84 research outputs found
Geometry-Aware Face Completion and Editing
Face completion is a challenging generation task because it requires
generating visually pleasing new pixels that are semantically consistent with
the unmasked face region. This paper proposes a geometry-aware Face Completion
and Editing NETwork (FCENet) by systematically studying facial geometry from
the unmasked region. Firstly, a facial geometry estimator is learned to
estimate facial landmark heatmaps and parsing maps from the unmasked face
image. Then, an encoder-decoder structure generator serves to complete a face
image and disentangle its mask areas conditioned on both the masked face image
and the estimated facial geometry images. Besides, since low-rank property
exists in manually labeled masks, a low-rank regularization term is imposed on
the disentangled masks, enforcing our completion network to manage occlusion
area with various shape and size. Furthermore, our network can generate diverse
results from the same masked input by modifying estimated facial geometry,
which provides a flexible mean to edit the completed face appearance. Extensive
experimental results qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate that our
network is able to generate visually pleasing face completion results and edit
face attributes as well
Origins of Large Voltage Hysteresis in High Energy-Density Metal Fluoride Lithium-Ion Battery Conversion Electrodes
Metal fluoride and oxides can store multiple lithium-ions through conversion
chemistry to enable high energy-density lithium-ion batteries. However, their
practical applications have been hindered by an unusually large voltage
hysteresis between charge and discharge voltage-profiles and the consequent low
energy efficiency (< 80%). The physical origins of such hysteresis are rarely
studied and poorly understood. Here we employ in situ X-ray absorption
spectroscopy (XAS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM),
density-functional-theory (DFT) calculations, and galvanostatic intermittent
titration technique (GITT) to first correlate the voltage profile of iron
fluoride (), a representative conversion electrode material, with
evolution and spatial distribution of intermediate phases in the electrode. The
results reveal that, contrary to conventional belief, the phase evolution in
the electrode is symmetrical during discharge and charge. However, the spatial
evolution of the electrochemically active phases, which is controlled by
reaction kinetics, is different. We further propose that the voltage hysteresis
in the electrode is kinetic in nature. It is the result of Ohmic
voltage drop, reaction overpotential, and different spatial distributions of
electrochemically-active phases (i.e. compositional inhomogeneity). Therefore,
the large hysteresis can be expected to be mitigated by rational design and
optimization of material microstructure and electrode architecture to improve
the energy efficiency of lithium-ion batteries based on conversion chemistry
Audio-Driven Dubbing for User Generated Contents via Style-Aware Semi-Parametric Synthesis
Existing automated dubbing methods are usually designed for Professionally
Generated Content (PGC) production, which requires massive training data and
training time to learn a person-specific audio-video mapping. In this paper, we
investigate an audio-driven dubbing method that is more feasible for User
Generated Content (UGC) production. There are two unique challenges to design a
method for UGC: 1) the appearances of speakers are diverse and arbitrary as the
method needs to generalize across users; 2) the available video data of one
speaker are very limited. In order to tackle the above challenges, we first
introduce a new Style Translation Network to integrate the speaking style of
the target and the speaking content of the source via a cross-modal AdaIN
module. It enables our model to quickly adapt to a new speaker. Then, we
further develop a semi-parametric video renderer, which takes full advantage of
the limited training data of the unseen speaker via a video-level
retrieve-warp-refine pipeline. Finally, we propose a temporal regularization
for the semi-parametric renderer, generating more continuous videos. Extensive
experiments show that our method generates videos that accurately preserve
various speaking styles, yet with considerably lower amount of training data
and training time in comparison to existing methods. Besides, our method
achieves a faster testing speed than most recent methods.Comment: TCSVT 202
Identification of SNPs in chemerin gene and association with carcass and meat quality traits of Qinchuan Cattle
Chemerin is a novel adipokine that regulates adipogenesis and adipocyte metabolism via its own receptor. In this study, two novel SNPs (868A>G in exon 2 and 2692C>T in exon 5) of chemerin gene were identified by PCR-SSCP and DNA sequencing technology. The allele frequencies of the novel SNPs were determined in the genetically diverse bovine breeds including six Chinese indigenous cattle breeds (Caoyuan red, Jiaxian red, Luxi, Nanyang, Qinchuan and Xia’nan cattle). We evaluated the potential association of the SNPs with traits measured by ultrasound measurement in 214 Qinchuan individuals. Furthermore, meat quality traits data gotten from carcass measurement in another 69 Qinchuan individuals were analyzed by the comparison between the genotypes and their phenotypic data. Results showed that SNP 868A>G had a significant association with the ultrasound loin-muscle area (P < 0.05), loin-eye area and water holding capability (P < 0.05). And also revealed significant effects of genotype on the ultrasound backfat thickness (P < 0.05), backfat thickness and water holding capability (P < 0.05) of SNP 2692C>T. It was shown that associations do exist between chemerin gene and carcass and meat quality traits. As a result of the small sample size of this study, it is proposed that further effort is required to validate these findings in larger populations. It could be concluded that ultrasound measurements are similar in accuracy to carcass measurements for predicting carcass and meat quality traits in cattle, and could be a useful predictor of retail yield in live animals.Keywords: Bos bovine, chemerin gene, PCR-SSCP, SNP, meat quality trait
Functional Genomic Analysis of Variation on Beef Tenderness Induced by Acute Stress in Angus Cattle
Beef is one of the leading sources of protein, B vitamins, iron, and zinc in human food. Beef palatability is based on three general criteria: tenderness, juiciness, and flavor, of which tenderness is thought to be the most important factor. In this study, we found that beef tenderness, measured by the Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF), was dramatically increased by acute stress. Microarray analysis and qPCR identified a variety of genes that were differentially expressed. Pathway analysis showed that these genes were involved in immune response and regulation of metabolism process as activators or repressors. Further analysis identified that these changes may be related with CpG methylation of several genes. Therefore, the results from this study provide an enhanced understanding of the mechanisms that genetic and epigenetic regulations control meat quality and beef tenderness
miRNA-dysregulation associated with tenderness variation induced by acute stress in Angus cattle
miRNAs are a class of small, single-stranded, non-coding RNAs that perform post-transcriptional repression of target genes by binding to 3’ untranslated regions. Research has found that miRNAs involved in the regulation of many metabolic processes. Here we uncovered that the beef quality of Angus cattle sharply diversified after acute stress. By performing miRNA microarray analysis, 13 miRNAs were significantly differentially expressed in stressed group compared to control group. Using a bioinformatics method, 135 protein-coding genes were predicted as the targets of significant differentially expressed miRNAs. Gene Ontology (GO) term and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) mined that these target genes involved in some important pathways, which may have impact on meat quality and beef tenderness.https://doi.org/10.1186/2049-1891-3-1
Analysis of MicroRNA Expression in the Prepubertal Testis
Only thirteen microRNAs are conserved between D. melanogaster and the mouse; however, conditional loss of miRNA function through mutation of Dicer causes defects in proliferation of premeiotic germ cells in both species. This highlights the potentially important, but uncharacterized, role of miRNAs during early spermatogenesis. The goal of this study was to characterize on postnatal day 7, 10, and 14 the content and editing of murine testicular miRNAs, which predominantly arise from spermatogonia and spermatocytes, in contrast to prior descriptions of miRNAs in the adult mouse testis which largely reflects the content of spermatids. Previous studies have shown miRNAs to be abundant in the mouse testis by postnatal day 14; however, through Next Generation Sequencing of testes from a B6;129 background we found abundant earlier expression of miRNAs and describe shifts in the miRNA signature during this period. We detected robust expression of miRNAs encoded on the X chromosome in postnatal day 14 testes, consistent with prior studies showing their resistance to meiotic sex chromosome inactivation. Unexpectedly, we also found a similar positional enrichment for most miRNAs on chromosome 2 at postnatal day 14 and for those on chromosome 12 at postnatal day 7. We quantified in vivo developmental changes in three types of miRNA variation including 5′ heterogeneity, editing, and 3′ nucleotide addition. We identified eleven putative novel pubertal testis miRNAs whose developmental expression suggests a possible role in early male germ cell development. These studies provide a foundation for interpretation of miRNA changes associated with testicular pathology and identification of novel components of the miRNA editing machinery in the testis
Study on the Mechanical Properties of Monocrystalline Germanium Crystal Planes Based on Molecular Dynamics
Nanoindentation and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of the loading surface of monocrystalline germanium were used to investigate the evolution of the key structure, the force model, the temperature, the potential, and the deformable layer thickness. The mechanical characteristics of typical crystal planes (001), (110), and (111) of the crystal system were compared under load. It was observed that the hardness and stiffness of the (110) plane were greatest among the three crystal planes, whereas the hardness and stiffness of the (111) plane were lowest. Moreover, the deformation layers at the ends of both planes were basically flat. The processing efficiency of the (111) surface was higher; thus, the (111) surface was considered the best loading surface. It was concluded that the subsurface defects of the monocrystalline germanium (111) plane were smaller and the work efficiency was higher during the processing of monocrystalline germanium, making it ideal for monocrystalline germanium ultra-precision processing
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