Learning to Guide Decoding for Image Captioning

Recently, much advance has been made in image captioning, and an encoder-decoder framework has achieved outstanding performance for this task. In this paper, we propose an extension of the encoder-decoder framework by adding a component called guiding network. The guiding network models the attribute properties of input images, and its output is leveraged to compose the input of the decoder at each time step. The guiding network can be plugged into the current encoder-decoder framework and trained in an end-to-end manner. Hence, the guiding vector can be adaptively learned according to the signal from the decoder, making itself to embed information from both image and language. Additionally, discriminative supervision can be employed to further improve the quality of guidance. The advantages of our proposed approach are verified by experiments carried out on the MS COCO dataset.Comment: AAAI-1

Hierarchical Photo-Scene Encoder for Album Storytelling

In this paper, we propose a novel model with a hierarchical photo-scene encoder and a reconstructor for the task of album storytelling. The photo-scene encoder contains two sub-encoders, namely the photo and scene encoders, which are stacked together and behave hierarchically to fully exploit the structure information of the photos within an album. Specifically, the photo encoder generates semantic representation for each photo while exploiting temporal relationships among them. The scene encoder, relying on the obtained photo representations, is responsible for detecting the scene changes and generating scene representations. Subsequently, the decoder dynamically and attentively summarizes the encoded photo and scene representations to generate a sequence of album representations, based on which a story consisting of multiple coherent sentences is generated. In order to fully extract the useful semantic information from an album, a reconstructor is employed to reproduce the summarized album representations based on the hidden states of the decoder. The proposed model can be trained in an end-to-end manner, which results in an improved performance over the state-of-the-arts on the public visual storytelling (VIST) dataset. Ablation studies further demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical photo-scene encoder and reconstructor.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Analysis of corrections to the eikonal approximation

Various corrections to the eikonal approximations are studied for two- and three-body nuclear collisions with the goal to extend the range of validity of this approximation to beam energies of 10 MeV/nucleon. Wallace's correction does not improve much the elastic-scattering cross sections obtained at the usual eikonal approximation. On the contrary, a semiclassical approximation that substitutes the impact parameter by a complex distance of closest approach computed with the projectile-target optical potential efficiently corrects the eikonal approximation. This opens the possibility to analyze data measured down to 10 MeV/nucleon within eikonal-like reaction models.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Linking ethylene to nitrogen-dependent leaf longevity of grass species in a temperate steppe

Author's manuscript made available in accordance with the publisher's policy.Background and Aims Leaf longevity is an important plant functional trait that often varies with soil nitrogen supply. Ethylene is a classical plant hormone involved in the control of senescence and abscission, but its role in nitrogen-dependent leaf longevity is largely unknown. Methods Pot and field experiments were performed to examine the effects of nitrogen addition on leaf longevity and ethylene production in two dominant plant species, Agropyron cristatum and Stipa krylovii, in a temperate steppe in northern China. Key Results Nitrogen addition increased leaf ethylene production and nitrogen concentration but shortened leaf longevity; the addition of cobalt chloride, an ethylene biosynthesis inhibitor, reduced leaf nitrogen concentration and increased leaf longevity. Path analysis indicated that nitrogen addition reduced leaf longevity mainly through altering leaf ethylene production. Conclusions These findings provide the first experimental evidence in support of the involvement of ethylene in nitrogen-induced decrease in leaf longevity

Fabrication of Crack-free Photonic Crystal Films on Superhydrophobic Nanopin Surface

厦门大学生物仿生及软物质研究院林友辉副教授以及院长刘向阳教授在利用超疏水基底改善胶体小球自组装研究方向取得进展。 目前通过胶体小球自组装方法已构筑了许多复杂却高度有序的光子晶体。但是胶体小球在形成有序结构过程中会不可避免的产生收缩和应力，该方法通常会导致裂纹和缺陷的形成，降低了光子晶体的光学质量，也同时限制了其进一步的应用。 在该研究中，作者基于以上的研究现状，以纳米针状的超疏水表面为基底，来改善胶体小球的自组装，可以减少甚至消除大尺度的裂纹的效果。基于该原理，最后成功制备出厘米级别无裂纹的光子晶体薄膜。【Abstract】sed on their superior optical performance, photonic crystals (PCs) have been investigated as excellent candidates for widespread applications including sensors, displays, separation processes, and catalysis. However, fabrication of large-area PC assemblies with no defects and structurally controllable is still a tough task. Herein, we develop an effective strategy for preparing centimeter-scale crack-free photonic crystals films by the combined effects of soft assembly and superhydrophobic nanopin surfaces. Owing to its large contact angle and low adhesive force on the superhydrophobic substrate, the colloidal suspension exhibits a continuous retraction of the three-phase (gas−liquid−solid) contact line(TCL) in the process of solvent (water molecules) evaporation. The constantly receding TCL can bring the colloidal spheres closer to each other, which could timely close the gaps due to the loss of water molecules. As a result, close-packed and well-ordered assembly structures can be easily obtained. We expect that this work may pave the way to utilize novel superhy drophobic materials for designing and developing high-quality PCs and to apply PCs in different fields.This work is financially supported by National Nature Science Foundation (Nos. 21401154,U1405226), 111 project (B16029), Guangdong Natural Science Foundation (2014A030310005),the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Nos. 20720170011,20720140528), Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China(20130121110018), Fujian Provincial Department of Science & Technology (2014H6022).X.Y.L.'s primary affiliation is the Department of Physics, National University of Singapore