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Single image deraining aims to remove rain streaks from a degraded input and reconstruct a high-quality image. In recent years, image processing tasks mostly applied a U-shaped architecture to capture rich contextual information. However, it is difficult to achieve long-range pixel dependencies because of the local receptive field of the convolution operation. In this paper, we propose a deep feature interactive aggregation network for single image deraining to enhance long-range dependencies among features and realize the interaction of information. To fully utilize high-level semantic features, we design a long-range dependency feature aggregation module to significantly improve the representational ability of the original U-shaped architecture. It aggregates multi-scale features and calculates the interactive attention of non-overlapping patches among feature maps. In addition, we adopt group normalization to retain the independence of each given image. It interacts with the information among features in an individual image and normalizes the channels of each group to weaken the correlation between batch data processing. Experimental results on widely acknowledged datasets also demonstrate the superiority of our proposed network over previous state-of-the-art methods.

(R)-2-Chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanol is a chiral intermediate of the antifungal agent Miconazole. A bacterial strain, ZJPH1806, capable of the biocatalysis of 2-chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanone, to (R)-2-chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanol with highly stereoselectivity was isolated from a soil sample. It was identified as the Acinetobacter sp., according to its morphological observation, physiological-biochemical identification, and 16S rDNA sequence analysis. After optimizing the key reaction conditions, it was demonstrated that the bioreduction of 2-chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanone was effectively transformed at relatively high conversion temperatures, along with glycerol as cosubstrate in coenzyme regeneration. The asymmetric reduction of the substrate had reached 83.2% yield with an enantiomeric excess (ee) of greater than 99.9% at 2 g/L of 2-chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanone; the reaction was conducted at 40 °C for 26 h using resting cells of the Acinetobacter sp. ZJPH1806 as the biocatalyst. The yield had increased by nearly 2.9-fold (from 28.6% to 83.2%). In the present study, a simple and novel whole-cell-mediated biocatalytic route was applied for the highly enantioselective synthesis of (R)-2-chloro-1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl) ethanol, which allowed the production of a valuable chiral intermediate method to be transformed into a versatile tool for drug synthesis.

(R)-1-[4-(Trifluoromethyl)phenyl]ethanol is an important pharmaceutical intermediate of a chemokine CCR5 antagonist. In the present study, a bioprocess for the asymmetric reduction of 4-(trifluoromethyl)acetophenone to (R)-1-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]ethanol was developed by recombinant Escherichia coli cells with excellent enantioselectivity. In order to overcome the conversion limitation performed in the conventional buffer medium resulting from poor solubility of non-natural substrate, we subsequently established a polar organic solvent-aqueous medium to improve the efficacy. Isopropanol was selected as the most suitable cosolvent candidate, based on the investigation on a substrate solubility test and cell membrane permeability assay in different organic solvent-buffer media. Under the optimum conditions, the preparative-scale asymmetric reduction generated a 99.1% yield with >99.9% product enantiomeric excess (ee) in a 15% (v/v) isopropanol proportion, at 100 mM of 4-(trifluoromethyl)acetophenone within 3 h. Compared to bioconversion in the buffer medium, the developed isopropanol-aqueous system enhanced the substrate concentration by 2-fold with a remarkably improved yield (from 62.5% to 99.1%), and shortened the reaction time by 21 h. Our study gave the first example for a highly enantioselective production of (R)-1-[4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl]ethanol by a biological method, and the bioreduction of 4-(trifluoromethyl)acetophenone in a polar organic solvent-aqueous system was more efficient than that in the buffer solution only. This process is also scalable and has potential in application.

To extract the main characteristics of the original psychological assessment data, we first set up random variables in this paper. The probability values of the parameters are obtained based on significance tests after decomposing the covariance moments. The regression coefficients of the data are predicted using logistic regression after normalization. The accuracy of the assessment was improved by optimizing the parameters of different assessment indicators. Ninety-five children in a kindergarten were selected, and the highest score in the hyperactivity test based on multivariate statistical analysis intervention was 4, and the score indicators of the undesirable factors test all decreased substantially. Implementing psychological assessment of young children based on multivariate statistical analysis can effectively improve their adverse psychological problems and thus improve their psychological health.

We demonstrate fast optical arbitrary waveform generation by using the MEMS digital micromirror arrays. The desired radio-frequency waveforms are achieved by properly shaping the spectrum of the broadband optical source via using micromirror arrays as a digital spatial light modulator preceded by wavelength-to-time mapping through the dispersive medium. We obtain up to 280-MHz sawtooth and 200-MHz square waveforms that can be controlled by using 1024 × 768 mirror arrays in the preliminary experimental results. Based on currently available digital mirror technologies, we estimate that arbitrary waveforms up to 1-GHz rate and reconfigurable in ~ 30 μs are achievable by using the proposed approach.

We theoretically demonstrate optical trapping using a silicon nitride (Si3 N4 ) trench waveguide on which bow-tie plasmonic nanoantennas are employed for enhancing optical forces. The electric field tailing away from the waveguide is transformed and then enhanced by the plasmonic nanoantennas deposited on the waveguide surface. We show that, with gold bow-tie nanoantennas, the waveguide system exhibits outstanding trapping capability on a 10 nm radius polystyrene nanoparticle, due to a 60-fold electric field enhancement in the proximity of the nanoantenna gap. This enhancement causes a boost of the optical trapping force by 3 orders of magnitude. The gradient force in the vertical direction is also calculated semi-analytically by using a dipole approximation of a scattering polystyrene nanosphere, and the analytical solution well matches the full-wave simulations. Mode polarization effects are discussed in this paper as a way to switch trapping. These investigations indicate that the patterned Si3 N4 trench waveguide is suitable for optical trapping and nanoparticle sensing applications.

We demonstrate the fabrication of a highly nonlinear sub-micron silicon nitride trench waveguide coated with gold nanoparticles for plasmonic enhancement. The average enhancement effect is evaluated by measuring the spectral broadening effect caused by self-phase-modulation. The nonlinear refractive index n2 was measured to be 7.0917×10-19 m2/W for a waveguide whose Wopen is 5 μm. Several waveguides at different locations on one wafer were measured in order to take the randomness of the nanoparticle distribution into consideration. The largest enhancement is measured to be as high as 10 times. Fabrication of this waveguide started with a MEMS grade photomask. By using conventional optical lithography, the wide linewidth was transferred to a 100 wafer. Then the wafer was etched anisotropically by potassium hydroxide (KOH) to engrave trapezoidal trenches with an angle of 54.7°. Side wall roughness was mitigated by KOH etching and thermal oxidation that was used to generate a buffer layer for silicon nitride waveguide. The guiding material silicon nitride was then deposited by low pressure chemical vapor deposition. The waveguide was then patterned with a chemical template, with 20 nm gold particles being chemically attached to the functionalized poly (methyl methacrylate) domains. Since the particles attached only to the PMMA domains, they were confined to localized regions, therefore forcing the nanoparticles into clusters of various numbers and geometries. Experiments reveal that the waveguide has negligible nonlinear absorption loss, and its nonlinear refractive index can be greatly enhanced by gold nano clusters. The silicon nitride trench waveguide has large nonlinear refractive index, rendering itself promising for nonlinear applications.

We provide analytical modeling and the detailed procedure that is used in recently proposed arbitrary waveform generation technique by using MEMS digital micro-mirror arrays. We estimate the achievable temporal resolution, repetition rate, modulation index and the rise/fall times of the final waveform as figure of merit in the proposed systems. We show that reducing the diffraction limit via increasing the ratio of beam size to lens focal length (>0.075) and the spatial modulation down to single mirror pitch size (10.8μm), waveforms up to 18GHz repetition rates with >90% modulation index and

SPARC (osteonectin/BM40) is a secreted protein that modifies the interaction of cells with extracellular matrix (ECM). When we added SPARC to cultured rabbit synovial fibroblasts and analyzed the secreted proteins, we observed an increase in the expression of three metalloproteinases--collagenase, stromelysin, and the 92-kD gelatinase-- that together can degrade both interstitial and basement membrane matrices. We further characterized the regulation of one of these metalloproteinases, collagenase, and showed that both collagenase mRNA and protein are upregulated in fibroblasts treated with SPARC. Experiments with synthetic SPARC peptides indicated that a region in the neutral alpha-helical domain III of the SPARC molecule, which previously had no described function, was involved in the regulation of collagenase expression by SPARC. A sequence in the carboxyl-terminal Ca(2+)-binding domain IV exhibited similar activity, but to a lesser extent. SPARC induced collagenase expression in cells plated on collagen types I, II, III, and V, and vitronectin, but not on collagen type IV. SPARC also increased collagenase expression in fibroblasts plated on ECM produced by smooth muscle cells, but not in fibroblasts plated on a basement membrane-like ECM from Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm sarcoma. Collagenase was induced within 4 h in cells treated with phorbol diesters or plated on fibronectin fragments, but was induced after 8 h in cells treated with SPARC. A number of proteins were transiently secreted by SPARC-treated cells within 6 h of treatment. Conditioned medium that was harvested from cultures 7 h after the addition of SPARC, and depleted of residual SPARC, induced collagenase expression in untreated fibroblasts; thus, part of the regulation of collagenase expression by SPARC appears to be indirect and proceeds through a secreted intermediate. Because the interactions of cells with ECM play an important role in regulation of cell behavior and tissue morphogenesis, these results suggest that molecules like SPARC are important in modulating tissue remodeling and cell-ECM interactions.

Silicon photonics has great potential for mid-wave-infrared applications. The dispersion of waveguide can be manipulated by waveguide dimension and cladding materials. Simulation shows that < 3 mu m wide conversion can be achieved by tuning the pump wavelength. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America

An ultra-broadband wavelength conversion is presented and experimentally demonstrated based on nondegenerate four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides. Two idlers can be generated and their wavelengths can be freely tuned by using two pumps where the first pump is set close to the signal and the second pump is wavelength tunable. Using this scheme, a small phase-mismatch and hence an ultra-broad conversion bandwidth is realized in spite of the waveguide dispersion profile. We show that the experimental demonstrations are consistent with the theoretical estimations. Total conversion bandwidth is estimated to reach > 500 nm and it can provide a feasible approach to realize one-to-two wavelength conversion among different telecommunication bands between 1300 nm and 1800 nm. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America

Polyurethane is the main matrix material of polymer damping materials, but the damping temperature range is narrow, the effective damping temperature range does not match the working temperature of the material, and the elastic modulus is sensitive to temperature during glass transition, which is not conducive to safe use in a wide temperature range. In this paper, the polyurethane gradient material with the hard segment content continuously changing along the length direction was designed and prepared by the reaction injection method. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) shows that the gradient structure greatly influences the comprehensive damping performance of polyurethane. While maintaining no significant decrease in mechanical properties, the gradient material extends the effective damping temperature range (TR) from 40.7°C (−32.3 ~ 8.4°C) for component A and 66.6°C (59.5 ~ 126.1°C) for component B to 139.5°C (−20.6 ~ 118.9°C). At the same time, the damping peak remains high (0.48), which is close to the higher damping peak of the B component of 0.56. The elastic modulus (E′) decreases slowly with the increase in temperature, which can better ensure the safety of the material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]