Emergence of cooperation under punishment: A reinforcement learning perspective.

Punishment is a common tactic to sustain cooperation and has been extensively studied for a long time. While most of previous game-theoretic work adopt the imitation learning framework where players imitate the strategies of those who are better off, the learning logic in the real world is often much more complex. In this work, we turn to the reinforcement learning paradigm, where individuals make their decisions based upon their experience and long-term returns. Specifically, we investigate the prisoners' dilemma game with a Q-learning algorithm, and cooperators probabilistically pose punishment on defectors in their neighborhood. Unexpectedly, we find that punishment could lead to either continuous or discontinuous cooperation phase transitions, and the nucleation process of cooperation clusters is reminiscent of the liquid-gas transition. The analysis of a Q-table reveals the evolution of the underlying "psychologic" changes, which explains the nucleation process and different levels of cooperation. The uncovered first-order phase transition indicates that great care needs to be taken when implementing the punishment compared to the continuous scenario.

A multifactor hybrid model for carbon price interval prediction based on decomposition-integration framework.

Carbon price is a pivotal element in the carbon trading sector. Accurate estimation of carbon price can offer precise guidance for the carbon market participants. This study introduces a novel prediction model encompassing both point and interval prediction for the carbon price. Firstly, to distill the volatility traits inherent in carbon price, the successive variational mode decomposition is utilized to adaptively decompose the carbon price into regular sequences. Secondly, to obtain the optimal input variables, the partial autocorrelation function and random forest are employed to filter the influencing factors and historical carbon price. Then, to avoid single model constraint, a combination model of categorical boosting and kernel extreme learning machine optimized by the sparrow search algorithm is employed for the point prediction, and the shapley additive explanation is employed to elucidate the model prediction process. Finally, to provide more efficient information, the adaptive bandwidth kernel density estimation is applied to the interval prediction. The data from Hubei carbon market is adopted as a case study, and the results indicate that the mean absolute error, mean absolute percentage error, root mean square error and R2 of the proposed model are 0.1022, 0.0022, 0.1262 and 0.9921, respectively. The historical carbon price, Brent crude oil futures settlement price and European Union allowance futures carbon price have a positive impact on carbon price, and Hushen 300 has a negative impact on carbon price. Compared with the constant kernel density estimation, the proposed model achieves higher interval coverage probability and lower interval width. Thus, the application of the hybrid model can promote the operational efficiency of the carbon market and facilitate the implementation of carbon emission reduction policies.

Enhanced flotation removal of polystyrene nanoplastics by chitosan modification: Performance and mechanism.

Nanoplastics are difficult to remove from water using conventional flotation processes due to their stability and resistance to biodegradation. Here, polystyrene nanoplastics (PSNPs) were selected as the object of study. In addition, chitosan (CTS), an environmentally friendly natural cationic polymer, was selected to modify the air flotation process to improve the separation of PSNPs using air flotation. Adding chitosan effectively enhanced the removal of PSNPs using air flotation from 3.1 % to 96.7 %. The residual concentration decreased from 9.69 mg/L to 0.33 mg/L. Removal of PSNPs by CTS-modified air flotation was maintained at 92.8 % even when the air flotation time was significantly shortened. The zeta potential alterations demonstrated robust electrostatic attraction within the CTS-modified air flotation process. The contact angle measurements indicated that incorporating CTS could enhance the hydrophobic interaction between bubbles and PSNPs. PSNPs particles around 100 nm agglomerated to form floating flocs with a particle size of more than 4500 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images confirmed the presence of tight adhesion between PSNPs and CTS, indicating the presence of bridging adsorption during the process. The major PSNPs removal mechanisms included electrostatic attraction, enhancement of hydrophobicity, and bridging adsorption. Increasing the aeration volume could improve the removal rate, but this improvement was finite. Weakly acidic and low ionic strength conditions favored PSNPs removal. The CTS-modified air flotation process showed great potential for PSNPs removal from real water bodies.

Blood miR-21 and miR-26 tailor a good diagnostic model for childhood asthma.

This study was to investigate the relationships between blood miR-21/26a with the prevalence and severity of childhood asthma (CAMP). For this purpose, 123 children with allergic asthma (AZ) from June 2018 to June 2020, and 60 contemporaneous healthy children for reference, were enrolled. Lung function was detected using a portable pediatric spirometer and AZ severity was evaluated. Blood samples of admissions were collected to quantify the expression degrees of miR-21 and miR-26a. Logistic regression analysis and model were constructed. Results showed that (1) CAMP had higher MiR-21 expression and lower MiR-26a expression than healthy controls; (2) The severity of AZ, evidenced by FEV1/PV, significantly correlated with miR-21(Y=-3.825X+102.6, P<0.001) and miR-26a (Y=10.43X+54.29, P<0.001); (3) The prevalence of AZ-related to miR-21 (OR=4.180, P<0.001) and miR-26a (OR=0.058, P<0.001) after adjusting for cofounders. (4) the expression levels of miR-21/26a had a good diagnostic potential for AZ (AUC are 0.85 and 0.94, respectively). In conclusion, Blood miRNA-21 and miR-26a are promising biomarkers for the diagnosis and severity of CAMP.

A nomogram model for assessing predictors and prognosis of postoperative delirium in patients receiving acute type A aortic dissection surgery.

BACKGROUND: Postoperative delirium (POD) complicates the postoperative course. There is limited information on POD-related risk factors (RFs) and prognosis in patients with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) after modified triple-branched stent graft implantation (MTBSG) surgery. METHODS: We retrospectively examined consecutive ATAAD patients who received MTBSG surgery in our hospital between January 2013 and December 2019. We employed univariate and multivariate analyses to identify stand-alone RFs for POD. A nomogram was next generated to estimate POD occurrence. The primary outcome was the development of POD, and the secondary outcomes were intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital stays, hospitalization costs, and in-hospital and follow-up mortality. RESULTS: We selected 692 patients, of whom 220 experienced POD (31.8%). Based on our analysis, the following factors enhanced the likelihood of POD development: alcohol consumption (p < 0.001), acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II score (p = 0.023), serum total bilirubin (p = 0.007), stage 3 acute kidney injury (p < 0.001), serum interleukin-6 (p = 0.031), post-operative analgesics usage (p = 0.015), and ventilation duration (p = 0.008). POD patients had significantly longer ventilator times (p = 0.003), ICU stays (p < 0.001), and hospital stays (p = 0.038), together with increased hospitalization costs (p < 0.001) and in-hospital mortality (p = 0.019). However, POD was not a RF for mortality during follow-up (log-rank p = 0.611). CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated a strong link between POD and poor prognosis in ATAAD patients. We also constructed a prognosis estimator model which will benefit early management guidance to minimize the incidence of POD.

Thyroid hormone, cortisol, interleukin-2, and procalcitonin regulate postoperative delirium in acute type A aortic dissection patients.

BACKGROUND: We assessed the relationships between levels of preoperative thyroid hormone (TH), cortisol, interleukin-2 (IL-2), and procalcitonin (PCT) and postoperative delirium (POD) in acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) patients receiving modified triple-branched stent-graft (MTBSG) implant surgeries. METHODS: ATAAD patients received MTBSG implant surgeries in our hospital between February 2019 and December 2020 were recruited. We separated them into a POD and non-POD cohort and employed univariable and multivariable regression analysis to establish independent correlations between preoperative THs, cortisol, IL-2, and PCT and POD. In addition, we conducted stratification analyses to examine the link between pre-surgical THs and POD in normal TSH and lower TSH subgroups. RESULTS: POD occurred in 78 of 224 patients (34.8%). POD patients exhibited markedly reduced preoperative free triiodothyronine (FT3) (P = 0.008) and free thyroxine (FT4) (P = 0.023) levels, while remarkably enhanced preoperative cortisol (P < 0.001), IL-2 (P < 0.001), and PCT (P < 0.001) levels. Based on multivariate regression analysis, reduced preoperative FT3 (P = 0.032), as well as augmented preoperative IL-2 (P = 0.001), cortisol (P < 0.001), and PCT (P = 0.016) were strong stand-alone risk factors for POD. Moreover, subgroup analysis found the association between FT3 (P = 0.029), FT4 (P = 0.042) and POD was both significant in patients with normal TSH levels. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced preoperative FT3 and elevated preoperative cortisol, IL-2, and PCT were strong indicators of POD in ATAAD patients. Hence, we recommend that the thyroid function, cortisol, PCT, and IL-2 should be evaluated prior to surgery in ATAAD patients.

Dynamical reciprocity in interacting games: Numerical results and mechanism analysis.

We study the evolution of two mutually interacting pairwise games on different topologies. On two-dimensional square lattices, we reveal that the game-game interaction can promote the cooperation prevalence in all cases, and the cooperation-defection phase transitions even become absent and fairly high cooperation is expected when the interaction becomes very strong. A mean-field theory is developed that points out dynamical routes arising therein. Detailed analysis shows indeed that there are rich categories of interactions in either the individual or bulk scenario: invasion, neutral, and catalyzed types; their combination puts cooperators at a persistent advantage position, which boosts the cooperation. The robustness of the revealed reciprocity is strengthened by the studies of model variants, including the public goods game, asymmetrical or time-varying interactions, games of different types, games with timescale separation, different updating rules, etc. The structural complexities of the underlying population, such as Newman-Watts small world networks, Erdos-Rényi random networks, and Barabási-Albert networks, also do not alter the working of the dynamical reciprocity. In particular, as the number of games engaged increases, the cooperation level continuously improves in general. However, our analysis shows that the dynamical reciprocity works only in structured populations, otherwise the game-game interaction has no any impact on the cooperation at all. In brief, our work uncovers a cooperation mechanism in the structured populations, which indicates the great potential for human cooperation since concurrent issues are so often seen in the real world.

Myocardial injury and inflammatory response in percutaneous device closures of pediatric patent ductus arteriosus.

BACKGROUND: The percutaneous device closure of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is widely used in clinical practice, however full data on the changes in myocardial injury and systemic inflammatory markers' levels after PDA in children are not fully reported. METHODS: We have conducted a retrospective analysis of the medical records of 385 pediatric patients in our hospital from January 2017 to December 2019. The patients were distributed into five groups. The first four (A, B, C and D) included patients divided by the type of the surgical closure methods, namely ligation, clamping, ligation-combined suturing and ligation-combined clamping, respectively. The fifth group E comprised of percutaneous device PDA patients. All recorded medical and trial data from the five groups were statistically studied. RESULTS: No serious complications in the patients regardless of the classification group were reported. Our results suggested that there were no considerable differences between the groups at the baseline (with all P > 0.05). Group E demonstrated a significantly smaller operative time (42.39 ± 3.88, min) and length of hospital stay (LOS) (4.49 ± 0.50, day), less intraoperative blood loss (7.12 ± 2.09, ml) while on the other hand, a higher total hospital cost (24,001.35 ± 1152.80, RMB) than the other four groups (with all P < 0.001). Interestingly, the comparison of the inflammatory factors such as white blood cells (WBC) count, C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), as well as the myocardial injury markers (CKMB and troponin I) did not show a significant increase (P > 0.05) among the four groups. On the contrary, when the aforementioned factors and markers of all the surgical groups were compared to those in group E, we observed significantly higher speed and magnitude of changes in group E than those in groups A, B, C, and D (with all P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Although the percutaneous device closure of PDA is more comforting and drives fast recuperation in comparison to conventional surgery, it provokes myocardial injury and overall inflammation. Timely substantial and aggressive intervention measures such as the use of antibiotics before operation and active glucocorticoids to suppress inflammation and nourish the myocardium need be applied if the myocardial and inflammatory markers are eminent.

Establishing a warning index for evaluating the physiological stress of sanitation workers in high temperature weather.

High temperature weather occurs frequently in recent years. As a heat-vulnerable group, sanitation workers suffer great physiological safety risks in high temperature weather. In this paper, a physiological warning index (PWI) is established to quantify the physiological stress of the sanitation workers. Firstly, the dynamic weights of the physiological parameters are calculated by the norm grey correlation method. Secondly, the PWI is established by the efficacy coefficient method and the warning level of the PWI is divided based on the relationships between the PWI and thermal sensation vote (TSV). Finally, the reasonability of the PWI is verified. The results show that the weights of the physiological parameters are dynamic, changing with the environments and the physiological states. The weight ranges of the mean skin temperature (MST), tympanic temperature (TT), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) are 0.036-0.538, 0.000-0.369, 0.000-0.362, 0.018-0.367 and 0.009-0.348. And the MST and DBP are more affected by the high temperature than the TT, SBP and HR. The warning interval of PWI is: (0, 0.25] (no warning), (0.25, 0.45] (mild warning), (0.45, 0.7] (moderate warning), and (0.7, 1.0] (severe warning). The PWI can provide simple real-time physiological warning and guarantee physiological health for sanitation workers in high temperature weather.

Developing a new index for evaluating physiological safety in high temperature weather based on entropy-TOPSIS model - A case of sanitation worker.

OBJECTIVES: Sanitation workers are at high-risk of suffering from heat-related illnesses in high temperature weather. However, some well-known heat stress indexes have limitations in practical application. This paper aims to establish a new index-comprehensive physiological index (CPI) for evaluating physiological safety. METHODS: Firstly, the real-time weights of physiological parameters are obtained by entropy method. Secondly, the new index- CPI is established based on the distance between the measured values and the ideal solutions by the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Then the reasonability of CPI is verified. Finally, the safety range of the CPI is determined. RESULTS: The mean skin temperature (MST), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of the sanitation workers are greatly affected by the high temperature. The weight range of the MST, tympanic temperature, SBP, DBP and heart rate is 0.155-0.274, 0.146-0.200, 0.173-0.399, 0.150-0.298 and 0.146-0.200, respectively. And the weights of MST, SBP and DBP account for a relatively large proportion, ranging from 60.1% to 70.9%. The danger range of the CPI is (0, 0.6] while the safety range of the CPI is (0.6, 1.0]. CONCLUSIONS: The CPI can provide simple and easily-measured real-time monitoring of the physiological status. It has the potential to be a practical index for guaranteeing occupational health for sanitation workers in summer.

Real-time quantification of human physiological state in high temperature environments based on variable weight theory.

Accurate real-time evaluation of human physiological state is significant for safety guidance and early warning for people in high temperature environments. The constant weight method often makes the evaluation results deviating from reality. In this paper, the variable weight theory is adopted to solve above problem. Firstly, a human physiological state evaluation system is proposed. Secondly, the constant weight and variable weight methods are used to obtain the weights of the indexes. Thus, the comprehensive evaluation score is obtained to quantify the human physiological state. Finally, a case study is conducted to demonstrate and verify the proposed evaluation system. It indicates that, the variable weight of rectal temperature, skin temperature, systolic pressure and heart rate is 0.2∼0.77, 0.11∼0.61, 0.03∼0.31, 0.03∼0.31, respectively. And the weights of the skin temperature and the rectal temperature account for a relatively large proportion, ranging from 50% to 92%. The physiological parameters with small constant weight may account for a larger percentage in the evaluation when the physiological parameters reach an extremely harmful condition. This paper can provide more reasonable and scientific method in physiological state quantification for people in high temperature environments.

The Effects of Indoor High Temperature on Circadian Rhythms of Human Work Efficiency.

Indoor non-air-conditioned environments widely exist in the summer high temperature weather. The work efficiency of the people who stay indoors for a long time is seriously affected by the indoor high temperature. In this paper, the changes of the circadian rhythms of work efficiency in indoor high temperature environments were studied. Ten healthy subjects (five males and five females) were selected in the experiments randomly. In each experiment day, the maximum hourly outdoor temperature was selected as 28 °C, 32 °C, 36 °C, and 38 °C, respectively, to determine the experiment conditions. In each experiment condition, subjects' response time, accuracy rate, grip strength, work willingness, and physiological parameters were monitored for 24 consecutive hours. Meanwhile, the hourly outdoor temperatures of the experiment day were accessed from the weather report during the experiment. Then the cosinor method and statistical method were adopted. The results indicated that the response time, grip strength, and work willingness followed circadian rhythms. However, the accuracy rates of the Stroop color-word test (SCWT) and numeral inspection task (NIT) did not show an obvious circadian rhythm. The effects of high temperature on the circadian rhythms of grip strength and work willingness were mainly reflected in the decreases of the median and amplitude. The effects on the response time were mainly reflected in the decrease of the median. In addition, forehead temperature showed a significant negative correlation to response time, and it could be considered as a predictor to assess the level of work efficiency. This study gives an alternative method to replace direct measurement of the ability indices at work site and provides basic data of 24 consecutive hours, for showing changes in human work efficiency. It could be helpful to predict the low performance in advance to reduce occupational accidents.

The Effects of High-Temperature Weather on Human Sleep Quality and Appetite.

High-temperature weather appears in high frequency, big strength, and long duration in the summer. It is therefore important to study the effects of high-temperature weather on sleep quality and appetite. Ten healthy college students were selected as subjects. The experiment conditions were divided by the daily maximum temperature into 28 °C, 32 °C, 36 °C, and 38 °C. The objective sleep quality was measured by an intelligent sleep monitoring belt, and the subjective sleep quality was measured by a questionnaire survey. The subjective appetites were assessed by a visual analog scale (VAS), and the objective appetites were assessed by the meal weight and the meal time. For sleep quality, the objective results indicated that the sleep quality at 32 °C was the best, followed by 28 °C, while the sleep quality at 36 °C and 38 °C was the worst. Significant effects were mainly reflected in sleep duration and shallow sleep. The subjective results showed that temperature had significant effects on sleep calmness, difficulty in falling asleep, sleep satisfaction, and sleep adequateness. For appetite, the VAS results indicated that high temperatures mainly led to a reduction of appetite at lunch time. The meal weights of lunch were larger than those of supper except for 28 °C, and the meal time of lunch and supper was longer than that of breakfast. The meal time of lunch was longer than that of supper except for 36 °C. This paper can provide a study method and reference data for the sleep quality and appetite of human in high-temperature weather.