Self-attention (SA) network has shown profound value in image captioning. In this paper, we improve SA from two aspects to promote the performance of image captioning. First, we propose Normalized ...Self-Attention (NSA), a reparameterization of SA that brings the benefits of normalization inside SA. While normalization is previously only applied outside SA, we introduce a novel normalization method and demonstrate that it is both possible and beneficial to perform it on the hidden activations inside SA. Second, to compensate for the major limit of Transformer that it fails to model the geometry structure of the input objects, we propose a class of Geometry-aware Self-Attention (GSA) that extends SA to explicitly and efficiently consider the relative geometry relations between the objects in the image. To construct our image captioning model, we combine the two modules and apply it to the vanilla self-attention network. We extensively evaluate our proposals on MS-COCO image captioning dataset and superior results are achieved when comparing to state-of-the-art approaches. Further experiments on three challenging tasks, i.e. video captioning, machine translation, and visual question answering, show the generality of our methods.
Willd. is recognized to be an excellent nutrient with high nutritional content. However, few genotypes of quinoa were analyzed, so we found a knowledge gap in the comparison of quinoa seeds of ...different genotypes. This study aims to compare the physicochemical, antioxidant, and anticancer properties of seed oil from three
genotypes. Seeds of three genotypes (white, red, and black) were extracted with hexane and compared in this study. The oil yields of these quinoa seeds were 5.68-6.19% which contained predominantly polyunsaturated fatty acids (82.78-85.52%). The total tocopherol content ranged from 117.29 to 156.67 mg/kg and mainly consisted of γ-tocopherol. Total phytosterols in the three oils ranged from 9.4 to 12.2 g/kg. Black quinoa seed oil had the highest phytosterols followed by red and white quinoas. The chemical profile of quinoa seed oils paralleled by their antioxidant and anticancer activities in vitro was positively correlated with the seed coat color. Black quinoa seed oil had the best antioxidant and anti-proliferation effect on HCT 116 cells by the induction of apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, which may play more significant roles in the chemoprevention of cancer and other diseases related to oxidative stress as a source of functional foods.
Brain tumor accounts for about 1.6% of incidence and 2.5% of mortality of all tumors, and the median survival for brain tumor patients is only about 20 months. The treatment for brain tumor still ...faces many challenges, such as the blood-brain barrier (BBB), blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB), the overexpressed efflux pumps, the infiltration, invasion, high heterogeneity of tumor cells, drug resistance and immune escape caused by tumor microenvironment (TME) and cancer stem cells (CSC). This review attempts to clarify the challenges for multi-functional nano drug delivery systems (NDDS) to cross the BBB and target the cancer cells or organelles, and also provides a brief description of the different types of targeted multi-functional NDDS that have shown potential for success in delivering drugs to the brain. Further, this review also summarizes the research progress of multi-functional NDDS in the combination therapy of brain tumors from the following sections, the combination of chemotherapy drugs, chemotherapy-chemodynamic combination therapy, chemotherapy-immunization combination therapy, and chemotherapy-gene combination therapy. We also provide an insight into the recent advances in designing multi-functional NDDS for combination therapy.
Chromophore structures in wood are the core elements for regulating wood color. Thermal treatment can regulate the color of wood, thus increasing its added value. In this study, conventional thermal ...treatment was used to regulate the color of Eucalyptus, in order to make its color close to the precious wood species Burma padauk. The color change in Eucalyptus wood was analyzed using the chromaticity index and UV-Vis. The chromophore structures in the treated wood and their discoloration mechanisms were characterized via FTIR, XPS, NMR, etc. The results showed that the color of eucalyptus could be regulated via thermal treatment to become more similar to the color of Burma padauk under both saturated steam and hot air. The treated wood showed a color difference in the 400~500 nm region in spectral absorption. The changes in the chromophore structures of wood were accompanied by the degradation of hemicelluloses. Meanwhile, demethoxylation occurred in the syringyl structure G of lignin, which led to the polymerization of lignin and decreased the lightness value of wood. Moreover, the number of conjugated structures in the chromophore groups increased, which caused the color of the wood to tend toward red. This study provides a reference for the color regulation of wood, and the mechanisms are also discussed.
In this study, a accurate, rapid quantitative PCR method for the simultaneous detection of 4 kinds of pathogenic bacteria in water was established, and the distribution of pathogenic bacteria in ...surface waters with different levels of pollution (Yulin region, China) was detected. The results showed that the detection accuracy was 94%; the detection limit was 2.7 in bacterial cells. Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar typhimurium and Salmonella dysenteria were always present in water when the universal primer for pathogenic bacteria abundance detection was greater than 10
copies 100 mL
. When the detection value is lower than 10
copy 100 mL
, the bacteria in the water are rarely pathogenic bacteria, so the detection value of 10
copy 100 mL
can be used as a new indicator of waterborne pathogen pollution.
Abstract
Brain-machine interfaces are promising tools to restore lost motor functions and probe brain functional mechanisms. As the number of recording electrodes has been exponentially rising, the ...signal processing capability of brain–machine interfaces is falling behind. One of the key bottlenecks is that they adopt conventional von Neumann architecture with digital computation that is fundamentally different from the working principle of human brain. In this work, we present a memristor-based neural signal analysis system, where the bio-plausible characteristics of memristors are utilized to analyze signals in the analog domain with high efficiency. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, memristor arrays are used to implement the filtering and identification of epilepsy-related neural signals, achieving a high accuracy of 93.46%. Remarkably, our memristor-based system shows nearly 400× improvements in the power efficiency compared to state-of-the-art complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor systems. This work demonstrates the feasibility of using memristors for high-performance neural signal analysis in next-generation brain–machine interfaces.
Hygrothermal processes are widely used in modification of wood or other lignocellulosic materials to improve their decay resistance and dimensional stability. However, the mechanism behind the ...improved decay resistance is still unclear. In this study, hygrothermal modification of holocellulose was carried out at different temperature (℃) -duration (min) combinations (180−60, 220−60, 220−180), and the formation of pseudo lignin in modified holocellulose was verified. Its yield, as indicated by the acid insoluble substance, increased with the intensity of the hygrothermal modification from 0.11% for untreated holocellulose to 3.85%, 24.13%, and 65.86% for 180–60, 220–60, 220–180, respectively. According to the results of HPLC, FTIR, solid 13C NMR, 31P NMR, XRD and Py-GC-MS, the formed pseudo lignin contains polyfuran, aromatic, carbonyl and aliphatic structures. The formation pathway of pseudo lignin was proposed. It exhibited a significant inhibition effect against Gloeophyllum trabeum (brown rot fungus) with reduced mass losses from 6.89% for untreated holocellulose to 6.43%, 1.09% and 0.03% for 180–60, 220–60, 220–180, respectively; however, the inhibition effect against Coriolus versicolor (white rot fungus) was much less obvious. This provides an innovative point of view to explain the fungal degradation behavior of thermally modified wood or other carbohydrate materials.
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•·Pseudo lignin formed during the hygrothermal modification of holocellulose.•·Pseudo lignin was resulted from the thermal degradation products of polysaccharides.•·Pseudo lignin showed significant inhibition effect on brown rot fungi.
Melioidosis is a severe infectious disease caused by gram-negative, facultative intracellular pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei (B. pseudomallei). Although cases are increasing reported from other ...parts of the world, it is an illness of tropical and subtropical climates primarily found in southeast Asia and northern Australia. Because of a 40% mortality rate, this life-threatening disease poses a public health risk in endemic area. Early detection of B. pseudomallei infection is vital for prognosis of a melioidosis patient. In this study, a novel isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification combined with lateral flow dipstick (LF-RPA) assay was established for rapid detection of B. pseudomallei. A set of primer-probe targeting orf2 gene within the putative type III secretion system (T3SS) cluster genes was generated and parameters for the LF-RPA assay were optimized. Result can be easy visualized in 30 minutes with the limit of detection (LOD) as low as 20 femtogram (fg) (ca. 25.6 copies) of B. pseudomallei genomic DNA without a specific equipment. The assay is highly specific as no cross amplification was observed with Burkholderia mallei, members of the Burkholderia cepacia-complex and 35 non-B. pseudomallei bacteria species. Moreover, isolates from patients in Hainan (N = 19), Guangdong (N = 1), Guangxi (N = 3) province of China as well as in Australia (N = 3) and Thailand (N = 1) were retrospectively confirmed by the newly developed method. LODs for B. pseudomallei-spiked soil and blood samples were 2.1×103 CFU/g and 4.2×103 CFU/ml respectively. The sensitivity of the LF-RPA assay was comparable to TaqMan Real-Time PCR (TaqMan PCR). In addition, the LF-RPA assay exhibited a better tolerance to inhibitors in blood than TaqMan PCR. Our results showed that the LF-RPA assay is an alternative to existing PCR-based methods for detection of B. pseudomallei with a potentiality of early accurate diagnosis of melioidosis at point of care or in-field use.
•The addition of lignin, cellulose and wood flour accelerated the surface photodegradation process of PP.•Cellulose-based composites exhibited better color stability, but showed a lot deterioration ...in its flexural properties after weathering.•Composites containing lignin showed less loss of flexural properties, less cracks, and better hydrophobicity on weathered surface than other types of composites.•The stabilization and antioxidation effects of lignin were proved.
In this study, the influence of accelerated weathering on polypropylene composites reinforced with wood flour (WF), lignin, and cellulose at different loading levels were evaluated. Six groups of samples were exposed in a QUV accelerated weathering tester for a total of 960h. The surface color, surface gloss, contact angle and flexural properties of the samples were tested. Besides, the weathered surface was characterized by SEM and ATR-FTIR. The results revealed that (1) the discoloration of composites was accelerated by the presence of lignin, especially at high content; (2) composites containing lignin showed less loss of flexural strength and modulus, less cracks, and better hydrophobicity on weathered surface than other groups, confirming its functions of stabilization and antioxidation; (3) cellulose-based composites exhibited better color stability but more significant deterioration in flexural properties after weathering compared to other composites, suggesting that such kind of composites could not be used as load-bearing structure in outdoor applications.
•Post-ablation LAAC is noninferior to OAC in stroke and MACE events prevention.•Post-ablation LAAC reduce major bleeding and all-cause death by comparing to OAC.•Patients could be OAC-free after AF ...ablation in the era of LAAC.
Left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) proved to be non-inferior to oral anticoagulation (OAC) in non-ablated patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). This study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of LAAC with OAC therapy in patients after AF ablation. This study included patients who underwent catheter ablation (CA) of AF between January 2016 and December 2020. The cohort was divided into CA+LAAC and CA+OAC, where propensity score matching was used to select controls and each group contained 682 subjects. The enrolled patients’ mean age was 70.34±8.32 years, and 47.3% were female; their CHA2DS2-VASc score was 3.48±1.17. Baseline characteristics were similar between groups. After a 3-year mean follow-up, the incidence of thromboembolic events was 1.25, and 1.10 and that of major bleeding events was 0.65, and 1.72 per 100 patient-years in the CA+LAAC, and CA+OAC groups, respectively. The rate of thromboembolisms and major adverse cardiovascular events was similar between the two groups (hazard ratio HR, 1.162; 95% confidence interval CI, 0.665-2.030; P=0.598; HR, 0.711; 95% CI, 0.502–1.005; P=0.053); however, that of major bleeding and all-cause death was significantly reduced with LAAC (HR, 0.401; 95% CI, 0.216–0.746; P=0.004; HR, 0.528; 95% CI, 0.281–0.989; P=0.046). There was no significant difference in peri-procedural complications (P > 0.05) and the rate of AF recurrence (OAC vs. LAAC: 39.44% vs. 40.62%; P=0.658). LAAC is a reasonable and safer alternative to OAC therapy in high-risk patients after AF ablation.
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