Search Results (4)

Low-altitude UAV RGB-T small-object detection is challenged by unequal modality reliability and the progressive attenuation of small-object evidence. To address these issues, this paper proposes Modality-Dominant Controlled Fine-Tuning with Hierarchical Small-Object Modeling (MDCFT-HSM), an ordered feature-flow framework for RGB-T detection. Based on dataset-level single-modality performance, MDCFT selects an initial protected branch and introduces auxiliary-modality information through zero-initialized residual mappings at the stem, P3, P4, and P5 stages, thereby limiting interference from degraded auxiliary features. Within this controlled feature flow, the High–Low Frequency Detail Enhancement module (HLFDE) preserves shallow boundary, texture, and local thermal-response cues; the Selective Boundary-Guided Aggregation module (SBGA) strengthens cross-level detail propagation in the neck; and the Multi-scale Guided Feature Recalibration module (MGFR) recalibrates the P3, P4, and P5 features before the Detect head. On RGBTDronePerson, MDCFT-HSM achieves 49.53% mAP@0.5 and 18.97% mAP@0.5:0.95 with 7.38 M parameters, 44.2 GFLOPs, and an inference speed of 60.0 FPS. On DroneVehicle, it achieves 83.60% mAP@0.5 and 63.28% mAP@0.5:0.95. Controlled robustness tests show limited tolerance to auxiliary RGB absence and mild cross-modal spatial misalignment, whereas severe IR degradation, IR absence, and larger spatial offsets cause substantial performance loss. These results demonstrate a competitive accuracy–complexity trade-off under a fixed dataset-level protected-branch configuration. The method does not provide online sample-level reliability adaptation or geometric registration. Full article

Carbon-based materials like activated carbon (AC) are frequently applied for water treatments and remediation. The increasing use and functionalization of AC, especially with the recent mandate to implement quaternary treatments to remove organic micropollutants (Directive 2024/3019), may inadvertently introduce AC or leachate products to aquatic bodies. Such occurrences pose potential risks to inhabiting organisms, which have been understudied. This study assessed the environmental safety of an AC obtained from spent brewery grains (SBG)—a lignocellulosic biomass—through microwave pyrolysis with potassium carbonate activation. The resulting AC (SBG-AC) was washed, sieved (powder, particle size ≤ 180 µm), and tested for its ecotoxicological effects on the marine mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis at doses of 5, 25, and 50 mg/L. After 28 days of exposure (with weekly water renewal), biochemical parameters related to the mussels’ metabolic capacity and oxidative status were evaluated. Exposure to SBG-AC stimulated the energy metabolism in M. galloprovincialis, at the expense of internal energy reserves (such as glycogen). Although SBG-AC exposure induced antioxidant responses, the significant increase in lipid peroxidation and protein carbonylation at the higher doses (particularly 50 mg/L) suggests that these protective mechanisms were insufficient to prevent oxidative damage. Overall, while SBG-AC offers an effective alternative for water treatment, its ecotoxicity at higher doses raises concerns, emphasizing the need for careful risk assessment and containment measures. Full article

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is a raw material that can be used as food, feed, bioenergy, and wine; it is also a gramineous crop with drought, salt, waterlogging, and high temperature resistance. However, liquor-making sorghum faces the disadvantages of having a narrow genetic basis, poor resources, and few high-quality varieties. Ethyl methane sulfonate (EMS) is a common alkylating agent that can react with one or more bases to alkylate and cause changes in the molecular structure of DNA, thereby causing mutations. It has a minimum effect on organisms and the highest efficiency. The obtained mutant populations are of great significance for cultivating new plant varieties and enriching plant germplasm resources. Therefore, in this study, ‘Hongyingzi’ a liquor-making sorghum variety, was studied using seeds treated with 0.5% EMS and 415 M3 generation plants were obtained. (1) Investigation and statistical analysis of agronomic traits in mutant libraries showed that in the M3 generation, nine important phenotypic mutant lines were obtained, including plant type, leaf blade, spike, glume, growth period, fertility, plant height, and drought resistance. The variation frequency from high to low was as follows: glume color (75.42%) > spike type (54.70%) > spike shape (47.23%) > chaff coating degree (28%) > plant growth period (23.86%) > plant height (23.61%) > absorption degree (16.14%) > branchiness (10.84%) > leaf color (4.58%) > tillering (2.16%). (2) The PCR sequencing of SbGA2ox3 from 415 sorghum M3 plants revealed that the mutation frequency of SbGA2ox3 was 1/99.02 kb. Eight plants underwent mutations, but only one line experienced missense mutations of different amino acid types, changing Ser/Ala/Val/Leu/Gln/Ser/Pro/Ala to Asn/Thr/Gly/Val/Gln/Ala/Ser. The mutant line also had shorter plant height, reduced glume coating degree, and enhanced drought resistance. The constructions of the sorghum mutant library widened the sorghum germplasm library and provided a method for sorghum breeding with a molecular basis for the functional verification of related genes and the analysis of related regulatory networks. Full article

We present a scoring-based genetic algorithm (SBGA) for wavefront shaping to optimize multiple objectives at a time. The algorithm is able to find one feasible solution despite having to optimize multiple objectives. We employ the algorithm to generate multiple focus points simultaneously and allocate their intensities as desired. We then introduce a third objective to confine light focusing only to desired targets and prevent irradiation in neighboring regions. Through simulations and experiments, we demonstrate the algorithm’s ease of implementation and flexibility to control the search direction. This algorithm can potentially be applied to improve biomedical imaging, optogenetics, and optical trapping. Full article