighted neural networks while still delivering comparable performances.Comment: Work in progres

How strategic orientations influence the building of dynamic capability in emerging economies

Under the fierce pressures of the fast changing environments that characterize emerging economies, firms must develop dynamic capabilities to survive the competition. This study examines how strategic orientation helps build dynamic capability and its contingencies in China's emerging economy. A survey of 380 firms indicates strategic orientations are important drivers of adaptive capability, a key element of dynamic capabilities. The effectiveness of strategic orientations is contingent on market dynamics. In particular, when market demand becomes increasingly uncertain, customer orientation has a weaker impact, whereas technology orientation has a stronger effect on adaptive capability. As competition intensifies, both competitor and technology orientations build adaptive capability more effectively. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.postprin

Impurity induced disordering produced lateral optical confinement in AIGaAs/GaAs quantum well wavegu

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Systemic effects of gut microbiota and its relationship with disease and modulation

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Proposed formulas for evaluation of the equivalent material properties of a multiholed structure

It is widely known that the development of fine mesh in the immediate vicinity of the holes in a multiholed plate is a challenging issue. In practice, due to the amount of time consumed and the quality of the modelling, it is not desirable to model the structural characteristics of a multiholed plate in detail. In this regard, an effective means by which to avoid the unnecessary work of simulating a multiholed plate is to replace it with an equivalent solid plate while considering the decrease in stiffness associated with the increasing area of the holes. The objective of this study is to numerically and experimentally investigate the equivalent material properties of a multiholed plate of stainless steel 316L with respect to ligament efficiencies. Simple design formulas are proposed to determine the equivalent material properties of a multiholed plate that is completely perforated with closely spaced circular holes in a square or diagonal pattern by means of nonlinear finite-element method computations. It is concluded that the proposed formulas are accurate for prediction of the equivalent material properties of multiholed structures for their design and engineering

MIMO Transmission for Single-fed ESPAR with Quantized Loads

Compact parasitic arrays in the form of electronically steerable parasitic antenna radiators (ESPARs) have emerged as a new antenna structure that achieves multipleinput- multiple-output (MIMO) transmission with a single RF chain. In this paper, we study the application of precoding on practical ESPARs, where the antennas are equipped with load impedances of quantized values. We analytically study the impact of the quantization on the system performance, where it is shown that while ideal ESPARs with ideal loads can achieve a similar performance to conventional MIMO, the performance of ESPARs will be degraded when only loads with quantized values are available. We further extend the performance analysis to imperfect channel state information (CSI). In order to alleviate the performance loss, we propose to approximate the ideal current vector by optimization, where a closed-form solution is further obtained. This enables the use of ESPARs in practice with quantized loads. Simulation results validate our analysis and show that a significant performance gain can be achieved with the proposed scheme over ESPARs with quantized loads. Finally, the tradeoff between performance and power consumption is shown to be favorable for the proposed ESPAR approaches compared to conventional MIMO, as evidenced by our energy efficiency results

Tissue ablation with 100-fs and 200-ps laser pulses

The authors used water and human skin tissue to compare the surgical potential of 100-fs and 200-ps laser pulses. For investigation of threshold behavior of 100-fs and 200-ps pulses, the authors use water as a model for tissue. In addition to having a lower threshold, they find that energy deposition is much more consistent with 100-fs pulses. The authors also compared 100-fs and 200-ps laser pulse effects on the surface and in the bulk of human skin tissue. On the surface, pulses with 100-fs and 200-ps duration leave similar size ablation regions. In the bulk both 100-fs and 200-ps pulses produce cavities, however, 100-fs pulses result in a smaller cavity size. On both the surface and in the bulk 100-fs pulses show less collateral tissue damage than 200-ps pulses.published_or_final_versio

Coupling-fed frequency agile monopole fluid antenna

A coupling-fed reconfigurable monopole fluid antenna is investigated. The proposed geometry separates the ionized fluid from the feed line to prevent leakage. The preliminary results show that the operating frequency of the antenna can be reconfigurable by changing the length of the ionized fluid through an external pump. The peak efficiency is about 75% antenna can

MiR-1303 Regulates Mycobacteria Induced Autophagy by Targeting Atg2B

MicroRNAs are emerging post-transcriptional regulators of gene expressions in both innate immunity and adaptive immunity. In mycobacteria infection, autophagy plays an important role in innate defense mechanism and is tightly regulated by the autophagy-related proteins. Here, we show that Atg2B is involved in the regulation of mycobacteria-induced autophagy. MiR-1303, which function is not defined yet, is found to negatively regulate mycobacteria-induced Atg2B protein production, ultimately down-regulate mycobacteria-induced autophagy. MiR-1303 production is shown to be upregulated during BCG infection and its production is regulated by PI3K and NFκB. It is also demonstrated that miR-1303 targets putative target sites on Atg2B and possibly represses its translation.published_or_final_versio

HIV-1 Tat dysregulation of KSHV induced immune response through the production of IL-8

Poster PresentationHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and is a major health issue around the world. HIV is known to induce a number of pathological problems in AIDS patients via the transactivator (Tat) protein that is expressed and released by infected cells. One of the most important function of Tat is the dysregulation of the immune response. IL-8 is a chemokine known to be highly expressed in AIDS patients and Tat plays a major role in its production. IL-8 increases the HIV transmission and replication rate; and plays a role in Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV) infection, which is a major opportunistic pathogen that AIDS patients are at risk to. KSHV is also known to induce the expression of IL-8 in patients, and IL-8 is known to assist tumour development by increasing angiogenesis. In our study, we investigated the role that Tat may have in manipulating the expression of IL-8 induced by KSHV in primary blood monocyte derived macrophages (PBMac). The results showed that pretreatment of PBMac with Tat inhibited the expression of IL-8 induced by KSHV by approximately 40%. We also found that Tat was able to inhibit the phosphorylation of STAT-1 induced by KSHV, and the inhibition of STAT-1 phosporylation was related to the expression of IL-8 induced by KSHV. In conclusion, we found that Tat was able to manipulate the expression of IL-8 induced by KSHV in macrophages, and this inhibition of IL-8 expression was regulated through the STAT-1 related pathways.published_or_final_versio