CARNet:Compression Artifact Reduction for Point Cloud Attribute

A learning-based adaptive loop filter is developed for the Geometry-based Point Cloud Compression (G-PCC) standard to reduce attribute compression artifacts. The proposed method first generates multiple Most-Probable Sample Offsets (MPSOs) as potential compression distortion approximations, and then linearly weights them for artifact mitigation. As such, we drive the filtered reconstruction as close to the uncompressed PCA as possible. To this end, we devise a Compression Artifact Reduction Network (CARNet) which consists of two consecutive processing phases: MPSOs derivation and MPSOs combination. The MPSOs derivation uses a two-stream network to model local neighborhood variations from direct spatial embedding and frequency-dependent embedding, where sparse convolutions are utilized to best aggregate information from sparsely and irregularly distributed points. The MPSOs combination is guided by the least square error metric to derive weighting coefficients on the fly to further capture content dynamics of input PCAs. The CARNet is implemented as an in-loop filtering tool of the GPCC, where those linear weighting coefficients are encapsulated into the bitstream with negligible bit rate overhead. Experimental results demonstrate significant improvement over the latest GPCC both subjectively and objectively.Comment: 13pages, 8figure

Interplay between multiple charge-density waves and the relationship with superconductivity in Pdx_xHoTe3_{3}

HoTe$_{3}$, a member of the rare-earth tritelluride ($R$Te$_{3}$) family, and its Pd-intercalated compounds, Pd$_x$HoTe$_{3}$, where superconductivity (SC) sets in as the charge-density wave (CDW) transition is suppressed by the intercalation of a small amount of Pd, are investigated using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and electrical resistivity. Two incommensurate CDWs with perpendicular nesting vectors are observed in HoTe$_{3}$ at low temperatures. With a slight Pd intercalation ($x$ = 0.01), the large CDW gap decreases and the small one increases. The momentum dependence of the gaps along the inner Fermi surface (FS) evolves from orthorhombicity to near tetragonality, manifesting the competition between two CDW orders. At $x$ = 0.02, both CDW gaps decreases with the emergence of SC. Further increasing the content of Pd for $x$ = 0.04 will completely suppress the CDW instabilities and give rise to the maximal SC order. The evolution of the electronic structures and electron-phonon couplings (EPCs) of the multiple CDWs upon Pd intercalation are carefully scrutinized. We discuss the interplay between multiple CDW orders, and the competition between CDW and SC in detail.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Co-contributorship Network and Division of Labor in Individual Scientific Collaborations

Collaborations are pervasive in current science. Collaborations have been studied and encouraged in many disciplines. However, little is known how a team really functions from the detailed division of labor within. In this research, we investigate the patterns of scientific collaboration and division of labor within individual scholarly articles by analyzing their co-contributorship networks. Co-contributorship networks are constructed by performing the one-mode projection of the author-task bipartite networks obtained from 138,787 papers published in PLoS journals. Given a paper, we define three types of contributors: Specialists, Team-players, and Versatiles. Specialists are those who contribute to all their tasks alone; team-players are those who contribute to every task with other collaborators; and versatiles are those who do both. We find that team-players are the majority and they tend to contribute to the five most common tasks as expected, such as "data analysis" and "performing experiments". The specialists and versatiles are more prevalent than expected by a random-graph null model. Versatiles tend to be senior authors associated with funding and supervisions. Specialists are associated with two contrasting roles: the supervising role as team leaders or marginal and specialized contributions.Comment: accepted by JASIS

The oil price-inflation nexus: The exchange rate pass-through effect

Crude oil prices have been considered one of the key drivers of inflation worldwide, reaching a peak in 2022. Inflation targeting plays a pivotal role in such a high inflation episode. In this vein, the exchange rate is a key channel in transmitting the high commodity price into the domestic price level, known as the exchange rate pass-through effect. On this basis, this paper scrutinizes the connection between oil prices and inflation through RMB exchange rates. We verify that the covariance between exchange rates and oil prices are sound factors in explaining and predicting inflation in China. We advocate that policymakers can use the exchange rate as an inflation stabilizer by reducing the covariance between the exchange rate and oil price, especially for emerging economies and during the turmoil periods. This could be extremely helpful to frustrate the exchange rate pass-through effect of high commodity prices globally, which sheds new insights into stabilizing inflation and assisting inflation targeting for emerging economies

novoPathFinder: a webserver of designing novel-pathway with integrating GEM-model

To increase the number of value-added chemicals that can be produced by metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, constructing metabolic space with novel reactions/pathways is crucial. However, with the large number of reactions that existed in the metabolic space and complicated metabolisms within hosts, identifying novel pathways linking two molecules or heterologous pathways when engineering a host to produce a target molecule is an arduous task. Hence, we built a user-friendly web server, novoPathFinder, which has several features: (i) enumerate novel pathways between two specified molecules without considering hosts; (ii) construct heterologous pathways with known or putative reactions for producing target molecule within Escherichia coli or yeast without giving precursor; (iii) estimate novel pathways with considering several categories, including enzyme promiscuity, Synthetic Complex Score (SCScore) and LD50 of intermediates, overall stoichiometric conversions, pathway length, theoretical yields and thermodynamic feasibility. According to the results, novoPathFinder is more capable to recover experimentally validated pathways when comparing other rule-based web server tools. Besides, more efficient pathways with novel reactions could also be retrieved for further experimental exploration. novoPathFinder is available at http://design.rxnfinder.org/novopathfinder/