基于并行跟踪检测框架与深度学习的目标跟踪算法

在空地协同背景下，地面目标的移动导致其在无人机视角下外观会发生较大变化，传统算法很难满足此类场景的应用要求。针对这一问题，提出基于并行跟踪和检测（PTAD）框架与深度学习的目标检测与跟踪算法。首先，将基于卷积神经网络（CNN）的目标检测算法SSD作为PTAD的检测子处理关键帧获取目标信息并提供给跟踪子；其次，检测子与跟踪子并行处理图像帧并计算检测与跟踪结果框的重叠度及跟踪结果的置信度；最后，根据跟踪子与检测子的跟踪或检测状态来判断是否对跟踪子或检测子进行更新，并对图像帧中的目标进行实时跟踪。在无人机视角下的视频序列上开展实验研究和对比分析，结果表明所提算法的性能高于PTAD框架下最优算法，而且实时性提高了13%，验证了此算法的有效性。     

求解约束优化问题的自适应人工蜂群算法

针对约束优化问题，提出一种自适应人工蜂群算法。算法采用反学习初始化方法使初始种群均匀分布于搜索空间。为了平衡搜索过程中可行个体和不可行个体的数量，算法使用自适应选择策略。在跟随蜂阶段，采用最优引导搜索方程来增强算法的开采能力。通过对13个标准测试问题进行实验并与其他算法比较，发现自适应人工蜂群算法具有较强的寻优能力和较好的稳定性。     

A survey of multiscale modeling: Foundations,historical milestones,current status,and future prospects

Research problems in the domains of physical, engineering, biological sciences often span multiple time and length scales, owing to the complexity of information transfer underlying mechanisms. Multiscale modeling (MSM) and high-performance computing (HPC) have emerged as indispensable tools for tackling such complex problems. We review the foundations, historical developments, and current paradigms in MSM. A paradigm shift in MSM implementations is being fueled by the rapid advances and emerging paradigms in HPC at the dawn of exascale computing. Moreover, amidst the explosion of data science, engineering, and medicine, machine learning (ML) integrated with MSM is poised to enhance the capabilities of standard MSM approaches significantly, particularly in the face of increasing problem complexity. The potential to blend MSM, HPC, and ML presents opportunities for unbound innovation and promises to represent the future of MSM and explainable ML that will likely define the fields in the 21st century.     

Putative Circulating MicroRNAs Are Able to Identify Patients with Mitral Valve Prolapse and Severe Regurgitation

Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) associated with severe mitral regurgitation is a debilitating disease with no pharmacological therapies available. MicroRNAs (miRNA) represent an emerging class of circulating biomarkers that have never been evaluated in MVP human plasma. Our aim was to identify a possible miRNA signature that is able to discriminate MVP patients from healthy subjects (CTRL) and to shed light on the putative altered molecular pathways in MVP. We evaluated a plasma miRNA profile using Human MicroRNA Card A followed by real-time PCR validations. In addition, to assess the discriminative power of selected miRNAs, we implemented a machine learning analysis. MiRNA profiling and validations revealed that miR-140-3p, 150-5p, 210-3p, 451a, and 487a-3p were significantly upregulated in MVP, while miR-223-3p, 323a-3p, 340-5p, and 361-5p were significantly downregulated in MVP compared to CTRL (p ≤ 0.01). Functional analysis identified several biological processes possible linked to MVP. In addition, machine learning analysis correctly classified MVP patients from CTRL with high accuracy (0.93) and an area under the receiving operator characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.97. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study performed on human plasma, showing a strong association between miRNAs and MVP. Thus, a circulating molecular signature could be used as a first-line, fast, and cheap screening tool for MVP identification.     

Can video games change attitudes towards history? Results from a laboratory experiment measuring short- and long-term effects

This study investigates a video game's effects on implicit and explicit attitudes towards depicted historical events in the short- and long-term on a sample of 148 young adults. We used, as an intervention tool, a serious game Czechoslovakia 38–89: Borderlands that deals with the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the former Czechoslovakia after the WWII. Results showed more negative pretest-posttest explicit attitude changes towards the expulsion on a general level (d = −0.34) and a specific level (d = −0.53) compared to the control group. Over the long-term, group differences in attitude change remained significant for the specific level (d = −0.44), but not for general one (d = −0.16). Exploratory analysis on the item level indicated that especially attitudes towards the expulsion's (un)fairness were affected by the game. However, no significant changes were found in implicit attitudes in the experimental group. This study is the first of such scale to empirically investigate video games' effects on a society's historical awareness.     

Technology enhanced learning of quantitative critical thinking

A Quantitative Critical Thinking (QCT) software tool was developed in this study to facilitate students’ learning of quantitative critical thinking via repeated practice by chemical engineering students reading a core module called fluid-solid systems. The software tool generated detailed calculation steps to typical engineering design problems encountered in this module that contained weaknesses, flaws or even errors. Students utilized the software tool to practice identifying these weaknesses, flaws or errors in the design solutions and then present a better or correct design by applying the concepts and knowledge acquired in the module. Since the QCT software tool was built upon an existing design software tool that was able to generate the correct, detailed design calculation steps to design problems, students were able to check their own design calculations against those presented by the software tool during this second learning step, thereby engaging in and learning quantitative critical thinking via a repeated practice approach. The software tool was successful in enhancing the performance of second-year undergraduate students in solving a question that required quantitative critical thinking in the final examination of the module. The average percentage scores achieved by students for the question who reported higher frequencies of usage of the software were generally higher than those who reported lower frequencies of usage or did not utilize the software tool throughout the semester.     

FPGA-based implementation of classification techniques: A survey

Recently, a number of classification techniques have been introduced. However, processing large dataset in a reasonable time has become a major challenge. This made classification task more complex and expensive in calculation. Thus, the need for solutions to overcome these constraints such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). In this paper, we give an overview of the various classification techniques. Then, we present the existing FPGA based implementation of these classification methods. After that, we investigate the confronted challenges and the optimizations strategies. Finally, we highlight the hardware accelerator architectures and tools for hardware design suggested to improve the FPGA implementation of classification methods.     

BE-ACGAN: Photo-realistic residual bit-depth enhancement by advanced conditional GAN

Since more demands for high quality visualization have been raised in various fields, monitors with higher bit-depth (HBD) become popular in recent years. However, most digital images are at low bit-depth (LBD) and usually of low visual quality with annoying false contours when displayed on HBD monitors directly. To reconstruct visually pleasant HBD images, many bit-depth enhancement (BE) algorithms have been proposed from various aspects, but the recovered HBD images are usually unsatisfactory with conspicuous false contours or over-blurred textures. Inspired by discriminative learning, we propose a residual BE algorithm based on advanced conditional generative adversarial network (BE-ACGAN), in which the discriminator adversarially helps assess image quality and train the generator to achieve more photo-realistic recovery performance. Besides, since it is hard to distinguish between the reconstructed and real HBD images with similar structures, the discriminator takes residual images as input and further takes LBD images as conditions to achieve more reliable performance. In addition, we present a novel loss function to deal with the difficulty of unstable adversarial training. The proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on large-scale benchmark datasets. Source codes are available at https://github.com/TJUMMG/BE- ACGAN/.