High dynamic range (HDR) imaging provides the capability of handling real world lighting as opposed to the traditional low dynamic range (LDR) which struggles to accurately represent images with ...higher dynamic range. However, most imaging content is still available only in LDR. This paper presents a method for generating HDR content from LDR content based on deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) termed ExpandNet. ExpandNet accepts LDR images as input and generates images with an expanded range in an end‐to‐end fashion. The model attempts to reconstruct missing information that was lost from the original signal due to quantization, clipping, tone mapping or gamma correction. The added information is reconstructed from learned features, as the network is trained in a supervised fashion using a dataset of HDR images. The approach is fully automatic and data driven; it does not require any heuristics or human expertise. ExpandNet uses a multiscale architecture which avoids the use of upsampling layers to improve image quality. The method performs well compared to expansion/inverse tone mapping operators quantitatively on multiple metrics, even for badly exposed inputs.
Photonic components with adjustable parameters, such as variable-focal-length lenses or spectral filters, which can change functionality upon optical stimulation, could offer numerous useful ...applications. Tuning of such components is conventionally achieved by either micro- or nanomechanical actuation of their constituent parts, by stretching or by heating. Here, we report a novel approach for making reconfigurable optical components that are created with light in a non-volatile and reversible fashion. Such components are written, erased and rewritten as two-dimensional binary or greyscale patterns into a nanoscale film of phase-change material by inducing a refractive-index-changing phase transition with tailored trains of femtosecond pulses. We combine germanium-antimony-tellurium-based films with a diffraction-limited resolution optical writing process to demonstrate a variety of devices: visible-range reconfigurable bichromatic and multi-focus Fresnel zone plates, a super-oscillatory lens with subwavelength focus, a greyscale hologram, and a dielectric metamaterial with on-demand reflection and transmission resonances.
Semantic cognition refers to our ability to use, manipulate and generalize knowledge that is acquired over the lifespan to support innumerable verbal and non-verbal behaviours. This Review summarizes ...key findings and issues arising from a decade of research into the neurocognitive and neurocomputational underpinnings of this ability, leading to a new framework that we term controlled semantic cognition (CSC). CSC offers solutions to long-standing queries in philosophy and cognitive science, and yields a convergent framework for understanding the neural and computational bases of healthy semantic cognition and its dysfunction in brain disorders.
ABSTRACT We demonstrate observational evidence for the occurrence of convectively driven internal gravity waves (IGWs) in young massive O-type stars observed with high-precision CoRoT space ...photometry. This evidence results from a comparison between velocity spectra based on two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of IGWs in a differentially rotating massive star and the observed spectra. We also show that the velocity spectra caused by IGWs may lead to detectable line-profile variability and explain the occurrence of macroturbulence in the observed line profiles of OB stars. Our findings provide predictions that can readily be tested by including a sample of bright, slowly and rapidly rotating OB-type stars in the scientific program of the K2 mission accompanied by high-precision spectroscopy and their confrontation with multi-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of IGWs for various masses and ages.
We present magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the atmospheres of hot Jupiters ranging in temperature from 1100 to 1800 K. Magnetic effects are negligible in atmospheres with temperatures lap1400 K. ...At higher temperatures winds are variable and, in many cases, mean equatorial flows can become westward, opposite to their hydrodynamic counterparts. Ohmic dissipation peaks at temperatures ~1500-1600 K, depending on field strength, with maximum values ~10 super(18) W at 10 bars, substantially lower than previous estimates. Based on the limited parameter study done, this value cannot be increased substantially with increasing winds, higher temperatures, higher field strengths, different boundary conditions, or lower diffusivities. Although not resolved in these simulations, there is modest evidence that a magnetic buoyancy instability may proceed in hot atmospheres.
ABSTRACT To date, asteroseismology has provided core-to-surface differential rotation measurements in eight main-sequence stars. These stars, ranging in mass from ∼1.5-9 M , show rotation profiles ...ranging from uniform to counter-rotation. Although they have a variety of masses, these stars all have convective cores and overlying radiative regions, conducive to angular momentum transport by internal gravity waves (IGWs). Using two-dimensional numerical simulations, we show that angular momentum transport by IGWs can explain all of these rotation profiles. We further predict that, should high mass, faster rotating stars be observed, the core-to-envelope differential rotation will be positive, but less than one.
Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are the primary source of dietary added sugars in children, with high consumption commonly observed in more deprived areas where obesity prevalence is also highest. ...Associations between SSB consumption and obesity in children have been widely reported. In March 2016, a two-tier soft drinks industry levy (SDIL) on drinks manufacturers to encourage reformulation of SSBs in the United Kingdom was announced and then implemented in April 2018. We examined trajectories in the prevalence of obesity at ages 4 to 5 years and 10 to 11 years, 19 months after the implementation of SDIL, overall and by sex and deprivation.
Data were from the National Child Measurement Programme and included annual repeat cross-sectional measurement of over 1 million children in reception (4 to 5 years old) and year 6 (10 to 11 years old) in state-maintained English primary schools. Interrupted time series (ITS) analysis of monthly obesity prevalence data from September 2013 to November 2019 was used to estimate absolute and relative changes in obesity prevalence compared to a counterfactual (adjusted for temporal variations in obesity prevalence) estimated from the trend prior to SDIL announcement. Differences between observed and counterfactual estimates were examined in November 2019 by age (reception or year 6) and additionally by sex and deprivation quintile. In year 6 girls, there was an overall absolute reduction in obesity prevalence (defined as >95th centile on the UK90 growth charts) of 1.6 percentage points (PPs) (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.1, 2.1), with greatest reductions in the two most deprived quintiles (e.g., there was an absolute reduction of 2.4 PP (95% CI: 1.6, 3.2) in prevalence of obesity in the most deprived quintile). In year 6 boys, there was no change in obesity prevalence, except in the least deprived quintile where there was a 1.6-PP (95% CI: 0.7, 2.5) absolute increase. In reception children, relative to the counterfactual, there were no overall changes in obesity prevalence in boys (0.5 PP (95% CI: 1.0, -0.1)) or girls (0.2 PP (95% CI: 0.8, -0.3)). This study is limited by use of index of multiple deprivation of the school attended to assess individual socioeconomic disadvantage. ITS analyses are vulnerable to unidentified cointerventions and time-varying confounding, neither of which we can rule out.
Our results suggest that the SDIL was associated with decreased prevalence of obesity in year 6 girls, with the greatest differences in those living in the most deprived areas. Additional strategies beyond SSB taxation will be needed to reduce obesity prevalence overall, and particularly in older boys and younger children.
ISRCTN18042742.
Detailed modeling of stellar evolution requires a better understanding of the (magneto)hydrodynamic processes that mix chemical elements and transport angular momentum. Understanding these processes ...is crucial if we are to accurately interpret observations of chemical abundance anomalies, surface rotation measurements, and asteroseismic data. Here, we use two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the generation and propagation of internal gravity waves in an intermediate-mass star to measure the chemical mixing induced by these waves. We show that such mixing can generally be treated as a diffusive process. We then show that the local diffusion coefficient does not depend on the local fluid velocity, but rather on the wave amplitude. We then use these findings to provide a simple parameterization for this diffusion, which can be incorporated into stellar evolution codes and tested against observations.