Could diffuse coevolution explain the generic eggshell color of the brown-headed cowbird?

The brown-headed cowbird (hereafter cowbird) is an avian brood parasite that produces an egg dissimilar to those produced by the majority of its diverse host community. The cowbird's generic egg may result from a Jack-of-all-trades strategy; however, the evolutionary mechanisms that select for their generic eggs are unclear. Here we propose that the cowbird's eggshell phenotypes have evolved via diffuse coevolution, which results from community-level selective pressures, rather than via pairwise coevolution that occurs between a particular host species and its brood parasite.

EXAM: A Framework of Learning Extreme and Moderate Embeddings for Person Re-ID.

Person re-identification (Re-ID) is challenging due to host of factors: the variety of human positions, difficulties in aligning bounding boxes, and complex backgrounds, among other factors. This paper proposes a new framework called EXAM (EXtreme And Moderate feature embeddings) for Re-ID tasks. This is done using discriminative feature learning, requiring attention-based guidance during training.

A GAN-Based Self-Training Framework for Unsupervised Domain Adaptive Person Re-Identification.

As a crucial task in surveillance and security, person re-identification (re-ID) aims to identify the targeted pedestrians across multiple images captured by non-overlapping cameras. However, existing person re-ID solutions have two main challenges: the lack of pedestrian identification labels in the captured images, and domain shift issue between different domains. A generative adversarial networks (GAN)-based self-training framework with progressive augmentation (SPA) is proposed to obtain the robust features of the unlabeled data from the target domain, according to the preknowledge of the labeled data from the source domain.

Creating a 'Molecular Band-Aid'; Blocking an Exposed Protease Target Site in Desmoplakin.

Desmoplakin (DSP) is a large (~260 kDa) protein found in the desmosome, a subcellular complex that links the cytoskeleton of one cell to its neighbor. A mutation 'hot-spot' within the NH-terminal third of the DSP protein (specifically, residues 299-515) is associated with both cardiomyopathies and skin defects. In select DSP variants, disease is linked specifically to the uncovering of a previously-occluded calpain target site (residues 447-451).

Anode Overpotential Control via Interfacial Modification: Inhibition of Lithium Plating on Graphite Anodes.

Lithium-metal deposition on graphite anodes limits the cycle life and negatively impacts safety of the current state of the art Li-ion batteries. Herein, deliberate interfacial modification of graphite electrodes via direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering of nanoscale layers of Cu and Ni is employed to increase the overpotential for Li deposition and suppress Li plating under high rate charge conditions. Due to their nanoscale, the deposited surface films have minimal impact (∼0.

A Novel Multi-Exposure Image Fusion Method Based on Adaptive Patch Structure.

Multi-exposure image fusion methods are often applied to the fusion of low-dynamic images that are taken from the same scene at different exposure levels. The fused images not only contain more color and detailed information, but also demonstrate the same real visual effects as the observation by the human eye. This paper proposes a novel multi-exposure image fusion (MEF) method based on adaptive patch structure.

Primary trait analysis: student, course, and program assessment.

In higher education, primary trait analysis (PTA) typically involves identifying specific behaviors or characteristics that are intrinsic to determining the quality of the work produced. Implications for the use of PTA in nursing education are many. Analysis of group PTA data across the curriculum has the potential to strengthen curriculum and streamline program assessment.