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Recently, energy-efficient ambient backscatter communication has emerged as a promising technology to build up self-sustainable wireless networks. However, the limited transmission range and rate restrict the communication capability of a single backscatter node. To ensure network coverage and connectivity, the nodes in ambient backscatter-aided wireless networks (AmBWNs) have to be densely deployed. Unfortunately, the fickle and sporadic nature of the energy source and carrier in AmBWNs would lead to unreliable and unstable transmissions. We argue that the network throughput can be significantly improved if we can take full advantages of both stable active transmission and energy-saving backscattering. However, it is challenging to jointly determine nodes’ transmission mode to enhance the throughput and energy efficiency. Moreover, the fairness in terms of traffic load at each node of AmBWNs is not thoroughly considered in the existing research. The improper load allocation would hinder the network throughput and even cause network partition if some bottleneck nodes deplete the energy. In this article, a novel metric is defined to measure the aggregate energy efficiency of neighboring nodes, capturing the beneficial interaction of active links and backscatter links. Subsequently, we address the aggregate energy efficiency maximization problem constrained by Gini threshold. The Gini coefficient is used to adjust the load in proportion to the delivery capacity of each node, achieving proportional fairness in the dense AmBWN. The simulation result shows that the well-designed metric can improve the energy efficiency by 11 times and the throughput by 86%.

Frontline information disclosure refers to the endeavor to make the information of interactions between frontline officials and their clients available to policy stakeholders. This study proposes t...

How is the discretion of police officers influenced by clients’ gender and situational visibility under emergency regulations? To answer this question, this study uses the scenario-based-experiment...

Right ventricular (RV) dysfunction induced type II cardiorenal syndrome (CRS) has a high mortality rate, but little attention has been paid to this disease, and its unique molecular characteristics remain unclear. This study aims to investigate the transcriptomic expression profile in this disease and identify key RNA pairs that regulate related molecular signaling networks. We established an RV dysfunction-induced type II CRS mouse model by pulmonary artery constriction (PAC). PAC mice developed severe RV hypertrophy and fibrosis; renal atrophy and dysfunction with elevated creatinine were subsequently observed. Expression profiles in RV and kidney tissues were obtained by whole transcriptome sequencing, revealing a total of 741 and 86 differentially expressed (DE) mRNAs, 159 and 29 DEmiRNAs and 233 and 104 DEcircRNAs between RV and kidney tissue, respectively. Competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks were established. A significant alteration in proliferative, fibrotic and metabolic pathways was found based on GO and KEGG analyses, and the network revealed key ceRNA pairs, such as novel_circ_002631/miR-181a-5p/Creb1 and novel_circ_002631/miR-33-y/Kpan6. These findings indicate that significantly dysregulated pathways in RV dysfunction induced type II CRS include Ras, PI3K/Akt, cGMP-PKG pathways, and thyroid metabolic pathways. These ceRNA pairs can be considered potential targets for the treatment of type II CRS.

To further improve the performance of accelerators, the first cryogenic normal-conducting RF gun in China was designed and manufactured. As a new and attractive trend, this optimized cryogenic RF gun can generate a low-emittance beam with a short-driven laser pulse because of its promising high gradient on the cathode. In this paper, optimization of the RF design and beam dynamics, including suppression of the peak RF field and elimination of the multipole mode, is presented. In addition, the emittance growth caused by the alignment deviation and RF jitter is discussed. After the gun was manufactured, a cold test was conducted at both room temperature and cryogenic conditions. At room temperature, the field distribution was obtained by the bead pull method. Under cryogenic conditions, the RF properties, such as the coupling coefficient and quality factor, varied with temperature. The test results agreed with the design. In the cryogenic test, vibration measurements were performed. Without vibration isolation, a maximum vibration of 50 $$\mu \text{m}$$ was observed. These cold test results are the basis of the following high-power test.

Simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) is a promising technique for wireless energy harvesting, which enables a relay node to overcome its unwillingness due to the energy awareness, with essentially protecting it from excessively depleting energy reserves. To further improve the energy efficiency, the energy consumption minimization problem aims at minimizing the energy consumption of an active source node, which drives the passive relay node with energy harvesting capability to forward data to the destination. This is studied by jointly considering transmission power limits, time switching factors, and data-rate demand, etc., in a decode-and-forward relay network with SWIPT. The energy consumption minimization problem is formulated as a non-convex optimization problem. The facilitation of the derivation of the optimal solution is through transforming it into an equivalent convex optimization problem by variable substitution. Since the problem is not always feasible, a feasibility assessment problem is then developed by introducing an assessing factor. Simultaneously solving the above inter-related problems, i.e., energy consumption minimization and feasibility assessment, they are unified in a convex-optimization framework, in which both the result about the feasibility assessment and the optimal solution (if it exists) can be obtained. Even if the problem is not feasible, the achievable maximum data rate that network resources can support can be obtained as well. Simulation results further validate that energy consumption minimization-feasibility assessment algorithm is effective in minimizing source energy consumption and in realizing optimal resource configuration.

Reckless driving severely threatens the safety of innocent people, which accounts for around 33% of all fatalities in major vehicle accidents. However, most existing efforts focus on the detection and adjustment of a vehicle's own driving behavior, whose effectiveness is very limited. In this paper, we develop a defensive alerting system to detect and notify the threats posed by reckless vehicles. By integrating the computation capability of a cloud server with that of vehicles nowadays, we propose a cooperative driving performance rating (CDPR) mechanism to automatically and intelligently detect reckless vehicles based on machine learning algorithms. To support such a defensive alerting system, a three-tier system architecture is developed from existing vehicular networks, which consists of vehicles, road-side units (RSU) and a cloud server. Moreover, given the fact that most vehicles can be trusted to drive safely, to further reduce the transmission load of the CDPR mechanism, we design our scheme in such a way that every vehicle only uploads the data of driving maneuvers with reckless potential to RSUs. Based on the aggregated data, the cloud server globally rates every vehicle's driving performance by using support vector machine (SVM) and decision-tree machine learning models. We finally implement the proposed CDPR mechanism into a popular traffic simulator, Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO), for evaluation. Simulation results illustrate that our defensive alerting system can accurately detect reckless vehicles and effectively provide timely alerts.

Wireless backscatter communications has been introduced as a promising technique for data transmissions without a conventional energy supply from a battery or power outlet. It shares some similarity with RF energy harvesting powered wireless transmissions. Many benefits can be achieved when both techniques are integrated. In this article, we introduce the concept of a hybrid radio that is an integrated design of wireless-powered active RF communications and backscatter communications. We then discuss a few use cases of hybrid radio networks to suggest potential applications and to improve network performance. Furthermore, we consider a specific case in which hybrid radios act as passive relays to assist active RF communications. The passive relays backscatter the RF signals from the source to the receiver which, by experiments, shows to improve the transmission rate due to the enhanced multi-path diversity gain. We also introduce an optimization to quantify the performance improvement achievable by the radios' cooperation in the hybrid radio network.

Wireless sensing is an emerging technique, which could enable a receiver to sense surrounding target information, such as location, angle of arrival, activity, gesture, speed, and vital signs, by analyzing the influence of the target on the received signals. It empowers wireless receivers with the additional sensing ability and could provide rich context information for intelligent applications. Intuitively, if we can understand the variation law of the influenced signal and better observe it, we will definitely achieve better sensing performance. Unfortunately, as a fundamental issue, this problem has not yet been extensively explored. In this paper, we propose a dynamic differential phase analysis method to solve this issue. Specifically, we design a differential phase change rate metric to characterize the degree of target influence in the vicinity of the receiver, propose to utilize the dynamic differential phase as the observation to realize wireless sensing, and develop a scale-variable scheme to enlarge the influenced signals by changing the distance between adjacent receiving antennas. Experimental results in three typical wireless sensing systems confirm that the proposed method could not only guide us to achieve better sensing performance, but also strengthen our understanding on the nature of wireless sensing.

An X-band transverse-deflecting structure is a crucial RF unit for bunch-length measurement conducted at the Shanghai Soft-X-ray Free Electron Laser Facility (SXFEL) at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. The target of this prototype deflector is to operate at 30 MW to have a deflection of 10 MV/structure to realize 20-fs resolution in a full-size structure (0.6 meters long, used on user facility of SXFEL), which satisfies the requirement of the linac beam size measurement at 840 MeV. The program was started in 2010 focusing on X-band deflectors, including design, fabrication, and RF measurement. The electrical tuning of the deflector was successfully done using a unique “cage”-type bead. Recently, a high-power test was conducted at KEK on the first prototype deflector. The high-gradient features at the nominal gradient was proven, but the further increase of power and pulse width was limited at 45 MW with a 173-ns pulse width due to approaching the feasible limit of the modified pointing vector value 5 MW/mm2. In this final stage, frequent breakdowns near the badly brazed point occurred and further conditioning had to be suspended owing to limited available time.

It has been reported that growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11) protects against myocardial ischemia/reperfusion (IR) injury, but the underlying mechanisms have not been fully clarified. Considering that GDF11 plays a role in the aging/rejuvenation process and that aging is associated with telomere shortening and cardiac dysfunction, we hypothesized that GDF11 might protect against IR injury by activating telomerase. Human plasma GDF11 levels were significantly lower in acute coronary syndrome patients than in chronic coronary syndrome patients. IR mice with myocardial overexpression GDF11 (oe-GDF11) exhibited a significantly smaller myocardial infarct size, less cardiac remodeling and dysfunction, fewer apoptotic cardiomyocytes, higher telomerase activity, longer telomeres, and higher ATP generation than IR mice treated with an adenovirus carrying a negative control plasmid. Furthermore, mitochondrial biogenesis-related proteins and some antiapoptotic proteins were significantly upregulated by oe-GDF11. These cardioprotective effects of oe-GDF11 were significantly antagonized by BIBR1532, a specific telomerase inhibitor. Similar effects of oe-GDF11 on apoptosis and mitochondrial energy biogenesis were observed in cultured neonatal rat cardiomyocytes, whereas GDF11 silencing elicited the opposite effects to oe-GDF11 in mice. We concluded that telomerase activation by GDF11 contributes to the alleviation of myocardial IR injury through enhancing mitochondrial biogenesis and suppressing cardiomyocyte apoptosis.

As an advanced treatment method in the past five years, ultra-high dose rate (FLASH) radiotherapy as a breakthrough and milestone in radiotherapy development has been verified to be much less harmful to healthy tissues in different experiments. FLASH treatments require an instantaneous dose rate as high as hundreds of grays per second to complete the treatment in less than 100 ms. Current proton therapy facilities with the spread-out of the Bragg peak formed by different energy layers, to our knowledge, cannot easily achieve an adequate dose rate for FLASH treatments because the energy layer switch or gantry rotation of current facilities requires a few seconds, which is relatively long. A new design for a therapy facility based on a proton linear accelerator (linac) for FLASH treatment is proposed herein. It is designed under two criteria: no mechanical motion and no magnetic field variation. The new therapy facility can achieve an ultra-high dose rate of up to 300 Gy/s; however, it delivers an instantaneous dose of 30 Gy within 100 ms to complete a typical FLASH treatment. The design includes a compact proton linac with permanent magnets, a fast beam kicker in both azimuth and elevation angles, a fixed gantry with a static superconducting coil to steer proton bunches with all energy, a fast beam scanner using radio-frequency (RF) deflectors, and a fast low-level RF system. All relevant principles and conceptual proposals are presented herein.

Sierra Leone is a highly endemic area for malaria, and the implementation of the National Malaria Strategic Plan (2016–2020) has reached its midpoint in 2018. To provide more specific guidance for interventions in the future, a household-based cross-sectional survey was conducted to elucidate the knowledge, awareness and practices regarding malaria and malarial control measures among the general public. Three communities (Grafton, Jui, and Kossoh) in the Western Area Rural District that were in close proximity to Sierra Leone's capital city of Freetown were included. Households were randomly selected and interviewed with a structured questionnaire covering malaria infection, diagnosis, treatment and prevention, as well as knowledge of malaria prevention. As a result, a total of 262 qualified questionnaires were included. The average cost for meals per day is ~30,000 Leones in each household. The rate of awareness, indicated by reporting having heard of malaria, was 98.1% (257/262), and 86.6% (227/262) of the respondents knew that mosquito bites are the main route of transmission. In addition, 80.9% (212/262) of the respondents sought health advice or treatment for the illness, and a similar percentage of respondents had been tested for malaria, mostly with rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs). A high demand for long-lasting insecticidal nets (72.1%) matched the serious shortage (61.8%, 162/262), and of the households that reported a lack of nets, 66 had children younger than 5 years old. In conclusion, public awareness of malaria prevention is high, based on this survey, although there was a limited use of preventive measures in these three communities and the malaria burden was still high. Therefore, the public's knowledge of malaria should be sustained and reinforced, and the distribution and use of malaria prevention measures should be promoted to supprt the achievement of the planned objectives.

Background: Feeding intolerance (FI) is a common condition in premature infants that results in growth retardation and even necrotizing enterocolitis. The gut microbiome is linked to FI occurrence; however, the outcome after FI recovery is unclear.Methods: Fecal samples were collected from 11 pairs of premature twins/triplets for 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Initial fecal samples were collected shortly after admission, and then every other week until 7 weeks or discharge.Results: After FI recovery, there was no significant difference in the β-diversity of the intestinal flora between the FI group and the feeding tolerance (FT) group. By contrast, there was a significant difference in the β-diversity. Proteobacteria was the predominant phylum in the microbiome of the FI group, whereas Firmicutes was the predominant phylum in the microbiome of the FT group. The predominant bacteria with LDA >4 between the two groups at 13–15 days after birth, 19–28 days after birth, and at discharge were different, with the proportions of Bacillus, Clostridium butyricum, and Clostridium being highest in the FT group and Firmicutes, unidentified_Clostridiales, and Proteobacteria being highest in the FI group. Similarly, there were significant differences in the relative abundances of KEGG pathways, such as fatty acid metabolism, DNA repair and recombination proteins, energy metabolism, and amino acid metabolism, between the two groups (P < 0.01).Conclusions: There was a significant difference in diversity of the intestinal flora after feeding intolerance recovery. Feeding intolerance may disturb the succession of the intestinal bacterial community.

Based on twice transverse aortic constrictions (TACs) in mice, it is proved that myocardial hypertrophic preconditioning (MHP) could attenuate cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and slow down progression to heart failure. For novices, however, the MHP model is usually quite difficult to establish because of the technical obstacles in ventilator operation, opening the chest repeatedly, and bleeding caused by debanding. To facilitate this model, to increase the surgical success rate and to reduce the incidence of bleeding, we switched to absorbable sutures for the first TAC combing with a ventilator-free technique. Using a 2-week absorbable suture, we demonstrated that this procedure could cause significant myocardial hypertrophy in 2 weeks; and 4 weeks after surgery, myocardial hypertrophy was almost completely regressed to the baseline. Using this protocol, the operators could master the MHP model easily with a lower operation mortality.

Freshwater fishes are threatened by increasing environmental changes and human disturbances. The Min River, the largest river in Southeastern China, contains unique fish fauna for the Oriental realm. Due to environmental changes brought by forty years of economic growth, fish numbers have dramatically declined. The average taxonomic distinctness in the 1970s was significantly higher than that in 2015, while no significant differences were found in the variation in taxonomic distinctness between the two periods. Due to the river network and habitat diversity, fish fauna composition showed significant spatial differences but lower variation than the decadal variation. Precipitation was determined to be the most influential factor in determining the spatial pattern of fish fauna, followed by temperature. Species introduced for aquaculture have invaded the endemic fish community after escape and should be reconsidered in the trade-offs between economic development and ecological protection.

Device-to-device (D2D) communications can potentially alleviate cellular network congestion by utilizing local available links, and have attracted intensive attention recently. Cognitive radio (CR) allows users to opportunistically access unused licensed spectrums. It thus serves as a great candidate technology for D2D communications, but has not been widely employed in cellular networks due to hardware development limitations. In this paper, we propose a new architecture, called cognitive mesh assisted cellular network (CMCN), in which several secondary service providers (SSPs) deploy CR routers to facilitate D2D communications among wireless users. To address the competition among the SSPs, we further construct a secondary spectrum auction market. Although a few works have studied spectrum auctions, most of them are designed for single-hop communications, and it is usually not clear whom a winning user communicates with. Uncertain spectrum availability is not considered in previous schemes either. In this paper, we propose a transmission opportunity auction scheme, called TOA, which can address these problems. Extensive simulations are conducted to validate the efficiency of the CMCN architecture and that of the TOA scheme.

The integration of wireless power transfer (WPT) with the low-power backscatter communications provides a promising way to sustain battery-less wireless networks. In this paper, we consider a backscatter communication network wirelessly powered by a power beacon station (PBS). Each backscatter radio uses the harvested energy to power its data transmissions, in which some other radios can help as the wireless relays with an aim to improve throughput performance by cooperative transmission. Under this setting, we formulate a throughput maximization problem to jointly optimize WPT and the relay strategy of the backscatter radios. An iterative algorithm with reduced complexity and communication overhead is proposed to decompose the original problem into two sub-problems distributed at the PBS and the backscatter receiver. Moreover, we take uncertain channel information into consideration and formulate robust counter-parts of the throughput maximization problem when either the backscatter or relay channel is subject to estimation errors. The difficulty of the robust counter-part lies in the coupling of the PBS’ power allocation and relay strategy in matrix inequalities, which is addressed by alternating optimization with guaranteed convergence. Numerical results reveal that the cooperative relay strategy of the backscatter radios significantly improves the throughput performance.

Cooperative device to device (CD2D) communication has been considered to be a solution to capacity shortage problem. Combining multi-homing and CD2D techniques together can potentially improve network performance. We propose a novel multi-homing CD2D (MH-CD2D) network, in which multiple homing mobile devices (MMDs) act as relays for the cooperative communications of ordinary mobile devices (OMDs). We formulate such joint bandwidth-relay allocation problem as a two-stage game, in order to deal with two challenges: how to motivate MMDs to lease spare bandwidths and help OMDs to choose appropriate MMD relays. In the first stage, we use a non-cooperative game to model the competition between MMDs in terms of shared bandwidth and price. In the second stage, we model the behavior of OMDs selecting MMDs by an evolutionary game. We prove that there exists Nash equilibrium in the game and propose a distributed incentive scheme named IMES to solve the joint bandwidth-relay allocation problem. Extensive simulation results show that the equilibrium can be achieved and the best response price of one MMD increases with the other's best price in the Stackelberg game. The utility of MMDs increases with the number of OMDs in each OMD group at the evolutionary equilibrium. The proposed algorithms are able to reduce average service delay by more than 25% in comparison to the randomized scheme which is frequently used in existing works. On average, IMES outperforms existing scheme by about 20.37% in terms of utility of MMDs., 28 pages, 7 figures, Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (Not the final version)

SUMMARYKnowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) of the population regarding severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) in endemic areas of Lu'an in China were assessed before and after an intervention programme. The pre-intervention phase was conducted using a sample of 425 participants from the 12 selected villages with the highest rates of endemic SFTS infection. A predesigned interview questionnaire was used to assess KAP. Subsequently, an intervention programme was designed and applied in the selected villages. KAP was re-assessed for each population in the selected villages using the same interview questionnaire. Following 2 months of the programme, 339 participants had completed the re-assessed survey. The impact of the intervention programme was evaluated using suitable statistical methods. A significant increase in the KAP and total KAP scores was noted following the intervention programme, whereas the proportion of correct knowledge, the positive attitudes and the effective practices toward SFTS of respondents increased significantly. The intervention programme was effective in improving KAP level of SFTS in populations that were resident in endemic areas.

In this paper, we consider a device-to-device (D2D) network underlying a cellular system wherein the densely deployed D2D user devices can act as wireless relays for a distant transceiver pair. We aim to devise a beamforming strategy for the relays that maximizes the data rate of the distant transceiver while satisfying interference constraints at the cellular receivers. Towards that end, we first formulate a beamforming problem whose solution is robust against the channel uncertainties in the relay-destination hop. Motivated by practical observations, we assume that the random channels in this hop follow unimodal distributions and propose a novel unimodal distributionally robust model to capture the channel uncertainties. Then, we extend the formulation so that it can also guard against the channel uncertainty in the source-relay hop under the worst case robust model. The resulting robust beamforming problem is generally non-convex and intractable. Therefore, we design an iterative algorithm, which is based on solving semidefinite programs, to find an approximate solution to it. Simulation results show that under mild conditions, our robust model significantly improves the throughput of D2D relay transmissions when compared with the conventional robust models that merely rely on the channels’ moment information. It also outperforms the Bernstein-type inequality-based convex approximation, which assumes that the channel follows a Gaussian distribution.

Activity recognition based on a wireless signal has received a lot of attention recently. Only requiring some modification on Access Point (AP), this type of approach is applicable to indoor environments. Many approaches require the line-of-sight signal, while activity recognition based on a wireless signal in non-line-of-sight (NLOS) environment remains a challenging problem. More importantly, how to distinguish the velocity of humans is still an open problem. In this paper, we present an approach for device-free movement recognition that leverages the radio frequency signal in the NLOS environment. We extract features from the received packet to classify different moving directions and velocities. We propose to distinguish human height based on the frequency feature of the received packet as well. Our experiment shows that the proposed approach can achieve a high accuracy of human activity recognition, even considering people with different heights.

This study examined differences in student satisfaction and perceptions of online teamwork in two cohorts of an undergraduate educational technology course: one delivered fully asynchronously and t...

Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region in China is affected seriously by the hazy weather that has a large impact on human health. PM2.5 is one of the most important reasons for hazy weather. Understanding the PM2.5 emission characteristics from different types of heavy-duty trucks (HDTs) is valuable in policies and regulations to improve urban air quality and mitigate vehicle emission in China. The investigation and analysis on HDT population and PM2.5 emission in BTH region are carried out. The results show that the population and PM2.5 emission of HDTs in BTH has risen for the last four consecutive years, from 404 thousand and 1795 tons in 2012 to 551 thousand and 2303 tons in 2015. The PM2.5 emission from HDTs in Hebei is about 10 times more than that of Beijing and 9 times more than that of Tianjin. The proportion of natural gas HDTs is about 5%; however, its PM2.5 emission only accounts for 0.94% in 2015, which indicates the utilization of HDTs powered by natural gas facilitate PM2.5 mitigation more than diesel in BTH. The tractor and pickup trucks are the main source of PM2.5 emission from different types of HDT, while special and dump trucks are relatively clean. This study has provided insights for management method and policy-making of vehicle in terms of environmental demand.

In this paper, we investigate the joint resource optimization for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing relay transmissions, where the relay uses time switching (TS) scheme for wireless information and power transfer. We aim to maximize the total rate under several constraints by adjusting the subcarrier pairing (SP), the source transmission power, the relay transmission power, and the TS factor. Different from most of the previous works that ignore the energy consumption for signal receiving and processing at relay, we take into account a realistic energy consumption model. We formulate the joint resource allocation problem as a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem, which is generally difficult to solve. First, we give the feasible condition of the considered problem. Based on this condition, we prove the ordered SP is the optimal SP, and thus SP and the rest of the resource allocation problem (RRAP) can be separately solved without loss of optimality. Then, a searching algorithm is proposed to find the global optimal solution to the RRAP. To improve the efficiency, a method is proposed to reduce the searching region to a smaller one, which is proven to contain the optimal solution. Next, to further reduce the computational complexity, we subtly transform the RRAP to an equivalent problem, where the objective function is a D.C. function (difference of concave functions). By exploiting the partial convex structure, we propose an efficient and fast algorithm. Finally, simulations verify the superior performance of the proposed algorithms comparing with related ones in terms of total rate.

The fatigue properties of concrete beams reinforced with carbon fiber-reinforced polymer-optical fiber Bragg grating (CFRP-OFBG) plates under three-point bending constant cyclic loading were experimentally studied. According to the experimental findings, the mechanism of fatigue failure in reinforced beams was presented, and the corresponding empirical equations were established for the prediction of the fatigue lives of these components. Besides, based on the real-time monitoring data of the intelligent CFRP-OFBG plates, a fatigue accumulative damage model was established using flexural bending stiffness for the prediction of fatigue life. Through example verification, it was found that the fatigue life predicted by the model had less error and was safer than the fatigue failure cycle number of the reinforced beam obtained by experimental tests.

What is already known on this topic? Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is endemic in Liaoning Province. Both Seoul and Hantaan virus are circulating in rodents, and epidemic outbreaks and sporadic cases have been recorded every year since the disease was recognized. What is added by this report? The epidemic trend of HFRS over the past 20 years (1999–2018) in Liaoning was analyzed, which showed both regional complexity and consistence with the epidemic in China. Genetic and antigenic stability of the circulating hantavirus were demonstrated, which suggested the effectiveness of the approved inactivated vaccine currently used in China. What are the implications for public health practice? Precise risk-based strategic practices that are integrated and regional are required for further improvement of the prevention and control of HFRS.

In recent years, generative adversarial network (GAN) has attracted great attention due to its impressive performance and potential numerous applications, such as data augmentation, real-like image synthesis, image compression improvement, etc. The generator in GAN learns the density of the distribution from real data in order to generate high fidelity fake samples from latent space and deceive the discriminator. Despite its advantages, GAN can easily memorize training samples because of the high model complexity of deep neural networks. Thus, training a GAN with sensitive or private data samples may compromise the privacy of training data. To address this privacy issue, we propose a novel \textit{Privacy Preserving Generative Adversarial Network} (PPGAN) that perturbs the objective function of discriminator by injecting Laplace noises based on functional mechanism to guarantee the differential privacy of training data. Since generator training is considered as a post-processing step while guaranteeing differential privacy of discriminator, the trained generator should be differentially private to effectively protect data samples. Through detailed privacy analysis, we theoretically prove that PPGAN can provide such strict differential privacy guarantee. With extensive simulation study on the benchmark dataset MNIST, we show the efficacy of the proposed PPGAN under practical privacy budgets.

Ambient backscatter communication (AmBC) enables information delivery over an ambient RF signal without carrier generation and has emerged as a promising technology to build up the self- sustainable Internet-of-Things (IoT). However, when a strong ambient signal appears, multiple backscatter nodes may initiate data transmission simultaneously, causing severe contention and wasting the precious transmission opportunity. The nondeterministic and sporadic nature of ambient signals makes it a great challenge for efficient multiple access design in ambient backscatter aided wireless network (AmBWN). Moreover, the stringent energy supply and ultra-low-cost design of the backscatter transmitter makes most multiple access schemes no longer suitable for AmBWN. To fully share carrier resources for backscattering, we resort to the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) to allow multiple devices in the same regime to transmit over an ambient signal with low latency. Moreover, we propose a hierarchical multiple access scheme, which allows beamforming based spatial division multiple access among groups, and NOMA for multiple users access within a group. The evaluation result shows latency and SINR can be significantly improved with minimal overhead at the transmitter.

Fire is one of the major disasters that endanger public safety and threatens the survival and development of human beings. There are many fire safety hazards in large modern buildings because of the dense staff and complex structure. The simulation of indoor and outdoor fire scenes in large buildings has important guiding significance and reference value for emergency rescue and evacuation in fires.In this paper, based on GIS technology, 3D modeling technology, and fire numerical simulation technology, the fire scene simulation model research are carried out. We select a large-scale building as the research object, establish fire environment modeling method and fire scene numerical simulation model, and improve the computational efficiency of fire numerical simulation by proposing a sub-regional variable-scale meshing method.

The land price reflects the supply and demand of the land market and the economic life of the city, is indispensable to regulate urban land use and optimize the allocation of land resources. Due to the complex factors affecting the price of urban land, involving natural factors, social factors, economic factors, market factors, there is currently no model method at home and abroad that can effectively integrate these factors for residential land price assessment.This research explore the identification method of urban land price influencing factors in artificial intelligence environment, and combine deep learning algorithm with urban land price evaluation method. The deep neural network is used to integrate the spatial characteristics of land influencing factors. By establishing the deep hybrid neural network with space features, the linear relationship and causal relationship of influencing factors and the land price are automatically identified. The deep learning algorithm for the factors affecting of Shenzhen urban land price, promote the intelligent evaluation of land price.

Background Critically ill patients are at higher risk having acute lung injury (ALI) and more often in need of parenteral nutrition. We sought to study whether preconditioning with representative of lipid emulsions for one week could benefit rats from ALI. Methods Using a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ALI rat model and techniques such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining. Results PGE2 production in the serum was highest in the LPS group, followed with Intralipid group, and the PGE2 level of these two groups was significantly (P 4 than the LPS, Clinoleic, or Omegaven group. In contrast to Intralipid, rats pretreated with Clinoleic or Omegaven significantly decreased their production of inflammatory mediators (IL-1 β, IL-6 and TNF-α), had less apoptosis in the lung tissues, and Omegaven greatly improved liver function upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge. Conclusions In an ALI setting, preconditioning with Omegaven or Clinoleic was better than Intralipid in decreasing the intensity of the cytokine storm and apoptosis caused by LPS challenge, and Omegaven in addition had the potential to improve liver function. The results from the present study set a basis for further investigation of the molecular mechanisms of ALI, including the up- and downstream pathways of proinflammatory factor production, in search of (small) molecules intervening with the pathogenesis of ALI in order to translate relevant research findings into clinical benefit for patients with ALI. The use of Omegaven or Clinoleic, particularly in patients with ALI, is still characterized by uncertainty due to a lack of relevant studies. Future investigations must specifically focus on the route of administration and mode of application (enteral vs. parenteral/bolus vs. continuous), determining an optimal dose of Omegaven or Clinoleic, and the defining the best timepoint(s) for administration. Critically ill patients are at higher risk having acute lung injury (ALI) and more often in need of parenteral nutrition. The effect of lipid emulsion via parenteral nutrition on liver function was first time evaluated in rats in an ALI setting. The comparison of three forms of lipid emulsion in a rat model of acute lung injury was first time studied. The fish oil-based lipid emulsion decrease in PGE 2 and increase in LTB 4 was first time reported.

The mechanism of right ventricular failure (RVF) requires clarification due to the uniqueness, high morbidity, high mortality, and refractory nature of RVF. Previous rat models imitating RVF progression have been described. Compared with rats, mice are more accessible, economical, and widely used in animal experiments. We developed a pulmonary artery constriction (PAC) approach which is comprised of banding the pulmonary trunk in mice to induce right ventricular (RV) hypertrophy. A special surgical latch needle was designed that allows for easier separation of the aorta and the pulmonary trunk. In our experiments, the use of this fabricated latch needle reduced the risk of arteriorrhexis and improved the surgical success rate to 90%. We used different padding needle diameters to precisely create quantitative constriction, which can induce different degrees of RV hypertrophy. We quantified the degree of constriction by evaluating the blood flow velocity of the PA, which was measured by noninvasive transthoracic echocardiography. RV function was precisely evaluated by right heart catheterization at 8 weeks after surgery. The surgical instruments made inhouse were composed of common materials using a simple process that is easy to master. Therefore, the PAC approach described here is easy to imitate using instruments made in the lab and can be widely used in other labs. This study presents a modified PAC approach that has a higher success rate than other models and an 8-week postsurgery survival rate of 97.8%. This PAC approach provides a useful technique for studying the mechanism of RVF and will enable an increased understanding of RVF.

We propose a method for retrieving a beam wavefront from its near-field intensity distribution after a 4f system by simply inserting a benchmark at the Fourier plane. Through a convolution of the mark-blocked spatial frequency component and the original optical field with the 4f system, the separation between the focus of any sub-aperture and the benchmark can be determined to reconstruct the beam wavefront. Theoretical and experimental studies demonstrate the validity of this method, which has potential applications in real-time wavefront sensing.

As the largest fisheries producer nation (including capture fisheries and aquaculture in both inland and marine waters), information about China (excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) is essential to evaluate the status of aquatic natural resources, the challenge of food security, and to guide policy implementation for future sustainable fisheries development. In this study, the official Chinese statistical data on inland capture fisheries and aquaculture from the earliest available year of 1949 to the latest year of 2013 were first summarized. Chinese inland fisheries in current status were evaluated by maximum net primary productivity, and their future development was projected from a scientific point of view. As a result, Chinese inland fisheries are already unsustainable and overexploited, and some species have been extirpated or are facing extirpation. Because of the unbalanced, geographic distributions of water resources and human density, inland aquaculture is oversaturated in eastern Chi...

Cognitive radio technologies enable users to opportunistically access unused licensed spectrum and are viewed as a promising way to deal with the current spectrum crisis. Over the last 15 years, cognitive radio technologies have been extensively studied from algorithmic design to practical implementation. One pressing and fundamental problem is how to integrate cognitive radios into current wireless networks to enhance network capacity and improve users’ experience. Unfortunately, existing solutions to cognitive radio networks (CRNs) suffer from many practical design issues. To foster further research activities in this direction, we attempt to provide a tutorial for CRN architecture design. Noticing that an effective architecture for CRNs is still lacking, in this tutorial, we systematically summarize the principles for CRN architecture design and present a novel flexible network architecture, termed cognitive capacity harvesting network (CCHN), to elaborate on how a CRN architecture can be designed. Unlike existing architectures, we introduce a new network entity, called secondary service provider, and deploy cognitive radio capability enabled routers, called cognitive radio routers, in order to effectively and efficiently manage resource harvesting and mobile traffic while enabling users without cognitive radios to access and enjoy CCHN services. Our analysis shows that our CCHN aligns well to industrial standardization activities and hence provides a viable approach to implementing future CRNs. We hope that our proposed design approach opens a new venue to future CRN research.

Nowadays, microblogging has become popular, with hundreds of millions of short messages being posted and shared every minute on a variety of topics in social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Weibo. Many of such messages contain videos that captured particular events or moments in people's life. In this work, we seek to automatically identify the video topics posted in the social media streams on Weibo. While Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT) task has been extensively studied in multimedia retrieval, automatically discovering, tracking and summarizing video topics from social media streams is still challenging due to short and noisy content, diverse and fast changing topics, and large data volume. In this paper, we propose a K-partite graph based approach to address these challenges. We introduce a K-partite graph representation to simultaneously model the relationships among videos contained in the Weibo streams, their textural features and visual features. We propose a novel joint clustering algorithm to capture global structure of the K-partite graph in a "relation cluster network" (RCN) where latent, meta-nodes are added to the network to represent video clusters. Based on this network we propose methods for tracking and summarizing the videos in streams through fusing various types of features and multiple ranking schemes. The experiment results based on a real dataset show the effectiveness of our method with significant improvement over baseline.

// Jie Luo 1, * , Xiaoxia Huang 2, * , Yali Li 1 , Yang Li 1 , Xueqin Xu 1 , Yan Gao 1 , Ruoshi Shi 1 , Wanjun Yao 1 , Juying Liu 1 , Changbin Ke 1 1 Institute of Anesthesiology & Pain (IAP), PET-CT, Institute of Anesthesiology and Department of Anesthesiology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan City, 442000, Hubei Province, China 2 Department of Nephrology, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan City, 442000, Hubei Province, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Changbin Ke, email: Changbinke@gmail.com Keywords: bone cancer pain, spinal cord, GPR30, excitatory transmission, inhibitory transmission Received: June 13, 2016 Accepted: August 26, 2016 Published: September 06, 2016 ABSTRACT Cancer induced bone pain is a very complicated clinical pain states that has proven difficult to be treated effectively due to poorly understand of underlying mechanism, but bone cancer pain (BCP) seems to be enhanced by a state of spinal sensitization. In the present study, we showed that carcinoma tibia implantation induced notable pain sensitization and up-regulation of G-protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPR30) in the spinal cord of rats which was reversed by GPR30 knockdown. Further studies indicated that upregulation of GPR30 induced by cancer implantation resulted in a select loss of γ-aminobutyric acid-ergic (GABAergic) neurons and functionally diminished the inhibitory transmission due to reduce expression of the vesicular GABA transporter (VGAT). GPR30 contributed to spinal cord disinhibition by diminishing the inhibitory transmission via upregulation of α1 subunit and downregulation of γ2 subunits. GPR30 also facilitated excitatory transmission by promoting functional up-regulation of the calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II α (CaMKII α) in glutamatergic neurons and increasing the clustering of the glutamate receptor subunit 1 (GluR1) subunit to excitatory synapse. Taken together, GPR30 contributed to the development of BCP by both facilitating excitatory transmission and inhibiting inhibitory transmission in the spinal cord. Our findings provide the new spinal disinhibition and sensitivity mechanisms underlying the development of bone cancer pain.

Background Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSDs) are autoimmune astrocytopathies with predominant involvement of the optic nerves and spinal cord. The current management is high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone, followed by apheresis therapy if it fails. We aimed to investigate plasma exchange (PE) benefits in corticosteroid-refractory NMOSDs. Methods From Embase, PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, and Clinical Trials, we identified PE-based studies published between Jan 2007 and Dec 2019. We pooled the information of these studies in a binomial meta-analysis. We investigated the factors affecting the efficacy of PE and its adverse events. The effectiveness of PE was assessed using the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS). The timing of PE initiation was assessed using Spearman correlation analysis. Results We included 561 records and identified 8 observational studies, including 228 NMOSD patients. The mean time to the initiation of PE was 11 days, and the average volume of each exchange was 1.5–2 L. PE treatment reduced the mean EDSS score by −1.04 (95% CI, −1.44 to −0.64). The initiation time of PE significantly affected the outcome (EDSS reduction) (P = 0.01; 95% CI, −1.30 to 0.28). In the ≤ 7-day and 8–23-day groups, the mean EDSS decreased by 0.64 (95% CI, −0.93 to −0.34) and 1.41 (95% CI, −1.79 to −1.02), respectively. In addition, PE showed the same efficacy for alleviating the symptoms of NMOSDs, regardless of the day between 8 to 23 days on which it was performed (P = 0.29). Thirty-five (20.8%) of the 168 patients had adverse events. Conclusion PE can ameliorate severe NMOSDs. PE effectiveness was associated with the duration between disease and the initiation of PE, and the optimal timing for PE initiation is 8 to 23 days after the onset of the disease.

Highlights • Students studied an online statistics lesson with 0, 1, or 4 self-efficacy features. • The 4-feature treatment improved transfer and self-efficacy better than others. • The 4-feature treatment reduced task anxiety better than others. • Combining 4 features is more effective than implementing them separately. • Combining 4 features is more effective than including no features., The goal of this study is to test the individual and combined effects of supplementing an online statistics lesson with four motivational strategies corresponding to Bandura’s (1997) four sources of self-efficacy (anxiety coping, modeling, mental practice, and effort feedback) on cognitive, motivational, and affective outcomes. Internet participants (N = 279) completed an online statistics module in one of six conditions with one or all four self-efficacy-building strategies (5 treatment conditions) or none of these strategies (control condition). The results indicated that the four strategies worked effectively in combination, significantly improving transfer test scores (d = 0.608), increasing self-efficacy ratings (d = 0.696), and reducing task anxiety ratings (d = −0.534), as compared with the control condition. By contrast, no motivational strategy alone was effective. The results suggest the importance of taking advantage of the power of all four sources of self-efficacy information in combination when designing motivational interventions for online mathematical lessons.

This work presents an optimized damping waveguide structure designed to satisfy the radio frequency parameters and long-range transverse wakefield suppression of the 380 GeV Compact Linear Collider facility currently under study. Here, the elliptical shape of the iris and the wall shape of the damping waveguides are both optimized to reduce the magnitudes of surface electromagnetic fields. The widths of the waveguide openings of the entire sequence of damping waveguides are also decreased linearly with respect to the direction of beam propagation to strongly suppress long-range transverse wakefields and to maintain the stability of the beam. The position of the high-order-mode damping loads in the waveguide structure is also studied to make the damping waveguide structure more compact while satisfying all design targets.

Background Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is a newly identified severe infectious disease caused by SFTS phlebovirus (SFTSV). SFTS monitoring has been carried out since 2010 in mainland China. We analysed the detection results of SFTSV RNA and antibody in SFTS surveillance cases to provide basic data for SFTS diagnosis. Methods This study was conducted in Shandong Province. Sera of SFTS surveillance cases were collected to detect SFTSV RNA and antibody by real-time RT-PCR and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, respectively. Detection rates were calculated. SPSS 18.0 (Chicago, IL, USA) was used for statistical analysis to compare the detection rates of SFTSV RNA and antibodies among different sera groups. Results A total of 374 SFTS surveillance cases were enrolled. Overall, 93.3% (349/374) of the sera samples were collected within 2 weeks after onset, and 6.7% (25/374) were collected between 15 days and 45 days. Of these, 183 (48.9%) were positive for SFTSV RNA. The SFTSV RNA-positive rate peaked (52.2%) in samples collected ≤7 days after onset and then showed a decreasing trend. The detection rate of SFTSV-specific IgM antibody was 30.5% (46/151) and was highest in samples collected between 8 and 14 days (43.3%, 26/60). The positive rate of SFTSV-specific IgG antibody (17.9%, 27/151) showed an increasing trend with the specimen collection time. In total, 74.8% (113/151) of sera samples had the same SFTSV RNA and IgM antibody detection results. However, 23.2% (29/125) of SFTSV RNA-negative cases were IgM antibody-positive, and 8.6% (9/105) of IgM antibody-negative cases were SFTSV RNA-positive. Conclusions SFTSV RNA detection was preferred for SFTSV infection during disease surveillance. For highly suspected SFTS cases, IgM antibody is suggested to make a comprehensive judgement.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the method of early warning for the construction land in villages and towns and establish an early warning system based on Fuzzy Extension Matter Element Model, by taking high-resolution remote sensing images as data sources, land use benefits indicators, shape indicators, ecology indicators and suitability indicators of construction land as early warning factors. We take Deqing county as research regions, aerial images obtaind in 2010 and GF-2 satellite images of Deqing County obtain in 2015 were used as the basic data for prediction and early warning. The result shows that the serious warning area concentrated in the western region of Deqing County. It is concluded that this study provided an efficient early warning method, which can obtain high-precision land use data and accomplish rapid early warning of construction land in village and towns, ensure the rational planning of land use.

The first octahedral spherical hohlraum energetics experiment is accomplished at the SGIII laser facility. For the first time, the 32 laser beams are injected into the octahedral spherical hohlraum through six laser entrance holes. Two techniques are used to diagnose the radiation field of the octahedral spherical hohlraum in order to obtain comprehensive experimental data. The radiation flux streaming out of laser entrance holes is measured by six flat-response x-ray detectors (FXRDs) and four M-band x-ray detectors, which are placed at different locations of the SGIII target chamber. The radiation temperature is derived from the measured flux of FXRD by using the blackbody assumption. The peak radiation temperature inside hohlraum is determined by the shock wave technique. The experimental results show that the octahedral spherical hohlraum radiation temperature is in the range of 170-182 eV with drive laser energies of 71 kJ to 84 kJ. The radiation temperature inside the hohlraum determined by the shock wave technique is about 175 eV at 71 kJ. For the flat-top laser pulse of 3 ns, the conversion efficiency of gas-filled octahedral spherical hohlraum from laser into soft x rays is about 80% according to the two-dimensional numerical simulation.

The integration of wireless power transfer (WPT) with the backscatter communications provides a promising way to sustain batteryless wireless networks. In this paper, we consider a backscatter communication network, in which the passive radio uses the harvested energy from a power beacon station (PBS) to supply its data transmissions, while some other radios can help as the wireless relays. To improve the throughput performance of a distant transceiver pair, we propose a two-hop backscatter relay model and formulate a throughput maximization problem to jointly optimize WPT and the relay strategies. Noting that the proposed problem is non-convex, an iterative algorithm with reduced complexity is proposed to decompose the original problem into a power allocation subproblem in the outer loop and an optimization of the relay strategy in the inner loop. Numerical results reveal that the power allocation converges to the optimum and the relay strategy significantly improves the throughput when the radios' power demand is low.

Previous research has indicated the disconnect between example-based research focusing on worked examples (WEs) and that focusing on modeling examples. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the effect of four different types of examples from the two separate lines of research, including standard WEs, erroneous WEs, expert (masterly) modeling examples, and peer (coping) modeling examples, on student performance (knowledge retention, near transfer, and far transfer), cognitive load, and self-efficacy. One hundred and sixteen students participated in the study by undergoing computer-based instruction in one of the four versions differing in how examples were provided. The results showed that, overall, expert modeling examples were most effective in promoting knowledge retention, near transfer, and far transfer, while peer modeling examples were shown to be superior in fostering self-efficacy among the four different types of examples.

Objective The Minhang district of Shanghai was selected as the subject and its public health management model was investigated. Methods Minhang became a pilot location for the implementation of the general practitioner responsibility system (GPRS) in 2011. Since then, the management model of public health services in the district has gradually merged with the GPRS through a series of actions: the adjustment of organizations and the coordination mechanism in community public health services, the integration of basic public health services and clinic practice, the establishment of an informationized Internet service platform, comprehensive budgeting management of public health service programs, and performance assessment management of health workers. Results By the end of 2014, the number of residents who had a contractual relationship with a general practitioner (GP) in Minhang had reached 1.4367 million and all of them had family health records. Compared with 2010, both the rate of maternal management and the rate of children management stayed at high level (≥96%), the rate of hypertension management increased (40.73% vs. 28.70%), the rate of blood pressure control increased (82.13% vs. 77.51%), the incidence of diabetes decreased (21.93% vs. 37.85%), the rate of effective control of blood glucose for diabetic patients increased (82.43% vs. 62.77%), and the rate of child health management increased (99.79% vs. 91.54%). Conclusion The GPRS has helped to create a better community health environment. However, the development of this system is limited by several factors, including the following: the shortage of GPs, most GPs do not have good public health service skills and a correct public health concept, unclear division of different services, and imperfect department coordination.

Secure neighbor discovery is fundamental to mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) deployed in hostile environments and refers to the process in which two neighboring nodes exchange messages to discover and authenticate each other. It is vulnerable to the jamming attack in which the adversary intentionally transmits radio signals to prevent neighboring nodes from exchanging messages. Anti-jamming communications often rely on spread-spectrum techniques, which depend on a spreading code common to the communicating parties but unknown to the jammer. The spread code, however, is impossible to establish before the communicating parties successfully discover each other. While several elegant approaches have been recently proposed to break this circular dependence, the unique features of neighbor discovery in MANETs make them not directly applicable. In this paper, we propose JR-SND, a jamming-resilient secure neighbor discovery scheme for MANETs based on direct-sequence spread spectrum and random spread-code predistribution. JR-SND enables neighboring nodes to securely discover each other with overwhelming probability despite the presence of omnipresent jammers. Detailed theoretical and simulation results confirm the efficacy and efficiency of JR-SND.

In ad hoc networks, selfish nodes deviating from the standard MAC (Medium Access Control) protocol can significantly degrade normal nodes’ performance and are usually difficult to detect. In this paper, we propose detection and defense schemes to identify and defend against MAC-layer selfish misbehavior, respectively, in IEEE 802.11 multi-hop ad hoc networks. Specifically, the non-deterministic nature of the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol imposes great challenges to distinguishing selfish nodes from well-behaved nodes. Most traditional selfish misbehavior detection approaches are for wireless local area networks (WLANs) only. They either rely on a large amount of historical data to perform statistical detection, or employ throughput or delay models that are only valid in WLANs for detection. In contrast, we propose a realtime selfish misbehavior detection scheme for multi-hop ad hoc networks. It requires only several samples, and hence is more efficient and can adapt to channel dynamics more quickly. Then, based on the proposed detection scheme, we design three selfish misbehavior defense schemes against three typical kinds of smart selfish nodes. We find that the smart selfish nodes cannot degrade normal nodes’ performance much without getting detected. Extensive simulation results are finally presented to validate the proposed detection and defense schemes.