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Jicheng Jia,1,2 Yongchao Ma,3 Shengnan Xu,1 Jiaqi Zheng,2 Xinli Ma,2 Yuzhen Zhang,2 Weijuan Sun,2 Lizhi Liu2 1Department of Education, The National University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 2Department of Talent Development and Continuing Education, Shandong Shengli Vocational College, Dongying, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 3Computer Science, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, USACorrespondence: Jicheng Jia, Tel +86 15689138097, Email wabajjc@163.comObjective: This study aimed to investigate the impact of academic self-efficacy on test anxiety among higher vocational students, as well as the role of sense of life meaning, fear of failure, and gender difference in mediating this relationship.Methods: A total of 2231 higher vocational students from Shandong Province were surveyed by means of Academic Self-efficacy Questionnaire, Meaning in Life Questionnaire, and Test Anxiety Scale.Results: There were significant negative correlations among academic self-efficacy, sense of life meaning, and test anxiety. Fear of failure was positively correlated with test anxiety. Sense of life meaning and fear of failure played a mediating role in the relationship between academic self-efficacy and test anxiety. The chain mediating effect was significant only in the female group, not in the male group. In contrast, academic self-efficacy indirectly predicted test anxiety by the independent mediating effect of sense of life meaning or fear of failure in the male group.Conclusion: Academic self-efficacy may influence test anxiety through the independent mediating effect of sense of life meaning, fear of failure, and the chain mediating effect, and there is a gender difference in these effects.Keywords: higher vocational students, academic self-efficacy, sense of life meaning, fear of failure, test anxiety

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NK group 2, member D (NKG2D) is one of the most critical activating receptors expressed by natural killer (NK) cells. There is growing evidence that acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells may evade NK cell-mediated cell lysis by expressing low or no ligands for NKG2D (NKG2D-Ls). We hypothesized that CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α (C/EBPα), one of the most studied lineage-specific transcription factors in hematopoiesis, might influence the expression of NKG2D-Ls. To test this hypothesis, we first examined the endogenous expression of wild-type C/EBPα (C/EBPα-p42) in human AML cell lines and demonstrated that its expression level was highly relevant to the sensitivity of AML cells to NK cell cytotoxicity. Induction of C/EBPα-p42 in the low endogenous CEBPA-expressing AML cell line increased the sensitivity to NK-induced lysis. Moreover, decreased expression of C/EBPα-p42 by RNA interference in AML cells abrogated NK-mediated cytotoxicity. We further showed that the increase in NK susceptibility caused by C/EBPα-p42 occurred through up-regulation of the NKG2D-Ls ULBP2/5/6 in AML cells. More importantly, chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) coupled with high-throughput sequencing captured C/EBPα motif signatures at the enhancer regions of the ULBP 2/5/6 genes. Whilst, the AML-associated C/EBPα C-terminal mutant and N-terminal truncated mutant (C/EBPα-p30) diminished ULBP2/5/6 transcription. Finally, we identified that histone demethylase lysine-specific demethylase 1 (LSD1) inhibition can restore the expression of ULBPs via induction of CEBPA expression in AML cells, which may represent a novel therapeutic strategy for CEBPA-mutated AML. Abbreviations: C/EBPα: CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein α; TF: Transcription factor; AML: Acute myeloid leukemia; TAD: Transactivation domain; FS: Frameshift; NK: Natural killer; NKG2D: NK group 2, member D; NKG2D-Ls: Ligands for NKG2D; MHC: Major histocompatibility complex; MICA: MHC class I-related chain A; ULBP: UL16-binding protein; STAT3: Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3; LSD1: Lysine-specific demethylase 1; Ab: Antibody; PBMC: Peripheral blood mononuclear cell; PBS: Phosphate-buffered saline; CFSE: Carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester; PI: Propidium iodide; shRNA: Short hairpin RNA; ChIP: Chromatin immunoprecipitation; BM: Binding motif; HCNE: Highly conserved noncoding element; TSS: Transcription start site; HMA: Hypomethylating agent; AZA: Azacitidine/5-azacytidine; DAC: Decitabine/5-aza-29-deoxycytidine; 2-PCPA: Tranylcypromine; RBP: RNA-binding protein; MSI2: MUSASHI-2; HDACi: Inhibitor of histone deacetylases; VPA: Valproate; DNMTi: DNA methyl transferase inhibitor; SCLC: Small cell lung cancer

Marketing is an important mechanism to increase user engagement and improve platform revenue, and heterogeneous causal learning can help develop more effective strategies. Most decision-making problems in marketing can be formulated as resource allocation problems and have been studied for decades. Existing works usually divide the solution procedure into two fully decoupled stages, i.e., machine learning (ML) and operation research (OR) -- the first stage predicts the model parameters and they are fed to the optimization in the second stage. However, the error of the predicted parameters in ML cannot be respected and a series of complex mathematical operations in OR lead to the increased accumulative errors. Essentially, the improved precision on the prediction parameters may not have a positive correlation on the final solution due to the side-effect from the decoupled design. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for solving resource allocation problems to mitigate the side-effects. Our key intuition is that we introduce the decision factor to establish a bridge between ML and OR such that the solution can be directly obtained in OR by only performing the sorting or comparison operations on the decision factor. Furthermore, we design a customized loss function that can conduct direct heterogeneous causal learning on the decision factor, an unbiased estimation of which can be guaranteed when the loss converges. As a case study, we apply our approach to two crucial problems in marketing: the binary treatment assignment problem and the budget allocation problem with multiple treatments. Both large-scale simulations and online A/B Tests demonstrate that our approach achieves significant improvement compared with state-of-the-art., Accepted by AAAI 2023

Guohua Lin,1,* Jiaqi Zheng,1,* Pou Kuan Tang,1 Yu Zheng,1 Hao Hu,1,2 Carolina Oi Lam Ung1,2 1Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Public Health and Medicinal Administration, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Carolina Oi Lam Ung, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Taipa, Macao SAR, People’s Republic of China, Email carolinaung@um.edu.moPurpose: This review aimed to summarize empirical evidence about pharmacist-led interventions for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients in hospital settings and to identify the components of a logic model (including input, interventions, output, outcome and contextual factors) to inform the development of hospital pharmacist’s role in COPD management.Methods: A systematic review of literature retrieved from four English databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, ScienceDirect) and one Chinese database (CNKI) were conducted to identify eligible studies published from inception to March 2022. Studies concerning pharmacist and COPD were identified to screen for randomized controlled studies that focused on pharmacist interventions for COPD at the hospital setting.Results: Twenty-nine studies were included in this review. The components of interventions identified were categorized according to the six service domains in the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s Basel Statements, and mainly concerned prescribing, preparation, administration and monitoring but not procurement and training. Extended interventions were also identified including life guidance, psychological counseling, and respiratory function exercise. The most common outputs reported were improvement in medication adherence, rational drug use, level of knowledge, and inhalation technique. The clinical outcomes (symptomatic control, lung function, rates of hospital readmission, length of hospital stay, and adverse drug adverse reactions), humanistic outcomes (quality of life and patient satisfaction), and economic outcomes (drug costs, hospitalization costs, antibiotic costs, and direct costs) were reported only in some studies. The contextual factors mainly included geographical factors, education level of patients, socio-economic factors, and no-smoking policy.Conclusion: The evidence for hospital pharmacists’ interventions in improving COPD patients’ outcome is growing. However, considering the challenges of COPD management, hospital pharmacists should further leverage the advantages of cross-sector and multi-disciplinary collaboration in order to provide more comprehensive support to better address the needs of their patients.Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hospital pharmacist, systematic review, intervention, output, outcome, logic model

This study examines whether the CEO uses share repurchases to sell her equity grants at inflated stock prices, a concern regularly voiced in politics and media. We find that the timing of buyback programs and equity compensation, i.e., the granting, vesting, and selling of equity, is largely determined by the corporate calendar through blackout periods and earnings announcement dates. As a consequence, share repurchases and equity compensation are positively correlated. This correlation disappears once we account for the corporate calendar and should thus not be interpreted causally. Our results do not support the conclusion that CEOs systematically misuse share repurchases at the expense of shareholders. To the contrary, equity compensation increases the propensity to launch a buyback program when buying back shares is beneficial for long-term shareholder value.

The DC distribution system has advantages over AC systems on power losses, control complexity, compatibility to DGs (Distributed Sources) and so on. The basic power flow problem in DC system is different from AC system in mathematical domain, bus types and component models. To construct the foundation of DC power system analysis, this paper analyzes the power flow problems in DC distribution system first, including bus types, power flow equations, Jacobian matrix and so on. It is pointed out that voltage regulation in DC power system only needs enough power capacity instead of generator with excitation system like AC system. Then, based on the DC bus voltage regulation property, the power flow path control and virtual topology reconfiguration technologies is proposed. The corresponding equivalent Jacobian matrixes are presented. Those technologies reveal that the DC power system can achieve much higher flexibility in power flow control. At last, simulation verification with MATLAB/SIMULINK is presented.

To design a pedestrian crossing area reasonably can be a demanding task for traffic planners. There are several challenges, including determining the appropriate dimensions, and ensuring that pedestrians are exposed to the least risks. Pedestrian safety is especially obscure to analyze, given that many people in Stockholm cross the street illegally by running against the red light. To cope with these challenges, computational approaches of trajectory data visual analytics can be used to support the analytical reasoning process. However, it remains an unexplored field regarding how to visualize and communicate the street-crossing spatio-temporal data effectively. Moreover, the rendering also needs to deal with a growing data size for a more massive number of people. This thesis proposes a web-based interactive visual analytics tool for pedestrians' street-crossing behavior under various flow rates. The visualization methodology is also presented, which is then evaluated to have achieved satisfying communication and rendering effectiveness for maximal 180 agents over 100 seconds. In terms of the visualization scenario, pedestrians either wait for the red light or cross the street illegally; all people can choose to stop by a buffer island before they finish crossing. The visualization enables the analysis under multiple flow rates for 1) pedestrian movement, 2) space utilization, 3) crossing frequency in time-series, and 4) illegal frequency. Additionally, to acquire the initial trajectory data, Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance (ORCA) algorithm is engaged in the crowd simulation. Then different visualization techniques are utilized to comply with user demands, including map animation, data aggregation, and time-series graph. Att konstruera ett gångvägsområde kan rimligen vara en krävande uppgift för trafikplanerare. Det finns flera utmaningar, bland annat att bestämma lämpliga dimensioner och se till att fotgängare utsätts för minst risker. Fotgängarnas säkerhet är särskilt obskyrlig att analysera, eftersom många människor i Stockholm korsar gatan olagligt genom att springa mot det röda ljuset. För att klara av dessa utmaningar kan beräkningsmetoder för bana data visuell analys användas för att stödja den analytiska resonemangsprocessen. Det är emellertid ett oexplorerat fält om hur man visualiserar och kommunicerar gataövergången spatio-temporal data effektivt. Dessutom måste rendering också hantera en växande datastorlek för ett mer massivt antal människor. Denna avhandling föreslår ett webbaserat interaktivt visuellt analysverktyg för fotgängares gatöverföring under olika flödeshastigheter. Visualiseringsmetoden presenteras också, som sedan utvärderas för att ha uppnått tillfredsställande kommunikation och effektivitet för maximal 180 agenter över 100 sekunder. Vad beträffar visualiseringsscenariot, väntar fotgängare antingen på det röda ljuset eller tvärs över gatan; alla människor kan välja att stanna vid en buffertö innan de slutar korsa. Visualiseringen möjliggör analysen under flera flödeshastigheter för 1) fotgängarrörelse, 2) rymdutnyttjande, 3) korsfrekvens i tidsserier och 4) olaglig frekvens. För att förvärva den ursprungliga bana-data är Optimal Reciprocal Collision Avoidance (ORCA) algoritmen förknippad med folkmassimuleringen. Därefter utnyttjas olika visualiseringstekniker för att uppfylla användarnas krav, inklusive kartanimering, dataaggregering och tidsserier.

Flexible bearing is an important component of harmonic reducer which is widely used in automation equipment, especially in industrial robots. Studying its mechanical characteristics has great significance. In this article, the theoretical model of contact force between rolling elements and outer ring is established based on three bending moment equations, and the characteristics of CSF-40-80 flexible bearing are also studied by finite element method analysis. Analysis of equivalent stress at static state has shown that it already has large equivalent stress before load and that external load has a great influence on it. The dynamic and contact characteristics of it after actual assembly are also presented in this article. The displacements and velocities at different locations at different times of the movement are found to be different, which can provide a reference for the manufacture of flexible bearing.

The void underneath semi-rigid base is a common defect in roads. There are some difficulties in the detection and repair for this kind of hidden damage, as well as in the evaluation of the effects of grouting treatment. For the detection and maintenance of roads, it is essential to study the detection and judging for voids underneath base and the evaluation of the spread of grout. Through theoretical analysis, numerical simulation and analysis of real data, this research generated the characteristics of under-base voids of different types and dimensions on GPR images, proposed the detecting and dimension-measuring methods for under-base voids, and studied the process and effects of data analysis techniques. (1) The characteristics of under-base voids of different types (air-filled, water-filled or grout-treated) and dimensions (height and horizontal dimensions), on A-scan and B-scan GPR image respectively, were analyzed theoretically. (2) Approaches for detecting voids and for estimating its height were studied, focusing on voids with a height ranging from 0.01m to 0.3m. (3) The approach for estimating the horizontal dimension of voids was studied, focusing on voids with a length ranging from 0.04m to 0.52m. (4) The data processing process was discussed. Also, the effects of different data processing techniques were studied in terms of noise filtering and attenuation compensation, and their influence on the image characteristics was also discussed., Comment: Master's thesis, in Chinese

GpsB regulatory protein and StkP protein kinase have been proposed as molecular switches that balance septal and peripheral (side-wall like) peptidoglycan (PG) synthesis in Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus); yet, mechanisms of this switching remain unknown. We report that ΔdivIVA mutations are not epistatic to ΔgpsB division-protein mutations in progenitor D39 and related genetic backgrounds; nor is GpsB required for StkP localization or FDAA labeling at septal division rings. However, we confirm that reduction of GpsB amount leads to decreased protein phosphorylation by StkP and report that the essentiality of ΔgpsB mutations is suppressed by inactivation of PhpP protein phosphatase, which concomitantly restores protein phosphorylation levels. ΔgpsB mutations are also suppressed by other classes of mutations, including one that eliminates protein phosphorylation and may alter division. Moreover, ΔgpsB mutations are synthetically lethal with Δpbp1a, but not Δpbp2a or Δpbp1b mutations, suggesting GpsB activation of PBP2a activity. Consistent with this result, co-IP experiments showed that GpsB complexes with EzrA, StkP, PBP2a, PBP2b, and MreC in pneumococcal cells. Furthermore, depletion of GpsB prevents PBP2x migration to septal centers. These results support a model in which GpsB negatively regulates peripheral PG synthesis by PBP2b and positively regulates septal ring closure through its interactions with StkP-PBP2x.

The magnetic measurements have been carried out in single phase, polycrystalline superconducting sample---DyBa2Cu3-O7−x compound. The magnetization anomaly at 12–13 K range under the external magnetic field is observed and considered as the evidence of an antiferromagnetic ordering in this compound. From the experimental data of lower and upper critical fields, we deduce the crucial normal and superconducting parameters such as Hc (O); kGL; γ; λep; and etc. Using the Allen-Dynes strong e-p coupling Tc formula, we estimate the value of Tc and find a well coincidence with the experimental results. We believe that the phonon-mediated electron-pairing mechanism may be possible to explain the 90 K superconductivity.

The superconducting transition are determined by both resistance and AC susceptibility measurements in Dyx Ba1−xCuO3−y compound system. Their composition dependence has also been studied. We find that the zero-resistance temperature transition occurs at 94.1K for x=0.33 while X-ray diffraction analysis shows that it corresponds to a single phase which is an orthohombic perovskite structure with a =3.889 A , b =3.849 A and c =11.739 A .

The high-Tc superconductivity has been observed in SmxBa1−xCuO3−y compound system by both resistance and A.C. susceptibility measurements. The optimum composition is x=0.35 with zero-resistance transition temperature being 90.8K. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that this is an orthorhombically distorted perovskite structure with a =3.998 A , b =3.976 A and c =11.996 A .

An anomalous resistance drop was observed near 190K in the R-T measurement on a sample in Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system and the transition completed at 80K. After keeping the sample at room temperature for 10h, the temperature dependence of the resistance changed from semiconducting to metallic behavior, while the ending of the transition remained at 80K. This might be an evidence of the existence of a metastable superconducting phase in Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O system with Tc as high as 190K.

In this paper, we report the I-V characteristics of rolling-quenched Al-Si-Ge strips. The results show the occurrence of voltage steps and hysteresis behavior in the superconducting transition region.