Formalising informal finance in Henan, China

"The goal of this thesis is to identify a set of regulatory strategies which potentially enhance the effectiveness of government regulation on Henan’s informal financial sector, so that the role of informal financial sector can be formalised: the positive economic functions could be enhanced and problematic aspects of the financial activities could be mitigated, which allowing the informal financial sector to transform into a more formal, accountable and acceptable financing channel for the residents. To provide a solid platform for the study, various theoretical studies are examined allowing for knowledge on informal finance in Henan, including the definition, the background information and the scale of informal financial sector. To put the need for formalising informal finance in Henan, this thesis also examines different perspectives of informal financial regulation both in Henan and worldwide. A regulatory framework is provided based on analyses of these theoretical studies. In order to fill the gap between theriacal solutions and actual practices in the context of Henan, it is essential to gather field data regarding Henan’s informal finance and its regulation. The scope of the field research is thus covers an online questionnaire survey of 224 Henan’s residents to gain a general picture of Henan’s informal financial sector through seeking their opinions and aspirations. The data generated from the online survey are then triangulated with the considered views of 20 field workers in Henan. The views of the 20 field workers, including the managers of informal financial institutions, the government officials and the financial experts are solicited through in-depth interviews. The key findings that emerged out of the field data analysis is that Henan’s informal financial sector could be potentially formalised through seven strategies, including expansion of private investment channels and promotion of interest rate liberalisation, reinforcement of government control and legislation over informal finance, reformation of credit culture, establishment of a sound credit history system and integration of formal and informal financial institutions. A set of regulatory recommendations based on the key findings is also provided. It is expected that these recommendations, if implemented, would allow Henan’s informal financial sector to gain higher transparency and reliability, eventually become an alternative financing channel for Henan’s residents."--Abstract

For the aged: A novel PM2.5 concentration forecasting method based on spatial-temporal graph ordinary differential equation networks in home-based care parks

The immune ability of the elderly is not strong, and the functions of the body are in a stage of degeneration, the ability to clear PM2.5 is reduced, and the cardiopulmonary system is easily affected. Accurate prediction of PM2.5 can provide guidance for the travel of the elderly, thereby reducing the harm of PM2.5 to the elderly. In PM2.5 prediction, existing works usually used shallow graph neural network (GNN) and temporal extraction module to model spatial and temporal dependencies, respectively, and do not uniformly model temporal and spatial dependencies. In addition, shallow GNN cannot capture long-range spatial correlations. External characteristics such as air humidity are also not considered. We propose a spatial-temporal graph ordinary differential equation network (STGODE-M) to tackle these problems. We capture spatial-temporal dynamics through tensor-based ordinary differential equation, so we can build deeper networks and exploit spatial-temporal features simultaneously. In addition, in the construction of the adjacency matrix, we not only used the Euclidean distance between the stations, but also used the wind direction data. Besides, we propose an external feature fusion strategy that uses air humidity as an auxiliary feature for feature fusion, since air humidity is also an important factor affecting PM2.5 concentration. Finally, our model is evaluated on the home-based care parks atmospheric dataset, and the experimental results show that our STGODE-M can more fully capture the spatial-temporal characteristics of PM2.5, achieving superior performance compared to the baseline. Therefore, it can provide better guarantee for the healthy travel of the elderly

Time-delay effect on equivalent control based single-input sliding mode control systems

This paper studies the time-delay effect on the equivalent control based sliding mode control. Conditions to guarantee the boundedness of the control system steady states under the time delayed equivalent control based sliding mode control are obtained. Maximum upper bound of the delay time to guarantee boundedness is estimated. Simulations are conducted to verify the theoretical results

Contact spinning based on simplified embeddable and locatable system and properties of spun ramie yarn

In order to solve the high rigidity and excessive hairiness of ramie fiber products and operation inconvenience of four-components embeddable and locatable spinning (ELS), a contact spinning based on simplified embeddable and locatable system was provided by simplifiying embeddable components and adding sponge contact device during twisting part. Yarn formation mechanisms were theoretically analyzed for the S-ELS, dry contact S-ELS, and wet contact S-ELS. By modification on ring spinning frame, the ramie yarns spun by different methods were compared. The results show that compared with the S-ELS and dry contact spinning for S-ELS, wet contact spinning of S-ELS can online soften the ramie fibers to facilitate fiber twisting and wrapping, producing the optimum qualified ramie yarns with the lowest hairiness and the highest strength

MMFusion: Multi-modality Diffusion Model for Lymph Node Metastasis Diagnosis in Esophageal Cancer

No description supplie

Stability analysis of time-delayed single-input sliding mode control systems

This paper presents stability analysis of the time-delayed equivalent control based single input sliding mode control systems using an LMI approach. Conditions to guarantee the boundedness of the control system trajectories under the time-delayed equivalent control based sliding mode control are obtained. Maximum upper bound of the delay time to guarantee stability is estimated. Digital simulations are conducted to verify the theoretical results

Time-delay effect on continuous approximation of sliding mode control

In this paper, time-delay effect on continuous approximation of sliding mode control (SMC) systems is studied in depth. The switching band that bound the zigzagging behaviors due to control switching around the switching manifold is constructed. Robust control theory is employed to develop a sufficient condition for the asymptotical stability of the system. Simulation is conducted to verify the theoretical results

A Novel Multi-modal Population-graph based Framework for Patients of Esophageal Squamous Cell Cancer Prognostic Risk Prediction

Prognostic risk prediction is pivotal for clinicians to appraise the patient’s esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) progression status precisely and tailor individualized  therapy  treatment  plans.  Currently,  CT-based multi-modal prognostic risk prediction methods have gradually attracted the attention of researchers for their universality, which is also able to be applied in scenarios of preoperative  prognostic  risk  assessment  in  the  early  stages of cancer. However, much of the current work focuses only on CT images of the primary tumor, ignoring the important role that CT images of lymph nodes play in prognostic risk prediction. Additionally, it is important to consider and ex- plore the inter-patient feature similarity in prognosis when developing models. To solve these problems, we proposed a  novel  multi-modal  population-graph  based  framework leveraging CT images including primary tumor and lymph nodes combined with clinical, hematology, and radiomics data for ESCC prognostic risk prediction. A patient population graph was constructed to excavate the homogeneity and heterogeneity of inter-patient feature embedding. More over, a novel node-level multi-task joint loss was proposed for graph model optimization through a supervised-based task  and  an  unsupervised-based  task.  Sufficient  experi mental results show that our model achieved state-of-the-art performance compared with other baseline models as well  as  the  gold  standard  on  discriminative  ability,  risk stratification, and clinical utility. The core code is available at https://github.com/wuchengyu123/MPGSurv.</p

Novel composite siro-spinning with forced migrations of filaments

In this study, a novel composite siro-spinning method with cyclically migrating filaments was developed as a simple and safe way to enhance filament-staple-fiber coherence. The novel composite siro-spinning method was theoretically demonstrated to produce a yarn with migrated filaments clasping both internal and external fibers. It was predicted that migrated filaments of the novel composite sirospun yarn were not straight enough to resist yarn tensile drawing as the filament parallelism with the yarn axis decreased. However, migrated filaments could clasp the staple fibers firmly to enhance filament-staple-fiber coherence, contributing an excellent frictional resistance of the novel composite yarn. Experiments were then conducted to validate the demonstration. Experimental results proved that the novel composite sirospun yarn had cyclic filament immersion and exposure appearance, resulting in medium hairiness and yarn imperfection after comparison with corefil sirospun and siro corefil yarns. The novel composite sirospun yarn with severe filament migrations had poor filament straightness, but filament deformations that were effective in clamping staple fibers. Therefore, the novel composite sirospun yarn had less strength, but greater frictional resistance than corefil sirospun and siro corefil yarns

Bacillus Coagulans Enhance the Immune Function of the Intestinal Mucosa of Yellow Broilers

<div><p>ABSTRACT This experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of Bacillus coagulans on the growth performance and immune functions of the intestinal mucosa of yellow broilers. Three hundred and sixty one-day-old yellow chicks were randomly allocated to four treatments groups with six replicates of 15 chicks each. The broilers were randomly subjected to one of the following treatments for 28 days: control group (group1, fed a basal diet) and three treatments (group 2, 3, 4) fed the basal diet supplemented with 100, 200, or 300 mg/kg Bacillus coagulans , respectively). The results showed that for 28 days, compared with the control diet, the dietary addition of 200 mg/kg Bacillus coagulans significantly decreased the feed/gain ratio (F/G) (p<0.05), improved the thymus index, spleen index and bursa index (p<0.05), increased the villus height to crypt depth ratio (V/C) in the duodenum (p<0.05), increased the number of secretory immunoglobulin (sIgA) positive cells ( p<0.05). The dietary addition of 200 mg/kg Bacillus coagulans promoted a significant increase in Lactobacillus spp. populations and suppressed Escherichia coli replication in cecum, compared with the control (p<0.05). Moreover, the dietary addition of 200 mg/kg Bacillus coagulans also significantly enhanced the levels of interferon alpha (IFNα), toll-like receptor (TLR3), and melanoma differentiation-associated protein 5(MDA5) in the duodenum (p<0.05). In conclusion, the dietary addition of Bacillus coagulans significantly improved broiler performance, and enhanced the intestinal mucosal barrier and immune function. The optimal dosage of Bacillus coagulans for yellow broilers was determined as 2×108 cfu/kg.</p></div