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Objective To assess the efficacy of long-lasting repeated high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the precuneus on consciousness recovery in patients with minimally conscious state (MCS). Methods A prospective case-control study was carried out on 40 MCS patients admitted in the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from June 2018 to January 2021. They were randomly divided into HD-tDCS group (n=20) and control group (n=20). The patients in the control group received routine treatment, while those in the HD-tDCS group were treated with HD-tDCS protocol over the precuneus (at 2 mA, for 20 min per time, twice per day for 14 d, with totally 28 sessions) on the basis of routine treatment. Gender, age, duration of consciousness, Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R) scores before (T0), and at a single session (T1), 7 d (T2), and 14 d (T3) were recorded and analyzed. Results The CRS-R score at T3 was significantly higher in the HD-tDCS group than the control group (P < 0.05). In the control group, 2 MCS patients demonstrated a new sign of consciousness at T3, and the CRS-R scores at T1, T2 and T3 were not significantly changed than those at T0. While in the HD-tDCS group, 17 patients showed a new sign of consciousness, and the CRS-R scores at T1, T2, and T3 were obviously increased when compared with those at T0 (P < 0.05). And the scores of visual, auditory and motor subscales at T3 were also statistically elevated than the scores at baseline (P < 0.01). Conclusion Long-lasting repeated HD-tDCS over the precuneus improves the recovery of consciousness in MCS patients at the 14th day of neuromodulation, especially in the visual, auditory and motor aspects of conscious behaviors.

Global warming has been reported to cause reductions in crop yields. However, it was suggested that warming temperature might benefit crop productivity in some cool areas at high latitude. In this study, we conducted a 17‐year field experiment (2002–2018) on spring wheat in Inner Mongolia. Temperature changes during each growth stage of spring wheat were investigated. Responses of spring wheat yield to temperature changes during the specific growing stages were evaluated. Average annual maximum temperature (Tmax) and minimum temperature (Tmin) significantly increased over the past 17 years. However, Tmax did not show obvious increase trend during spring wheat growing seasons (p = 0.0672). Furthermore, Tmax also had no distinct change before or after anthesis. Tmin significantly increased during the whole growing season, as well as in pre‐ and post‐anthesis stages. Correlation analysis indicated that Tmax in the entire growing season and post‐anthesis did not affect spring wheat yield, but high Tmax during pre‐anthesis can improve grain yield. The Tmin during the life cycle and pre‐anthesis both had positive relationship with grain yield. Moreover, elevated temperature from seedling to stem elongation can benefit tiller formation and thus increasing spike number, which contributed to the significant yield increase (p = 0.0093). Overall, climate warming affect spring wheat yield in cool area, and increasing temperature that was below the optimum temperature can benefit wheat productivity.

Existing Voice Cloning (VC) tasks aim to convert a paragraph text to a speech with desired voice specified by a reference audio. This has significantly boosted the development of artificial speech applications. However, there also exist many scenarios that cannot be well reflected by these VC tasks, such as movie dubbing, which requires the speech to be with emotions consistent with the movie plots. To fill this gap, in this work we propose a new task named Visual Voice Cloning (V2C), which seeks to convert a paragraph of text to a speech with both desired voice specified by a reference audio and desired emotion specified by a reference video. To facilitate research in this field, we construct a dataset, V2C-Animation, and propose a strong baseline based on existing state-of-the-art (SoTA) VC techniques. Our dataset contains 10,217 animated movie clips covering a large variety of genres (e.g., Comedy, Fantasy) and emotions (e.g., happy, sad). We further design a set of evaluation metrics, named MCD-DTW-SL, which help evaluate the similarity between ground-truth speeches and the synthesised ones. Extensive experimental results show that even SoTA VC methods cannot generate satisfying speeches for our V2C task. We hope the proposed new task together with the constructed dataset and evaluation metric will facilitate the research in the field of voice cloning and the broader vision-and-language community., Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures

BACKGROUND: Immunoglobulin (Ig) A nephropathy (IgAN) with a membranoproliferative pattern of injury that manifests as nephrotic syndrome (NS) is rarely reported in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced cirrhosis. It is not known whether eradication of HCV by direct-acting antiviral (DAA) drugs can lead to remission of proteinuria and improve the long-term prognosis. CASE DESCRIPTION: We report the case of a 52-year-old woman with HCV cirrhosis for 10 years. She had undergone splenectomy and cholecystectomy due to complications of liver cirrhosis. The patient presented with NS and was diagnosed by kidney biopsy with IgAN with a membranoproliferative pattern of injury. Twelve-week sofosbuvir and ledipasvir therapy successfully eradicated HCV in this decompensated cirrhosis patient and resulted in partial remission of IgAN. The patient stayed in partial remission for 4 years and had her first relapse with deterioration of portal hypertension and suspected hepatic carcinoma despite a sustained HCV virologic response. We consider the IgAN in this case to be secondary to liver cirrhosis and HCV infection rather than a primary nephropathy. DAA drugs which have no direct reno-protective effect resulted in partial remission of IgAN because they eradicated HCV and improved the liver disorder. CONCLUSIONS: Although relapse of IgAN could occur when liver cirrhosis deteriorates, DAA treatment may be considered an alternative for similar patients.

In many real-world applications, we often need to handle various deployment scenarios, where the resource constraint and the superclass of interest corresponding to a group of classes are dynamically specified. How to efficiently deploy deep models for diverse deployment scenarios is a new challenge. Previous NAS approaches seek to design architectures for all classes simultaneously, which may not be optimal for some individual superclasses. A straightforward solution is to search an architecture from scratch for each deployment scenario, which however is computation-intensive and impractical. To address this, we present a novel and general framework, called Elastic Architecture Search (EAS), permitting instant specializations at runtime for diverse superclasses with various resource constraints. To this end, we first propose to effectively train an over-parameterized network via a superclass dropout strategy during training. In this way, the resulting model is robust to the subsequent superclasses dropping at inference time. Based on the well-trained over-parameterized network, we then propose an efficient architecture generator to obtain promising architectures within a single forward pass. Experiments on three image classification datasets show that EAS is able to find more compact networks with better performance while remarkably being orders of magnitude faster than state-of-the-art NAS methods, e.g., outperforming OFA (once-for-all) by 1.3% on Top-1 accuracy at a budget around 361M #MAdds on ImageNet-10. More critically, EAS is able to find compact architectures within 0.1 second for 50 deployment scenarios., Comment: Tech report

3D LiDAR (light detection and ranging) semantic segmentation is important in scene understanding for many applications, such as auto-driving and robotics. For example, for autonomous cars equipped with RGB cameras and LiDAR, it is crucial to fuse complementary information from different sensors for robust and accurate segmentation. Existing fusion-based methods, however, may not achieve promising performance due to the vast difference between the two modalities. In this work, we investigate a collaborative fusion scheme called perception-aware multi-sensor fusion (PMF) to exploit perceptual information from two modalities, namely, appearance information from RGB images and spatio-depth information from point clouds. To this end, we first project point clouds to the camera coordinates to provide spatio-depth information for RGB images. Then, we propose a two-stream network to extract features from the two modalities, separately, and fuse the features by effective residual-based fusion modules. Moreover, we propose additional perception-aware losses to measure the perceptual difference between the two modalities. Extensive experiments on two benchmark data sets show the superiority of our method. For example, on nuScenes, our PMF outperforms the state-of-the-art method by 0.8 in mIoU., Comment: 20 pages. ICCV2021

A radiation hardened by design (RHBD) latch and its temporally hardened version to tolerate double node upsets are proposed in this paper. C-Elements are used to construct structures for fault correction. The temporally hardened version can further tolerate some single-event transients (SETs) at input port and clock line. Compared with Quintuple Modular Redundancy (QMR), the proposed non-temporally and temporally hardened latches are more area and power efficient with improved propagation delays. Compared with several previously reported temporally hardened latches, the proposed temporally hardened latch may introduce lower performance loss induced as setup time increase. Several multi-node upset tolerant latches are also compared with these two designs in terms of area, power, and delay. A cell level soft error analysis (TFIT) shows that the upset threshold LETs of the proposed latches in 180 nm process are higher than 16 MeV-cm2/mg.

The interactive image segmentation algorithm can provide an intelligent ways to understand the intention of user input. Many interactive methods have the problem of that ask for large number of user input. To efficient produce intuitive segmentation under limited user input is important for industrial application. In this paper, we reveal a positive feedback system on image segmentation to show the pixels of self-learning. Two approaches, iterative random walks and boundary random walks, are proposed for segmentation potential, which is the key step in feedback system. Experiment results on image segmentation indicates that proposed algorithms can obtain more efficient input to random walks. And higher segmentation performance can be obtained by applying the iterative boundary random walks algorithm., 9 pages, 9 figures, 1 tabel. Project URL:https://xiaofengxie.github.io/project/my-project-name/

Proceedings Of The 7Th Graz Brain-Computer Interface Conference 2017, From Vision To Reality, September 18-22, 2017 Graz University Of Technology, Austria

As technology scales, the protection of Finite State Machines' (FSMs) states against single event upset (SEU) and multiple bit upsets (MBUs) becomes more difficult. In this paper, a self-checking approach to enhance the SEU/MBUs immunity of FSMs' states by replicating One-Hot code times for state encoding is presented. This approach can correct less than bit-flip faults in the state register per cycle. Bit-flips are treated as random events and modeled by applying Poisson distribution. Two characteristics of this approach are obtained through probability analysis: first, this approach performs better with the increase of , whereas worse when an FSM contains more states; second, this approach can offer more enhanced reliability than Binary or One-Hot state encoding with Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR). The former characteristic leads to the further improvement of this approach which is called state-reforming. The reliabilities of this proposed approach and its state-reformed solutions, as well as are all evaluated through simulations of fault injections.

To recognize individuals, the brain often integrates audiovisual information from familiar or unfamiliar faces, voices, and auditory names. To date, the effects of the semantic familiarity of stimuli on audiovisual integration remain unknown. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we used familiar/unfamiliar facial images, auditory names, and audiovisual face-name pairs as stimuli to determine the influence of semantic familiarity on audiovisual integration. First, we performed a general linear model analysis using fMRI data and found that audiovisual integration occurred for familiar congruent and unfamiliar face-name pairs but not for familiar incongruent pairs. Second, we decoded the familiarity categories of the stimuli (familiar vs. unfamiliar) from the fMRI data and calculated the reproducibility indices of the brain patterns that corresponded to familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. The decoding accuracy rate was significantly higher for familiar congruent versus unfamiliar face-name pairs (83.2%) than for familiar versus unfamiliar faces (63.9%) and for familiar versus unfamiliar names (60.4%). This increase in decoding accuracy was not observed for familiar incongruent versus unfamiliar pairs. Furthermore, compared with the brain patterns associated with facial images or auditory names, the reproducibility index was significantly improved for the brain patterns of familiar congruent face-name pairs but not those of familiar incongruent or unfamiliar pairs. Our results indicate the modulatory effect that semantic familiarity has on audiovisual integration. Specifically, neural representations were enhanced for familiar congruent face-name pairs compared with visual-only faces and auditory-only names, whereas this enhancement effect was not observed for familiar incongruent or unfamiliar pairs. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4333-4348, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Proceedings Of The 6Th International Bci Meeting: Bci Past, Present, And Future

Objective. This systematic review was conducted to evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of herbal medicine (HM) as an alternative management for hot flushes induced by endocrine therapy in breast cancer patients. Methods. Key English and Chinese language databases were searched from inception to July 2015. Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) evaluating the effects of HM on hot flushes induced by endocrine therapy in women with breast cancer were retrieved. We conducted data collection and analysis in accordance with the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. Statistical analysis was performed with the software (Review Manager 5.3). Results. 19 articles were selected from the articles retrieved, and 5 articles met the inclusion criteria for analysis. Some included individual studies showed that HM can relieve hot flushes as well as other menopausal symptoms induced by endocrine therapy among women with breast cancer and improve the quality of life. There are minor side effects related to HM which are well tolerated. Conclusion. Given the small number of included studies and relatively poor methodological quality, there is insufficient evidence to draw positive conclusions regarding the objective benefit of HM. Additional high quality studies are needed with more rigorous methodological approach to answer this question.

In the present work, a nanoporous (pore width 0.7nm) graphene-based sponge-like material with large surface area ( 350m2/g) was synthesized by wet chemical reduction of graphene oxide in combination with freeze-drying. Surface morphology and elemental composition were studied by scanning and transmission electron microscopy combined with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. Surface chemistry was qualitatively examined by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, while the respective structure was investigated by X-ray diffraction analysis. Textural properties, including Brunauer–Emmet–Teller (BET) surface area, micropore volume and surface area as well as pore size distribution, were deduced from nitrogen gas adsorption/desorption data obtained at 77K and up to 1bar. Potential use of the spongy graphene for gas storage and separation applications was preliminarily assessed by low-pressure (0–1bar) H2, CO2 and CH4 sorption measurements at different temperatures (77, 273 and 298K). The adsorption capacities for each gas were evaluated up to 1bar, the isosteric enthalpies of adsorption for CO2 (28–33kJ/mol) and CH4 (30–38kJ/mol) were calculated using the Clausius–Clapeyron equation, while the CO2/CH4 gas selectivity (up to 95:1) was estimated using the Ideal Adsorbed Solution Theory (IAST). •Nanoporous sponge produced by chemical reduction of graphene oxide and freeze-drying•Characterization performed using SEM, EDS, TEM, FT-IR, BET and XRD methods•Gas storage performance evaluated towards H2, CO2 and CH4 adsorption up to 1bar•CO2 over CH4 gas selectivity estimated between 45 and 95 at 273K using the IAST model 596 242 249 242-249

This paper discusses the existence and number of solutions for a class of singular nonautonomous functional differential equations with bounded delay near a singular point, and shows either there are only two solutions or there is no solution to this kind of equations.

The random characteristics of multipath delay spread in a land mobile radio environment are analyzed. Its distribution density is theoretically derived. A comparison between the measured data and that predicted by the model shows good agreement. >

Firstly, the paper discusses existence and uniqueness of solutions of a class of index-1 nonlinear singular systems. Secondly, the paper discusses stability of the zero solution for singular systems. Finally, the paper discusses stabilization of the singular systems.

A single event upset (SEU) tolerant latch with a triple-interlocked structure is presented. Its self-recovery mechanism is implemented by using three pairs of guard-gates and inverters to construct feedback lines inside the structure. This latch effectively suppresses the effects of charge deposition at any single internal node caused by particle strikes. Three recently reported SEU-hardened latches are chosen and compared with this latch in terms of reliability. The potential problems that these three latches could still get flipped due to single event effects or single event effects plus crosstalk coupling are pointed out, which can be mitigated by this proposed latch. The SEU tolerance of each latch design is evaluated through circuit-level SEU injection simulation. Furthermore, discussions on the crosstalk robustness and some other characteristics of these latches are also presented.