Spatial Queries for Indoor Location-based Services

Indoor Location-based Services (LBS) facilitate people in indoor scenarios such as airports, train stations, shopping malls, and office buildings. Indoor spatial queries are the foundation to support indoor LBSs. However, the existing techniques for indoor spatial queries are limited to support more advanced queries that consider semantic information, temporal variations, and crowd influence. This work studies indoor spatial queries for indoor LBSs. Some typical proposals for indoor spatial queries are compared theoretically and experimentally. Then, it studies three advanced indoor spatial queries, a) Indoor Keyword-aware Routing Query. b) Indoor Temporal-variation aware Routing Query. c) Indoor Crowd-aware Routing Query. A series of techniques are proposed to solve these problems.</p

Towards Real-Time Simulation Of Hyperelastic Materials

We propose a new method for physics-based simulation supporting many different types of hyperelastic materials from mass-spring systems to three-dimensional finite element models, pushing the performance of the simulation towards real-time. Fast simulation methods such as Position Based Dynamics exist, but support only limited selection of materials; even classical materials such as corotated linear elasticity and Neo-Hookean elasticity are not supported. Simulation of these types of materials currently relies on Newton\u27s method, which is slow, even with only one iteration per timestep. In this work, we start from simple material models such as mass-spring systems or as-rigid-as-possible materials. We express the widely used implicit Euler time integration as an energy minimization problem and introduce auxiliary projection variables as extra unknowns. After our reformulation, the minimization problem becomes linear in the node positions, while all the non-linear terms are isolated in individual elements. We then extend this idea to efficiently simulate a more general spatial discretization using finite element method. We show that our reformulation can be interpreted as a quasi-Newton method. This insight enables very efficient simulation of a large class of hyperelastic materials. The quasi-Newton interpretation also allows us to leverage ideas from numerical optimization. In particular, we show that our solver can be further accelerated using L-BFGS updates (Limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno algorithm). Our final method is typically more than ten times faster than one iteration of Newton\u27s method without compromising quality. In fact, our result is often more accurate than the result obtained with one iteration of Newton\u27s method. Our method is also easier to implement, implying reduced software development costs

THE RELATIONSHIP OF TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE AND THEIR RETENTION IN HUIMIN WENCHANG HIGH SCHOOL, SHANDONG PROVINCE, CHINA

This research sought to study the relationship between teachers' perceptions of school climate and their retention in Huimin Wenchang High School in Binzhou City, Shandong Province, China. To this end, the study assessed teachers' perceptions of the school's climate and their level of needs, using the mean and standard deviation for descriptive and quantitative analysis. Finally, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient analysis analyzes and evaluates the relationship between these two variables. It was conducted in the 2020 academic year, with 48 full-time teachers participating and a return rate of 100% in the total target population of 48 teachers. Statistics showed that the significance of Pearson's correlation coefficient is .000, and R-value is .849. The results showed that Huimin Wenchang High School teachers in Binzhou City, Shandong Province, had high awareness and positive attitudes towards the school atmosphere. And there is a strong positive correlation between the teacher retention rate and the teacher's perceptions of the teacher's organizational climate

3D-simulation of lunar megaregolith evolution: Quantitative constraints on spatial variation and size of fragment

The early impact bombardment extensively fractured the lunar crust resulting in the formation of the so-called megaregolith. Previous estimates of megaregolith distribution vary significantly with respect to the vertical extent and the size-frequency distribution of fragments was rarely studied. We built a spatially resolved numerical model to simulate the process of cumulative impact fragmentation, aiming to backtrack the megaregolith evolution history and to constrain its fragment distribution. The results highlight the pivotal role of basin-forming events on the megaregolith formation. Especially the South-Pole Aitken (SPA) impact established the initial megaregolith structure which remained distinct after 0.5 Ga subsequent fragmentation. At 3.8 Ga, the megaregolith displays substantial lateral variation and layering: the highly fractured upper layer of ∼2.5 km is dominated by meter-scale fragments; the disturbed lower layer deeper than tens of kilometers is mainly consisting of kilometer-scale fragments; the transition zone >5 km contains fragments of various size scales

The Timeline of Early Lunar Bombardment Constrained by the Evolving Distributions of Differently Aged Melt

The timeline of the early lunar bombardment remains unclear. The bombardment rate as a function of time is commonly modeled by three types of shapes: tail-end, sawtooth, and terminal cataclysm. Differently aged melt records the occurrence time of impact events and thus is crucial for constraining the timeline of the early lunar bombardment. Based on a spatially resolved numerical model, we simulate the evolving distribution of differently aged melt with a long-term impact mixing, where different shapes of impact rate function are considered. We compare the outcome of melt age distribution from different scenarios with the actual data from the lunar meteorites and the returned samples. The results suggest that, if the present data are representative of the melt age distribution on the Moon, the shape of the impact rate function is more likely comparable to the tail-end over the sawtooth and the terminal cataclysm, with the terminal cataclysm being least likely. In addition, using state-of-the-art U–Pb dating techniques, more abundant ancient basin melt is likely to be found in returned samples

Distributed human 3D pose estimation and action recognition.

In this paper, we propose a distributed solution for3D human pose estimation using a RGBD camera network. Thekey feature of our method is a dynamic hybrid consensus filter(DHCF) is introduced to fuse the multiple view informationof cameras. In contrast to the centralized fusion solution,the DHCF algorithm can be used in a distributed network,which requires no central information fusion center. Therefore,the DHCF based fusion algorithm can benefit from manyadvantages of distributed network. We also show that theproposed fusion algorithm can handle the occlusion problemseffectively, and achieve higher action recognition rate comparedto the ones using only single view information

Research on Extracurricular English Learning Motivation of Junior High School Students

Based on the relevant theories of English learning motivation and the data provided by the questionnaire, in combination with teaching practice, analyses the current situation and characteristics of Junior high students’ English learning motivation. This paper analyses the differences in English learning motivation among students and probes into the influence of different motivations and the main factors affecting the English learning motivation of students by comparing the relationship between achievement and motivation. The results show that learning motivation is one of the most important factors affecting students’ English learning. Students with strong learning motivation will have a strong interest in English learning and consciously participate in it. On the other hand, students with lower motivation will have a more negative attitude toward English learning. English learning is a process of bilateral communication, so teachers should do their best to optimize the motivation of English learning. As extracurricular English teachers, only by understanding the students’ learning motivation, can we effectively arouse the student’s enthusiasm for learning English, and teachers should also have insight into the students’ psychology, understand their internal and external needs, and strengthen them. Among them, reasonable and effective factors can better impart knowledge and skills to achieve the ideal teaching effect. At the end of this study, some effective measures to motivate and keep the English learning motivation of students are put forward to improve the English learning achievement of extra-curricular English study students

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) : promoter mutation and novel function in human cancer

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is the catalytic component of telomerase, an RNAdependent DNA polymerase responsible for telomere elongation. TERT is transcriptionally repressed in most normal human somatic cells with limited life-span, which contributes to telomerase silence. It is well established that maintenance of telomere length is essential to cellular immortalization and malignant transformation, and predominantly achieved through TERT induction and subsequent telomerase activation. Evidence has also accumulated that, apart from its canonical telomerelengthening function, telomerase or TERT exhibits many other biological activities, thereby promoting cancer progression. Given its critical role in cancer formation and differential expression between normal and malignant cells, TERT/telomerase has been suggested as a novel cancer diagnostic marker and therapeutic target. To rationally develop these telomerase-based clinical applications, it is a demanding task to gain profound insights into the regulatory mechanism underlying cancer-specific TERT expression or telomerase activation, and to delineate various roles of TERT/telomerase in cancer development/progression. My thesis thus focuses on these important issues. Specifically, I sought to determine: (i) the biological role and clinical implication of the somatic TERT promoter mutation, and (ii) the regulatory effect of TERT on the oncogenic factor cyclooxygenase2 (COX2) in human cancer. The somatic TERT promoter mutation, initially identified in malignant melanoma, stimulates TERT gene transcription and activates telomerase. To see whether this genetic event occurs in the pathogenesis of thyroid and gastric cancer, we sequenced the TERT promoter region in tumor specimens derived from patients with premalignant thyroid lesions, thyroid and gastric cancer (papers I, II and III). A moderate to high frequency of TERT promoter mutations was observed in follicular cell-derived but not in parathyroid C cell-derived thyroid cancer. The mutation was correlated with senior age, shorter telomere length, aggressive disease and shorter disease-specific survival in thyroid cancer. Importantly, we found the mutation in a fraction (up to 17%) of premalignant thyroid lesions, coupled with TERT and telomerase expression, which indicates that TERT promoter mutations are early genetic events in thyroid carcinogenesis. In contrast, none of tumors from 200 patients with gastric cancer harbored TERT promoter mutations, suggesting different mechanisms for telomerase activation in gastric cancer. One of non-canonical TERT functions is to serve as a transcription co-factor to regulate gene expression. We thus determined whether the manipulating TERT expression affected the abundance of the oncogenic factor COX2 in cancer cells (paper IV). The inhibition of TERT in cancer cell lines using RNA interference led to a robust increase in COX2 expression at both mRNA and protein levels through a p38 MAPK signal pathway. TERT depletion alone did not affect cell survival, while the COX2 inhibitor together with TERT inhibition synergistically induced apoptosis of cancer cells. TERT depletion combined with the COX2 inhibitor administration significantly inhibited tumor growth in the mouse xenograft model of human gastric cancer. These findings reveal a novel function of TERT and have implications in telomerase-based anti-cancer therapy. In conclusion, the TERT promoter mutation is an early genetic event activating telomerase in the thyroid carcinogenesis, and associated with the aggressive disease and serves as a useful prognostic factor in thyroid cancer. The COX2 induction by TERT inhibition likely protects cancer cells from apoptosis. Thus simultaneously targeting TERT and COX2 may have synergistic killing effects on cancer cells, thereby improving treatment efficacy in a telomerase-based anti-cancer strategy

Simultaneous monocular visual odometry and depth reconstruction with scale recovery

In this paper, we propose a deep neural net-work that can estimate camera poses and reconstruct thefull resolution depths of the environment simultaneously usingonly monocular consecutive images. In contrast to traditionalmonocular visual odometry methods, which cannot estimatescaled depths, we here demonstrate the recovery of the scaleinformation using a sparse depth image as a supervision signalin the training step. In addition, based on the scaled depth,the relative poses between consecutive images can be estimatedusing the proposed deep neural network. Another novelty liesin the deployment of view synthesis, which can synthesize anew image of the scene from a different view (camera pose)given an input image. The view synthesis is the core techniqueused for constructing a loss function for the proposed neuralnetwork, which requires the knowledge of the predicted depthsand relative poses, such that the proposed method couples thevisual odometry and depth prediction together. In this way,both the estimated poses and the predicted depths from theneural network are scaled using the sparse depth image as thesupervision signal during training. The experimental results onthe KITTI dataset show competitive performance of our methodto handle challenging environments