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Serial arguments are conflict interactions that recur about the same topic, within the same relationship, and without achieving resolution. A consequential form of interpersonal communication, serial arguments have captured over 30 years of research interest, and the knowledge generated about this phenomenon is robust yet scattered. In this essay, we organize this research landscape by reviewing key findings and identifying unanswered questions related to defining and characterizing serial arguments, intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, and within-episode and between-episode dynamics of serial arguments. We then present a roadmap that synthesizes extant literature and advances an agenda for future research on serial arguments. We conclude with a discussion to highlight opportunities for generating new insights into serial arguments.

Chalcogenide-based semiconductors have recently emerged as promising candidates for optoelectronic devices, benefiting from their low-cost, solution processability, excellent stability and tunable optoelectronic properties. However, the understanding of their fundamental optoelectronic properties is far behind the success of device performance and starts to limit their further development. To fill this gap, we conduct a comparative study of chalcogenide absorbers across a wide material space, in order to assess their suitability for different types of applications. We utilize optical-pump terahertz-probe spectroscopy and time-resolved microwave conductivity techniques to fully analyze their charge-carrier dynamics. We show that antimony-based chalcogenide thin films exhibit relatively low charge-carrier mobilities and short lifetimes, compared with bismuth-based chalcogenides. In particular, AgBiS2 thin films possess the highest mobility, and Sb2S3 thin films have less energetic disorder, which are beneficial for photovoltaic devices. On the contrary, Bi2S3 showed ultralong carrier lifetime and high photoconductive gain, which is beneficial for designing photoconductors.

Livestreaming shopping and short videos seem completely different features for most people; however, ByteDance perfectly combined these two features into one software named TikTok or Douyin. TikTok benefitted from the Covid-19 pandemic and rapid develop in 154 countries. The paper uses a SWOT analysis to analyze the business strategy of BytaDance in China and all over the world. The authors created a SWOT analysis combines weaknesses, opportunities, strengths, and threats associated with the application of livestreaming shopping and short videos. TikTok already obtained substantive revenue for BytaDance, and livestreaming will become one of the important shopping methods in the future.

High Resolution (HR) medical images provide rich anatomical structure details to facilitate early and accurate diagnosis. In MRI, restricted by hardware capacity, scan time, and patient cooperation ability, isotropic 3D HR image acquisition typically requests long scan time and, results in small spatial coverage and low SNR. Recent studies showed that, with deep convolutional neural networks, isotropic HR MR images could be recovered from low-resolution (LR) input via single image super-resolution (SISR) algorithms. However, most existing SISR methods tend to approach a scale-specific projection between LR and HR images, thus these methods can only deal with a fixed up-sampling rate. For achieving different up-sampling rates, multiple SR networks have to be built up respectively, which is very time-consuming and resource-intensive. In this paper, we propose ArSSR, an Arbitrary Scale Super-Resolution approach for recovering 3D HR MR images. In the ArSSR model, the reconstruction of HR images with different up-scaling rates is defined as learning a continuous implicit voxel function from the observed LR images. Then the SR task is converted to represent the implicit voxel function via deep neural networks from a set of paired HR-LR training examples. The ArSSR model consists of an encoder network and a decoder network. Specifically, the convolutional encoder network is to extract feature maps from the LR input images and the fully-connected decoder network is to approximate the implicit voxel function. Due to the continuity of the learned function, a single ArSSR model can achieve arbitrary up-sampling rate reconstruction of HR images from any input LR image after training. Experimental results on three datasets show that the ArSSR model can achieve state-of-the-art SR performance for 3D HR MR image reconstruction while using a single trained model to achieve arbitrary up-sampling scales., Comment: 12 pagee, acceted by IEEE J-BHI

The World Health Organization declared monkeypox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted to understand beliefs, attitudes, perceived preventive measures, and vaccination acceptance related to monkeypox in the public in China.Between August 30 and September 15, 2022, we recruited adults through an online survey platform. Demographic characteristics, perceptions, common knowledge, concerns, attitudes, willingness to adopt preventive measures (including hygiene practices, social distancing, and travel avoidance), and vaccination acceptance related to monkeypox were collected. Logistic regression was used to assess correlates of concerns about monkeypox, willingness to adopt preventive measures, and vaccination acceptance.2135 participants were recruited (median age: 31.4 years). 62.7% were concerned about monkeypox. 33.2% were more concerned about monkeypox compared to COVID-19. Males (aOR 0.61, 95%CI 0.50-0.74), accessing monkeypox information from the Internet (0.77, 0.61-0.98), and willingness to adopt monkeypox vaccine (2.9, 2.38-3.53) were associated with concerns about monkeypox. Most participants were willing to adopt precautions (76.3% hygiene practices, 68.2% social distancing, 85.9% travel avoidance). Individuals who were concerned about monkeypox (hygiene practices: 2.09, 1.69-2.59; social distancing: 1.78, 1.46-2.16; travel avoidance: 1.74, 1.34-2.26) and had better knowledge about monkeypox (hygiene practices: 1.85, 1.48-2.31; social distancing: 2.17, 1.77-2.66; travel avoidance: 1.74, 1.34-2.26) were more likely to adopt precautions. 68.8% were willing to adopt monkeypox vaccine. Participants with older age (aged 40-49: 0.57, 0.38-0.85; aged 50 +: 0.50, 0.31-0.81), and higher income (¥6000-10,000: 0.61, 0.39-0.95; ≥¥10,000: 0.48, 0.30-0.77) were less likely to adopt the monkeypox vaccine. Being concerned more about monkeypox compared to COVID-19 (1.63, 1.31-2.02), and having better knowledge about monkeypox (1.34, 1.09-1.66) were associated with willingness to adopt vaccination.Compared with COVID-19, monkeypox attracted significantly less attention in the public in China, who currently have insufficient monkeypox knowledge. Interventions aimed at improving monkeypox knowledge and precautions among different groups of individuals in China are needed.

A large-scale flexible X-ray detector based on a perovskite p–n homojunction is reported in this work. The addition of a Bi3+-doped MAPbI3 layer would effectively suppress the dark current and noise while maintaining high sensitivity.

This paper considers a sales mode selection problem under revenue sharing contracts between resale and agency modes for risk-averse manufacturers with traditional retail channel, direct selling channel, and e-commerce platform channel. By considering the factors including price competition intensity, market share, revenue sharing ratio, commission rate, and degree of risk aversion, we construct leader-follower game models with manufacturers as leaders and traditional retailers and e-commerce platforms as followers. To obtain optimal solutions, we discuss conditions to ensure the upper and lower models to be convex and then give the optimal strategies for all members in the network. Through numerical experiments, we analyze the involved parameters’ impact on sales mode selection strategy and the changing trends of each member's optimal pricing and profit under different sales modes. The numerical results reveal the following revelations: The manufacturer should choose the agency mode when the commission rate is low and the direct selling channel has a large market share. If both the commission rate and degree of risk aversion are high, direct selling channels have a low market share, and price competition intensity is weak, the manufacturer should choose the resale mode. The degree of risk aversion has an effect on each member’s optimal decision. Regardless of which sales mode the manufacturer chooses, the optimal price of each member decreases as the degree of risk aversion increases. Under certain conditions, the manufacturer’s choice of agency mode can create win-win situations with supply chain members.

Evidence from clinical trials identified the effectiveness of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as an additional strategy to reduce the risk of HIV transmission from women to men. However, concerns about post-circumcision sexual risk compensation may hinder the scale-up of VMMC programs. We reviewed the evidence of changes in risky sexual behaviors after circumcision, including condomless sex, multiple sex partners, and early resumption of sex after surgery.Most clinical trial data indicate that condomless sex and multiple partners did not increase for men after circumcision, and early resumption of sex is rare. Only one post-trial surveillance reports that some circumcised men had more sex partners after surgery, but this did not offset the effect of VMMC. Conversely, qualitative studies report that a small number of circumcised men had increased risky sexual behaviors, and community-based research reports that more men resumed sex early after surgery. With the large-scale promotion and expansion of VMMC services, it may be challenging to maintain effective sexual health educations due to various restrictions. Misunderstandings of the effect of VMMC in preventing HIV infection are the main reason for increasing risky sexual behaviors after surgery. Systematic and practical sexual health counseling services should be in place on an ongoing basis to maximize the effect of VMMC.

In this article, we mainly study the interpolations between arithmetic mean and geometric mean—power mean, Heron mean and Heinz mean. First, we obtain the improvement and reverse improvement of arithmetic-power mean inequalities by the convexity of the function. We show that the proof of Heron mean inequality due to Yang and Ren: [Some results of Heron mean and Young’s inequalities, J. Inequal. Appl. 2018 (2018), paper no, 172], is not substantial. In addition, we also obtain Heron-Heinz mean inequalities for t ∈ ℝ. Further corresponding operator versions and generalizations are also established.

Narrowband photodetectors (NPDs) with the capability of detecting light within a selective wavelength range are in high demand for numerous emerging applications such as imaging systems, machine vision, and optical communication. Halide perovskite materials have been developed for eliminating the current complex filtering systems in NPDs due to their beneficial properties, while currently NPDs using perovskite materials are limited by hardly fully eliminated short wavelength response, low charge collection efficiency (CCE), complex fabrication process, and so forth. Herein, a series of perovskite single-crystalline heterojunctions (PSCHs) with a structure of Bi-MAPbX

Patients with functional constipation (FCon) often suffer from mental and psychological problems. To explore the possible neurological interaction, we used resting-state functional magnetic imaging (RS-fMRI) to compare the alterations in intrinsic brain functional networks at multiple levels between patients with FCon and healthy controls (HC).Twenty-eight patients with FCon and twenty-nine HC were recruited for a series of examinations and RS-fMRI. Both graph theory analysis and functional connectivity (FC) analysis were used to investigate brain functional alterations between the two groups. Correlation analyses were performed among neuropsychological scores, clinical indexes, and neuroimaging data.Compared with the HC, the assortativity showed significantly increased in global level in patients with FCon. In regional level, we found obviously increased nodal degree and nodal efficiency in somatosensory network (SMN), decreased nodal degree, and increased nodal efficiency in default mode network (DMN) in the FCon group. Furthermore, FC analysis demonstrated several functional alterations within and between the networks, particularly including the SMN and visual network (VN) in sub-network and large-scale network analysis. Moreover, correlation analysis indicated that nodal metrics and aberrant FC among functional brain networks were associated with emotion and scores of constipation in patients with FCon.All these findings reflect the differences in intrinsic brain functional networks between FCon and HC. Our study highlighted SMN, DMN, and VN as critical network and may be involved in the neurophysiology of FCon, which may contribute to improve personalized treatment in patients with FCon.

Manxue Zhang,1,2 Shengnan Zhao,1 Yuexin Chen,1 Xu Zhang,1 Yuwei Li,1 Peiwei Xu,1 Yi Huang,1,3 Xueli Sun1 1Mental Health Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China; 2The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 3Brain Research Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xueli Sun, Department of Psychiatry, Mental Health Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, No. 37 Guo Xue Xiang, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 28 8542 2023, Fax +862885582944, Email sunxuelihx@163.comIntroduction: Chronic stress has been linked to the pathophysiology of bipolar disorder (BD); however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. In BD patients, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity is associated with stress. This study aimed to examine the relationship between HPA axis activity and BD symptoms in various clinical states, as well as how personality influences the process.Methods: This study investigated the differences in HPA axis activity among four BD states. We enrolled 813 BD patients in an 8-week longitudinal study to examine the relationship between HPA axis activity and symptom trajectories using dynamic temporal warping (DTW) analysis and an unsupervised machine learning technique. Furthermore, using mediation analyses, the relationship between the HPA axis, personality, and BD symptoms was investigated.Results: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analysis showed that glucocorticoid cortisol (CORT) and adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) did not differ significantly among the four clinical states of BD. The DTW integrating clustering analysis revealed that the two clusters were optimal, with cluster 1 characterized by severe manic symptoms, which then improved, and cluster 2, characterized by milder manic severity, which also improved. The two clusters showed different ACTH levels (t = 2.289, p = 0.022), and logistic regression analysis revealed a slight positive association between ACTH levels and cluster 1. Furthermore, the mediation analysis indicated that ACTH influences curative efficacy via conscientiousness (βc =0.103, p=0.001).Discussion: In conclusion, we found that a higher level of ACTH is associated with severe manic symptoms, indicating a chronic stress response in BD patients. Additionally, the ACTH levels affect short-term BD curative efficacy via the mediation of conscientiousness, providing a psychotherapeutic strategy direction for BD.Keywords: bipolar disorder, hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, personality, dynamic time warping analysis, mediation analysis

Drawing upon construal level theory (CLT) and relational turbulence theory (RTT), two studies developed and assessed three operationalizations of relational construal level, defined as how concretely or abstractly people conceptualize their romantic relationship, and evaluated relational construal level as a mediator of the associations between relational turbulence and supportiveness, collaborative planning, and social network engagement using data reported by individuals in romantic relationships. In Study 1 ( N = 405), preference for abstract versus concrete descriptions of relational activities and tendency to make extreme versus neutral judgments about a partner demonstrated desirable measurement properties and negative associations with relational turbulence, as predicted. A third measure indexing the accessibility of relational judgments was associated with neither relational turbulence nor the other measures of relational construal level. Study 2 used a more ethnically diverse sample ( N = 414; Asian: n = 103, Black: n = 105, Hispanic: n = 102, White: n = 104) and identified preference for abstract versus concrete descriptions of relational activities as the most robust operationalization of relational construal level. Specifically, this measure was negatively associated with relational turbulence and mediated the associations between relational turbulence and supportiveness, collaborative planning, and social network engagement, as predicted by RTT.

Background Current studies on the role of ARHGAP39 mainly focused on its effect on neurodevelopment. However, there are few studies on the comprehensive analysis of ARHGAP39 in breast cancer. Methods ARHGAP39 expression level was analyzed based on the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), and the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) database and validated by qPCR in various cell lines and tumor tissues. The prognostic value was analyzed using Kaplan–Meier curve analysis. CCK-8 and transwell assays were conducted to identify the biological function of ARHGAP39 in tumorigenesis. Signaling pathways related to ARHGAP39 expression were identified by the GO and KEGG enrichment analysis and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). The correlations between ARHGAP39 and cancer immune infiltrates were investigated via TIMER, CIBERSORT, ESTIMATE and tumor-immune system interactions database (TISIDB). Results ARHGAP39 was overexpressed in breast cancer and associated with poor survival outcomes. In vitro experiments revealed that ARHGAP39 could facilitate the proliferation, migration, and invasion capability of breast cancer cells. GSEA analysis showed that the main enrichment pathways of ARHGAP39 was immunity-related pathways. Considering the immune infiltration level, ARHGAP39 was negatively associated with infiltrating levels of CD8 + T cell and macrophage, and positively associated with CD4 + T cell. Furthermore, ARHGAP39 was significantly negatively correlated with immune score, stromal score, and ESTIMATE score. Conclusions Our findings suggested that ARHGAP39 can be used as a potential therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker in breast cancer. ARHGAP39 was indeed a determinant factor of immune infiltration.

BACKGROUND Systematic reviews and meta-analyses based on observational studies have shown voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) may reduce HIV risk among men who have sex with men (MSM). There is a lack of randomized controlled trial (RCT) data assessing the efficacy of VMMC. OBJECTIVE The primary objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of VMMC for preventing HIV acquisition among MSM who primarily engage in insertive anal sex. METHODS A multicenter RCT will be conducted among MSM in 8 cities in China. Eligible participants are men aged 18-49 years who self-report ≥2 male sex partners in the past 6 months, predominantly practice insertive anal sex, and are willing to undergo circumcision. Interested men who satisfy inclusion criteria will be tested for HIV 1 month before enrollment and at enrollment, and only those who are HIV negative will be enrolled. At baseline, all enrolled participants will be asked to report sociodemographic characteristics and sexual behaviors; provide a blood sample for HIV, syphilis, and herpes simplex virus type 2 testing; and provide a penile swab for human papillomavirus testing. Participants will be randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Those in the intervention group will receive VMMC and undergo a web-based weekly follow-up assessment of postsurgery healing for 6 consecutive weeks. All participants will be tested for HIV at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month follow-ups. All participants will also be asked to report sexual behaviors and undergo repeat herpes simplex virus type 2 and human papillomavirus testing at 6- and 12-month follow-ups. The primary end point is HIV seroconversion. Secondary end points are the safety and satisfaction with VMMC and the changes in sexual behaviors after VMMC. The grouped censored data will be analyzed by intention-to-treat approach. RESULTS Recruitment for the RCT began in August 2020 and continued through July 2022. Data collection is expected to be completed by July 2023, and full data analysis is going to be completed by September 2023. CONCLUSIONS This study will be the first RCT to assess the efficacy of VMMC in preventing HIV infection among MSM. Results from this trial will provide preliminary evidence for the potential efficacy of VMMC to reduce incident HIV infection among MSM. CLINICALTRIAL Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2000039436; https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=63369 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/47160

Fuzzing is a technique of finding bugs by executing a target program recurrently with a large number of abnormal inputs. Most of the coverage-based fuzzers consider all parts of a program equally and pay too much attention to how to improve the code coverage. It is inefficient as the vulnerable code only takes a tiny fraction of the entire code. In this article, we design and implement an evolutionary fuzzing framework called V-Fuzz, which aims to find bugs efficiently and quickly in limited time for binary programs. V-Fuzz consists of two main components: 1) a vulnerability prediction model and 2) a vulnerability-oriented evolutionary fuzzer. Given a binary program to V-Fuzz, the vulnerability prediction model will give a prior estimation on which parts of a program are more likely to be vulnerable. Then, the fuzzer leverages an evolutionary algorithm to generate inputs which are more likely to arrive at the vulnerable locations, guided by the vulnerability prediction result. The experimental results demonstrate that V-Fuzz can find bugs efficiently with the assistance of vulnerability prediction. Moreover, V-Fuzz has discovered ten common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), and three of them are newly discovered.

With the advancement of information technology, mega data techniques are becoming more widely used in data analysis applications in all walks of life; the expansion of universities has resulted in a significant increase in the number of students; and the improvement of living standards has caused more parents to travel to other places. Children are becoming less and less communicative. Many students become lonely and worried in this environment, and psychological fitness issues develop over time. We should also introduce the application method of big data into the field of college psychological fitness education to improve the accuracy of college students’ psychological fitness education. Giving priority to university students’ psychological quality education, conducting targeted psychological fitness counseling based on the current state of university students’ psychological fitness, and effectively cultivating high-quality talents are realistic and urgent tasks faced by universities. Universities can use the relevant methods of fuzzy set and cluster analysis to evaluate university students’ psychological fitness in order to provide more relevant psychological fitness education and to study and evaluate university students’ psychological fitness problems more scientifically. We should extract the performance characteristics of university students’ rebellious psychological phenomenon and analyze the relationship between rebellious psychology and behavior obstruction in detail when modeling psychological fitness quality. Traditional methods, on the other hand, suffer from a large modeling error due to the introduction of a mapping table and a misclassification rate threshold. This paper investigates the analysis of university students’ psychological fitness data and the construction of a feedback system using mega data techniques, based on their current psychological fitness status.

Ferroustherapy has gained great attention for anti-cancer treatment in recent years. Enlightened by temperature-mediated Fenton reaction in industrial waste water removal, we designed a iron-based polyphenol-coordinated nanomedicines for mild hyperthermia-assisted anti-cancer ferroustherapy. In brief, Fe-GA@BSA nanoparticles was synthesized by self-assembly and sorafenib (SRF) was loaded into Fe-GA@BSA to establish Fe-GA@BSA-SRF nanomedicines. The result nanomedicines can induce ferroptosis in cancer cells by accelerating Fenton reaction. And the photothermal effect of Fe-GA@BSA-SRF was used for mild hyperthermia-assisted ferroustherapy. The nanomedicines performs good anti-cancer therapeutic efficacy by inducing the production of ROS and inhibiting glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) expression in vitro and in vivo. Besides, the broad absorption of Fe-GA@BSA-SRF in near infrared region endows it with photoacoustic imaging ability. This study provides ideas about rational design on iron-based nanoparticles for anti-cancer ferroustherapy.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an important gaseous signaling molecule that regulates cardiovascular activity in animals. The hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) is a major integrative region involved in blood pressure (BP) regulation. We explored whether exogenous H2S application by intraperitoneal injection of sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS) alleviates BP increase induced by a high salt diet (HSD) and the role of PVN in Dahl salt-sensitive (Dahl S) rats. Dahl S rats were divided into four groups according to diet regime (normal salt diet [NSD] and HSD) and treatment method (daily intraperitoneal NaHS or saline injection). We monitored BP, food and water intake, and body weight for 8 weeks. Plasma, kidney, and brain tissues were collected at the end of the experiment. We found that exogenous H2S not only delayed BP elevation but also attenuated the increase in the levels of norepinephrine, cystatin C, and blood urea nitrogen in the plasma of Dahl S rats with an HSD. Furthermore, H2S enhanced the total antioxidant capacity, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase in the PVN. Exogenous H2S attenuated the protein expression of the nuclear factor-κB pathway and proinflammatory cytokines, which were significantly higher in the PVN in rats with an HSD than in rats with an NSD. Additionally, exogenous H2S relieved PVN neuronal apoptosis induced by an HSD. These findings suggest that exogenous H2S attenuates hypertension caused by an HSD by ameliorating oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis in the PVN. This study provides evidence of the benefits of peripheral H2S therapy for hypertension.

In this research, to mimic the structures and the functionalities of the organelles in living cells multienzyme proteinosomes with β-galactosidase (β-gal), glucose oxidase (GOx) and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) on the surfaces are fabricated by hydrophobic-interaction induced self-assembly approach. To investigate the mechanism of the formation of proteinosomes, poly(di(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (PDEGMA) and bovine serum albumin are employed in a model system and the study demonstrates that the hydrophobic interaction between the dehydrated polymer chains and the hydrophobic patches on the proteins plays a key role in the fabrication of the proteinosomes. Based on the model system, multienzyme proteinosomes with β-gal, GOx and HRP on the surfaces are fabricated through hydrophobic interaction between PDEGMA and enzyme molecules. Enzyme-catalyzed cascade reactions are performed on the surfaces of the proteinosomes, and the immobilized enzymes show higher bioactivities than the "free" enzymes, due to the direct transfer of the product as a substrate from one enzyme molecule to another. This research provides a unique method for the synthesis of multienzyme proteinosomes with improved bioactivities, and the biofunctional structures will find promising applications in medical and biological science.

Gap junctions (GJs), which are composed of connexins (Cxs), provide channels for direct information exchange between cells. Cx expression has a strong spatial specificity; however, its influence on cell behavior and information exchange between cells cannot be ignored. A variety of factors in organisms can modulate Cxs and subsequently trigger a series of responses that have important effects on cellular behavior. The expression and function of Cxs and the number and function of GJs are in dynamic change. Cxs have been characterized as tumor suppressors in the past, but recent studies have highlighted the critical roles of Cxs and GJs in cancer pathogenesis. The complex mechanism underlying Cx and GJ involvement in cancer development is a major obstacle to the evolution of therapy targeting Cxs. In this paper, we review the post-translational modifications of Cxs, the interactions of Cxs with several chaperone proteins, and the effects of Cxs and GJs on cancer.