Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlating Edge, Pose With Parsing

According to existing studies, human body edge and pose are two beneficial factors to human parsing. The effectiveness of each of the high-level features (edge and pose) is confirmed through the concatenation of their features with the parsing features. Driven by the insights, this paper studies how human semantic boundaries and keypoint locations can jointly improve human parsing. Compared with the existing practice of feature concatenation, we find that uncovering the correlation among the three factors is a superior way of leveraging the pivotal contextual cues provided by edges and poses. To capture such correlations, we propose a Correlation Parsing Machine (CorrPM) employing a heterogeneous non-local block to discover the spatial affinity among feature maps from the edge, pose and parsing. The proposed CorrPM allows us to report new state-of-the-art accuracy on three human parsing datasets. Importantly, comparative studies confirm the advantages of feature correlation over the concatenation.
Relaxation of the order-parameter statistics and dynamical confinement

We study the relaxation of the local ferromagnetic order in the quantum Ising chain in a slant field with both longitudinal and transverse components. After preparing the system in a fully polarised state, we analyse the time evolution of the entire probability distribution function (PDF) of the magnetisation within a block of ℓ spins. We first analyse the effect of confinement on the Gaussification of the PDF for large ℓ, showing that the melting of initial order is suppressed when the longitudinal field is aligned to initial magnetisation while it is speed up when it is in the opposite direction. Then we study the thermalisation dynamics. In the paramagnetic region, the PDF quickly shows thermal features. Conversely, in the ferromagnetic phase, when confinement takes place, the relaxation suffers a typical slowing down which depends on the interplay between the strength of the longitudinal field, the density of excitations, and the direction of the initial polarisation. Even when the initial magnetisation is aligned oppositely to the longitudinal field, confinement prevents thermalisation in the accessible timescale, as it is neatly bared by the PDF.
Introducing the VoicePrivacy Initiative

The VoicePrivacy initiative aims to promote the development of privacy preservation tools for speech technology by gathering a new community to define the tasks of interest and the evaluation methodology, and benchmarking solutions through a series of challenges. In this paper, we formulate the voice anonymization task selected for the VoicePrivacy 2020 Challenge and describe the datasets used for system development and evaluation. We also present the attack models and the associated objective and subjective evaluation metrics. We introduce two anonymization baselines and report objective evaluation results.
How Large is too Large? A Review of the Issues related to Sample Size Requirements of Regional Household Travel Surveys with a Case Study on the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA)

The paper presents a review of sample size issues related to regional household travel surveys. A review of current practices reveals that different perspectives and, as a result, different practices exist in Canada, US, and abroad on sample size. The paper uses data from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey (TTS) - a household travel survey conducted every five years in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) - for a set of empirical investigations that asses the adequacy of household travel survey samples. The empirical investigations reveal that even with a 5% sample size, a full representation of the population and its corresponding travel behaviour may be difficult (at the 95% confidence level). Therefore, based on the results of the empirical investigations and the literature review, the paper proposes a flexible framework for household travel survey sample size determination, especially for Canadian municipalities.
On mass distribution of coalescing black holes

Available data on the chirp mass distribution of the coalescing black hole binaries in O1-O3 LIGO/Virgo runs are analyzed and compared statistically with the distribution calculated under the assumption that these black holes are primordial with a log-normal mass spectrum. The theoretically calculated chirp mass distribution with the inferred best acceptable mass spectrum parameters, M0=17 M⊙ and γ=0.9, perfectly describes the data. The value of M0 very well agrees with the theoretically expected one. On the opposite, the chirp mass distribution of black hole binaries originated from massive binary star evolution requires additional model adjustments to reproduce the observed chirp mass distribution.
Eucalypt plantings on farms benefit woodland birds in south‐eastern Australia

Most of the original forest and woodland cover on the western slopes of New South Wales and the northern plains of Victoria has been cleared for agriculture (wheat, sheep and cattle) and what remains is highly fragmented and modified by a long history of disturbance. Over the past three decades, native eucalypt trees and shrubs have been planted extensively in a part of this region to provide a range of environmental benefits. Our aim was to determine the extent to which these plantings could improve biological diversity in agricultural landscapes in south-eastern Australia and to identify the variables influencing their effectiveness. We sampled birds at 120 sites encompassing the range of available patch sizes, stand ages, floristic and structural conditions, and habitat attributes for revegetated areas and remnants of native vegetation, and we compared these to nearby paddocks. Eucalypt plantings were found to provide significant improvements in bird population density compared with cleared or sparsely treed paddocks, and mixed eucalypt and shrub plantings had similar bird communities to remnant native forest and woodland in the region. Birds displayed a strong response to patch size, with both larger (≥5–20 ha) eucalypt plantings and larger (≥5–20 ha) remnants having more species and more individuals per unit area than smaller (<5 ha) patches of these vegetation types. Older (10–25 years) plantings had more bird species and individuals than young (<10 years) plantings. The distance from remnant forest and woodland (habitat connectivity) appeared to be an important variable influencing bird species richness in eucalypt plantings. The main differences were due to the greater numbers of species classified as woodland-dependent in the larger-sized patches of plantings and remnants. Eucalypt plantings provided useful habitat for at least 10 declining woodland-dependent species, notably for the Speckled Warbler, Red-capped Robin and Rufous Whistler. The Brown Treecreeper and Dusky Woodswallow appeared to be the species most limited by the extent of remnant forest and woodland in the region. Plantings of all shapes and sizes, especially those larger than 5 ha, have an important role to play in providing habitat for many bird species. Restoration efforts are more likely to be successful if eucalypt plantings are established near existing remnant vegetation.
Systems of mating to reduce inbreeding in selected populations

Stochastic simulation is used to compare different systems of mating to reduce rates of inbreeding in selection programmes with phenotypic or animal model best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) evaluation. Compensatory mating (the mating between individuals from the largest selected families to individuals from the smallest) turns out to be proportionately about 0-30 more effective than minimum coancestry matings for situations with low rates of inbreeding, such as phenotypic selection or high population size, although the advantage is less apparent if common environmental effects are important. A modification of this system of mating is proposed which can be applied for overlapping generations, and this is shown to reduce rates of inbreeding proportionately by about 0-50 more than for discrete generations. Under high inbreeding, however, such as for BLUP selection and small population size, minimum coancestry matings, or even avoidance of sib matings are more effective. A procedure combining compensatory and minimum coancestry matings is also simulated and gives the largest reductions in the rate of inbreeding. The effects of these and other systems of mating on the rate of inbreeding are shown to occur through a reduction in the cumulative effect of selection and a deviation from Hardy-Weinberg proportions.
How to Train Your Dragon: Tamed Warping Network for Semantic Video Segmentation

Real-time semantic segmentation on high-resolution videos is challenging due to the strict requirements of speed. Recent approaches have utilized the inter-frame continuity to reduce redundant computation by warping the feature maps across adjacent frames, greatly speeding up the inference phase. However, their accuracy drops significantly owing to the imprecise motion estimation and error accumulation. In this paper, we propose to introduce a simple and effective correction stage right after the warping stage to form a framework named Tamed Warping Network (TWNet), aiming to improve the accuracy and robustness of warping-based models. The experimental results on the Cityscapes dataset show that with the correction, the accuracy (mIoU) significantly increases from 67.3% to 71.6%, and the speed edges down from 65.5 FPS to 61.8 FPS. For non-rigid categories such as "human" and "object", the improvements of IoU are even higher than 18 percentage points.
Root Vegetable Crops

Summary Significant heterosis for earliness and yield has been reported for root vegetable crops. Major root crops are carrot, radish, turnip and garden beet. These vegetables are used as cooked or as a salad. The hybrids in these crops are also gaining popularity all over the world. These are highly cross-pollinated crops. There are different systems like self-incompatibility and male sterility are available in these crops. Hybrid vigor is exploited commercially in these crops using these mechanisms.
BAlN for III-nitride UV light-emitting diodes: undoped electron blocking layer

The undoped BAlN electron-blocking layer (EBL) is investigated to replace the conventional AlGaN EBL in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Numerical studies of the impact of variously doped EBLs on the output characteristics of LEDs demonstrate that the LED performance shows heavy dependence on the p-doping level in the case of the AlGaN EBL, while it shows less dependence on the p-doping level for the BAlN EBL. As a result, we propose an undoped BAlN EBL for LEDs to avoid the p-doping issues, which a major technical challenge in the AlGaN EBL. Without doping, the proposed BAlN EBL structure still possesses a superior capacity in blocking electrons and improving hole injection compared with the AlGaN EBL having high doping. Compared with the Al0.3Ga0. 7N EBL with a doping concentration of 1 × 1020 cm−3, the undoped BAlN EBL LED still shows lower droop (only 5%), compatible internal quantum efficiency (2% enhancement), and optical output power (6% enhancement). This study provides a feasible route to addressing electron leakage and insufficient hole injection issues when designing ultraviolet LED structures.
Regulation of Dehalogenase E (Dehe) and Expression of Dehalogenase Regulator Gene (Dehr) from Rhizobium Sp. RC1 in E. Coli

ABSTRACT The DNA sequence upstream of dehE gene encoding dehalogenase E (DehE) of Rhizobium sp. RC1 was determined and contained an open reading frame, designated dehR, which encoded a protein with a significant similarity to dehalogenase regulatory protein (DehR). Plasmid DNA designated pFH648 that carry both dehE and dehR genes were cloned from Rhizobium sp. RC1 genomic DNA. The Rhizobium sp. RC1 genetic organization was determined, suggesting dehE was controlled by the product of dehR. Current study proved that by growth experiment, E. coli XL10 Gold::pFH648 (dehE+, dehR+) has the ability to grow in minimal media supplied with 20 mM D,L-2-chloropropionic acid (D,L-2CP) as sole source of carbon. E. coli XL10::pSC520 (dehE+) lacking dehR gene and E. coli XL10 Gold::pFH45 (dehR+) lacking dehE gene did not grow in minimal media supplied with 20 mM D,L-2CP as sole source of carbon and energy, suggesting both dehE and dehR genes were needed to allow growth in D,L-2CP minimal media. Since the genetic organisation for both dehE and dehR were neighbouring genes similar to that of Pseudomonas putida PP3 dehR1 and dehI, promoters were predicted to be present for both dehE and dehR genes.
Data-Driven Modeling Reveals the Impact of Stay-at-Home Orders on Human Mobility during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S

One approach to delay the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is to reduce human travel by imposing travel restriction policies. It is yet unclear how effective those policies are on suppressing the mobility trend due to the lack of ground truth and large-scale dataset describing human mobility during the pandemic. This study uses real-world location-based service data collected from anonymized mobile devices to uncover mobility changes during COVID-19 and under the 'Stay-at-home' state orders in the U.S. The study measures human mobility with two important metrics: daily average number of trips per person and daily average person-miles traveled. The data-driven analysis and modeling attribute less than 5% of the reduction in the number of trips and person-miles traveled to the effect of the policy. The models developed in the study exhibit high prediction accuracy and can be applied to inform epidemics modeling with empirically verified mobility trends and to support time-sensitive decision-making processes.
Self-organized nanogel from pullulan/pheophorbide-A conjugate as a macromolecular photodynamic agent

The potential of pullulan(PL)/pheophorbide-A(phA) nanogel (PL/phA) was evaluated as a macromolecular photosensitizer (PS) for photodynamic therapy (PDT). Two samples with different degrees of substitution of phA (PL/phA1 and 2) were synthesized and analyzed by 1H NMR. The mean diameters of self-organized nanogels from PL/phA1 and 2 in aqueous solution were approximately 100 and 160 nm with mono-size distribution, respectively. The changes in nanogel photoactivity such as fluorescence intensity and singlet oxygen (1O2) production were observed in the solvents, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Although, their photoactivity in DMSO, which cannot form self-organized nanogels, was similar to that of free phA, activities were suppressed in the aqueous solution due to self-quenching between phAs similar to a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) effect. Moreover, as the nanogels were co-incubated with HeLa cells, the self-quenching effect gradually disappeared as a function of time. Based upon confocal microscopy and cytotoxicity results, we infer that the nanogels were internalized in cancer cells by endocytosis and then degraded by various enzymes in the endosome and lysosome, leading to the restoration of photoactivity. Therefore, the self-organized PL/phA nanogels may be recommended for development of new PDT with minimal unfavorable phototoxic affects.
Teaching Recurrent Neural Networks to Modify Chaotic Memories by Example

The ability to store and manipulate information is a hallmark of computational systems. Whereas computers are carefully engineered to represent and perform mathematical operations on structured data, neurobiological systems perform analogous functions despite flexible organization and unstructured sensory input. Recent efforts have made progress in modeling the representation and recall of information in neural systems. However, precisely how neural systems learn to modify these representations remains far from understood. Here we demonstrate that a recurrent neural network (RNN) can learn to modify its representation of complex information using only examples, and we explain the associated learning mechanism with new theory. Specifically, we drive an RNN with examples of translated, linearly transformed, or pre-bifurcated time series from a chaotic Lorenz system, alongside an additional control signal that changes value for each example. By training the network to replicate the Lorenz inputs, it learns to autonomously evolve about a Lorenz-shaped manifold. Additionally, it learns to continuously interpolate and extrapolate the translation, transformation, and bifurcation of this representation far beyond the training data by changing the control signal. Finally, we provide a mechanism for how these computations are learned, and demonstrate that a single network can simultaneously learn multiple computations. Together, our results provide a simple but powerful mechanism by which an RNN can learn to manipulate internal representations of complex information, allowing for the principled study and precise design of RNNs.
Identifying the biodiversity of marine jacks (Carangidae) in the freshwater Taal Lake, Philippines using phenotypic features and mitochondrial DNA

Summary Jacks, members of the genus Caranx (Perciformes: Carangidae), comprise economically-important marine fisheries across the world. In the Philippines, this valued fishery extends from the marine environment into a freshwater volcanic lake, Taal Lake. Two jacks, Caranx ignobilis (Forsskal, 1775) and C. sexfasciatus (Quoy and Gaimard, 1825), have long been reported from the lake, with recent molecular evidence alluding to genetic divergence between marine and freshwater populations. Here, a combination of phenotypic features and the mitochondrial Cytochrome oxidase b gene region were used explicitly to profile the taxonomic relationship between marine and freshwater specimens of C. ignobilis and C. sexfasciatus. Using molecular data from all known Philippine Caranx species, a partial phylogeny of the genus was reconstructed and contrasted to observed colouration, morphological and meristic features. Findings include the first report of C. papuensis, in Taal Lake; however, previous reports of C. sexfasciatus are not validated. Caranx ignobilis was confirmed present, yet several morphological features were unique to lake specimens, including red instead of yellow colouration of the lower jaw, anal fins, and caudal peduncle, and four instead of two canine teeth. Further, C. ignobilis sequence distance was 6.3% between marine and lake specimens, whereas C. papuensis distance was 0.2%. The combined molecular and phenotypic data suggest that Taal Lake C. ignobilis may represent an evolutionarily unique lineage. These data are significant for developing management strategies that have typically overlooked the ecological and evolutionary attributes of the jack fishery.
Succinylated Cheese Whey Protein Concentrate in Coffee Whitener and Salad Dressing

Abstract Succinylated whey concentrate was substituted for sodium caseinate in the formulation of coffee whitener and for 20% of the egg yolk in salad dressing, and the effects on quality and acceptance were determined. Succinylated whey concentrate has emulsification properties suitable to these products. A coffee whitener was obtained with higher viscosity, greater stability, lower whitening power, and greater acceptability than the control sample made with sodium caseinate. Similarly, a more stable salad dressing with a higher viscosity and no significant difference in acceptability was produced. Succinylated whey concentrate, therefore, has potential as a new and functional protein.
ASSESSING THE ROLE OF BENEFICIAL INVERTEBRATES IN CONVENTIONAL AND INTEGRATED FARMING SYSTEMS DURING AN OUTBREAK OF SITOBION AVENAE

ABSTRACT The impact of predatory invertebrates on Sitobion avenae was evaluated using exclusion barriers in integrated and conventionally farmed winter wheat. The numbers of polyphagous predators was reduced considerably in the enclosed areas. There was no difference in the numbers of Carabidae, Staphylinidae and Linyphiidae between the integrated and conventionally farmed systems, but the total number of predators was higher in the integrated system. Gut dissections of Pterostichus spp. showed that up to 34% contained aphid remains and a greater proportion of males than females contained aphid remains. The other main food items were other arthropods and an unidentifiable liquid. The populations of Sitobion avenae exceeded recommended spray thresholds but were not significantly different between the control areas and where numbers of polyphagous predators had been experimentally reduced. There were 1.5 fewer grain aphids per tiller in the plots managed using an integrated compared with the conventional fa.
Mechanisms of hyperacute rejection of discordant liver xenograft

Abstract: Use of discordant liver xenografts is a possible means of overcoming the ever‐increasing organ shortage. Immunological barriers, however, remain the major obstacle to the application of this therapeutic option. The aim of the study was to establish the model and to further investigate mechanisms of hitherto assumed liver xenograft rejection in the discordant guinea pig to rat combination and to determine the role of complement activation in this model.
Antioxidant Activity Studies on Selected Sideritis. Species Native to Turkey

ABSTRACT Sideritis. L. species are widely used as medicinal plants and as herbal teas in Turkey, in which 45 species of the genus are naturally found. The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant activity of Sideritis. species found in the Mediterranean region. In this study, the antioxidant activities of the lyophilized extracts obtained from aerial parts of 17 species (18 taxa) of Sideritis. were compared, of which 15 taxa were endemic. The antioxidant activities of aqueous extracts were studied by two different techniques: qualitative DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical) assay to detect the free radical scavenging activity and the TBA assay to detect liposome lipid peroxidation. All the extracts (except S. erithrantha. subsp. erithrantha., S. dichotoma., S. syriaca. subsp. nusariensis., S. tmolea.) showed a strong antioxidant activity with the DPPH test. High activity was observed in the S. brevibracteata. (IC50 mg/ml = 0.16), S. condensata. (IC50 mg/ml = 0.33), S. serratifolia. (IC50 mg/ml = 0.31) extracts with the lipid peroxidation assay method.
Ginkgo, a multivariate analysis package

Abstract The Ginkgo software is a subset of the VegAna (for Vegetation edition and Analysis) package that contains three programs named Quercus, Fagus and Yucca. Ginkgo is a multivariate analysis tool; it is oriented mainly towards ordination and classification of ecological data. Quercus is a relevé table editor; it handles community data to perform a phytosociological analysis. Fagus is a floristic citation editor; it can handle data coming from field surveys, bibliographic sources or collections. Yucca is a cartographic tool; it allows plotting distributions of taxa or syntaxa. VegAna is produced by the Department of Vegetal Biology, University of Barcelona. The general project is directed by Xavier Font I Castell, the Ginkgo module by Francesc Oliva I Cuyàs. Programmers are Miquel De Cáceres and Richard Garcia. This review deals primarily with Ginkgo.