NeuralMPS: Non-Lambertian Multispectral Photometric Stereo via Spectral Reflectance Decomposition

Multispectral photometric stereo(MPS) aims at recovering the surface normal of a scene from a single-shot multispectral image captured under multispectral illuminations. Existing MPS methods adopt the Lambertian reflectance model to make the problem tractable, but it greatly limits their application to real-world surfaces. In this paper, we propose a deep neural network named NeuralMPS to solve the MPS problem under general non-Lambertian spectral reflectances. Specifically, we present a spectral reflectance decomposition(SRD) model to disentangle the spectral reflectance into geometric components and spectral components. With this decomposition, we show that the MPS problem for surfaces with a uniform material is equivalent to the conventional photometric stereo(CPS) with unknown light intensities. In this way, NeuralMPS reduces the difficulty of the non-Lambertian MPS problem by leveraging the well-studied non-Lambertian CPS methods. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world scenes demonstrate the effectiveness of our method

Different water and nitrogen level effects on soil microbial properties of spinach

Understanding the interactions of plant soil environment and rhizosphere microbial changes are necessary to develop new strategies for the sustainable agriculture. A field experiment with combination of three water levels and three nitrogen rates was conducted to investigate the effect of water and nitrogen management on the changes of soil microbial properties in non-rhizosphere and rhizosphere soils of spinach. Non-Rhizosphere and rhizosphere microbial diversities were affected by water and nitrogen applications. Evenness index in the no-nitrogen treatment was more than that of 85 and 170 kg ha–1 nitrogen treatments in the non-rhizosphere or rhizosphere soil. Microbial biomass carbon in non-rhizosphere soil or rhizosphere soil decreased with the increase of nitrogen application, but showed the highest value in 16.5% of soil water content, followed by 12.5% and 20.5% of soil water content. Soil microbial biomass phosphorus content of 85 kg ha–1 nitrogen treatment in the non-rhizosphere soil or rhizosphere soil was significantly different for 0 and 170 kg ha–1 nitrogen treatments. Nitrification rate increased with the increase of soil water content in 0 and 170 kg ha–1 treatments. Our results demonstrated that water and nitrogen could impact the soil fertility and microbial activity of spinach

Effects of Deformation Rate on Ductility of Ti-6Al-4V Material

AbstractTo determine the velocity field in which the Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy sheet was sensitive to the strain rate, the formability at different strain rates were tested using a ring sample in the electromagnetic ring expansion experiment. For the test of titanium alloy, an aluminum alloy loop was used as a driver ring due to improve energy efficiency. The expansion velocity and strain rate of titanium ring were predicted by a numerical simulation method which had been verified by experimental data obtained with a high speed camera. The uniform strain was defined as the ratio of the change and the one after expansion of the cross sectional area in this study. Since the fracture strain of a material was related to the aspect ratio (ratio of length to diameter) of samples, the uniform strain was chosen to characterize the ductility of the material. The results indicate that when the tensile speed of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy sample is 2mm/min (quasi-static), the strain rate of deformation is 6.67×10-4 1/s and its uniform strain (ɛu) reaches 0.102. Instead, the uniform strain is only 0.032 when the expanding speed of 46.7 m/s is faster than the quasi-static speed. However, the uniform strain increases proportionally with the increment of the strain rate, and exceeds the quasi-static uniform strain reaching 0.11 or more when the deformation speed is faster than 286 m/s, in which the strain rate exceeded 6935.6/s. Therefore, the deformation speed of 286 m/s or the strain rate of 6935.6 1/s could be considered as the threshold to improve the ductility of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy

The Epitope Study on the SARS-CoV Nucleocapsid Protein

The nucleocapsid protein (N protein) has been found to be an antigenic protein in a number of coronaviruses. Whether the N protein in severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV) is antigenic remains to be elucidated. Using Western blot and Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), the recombinant N proteins and the synthesized peptides derived from the N protein were screened in sera from SARS patients. All patient sera in this study displayed strong positive immunoreactivities against the recombinant N proteins, whereas normal sera gave negative immunoresponses to these proteins, indicating that the N protein of SARS-CoV is an antigenic protein. Furthermore, the epitope sites in the N protein were determined by competition experiments, in which the recombinant proteins or the synthesized peptides competed against the SARS-CoV proteins to bind to the antibodies raised in SARS sera. One epitope site located at the C-terminus was confirmed as the most antigenic region in this protein. A detailed screening of peptide with ELISA demonstrated that the amino sequence from Codons 371 to 407 was the epitope site at the C-terminus of the N protein. Understanding of the epitope sites could be very significant for developing an effective diagnostic approach to SARS

Association analyses of East Asian individuals and trans-ancestry analyses with European individuals reveal new loci associated with cholesterol and triglyceride levels

Large-scale meta-analyses of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >175 loci associated with fasting cholesterol levels, including total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglycerides (TG). With differences in linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure and allele frequencies between ancestry groups, studies in additional large samples may detect new associations. We conducted staged GWAS meta-analyses in up to 69,414 East Asian individuals from 24 studies with participants from Japan, the Philippines, Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. These meta-analyses identified (P < 5 × 10-8) three novel loci associated with HDL-C near CD163-APOBEC1 (P = 7.4 × 10-9), NCOA2 (P = 1.6 × 10-8), and NID2-PTGDR (P = 4.2 × 10-8), and one novel locus associated with TG near WDR11-FGFR2 (P = 2.7 × 10-10). Conditional analyses identified a second signal near CD163-APOBEC1. We then combined results from the East Asian meta-analysis with association results from up to 187,365 European individuals from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium in a trans-ancestry meta-analysis. This analysis identified (log10Bayes Factor ≥6.1) eight additional novel lipid loci. Among the twelve total loci identified, the index variants at eight loci have demonstrated at least nominal significance with other metabolic traits in prior studies, and two loci exhibited coincident eQTLs (P < 1 × 10-5) in subcutaneous adipose tissue for BPTF and PDGFC. Taken together, these analyses identified multiple novel lipid loci, providing new potential therapeutic targets

The trans-ancestral genomic architecture of glycemic traits

Glycemic traits are used to diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic health. To date, most genetic studies of glycemic traits have focused on individuals of European ancestry. Here we aggregated genome-wide association studies comprising up to 281,416 individuals without diabetes (30% non-European ancestry) for whom fasting glucose, 2-h glucose after an oral glucose challenge, glycated hemoglobin and fasting insulin data were available. Trans-ancestry and single-ancestry meta-analyses identified 242 loci (99 novel; P < 5 x 10(-8)), 80% of which had no significant evidence of between-ancestry heterogeneity. Analyses restricted to individuals of European ancestry with equivalent sample size would have led to 24 fewer new loci. Compared with single-ancestry analyses, equivalent-sized trans-ancestry fine-mapping reduced the number of estimated variants in 99% credible sets by a median of 37.5%. Genomic-feature, gene-expression and gene-set analyses revealed distinct biological signatures for each trait, highlighting different underlying biological pathways. Our results increase our understanding of diabetes pathophysiology by using trans-ancestry studies for improved power and resolution. A trans-ancestry meta-analysis of GWAS of glycemic traits in up to 281,416 individuals identifies 99 novel loci, of which one quarter was found due to the multi-ancestry approach, which also improves fine-mapping of credible variant sets.Peer reviewe

High Power Factor of Ag2Se/Ag/Nylon Composite Films for Wearable Thermoelectric Devices

A flexible thermoelectric device has been considered as a competitive candidate for powering wearable electronics. Here, we fabricated an n-type Ag2Se/Ag composite film on a flexible nylon substrate using vacuum-assisted filtration and a combination of cold and hot pressing. By optimising the Ag/Se ratio and the sequential addition and reaction time of AA, an excellent power factor of 2277.3 &mu;W&#8729;m&minus;1 K&minus;2 (corresponding to a ZT of ~0.71) at room temperature was achieved. In addition, the Ag2Se/Ag composite film exhibits remarkable flexibility, with only 4% loss and 10% loss in electrical conductivity after being bent around a rod of 4 mm radius for 1000 cycles and 2000 cycles, respectively. A seven-leg flexible thermoelectric device assembled with the optimised film demonstrates a voltage of 19 mV and a maximum power output of 3.48 &mu;W (corresponding power density of 35.5 W m&minus;2) at a temperature difference of 30 K. This study provides a potential path to design improved flexible TE devices