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Shao-Ting Wang,* Xiao-Yun He,* Juan Le, Ting Sun, Rui Peng Department of Clinical Laboratory, Institute of Translational Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430060, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Rui Peng, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Institute of Translational Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430060, People’s Republic of China, Email pengruiwec@163.comBackground: Hypovitaminosis K has been linked to depression and suicide, but epidemiological research is scarce. This study aimed to explore the association among vitamin K with depression and suicidal attempts.Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study involving 146 cases with a history of suicidal attempts and 149 subjects without a lifetime history of suicidal attempts. The levels of thyroid hormones, lipid profile, inflammatory cytokines, and vitamins were measured.Results: Subjects who had suicidal attempts presented with a significant decrease in FT4, TC, vitamin D, and vitamin K but increased CRP levels. In these variables, vitamin K has a better diagnostic value for suicidal attempts in depressed patients, with a sensitivity of 0.842 and a specificity of 0.715. Correlation analysis suggested that vitamin K was significantly and positively related to FT4, TC, LDL, and sdLDL. Multivariate analysis showed that serum vitamin K level predicts suicidal attempts in depressive patients (OR = 0.614, P = 0.004, 95% CI 0.153– 0.904). Moreover, a negative correlation between vitamin K and suicidal attempts was also noted for partial FT4, CRP, and vitamin D strata analysis.Conclusion: Our study suggests that low vitamin K levels were correlated with suicidal attempts in patients with depression, indicating that vitamin K deficiency might be a biological risk factor for depression.Keywords: vitamin K, suicidal attempts, depression

Shao-Ting Wang,* Xiao-Yun He,* Juan Le, Ting Sun, Rui Peng Department of Clinical Laboratory, Institute of Translational Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430060, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Rui Peng, Department of Clinical Laboratory, Institute of Translational Medicine, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, 430060, People’s Republic of China, Email pengruiwec@163.com

Aortic valve disease is often treated with bioprosthetic valves. An alternative treatment is aortic valve neocuspidization which is a relatively new reparative procedure whereby the three aortic cusps are replaced with patient pericardium or bovine tissues. Recent research indicates that aortic blood flow is disturbed, and turbulence effects have yet to be evaluated in either bioprosthetic or aortic valve neocuspidization valve types in patient-specific settings. The aim of this study is to better understand turbulence production in the aorta and evaluate its effects on laminar and turbulent wall shear stress. Four patients with aortic valve disease were treated with either bioprosthetic valves (n=2) or aortic valve neocuspidization valvular repair (n=2). Aortic geometries were segmented from magnetic resonance images (MRI), and 4D flow MRI was used to derive physiological inlet and outlet boundary conditions. Pulsatile large-eddy simulations were performed to capture the full range of laminar, transitional and turbulence characteristics in the aorta. Turbulence was produced in all aortas with highest levels occurring during systolic deceleration. In the ascending aorta, turbulence production is attributed to a combination of valvular skew, valvular eccentricity, and ascending aortic dilation. In the proximal descending thoracic aorta, turbulence production is dependent on the type of arch-descending aorta connection (e.g., a narrowing or sharp bend) which induces flow separation. Laminar and turbulent wall shear stresses are of similar magnitude throughout late systolic deceleration and diastole, although turbulent wall shear stress magnitudes exceed laminar wall shear stresses between 27.3% and 61.1% of the cardiac cycle. This emphasises the significance of including turbulent wall shear stress to improve our comprehension of progressive arterial wall diseases. The findings of this study recommend that aortic valve treatments should prioritise minimising valvul, Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology

Gamma-ray Transient Monitor (GTM) is an all-sky monitor onboard the Distant Retrograde Orbit-A (DRO-A) satellite with the scientific objective of detecting gamma-ray transients ranging from 20 keV to 1 MeV. GTM is equipped with 5 Gamma-ray Transient Probe (GTP) detector modules, utilizing the NaI(Tl) scintillator coupled with a SiPM array. To reduce the SiPM noise, GTP makes use of a dedicated dual-channel coincident readout design. In this work, we firstly studied the impact of different coincidence times on detection efficiency and ultimately selected the 500 ns time coincidence window for offline data processing. To test the performance of GTPs and validate the Monte Carlo simulated energy response, we conducted comprehensive ground calibration tests using Hard X-ray Calibration Facility (HXCF) and radioactive sources, including energy response, detection efficiency, spatial response, bias-voltage response, and temperature dependence. We extensively presented the ground calibration results, and validated the design and mass model of GTP detector. These work paved the road for the in-flight observation and science data analysis., Comment: 13 pages, 25 figures

GRB 221009A is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected since the discovery of this kind of energetic explosions. However, an accurate measurement of the prompt emission properties of this burst is very challenging due to its exceptional brightness. With joint observations of \textit{Insight}-HXMT and GECAM-C, we made an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the emission during the first $\sim$1800 s of GRB 221009A, including its precursor, main emission (ME, which dominates the burst in flux), flaring emission and early afterglow, in the hard X-ray to soft gamma-ray band from $\sim$ 10 keV to $\sim$ 6 MeV. Based on the GECAM-C unsaturated data of the ME, we measure a record-breaking isotropic equivalent energy ($E_{\rm iso}$) of $\bf \sim 1.5 \times 10^{55}$ erg, which is about eight times the total rest-mass energy of the Sun. The early afterglow data require a significant jet break between 650 s and 1100 s, most likely at $\sim950$ s from the afterglow starting time $T_{AG}$, which corresponds to a jet opening angle of $\sim {0.7^\circ} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/8}$, where $n$ is the ambient medium density in units of $\rm cm^{-3}$ and $\eta_\gamma$ is the ratio between $\gamma$-ray energy and afterglow kinetic energy. The beaming-corrected total $\gamma$-ray energy $E_{\gamma}$ is $\sim 1.15 \times10^{51} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/4}$ erg, which is typical for long GRBs. These results suggest that this GRB may have a special central engine, which could launch and collimate a very narrowly beamed jet with an ordinary energy budget, leading to exceptionally luminous gamma-ray radiation per unit solid angle. Alternatively, more GRBs might have such a narrow and bright beam, which are missed by an unfavorable viewing angle or have been detected without distance measurement., Comment: Submitted to National Science Review. This paper is under press embargo, contact the corresponding author for details

Li-Zhi Chen,1,2,* Han-Shu Li,1,2,* Gao-Wei Han,1,2,* Yong Su,1,3 Tian-Zhu Lu,1– 3 Hong-Hui Xie,1,3 Xiao-Chang Gong,1,3 Jin-Gao Li,1,3 Yun Xiao1,3 1NHC Key Laboratory of Personalized Diagnosis and Treatment of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Jiangxi Cancer Hospital, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang Medical College, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330029, People’s Republic of China, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330029, People’s Republic of China; 2Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330029, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Radiation Oncology, Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Jiangxi Cancer Hospital, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang Medical College, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330029, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Jin-Gao Li; Yun Xiao, Department of Radiation Oncology, Jiangxi Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Jiangxi Cancer Hospital, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang Medical College, 519 East Beijing Road, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330029, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-791-88313632, Fax +86-791-8321742, Email lijingao@hotmail.com; 813898920@qq.comPurpose: This study aimed to assess the prognostic and predictive value of a circulating hematological signature (CHS) and to develop a CHS-based nomogram for predicting prognosis and guiding individualized chemotherapy in non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients.Patients and Methods: NPC patients were recruited between January 2014 and December 2017 at the Jiangxi Cancer Hospital. The CHS was constructed based on a series of hematological indicators. The nomogram was developed by CHS and clinical factors.Results: A total of 779 patients were included. Three biomarkers were selected by least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression, including prognostic nutritional index, albumin-to-fibrinogen ratio, and prealbu

Fang-fang Fan, Xiao Yu, Zi-wei Shuai, Xiao-yun Hu, Min Pang, Yi-wei Shi NHC Key Laboratory of Pneumoconiosis, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Min Pang; Yi-wei Shi, Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, No. 85, Jiefang South Road, Taiyuan, Shanxi, 030001, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-18734890328, Email pangmin2009@126.com; chinasyw225@163.comIntroduction: Although Legionella is not the most common pathogen of community-acquired pneumonia, the epidemiological distribution of pneumonia pathogens has changed in recent years, with a gradual increase in some rare pathogens. For example, pneumonia that occurs after water source contamination is mostly caused by Legionella infection. This paper reports the diagnosis and treatment process of a patient after Legionella infection, who had misdiagnosis at the beginning, rapidly progressed to severe disease and combined with fungal infection. This article focuses on the timely and effective treatment of rapidly progressing Legionella pneumonia, in anticipation of a better understanding of the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.Case Presentation: Here, we report a case of legionella infection with the nausea, vomiting as the first symptoms accompanied by weakness, chills, dizziness, abdominal discomfort in a 75-year-old female. The patient had a history of type 2 diabetes for 30 years, diabetic peripheral neuropathy for more than 20 years, arterial hypertension for 10 years, bone hyperplasia for more than 5 years, resection of right-sided thyroid cystadenoma in 1990. The patient had firstly been diagnosed with cholecystitis and gallbladder neck stones, diet abstinence, metronidazole, cefoperazone sulbactam, and rehydration were given. The patient responded poorly to these empiric treatments. The patient was given moxifloxacin in combin

We investigate the production of $X_b$ in the process $\Upsilon(5S,6S)\to \gamma X_b$, where $X_b$ is assumed to be a $B {\bar B}^*$ molecular state. Two kinds of meson loops of $B^{(*)}{\bar B}^{(*)}$ and $B_1^{\prime}{\bar B}^{(*)}$ were considered. To explore the rescattering mechanism, we calculated the relevant branching ratios using the effective Lagrangian based on the heavy quark symmetry. The branching ratios for the $\Upsilon(5S\,,6S) \to \gamma X_b$ were found to be at the orders of $10^{-7} \sim 10^{-6}$. Such sizeable branching ratios might be accessible at BelleII, which would provide important clues to the inner structures of the exotic state $X_b$., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, comments are welcome

We embark on a systematical analysis of the quark and gluon gravitational form factors (GFFs) of the proton, by connecting energy-momentum tensor and the near-threshold vector meson photoproduction (NTVMP). Concretely, the quark contributions of GFFs are determined unprecedentedly by global fitting the cross section of the lightest vector meson $\rho^0$ photoproduction. Combined with the gluon GFFs achieved from heavy quarkonium $J/\psi$ photoproduction data, the complete GFFs are obtained and compared with the deeply virtual Compton scattering experimental results and LQCD determinations. The profound implications of this finding cannot be overstated, as it opens new avenues for obtaining comprehensive information on GFFs. Naturally, this work is not only an important basis for delving the proton enigmatic properties, % unraveling the secrets of the proton internal nature but also have significance theoretical guiding for future JLab and EICs experimental measurements., Comment: 6 pages,5 figures

In this study, we comprehensively investigate the production of isovector scalar meson $a_{0}(1817)$ using the effective Lagrangian approach. Specifically, we employ the Reggeized $t$ channel Born term to calculate the total and differential cross sections for the reaction $K^{-}p \rightarrow a_{0}(1817)\Lambda$. Our analysis reveals that the optimal energy range for detecting the $a_{0}(1817)$ meson lies between $W=3.4$ GeV and $W=3.6$ GeV, where the predicted total cross section reaches a minimum value of 112 nb. Notably, the $t$ channel, as predicted by the Regge model, significantly enhances the differential cross sections, particularly at extreme forward angles. Furthermore, we investigate the Dalitz processes of $2\rightarrow 3$ and discuss the feasibility of detecting the $a_{0}(1817)$ meson in experiments such as J-PARC., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

In this work, we use the artificial neural network (ANN) method to study and predict the distribution of strong coupling constants by fitting the existing data. Our approach takes advantage of the ability of ANN to learn complex nonlinear relations and excellent generalization, and allows for a systematic treatment of the uncertainties associated with the data. To ensure the reliability of our results, we apply three evaluation indexes to evaluate the accuracy of model during training. Finally, we obtained the predicted values of the strong coupling constants at different energy scales, and compared and verified them with the existing experimental data. Our approach represents a promising way to improve the determination of the strong coupling constant at low energies, and could have important implications for future experimental and theoretical studies in quantum chromodynamics., Comment: This work is a very preliminary result of using machine learning to study strong coupling constants. It is not a very mature work, and there are still certain uncertainties in the results. In a responsible manner, we decided to withdraw this manuscript after deliberation, and readers are invited to pay attention to our follow-up work on strong coupling constants in machine learning

In this letter, we embark on an exploration of the profound nature of the strong coupling constant on a global-energy scale. Through the meticulous analysis of accumulated experimental data from around the world, we employ the remarkable power of machine learning to unravel its secrets. Our endeavor has yielded an unprecedented outcome a formula that elegantly captures the expansive panorama of the strong coupling constant's distribution. Astonishingly, this newly derived expression bears a striking resemblance to the theoretical framework of Yang-Mills theory. Furthermore, our thorough analysis has brought forth a remarkable revelation. By introducing the venerable Euler's number, $e$, into the functional formula of the strong coupling constant at high energies, we have successfully surmounted the conundrum of infrared divergence. This ingenious addition allows for the seamless transition of the strong coupling constant from the realm of perturbative energies to that of non-perturbative energies. The profound implications of this finding cannot be overstated, as it paves the way for a natural understanding of the dynamics governing the strong coupling constant in a comprehensive energy spectrum. The results presented within this letter shed light on the enigmatic properties of quantum chromodynamics and the intricate interplay of strong coupling constants across both low and high energy scales., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

Under the framework of the vector meson dominance model (VMD), the absolute scattering lengths of light vector mesons ($\phi$, $\omega$, and $\rho$) with the deuteron are calculated from the cross sections of vector meson photoproduction off a deuteron. Additionally, a fitting function is used to predict the scattering lengths of the heavy vector mesons $J/\psi$-$d$ and $\Upsilon$-$d$. Based on these results, the distribution of the scattering lengths $|\alpha_{V d}|$ between vector mesons and the deuteron is presented for the first time and compared with the scattering lengths $|\alpha_{V p}|$ between vector mesons and the proton. It is found that as the mass of the vector meson increases, the scattering lengths $|\alpha_{V d}|$ become closer to $|\alpha_{V p}|$. Finally, a preliminary analysis and interpretation of these novel findings are provided based on the hadron size and the embeddedness of mesons in the nucleus., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

Si Liu,1,2 Xiao-yun Xiong,2 Hua Chen,1 Meng-die Liu,1 Ying Wang,1 Ying Yang,1 Mei-jun Zhang,1 Qin Xiang1 1School of Nursing, Nan Chang University, Nan Chang, Jiang Xi, People’s Republic of China; 2Nursing Department, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nan Chang University, Nan Chang, Jiang Xi, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiao-yun Xiong, Nursing Department, the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nan Chang University, Min de Road #, Nan Chang, 330006, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-791-8627-4550, Email 1028970010@qq.comObjective: The purpose of this study was to clarify the concept of transitional care in patients with heart failure.Background: Transitional care is increasingly being applied in patients with heart failure, but the concept of transitional care in heart failure patients is not uniform and confused with other definitions, which limits further research and practice on transitional care for these patients.Design: Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis.Methods: A comprehensive literature search was conducted using the PUBMED, EMBASE, EBSCO, Chinese Biological Medicine (CBM), CNKI, and WANFANG databases (up to January 26, 2023). We used Rodgers’ evolutionary concept analysis method to identify related concepts, attributes, antecedents, and consequences of transitional care in patients with heart failure.Results: A total of 33 articles were included. The following attributes belonging to transitional care in patients with heart failure were extracted from the literature: self-care, multidisciplinary collaboration, and information transmission. The antecedents were patients’ health status, the health literacy of patients and caregivers, the role functions of the main implementer and social and medical resources. Consequences were separated into two categories: patient-centered health outcomes (all-cause mortality, health-related quality of life, discharge preparedness, self-care behaviors, satisfaction of patients) and healthca

The early afterglow of a Gamma-ray burst (GRB) can provide critical information on the jet and progenitor of the GRB. The extreme brightness of GRB 221009A allows us to probe its early afterglow in unprecedented detail. In this letter, we report comprehensive observation results of the early afterglow of GRB 221009A (from $T_0$+660 s to $T_0$+1860 s, where $T_0$ is the \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE trigger time) in X/$\gamma$-ray energy band (from 20 keV to 20 MeV) by \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE, GECAM-C and \textit{Fermi}/GBM. We find that the spectrum of the early afterglow in 20 keV-20 MeV could be well described by a cutoff power-law with an extra power-law which dominates the low and high energy bands respectively. The cutoff power-law $E_{\rm peak}$ is $\sim$ 30 keV and the power-law photon index is $\sim$ 1.8 throughout the early afterglow phase. By fitting the light curves in different energy bands, we find that a significant achromatic break (from keV to TeV) is required at $T_0$ + 1246$^{+27}_{-26}$ s (i.e. 1021 s since the afterglow starting time $T_{\rm AG}$=$T_0$+225 s), providing compelling evidence of a jet break. Interestingly, both the pre-break and post-break decay slopes vary with energy, and these two slopes become closer in the lower energy band, making the break less identifiable. Intriguingly, the spectrum of the early afterglow experienced a slight hardening before the break and a softening after the break. These results provide new insights into the understanding of this remarkable GRB., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters on 19-Jan-2024, 11 pages, 7 figures and 2 tables

As a new member of the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) after GECAM-A and GECAM-B, GECAM-C (originally called HEBS), which was launched on board the SATech-01 satellite on July 27, 2022, aims to monitor and localize X-ray and gamma-ray transients from $\sim$ 6 keV to 6 MeV. GECAM-C utilizes a similar design to GECAM but operates in a more complex orbital environment. In this work, we utilize the secondary particles simultaneously produced by the cosmic-ray events on orbit and recorded by multiple detectors, to calibrate the relative timing accuracy between all detectors of GECAM-C. We find the result is 0.1 $\mu \rm s$, which is the highest time resolution among all GRB detectors ever flown and very helpful in timing analyses such as minimum variable timescale and spectral lags, as well as in time delay localization. Besides, we calibrate the absolute time accuracy using the one-year Crab pulsar data observed by GECAM-C and Fermi/GBM, as well as GECAM-C and GECAM-B. The results are $2.02\pm 2.26\ \mu \rm s$ and $5.82\pm 3.59\ \mu \rm s$, respectively. Finally, we investigate the spectral lag between the different energy bands of Crab pulsar observed by GECAM and GBM, which is $\sim -0.2\ {\rm \mu s\ keV^{-1}}$., Comment: submitted

Introduction: Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) of the arch is challenging given its complex geometry and the involvement of supra-aortic arteries. Different branched endografts have been designed for use in this region, but their haemodynamic performance and the risk for post-intervention complications are not yet clear. This study aims to examine aortic haemodynamics and biomechanical conditions following TVAR treatment of an aortic arch aneurysm with a two-component single-branched endograft. Methods: Computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis were applied to a patient-specific case at different stages: pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow-up. Physiologically accurate boundary conditions were used based on available clinical information. Results: Computational results obtained from the post-intervention model confirmed technical success of the procedure in restoring normal flow to the arch. Simulations of the follow-up model, where boundary conditions were modified to reflect change in supra-aortic vessel perfusion observed on the follow-up scan, predicted normal flow patterns but high levels of wall stress (up to 1.3M MPa) and increased displacement forces in regions at risk of compromising device stability. This might have contributed to the suspected endoleaks or device migration identified at the final follow up. Discussion: Our study demonstrated that detailed haemodynamic and biomechanical analysis can help identify possible causes for post-TEVAR complications in a patient-specific setting. Further refinement and validation of the computational workflow will allow personalised assessment to aid in surgical planning and clinical decision making., Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology

The gamma-ray detectors (GRDs) of GECAM-C onborad SATech-01 satellite is designed to monitor gamma-ray transients all over the sky from 6 keV to 6 MeV. The energy response matrix is the key to do spectral measurements of bursts, which is usually generated from GEANT4 simulation and partially verified by the ground calibration. In this work, energy response matrix of GECAM-C GRD is cross-calibrated with Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT using a sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters (SGRs). The calibration results show there is a good agreement between GECAM-C and other reasonably well calibrated instrument (i.e. Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT). We also find that different GRD detectors of GECAM-C also show consistency with each other. All these results indicate that GECAM-C GRD can provide reliable spectral measurements., Comment: preliminary version, will be updated soon

Searching for X-ray and gamma-ray bursts, including Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) and high energy transients associated with Gravitational wave (GW) events or Fast radio bursts (FRBs), is of great importance in the multi-messenger and multi-wavelength era. Although a coherent search based on the likelihood ratio and Gaussian statistics has been established and utilized in many studies, this Gaussian-based method could be problematic for weak and short bursts which usually have very few counts. To deal with all bursts including weak ones, here we propose the coherent search in Poisson statistics. We studied the difference between Poisson-based and Gaussian-based search methods by Monte Carlo simulations, and find that the Poisson-based search method has advantages compared to the Gaussian case especially for weak bursts. Our results show that, for very weak bursts with very low number of counts, the Poisson-based search can provide higher significance than the Gaussian-based search, and its likelihood ratio (for background fluctuation) still generally follows the chi2 distribution, making the significance estimation of searched bursts very convenient. Thus, we suggest that the coherent search based on Poisson likelihood ratio is more appropriate in the search for generic transients including very weak ones., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

Background and Objective: Numerical simulations of blood flow are a valuable tool to investigate the pathophysiology of ascending thoratic aortic aneurysms (ATAA). To accurately reproduce in vivo hemodynamics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models must employ realistic inflow boundary conditions (BCs). However, the limited availability of in vivo velocity measurements, still makes researchers resort to idealized BCs. The aim of this study was to generate and thoroughly characterize a large dataset of synthetic 4D aortic velocity profiles sampled on a 2D cross-section along the ascending aorta with features similar to clinical cohorts of patients with ATAA. Methods: Time-resolved 3D phase contrast magnetic resonance (4D flow MRI) scans of 30 subjects with ATAA were processed through in-house code to extract anatomically consistent cross-sectional planes along the ascending aorta, ensuring spatial alignment among all planes and interpolating all velocity fields to a reference configuration. Velocity profiles of the clinical cohort were extensively characterized by computing flow morphology descriptors of both spatial and temporal features. By exploiting principal component analysis (PCA), a statistical shape model (SSM) of 4D aortic velocity profiles was built and a dataset of 437 synthetic cases with realistic properties was generated. Results: Comparison between clinical and synthetic datasets showed that the synthetic data presented similar characteristics as the clinical population in terms of key morphological parameters. The average velocity profile qualitatively resembled a parabolic-shaped profile, but was quantitatively characterized by more complex flow patterns which an idealized profile would not replicate. Statistically significant correlations were found between PCA principal modes of variation and flow descriptors. Conclusions: We built a data-driven generative model of 4D aortic inlet velocity profiles, suitable to be used in computational studi, Medical Instruments & Bio-Inspired Technology

3-hydroxybutyrate (3OHB) has been proved to act as a neuroprotective molecule in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we employed a quantitative proteomics approach to assess the changes of the global protein expression pattern of neural cells upon 3OHB administration. In combination with a disease-related, protein-protein interaction network we pinpointed a hub marker, histone lysine 27 trimethylation, which is one of the key epigenetic markers in multiple neurodegenerative diseases. Integrative analysis of transcriptomic and epigenomic datasets highlighted the involvement of bivalent transcription factors in 3OHB-mediated disease protection and its alteration of neuronal development processes. Transcriptomic profiling revealed that 3OHB impaired the fate decision process of neural precursor cells by repressing differentiation and promoting proliferation. Our study provides a new mechanism of 3OHB's neuroprotective effect, in which chromatin bivalency is sensitive to 3OHB alteration and drives its neuroprotective function both in neurodegenerative diseases and in neural development processes.

Understanding the nature of repeating FRBs is crucial to probe the physics of FRBs. In this work, we analyze the statistics of waiting time between bursts of three repeating FRBs from four data sets. We find a universally pronounced dependency of the waiting times on the previous time interval (denoted as $\lambda_0$). We observe a temporal clustering where short waiting times tend to be followed by short ones, and long by long. This memory dependency is manifested in the conditional mean waiting time as well as in the conditional mean residual time to the next burst, both of which increase in direct proportion to $\lambda_0$. Consequently, the likelihood of experiencing a subsequent FRB burst within a given time window after the preceding burst is significantly influenced by the burst history. We reveal that, for the first time, these memory effects are present in the scale-invariant preconditioned waiting time distribution. We show that the memory effect provides a unified description of waiting times which may account for both the repeating FRBs and the apparent non-repeating FRBs (i.e. only observed one time). These results shed new light on the mechanism of FRBs.

The GECAM series of satellites utilize LaBr3(Ce), LaBr3(Ce,Sr), and NaI(Tl) crystals as sensitive materials for gamma-ray detectors (GRDs). To investigate the non-linearity in the detection of low-energy gamma rays and address errors in the E-C relationship calibration, comprehensive tests and comparative studies of the non-linearity of these three crystals were conducted using Compton electrons, radioactive sources, and mono-energetic X-rays. The non-linearity test results for Compton electrons and X-rays displayed substantial differences, with all three crystals showing higher non-linearity for X-rays and gamma-rays than for Compton electrons. Despite LaBr3(Ce) and LaBr3(Ce,Sr) crystals having higher absolute light yields, they exhibited a noticeable non-linear decrease in light yield, especially at energies below 400 keV. The NaI(Tl) crystal demonstrated excess light output in the 6~200 keV range, reaching a maximum excess of 9.2% at 30 keV in X-ray testing and up to 15.5% at 14 keV during Compton electron testing, indicating a significant advantage in the detection of low-energy gamma rays. Furthermore, this paper explores the underlying causes of the observed non-linearity in these crystals. This study not only elucidates the detector responses of GECAM, but also marks the inaugural comprehensive investigation into the non-linearity of domestically produced lanthanum bromide and sodium iodide crystals., Comment: 12pages, 16 figures

NP-complete problems are widely and deeply involved in various real-life scenarios while still intractable to solve efficiently on conventional computers. It is of great practical significance to construct versatile computing architectures that solve NP-complete problems with computational advantage. Here, we present a reconfigurable photonic processor to efficiently solve a benchmark NP-complete problem, the subset sum problem (SSP). We show that in the case of successive primes, the photonic processor has genuinely surpassed commercial electronic processors launched recently by taking advantages of the high propagation speed and vast parallelism of photons and state-of-the-art integrated photonic technology. Moreover, we are able to program the photonic processor to tackle different problem instances relying on the tunable integrated modules, variable split junctions, which can be used to build a fully reconfigurable architecture potentially allowing $2^{N}$ configurations at most. Our experiments confirm the potential of the photonic processor as a versatile and efficient computing platform, suggesting a possible practical route to solving computationally hard problems at large scale., Comment: 32 pages, 14 figures

We have investigated the optical spectral behavior of a large sample of Fermi blazars (40 FSRQs and 13 BL Lacs), and found two new universal optical spectral behaviors. In the low state the optical spectrum gradually becomes softer (steeper) or harder (flatter) but more and more slowly when the brightness increases, and then tends to stable in the high state, which are briefly named the redder-stable-when-brighter (RSWB) and bluer-stable-when-brighter (BSWB) behaviors, respectively. 34 FSRQs and 7 BL Lacs exhibit clear RSWB behavior, and 2 FSRQs and 5 BL Lacs show distinct BSWB behavior, which mean that FSRQs favor more RSWB than BSWB behavior, while BL Lacs have no clear preference among both behaviors. We have put forward a unified nonlinear formula to quantitatively characterize the optical spectral behaviors of FSRQs and BL Lacs, which can fit both kinds of behaviors very well. We argue that the RSWB and BSWB behaviors originate from the same mechanism, and they are the universal optical spectral behaviors for blazars. The frequently observed redder-when-brighter (RWB) and bluer-when-brighter (BWB) trends can be considered to be the approximations of the behaviors of RSWB and BSWB, respectively. The rarely observed stable-when-brighter (SWB) trend can also be viewed as an approximation or a special case of the RSWB or BSWB behavior. We have developed a model with two constant-spectral-index components which can not only explain well both two kinds of optical spectral behaviors, but also successfully interpret the differential behaviors between FSRQs and BL Lacs., Comment: 38 pages, 56 figures, 1 table

By the reaction of kaon interacting with a proton, we investigate the production of the newly observed $\eta_{1}(1855)$ and its $C$-parity partner $\eta_{1}^{\prime }(1855)$ predicted in the picture of the $K\bar{K}_1(1400)$ molecular state. The total and differential cross sections of the concrete $K^{-}p\to\eta_{1}(1855)\Lambda$ and $\eta_{1}^{\prime }(1855)\Lambda$ reactions are obtained. At the center of mass energies about 3.4$\sim $3.6 GeV, the minimum cross-section of $\eta_{1}(1855)$ and and $\eta_{1}^{\prime }(1855)$ production via the $K^{-}p$ reaction are about 0.59 $nb$ and 19.2 $nb$, respectively. The differential cross sections for both reactions at the different center of mass energies are also available. Furthermore, we present the Dalitz processes of $2\rightarrow 3$ and $2\rightarrow 4$, and initially discuss the feasibility of finding out the $\eta_{1}(1855)$ and $\eta_{1}^{\prime }(1855)$ in experiments like J-PARC.

Under the framework of Vector Meson Dominance model, the value of scattering length can be expressed as a function of the ratio between total cross section $\sigma (W)$ and $R (W)$, where $R(W)$ is the ratio between final momentum $|{\bf p}_3 |$ and initial momentum $|{\bf p}_1|$ and positively correlated with the center-of-mass energy. Based on the theoretical study of charmoniums photoproduction within two gluon exchange model and effective pomeron model, we research the scattering lengths of vector mesons and proton interaction in this work. Results show that the scattering length $\left|\alpha_{J/\psi p}\right|$ obtained from the two models are close and basically in agreement with the theoretical prediction of Strakovsky and co-workers. Additionally, we first calculate the scattering length of $\psi(2S) $-proton interaction in two gluon exchange model and effective pomeron model as $ 1.31\pm 0.92$ am (1 am = $10^{-3}$ fm) and $ 3.24 \pm 0.63$ am, respectively. This is a little bit different from the two models and requires precise measurements from subsequent experiments. In short, our results will provide a theoretical reference for future studies on characterizing the vector meson-proton scattering length., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures

In this work, the cross-section of the reaction $\gamma p \rightarrow V(J/\psi,\psi(2S)) p$ from the production threshold to medium energy is studied and systematically analyzed within two gluon exchange model. The obtained numerical results are in agreement with experimental data and other theoretical predictions. Under the assumption of the scalar form factor of dipole form, the value of proton mass radius is calculated as $0.55\pm 0.09$ fm and $ 0.77\pm 0.12$ fm from the fit to the predicted $J/\psi $ and $\psi(2S)$ differential cross-section, respectively. Finally the average value of proton mass radius is estimated to be $\sqrt{\left}=0.67\pm 0.11$ fm. Moreover, one find that extracting mass radius from the near-threshold differential cross-section of heavy quarkoniums is always affected by large $|t|_{min}$. These obtained results may provide important theoretical reference for understanding of nucleon structure and future relevant experiments., Comment: 7pages, 10figures

With exponential rise of social media, marketers identify the power and effectiveness of influencer’s advertising on social networking site (SNS). Despite comprehensive understanding of the effects of influencers, their outreach to large audience is yet to be addressed. In this article, we have investigated the effects of fashion influencers on consumers’ decision-making processes and their content outreach on Instagram by embracing new behavioral consumption model ‘dual AISAS model’, which is upgraded version of AISAS Model. It is based on theoretical grounding theory of buying behavior and multi-step flow theory. Both offline and online surveys were conducted involving 969 Pakistan Instagram users following digital influencers. Valid data was assessed and analyzed through structural equation modeling. Our findings demonstrate that every path in dual AISAS model is found significant and have profound effect. It reveals that fashion influencers exert powerful influence on consumers’ decision-making process. Being so influential, they grab the consumers’ attention immediately, engage them, and get wider outreach by upturn in consumer intention in order to spread the fashion content within private networks as well as extended networks. The findings hold robust implications to both theory and practice. Some limitations of the present study offer boulevards to future scholars.

We study the radiative decays $Z_c(3900)/Z_c(4020) \to \gamma \chi_{cJ}(\gamma\chi_{cJ}^\prime)$ ($J=0, 1, 2$), with the assumption that the $Z_c(3900)$ and $Z_c(4020)$ couple strongly to $D\bar D^* +c.c$ and $D^*{\bar D}^*$ channel, respectively. By considering the contributions of intermediate charmed mesons triangle loops within an effective Lagrangian approach, it is shown that the calculated partial widths of $Z_c(3900) \to \gamma \chi_{cJ}$ are about a few hundreds keVs, while the obtained partial widths $Z_c(4020) \to \gamma \chi_{cJ}$ are about tens of keVs. The predicted partial widths of $Z_c(3900)\to\gamma\chi_{c0,1}^\prime$ are less than 1 keV, which mainly due to the very small phase space. For $Z_c(4020)\to\gamma\chi_{c0,2}^\prime$, the calculated partial widths are usually smaller than 1 keV. For the $Z_c(4020)\to\gamma\chi_{c1}^\prime$ process, the obtained partial widths can reach up to the order of 10 keV. Furthermore, the dependence of these ratios between different decay modes on the masses of $Z_c(3900)$ or $Z_c(4020)$ are also investigated, which may be a good quantity for the experiments. It is hoped that these calculations here could be tested by future experiments., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by Physical Review D

The productions of the exotic states $ X_0(2900) $ and $ X_1(2900) $ in $K^{+}p \to \Sigma_{c}^{++}X_{0}(2900)$ and $K^{+}p \to \Sigma_{c}^{++}X_{1}(2900)$ reactions are studied within an effective Lagrangian approach. The $t-$channel Born term is included to calculate the production cross sections. The numerical results show that the total cross section may reach up to about 0.5 nb and 25 nb for the production of $ X_0(2900) $ and $ X_1(2900) $, respectively. The predicted differential cross sections are sensitive to the scattering angles and have strong forward enhancements. The cross sections for the $K^{+}n \to \Lambda_{c}^{+}X_{0,1}$ are also calculated and found to be larger than that in $K^{+}p$ collisions by more than one order of magnitude. The results are helpful to the possible experiments at J-PARC and COMPASS., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Inspired by the recent Hall C and GlueX measurements of $J/\psi$ photoproduction, a systematic analysis of the contribution of quantum anomalous energy (QAE) to the proton mass is carried out under the framework of the vector meson dominance model. The results show that the effective Pomeron model and the parametrized two gluon exchange model can explain the cross section of $J/\psi$ photoproduction well. Based on the predicted cross section values given by the two models, the distribution of the QAE contribution with the energy is extracted for the first time. Finally, the average value of the QAE contribution is estimated to be (3.50$\pm$0.70)$\%$, which suggests that the QAE contribution to the proton mass is small. Accordingly, we compared this result with those of other groups and explored the causes for the differences., Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures

In the quantum chromodynamics, the mass source of the proton is decomposed into four parts by the energy momentum tensor : quark energy term, gluon energy term, quark mass term and trace anomaly term. And the trace anomaly term is the most crucial contribution for studying the internal structure of the proton. In this work, under the definition of the vector meson dominant model, the trace anomaly contribution of the proton is extracted from the experimental datas of light vector mesons $\rho$, $\omega$ and $\phi$ photoproduction at the near-threshold, which are ($1.15\pm0.08$)$\%$, ($2.70\pm0.04$)$\%$ and ($5.58\pm0.25$)$\%$, respectively. Eventually, the average trace anomaly contribution of the proton is ($4.36\pm0.40$) $\%$, which only account for a small fraction of the total proton mass. The result of this work will provide theoretical information support for further study of proton internal structure., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

In this work, we systematically study the $\phi$ meson and nucleus interaction by analyzing and fitting the cross sections of $\gamma N$$\rightarrow \phi$$N$ ($N$ represent the nucleus) reactions near the threshold. With the help of vector meson dominant model, the distribution of $\phi$-$N$ scattering length as a function of energy is presented, and the results show that there is a slight increase in scattering length with increasing energy. Based on this, the average scattering length of $\phi$-proton is obtained as $0.10\pm0.01$ fm by combining experimental data and theoretical models. Moreover, the average scattering length of $\phi$-deuteron interaction is derived to be $0.014\pm0.002$ fm for the first time. Further, the effect of the momentum transfer $|t_{min}|$ on the $\phi$-$N$ scattering length at the threshold is discussed. The obtained results not only provide important theoretical information for a more comprehensive and accurate study of the $\phi$-$N$ scattering length, but also provide a basis for future experimental measurements of $\phi$ meson production., Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures. To be published in Chinese Physics C

Inspired by the recent near-threshold $J/\psi$ photoproduction measurements, we discuss gluon gravitational form factors (GFFs) and internal properties of the proton. This work presents a complete analysis of the proton gluon GFFs connecting the gluon part of the energy-momentum tensor and the heavy quarkonium photoproduction. In particular, a global fitting of the $J/\psi$ differential and total cross section experimental data is used to determine the gluon GFFs as functions of the squared momentum transfer $t$. Combined with the quark contributions to the $D$-term form factor extracted from the deeply virtual Compton scattering experiment, the total $D$-term is obtained to investigate their applications in describing the proton mechanical properties. These studies provide a unique perspective on investigating the proton gluon GFFs and important information for enhancing QCD constraints on the gluon GFFs., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

Lei Tang,1,2,* Ce-Gang Fu,1,3,* Zhen-Yu Zhou,1,2 Si-Yu Jia,1 Zheng-Qiang Liu,1 Yun-Xiang Xiao,1 Hai-Dan Chen,1,2 Hui-Li Cai4 1Department of Spinal Surgery, Yichang Central People’s Hospital, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, People’s Republic of China; 2Graduate School, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Orthopedics, Haikou Orthopedic and Diabetes Hospital, Haikou Orthopedic and Diabetes Hospital of Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, Haikou, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Hematology, Yichang Central People’s Hospital, China Three Gorges University, Yichang, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Hai-Dan Chen, Department of Spinal Surgery, Yichang Central People’s Hospital, China Three Gorges University, 183 Yiling Road, Yichang, 443003, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 18086220025, Email chensxudylc@126.com Hui-Li Cai, Department of Hematology, Yichang Central People’s Hospital, China Three Gorges University, 183 Yiling Road, Yichang, 443003, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China, Email caihuilitlzctg@163.comPurpose: The appropriate management of spinal tuberculosis (TB) is challenging for clinicians and the key to treat spinal TB. Surgery and long course anti-TB chemotherapy may not be necessary to all situations. This study aimed to characterize the clinical features and factors affecting treatment outcomes.Patients and Methods: A retrospective study of patients with spinal TB over a 5-year period at a teaching hospital in central China was conducted. Features of patients with spinal TB who received different treatment modalities and factors associated with patient outcomes at the end of chemotherapy were analyzed.Results: Forty-five patients (21 men and 24 women) with spinal TB were available for analysis. The mean age was 55.39 ± 14.94 years. The most common vertebral area involved

Zhao-Ming Chen,1,* Xiao-Yun Yang,1,2,* Zheng-Tu Li,1,* Wei-Jie Guan,1,3 Ye Qiu,4 Shao-Qiang Li,1 Yang-Qing Zhan,1 Zi-Ying Lei,5 Jing Liu,4 Jian-Quan Zhang,6 Zhong-Fang Wang,1,2 Feng Ye1 1State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 2Guangzhou Laboratory, Bio-Island, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Thoracic Surgery, Guangzhou Institute for Respiratory Health, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Comprehensive Internal Medicine, the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, Guangxi, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Infectious Diseases, the Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Infectious Diseases, the Eighth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Feng Ye, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510120, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-020-83062836, Fax +86-020-83062836, Email yefeng@gird.cnBackground: Although anti-IFN-γ autoantibodies predispose patients to Talaromyces marneffei infection, whether this is mediated by T cell attenuation remains elusive.Methods: Total peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy donors or patients with T. marneffei infection were stimulated with M158− 66, and immunodominant influenza H1N1 peptide, or heat-inactivated T. marneffei in the

Despite its electron deficiency, boron can form multiple bonds with a variety of elements. However, multiple bonds between boron and main-group metal elements are relatively rare. Here we report the observation of boron-lead multiple bonds in PbB2O– and PbB3O2–, which are produced and characterized in a cluster beam. PbB2O– is found to have an open-shell linear structure, in which the bond order of B☱Pb is 2.5, while the closed-shell [Pb≡B–B≡O]2– contains a B≡Pb triple bond. PbB3O2– is shown to have a Y-shaped structure with a terminal B = Pb double bond coordinated by two boronyl ligands. Comparison between [Pb≡B–B≡O]2–/[Pb=B(B≡O)2]– and the isoelectronic [Pb≡B–C≡O]–/[Pb=B(C≡O)2]+ carbonyl counterparts further reveals transition-metal-like behaviors for the central B atoms. Additional theoretical studies show that Ge and Sn can form similar boron species as Pb, suggesting the possibilities to synthesize new compounds containing multiple boron bonds with heavy group-14 elements.

Numerical simulations of blood flow are a valuable tool to investigate the pathophysiology of ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms (ATAA). To accurately reproduce hemodynamics, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models must employ realistic inflow boundary conditions (BCs). However, the limited availability of in vivo velocity measurements still makes researchers resort to idealized BCs. In this study we generated and thoroughly characterized a large dataset of synthetic 4D aortic velocity profiles suitable to be used as BCs for CFD simulations. 4D flow MRI scans of 30 subjects with ATAA were processed to extract cross-sectional planes along the ascending aorta, ensuring spatial alignment among all planes and interpolating all velocity fields to a reference configuration. Velocity profiles of the clinical cohort were extensively characterized by computing flow morphology descriptors of both spatial and temporal features. By exploiting principal component analysis (PCA), a statistical shape model (SSM) of 4D aortic velocity profiles was built and a dataset of 437 synthetic cases with realistic properties was generated. Comparison between clinical and synthetic datasets showed that the synthetic data presented similar characteristics as the clinical population in terms of key morphological parameters. The average velocity profile qualitatively resembled a parabolic-shaped profile, but was quantitatively characterized by more complex flow patterns which an idealized profile would not replicate. Statistically significant correlations were found between PCA principal modes of variation and flow descriptors. We built a data-driven generative model of 4D aortic velocity profiles, suitable to be used in computational studies of blood flow. The proposed software system also allows to map any of the generated velocity profiles to the inlet plane of any virtual subject given its coordinate set., Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables To be submitted to "Computer methods and programs in biomedicine" Scripts: https://github.com/saitta-s/flow4D Synthetic velocity profiles: //doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7251987

Accurate motion and depth recovery is important for many robot vision tasks including autonomous driving. Most previous studies have achieved cooperative multi-task interaction via either pre-defined loss functions or cross-domain prediction. This paper presents a multi-task scheme that achieves mutual assistance by means of our Flow to Depth (F2D), Depth to Flow (D2F), and Exponential Moving Average (EMA). F2D and D2F mechanisms enable multi-scale information integration between optical flow and depth domain based on differentiable shallow nets. A dual-head mechanism is used to predict optical flow for rigid and non-rigid motion based on a divide-and-conquer manner, which significantly improves the optical flow estimation performance. Furthermore, to make the prediction more robust and stable, EMA is used for our multi-task training. Experimental results on KITTI datasets show that our multi-task scheme outperforms other multi-task schemes and provide marked improvements on the prediction results.

Conversational recommender systems (CRS) explicitly solicit users' preferences for improved recommendations on the fly. Most existing CRS solutions count on a single policy trained by reinforcement learning for a population of users. However, for users new to the system, such a global policy becomes ineffective to satisfy them, i.e., the cold-start challenge. In this paper, we study CRS policy learning for cold-start users via meta-reinforcement learning. We propose to learn a meta policy and adapt it to new users with only a few trials of conversational recommendations. To facilitate fast policy adaptation, we design three synergetic components. Firstly, we design a meta-exploration policy dedicated to identifying user preferences via a few exploratory conversations, which accelerates personalized policy adaptation from the meta policy. Secondly, we adapt the item recommendation module for each user to maximize the recommendation quality based on the collected conversation states during conversations. Thirdly, we propose a Transformer-based state encoder as the backbone to connect the previous two components. It provides comprehensive state representations by modeling complicated relations between positive and negative feedback during the conversation. Extensive experiments on three datasets demonstrate the advantage of our solution in serving new users, compared with a rich set of state-of-the-art CRS solutions., Comment: 10 pages, WSDM2023

In this paper, we proposed an automatic Scenario-based Multi-product Advertising Copywriting Generation system (SMPACG) for E-Commerce, which has been deployed on a leading Chinese e-commerce platform. The proposed SMPACG consists of two main components: 1) an automatic multi-product combination selection module, which itself is consisted of a topic prediction model, a pattern and attribute-based selection model and an arbitrator model; and 2) an automatic multi-product advertising copywriting generation module, which combines our proposed domain-specific pretrained language model and knowledge-based data enhancement model. The SMPACG is the first system that realizes automatic scenario-based multi-product advertising contents generation, which achieves significant improvements over other state-of-the-art methods. The SMPACG has been not only developed for directly serving for our e-commerce recommendation system, but also used as a real-time writing assistant tool for merchants.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are good at extracting contexture features within certain receptive fields, while transformers can model the global long-range dependency features. By absorbing the advantage of transformer and the merit of CNN, Swin Transformer shows strong feature representation ability. Based on it, we propose a cross-modality fusion model SwinNet for RGB-D and RGB-T salient object detection. It is driven by Swin Transformer to extract the hierarchical features, boosted by attention mechanism to bridge the gap between two modalities, and guided by edge information to sharp the contour of salient object. To be specific, two-stream Swin Transformer encoder first extracts multi-modality features, and then spatial alignment and channel re-calibration module is presented to optimize intra-level cross-modality features. To clarify the fuzzy boundary, edge-guided decoder achieves inter-level cross-modality fusion under the guidance of edge features. The proposed model outperforms the state-of-the-art models on RGB-D and RGB-T datasets, showing that it provides more insight into the cross-modality complementarity task., Comment: Online published in TCSVT

Recently, a surge of interest in visual transformers is to reduce the computational cost by limiting the calculation of self-attention to a local window. Most current work uses a fixed single-scale window for modeling by default, ignoring the impact of window size on model performance. However, this may limit the modeling potential of these window-based models for multi-scale information. In this paper, we propose a novel method, named Dynamic Window Vision Transformer (DW-ViT). The dynamic window strategy proposed by DW-ViT goes beyond the model that employs a fixed single window setting. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to use dynamic multi-scale windows to explore the upper limit of the effect of window settings on model performance. In DW-ViT, multi-scale information is obtained by assigning windows of different sizes to different head groups of window multi-head self-attention. Then, the information is dynamically fused by assigning different weights to the multi-scale window branches. We conducted a detailed performance evaluation on three datasets, ImageNet-1K, ADE20K, and COCO. Compared with related state-of-the-art (SoTA) methods, DW-ViT obtains the best performance. Specifically, compared with the current SoTA Swin Transformers \cite{liu2021swin}, DW-ViT has achieved consistent and substantial improvements on all three datasets with similar parameters and computational costs. In addition, DW-ViT exhibits good scalability and can be easily inserted into any window-based visual transformers.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) have been widely applied in various domains in artificial intelligence including computer vision and natural language processing. A DNN is typically trained for many epochs and then a validation dataset is used to select the DNN in an epoch (we simply call this epoch "the last epoch") as the final model for making predictions on unseen samples, while it usually cannot achieve a perfect accuracy on unseen samples. An interesting question is "how many test (unseen) samples that a DNN misclassifies in the last epoch were ever correctly classified by the DNN before the last epoch?". In this paper, we empirically study this question and find on several benchmark datasets that the vast majority of the misclassified samples in the last epoch were ever classified correctly before the last epoch, which means that the predictions for these samples were flipped from "correct" to "wrong". Motivated by this observation, we propose to restrict the behavior changes of a DNN on the correctly-classified samples so that the correct local boundaries can be maintained and the flipping error on unseen samples can be largely reduced. Extensive experiments on different benchmark datasets with different modern network architectures demonstrate that the proposed flipping error reduction (FER) approach can substantially improve the generalization, the robustness, and the transferability of DNNs without introducing any additional network parameters or inference cost, only with a negligible training overhead.

Product quantization (PQ) coupled with a space rotation, is widely used in modern approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search systems to significantly compress the disk storage for embeddings and speed up the inner product computation. Existing rotation learning methods, however, minimize quantization distortion for fixed embeddings, which are not applicable to an end-to-end training scenario where embeddings are updated constantly. In this paper, based on geometric intuitions from Lie group theory, in particular the special orthogonal group $SO(n)$, we propose a family of block Givens coordinate descent algorithms to learn rotation matrix that are provably convergent on any convex objectives. Compared to the state-of-the-art SVD method, the Givens algorithms are much more parallelizable, reducing runtime by orders of magnitude on modern GPUs, and converge more stably according to experimental studies. They further improve upon vanilla product quantization significantly in an end-to-end training scenario., Comment: published in ICLR 2022

Recent years have seen a significant amount of interests in Sequential Recommendation (SR), which aims to understand and model the sequential user behaviors and the interactions between users and items over time. Surprisingly, despite the huge success Sequential Recommendation has achieved, there is little study on Sequential Search (SS), a twin learning task that takes into account a user's current and past search queries, in addition to behavior on historical query sessions. The SS learning task is even more important than the counterpart SR task for most of E-commence companies due to its much larger online serving demands as well as traffic volume. To this end, we propose a highly scalable hybrid learning model that consists of an RNN learning framework leveraging all features in short-term user-item interactions, and an attention model utilizing selected item-only features from long-term interactions. As a novel optimization step, we fit multiple short user sequences in a single RNN pass within a training batch, by solving a greedy knapsack problem on the fly. Moreover, we explore the use of off-policy reinforcement learning in multi-session personalized search ranking. Specifically, we design a pairwise Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient model that efficiently captures users' long term reward in terms of pairwise classification error. Extensive ablation experiments demonstrate significant improvement each component brings to its state-of-the-art baseline, on a variety of offline and online metrics., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, CIKM 2021

Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is a pair of microsatellites (i.e. GECAM-A and GECAM-B) dedicated to monitoring gamma-ray transients including gravitational waves high-energy electromagnetic counterparts, Gamma-ray Bursts, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters, Solar Flares and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. Since launch in December 2020, GECAM-B has detected hundreds of astronomical and terrestrial events. For these bursts, localization is the key for burst identification and classification as well as follow-up observations in multi-wavelength. Here, we propose a Bayesian localization method with Poisson data with Gaussian background profile likelihood to localize GECAM bursts based on the burst counts distribution in detectors with different orientations. We demonstrate that this method can work well for all kinds of bursts, especially for extremely short ones. In addition, we propose a new method to estimate the systematic error of localization based on a confidence level test, which can overcome some problems of the existing method in literature. We validate this method by Monte Carlo simulations, and then apply it to a burst sample with accurate location and find that the mean value of the systematic error of GECAM-B localization is $\sim 2.5^{\circ}$. By considering this systematic error, we can obtain a reliable localization probability map for GECAM bursts. Our methods can be applied to other gamma-ray monitors., Comment: The paper has been accepted by Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

Since FRB 200428 has been found to be associated with an X-ray burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154, it is interesting to explore whether the magnetar bursts also follow the similar active periodic behavior as some repeating FRBs. Previous studies show that there is possible period about 230 day in SGR J1935+2154 bursts. Here, we collected an updated burst sample from SGR J1935+2154, including all bursts reported by Fermi/GBM and GECAM till 2022 January. We also developed a targeted search pipeline to reveal more bursts from SGR J1935+2154 in the Fermi/GBM data from 2008 August to 2014 December (i.e. before the first burst detected by Swift/BAT). With this burst sample, we re-analyzed the possible periodicity of SGR J1935+2154 bursts using the Period Folding and Lomb-Scargle Periodogram methods. Our results show that the periodicity $\sim$238 day reported in literature is probably fake and the observation effects may introduce false periods (i.e. 55 day) according to simulation tests. We find that, for the current burst sample, the most probable period is 126.88$\pm$2.05 day, which could be interpreted as the precession of the magnetar. However, we note that the whole burst history is very complicated and difficult to be perfectly accommodated with any period reported thus far, therefore more monitoring observations of SGR J1935+2154 are required to test any periodicity hypothesis.