Flight situational awareness in civil aviation relies on the semantic understanding of both the key details and the full picture from the Air Traffic Controller(ATCo)and pilot communication.This paper proposes a novel...Flight situational awareness in civil aviation relies on the semantic understanding of both the key details and the full picture from the Air Traffic Controller(ATCo)and pilot communication.This paper proposes a novel end-to-end Multi-Task Hierarchical Network(MTHN)for automatically understanding ATCo-pilot communication,handling slot filling,role detection,and intent recognition at different levels while adaptively integrating them.Specifically,we introduce a wordbased knowledge-masked slot distillation module that constructs an ATC knowledge base to dynamically mask keywords during teacher-student distillation.Considering the distinct intent differences between ATCos and pilots,we design a sentence-based role-aware intent attention module that extracts role label space vectors as context to enrich intent representations.To exploit the complementarity across different semantic levels in ATCo-pilot communication,we explicitly develop an adaptive bi-interaction flow module that dynamically explores semantic dependencies among tasks.Extensive experiments on real-world datasets collected in China show the superior performance of MTHN,compared to state-of-the-art baselines in both general natural language understanding and ATC-specific text processing.Our results highlight that MTHN achieves 99.26%,97.25%,and 96.22%accuracy across key slots,as well as 96.59%accuracy in speaker role classification.Moreover,it can perceive multi-label deep intents behind sentences.These analytical findings demonstrate the potential to reduce human errors in high-concurrency ATCo-pilot interactions under dense operational conditions.展开更多
With the advent of the next-generation Air Traffic Control(ATC)system,there is growing interest in using Artificial Intelligence(AI)techniques to enhance Situation Awareness(SA)for ATC Controllers(ATCOs),i.e.,Intellig...With the advent of the next-generation Air Traffic Control(ATC)system,there is growing interest in using Artificial Intelligence(AI)techniques to enhance Situation Awareness(SA)for ATC Controllers(ATCOs),i.e.,Intelligent SA(ISA).However,the existing AI-based SA approaches often rely on unimodal data and lack a comprehensive description and benchmark of the ISA tasks utilizing multi-modal data for real-time ATC environments.To address this gap,by analyzing the situation awareness procedure of the ATCOs,the ISA task is refined to the processing of the two primary elements,i.e.,spoken instructions and flight trajectories.Subsequently,the ISA is further formulated into Controlling Intent Understanding(CIU)and Flight Trajectory Prediction(FTP)tasks.For the CIU task,an innovative automatic speech recognition and understanding framework is designed to extract the controlling intent from unstructured and continuous ATC communications.For the FTP task,the single-and multi-horizon FTP approaches are investigated to support the high-precision prediction of the situation evolution.A total of 32 unimodal/multi-modal advanced methods with extensive evaluation metrics are introduced to conduct the benchmarks on the real-world multi-modal ATC situation dataset.Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of AI-based techniques in enhancing ISA for the ATC environment.展开更多
Extracting data from visually rich documents and charts using traditional methods that rely on OCR-based parsing poses multiple challenges,including layout complexity in unstructured formats,limitations in recognizing...Extracting data from visually rich documents and charts using traditional methods that rely on OCR-based parsing poses multiple challenges,including layout complexity in unstructured formats,limitations in recognizing visual elements,and the correlation between different parts of the documents,as well as domain-specific semantics.Simply extracting text is not sufficient;advanced reasoning capabilities are proving to be essential to analyze content and answer questions accurately.This paper aims to evaluate the ability of the Large Language Models(LLMs)to correctly answer questions about various types of charts,comparing their performance when using images as input versus directly parsing PDF files.To retrieve the images from the PDF,ColPali,a model leveraging state-of-the-art visual languagemodels,is used to identify the relevant page containing the appropriate chart for each question.Google’s Gemini multimodal models were used to answer a set of questions through two approaches:1)processing images derived from PDF documents and 2)directly utilizing the content of the same PDFs.Our findings underscore the limitations of traditional OCR-based approaches in visual document understanding(VrDU)and demonstrate the advantages of multimodal methods in both data extraction and reasoning tasks.Through structured benchmarking of chart question answering(CQA)across input formats,our work contributes to the advancement of chart understanding(CU)and the broader field of multimodal document analysis.Using two diverse and information-rich sources:the World Health Statistics 2024 report by theWorld Health Organisation and the Global Banking Annual Review 2024 by McKinsey&Company,we examine the performance ofmultimodal LLMs across different input modalities,comparing their effectiveness in processing charts as images versus parsing directly from PDF content.These documents were selected due to their multimodal nature,combining dense textual analysis with varied visual representations,thus presenting realistic challenges for vision-language models.This comparison is aimed at assessing how advanced models perform with different input formats and to determine if an image-based approach enhances chart comprehension in terms of accurate data extraction and reasoning capabilities.展开更多
Calvin Wee first set foot in China at the age of 14—not for a diplomatic forum or a youth initiative,but on a week-long school trip to Guangzhou.Yet even then,the experience left a lasting impression.“We visited a l...Calvin Wee first set foot in China at the age of 14—not for a diplomatic forum or a youth initiative,but on a week-long school trip to Guangzhou.Yet even then,the experience left a lasting impression.“We visited a local school and sat in on several classes,”he recalled.“The math lessons stood out—the students’intensity and focus were striking.In Singapore,we study hard,but this was on another level.”That early glimpse into China’s education system stayed with him,and years later,it resurfaced as he began to engage more deeply with the Chinese language and culture.A pocket-sized wuxia xiaoshuo(martial arts novel),picked up on a whim in a Guangzhou bookstore,opened the door to martial arts fiction—and sparked a lasting interest in Chinese literature and,eventually,China Studies.展开更多
This study examines the relationship between On-site Learning and Students’Mindfulness,Conceptual Understanding and Academic Performance in Chemistry amidst Nigerians Insecurity while focusing on the Mole-Concept in ...This study examines the relationship between On-site Learning and Students’Mindfulness,Conceptual Understanding and Academic Performance in Chemistry amidst Nigerians Insecurity while focusing on the Mole-Concept in Gwale secondary schools,Kano-Nigeria.The correlational research design was engaged in the study.A sample of 181-respondents consisting 91-male and 90-female students,from eight secondary schools in Gwale Education Zone was drawn from the study area using Simple random sampling technique.The instruments of data collection include the Questionnaire on Classroom Attendance,Students’Mindfulness and Conceptual Understanding of Mole-Concept(QCASMCUMC)with a reliability index of 0.87 and Mole-Concept Achievement Test(MCAT)with a reliability index of 0.98.The statistics used for data analyses include;mean and Spearman’s rank order Correlation.Results of the study reveal a significant influence of on-site learning on students’mindfulness as well as on-site learning on Academic performance.However,no significant influence of on-site learning was found on students’Conceptual understanding of Mole Concept.The study recommends among others that government should provide transportation allowance for students to cushion the impact of economic hardship on students’on-site learning in Gwale Zone of Kano State,Nigeria.展开更多
Iince rising to fame in 1987 on the television drama Sunshine After Rain,Singaporean artist Edmund Chen has starred in many films and TV series.He has also been active in theatre,hosting programs,and-more recently-pub...Iince rising to fame in 1987 on the television drama Sunshine After Rain,Singaporean artist Edmund Chen has starred in many films and TV series.He has also been active in theatre,hosting programs,and-more recently-publishing.Chen has authored 15 picture books and two art activity books for children,earning recognition as Southeast Asia’s Best Emerging Children’s Author.Today,he remains a prominent figure in public,not just as an actor but also as a writer and illustrator.展开更多
Based on the ADDIE model,we explored the integration path between Understanding Contemporary China:An English Reading and Writing Textbook and the main textbook of college English reading.Firstly,the basis of textbook...Based on the ADDIE model,we explored the integration path between Understanding Contemporary China:An English Reading and Writing Textbook and the main textbook of college English reading.Firstly,the basis of textbook integration was analyzed,followed by an explanation of the overall design scheme of textbook integration,and then a series of teaching resources were initially developed and used in teaching practice.Through testing,it was found that the integrative teaching of the two sets of textbooks under the ADDIE model achieved good teaching results,and promoted the three aspects of reading literacy,disciplinary literacy,and value leadership.展开更多
This study examines the application of the Understanding by Design(UbD)approach to enhance students’cognitive,affective,and psychomotor learning domains,as well as their intercultural communication competence,in the ...This study examines the application of the Understanding by Design(UbD)approach to enhance students’cognitive,affective,and psychomotor learning domains,as well as their intercultural communication competence,in the Introduction to Chinese Culture course.UbD,a curriculum design framework emphasizing deep understanding over rote memorization,employs a“backward design”process to help students achieve a profound comprehension of Chinese culture and its modern implications.Through this approach,students also develop critical intercultural communication skills.The study offers helpful strategies for integrating English language teaching with Chinese cultural education,providing practical insights for curriculum development that bridges linguistic and cultural learning.展开更多
The article analyzes the translations,performances and the reception of traditional Chinese plays in the English-speaking world from the mid-and-late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century.We found that the...The article analyzes the translations,performances and the reception of traditional Chinese plays in the English-speaking world from the mid-and-late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century.We found that the reception underwent two phases featuring self-centered and multicultural respectively.In the first phase,the English-speaking world acknowledged the moral values of traditional Chinese plays but it did not accept their aesthetic values while in the second phase,aesthetic values became the focus and were received through translations,studies and performances.The two phases differed significantly.The first phase was characterized by the initial contacts and exchanges between the plays and the English culture as well as obvious cultural misunderstandings.During the second phase,moral and aesthetic values were gradually accepted.Text translations,theatrical studies and performances were flourishing while cultural misunderstandings decreased remarkably.The two stages demonstrate the general result of the Chinese culture’s historical process of“going global”.The reception of Chinese culture by other cultures often started with cultural utilization,accompanied by obvious cultural misunderstandings.With the deepening of contacts and exchanges between the two cultures,however,the host culture began to gain a better understanding of the intrinsic values of Chinese culture and therefore cultural misunderstandings decreased.Cultural misunderstandings are an inevitable historical process that the Chinese culture would experience during its“going global”.With continuing and expanded exposures,the intrinsic values of Chinese culture will continue to manifest themselves.展开更多
Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative joint disease and a major cause of pain and disability in adult individuals. The etiology of OA includes joint injury, obesity, aging, and heredity. However, the d...Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative joint disease and a major cause of pain and disability in adult individuals. The etiology of OA includes joint injury, obesity, aging, and heredity. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms of OA initiation and progression remain poorly understood and, currently, there are no interventions available to restore degraded cartilage or decelerate disease progression. The diathrodial joint is a complicated organ and its function is to bear weight, perform physical activity and exhibit a joint-specific range of motion during movement. During OA development, the entire joint organ is affected, including articular cartilage, subchondral bone, synovial tissue and meniscus. A full understanding of the pathological mechanism of OA development relies on the discovery of the interplaying mechanisms among different OA symptoms, including articular cartilage degradation, osteophyte formation, subchondral sclerosis and synovial hyperplasia, and the signaling pathway(s) controlling these pathological processes.展开更多
Through detailed analyses of the distribution characteristics of organic-rich shale, appearance features of high-quality shale, microscopic characteristics of shale reservoir rocks, fracability, and the relationship b...Through detailed analyses of the distribution characteristics of organic-rich shale, appearance features of high-quality shale, microscopic characteristics of shale reservoir rocks, fracability, and the relationship between preservation conditions and shale gas enrichment in Upper Ordovician Wufeng Formation-Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation in Sichuan Basin, theoretical understandings and specific suggestions with respect to the exploration and development of shale gas in China are summarized and proposed respectively. Important geological understandings in the exploration and development of shale gas of the Wufeng Formation–Longmaxi Formation in the Sichuan Basin can be summarized into the following aspects: depositional environment and depositional process control the distribution of organic-rich shale; high quality shale in "sweet spot segments" are commonly characterized by high content of organic carbon, high brittleness, high porosity and gas content; organic pores are important storage space for the enrichment of shale gas; preservation conditions are the key factor for the geological evaluation of shale gas in structurally complex regions; shale gas can be considered as "artificial gas reservoirs" and the fracability assessment is essential for high-production; nanoscale storage space and the mode of occurrence control the special seepage characteristics of shale gas. The following suggestions are proposed for the development of China's shale gas industry:(1) focus more on fundamental research to achieve new breakthrough in the geological theory of shale gas;(2) emphasize exploration practices to have all-round discoveries in multiple strata;(3) study the regularities of development and production to establish new models of shale gas development;(4) think creatively to invent new technologies to tackle key problems;(5) explore the management innovation to create new mechanisms in shale gas development.展开更多
Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction(CO2RR)provides a promising way to convert CO2to chemicals.The multicarbon(C2+)products,especially ethylene,are of great interest due to their versatile indust...Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction(CO2RR)provides a promising way to convert CO2to chemicals.The multicarbon(C2+)products,especially ethylene,are of great interest due to their versatile industrial applications.However,selectively reducing CO2to ethylene is still challenging as the additional energy required for the C–C coupling step results in large overpotential and many competing products.Nonetheless,mechanistic understanding of the key steps and preferred reaction pathways/conditions,as well as rational design of novel catalysts for ethylene production have been regarded as promising approaches to achieving the highly efficient and selective CO2RR.In this review,we first illustrate the key steps for CO2RR to ethylene(e.g.,CO2adsorption/activation,formation of~*CO intermediate,C–C coupling step),offering mechanistic understanding of CO2RR conversion to ethylene.Then the alternative reaction pathways and conditions for the formation of ethylene and competitive products(C_1 and other C2+products)are investigated,guiding the further design and development of preferred conditions for ethylene generation.Engineering strategies of Cu-based catalysts for CO2RR-ethylene are further summarized,and the correlations of reaction mechanism/pathways,engineering strategies and selectivity are elaborated.Finally,major challenges and perspectives in the research area of CO2RR are proposed for future development and practical applications.展开更多
Zinc-air batteries(ZABs)are promising energy storage systems because of high theoretical energy density,safety,low cost,and abundance of zinc.However,the slow multi-step reaction of oxygen and heavy reliance on noble-...Zinc-air batteries(ZABs)are promising energy storage systems because of high theoretical energy density,safety,low cost,and abundance of zinc.However,the slow multi-step reaction of oxygen and heavy reliance on noble-metal catalysts hinder the practical applications of ZABs.Therefore,feasible and advanced non-noble-metal elec-trocatalysts for air cathodes need to be identified to promote the oxygen catalytic reaction.In this review,we initially introduced the advancement of ZABs in the past two decades and provided an overview of key developments in this field.Then,we discussed the work-ing mechanism and the design of bifunctional electrocatalysts from the perspective of morphology design,crystal structure tuning,interface strategy,and atomic engineering.We also included theoretical studies,machine learning,and advanced characterization technologies to provide a comprehensive understanding of the structure-performance relationship of electrocatalysts and the reaction pathways of the oxygen redox reactions.Finally,we discussed the challenges and prospects related to designing advanced non-noble-metal bifunctional electrocatalysts for ZABs.展开更多
Realizing autonomy is a hot research topic for automatic vehicles in recent years. For a long time, most of the efforts to this goal concentrate on understanding the scenes surrounding the ego-vehicle(autonomous vehi...Realizing autonomy is a hot research topic for automatic vehicles in recent years. For a long time, most of the efforts to this goal concentrate on understanding the scenes surrounding the ego-vehicle(autonomous vehicle itself). By completing lowlevel vision tasks, such as detection, tracking and segmentation of the surrounding traffic participants, e.g., pedestrian, cyclists and vehicles, the scenes can be interpreted. However, for an autonomous vehicle, low-level vision tasks are largely insufficient to give help to comprehensive scene understanding. What are and how about the past, the on-going and the future of the scene participants? This deep question actually steers the vehicles towards truly full automation, just like human beings. Based on this thoughtfulness, this paper attempts to investigate the interpretation of traffic scene in autonomous driving from an event reasoning view. To reach this goal, we study the most relevant literatures and the state-of-the-arts on scene representation, event detection and intention prediction in autonomous driving. In addition, we also discuss the open challenges and problems in this field and endeavor to provide possible solutions.展开更多
Our planet, Earth, contains an enormous amount of heat just right under our feet. Harnessing this heat from 2 to 5 krn below is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, because this can solve many of the curre...Our planet, Earth, contains an enormous amount of heat just right under our feet. Harnessing this heat from 2 to 5 krn below is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, because this can solve many of the currently urgent problems in mega-cities, such as inexpensive domestic heating and airconditioning, electric power consumption and the cure of ram- pant air pollution. Around 40 TW heat are released at a steady rate by the Earth partly due to natural radioactive decay and partly due to the action inside the core. We would like to stress here that the depth of the isotherm of 200℃ (minimum tem- perature for efficient generation of electricity) varies around the globe. In general, this depth would be less than 10 km deep. Therefore these heat sources would provide ubiquitous ample, clean and sustainable electricity. In addition to this sustainable resource the potential of geothermal energy use is much greater, because it allows effective heat mining of the Earth. Geothermal energy is most commonly exploited in volcanic areas where magma is close to the surface and brings up the heat from deeper down. The largest geothermal power plant of this style is the Geysers in California, which with 1 GW power production rivals nuclear power plants.展开更多
In this paper,we propose a Structure-Aware Fusion Network(SAFNet)for 3D scene understanding.As 2D images present more detailed information while 3D point clouds convey more geometric information,fusing the two complem...In this paper,we propose a Structure-Aware Fusion Network(SAFNet)for 3D scene understanding.As 2D images present more detailed information while 3D point clouds convey more geometric information,fusing the two complementary data can improve the discriminative ability of the model.Fusion is a very challenging task since 2D and 3D data are essentially different and show different formats.The existing methods first extract 2D multi-view image features and then aggregate them into sparse 3D point clouds and achieve superior performance.However,the existing methods ignore the structural relations between pixels and point clouds and directly fuse the two modals of data without adaptation.To address this,we propose a structural deep metric learning method on pixels and points to explore the relations and further utilize them to adaptively map the images and point clouds into a common canonical space for prediction.Extensive experiments on the widely used ScanNetV2 and S3DIS datasets verify the performance of the proposed SAFNet.展开更多
The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate system during recent decades are one of the most prominent features of global climate change.Two most striking and fundamental characteristics are the amplified near-surface ...The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate system during recent decades are one of the most prominent features of global climate change.Two most striking and fundamental characteristics are the amplified near-surface warming at a rate twice the global average since the mid 20th century(e.g.,Blunden and Arndt,2012;Huang et al.,2017),and the rapid展开更多
Dear editor, We read with pleasure the well-designed study by Butler et al of electrical cardioversion of emergency department patients with atrial fibrillation. We appreciate their analysis of the distinctives of pro...Dear editor, We read with pleasure the well-designed study by Butler et al of electrical cardioversion of emergency department patients with atrial fibrillation. We appreciate their analysis of the distinctives of procedural sedation when employed for this indication. Understanding the dosing adjustments to propofol undertaken by their sedationists will help us more carefully evaluate our own approach to sedating patients undergoing electrical cardioversion of atrial fibrillation.展开更多
In 2012, we published the first special issue on mechanisms of pain and itch in Neuroscience Bulletin, which covered the peripheral, central, and glial mechanisms of pain and itch [1-5]. In the last 5 years, the field...In 2012, we published the first special issue on mechanisms of pain and itch in Neuroscience Bulletin, which covered the peripheral, central, and glial mechanisms of pain and itch [1-5]. In the last 5 years, the field has seen tremendous progress in the molecular and functional characterization of primary sensory neurons [6, 7], neurocircuits of pain and itch [8-10], immune and glial modulation of pain and itch [11-15], molecular mechanisms of pain [16, 17], and identification of brain signatures of pain [18]. Thus, it is timely to highlight the recent progress in a second special issue. I invited the previous authors and new authors from China, the USA, and Japan, and they have contributed 20 mini-reviews and original articles to this special issue.展开更多
Rice tiller is a specialized grain-bearing branch that contrib- utes greatly to grain production. Therefore, rice tillering is an important agronomic trait and provides a model system for the study of branching in mon...Rice tiller is a specialized grain-bearing branch that contrib- utes greatly to grain production. Therefore, rice tillering is an important agronomic trait and provides a model system for the study of branching in monocots. Owing its importance both to agriculture and to fundamental science, much attention has been given to understand the molecular mechanisms under- lying rice tillering.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.52572349,U2033215,U2133210)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities,China(No.YWF-24-JT-102)。
摘要Flight situational awareness in civil aviation relies on the semantic understanding of both the key details and the full picture from the Air Traffic Controller(ATCo)and pilot communication.This paper proposes a novel end-to-end Multi-Task Hierarchical Network(MTHN)for automatically understanding ATCo-pilot communication,handling slot filling,role detection,and intent recognition at different levels while adaptively integrating them.Specifically,we introduce a wordbased knowledge-masked slot distillation module that constructs an ATC knowledge base to dynamically mask keywords during teacher-student distillation.Considering the distinct intent differences between ATCos and pilots,we design a sentence-based role-aware intent attention module that extracts role label space vectors as context to enrich intent representations.To exploit the complementarity across different semantic levels in ATCo-pilot communication,we explicitly develop an adaptive bi-interaction flow module that dynamically explores semantic dependencies among tasks.Extensive experiments on real-world datasets collected in China show the superior performance of MTHN,compared to state-of-the-art baselines in both general natural language understanding and ATC-specific text processing.Our results highlight that MTHN achieves 99.26%,97.25%,and 96.22%accuracy across key slots,as well as 96.59%accuracy in speaker role classification.Moreover,it can perceive multi-label deep intents behind sentences.These analytical findings demonstrate the potential to reduce human errors in high-concurrency ATCo-pilot interactions under dense operational conditions.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.62371323,62401380,U2433217,U2333209,and U20A20161)Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province,China(Nos.2025ZNSFSC1476)+2 种基金Sichuan Science and Technology Program,China(Nos.2024YFG0010 and 2024ZDZX0046)the Institutional Research Fund from Sichuan University(Nos.2024SCUQJTX030)the Open Fund of Key Laboratory of Flight Techniques and Flight Safety,CAAC(Nos.GY2024-01A).
摘要With the advent of the next-generation Air Traffic Control(ATC)system,there is growing interest in using Artificial Intelligence(AI)techniques to enhance Situation Awareness(SA)for ATC Controllers(ATCOs),i.e.,Intelligent SA(ISA).However,the existing AI-based SA approaches often rely on unimodal data and lack a comprehensive description and benchmark of the ISA tasks utilizing multi-modal data for real-time ATC environments.To address this gap,by analyzing the situation awareness procedure of the ATCOs,the ISA task is refined to the processing of the two primary elements,i.e.,spoken instructions and flight trajectories.Subsequently,the ISA is further formulated into Controlling Intent Understanding(CIU)and Flight Trajectory Prediction(FTP)tasks.For the CIU task,an innovative automatic speech recognition and understanding framework is designed to extract the controlling intent from unstructured and continuous ATC communications.For the FTP task,the single-and multi-horizon FTP approaches are investigated to support the high-precision prediction of the situation evolution.A total of 32 unimodal/multi-modal advanced methods with extensive evaluation metrics are introduced to conduct the benchmarks on the real-world multi-modal ATC situation dataset.Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of AI-based techniques in enhancing ISA for the ATC environment.
基金supported by a grant from the Ministry of Research,Innovation and Digitization,CNCS/CCCDI-UEFISCDI,project number COFUND-CETP-SMART-LEM-1,within PNCDI Ⅳ.
摘要Extracting data from visually rich documents and charts using traditional methods that rely on OCR-based parsing poses multiple challenges,including layout complexity in unstructured formats,limitations in recognizing visual elements,and the correlation between different parts of the documents,as well as domain-specific semantics.Simply extracting text is not sufficient;advanced reasoning capabilities are proving to be essential to analyze content and answer questions accurately.This paper aims to evaluate the ability of the Large Language Models(LLMs)to correctly answer questions about various types of charts,comparing their performance when using images as input versus directly parsing PDF files.To retrieve the images from the PDF,ColPali,a model leveraging state-of-the-art visual languagemodels,is used to identify the relevant page containing the appropriate chart for each question.Google’s Gemini multimodal models were used to answer a set of questions through two approaches:1)processing images derived from PDF documents and 2)directly utilizing the content of the same PDFs.Our findings underscore the limitations of traditional OCR-based approaches in visual document understanding(VrDU)and demonstrate the advantages of multimodal methods in both data extraction and reasoning tasks.Through structured benchmarking of chart question answering(CQA)across input formats,our work contributes to the advancement of chart understanding(CU)and the broader field of multimodal document analysis.Using two diverse and information-rich sources:the World Health Statistics 2024 report by theWorld Health Organisation and the Global Banking Annual Review 2024 by McKinsey&Company,we examine the performance ofmultimodal LLMs across different input modalities,comparing their effectiveness in processing charts as images versus parsing directly from PDF content.These documents were selected due to their multimodal nature,combining dense textual analysis with varied visual representations,thus presenting realistic challenges for vision-language models.This comparison is aimed at assessing how advanced models perform with different input formats and to determine if an image-based approach enhances chart comprehension in terms of accurate data extraction and reasoning capabilities.
摘要Calvin Wee first set foot in China at the age of 14—not for a diplomatic forum or a youth initiative,but on a week-long school trip to Guangzhou.Yet even then,the experience left a lasting impression.“We visited a local school and sat in on several classes,”he recalled.“The math lessons stood out—the students’intensity and focus were striking.In Singapore,we study hard,but this was on another level.”That early glimpse into China’s education system stayed with him,and years later,it resurfaced as he began to engage more deeply with the Chinese language and culture.A pocket-sized wuxia xiaoshuo(martial arts novel),picked up on a whim in a Guangzhou bookstore,opened the door to martial arts fiction—and sparked a lasting interest in Chinese literature and,eventually,China Studies.
摘要This study examines the relationship between On-site Learning and Students’Mindfulness,Conceptual Understanding and Academic Performance in Chemistry amidst Nigerians Insecurity while focusing on the Mole-Concept in Gwale secondary schools,Kano-Nigeria.The correlational research design was engaged in the study.A sample of 181-respondents consisting 91-male and 90-female students,from eight secondary schools in Gwale Education Zone was drawn from the study area using Simple random sampling technique.The instruments of data collection include the Questionnaire on Classroom Attendance,Students’Mindfulness and Conceptual Understanding of Mole-Concept(QCASMCUMC)with a reliability index of 0.87 and Mole-Concept Achievement Test(MCAT)with a reliability index of 0.98.The statistics used for data analyses include;mean and Spearman’s rank order Correlation.Results of the study reveal a significant influence of on-site learning on students’mindfulness as well as on-site learning on Academic performance.However,no significant influence of on-site learning was found on students’Conceptual understanding of Mole Concept.The study recommends among others that government should provide transportation allowance for students to cushion the impact of economic hardship on students’on-site learning in Gwale Zone of Kano State,Nigeria.
摘要Iince rising to fame in 1987 on the television drama Sunshine After Rain,Singaporean artist Edmund Chen has starred in many films and TV series.He has also been active in theatre,hosting programs,and-more recently-publishing.Chen has authored 15 picture books and two art activity books for children,earning recognition as Southeast Asia’s Best Emerging Children’s Author.Today,he remains a prominent figure in public,not just as an actor but also as a writer and illustrator.
基金funded by Project Information:2022 Guangzhou Municipal Higher Education Teaching Research and Reform Key Research Project:“Innovation and Practice of English Reading Curriculum Ideological and Political in Colleges and Universities:A Study on the Integration of Understanding Contemporary China:An English Reading and Writing Textbook and English Reading Teaching”(2023JGZDXM001).
摘要Based on the ADDIE model,we explored the integration path between Understanding Contemporary China:An English Reading and Writing Textbook and the main textbook of college English reading.Firstly,the basis of textbook integration was analyzed,followed by an explanation of the overall design scheme of textbook integration,and then a series of teaching resources were initially developed and used in teaching practice.Through testing,it was found that the integrative teaching of the two sets of textbooks under the ADDIE model achieved good teaching results,and promoted the three aspects of reading literacy,disciplinary literacy,and value leadership.
基金The 2022 Guangdong Provincial Higher Education Teaching Quality and Reform Project“Research and Practice of English Teaching Integrating Ideological and Political Education into the Introduction to Chinese Culture Course Based on UbD Theory”。
摘要This study examines the application of the Understanding by Design(UbD)approach to enhance students’cognitive,affective,and psychomotor learning domains,as well as their intercultural communication competence,in the Introduction to Chinese Culture course.UbD,a curriculum design framework emphasizing deep understanding over rote memorization,employs a“backward design”process to help students achieve a profound comprehension of Chinese culture and its modern implications.Through this approach,students also develop critical intercultural communication skills.The study offers helpful strategies for integrating English language teaching with Chinese cultural education,providing practical insights for curriculum development that bridges linguistic and cultural learning.
摘要The article analyzes the translations,performances and the reception of traditional Chinese plays in the English-speaking world from the mid-and-late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century.We found that the reception underwent two phases featuring self-centered and multicultural respectively.In the first phase,the English-speaking world acknowledged the moral values of traditional Chinese plays but it did not accept their aesthetic values while in the second phase,aesthetic values became the focus and were received through translations,studies and performances.The two phases differed significantly.The first phase was characterized by the initial contacts and exchanges between the plays and the English culture as well as obvious cultural misunderstandings.During the second phase,moral and aesthetic values were gradually accepted.Text translations,theatrical studies and performances were flourishing while cultural misunderstandings decreased remarkably.The two stages demonstrate the general result of the Chinese culture’s historical process of“going global”.The reception of Chinese culture by other cultures often started with cultural utilization,accompanied by obvious cultural misunderstandings.With the deepening of contacts and exchanges between the two cultures,however,the host culture began to gain a better understanding of the intrinsic values of Chinese culture and therefore cultural misunderstandings decreased.Cultural misunderstandings are an inevitable historical process that the Chinese culture would experience during its“going global”.With continuing and expanded exposures,the intrinsic values of Chinese culture will continue to manifest themselves.
基金supported by NIH grants AR055915 and AR054465 to DC
摘要Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common degenerative joint disease and a major cause of pain and disability in adult individuals. The etiology of OA includes joint injury, obesity, aging, and heredity. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms of OA initiation and progression remain poorly understood and, currently, there are no interventions available to restore degraded cartilage or decelerate disease progression. The diathrodial joint is a complicated organ and its function is to bear weight, perform physical activity and exhibit a joint-specific range of motion during movement. During OA development, the entire joint organ is affected, including articular cartilage, subchondral bone, synovial tissue and meniscus. A full understanding of the pathological mechanism of OA development relies on the discovery of the interplaying mechanisms among different OA symptoms, including articular cartilage degradation, osteophyte formation, subchondral sclerosis and synovial hyperplasia, and the signaling pathway(s) controlling these pathological processes.
基金Supported by the Chinese Academy of Engineering Consultancy Project(2018-xz-09-01)
摘要Through detailed analyses of the distribution characteristics of organic-rich shale, appearance features of high-quality shale, microscopic characteristics of shale reservoir rocks, fracability, and the relationship between preservation conditions and shale gas enrichment in Upper Ordovician Wufeng Formation-Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation in Sichuan Basin, theoretical understandings and specific suggestions with respect to the exploration and development of shale gas in China are summarized and proposed respectively. Important geological understandings in the exploration and development of shale gas of the Wufeng Formation–Longmaxi Formation in the Sichuan Basin can be summarized into the following aspects: depositional environment and depositional process control the distribution of organic-rich shale; high quality shale in "sweet spot segments" are commonly characterized by high content of organic carbon, high brittleness, high porosity and gas content; organic pores are important storage space for the enrichment of shale gas; preservation conditions are the key factor for the geological evaluation of shale gas in structurally complex regions; shale gas can be considered as "artificial gas reservoirs" and the fracability assessment is essential for high-production; nanoscale storage space and the mode of occurrence control the special seepage characteristics of shale gas. The following suggestions are proposed for the development of China's shale gas industry:(1) focus more on fundamental research to achieve new breakthrough in the geological theory of shale gas;(2) emphasize exploration practices to have all-round discoveries in multiple strata;(3) study the regularities of development and production to establish new models of shale gas development;(4) think creatively to invent new technologies to tackle key problems;(5) explore the management innovation to create new mechanisms in shale gas development.
基金financially supported via Australian Research Council(FT180100705)the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(22209103)+3 种基金the support from UTS Chancellor's Research Fellowshipsthe support from Open Project of State Key Laboratory of Advanced Special Steel,the Shanghai Key Laboratory of Advanced Ferrometallurgy,Shanghai University(SKLASS 2021-**)Joint International Laboratory on Environmental and Energy Frontier MaterialsInnovation Research Team of High-Level Local Universities in Shanghai。
摘要Electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction reaction(CO2RR)provides a promising way to convert CO2to chemicals.The multicarbon(C2+)products,especially ethylene,are of great interest due to their versatile industrial applications.However,selectively reducing CO2to ethylene is still challenging as the additional energy required for the C–C coupling step results in large overpotential and many competing products.Nonetheless,mechanistic understanding of the key steps and preferred reaction pathways/conditions,as well as rational design of novel catalysts for ethylene production have been regarded as promising approaches to achieving the highly efficient and selective CO2RR.In this review,we first illustrate the key steps for CO2RR to ethylene(e.g.,CO2adsorption/activation,formation of~*CO intermediate,C–C coupling step),offering mechanistic understanding of CO2RR conversion to ethylene.Then the alternative reaction pathways and conditions for the formation of ethylene and competitive products(C_1 and other C2+products)are investigated,guiding the further design and development of preferred conditions for ethylene generation.Engineering strategies of Cu-based catalysts for CO2RR-ethylene are further summarized,and the correlations of reaction mechanism/pathways,engineering strategies and selectivity are elaborated.Finally,major challenges and perspectives in the research area of CO2RR are proposed for future development and practical applications.
基金the Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No:22309180)Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No:XDB0600000,XDB0600400)+3 种基金Liaoning Binhai Laboratory,(Grant No:LILBLB-2023-04)Dalian Revitalization Talents Program(Grant No:2022RG01)Youth Science and Technology Foundation of Dalian(Grant No:2023RQ015)the University of Waterloo.
摘要Zinc-air batteries(ZABs)are promising energy storage systems because of high theoretical energy density,safety,low cost,and abundance of zinc.However,the slow multi-step reaction of oxygen and heavy reliance on noble-metal catalysts hinder the practical applications of ZABs.Therefore,feasible and advanced non-noble-metal elec-trocatalysts for air cathodes need to be identified to promote the oxygen catalytic reaction.In this review,we initially introduced the advancement of ZABs in the past two decades and provided an overview of key developments in this field.Then,we discussed the work-ing mechanism and the design of bifunctional electrocatalysts from the perspective of morphology design,crystal structure tuning,interface strategy,and atomic engineering.We also included theoretical studies,machine learning,and advanced characterization technologies to provide a comprehensive understanding of the structure-performance relationship of electrocatalysts and the reaction pathways of the oxygen redox reactions.Finally,we discussed the challenges and prospects related to designing advanced non-noble-metal bifunctional electrocatalysts for ZABs.
基金supported by National Key R&D Program Project of China(No.2016YFB1001004)National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.61751308,61603057,61773311)+1 种基金China Postdoctoral Science Foundation(No.2017M613152)Collaborative Research with MSRA
摘要Realizing autonomy is a hot research topic for automatic vehicles in recent years. For a long time, most of the efforts to this goal concentrate on understanding the scenes surrounding the ego-vehicle(autonomous vehicle itself). By completing lowlevel vision tasks, such as detection, tracking and segmentation of the surrounding traffic participants, e.g., pedestrian, cyclists and vehicles, the scenes can be interpreted. However, for an autonomous vehicle, low-level vision tasks are largely insufficient to give help to comprehensive scene understanding. What are and how about the past, the on-going and the future of the scene participants? This deep question actually steers the vehicles towards truly full automation, just like human beings. Based on this thoughtfulness, this paper attempts to investigate the interpretation of traffic scene in autonomous driving from an event reasoning view. To reach this goal, we study the most relevant literatures and the state-of-the-arts on scene representation, event detection and intention prediction in autonomous driving. In addition, we also discuss the open challenges and problems in this field and endeavor to provide possible solutions.
摘要Our planet, Earth, contains an enormous amount of heat just right under our feet. Harnessing this heat from 2 to 5 krn below is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, because this can solve many of the currently urgent problems in mega-cities, such as inexpensive domestic heating and airconditioning, electric power consumption and the cure of ram- pant air pollution. Around 40 TW heat are released at a steady rate by the Earth partly due to natural radioactive decay and partly due to the action inside the core. We would like to stress here that the depth of the isotherm of 200℃ (minimum tem- perature for efficient generation of electricity) varies around the globe. In general, this depth would be less than 10 km deep. Therefore these heat sources would provide ubiquitous ample, clean and sustainable electricity. In addition to this sustainable resource the potential of geothermal energy use is much greater, because it allows effective heat mining of the Earth. Geothermal energy is most commonly exploited in volcanic areas where magma is close to the surface and brings up the heat from deeper down. The largest geothermal power plant of this style is the Geysers in California, which with 1 GW power production rivals nuclear power plants.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.61976023)。
摘要In this paper,we propose a Structure-Aware Fusion Network(SAFNet)for 3D scene understanding.As 2D images present more detailed information while 3D point clouds convey more geometric information,fusing the two complementary data can improve the discriminative ability of the model.Fusion is a very challenging task since 2D and 3D data are essentially different and show different formats.The existing methods first extract 2D multi-view image features and then aggregate them into sparse 3D point clouds and achieve superior performance.However,the existing methods ignore the structural relations between pixels and point clouds and directly fuse the two modals of data without adaptation.To address this,we propose a structural deep metric learning method on pixels and points to explore the relations and further utilize them to adaptively map the images and point clouds into a common canonical space for prediction.Extensive experiments on the widely used ScanNetV2 and S3DIS datasets verify the performance of the proposed SAFNet.
摘要The dramatic changes in the Arctic climate system during recent decades are one of the most prominent features of global climate change.Two most striking and fundamental characteristics are the amplified near-surface warming at a rate twice the global average since the mid 20th century(e.g.,Blunden and Arndt,2012;Huang et al.,2017),and the rapid
摘要Dear editor, We read with pleasure the well-designed study by Butler et al of electrical cardioversion of emergency department patients with atrial fibrillation. We appreciate their analysis of the distinctives of procedural sedation when employed for this indication. Understanding the dosing adjustments to propofol undertaken by their sedationists will help us more carefully evaluate our own approach to sedating patients undergoing electrical cardioversion of atrial fibrillation.
摘要In 2012, we published the first special issue on mechanisms of pain and itch in Neuroscience Bulletin, which covered the peripheral, central, and glial mechanisms of pain and itch [1-5]. In the last 5 years, the field has seen tremendous progress in the molecular and functional characterization of primary sensory neurons [6, 7], neurocircuits of pain and itch [8-10], immune and glial modulation of pain and itch [11-15], molecular mechanisms of pain [16, 17], and identification of brain signatures of pain [18]. Thus, it is timely to highlight the recent progress in a second special issue. I invited the previous authors and new authors from China, the USA, and Japan, and they have contributed 20 mini-reviews and original articles to this special issue.
摘要Rice tiller is a specialized grain-bearing branch that contrib- utes greatly to grain production. Therefore, rice tillering is an important agronomic trait and provides a model system for the study of branching in monocots. Owing its importance both to agriculture and to fundamental science, much attention has been given to understand the molecular mechanisms under- lying rice tillering.