Semantic segmentation, aiming to assign semantic labels to each pixel, is broadly applied into many fields, such as video surveillance, medical image analysis, and autonomous driving. However, there ...are two challenges in semantic segmentation task: 1) the deficiency of rich contextual information; and 2) the lack of sufficient spatial information, all of which affect segmentation performance seriously. To solve these two challenges, the global feature capturing module (GFCM) and Conv Block are proposed in this paper to build a new model to improve segmentation performance. Specifically, GFCM, made of the global encoding module (GEM) and spatial attention module (SAM), is designed to extract adequate global contextual information and build global spatial dependencies. Composed of three convolution layers, Conv Block is proposed to preserve rich spatial information. Based on GFCM and Conv Block, a new model is designed, where a data-dependent upsampling operator (DUpsampling) is exploited to recover the pixel-wise prediction effectively. The extensive experiments have been made to prove the effectiveness of the design, and the new model achieves 73.69% mIoU on Cityscapes test set and 80.05% mIoU on PASCAL VOC 2012 test set without any post-processing.
To investigate contamination level, origins and spatial distribution characteristics of heavy metals (Cu, Pb, Zn, Hg, Ni, Cd, As, and Cr) in agricultural soils of Gaogang Town, a typical industrial ...transfer-undertaking region of the Pearl River Delta (PRD), China, a total of 162 surface soil samples were collected in August 2016 and determined using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry and atomic fluorescence spectrometry. Moreover, heavy metals contents were systematically analyzed by pollution index, enrichment factor, multivariate statistical approaches and geostatistical analysis. The results showed that the mean concentrations of Cd, Pb, Zn, Ni, Cu and Hg were higher than the soil background values of Guangdong Province, and the relatively high values of pollution index and enrichment factor indicated that these elements (Cd, Pb, Zn and Hg) had cumulative trends in soil. All results of multivariate statistical approaches and geostatistical analysis showed that pollution were heavily distributed in areas of industries, river and dense road network. The eight heavy metals in agricultural soils of Gaogang Town came from three different sources. Arsenic, Cr, Cu and Ni arose mainly from parent materials. Agricultural practices and traffic activities were the main sources of Cd, Pb and Zn. Mercury mainly came from industrial practices.
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•Concentrations of heavy metals were measured in agricultural soil of Gaogang Town.•Sources of heavy metals were identified using EF, multivariate statistical and geostatistical methods.•Spatial distribution of heavy metals in agricultural soil was closely related with human activities.
In this paper, a complete mathematical model is developed to carry out the thermodynamic analysis and comparison for different direct-heated S-CO2 Brayton cycles (simple, pre-compression, ...recompression, partial-cooling, and intercooling) integrated into a solar power tower (SPT) system. Based on the model, the effect of turbine inlet temperature (TIT) on the thermodynamic performances of the receiver, the thermal energy storage unit, the S-CO2 power cycle blocks and the integrated SPT systems is investigated respectively for these cycles. Additionally, a comparison of cycle efficiencies and overall integrated SPT system efficiencies is performed for five S-CO2 cycles at a series of total recuperator conductance (UAtotal) values. The results reveal that the TIT exhibits a parabolic effect on the overall efficiencies for each S-CO2 cycle, and the intercooling S-CO2 cycle achieves the highest overall efficiencies followed by the recompression, the partial-cooling, the pre-compression, and the simple cycles at different TIT values. Furthermore, the partial-cooling cycle possesses the highest overall specific work at each TIT and offers higher overall efficiencies than the recompression cycle at a constant TIT (650 °C) as the UAtotal is rather low, having the potential to reduce the costs of integrated SPT systems with limited UAtotal values.
•The integration of five different direct-heated S-CO2 Brayton cycles into a solar power tower system is studied.•A complete mathematical model is developed for the direct integrated SPT systems.•A comprehensive thermodynamic analysis and comparison are carried out among five S-CO2 Brayton cycles.•The effect of UAtotal on the cycle efficiencies and overall system efficiencies is investigated.
A new class of NIR absorbing dyes accessed by a cycloaddition-cycloreversion reaction of alkynes with 2,3,5,6-tetrafluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane is reported. The photoacoustic effect of the ...new NIR dyes was systematically studied. The results validated the positive correlation between the molar extinction coefficient and the photoacoustic effect. All of the new NIR dyes showed higher photoacoustic intensities compared to indocyanine green dye, which is the standard organic dye widely used as a photoacoustic contrast agent. Finally, the nano-sized liposomes loaded with the NIR dye showed good stabilities and high photoacoustic intensities, and were utilized to image the cells in agarose gels for a long time. The study guides the future design of NIR dyes for photoacoustic molecular materials with high intensities and displays promising applications in biomedical photoacoustic imaging.
A new class of NIR absorbing dyes accessed by a cycloaddition-cycloreversion reaction of alkynes with tetrafluoro-TCNQ is reported. Studies on the photoacoustic effect of the series of NIR dyes revealed a molar extinction coefficiency which contributed to the displayed photoacoustic effect. Display omitted
•A new class of dyes with NIR absorption was designed and prepared.•The NIR dyes showed excellent photoacoustic effect.•Charge transfer of NIR dyes may contribute to photoacoustic effect.
There is much public debate regarding the high cost of insulin. With 1-in-4 patients in the United States with type 1 diabetes reporting difficulties affording insulin, there is concern that some of ...these patients might look for cost savings on the internet, unaware that 96% of internet pharmacies are illegitimate. Patients who purchase insulin from illegitimate internet pharmacies remove themselves from traditional health care systems that ensure safe, quality-assured, and effective medication use.
This study aims to determine the accessibility of Humalog and NovoLog insulin from internet pharmacies and characterize how these sites approached patient safety, and priced as well as marketed their products.
From September to December 2019, we queried the phrases buy insulin online, buy Humalog online, and buy NovoLog online in common search engines. The first 100 search results from Google and Bing, and the first 50 search results from Yahoo! and DuckDuckGo were screened. Websites were included if they claimed to sell Humalog or NovoLog insulin, were active, free access, in the English language, and had a unique URL. The legitimacy of websites was classified using LegitScript. Safety and marketing characteristics were compared across the legitimacy of internet pharmacies. Internet pharmacy prices were compared with the prices offered through brick-and-mortar pharmacies using GoodRx.
We found that 59% (n=29) of the 49 internet pharmacies in our analysis were illegitimate, whereas only 14% (n=7) were legitimate and 27% (n=13) were unclassified. Across illegitimate internet pharmacies, Humalog and NovoLog insulin were 2 to 5 times cheaper as compared with both legitimate internet pharmacies and brick-and-mortar stores. Risks associated with the use of illegitimate internet pharmacies by American consumers were evident: 57% (8/14) did not require a prescription, 43% (6/14) did not display medication information or warnings, and only 21% (3/14) offered access to purported pharmacists. This included 9 rogue internet pharmacies that sold Humalog and NovoLog insulin within the United States, where 11% (1/9) required a prescription, 11% (1/9) placed quantity limits per purchase, and none offered pharmacist services. Rogue internet pharmacies often offered bulk discounts (11/18, 61%), assured privacy (14/18, 78%), and promoted other products alongside insulin (13/18, 72%). The marketing language of illegitimate internet pharmacies appealed more to quality, safety, and customer service as compared with legitimate sites.
The ease of access to low-cost insulin through illegitimate internet pharmacies calls for urgent attention. Illegitimate internet pharmacies place patients at risk of poor-quality medications and subpar pharmacy services, resulting in adverse events and poor diabetes control. A multifaceted approach is needed to close illegitimate internet pharmacies through legal and regulatory measures, develop better search engine filters, raise public awareness of the dangers of illegitimate internet pharmacies, and address the high costs of insulin.
•407 papers were collected and analyzed in a systematic review of social commerce.•A synthesis was used to analyse the social commerce literature.•A taxonomy of the literature is presented to ...identify the major knowledge gaps.
Social commerce contributes multi-disciplinary knowledge concerning psychology, sociology, computer science, and marketing in business. Its development complicated due to various fields involved that range from arithmetic patterns to marketing management. In this study, we conduct a systematic review of social commerce research by synthesizing 407 papers from academic publications between 2006 and 2017. This study focuses on three overarching questions: (1) What is current social commerce research? (2) Which research methods have been used in social commerce? (3) What are some potential areas for social commerce research in the future? We delineate the various facets of social commerce – definitions, differences, types and technologies, challenges and benefits, models and frameworks – in an all-encompassing taxonomy that enables us to answering the first question. To solve the second question, we applied different methods and techniques. Finally, we offer guidelines on the directions for future research, and intend that this work will serve as a roadmap for understanding the research literature within the field of social commerce.
•The topology optimization method is firstly employed for bionic heat sinks.•The performance of the heat sinks are studied by numerically and experimentally.•Different optimization goals for ...temperature uniformity can lead to different results.•The optimal heat sinks is superior to the conventional heat sinks in terms of the performance.•The CFD results agree well with the experimental results.
In this paper, topology optimization method is applied to bionic domain, and in order to improve the thermal performance of heat sinks, two topological heat sinks are obtained under two objectives. One objective is minimize the temperature difference and pressure drop, and another is minimize the average temperature and pressure drop. The topological heat sink designed by topology optimization with the minimum temperature difference and the pressure drop as a goal is named as M2, while that designed with the minimum average temperature and the pressure drop as a goal is called M3. The flow and thermal performance of these two topological flow channel heat sinks are investigated numerically. The results show that for Re = 2056.8, the temperature difference of the topological heat sink M2 is reduced by 57.35% compared to conventional spider web heat sink M1, while that of the topological heat sink M3 is reduced by 10.64% compared to M1. In addition, the thermal resistance of the topological heat sinks are smaller than the conventional spider web heat sink. Through analysis, it can be known that M2 has the best comprehensive heat dissipation capacity. In order to verify the correctness of the numerical simulation, M2 is manufactured, and the heat transfer performance of M2 is investigated experimentally. The experimental results of the optimal heat sink agree well with the calculated results.
The overall response of cisplatin-based chemotherapy in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BUC) remains unsatisfactory due to the complex pathological subtypes, genomic difference, and drug resistance. ...The genes that associated with cisplatin resistance remain unclear. Herein, we aimed to identify the cisplatin resistance associated genes in BUC. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: The cytotoxicity of cisplatin was evaluated in six bladder cancer cell lines to compare their responses to cisplatin. The T24 cancer cells exhibited the lowest sensitivity to cisplatin and was therefore selected to explore the mechanisms of drug resistance. We performed genome-wide CRISPR screening in T24 cancer cells in vitro, and identified that the gene heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U (HNRNPU) was the top candidate gene related to cisplatin resistance. Epigenetic and transcriptional profiles of HNRNPU-depleted cells after cisplatin treatment were analyzed to investigate the relationship between HNRNPU and cisplatin resistance. In vivo experiments were also performed to demonstrate the function of HNRNPU depletion in cisplatin sensitivity.
Significant correlation was found between HNRNPU expression level and sensitivity to cisplatin in bladder cancer cell lines. In the high HNRNPU expressing T24 cancer cells, knockout of HNRNPU inhibited cell proliferation, invasion, and migration. In addition, loss of HNRNPU promoted apoptosis and S-phase arrest in the T24 cells treated with cisplatin. Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) demonstrated that HNRNPU expression was significantly higher in tumor tissues than in normal tissues. High HNRNPU level was negatively correlated with patient survival. Transcriptomic profiling analysis showed that knockout of HNRNPU enhanced cisplatin sensitivity by regulating DNA damage repair genes. Furthermore, it was found that HNRNPU regulates chemosensitivity by affecting the expression of neurofibromin 1 (NF1).
Our study demonstrated that HNRNPU expression is associated with cisplatin sensitivity in bladder urothelial carcinoma cells. Inhibition of HNRNPU could be a potential therapy for cisplatin-resistant bladder cancer.
The terms global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably, but recent research finds “global warming” has become more emotive and more polarizing, resulting in less advocacy by some ...subpopulations. We explore the robustness of this framing effect based on the expectation that people with stronger partisan identities tend to have more deep-seated climate change beliefs. We use multiple methods and measures to study framing across a range of attitude scales designed to measure climate change beliefs, degree of knowledge about climate change, and intentions to take corrective actions. We find stronger framing effects for political Independents and those who are disengaged from climate change issues, indicating that polarization overrides framing at the extremes, and those with moderate beliefs are more susceptible to labeling and framing effects, especially when beliefs are inconsistent with one’s political identity. We conclude by urging communicators to appreciate the heterogeneity of their target audience.
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