Semi-supervised Convolutional Neural Networks for Flood Mapping using Multi-modal Remote Sensing Data

When floods hit populated areas, quick detection of flooded areas is crucial for initial response by local government, residents, and volunteers. Space-borne polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) is an authoritative data sources for flood mapping since it can be acquired immediately after a disaster even at night time or cloudy weather. Conventionally, a lot of domain-specific heuristic knowledge has been applied for PolSAR flood mapping, but their performance still suffers from confusing pixels caused by irregular reflections of radar waves. Optical images are another data source that can be used to detect flooded areas due to their high spectral correlation with the open water surface. However, they are often affected by day, night, or severe weather conditions (i.e., cloud). This paper presents a convolution neural network (CNN) based multimodal approach utilizing the advantages of both PolSAR and optical images for flood mapping. First, reference training data is retrieved from optical images by manual annotation. Since clouds may appear in the optical image, only areas with a clear view of flooded or non-flooded are annotated. Then, a semisupervised polarimetric-features-aided CNN is utilized for flood mapping using PolSAR data. The proposed model not only can handle the issue of learning with incomplete ground truth but also can leverage a large portion of unlabelled pixels for learning. Moreover, our model takes the advantages of expert knowledge on scattering interpretation to incorporate polarimetric-features as the input. Experiments results are given for the flood event that occurred in Sendai, Japan, on 12th March 2011. The experiments show that our framework can map flooded area with high accuracy (F1 = 96:12) and outperform conventional flood mapping methods

Optothermotronic effect as an ultrasensitive thermal sensing technology for solid-state electronics

The thermal excitation, regulation, and detection of charge carriers in solid-state electronics have attracted great attention toward high-performance sensing applications but still face major challenges. Manipulating thermal excitation and transport of charge carriers in nanoheterostructures, we report a giant temperature sensing effect in semiconductor nanofilms via optoelectronic coupling, termed optothermotronics. A gradient of charge carriers in the nanofilms under nonuniform light illumination is coupled with an electric tuning current to enhance the performance of the thermal sensing effect. As a proof of concept, we used silicon carbide (SiC) nanofilms that form nanoheterostructures on silicon (Si). The sensing performance based on the thermal excitation of charge carriers in SiC is enhanced by at least 100 times through photon excitation, with a giant temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of up to −50%/K. Our findings could be used to substantially enhance the thermal sensing performance of solid-state electronics beyond the present sensing technologies

QUANTITATIVE DETERMINATION AND PREPARATIVE ISOLATION OF TWO MAJOR ALKALOIDS FROM THE VIETNAMESE MEDICINAL HERB EVODIAE FRUCTUS

Objective: To develop a simple and accurate HPLC-DAD method for simultaneous determination, the content of major components: limonin, evodiamine, and rutaecarpine in Evodiae fructus and evaluation the quality of Evodiae fructus sold in markets. Methods: Open column chromatography was used to separate and purify rutaecarpine and evodiamine, the two major alkaloids from Evodiae fructus extract as a laboratory standard. Chromatographic separation was achieved using a Germini C18 column (150 mm × 4.6 mm I.D., 5 µm), detected at 210 nm. The mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile (A), methanol (B), and water (C). The validated method simultaneously determined alkaloid content in 40 batches of samples collected from markets in different regions of Vietnam. Results: In one-step purification, our method yielded 326 mg of rutaecarpine and 128 mg of evodiamine from 3.2 g of crude extract, with purities of 98.9 and 98.5%, respectively. The structures of these compounds were identified using 1H NMR and 13C NMR. There was a significant correlation between alkaloid content and fruit size, with a Spearman correlation coefficient of>0.5 (p<0.001), and there was a large difference in alkaloid contents between three maturity degrees of the fruit. Open-mouth fruits and fruits with average sizes of 4 to 6 mm had the highest alkaloid contents, whereas closed-mouth fruits had the lowest. Conclusion: This study provided information on the standardization and quality control of evodiamine and rutaecarpine in Evodiae fructus, as well as a foundation for further pharmacological and toxicological studies

Alpha-nucleus potential for alpha-decay and sub-barrier fusion

The set of parameters for alpha-nucleus potential is derived by using the data for both the alpha-decay half-lives and the fusion cross-sections around the barrier for reactions alpha+40Ca, alpha+59Co, alpha+208Pb. The alpha-decay half-lives are obtained in the framework of a cluster model using the WKB approximation. The evaluated alpha-decay half-lives and the fusion cross-sections agreed well with the data. Fusion reactions between alpha-particle and heavy nuclei can be used for both the formation of very heavy nuclei and spectroscopic studies of the formed compound nuclei.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Ordered Mesoporous Carbons as Novel and Efficient Adsorbent for Dye Removal from Aqueous Solution

Ordered mesoporous carbons (OMCs) were successfully synthesized by using hard template and soft template methods. These materials were characterized by XRD, TEM, and N2 adsorption-desorption Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). From the obtained results, it is revealed that the obtained OMCs samples showed high surface area (>1000 m2/g) with high pore volume, mainly mesopore volume (1.2–2.4 cm3/g). Moreover, OMCs samples had similar structure of the SBA-15 silica and exhibited high MB adsorption capacity with qm of 398 mg·g−1 for OMCs synthesis with hard template and 476 mg·g−1 for OMCs synthesis with soft template, respectively. From kinetics investigation, it is confirmed that MB adsorption from aqueous solution obeys the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation

Observation of a pairing pseudogap in a two-dimensional Fermi gas

Pairing of fermions is ubiquitous in nature and it is responsible for a large variety of fascinating phenomena like superconductivity, superfluidity of $^3$He, the anomalous rotation of neutron stars, and the BEC-BCS crossover in strongly interacting Fermi gases. When confined to two dimensions, interacting many-body systems bear even more subtle effects, many of which lack understanding at a fundamental level. Most striking is the, yet unexplained, effect of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates, which is intimately related to the two-dimensional geometry of the crystal structure. In particular, the questions how many-body pairing is established at high temperature and whether it precedes superconductivity are crucial to be answered. Here, we report on the observation of pairing in a harmonically trapped two-dimensional atomic Fermi gas in the regime of strong coupling. We perform momentum-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, analogous to ARPES in the solid state, to measure the spectral function of the gas and we detect a many-body pairing gap above the superfluid transition temperature. Our observations mark a significant step in the emulation of layered two-dimensional strongly correlated superconductors using ultracold atomic gases

Low temperature properties of the fermionic mixtures with mass imbalance in optical lattice

We study the attractive Hubbard model with mass imbalance to clarify low temperature properties of the fermionic mixtures in the optical lattice. By combining dynamical mean-field theory with the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo simulation, we discuss the competition between the superfluid and density wave states at half filling. By calculating the energy and the order parameter for each state, we clarify that the coexisting (supersolid) state, where the density wave and superfluid states are degenerate, is realized in the system. We then determine the phase diagram at finite temperatures.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Ginzburg-Landau theory of vortices in a multi-gap superconductor

The Ginzburg-Landau functional for a two-gap superconductor is derived within the weak-coupling BCS model. The two-gap Ginzburg-Landau theory is, then, applied to investigate various magnetic properties of MgB2 including an upturn temperature dependence of the transverse upper critical field and a core structure of an isolated vortex. Orientation of vortex lattice relative to crystallographic axes is studied for magnetic fields parallel to the c-axis. A peculiar 30-degree rotation of the vortex lattice with increasing strength of an applied field observed by neutron scattering is attributed to the multi-gap nature of superconductivity in MgB2.Comment: 11 page

Sources of Multidrug Resistance in Patients With Previous Isoniazid-Resistant Tuberculosis Identified Using Whole Genome Sequencing: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

Background Meta-analysis of patients with isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis given standard first-line anti-tuberculosis treatment indicated an increased risk of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerging (8%), compared to drug-sensitive tuberculosis (0.3%). Here we use whole genome sequencing (WGS) to investigate whether treatment of patients with pre-existing isoniazid resistant disease with first-line anti-tuberculosis therapy risks selecting for rifampicin resistance, and hence MDR-TB. Methods Patients with isoniazid-resistant pulmonary TB were recruited and followed up for 24 months. Drug-susceptibility testing was performed by Microscopic observation drug-susceptibility assay (MODS), Mycobacterial Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) and by WGS on isolates at first presentation and in the case of re-presentation. Where MDR-TB was diagnosed, WGS was used to determine the genomic relatedness between initial and subsequent isolates. De novo emergence of MDR-TB was assumed where the genomic distance was five or fewer single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) whereas reinfection with a different MDR-TB strain was assumed where the distance was 10 or more SNPs. Results 239 patients with isoniazid-resistant pulmonary tuberculosis were recruited. Fourteen (14/239, 5.9%) patients were diagnosed with a second episode of tuberculosis that was multi-drug resistant. Six (6/239, 2.5%) were identified as having evolved MDR-TB de novo and six as having been re-infected with a different strain. In two cases the genomic distance was between 5-10 SNPs and therefore indeterminate. Conclusions In isoniazid-resistant TB, de novo emergence and reinfection of MDR-TB strains equally contributed to MDR development. Early diagnosis and optimal treatment of isoniazid resistant TB are urgently needed to avert the de novo emergence of MDR-TB during treatment

Regularity of Edge Ideals and Their Powers

We survey recent studies on the Castelnuovo-Mumford regularity of edge ideals of graphs and their powers. Our focus is on bounds and exact values of $\text{ reg } I(G)$ and the asymptotic linear function $\text{ reg } I(G)^q$, for $q \geq 1,$ in terms of combinatorial data of the given graph $G.$Comment: 31 pages, 15 figure