TFRS: A task-level feature rectification and separation method for few-shot video action recognition.

Few-shot video action recognition (FS-VAR) is a challenging task that requires models to have significant expressive power in order to identify previously unseen classes using only a few labeled examples. However, due to the limited number of support samples, the model's performance is highly sensitive to the distribution of the sampled data. The representativeness of the support data is insufficient to cover the entire class, and the support features may contain shared information that confuses the classifier, leading to biased classification. In response to this difficulty, we present a task-level feature rectification and separation (TFRS) method that effectively resolves the sample bias issue. Our main idea is to leverage prior information from base classes to rectify the support samples while removing the commonality of task-level features. This enhances the distinguishability and separability of features in space. Furthermore, TFRS offers a straightforward yet versatile solution that can be seamlessly integrated into various established FS-VAR frameworks. Our design yields significant performance enhancements across various existing works by implementing TFRS, resulting in competitive outcomes on datasets such as UCF101, Kinetics, SSv2, and HMDB51.

SPAG5, the upstream protein of Wnt and the target of curcumin, inhibits hepatocellular carcinoma.

The inhibitory role of curcumin on sperm-associated antigen 5 (SPAG5) and its effects on the cancer­related Wnt classical signaling pathway has been previously demonstrated. Nevertheless, research on the modulatory role of curcumin on the Wnt signaling pathway by acting on SPAG5 has yet to be reported. The activation of the Wnt/ß­catenin pathway is frequently observed in patients suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), suggesting that small molecular drugs that target Wnt could present a promising therapeutic strategy. However, these drugs often result in substantial side effects. In the present study, the presence of SPAG5 in the cancer tissues of patients with HCC and cell lines was validated using immunohistochemistry, cellular immunofluorescence, reverse transcription­quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and western blot analyses. Subsequently, the effect of SPAG5 and the regulatory role of curcumin on SPAG5 and the Wnt/ß­catenin pathway were examined using cell function tests, flow cytometry, and western blotting. Techniques of gene knockout and overexpression were employed. The findings revealed a significant overexpression of SPAG5 in the cancer tissues of patients with HCC. Both the mRNA and protein levels of SPAG5 in Huh7 and HCCLM3 cell lines were markedly elevated. Treatment with curcumin led to a decrease in SPAG5 expression, while also inhibiting cell migration and promoting apoptosis. Additionally, suppression of SPAG5 expression resulted in the decreased expression of ß­catenin. Furthermore, curcumin was observed to reduce the expression of cyclin D1 in SPAG5­overexpressing cell lines. However, the degree of inhibition was diminished once SPAG5 expression was silenced. These initial findings indicate that SPAG5 may function as an upstream regulatory protein of the Wnt/ß­catenin pathway, hence offering a potential alternative target for HCC. Moreover, as curcumin has the capacity to inhibit Wnt via suppressing SPAG5, it could potentially serve as a natural drug component for early intervention and treatment of HCC.

A highly active and robust iron quinquepyridine complex for photocatalytic CO2 reduction in aqueous acetonitrile solution.

The iron(ii) complex bearing the 2,2':6',2'':6'',2''':6''',2''''-quinquepyridine (qnpy) ligand, [Fe(qnpy)(H2O)2]2+, is a highly efficient and robust catalyst for photocatalytic reduction of CO2 to CO in aqueous acetonitrile solution. A turnover number (TON) for CO of up to 14 095 with 98% selectivity can be achieved using Ru(phen)3Cl2 (phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) as the photosensitizer and BIH (1,3-dimethyl-2-phenyl-2,3-dihydro-1H-benzo[d]imidazole) as the sacrificial reductant in a CO2-saturated MeCN/H2O (1 : 1, v/v) solution under visible light irradiation. This Fe complex is state-of-the-art for CO2 visible-light-driven catalysis.

A molecular noble metal-free system for efficient visible light-driven reduction of CO2 to CO.

A new pentadentate quinoline-pyridine ligand and its iron (1), cobalt (2) and nickel (3) complexes have been synthesized and characterized. The iron complex exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity towards CO2-to-CO conversion with a TON(CO) of 544 and a selectivity of 99.3% using the commercially available organic dye purpurin as the photosensitiser and BIH as the electron donor. In contrast, the cobalt and nickel complexes result in very low activity for CO production with a TON of only 8 and 15, respectively. On the other hand, all the three complexes show good electrocatalytic activity for CO2 reduction when using 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol as the proton source with the active intermediate of M0 species. The lack of activity in photocatalytic CO2 reduction by 2 and 3 can be attributed to the redox potential of MI/M0 which is significantly more negative than that of PP-/PP2- while in the case of 1 the FeI/Fe0 redox potential becomes more positive than that of the PP-/PP2- couple.