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With the development of image vision technology, local descriptors have attracted wide attention in the fields of image retrieval and classification. Even though varieties of methods based on local descriptor have achieved excellent performance, most of them cannot effectively represent the trend of pixels change, and they neglect the mutual occurrence of patterns. Therefore, how to construct local descriptors is of vital importance but challenging. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a multi-trend binary code descriptor (MTBCD). MTBCD mimics the visual perception of human to describe images by constructing a set of multi-trend descriptors which are encoded with binary codes. The method exploits the trend of pixels change in four symmetric directions to obtain the texture feature, and extracts the spatial correlation information using co-occurrence matrix. These intermediate features are integrated into one histogram using a new fusion strategy. The proposed method not only captures the global color features, but also reflects the local texture information. Extensive experiments have demonstrated the excellent performance of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Robot vision is a fundamental device for human–robot interaction and robot complex tasks. In this paper, the authors aim to use Kinect and propose a feature graph fusion (FGF) for robot recognition.Design/methodology/approach The feature fusion utilizes red green blue (RGB) and depth information to construct fused feature from Kinect. FGF involves multi-Jaccard similarity to compute a robust graph and word embedding method to enhance the recognition results.Findings The authors also collect DUT RGB-Depth (RGB-D) face data set and a benchmark data set to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of this method. The experimental results illustrate that FGF is robust and effective to face and object data sets in robot applications.Originality/value The authors first utilize Jaccard similarity to construct a graph of RGB and depth images, which indicates the similarity of pair-wise images. Then, fusion feature of RGB and depth images can be computed by the Extended Jaccard Graph using word embedding method. The FGF can get better performance and efficiency in RGB-D sensor for robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Migrants often face multiple risk factors for smoking initiation. Former studies that have explored the smoking habits of Chinese migrants have provided inconsistent findings and lacked nationally representative samples.Methods: Using data from the 2012 Migrant Dynamics Monitoring Survey in China published by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, this study explored current smoking rates and its determinants among migrants in China.Results: The smoking rates of men (46.9%, 46.3%-47.3%) and women (1.8%, 1.7%-1.9%) differed significantly. Although the overall smoking rates in migrants was slightly lower than in the general population, the rates in certain subgroups were much higher. Among men, the three leading associated factors were the following: higher smoking rates among the divorced or widowed (odds ratio [OR] = 1.53, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.34-1.74); lower smoking rates among those with an educational level of senior high school or above (OR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.71-0.76), and higher smoking rates in the migrant-receiving area (OR = 1.29, 95% CI: 1.18-1.42). Among women, smoking rates were also higher in the migrant-receiving area (OR = 1.78, 95% CI: 1.34-2.34), when monthly income was more than 3000 Renminbi (OR = 1.65, 95% CI: 1.43-1.90), and among those with an educational level of senior high school or above (OR = 0.65, 95% CI: 0.56-0.75). The social integration of migrants, the duration of stay, and working hours had weaker associations with smoking risk.Conclusions: The sociodemographic features, work pressure, and migration-related features were sex-dependent determinants of smoking rates. These factors need to be considered when planning tobacco control interventions among migrants.Implications: Our study was the first to analyze a nationally representative Chinese migrant sample with respect to smoking, its differential rates across various subgroups, and its determinants. Our results provided overall levels of migrant smoking rates. The findings also demonstrated the influences of sex, other sociodemographic variables, migration-related factors, work pressure, and social integration on the smoking habits of migrants. These results provide a database of information for developing and improving tobacco control interventions in migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method to degrade phenol from simulated wastewater was studied using waste blast furnace flue dust with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The factors that affect the degradation efficiency, including the pH of the solution, the initial H2O2concentration, the amount of blast furnace flue dust, the reaction temperature, and the reaction time, were studied. The experimental results show that 1,000 mg/L of phenol in simulated wastewater can be decomposed completely within 12 h by 15 g/L blast furnace flue dust with 30 mmol/L H2O2in a solution whose pH was 3.0 at the temperature of 35°C. The mechanism of phenol degradation was also investigated by high-performance liquid chromatography, X-ray diffraction, and UV–vis spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Graph methods have been widely employed in re-ranking for image retrieval. Although we can effectively find visually similar images through these methods, the ranking lists given by those approaches may contain some candidates which appear to be irrelevant to a query. Most of these candidates fall into two categories: (1) the irrelevant outliers located near to the query images in a graph; and (2) the images from another cluster which close to the query. Therefore, eliminating these two types of images from the ordered retrieval sets is expected to further boost the retrieval precision. In this paper, we build a Three Degree Binary Graph (TDBG) to eliminate the outliers and utilize a set-based greedy algorithm to reduce the influence of adjacent manifolds. Moreover, a multi-feature fusion method is proposed to enhance the retrieval performance further. Experimental results obtained on three public datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • UV/sulfite system effectively degraded SMX as an advanced oxidation process. • SO 4 − was the major reactive radical in UV/sulfite system at neutral condition. • UV photolysis and radical oxidation both led to SMX removal in UV/sulfite system. • Presence of NO 3 − enhanced SMX removal due to extra HO formation by excited NO 3 −. • Three degradation pathways of SMX were proposed based on the detected products. In this study, the degradation efficiency and mechanism of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) by UV/sulfite system in presence of oxygen were investigated systematically. The results indicated that SMX could be effectively removed by UV/sulfite following a pseudo first-order kinetic model. Compared to SMX photolysis under UV irradiation, its removal in UV/sulfite system was significantly enhanced, which was mainly ascribed to the formed reactive oxygen species. Sulfate radical (SO 4 −) was proved to be the major active radical for SMX degradation by scavenging experiments using methanol and tert -butanol as scavengers. UV photolysis and radical oxidation were two degradation pathways of SMX in UV/sulfite system, and their contribution to SMX removal at pH 6.9 was 38.8% and 61.2%, respectively. The degradation rate constant of SMX was decreased from 0.1415 to 0.0358 min−1 as the pH increased from 4.0 to 9.3, because pH is an important influence factor on species distribution of both SMX and S(Ⅳ), further influencing direct SMX photolysis and formation of active species. SMX degradation was increased with the increase of S(IV) concentration from 0 to 1000 μM, while it was decreased with the increase of initial SMX concentration. The presence of HCO 3 −, Ca2+ and fulvic acid inhibited the degradation of SMX in UV/sulfite system, while an insignificant effect on SMX removal was observed with the addition of Cl−, SO 4 2− and Cu2+. NO 3 − could facilitate SMX degradation in UV/sulfite process as a precursor to form hydroxyl radical. Under the direct UV photolysis and radical oxidation, five degradation products of SMX were produced by hydroxylation, S–N bond cleavage of sulfonamide, and oxidation of amino group. Consequently, UV/sulfite could be an efficient approach for SMX removal from polluted water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]