Surface Control and Electrical Tuning of MXene Electrode for Flexible Self-Powered Human–Machine Interaction

MXene materials emerge as promising candidates for energy harvesting and storage application. In this study, the effect of the surface chemistry on the work function of MXenes, which determines the performance of MXene-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), is elucidated. First-principles calculations reveal that the surface functional group greatly influences MXene work function:  OH termination reduces the work function with respect to that of bare surface, while  F and  Cl increase it. Then, work functions are experimentally determined by Kelvin probe force microscopy. The MXene prepared by gentle etching at 40 °C for 48 h (GE_40/48) has the largest work function. Furthermore, an electron-cloud potential-well model is established to explain the mechanism of electron emission-dominated charge transfer and assemble a triboelectric device to verify experimentally its conclusions. It is found that GE_40/48 has the best performance with a 281 V open-circuit voltage, 9.7 µA short-current current, and storing 1.019 µC of charge, which is consistent with the model. Last, a patterned TENG is demonstrated for self-powered human–machine interaction application. This finding enhances the understanding of the inherent mechanism between the surface structure and the output performance of MXene-based TENG, which can be applied to other TENG based on 2D materials.     

Bio-Inspired Artificial Fast-Adaptive and Slow-Adaptive Mechanoreceptors With Synapse-Like Functions

Development of artificial mechanoreceptors capable of sensing and pre-processing external mechanical stimuli is a crucial step toward constructing neuromorphic perception systems that can learn and store information. Here, bio-inspired artificial fast-adaptive (FA) and slow-adaptive (SA) mechanoreceptors with synapse-like functions are demonstrated for tactile perception. These mechanoreceptors integrate self-powered piezoelectric pressure sensors with synaptic electrolyte-gated field-effect transistors (EGFETs) featuring a reduced graphene oxide channel. The FA pressure sensor is based on a piezoelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF-TrFE)) thin film, while the SA pressure sensor is enabled by a piezoelectric ionogel with the piezoelectric-ionic coupling effect based on P(VDF-TrFE) and an ionic liquid. Changes in post-synaptic current are achieved through the synaptic effect of the EGFET by regulating the amplitude, number, duration, and frequency of tactile stimuli (pre-synaptic pulses). These devices have great potential to serve as artificial biological mechanoreceptors for future artificial neuromorphic perception systems.     

SPIDER: An availability-aware framework for the service function chain placement in distributed scenarios

The network function virtualization (NFV) paradigm replaces hardware-dependent network functions by virtual network functions (VNFs) that can be deployed in commodity hardware, including legacy servers. Consequently, the use of NFV is expected to reduce operating and capital expenses, as well as improve service deployment operation and management flexibility. For many use cases, the VNFs must be visited and invoked following a specific order of execution in order to compose a complete network service, named service function chain (SFC). Nonetheless, despite the benefits from NFV and SFC virtualization technologies, their introduction must not harm network performance and service availability. On the one hand, redundancy is seen by network service planners as a mechanism well established to combat availability issues. At same time, there is a goal to optimize resource utilization in order to reduce operational expenditure. In this article, we share our experience in the design use of a framework, named SPIDER, focused on SFC placement that considers the network infrastructure condition and the required SFC availability to define the placement strategy. The SPIDER monitors the status of infrastructure nodes and links and defines which servers the VNFs should be placed on and the number of redundant replicas needed. We present a proof-of-concept of SPIDER using Kubernetes to launch the VNFs as containers. We also use Kubernetes to forward the traffic between the VNFs, composing the service chain. We perform experiments to evaluate the runtime of SPIDER and the SFC delay under different network conditions.     

Human visual sensitivity based optimal local backlight dimming methodologies under different viewing conditions

An adaptive local backlight dimming algorithm is proposed considering human visual sensitivities under various viewing conditions. Local dimming amount is maximized based on contrast sensitivity function and local image characteristics to minimize perceived luminance and contrast losses maintaining image qualities. Average luminance, contrast and spatial frequency are evaluated as local image characteristics. As dimming based on local characteristics has blocking artifacts, a compensation method using edge luminance difference is proposed considering human responses. The proposed algorithms reduce backlight power consumption by 39.69% on average, with an average SSIM of 0.995. It can be increased by 5.66% with varying viewing conditions, resulting in a 45.35% power consumption reduction on average. The outperformances of the proposed algorithm in power consumption reduction and maintaining image quality are verified with various image quality metrics compared to recent dimming algorithms.     

基于重建误差的任务型对话未知意图检测

现有未知意图检测模型通常将语句映射到向量空间,并使用局部异常因子算法定义密度较小的特征点为未知意图,但经交叉熵损失训练的已知意图特征簇更加狭长,簇内的整体间距、密度和分散情况不均匀,进而增加了检测难度。针对上述问题,提出一种基于自动编码器重建误差的未知意图检测模型。在训练阶段,使用融入标签知识的联合损失函数训练已知意图分类器,使已知意图特征类间距离大且类内距离小,并利用这些特征训练一个仅能获取已知意图信息的自动编码器。在测试阶段,利用自动编码器将重建误差较大的样本视为未知意图,其余样本视为已知意图正常分类。在SNIPS数据集上的实验结果表明,在已知意图占比为25%、50%、75%时,该模型的Macro F1得分相比于表现最优的增强语义的高斯混合损失基线模型分别提升了16.93%、1.14%和2.37%,能够检测到更多的未知意图样本,同时在类别分布极不平衡的ATIS数据集上也有较好的性能表现。     

基于改进YOLOv7的小目标检测

目前的目标检测技术已趋于成熟,但小目标检测仍是研究的难点。针对目标检测过程中小目标检测更容易出现漏检等问题,提出一种改进的YOLOv7目标检测模型。结合特征分离合并思想,对YOLOv7网络模型中的MPConv模块进行改进,以减少网络特征处理过程造成的特征损失,并通过实验确定放置改进MPConv模块的最佳位置。由于小目标检测过程中容易出现漏检的现象,利用ACmix注意力模块提高网络对小尺度目标的敏感度,降低噪声所带来的影响。在此基础上,使用SIoU替换原YOLOv7网络模型中的CIoU来优化损失函数,减少损失函数自由度,提高网络鲁棒性。在Okahublot公开的FloW-Img子数据集上进行实验,结果表明,对于数据集中的密集、小目标和超小目标三种情况的图片,改进后的YOLOv7网络模型相比原网络,漏检情况得到明显改善,且mAP达到71.1%,相比基线YOLOv7网络模型提升了4个百分点,检测效果优于原网络模型与传统经典目标检测网络模型。     

Learning knowledge representation with meta knowledge distillation for single image super-resolution

Although the deep CNN-based super-resolution methods have achieved outstanding performance, their memory cost and computational complexity severely limit their practical employment. Knowledge distillation (KD), which can efficiently transfer knowledge from a cumbersome network (teacher) to a compact network (student), has demonstrated its advantages in some computer vision applications. The representation of knowledge is vital for knowledge transferring and student learning, which is generally defined in hand-crafted manners or uses the intermediate features directly. In this paper, we propose a model-agnostic meta knowledge distillation method under the teacher–student architecture for the single image super-resolution task. It provides a more flexible and accurate way to help teachers transmit knowledge in accordance with the abilities of students via knowledge representation networks (KRNets) with learnable parameters. Specifically, the texture-aware dynamic kernels are generated from local information to decompose the distillation problem into texture-wise supervision for further promoting the recovery quality of high-frequency details. In addition, the KRNets are optimized in a meta-learning manner to ensure the knowledge transferring and the student learning are beneficial to improving the reconstructed quality of the student. Experiments conducted on various single image super-resolution datasets demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms existing defined knowledge representation-related distillation methods and can help super-resolution algorithms achieve better reconstruction quality without introducing any extra inference complexity.     

An Artificial Autonomic Nervous System That Implements Heart and Pupil as Controlled by Artificial Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nerves

The autonomic nervous system maintains homeostasis in organisms through complex neural pathways and responds adaptively to changes in the external and internal environment. The fabrication of an artificial autonomic nervous system is reported that replicates combined effects of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves on cardiac activity and pupillary control, to mimic the regulation of autonomic nervous system to external changes. The artificial autonomic nerve-controlled pupil contraction and relaxation, modulating the rate of heartbeats for normal cardiac rhythm and arrhythmia as reflected by blink rates of a signal indicator. These functions are switched by using a parallel-channeled synaptic transistor with a special n-i-p heterostructure that has a 2D h-BN insulator in the middle to provide barrier against ion injection into the 2D MoS₂ bottom n-channel and enable short-term plasticity as induced by acetylcholine, and the electrochemical doping reaction occurred at the P3HT nanowire p-channels on top to enable relatively long-term plasticity as induced by noradrenaline. Low-energy consumption down to femtojoule and an ultrahigh paired-pulse facilitation index up to ≈455% are demonstrated. An artificial neural network based on device characteristics achieves a high recognition accuracy for electrocardiogram patterns. This study extends insights into artificial nerves-inspired biological signal processing and recognition.     

面向软件供应链的异常分析方法综述

软件在国民经济的各个领域占据越来越重要的地位.万物互联的大背景下,信息之间的交互、分析、协同变得越来越普遍,程序/软件之间的依赖关系逐渐增多,这使得人们对系统可靠性和健壮性提出了更高的要求.由开源组件和第三方组件构成的软件供应链,其所面临的安全问题近年来成为了学术界和工业界共同关注的焦点.库函数作为开源软件的重要组成部分,与软件供应链安全有着密切的联系.为了提高软件开发效率,软件库或应用程序编程接口(API)在程序编写过程中会被频繁使用,但库函数中存在的错误或漏洞可能会被攻击者利用,从而损害软件供应链安全.这些错误或漏洞往往与库函数中存在的异常有关,因此本文对适用于库函数的异常分析方法从精度和效率两方面分别进行总结归纳,对于每种异常分析方法的基本思想和重要过程进行阐述,并针对库函数异常分析面临的挑战给出了初步解决思路.对软件供应链中的库函数进行异常分析有助于增强软件系统的健壮性,进而保障软件供应链的安全.     

基于模型预测—中枢模式发生器的六足机器人轨迹跟踪控制

为了模仿动物卓越的运动能力和环境适应能力,提出了六足仿生机器人的轨迹跟踪控制方法。首先建立了机器人的运动学模型,接着通过转向参数将机器人的速度和角速度与中枢模式发生器（CPG）参数结合起来,设计了转换函数。然后通过转换函数将模型预测控制器和CPG网络结合起来,提出了基于CPG的模型预测控制器（MPC-CPG）,并证明了其稳定性。最后对机器人跟踪圆周轨迹和直线轨迹进行了仿真和实验。实验表明,在有初始误差的条件下,机器人在MPC-CPG控制器的作用下能够快速地消除位置误差和航向角误差,跟踪上参考轨迹。轨迹跟踪的位置误差始终保持在-0.1～0.1 m,航向角误差保持在-27?～20?。在MPC-CPG控制器的作用下,机器人不仅具有较高的轨迹跟踪精度,同时还表现出良好的运动平滑性和协调性,进一步验证了所提出的MPC-CPG控制器的有效性。