An Interactive Collaborative Creation System for Shadow Puppets Based on Smooth Generative Adversarial Networks

Chinese shadow puppetry has been recognized as a world intangible cultural heritage.However,it faces substantial challenges in its preservation and advancement due to the intricate and labor-intensive nature of crafting shadow puppets.To ensure the inheritance and development of this cultural heritage,it is imperative to enable traditional art to flourish in the digital era.This paper presents an Interactive Collaborative Creation System for shadow puppets,designed to facilitate the creation of high-quality shadow puppet images with greater ease.The system comprises four key functions:Image contour extraction,intelligent reference recommendation,generation network,and color adjustment,all aimed at assisting users in various aspects of the creative process,including drawing,inspiration,and content generation.Additionally,we propose an enhanced algorithm called Smooth Generative Adversarial Networks(SmoothGAN),which exhibits more stable gradient training and a greater capacity for generating high-resolution shadow puppet images.Furthermore,we have built a new dataset comprising high-quality shadow puppet images to train the shadow puppet generation model.Both qualitative and quantitative experimental results demonstrate that SmoothGAN significantly improves the quality of image generation,while our system efficiently assists users in creating high-quality shadow puppet images,with a SUS scale score of 84.4.This study provides a valuable theoretical and practical reference for the digital creation of shadow puppet art.

Characteristics of super drought in Southwest China and the associated compounding effect of multiscalar anomalies

In recent decades,Southwest China(SWC)has suffered from frequent super droughts,leading to severe economic losses and ecological degradation.This study investigates the characteristics of super droughts in SWC during 1961-2022,reveals the compounding effect of multiscalar anomalies,and explores the plausible atmospheric circulation mechanisms responsible.The nature of super drought is a compound drought caused by the superposition of extreme drought events across multiple time scales.By contrasting the typical drought cases in 2006 and 2022,the decisive role of multiscalar drought compounding is confirmed.Based on the Comprehensive Multiscalar Index(CMI),multiple super drought events in SWC were identified to be temporally clustered during 2006-2014.Among them,the decadal background of enhanced evaporation and precipitation deficit at long time scales is a necessary condition for shaping the overall pattern of super droughts,while the precipitation and evaporation anomalies at short time scales trigger the outbreak of super droughts,determining the exact timing of occurrence.These events include August-September 2006,November 2009 to May 2010,July-October 2011,April-May 2012,January-April 2013,etc.Statistical results suggest that the contribution of superposed precipitation anomalies to super drought is 2.4 times that of evaporation.As regards the circulation mechanisms affecting multiscalar precipitation,the anomalous spatial patterns at short-term and long-term scales are similar,featuring the cyclonic circulation over the South China Sea and the northeasterly wind anomalies together with the subsidence center over SWC.During 2006-2014,the possible causes for the cross-seasonal persistent precipitation reduction in SWC are the extreme negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO)in the North Pacific as well as the pronounced warming of the warm pool in the western Pacific.The key dynamic processes are outlined as follows.On the one hand,the negative PDO phase generates anomalous anticyclonic circulation in the North Pacific,with the northeasterly winds on its southwest flank extending to Southeast Asia,hindering moisture transport into SWC.On the other hand,the warming of the warm pool excites anomalous cyclonic circulation to its northwest,also giving rise to northeasterly wind anomalies over SWC.Meanwhile,the ascending motion over the warm pool region diverges at upper levels with outflows converging aloft over SWC,which further induces compensating downward motion there.The combined effect of the above two remote forcings establishes a climatic background state unfavorable for precipitation over SWC at long time scales,thus constituting a crucial prerequisite for the superimposition of short-term precipitation anomalies to develop into super droughts.

A GEO Satellite Position and Beam Features Estimation Method Based on Beam Edge Positions

Constrained by orbital configuration and spectrum sharing,non-geostationary orbit(NGEO)satellites may be interfered when they are in the beam range of geostationary orbit(GEO)satellite.However,it is difficult for NGEO operators to determine the signal source.Herein,we propose a method to locate the GEO signal source and estimate beam features,including beam pointing azimuth,elevation,and beamwidth,by the beam edge positions.We transform this estimation problem into two optimization problems by minimizing the estimation error,and solve both of them through a multi-variable joint iteration method with acceptable computation complexity.Numerical results show that when NGEO satellites pass through the beam twice,the longitude estimation error is about 0.01 degree,and the estimation results will be more and more accurate as the number of passing times increases.Besides,the proposed method is also effective when there are kilometer-level errors in beam edge positions.

Porous block copolymer films with self-adjustable optical transmittance and passive radiative cooling

As an energy-free cooling technique,radiative cooling has garnered significant attention in the field of energy conservation.However,traditional radiative cooling films often possess static optical properties and their inherent opacity limits their applications in building such as windows.Therefore,there exists a requirement for passive radiative cooling films endowed with adjustable transmittance.Here we report the porous block copolymer films with self-adjustable optical transmittance and passive radiative cooling.In a result,the film exhibited a high solar reflectance(0.3-2.5μm)of 96.9%and a high infrared emittance(8-13μm)of 97.9%.Outdoor experiments demonstrated that the film surface temperature was 6.6℃lower than ambient temperature,with a cooling power of 104.8 W·m^(-2).In addition,the film’s transmittance can be regulated by altering the polarity of the post-processing solvent,providing an effective approach for regulating indoor light intensity and thermal balance,thereby enhancing the applicability of radiative cooling.