Characterization of Traffic Oscillation Propagation under Nonlinear Car-Following Laws

AbstractUnlike linear car-following models, nonlinear models generally can generate more realistic traffic oscillation phenomenon, but nonlinearity makes analytical quantification of oscillation characteristics (e.g, periodicity and amplitude) significantly more difficult. This paper proposes a novel mathematical framework that accurately quantifies oscillation characteristics for a general class of nonlinear car-following laws. This framework builds on the describing function technique from nonlinear control theory and is comprised of three modules: expression of car-following models in terms of oscillation components, analyses of local and asymptotic stabilities, and quantification of oscillation propagation characteristics. Numerical experiments with a range of well-known nonlinear car-following laws show that the proposed approach is capable of accurately predicting oscillation characteristics under realistic physical constraints and complex driving behaviors. This framework not only helps further understand the root causes of the traffic oscillation phenomenon but also paves a solid foundation for the design and calibration of realistic nonlinear car-following models that can reproduce empirical oscillation characteristics

Transmission of H7N9 influenza virus in mice by different infective routes.

BackgroundOn 19 February 2013, the first patient infected with a novel influenza A H7N9 virus from an avian source showed symptoms of sickness. More than 349 laboratory-confirmed cases and 109 deaths have been reported in mainland China since then. Laboratory-confirmed, human-to-human H7N9 virus transmission has not been documented between individuals having close contact; however, this transmission route could not be excluded for three families. To control the spread of the avian influenza H7N9 virus, we must better understand its pathogenesis, transmissibility, and transmission routes in mammals. Studies have shown that this particular virus is transmitted by aerosols among ferrets.MethodsTo study potential transmission routes in animals with direct or close contact to other animals, we investigated these factors in a murine model.ResultsViable H7N9 avian influenza virus was detected in the upper and lower respiratory tracts, intestine, and brain of model mice. The virus was transmissible between mice in close contact, with a higher concentration of virus found in pharyngeal and ocular secretions, and feces. All these biological materials were contagious for naïve mice.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the possible transmission routes for the H7N9 influenza virus were through mucosal secretions and feces

N-(Quinolin-8-yl)quinoline-2-carbox­amide

In the title compound, C19H13N3O, the dihedral angle between the two quinoline systems is 11.54 (3)°. The mol­ecular conformation is stabilized by intra­molecular N—H⋯N and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, with N—H⋯N being bifurcated towards the two N atoms of the two quinoline rings. In the crystal, there are weak intermolecular π–π inter­actions present involving the quinoline rings [centroid–centroid distance 3.7351 (14) Å]

Robust Source-Free Domain Adaptation for Fundus Image Segmentation

Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) is a learning technique that transfers knowledge learned in the source domain from labelled training data to the target domain with only unlabelled data. It is of significant importance to medical image segmentation because of the usual lack of labelled training data. Although extensive efforts have been made to optimize UDA techniques to improve the accuracy of segmentation models in the target domain, few studies have addressed the robustness of these models under UDA. In this study, we propose a two-stage training strategy for robust domain adaptation. In the source training stage, we utilize adversarial sample augmentation to enhance the robustness and generalization capability of the source model. And in the target training stage, we propose a novel robust pseudo-label and pseudo-boundary (PLPB) method, which effectively utilizes unlabeled target data to generate pseudo labels and pseudo boundaries that enable model self-adaptation without requiring source data. Extensive experimental results on cross-domain fundus image segmentation confirm the effectiveness and versatility of our method. Source code of this study is openly accessible at https://github.com/LinGrayy/PLPB.Comment: 10 pages, WACV202