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We present the first large-scale database of measured spatially-varying anisotropic reflectance, consisting of 1,000 high-quality near-planar SVBRDFs, spanning 9 material categories such as wood, fabric and metal. Each sample is captured in 15 minutes, and represented as a set of high-resolution texture maps that correspond to spatially-varying BRDF parameters and local frames. To build this database, we develop a novel integrated system for robust, high-quality and -efficiency reflectance acquisition and reconstruction. Our setup consists of 2 cameras and 16,384 LEDs. We train 64 lighting patterns for efficient acquisition, in conjunction with a network that predicts per-point reflectance in a neural representation from carefully aligned two-view measurements captured under the patterns. The intermediate results are further fine-tuned with respect to the photographs acquired under 63 effective linear lights, and finally fitted to a BRDF model. We report various statistics of the database, and demonstrate its value in the applications of material generation, classification as well as sampling. All related data, including future additions to the database, can be downloaded from https://opensvbrdf.github.io/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose neural trace photography, a novel framework to automatically learn high-quality scanning of non-planar, complex anisotropic appearance. Our key insight is that free-form appearance scanning can be cast as a geometry learning problem on unstructured point clouds, each of which represents an image measurement and the corresponding acquisition condition. Based on this connection, we carefully design a neural network, to jointly optimize the lighting conditions to be used in acquisition, as well as the spatially independent reconstruction of reflectance from corresponding measurements. Our framework is not tied to a specific setup, and can adapt to various factors in a data-driven manner. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework on a number of physical objects with a wide variation in appearance. The objects are captured with a light-weight mobile device, consisting of a single camera and an RGB LED array. We also generalize the framework to other common types of light sources, including a point, a linear and an area light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the urban industry in recent years, air pollution in areas such as factories and streets has become more and more serious. Air quality problems directly affect the normal lives of residents. Effectively predicting the future air condition in the area through relevant historical data has high application value for early warning of this area. Through the study of the previous monitoring data, it is found that the pollutant data of adjacent monitoring stations are correlated in more periods. Therefore, this paper proposes a hybrid model based on CNN and Bi-LSTM, using CNN to synthesize multiple adjacent stations with strong correlations to extract spatial features between data, and using Bi-LSTM to extract features in the time dimension to finally achieve pollutant concentration prediction. Using the historical data of 40 monitoring stations in different locations of Fushun city to conduct research. By comparing with the traditional prediction model, the results prove that the model proposed in this paper has higher accuracy and stronger robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), huge amounts of data are generated, and companies are highly motivated to store the data on cloud servers for cost saving and efficient application. However, the IIoT data are always of great value. The direct outsourcing of such data can leak the important information of the companies and cause great business losses. A straightforward solution is to encrypt the data by using standard encryption methods before outsourcing. Nevertheless, this will make data utilization quite inconvenient. This paper focuses on the secure process of image data on cloud servers. Images are stored on cloud servers in encrypted form, and the local binary pattern feature can be directly extracted from the encrypted images for applications. The security analysis and experimental results demonstrate the security and effectiveness of our scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study of a 26-year-old female who was brought to the local schistosomiasis-specialized hospital in China for diagnosis and treatment after complaining of distention and abdominal pain for over a month. The patient was suspected to have advanced schistosomiasis due to her symptoms and blood test results as well as contact history. Early operation and effective decompression are also considered the major factors resulting in reversal of liver fibrosis for the case.

In order to protect and promote the effective differentiation and rational utilization of grape germplasm resources, 34 grapevine varieties were selected from the National Germplasm Resources, Taigu Grape Nursery in China: 12 wine grapes (Group I), 14 table grapes (Group II) and 12 seedless grapes (Group III), 4 of which were in Group II, too. For the purpose of genetic characterization, 15 pairs of SSR (simple sequence repeat) primers were used. Sixty-six alleles were generated among Group I, including 64 polymorphic bands, with 1-8 alleles per locus. In Group II, a total of 54 alleles, from 1 to 8 (3.6 on average) alleles per locus, were identified. In Group III, 54 alleles with an average of 3.6 alleles per locus were identified and the percentage of polymorphic alleles was 94%. The 34 varieties clustered into two major clades in the dendrogram: V. vinifera with hybrid of V. vinifera and V. labrusca or hybrid of V. amurensisi and V. vinifera were clearly differentiated. After processing and filtering the raw data, we produced the molecular fingerprint code of each variety. These results showed that the SSR markers are useful for discrimination and analysis of genetic diversity of grapevine varieties. The SSR markers could be used to examine and distinguish the genetic resources among closely related varieties. This is also an effective tool for construction of a grapevine molecular fingerprinting system. The obtained data will be useful in grape breeding in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is one of the most important flaviviruses that targets the central nervous system (CNS) and causes encephalitides in humans. Although neuroinflammatory mechanisms may contribute to brain tissue destruction, the induction pathways and potential roles of specific chemokines in TBEV-mediated neurological disease are poorly understood.Methods: BALB/c mice were intracerebrally injected with TBEV, followed by evaluation of chemokine and cytokine profiles using protein array analysis. The virus-infected mice were treated with the CC chemokine antagonist Met-RANTES or anti-RANTES mAb to determine the role of RANTES in affecting TBEV-induced neurological disease. The underlying signaling mechanisms were delineated using RANTES promoter luciferase reporter assay, siRNA-mediated knockdown, and pharmacological inhibitors in human brain-derived cell culture models.Results: In a mouse model, pathological features including marked inflammatory cell infiltrates were observed in brain sections, which correlated with a robust up-regulation of RANTES within the brain but not in peripheral tissues and sera. Antagonizing RANTES within CNS extended the survival of mice and reduced accumulation of infiltrating cells in the brain after TBEV infection. Through in vitro studies, we show that virus infection up-regulated RANTES production at both mRNA and protein levels in human brain-derived cell lines and primary progenitor-derived astrocytes. Furthermore, IRF-3 pathway appeared to be essential for TBEV-induced RANTES production. Site mutation of an IRF-3-binding motif abrogated the RANTES promoter activity in virus-infected brain cells. Moreover, IRF-3 was activated upon TBEV infection as evidenced by phosphorylation of TBK1 and IRF-3, while blockade of IRF-3 activation drastically reduced virus-induced RANTES expression.Conclusions: Our findings together provide insights into the molecular mechanism underlying RANTES production induced by TBEV, highlighting its potential importance in the process of neuroinflammatory responses to TBEV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Asymmetric ellipsoidal projectiles for payload improvement. • Theoretical model of the projectile with hole enlargement mechanism. • Contributions of cross section shape to residual velocities and accelerations. A theoretical model is presented for penetration of asymmetric ellipsoidal projectiles which are proposed to fit the lift-generating outline of hypersonic vehicles. The projectile is composed of two triaxial quarter ellipsoids with one different semiaxis, and four geometric parameters are required to decide the shape. The model is based on two-term drag equation and a stress distribution relation of elliptical boundary with hole enlargement mechanism. Verification of the model is completed by simulation cases of six different projectiles with initial velocity between 600 m/s to 1000 m/s. Ballistic characteristics of asymmetric ellipsoidal projectiles including acceleration and residual velocity are derived from the model and analyzed to acquire the effects of geometric parameters on penetration results. Two decisive factors of cross section shapes, asymmetry and flatness, are specially discussed in contributions to residual velocity. Comparations with traditional circular cross-sectional cases are also presented, which indicates that same penetration capacity could be retained in the asymmetric ellipsoidal projectiles as in the circular cross-sectional one by selecting the shape controlling factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aluminum complex Alq3(q = 8-hydroxyquinolinate),which has important applications in organic light-emitting diode materials,is shown to be readily synthesized as a pure phase under solvent-freemechanochemical conditions from Al(OAc)2OH and 8-hydroxyquinolineby ball milling. The initial product of the mechanochemical synthesisis a novel acetic acid solvate of Alq3, and the αpolymorph of Alq3is obtained on subsequent heating/desolvationof this phase. The structure of the mechanochemically prepared aceticacid solvate of Alq3has been determined directly frompowder X-ray diffraction data and is shown to be a different polymorphfrom the corresponding acetic acid solvate prepared by solution-statecrystallization of Alq3from acetic acid. Significantly,the mechanochemical synthesis of Alq3is shown to be fullyscalable across two orders of magnitude from 0.5 to 50 g scale. TheAlq3sample obtained from the solvent-free mechanochemicalsynthesis is analytically pure and exhibits identical photoluminescencebehavior to that of a sample prepared by the conventional syntheticroute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first introduces Mani the Buddha of Light—a collection of ritual manuals of the Religion of Light from Xiapu county, Fujian Province, China and Diagram of the Universe—a Manichaean painting produced in South China in the late 14th to early 15th century. It then gives a detailed description of Mani the Buddha of Light with some illustrations of Diagram of the Universe. This paper further compares Mani the Buddha of Light and Buddhist worship and repentance ritual to demonstrate that the former utilized the form of the latter. It also analyzes the similarities and differences between the pantheons of Mani the Buddha of Light and other Manichaean materials. Ultimately it discusses the hypothesis that many pieces of the original texts in Mani the Buddha of Light should have come into being during the 9th–11th centuries and have been handed down generation after generation because of the strong vitality of its rituals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel framework to efficiently acquire anisotropic reflectance in a pixel-independent fashion, using a deep gated mixture-of-experts. While existing work employs a unified network to handle all possible input, our network automatically learns to condition on the input for enhanced reconstruction. We train a gating module that takes photometric measurements as input and selects one out of a number of specialized decoders for reflectance reconstruction, essentially trading generality for quality. A common pre-trained latent-transform module is also appended to each decoder, to offset the burden of the increased number of decoders. In addition, the illumination conditions during acquisition can be jointly optimized. The effectiveness of our framework is validated on a wide variety of challenging near-planar samples with a lightstage. Compared with the state-of-the-art technique, our quality is improved with the same number of input images, and our input image number can be reduced to about 1/3 for equal-quality results. We further generalize the framework to enhance a state-of-the-art technique on non-planar reflectance scanning.

Immunotherapy of PD-L1/PD-1 blockage elicited impressive clinical benefits for cancer treatment. However, the relative low response and therapy resistance highlight the need to better understand the molecular regulation of PD-L1 in tumors. Here, we report that PD-L1 is a target of UFMylation. UFMylation of PD-L1 destabilizes PD-L1 by synergizing its ubiquitination. Inhibition of PD-L1 UFMylation via silencing of UFL1 or Ubiquitin-fold modifier 1 (UFM1), or the defective UFMylation of PD-L1, stabilizes the PD-L1 in multiple human and murine cancer cells, and undermines antitumor immunity in vitro and mice, respectively. Clinically, UFL1 expression was decreased in multiple cancers and lower expression of UFL1 negatively correlated with the response of anti-PD1 therapy in melanoma patients. Moreover, we identified a covalent inhibitor of UFSP2 that promoted the UFMylation activity and contributed to the combination therapy with PD-1 blockade. Our findings identified a previously unrecognized regulator of PD-L1 and highlighted UFMylation as a potential therapeutic target.

Ubiquitin-fold modifier 1 (UFM1) is a recently identified ubiquitin-like posttranslational modification with important biological functions. However, the regulatory mechanisms governing UFM1 modification of target proteins (UFMylation) and the cellular processes controlled by UFMylation remain largely unknown. It has been previously shown that a UFM1-specific protease (UFSP2) mediates the maturation of the UFM1 precursor and drives the de-UFMylation reaction. Furthermore, it has long been thought that UFSP1, an ortholog of UFSP2, is inactive in many organisms, including human, because it lacks an apparent protease domain when translated from the canonical start codon ( 445 AUG). Here, we demonstrate using the combination of site-directed mutagenesis, CRISPR/Cas9-mediated genome editing, and mass spectrometry approaches that translation of human UFSP1 initiates from an upstream near-cognate codon, 217 CUG, via eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF2A-mediated translational initiation rather than from the annotated 445 AUG, revealing the presence of a catalytic protease domain containing a Cys active site. Moreover, we show that both UFSP1 and UFSP2 mediate maturation of UFM1 and de-UFMylation of target proteins. This study demonstrates that human UFSP1 functions as an active UFM1-specific protease, thus contributing to our understanding of the UFMylation/de-UFMylation process., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest with the contents of this article., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Ubiquitin-fold modifier 1 (UFM1) system is a recently identified ubiquitin-like modification with essential biological functions. Similar to ubiquitination, the covalent conjugation of UFM1 (UFMylation) to target proteins involves a three-step enzymatic cascade catalyzed sequentially by UFM1-activating enzyme 5 (UBA5, E1), UFM1-conjugating enzyme 1 (UFC1, E2), and UFM1-specific ligase 1 (UFL1, E3). Here, we provide an optimized protocol adapted to previously reported methods for detecting the UFMylation of target protein in human cells and in vitro assays , respectively, with high reliability and reproducibility. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Liu et al. (2020)., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2021 The Authors.)

Background: Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is one of the most important flaviviruses that targets the central nervous system (CNS) and causes encephalitides in humans. Although neuroinflammatory mechanisms may contribute to brain tissue destruction, the induction pathways and potential roles of specific chemokines in TBEV-mediated neurological disease are poorly understood., Methods: BALB/c mice were intracerebrally injected with TBEV, followed by evaluation of chemokine and cytokine profiles using protein array analysis. The virus-infected mice were treated with the CC chemokine antagonist Met-RANTES or anti-RANTES mAb to determine the role of RANTES in affecting TBEV-induced neurological disease. The underlying signaling mechanisms were delineated using RANTES promoter luciferase reporter assay, siRNA-mediated knockdown, and pharmacological inhibitors in human brain-derived cell culture models., Results: In a mouse model, pathological features including marked inflammatory cell infiltrates were observed in brain sections, which correlated with a robust up-regulation of RANTES within the brain but not in peripheral tissues and sera. Antagonizing RANTES within CNS extended the survival of mice and reduced accumulation of infiltrating cells in the brain after TBEV infection. Through in vitro studies, we show that virus infection up-regulated RANTES production at both mRNA and protein levels in human brain-derived cell lines and primary progenitor-derived astrocytes. Furthermore, IRF-3 pathway appeared to be essential for TBEV-induced RANTES production. Site mutation of an IRF-3-binding motif abrogated the RANTES promoter activity in virus-infected brain cells. Moreover, IRF-3 was activated upon TBEV infection as evidenced by phosphorylation of TBK1 and IRF-3, while blockade of IRF-3 activation drastically reduced virus-induced RANTES expression., Conclusions: Our findings together provide insights into the molecular mechanism underlying RANTES production induced by TBEV, highlighting its potential importance in the process of neuroinflammatory responses to TBEV infection.

Quantitative monitoring of a mechanochemical reaction by Raman spectroscopy leads to a surprisingly straightforward second-order kinetic model in which the rate is determined simply by the frequency of reactive collisions between reactant particles.