Rossby waves with barotropic-baroclinic coherent structures and dynamics for the (2 + 1)-dimensional coupled cylindrical KP equations with variable coefficients.

Starting from the classical quasi-geostrophic potential vorticity equation with equal depth two-layer fluid, the coupled cylindrical Kadomtsev-Petviashvili (KP) equations with variable coefficients for Rossby waves are studied. To be more general, the phase velocity is considered an indefinite integral about time and improves the analysis procedure. So the variable coefficients are obtained and some previous studies are reasonably explained. The cylindrical wave theory is therewith utilized to reduce the coupled cylindrical KP equations with variable coefficients, and based on the modified Hirota bilinear method, the lump solutions and interaction solutions are found. Through numerical simulations, the Rossby lump waves on both sides of the y axis move closer to the center, and their amplitude gradually decreases and tends to flatten with the generalized Rossby parameter growth. In the Rossby waves flow field, the dipole structures propagate to the east and lead to the appearance of the compress phenomenon during barotropic-baroclinic interaction. It is possibly useful for further theoretical research on atmospheric phenomena.

Deep reinforcement learning-based approach for rumor influence minimization in social networks.

Spreading malicious rumors on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat can trigger political conflicts, sway public opinion, and cause social disruption. A rumor can spread rapidly across a network and can be difficult to control once it has gained traction.Rumor influence minimization (RIM) is a central problem in information diffusion and network theory that involves finding ways to minimize rumor spread within a social network. Existing research on the RIM problem has focused on blocking the actions of influential users who can drive rumor propagation. These traditional static solutions do not adequately capture the dynamics and characteristics of rumor evolution from a global perspective. A deep reinforcement learning strategy that takes into account a wide range of factors may be an effective way of addressing the RIM challenge. This study introduces the dynamic rumor influence minimization (DRIM) problem, a step-by-step discrete time optimization method for controlling rumors. In addition, we provide a dynamic rumor-blocking approach, namely RLDB, based on deep reinforcement learning. First, a static rumor propagation model (SRPM) and a dynamic rumor propagation model (DRPM) based on of independent cascade patterns are presented. The primary benefit of the DPRM is that it can dynamically adjust the probability matrix according to the number of individuals affected by rumors in a social network, thereby improving the accuracy of rumor propagation simulation. Second, the RLDB strategy identifies the users to block in order to minimize rumor influence by observing the dynamics of user states and social network architectures. Finally, we assess the blocking model using four real-world datasets with different sizes. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach on heuristics such as out-degree(OD), betweenness centrality(BC), and PageRank(PR).

Circular RNAs function as ceRNAs to regulate and control human cancer progression.

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are connected at the 3' and 5' ends by exon or intron cyclization, forming a complete ring structure. circRNA is more stable and conservative than linear RNA and abounds in various organisms. In recent years, increasing numbers of reports have found that circRNA plays a major role in the biological functions of a network of competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA). circRNAs can compete together with microRNAs (miRNAs) to influence the stability of target RNAs or their translation, thus, regulating gene expression at the transcriptional level. circRNAs are involved in biological processes such as tumor cell proliferation, apoptosis, invasion, and migration as ceRNAs. circRNAs, therefore, represent promising candidates for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Here, we review the progress in studying the role of circRNAs as ceRNAs in tumors and highlight the participation of circRNAs in signal transduction pathways to regulate cellular functions.

Selenium and hazardous elements distribution in plant-soil-water system and human health risk assessment of Lower Cambrian, Southern Shaanxi, China.

The natural selenium poisoning due to toxic Se levels in food chain had been observed in humans and animals in Lower Cambrian outcrop areas in Southern Shaanxi, China. To find out the distribution pattern of selenium and other hazardous elements in the plant, soil and water of Lower Cambrian in Southern Shaanxi, China, and their possible potential health risk, a total of 30 elements were analyzed and the health risk assessment of 18 elements was calculated. Results showed that the soil, plant and natural water of Lower Cambrian all had relatively high Se levels. In Lower Cambrian, the soil was enriched with Se, As, Ba, Cu, Mo, Ni, Zn, Ga, Cd and Cr (1.68 < Igeo < 4.48, Igeo; geo-accumulation index). In same plants, the contents of Se, Cd and Zn (except Cd in corn and rice, Zn in potato and corn) of Lower Cambrian were higher than that of the other strata. Ba and Ga in natural water were higher than that of the other strata, while K and Cs were opposite. The health risk assessment results showed that the people living in outcrop areas of Lower Cambrian had both high total non-carcinogenic risk of 18 elements (HI = 16.12, acceptable range: < 1) and carcinogenic risk of As (3.98E-04, acceptable range: 10-6-10-4). High contents of Se, As, Mo and Tl of Lower Cambrian may pose a health risk to local people, and food intake was the major pathway. For minimizing potential health risk, the local inhabitants should use the mix-imported food with local growing foods.

Comparative study of physico-chemical parameters of drinking water from some longevity and non-longevity areas of China.

There is an obvious regional longevity phenomenon in China and many longevity counties are located in South China. This study was carried out to find the characteristics of elemental contents of drinking water in longevity areas in South China and the differences to non-longevity areas in China. A total of 128 drinking water samples were collected from longevity areas in South China (n = 40), non-longevity areas in South China (n = 74) and non-longevity areas in North China (n = 14) and 46 parameters of water were determined or calculated. The results showed that drinking water in longevity areas of South China had a high ratio of sum concentration of essential micro-elements in sum concentration of micro-elements (SCME) and a low ratio of sum concentration of hazardous micro-elements in SCME. The concentration of total hardness (TH) and strontium in drinking water was 157.82 mg/L and 82.1 µg/L, respectively, and they were 14.61 mg/L, 7.45 µg/L and 291.69 mg/L, 748.65 µg/L in the non-longevity areas of South and North China, respectively. The study concluded that drinking water containing 157.82 mg/L TH and 82.1 µg/L strontium in South China may be optimum to human health.

Hydrochemical characteristics of natural water and selenium-rich water resources in the Northern Daba Mountains, China.

The Northern Daba Mountains (NDM) of Shaanxi Province, China, are a well-known selenium (Se)-rich area, and the area is also known for endemic fluorine (F) and arsenic (As) poisoning. In order to study the hydrochemical characteristics and trace element contents of the natural waters of this region, 62 water samples were collected from Lan'gao area in the NDM. The hydrochemical composition was principally characterized by Ca·Mg-HCO3·SO4. F and As concentrations ranged from 0.01 to 0.67 mg/L and from 0.33 to 6.29 µg/L, respectively, lower than Chinese national standard and international guidelines for drinking water quality. One year of monitoring proved that F and As in natural water were not the sources of the local fluorosis and arseniasis in the NDM. The average Se concentration in fissure water was 5.20 µg/L. The average Se content of river water was 2.82 µg/L, 14 times that of the world's surface level (0.2 µg/L). The Se content in eight samples reached the Chinese national standards for mineral drinking water quality (>10 µg/L). Contrasting the water samples of May, July, and September in 2015 shows that the Se content is relatively stable and the increase of humidity might be beneficial to increase the content of selenium and strontium in water.

Stemming the tide: rising diabetes prevalence and ethnic subgroup variation among Asians in Los Angeles County.

OBJECTIVE: The primary objective of this analysis was to examine the burden of diabetes among Asians and Asian subgroups in Los Angeles County, which has the largest county population of Asians in the U.S. METHOD: Data were analyzed from 6cycles of the Los Angeles County Health Survey, 1997-2011 (n=47,282). Asian adults (n=4672) were categorized into the following ethnic subgroups: Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, South Asian, and Other Asian. Descriptive and multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine trends in prevalence, prevalence among Asian subgroups, and factors associated with diabetes. RESULTS: In 2005, we observed a rapid increase in diabetes prevalence among Asians compared to whites despite consistently lower BMI relative to other racial/ethnic groups. Diabetes prevalence was significantly higher among Filipinos and South Asians (>10%) compared to East Asians and Vietnamese (<7%). After adjusting for all covariates, Asians who were older, non-drinkers, insured, and overweight or obese were found to have increased odds of diabetes. CONCLUSION: Diabetes prevalence is increasing more rapidly among Asians compared to whites despite overall lower BMI. The significant heterogeneity among Asian subgroups highlights the need for disaggregated data and additional research to develop culturally appropriate interventions for diabetes prevention and control.

Complex-valued image reconstruction for compressed sensing MRI using hierarchical constraint.

In Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the sequential acquisition of raw complex-valued image data in Fourier space, also known as k-space, results in extended examination times. To speed up the MRI scans, k-space data are usually undersampled and processed using numerical techniques such as compressed sensing (CS). While the majority of CS-MRI algorithms primarily focus on magnitude images due to their significant diagnostic value, the phase components of complex-valued MRI images also hold substantial importance for clinical diagnosis, including neurodegenerative diseases. In this work, complex-valued MRI reconstruction is studied with a focus on the simultaneous reconstruction of both magnitude and phase images. The proposed algorithm is based on the nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) technique, which offers shift invariance in images. Instead of directly transforming the complex-valued image into the NSCT domain, we introduce a wavelet transform within the NSCT domain, reducing the size of the sparsity of coefficients. This two-level hierarchical constraint (HC) enforces sparse representation of complex-valued images for CS-MRI implementation. The proposed HC is seamlessly integrated into a proximal algorithm simultaneously. Additionally, to effectively minimize the artifacts caused by sub-sampling, thresholds related to different sub-bands in the HC are applied through an alternating optimization process. Experimental results show that the novel method outperforms existing CS-MRI techniques in phase-regularized complex-valued image reconstructions.

A hot topic diffusion approach based on the independent cascade model and trending search lists in online social networks.

In online social networks, users can quickly get hot topic information from trending search lists where publishers and participants may not have neighbor relationships. This paper aims to predict the diffusion trend of a hot topic in networks. For this purpose, this paper first proposes user diffusion willingness, doubt degree, topic contribution, topic popularity and the number of new users. Then, it proposes a hot topic diffusion approach based on the independent cascade (IC) model and trending search lists, named the ICTSL model. The experimental results on three hot topics show that the predictive results of the proposed ICTSL model are consistent with the actual topic data to a great extent. Compared with the IC, independent cascade with propagation background (ICPB), competitive complementary independent cascade diffusion (CCIC) and second-order IC models, the Mean Square Error of the proposed ICTSL model is decreased by approximately 0.78%-3.71% on three real topics.

Differences in multielement concentrations in rice (Oryza sativa L.) between longevity and non-longevity areas in China and their relations with lifespan indicators.

Geographical distribution pattern of centenarians in China runs counter to the global trend, and centenarians are mainly distributed in low-latitude South China but rarely in high-latitude North China. To investigate the effect of the elemental content of rice on the differences between the longevity areas and the non-longevity areas in China, the multielement concentrations in 84 rice samples collected from 28 counties/cities were measured, of which 37 belonged to the longevity areas in South China (SLs), 36 belonged to non-longevity areas in South China (SNLs), and 11 belonged to non-longevity areas in North China (NNLs). The concentrations of 29 different elements (Ca, K, Mg, Na, P, S, Se, As, Ba, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Sr, Ti, Zn Cd, Co, Li, Pb, Tl, Cs, Ga, In, Rb, U and Bi) in rice samples were determined by ICP-OES, ICP-MS and HG-AFS. Notably, the concentrations of macroelements in SLs rice samples (3682.92 mg/kg) were significantly higher than those of SNLs (3046.62 mg/kg) and NNLs (2590.38 mg/kg) (p < 0.05). The concentrations of essential microelements in rice samples of SLs (38.87 mg/kg) and NNLs (41.79 mg/kg) were not significantly different, but both significantly higher than those of SNLs (31.91 mg/kg) (p < 0.05). Significant differences were also found in the concentrations of K, Mg, Na, P, S, Cu, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Tl, In and Cs in rice among SLs, SNLs and NNLs (p < 0.05). The rice samples of SLs had the characteristic of higher concentrations of K, Mg, P, Mn and Ni. Thus, rice intake in SLs provided greater proportions of the dietary mineral requirements than those in SNLs and NNLs. Besides, the concentrations of K, Mg, P, Ni and Ti in rice, especially K, were demonstrated to be significantly positively correlated with lifespan indicators (p < 0.05), while the concentrations of Ga, Cd, In and U in rice were negatively correlated with lifespan indicators. Our findings are expected to provide a basis for reasonable dietary mineral element intakes and promote understanding of the relationships between natural environment and regional longevity in China.

Impacts of climate and human activities on Daihai Lake in a typical semi-arid watershed, Northern China.

A rapid shrinkage of Daihai Lake was found in recent decades. The present study analyzed the characteristics of Daihai Lake shrinkage and quantified the contribution of climate and human activities. The results of Mann-Kendall- Sneyers test and moving t-test showed that there was an obvious mutation point of lake level in 2006 and the descending speed of Daihai Lake level post-2006 (-0.46m/a) was 3.22 times that of pre-2006 (-0.14m/a). The centroid of Daihai Lake moved 1365.18 m from southwest to northeast during 1989 ~ 2018 with an average speed of 47.08 m/a. The results of Mann-Kendall trend test revealed that the annual evaporation showed a significant downward trend with a rate of approximately -5.33 mm/a, while no significant trend was found in precipitation. Daihai lake water level showed a very weak relationship with evaporation (r = 0.078, p < 0.01) and precipitation (p>0.05) respectively. Daihai Lake was influenced by human activities mainly from land use/ land cover, building reservoirs, pumping groundwater and directly consuming Daihai Lake water by Daihai power plant (DHPP). It was thought-provoking that DHPP began to consume Daihai lake water in 2006, which was consistent with abrupt change of Daihai lake level. The proportion of human impact was fluctuating upward. Human factors were the main factor of lake water reduction in last 10 years and the 5-year average contribution of human activities to Daihai Lake shrinkage was more than 61.99%. More attention and economic support should be given to prevent the continuous shrinkage of Daihai Lake.

Position-Enhanced Multi-Head Self-Attention Based Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit for Aspect-Level Sentiment Classification.

Aspect-level sentiment classification (ASC) is an interesting and challenging research task to identify the sentiment polarities of aspect words in sentences. Previous attention-based methods rarely consider the position information of aspect and contextual words. For an aspect word in a sentence, its adjacent words should be given more attention than the long distant words. Based on this consideration, this article designs a position influence vector to represent the position information between an aspect word and the context. By combining the position influence vector, multi-head self-attention mechanism and bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU), a position-enhanced multi-head self-attention network based BiGRU (PMHSAT-BiGRU) model is proposed. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed model, this article makes a large number of experiments on SemEval2014 restaurant, SemEval2014 laptop, SemEval2015 restaurant, and SemEval2016 restaurant data sets. The experiment results show that the performance of the proposed PMHSAT-BiGRU model is obviously better than the baselines. Specially, compared with the original LSTM model, the Accuracy values of the proposed PMHSAT-BiGRU model on the four data sets are improved by 5.72, 6.06, 4.52, and 3.15%, respectively.

[The research on a data fusion method of periodic-electrophysiology signal].

In this paper, onefold sensor is used to obtain periodic physiological signal, such as electrocardiogram signal. Multicycle data constitutes a sequence by the data of the corresponding time point. The data sequence, which is regard as a number of independent sensors data, is used to data fusion by one-dimensional method. This paper verifies the method by the measured ECG.

Prevalence and sociodemographic disparities in ever E-cigarette use among adults in Los Angeles County.

E-cigarette use has increased rapidly among U.S. adults. Few studies have examined the prevalence and risk factors of e-cigarette use among adults in the United States. We conducted descriptive analyses to identify characteristics of ever e-cigarette users among adults (18 years and older) living in Los Angeles (LA) County, the most populous county in the U.S., using data from the 2015 LA County Health Survey. We used logistic regression to examine independent factors associated with ever e-cigarette use. Age-adjusted prevalence of ever e-cigarette use was 8.4%. A significant interaction between conventional cigarette smoking status and gender was found (p < 0.05), and several factors were identified as associated with ever e-cigarette use in models stratified by gender. Various social and demographic factors are associated with ever e-cigarette use and should be incorporated into evidence-based interventions.

Relationship between lifespan indicators and elemental background values: A case study in Guangdong Province, China.

There was a significant difference in the distribution of centenarians at county-level in Guangdong Province, China. To carry out an integrated analysis on elemental background values and their relation to lifespan level, samples of environmental media such as drinking water, staple rice and soil were collected in ten counties (non-longevity and longevity areas) in Guangdong Province. Meanwhile, lifespan indicators were calculated based on census data in 2010: the percentage of population aged 80 to 90years (octogenarian index, 80-90%, OI%), the percentage of population aged 90 to 100years (longevity index, 90-100%, LI%), centenarians per one hundred thousand inhabitants (CH). Grey relational analysis (GRA) and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis (SMLR) were conducted. The major results show that the contents of Se, Mo, Ni, K and Zn in drinking water and rice and the content of Se in soil in longevity areas are significantly higher than those in non-longevity areas. Significantly positive correlation between elemental background values (Se, K, Mo, Ni and Zn) and three lifespan indicators shows an increasing trend in the order of OI, LI and CH. However, element Al in rice and soil shows a negative correlation with CH. In addition, the influence degree of elemental background values on LI and CH can be ranked as Se>Mo>K>Zn>Ni. The explanatory power of elemental background values (Se, K, Mo, Ni and Zn) to difference in LI/CH in longevity and non-longevity areas can be ranked: drinking water>rice>soil. The elemental background values (Se, K, Mo, Ni and Zn) have a positive impact on human lifespan, especially for those who live longer than 90years old.

The Main Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Methamphetamine- Induced Neurotoxicity and Implications for Pharmacological Treatment.

Methamphetamine (METH) is a popular new-type psychostimulant drug with complicated neurotoxicity. In spite of mounting evidence on METH-induced damage of neural cell, the accurate mechanism of toxic effect of the drug on central nervous system (CNS) has not yet been completely deciphered. Besides, effective treatment strategies toward METH neurotoxicity remain scarce and more efficacious drugs are to be developed. In this review, we summarize cellular and molecular bases that might contribute to METH-elicited neurotoxicity, which mainly include oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, and neuroinflammation. We also discuss some drugs that protect neural cells suffering from METH-induced neurotoxic consequences. We hope more in-depth investigations of exact details that how METH produces toxicity in CNS could be carried out in future and the development of new drugs as natural compounds and immunotherapies, including clinic trials, are expected.

Hypertension among Asians in Los Angeles County: Findings from a multiyear survey.

Few studies have examined the prevalence of hypertension among Asians living in the United States. Multiyear data from the Los Angeles County Health Survey were used to investigate the prevalence of hypertension among Asians and Asian subgroups, and risk factors associated with the disease, using descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic regression. Age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension in Asians was 23.4%. Among Asian subgroups, age-adjusted prevalence of hypertension was lowest among Chinese (20.0%), and highest among Filipinos (32.7%), and several factors were identified as associated with hypertension. Hypertension among Asian-Americans is a serious public health concern, requiring culturally sensitive best practices, and evidence-based approaches to improve prevention and control among Asians.

Long non-coding RNA AFAP1-AS1 is a novel biomarker in various cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis based on the literature and GEO datasets.

BACKGROUND: Growing evidence indicates that AFAP1-AS1 plays an important role in various cancers, suggesting that it might be a potential cancer biomarker. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A meta-analysis was performed using microarray data obtained via the Affymetrix Human Genome U133 Plus 2.0 platform (found in the GEO database) and data obtained through a systematic search of PubMed and Web of Science. The pooled odds ratio (OR) and hazard ratio (HR) with 95% CI (confidence interval) were used to judge the value of biomarkers. RESULTS: A total of 30 studies were included in this meta-analysis, comprising a total of 3573 patients. AFAP1-AS1 was significantly linked with overall survival (OS) (HR = 1.58; 95% CI: 1.12-2.23) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR = 2.32, 95% CI: 1.68-3.19). We found that AFAP1-AS1 was a risk factor in the prognoses of lung cancer (pooled HR: 1.54; 95% CI: 1.01-2.34), digestive system cancer (pooled HR: 1.87; 95% CI: 1.45-2.41) and nasopharyngeal carcinoma (HR: 11.82; 95% CI: 5.09-27.46). AFAP1-AS1 was also a risk factor for RFS in breast cancer (pooled HR = 2.90; 95% CI: 1.69-4.98), as well as TNM stage in both esophageal cancer (pooled OR = 1.90; 95% CI: 1.01-3.57) and colorectal cancer (OR = 6.72; 95% CI: 1.92-23.58). AFAP1-AS1 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis in clear cell carcinoma (OR = 5.04; 95% CI: 2.36-10.78) and distant metastasis in pancreatic cancer (OR = 11.64; 95% CI: 2.13-63.78). CONCLUSIONS: AFAP1-AS1 can serve as a novel molecular marker predicting tumor progression, patient prognosis and lymph node metastasis in different types of cancers.

The Association between Family Structure and Adolescent Smoking among Multicultural Students in Hawaii.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine whether the prevalence of smoking was associated with family structure among multicultural adolescents and whether there was gender disparity on the association. METHODS: Data were collected from a sample of 7th graders in Hawaii who completed in-class questionnaires in 2004. The final sample included 821 multicultural students from different family structures. Descriptive analyses, Chi-square tests and logistic regression were performed to examine the prevalence of smoking and the association between family structure and smoking prevalence. RESULTS: This sample contained students who lived in intact (61.7%), single-parent (16.5%), step-parent (15.6%), and no-parent (6.2%) families. The overall prevalence of ever/lifetime smoking was 24.0%, and was not significantly different between genders in each family structure (p>0.05). Compared with living in intact families, living in single-parent, step-parent, or no-parent families was significantly associated with higher odds of ever/lifetime smoking among all students (p<0.05) and living in single-parent and stepparent families was significantly associated with higher odds of ever/lifetime smoking among females (p<0.05) and among males (p<0.05) respectively, after adjusting for covariates. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that family structure is a risk factor for smoking among multicultural students. Anti-smoking programs should consider this factor.