Symmetry Detection and Analysis of Chinese Paifang Using 3D Point Clouds

The Chinese paifang is an essential constituent element for Chinese or many other oriental architectures. In this paper, a new method for detection and analysis of the reflection symmetry of the paifang based on 3D point clouds is proposed. The method invokes a new model to simultaneously fit two vertical planes of symmetry to the 3D point cloud of a paifang to support further symmetry analysis. Several simulated datasets were used to verify the proposed method. The results indicated that the proposed method was able to quantity the symmetry of a paifang in terms of the RMSE obtained from the ICP algorithm, with resistance to the presence of some random noise added to the simulated measurements. For real datasets, three old Chinese paifangs (with ages from 90 to 500 years) were scanned as point clouds to input into the proposed method. The method quantified the degree of symmetry for the three Chinese paifangs in terms of the RMSE, which ranged from 20 to 61 mm. One of the paifangs with apparent asymmetry had the highest RMSE (61 mm). Other than the quantification of the symmetry of the paifangs, the proposed method could also locate which portion of the paifang was relatively more symmetric. The proposed method can potentially be used for structural health inspection and cultural studies of the Chinese paifangs and some other similar architecture

A novel fusion framework embedded with zero-shot super-resolution and multivariate autoregression for precipitable water vapor across the continental Europe

Precipitable water vapor (PWV), as the most abundant greenhouse gas, significantly impacts the evapotranspiration process and thus the global climate. However, the applicability of mainstream satellite PWV products is limited by the tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolutions, as well as some external factors such as cloud contamination. In this study, we proposed a novel PWV spatio-temporal fusion framework based on the zero-shot super-resolution and the multivariate autoregression models (ZSSR-ARF) to improve the accuracy and continuity of PWV. The framework is implemented in a way that the satellite-derived observations (MOD05) are fused with the reanalysis data (ERA5) to generate accurate and seamless PWV of high spatio-temporal resolution (0.01°, daily) across the European continent from 2001 to 2021. Firstly, the ZSSR approach is used to enhance the spatial resolution of ERA5 PWV based on the internal recurrence of image information. Secondly, the optimal ERA5-MOD05 image pairs are selected based on the image similarity as inputs to improve the fusion accuracy. Thirdly, the framework develops a multivariate autoregressive fusion approach to allocate weights adaptively for the high-resolution image prediction, which primely addresses the non-stationarity and autocorrelation of PWV. The results reveal that the accuracies of fused PWV are consistent with those of the GPS retrievals (r = 0.82–0.95 and RMSE = 2.21–4.01 mm), showing an enhancement in the accuracy and continuity compared to the original MODIS PWV. The ZSSR-ARF fusion framework outperforms the other methods with R$^2$ improved by over 24% and RMSE reduced by over 0.61 mm. Furthermore, the fused PWV exhibits similar temporal consistency (mean difference of 0.40 mm and DSTD of 3.22 mm) to the reliable ERA5 products, and substantial increasing trends (mean of 0.057 mm/year and over 0.1 mm/year near the southern and western coasts) are observed over the European continent. As the accuracy and continuity of PWV are improved, the outcome of this paper has potential for climatic analyses during the land-atmosphere cycle process

A Metabolomics Study on the Bone Protective Effects of a Lignan-Rich Fraction From Sambucus Williamsii Ramulus in Aged Rats

The lignan-rich fraction (SWR) of Sambucus Williamsii Ramulus, a folk herbal medicine in China for treatment of bone diseases, has previously reported to exert protective effects on bone without exerting uterotrophic effects in ovariectomized (OVX) mice. The aim of the present study was to identify the potential metabolites and the associated metabolic pathways that contribute to the beneficial effects of SWR on bone in vivo. Aged female Sprague Dawley rats (9 months old) were either sham-operated or ovariectomized for 12 weeks, before receiving treatment for another 12 weeks with the following treatment groups (n = 12 each): vehicle (Sham), vehicle (OVX), Premarin (130 μg/kg) or low (57 mg/kg), medium (114 mg/kg), and high (228 mg/kg) doses of SWR. The results showed that SWRH significantly suppressed bone loss, improved bone micro-architecture and increased bone strength on tibia without stimulating uterus weight gain in OVX rats. Premarin exerted similar bone protective effects as SWRH but elicited uterotrophic effects in OVX rats. The metabolic profiles of serum samples were analyzed by using ultra-performance liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of flight mass spectrometry and gas chromatography time-of flight mass spectrometry, and the metabolites that were significantly altered were identified by multivariate statistical analysis. Our study indicated that SWRH effectively restored the changes of 26 metabolites induced by estrogen-deficiency in OVX rats, which related to lipids, amino acids, tryptophan metabolisms, and anti-oxidative system. A subsequent validation showed that the serum level of superoxide dismutase and catalase were indeed up-regulated, while the serotonin level in a tryptophan hydroxylase 1 (TPH1) high expressing cells (rats RBL-2H3 cells) was down regulated after treatment with SWR. The results also suggested that the gut-microbiota may play an important role on the bone protective effects of SWR. The current study provides insight for understanding the unique mechanism of actions of SWR that might be involved in achieving bone protective effects in vivo

Political and social determinants of life expectancy in less developed countries: a longitudinal study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study aimed to examine the longitudinal contributions of four political and socioeconomic factors to the increase in life expectancy in less developed countries (LDCs) between 1970 and 2004.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We collected 35 years of annual data for 119 LDCs on life expectancy at birth and on four key socioeconomic indicators: economy, measured by log10 gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity; educational environment, measured by the literacy rate of the adult population aged 15 years and over; nutritional status, measured by the proportion of undernourished people in the population; and political regime, measured by the regime score from the Polity IV database. Using linear mixed models, we analyzed the longitudinal effects of these multiple factors on life expectancy at birth with a lag of 0-10 years, adjusting for both time and regional correlations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The LDCs' increases in life expectancy over time were associated with all four factors. Political regime had the least influence on increased life expectancy to begin with, but became significant starting in the 3rd year and continued to increase, while the impact of the other socioeconomic factors began strong but continually decreased over time. The combined effects of these four socioeconomic and political determinants contributed 54.74% - 98.16% of the life expectancy gains throughout the lag periods of 0-10 years.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Though the effect of democratic politics on increasing life expectancy was relatively small in the short term when compared to the effects of the other socioeconomic factors, the long-term impact of democracy should not be underestimated.</p

Structural Basis for GTP-Dependent Dimerization of Hydrogenase Maturation Factor HypB

Maturation of [NiFe]-hydrogenase requires the insertion of iron, cyanide and carbon monoxide, followed by nickel, to the catalytic core of the enzyme. Hydrogenase maturation factor HypB is a metal-binding GTPase that is essential for the nickel delivery to the hydrogenase. Here we report the crystal structure of Archeoglobus fulgidus HypB (AfHypB) in apo-form. We showed that AfHypB recognizes guanine nucleotide using Asp-194 on the G5 loop despite having a non-canonical NKxA G4-motif. Structural comparison with the GTPγS-bound Methanocaldococcus jannaschii HypB identifies conformational changes in the switch I region, which bring an invariant Asp-72 to form an intermolecular salt-bridge with another invariant residue Lys-148 upon GTP binding. Substitution of K148A abolished GTP-dependent dimerization of AfHypB, but had no significant effect on the guanine nucleotide binding and on the intrinsic GTPase activity. In vivo complementation study in Escherichia coli showed that the invariant lysine residue is required for in vivo maturation of hydrogenase. Taken together, our results suggest that GTP-dependent dimerization of HypB is essential for hydrogenase maturation. It is likely that a nickel ion is loaded to an extra metal binding site at the dimeric interface of GTP-bound HypB and transferred to the hydrogenase upon GTP hydrolysis

Differential cross-section measurements of the production of four charged leptons in association with two jets using the ATLAS detector

Differential cross-sections are measured for the production of four charged leptons in association with two jets. These measurements are sensitive to final states in which the jets are produced via the strong interaction as well as to the purely-electroweak vector boson scattering process. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected by ATLAS at √s = 13 TeV and with an integrated luminosity of 140 fb−1. The data are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution and are compared to state-of-the-art Monte Carlo event generator predictions. The differential cross-sections are used to search for anomalous weak-boson self-interactions that are induced by dimension-six and dimension-eight operators in Standard Model effective field theory

Feature-based boresight self-calibration of a mobile mapping system

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