Multi-scale and multi-patch transformer for sandstorm image enhancement

Sandstorm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. A sandstorm can carry large volumes of sand unexpectedly, which leads to severe color deviations and significantly degraded visibility when an image is taken in such a scenario. However, existing image enhancement methods cannot enhance sandstorm images well due to the challenging degradations and the scarcity of sandstorm training data. In this paper, we propose a Transformer with rotary position embedding to perform sandstorm image enhancement via building multi-scale and multi-patch dependencies. Our key insights in this work are 1) a multi-scale Transformer can globally eliminate the color deviations of sandstorm images via aggregating global information, 2) a multi-patch Transformer can recover local details well via learning the spatial variant degradations, and 3) a U-shape Transformer with rotary position embedding as the core unit of multi-scale and multi-patch Transformer can effectively build the long-range dependencies. We also contribute a real-world Sandstorm Image Enhancement (SIE) dataset including 1,400 sandstorm images with different degrees of degradations and various scenes. Experiments performed on synthetic images and real-world sandstorm images demonstrate that our proposed method not only obtains visually pleasing results but also outperforms state-of-the-art methods qualitatively and quantitatively.     

Influence of high energy ball milling on structural,microstructural and optical properties of TiO2 nanoparticles

The influence of high-energy ball milling on structural, microstructural, and optical properties of TiO₂ by modifying the nanoparticle size was studied. Five samples were extracted at different milling times (0, 2, 4, 8, and 13 h). The average particle sizes estimated by dynamic light scattering (DLS) were 205, 155.8, 116.8, 82.9, and 82.7 nm at 0, 2, 4, 8, and 13 h, respectively. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed progressive broadening of the peaks as the milling time elapsed. Besides, a correlation was found between d spacing and the average crystal size. The UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectra of TiO₂ revealed a decrease in reflectance due to particle size reduction. Similarly, an alteration of the bandgap transition energy was presented, whose values gradually decreased from 2.966 eV to 2.861 eV for the sample without and with the maximum duration milling performed (13 h), respectively. Likewise, the SEM analysis showed a distribution in nanoparticle size that became more homogeneous and smaller average grain size as the milling duration was longer.     

高光谱成像用高帧频CMOS图像传感器北大核心

针对高帧频、全局曝光和光谱平坦等成像应用需求,设计了一款高光谱成像用CMOS图像传感器。其光敏元采用PN型光电二极管,读出电路采用5T像素结构。采用列读出电路以及高速多通道模拟信号并行读出的设计方案来获得低像素固定图像噪声(FPN)和非均匀性抑制。芯片采用ASMC 0.35μm三层金属两层多晶硅标准CMOS工艺流片,为了抑制光电二极管的光谱干涉效应,后续进行了光谱平坦化VAE特殊工艺,并对器件的光电性能进行了测试评估。电路测试结果符合理论设计预期,成像效果良好,像素具备积分可调和全局快门功能,最终实现的像素规模为512×256,像元尺寸为30μm×30μm,最大满阱电子为400 ke^(-),FPN小于0.2%,动态范围为72 dB,帧频为450 f/s,相邻10 nm波段范围内量子效率相差小于10%,可满足高光谱成像系统对CMOS成像器件的要求。     

The phosphorescence emission in undoped lead-halide Cs4PbBr6 single crystals at low temperature

Recently, all-inorganic cesium lead-halide perovskites have shown their promise for light emission applications, due to the excellent optical performance. Herein, we report that the initially nonphosphorescent undoped lead-halide Cs₄PbBr₆ single crystals (SCs) exhibit an ultralong phosphorescence emission under X-ray excitation at low temperatures. It is shown that the dramatic change has been taken place in radioluminescence spectra and the broad-band emission gradually appeared with the decrease of temperature. Below 210 K, the radioluminescence spectra can be deconvoluted into one narrow peak located at 530 nm and two broad peaks centered at 595 nm and 672 nm respectively. Subsequently, the time-dependent radioluminescence spectra in undoped lead-halide Cs₄PbBr₆ SCs were investigated. The ultralong phosphorescence emission can persist over 120 min at 70 K. We consider that ultralong phosphorescence originates from defect-related emission. To the best of our knowledge, our finding is the first time that undoped Cs₄PbBr₆ SCs exhibit the phosphorescence emission, which will offer a paradigm to motivate revolutionary applications on perovskite.     

基于改进残差特征蒸馏的轻量级超分辨率网络

基于深度学习的图像超分辨率算法通常采用递归的方式或参数共享的策略来减少网络参数，这将增加网络的深度，使得运行网络花费大量的时间，从而很难将模型部署到现实生活中。为了解决上述问题，本文设计一种轻量级超分辨率网络，对中间特征的关联性及重要性进行学习，且在重建部分结合高分辨率图像的特征信息。首先，引入层间注意力模块，通过考虑层与层之间的相关性，自适应地分配重要层次特征的权重。其次，使用增强重建模块提取高分辨率图像中更精细的特征信息，以此得到更加清晰的重建图片。通过大量的对比实验表明，本文设计的网络与其他轻量级模型相比，有更小的网络参数量，并且在重建精度和视觉效果上都有一定的提升。     

煤矿水仓清理新工艺

通过调研现场情况以及检测煤泥特性，探寻一种实用性强、方法简单的新工艺来替代劳累的人工和繁琐的机械清淤，解决现实问题。针对实际情况开发清仓新工艺，介绍了该工艺的技术路线选择、设计依据以及实际应用效果。该新工艺具有降低清仓时间、减轻工人劳动强度、设备操作简单、实用性强等特点。     

矿用履带式运输车在复杂开采条件下的应用

为了方便煤炭的运输，某矿使用了矿用履带式搬运车。履带运输车解决了轮式运输车在恶劣道路条件下不能行走的问题，这种履带车是一种新型的运输工具，其特点是体积小、转弯灵活、动力强大，可在不受场地限制的情况下轻松通过狭窄的地方，能有效解决山区、土壤、陡坡等恶劣条件下物料的运输问题，适合普通运输车辆无法通行的地方。介绍了矿用履带式搬运车的主要结构以及工作原理，并给出了实际应用中应注意的事项。     

Experimental study on uplift behavior of shallow anchor plates in geogrid-reinforced soil

Geogrid reinforcement can significantly improve the uplift bearing capacity of anchor plates. However, the failure mechanism of anchor plates in reinforced soil and the contribution of geogrids need further investigation. This paper presents an experimental study on the anchor uplift behavior in geogrid-reinforced soil using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and the high-resolution optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR). A series of model tests were performed to identify the relationship between the failure mechanism and various factors, such as anchor embedment ratio, number of geogrid layers, and their location. The test results indicate that soil deformation and the uplift resistance of anchor plates are substantially influenced by anchor embedment ratio and location of geogrids, whereas the number of geogrid layers has limited influence. In reinforced soil, increasing the embedment ratio greatly improves the ultimate bearing capacities of anchor plates and affects the interlock between the soil and geogrids. As the embedment depth increases, the failure surfaces gradually change from a vertical slip surface to a bulb-shaped surface that is limited within the soil. The strain monitoring data shows that the deformations of geogrids are symmetrical, and the peak strains of geogrids can characterize the reinforcing effects.     

Accelerating BPC-PaCo through Visually Lossless Techniques

Fast image codecs are a current need in applications that deal with large amounts of images. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are suitable processors to speed up most kinds of algorithms, especially when they allow fine-grain parallelism. Bitplane Coding with Parallel Coefficient processing (BPC-PaCo) is a recently proposed algorithm for the core stage of wavelet-based image codecs tailored for the highly parallel architectures of GPUs. This algorithm provides complexity scalability to allow faster execution at the expense of coding efficiency. Its main drawback is that the speedup and loss in image quality is controlled only roughly, resulting in visible distortion at low and medium rates. This paper addresses this issue by integrating techniques of visually lossless coding into BPC-PaCo. The resulting method minimizes the visual distortion introduced in the compressed file, obtaining higher-quality images to a human observer. Experimental results also indicate 12% speedups with respect to BPC-PaCo.