Learning-Augmented Online Packet Scheduling with Deadlines

The modern network aims to prioritize critical traffic over non-critical traffic and effectively manage traffic flow. This necessitates proper buffer management to prevent the loss of crucial traffic while minimizing the impact on non-critical traffic. Therefore, the algorithm's objective is to control which packets to transmit and which to discard at each step. In this study, we initiate the learning-augmented online packet scheduling with deadlines and provide a novel algorithmic framework to cope with the prediction. We show that when the prediction error is small, our algorithm improves the competitive ratio while still maintaining a bounded competitive ratio, regardless of the prediction error

Effects of orthographic consistency and homophone density on Chinese spoken word recognition

Studies of alphabetic language have shown that orthographic knowledge influences phonological processing during spoken word recognition. This study utilized the Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to differentiate two types of phonology-to-orthography (P-to-O) mapping consistencies in Chinese, namely homophone density and orthographic consistency. The ERP data revealed an orthographic consistency effect in the frontal-centrally distributed N400, and a homophone density effect in central-posteriorly distributed late positive component (LPC). Further source analyses using the standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) demonstrated that the orthographic effect was not only localized in the frontal and temporal-parietal regions for phonological processing, but also in the posterior visual cortex for orthographic processing, while the homophone density effect was found in middle temporal gyrus for lexical-semantic selection, and in the temporal-occipital junction for orthographic processing. These results suggest that orthographic information not only shapes the nature of phonological representations, but may also be activated during on-line spoken word recognition

The feedback consistency effect in Chinese character recognition:evidence from a psycholinguistic norm

Researchers have demonstrated the importance of phonology in literacy acquisition and in visual word recognition. For example, the spelling-to-sound consistency effect has been observed in visual word recognition tasks, in which the naming responses are faster and more accurate for words with the same letters that also have the same pronunciation (e.g. -ean is always pronounced /in/, as in lean, dean, and bean). In addition, some studies have reported a much less intuitive feedback consistency effect when a rime can be spelled in different ways (e.g. /ip/ in heap and deep) in lexical decision tasks. Such findings suggest that, with activation flowing back and forth between orthographic and phonological units during word processing, any inconsistency in the mappings between orthography and phonology should weaken the stability of the feedback loop, and, thus, should delay recognition. However, several studies have failed to show reliable feedback consistency in printed word recognition. One possible reason for this is that the feedback consistency is naturally confounded with many other variables, such as orthographic neighborhood or bigram frequency, as these variables are difficult to tease apart. Furthermore, there are challenges in designing factorial experiments that perfectly balance lexical stimuli on all factors besides feedback consistency. This study aims to examine the feedback consistency effect in reading Chinese characters by using a normative data of 3,423 Chinese phonograms. We collected the lexical decision time from 180 college students. A linear mixed model analysis was used to examine the feedback consistency effect by taking into account additional properties that may be confounded with feedback consistency, including character frequency, number of strokes, phonetic combinability, semantic combinability, semantic ambiguity, phonetic consistency, noun-to-verb ratios, and morphological boundedness. Some typical effects were observed, such as the more frequent and familiar a character, the faster one can decide it is a real character. More importantly, the linear mixed model analysis revealed a significant feedback consistency effect while controlling for other factors, which indicated that the pronunciation of phonograms might accommodate the organization of Chinese orthographic representation. Our study disentangled the feedback consistency from the many other factors, and supports the view that phonological activation would reverberate to orthographic representation in visual word recognition

Carbon Future Price Return, Oil Future Price Return and Stock Index Future Price Return in the U.S.

The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has established a pricing system for carbon emissions. As the new commodity may increase the diversification of a financial portfolio and reduce the overall investment risk, a deeper investigation of its properties is needed. Investigating the link between carbon and other asset classes, such oil and stock markets, is important to understand how carbon market interacts with other financial markets. Empirical results indicate that carbon futures returns do respond positively to oil returns shock. A shock in oil price initially has a positive impact on stock market. The multivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) of the BEKK model indicate that oil market has an effect on the volatility of the other two markets but it is much less affect by them. These results should be useful for policy makers, portfolio managers and others interested in this rapidly developing field of finance. Keywords: Carbon future return, MGARCH-BEKK, Volatility. JEL Classifications: C58, G13, Q43

Biphenyl-3,3′,4,4′-tetra­carboxylic acid dihydrate

The asymmetric unit of the title compound, C16H10O8·2H2O, contains one-half of the centrosymmetric organic mol­ecule and one water mol­ecule. The dihedral angles between the carboxyl­ate groups and the adjacent phenyl ring are 71.31 (3) and 16.67 (3)°, while the carboxyl­ate groups are oriented at a dihedral angle of 72.01 (3)°. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular O—H⋯O and bifurcated O—H⋯(O,O) hydrogen bonds link the mol­ecules to form a three-dimensional supra­molecular network

BMI1 and Mel-18 oppositely regulate carcinogenesis and progression of gastric cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The <it>BMI1 </it>oncogene is overexpressed in several human malignancies including gastric cancer. In addition to BMI1, mammalian cells also express Mel-18, which is closely related to BMI1. We have reported that Mel-18 functions as a potential tumor suppressor by repressing the expression of BMI1 and consequent downregulation of activated AKT in breast cancer cells. However, the mechanisms of BMI1 overexpression and the role of Mel-18 in other cancers are still not clear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of BMI1 and Mel-18 in gastric cancer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>BMI1 was found to be overexpressed in gastric cancer cell lines and gastric tumors. Overexpression of BMI1 correlated with advanced clinical stage and lymph node metastasis; while the expression of Mel-18 negatively correlated with BMI1. BMI1 but not Mel-18 was found to be an independent prognostic factor. Downregulation of BMI1 by Mel-18 overexpression or knockdown of BMI1 expression in gastric cancer cell lines led to upregulation of p16 (p16INK4a or CDKN2A) in p16 positive cell lines and reduction of phospho-AKT in both p16-positive and p16-negative cell lines. Downregulation of BMI1 was also accompanied by decreased transformed phenotype and migration in both p16- positive and p16-negative gastric cancer cell lines.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In the context of gastric cancer, <it>BMI1 </it>acts as an oncogene and Mel-18 functions as a tumor suppressor via downregulation of BMI1. Mel-18 and BMI1 may regulate tumorigenesis, cell migration and cancer metastasis via both p16- and AKT-dependent growth regulatory pathways.</p

Redetermination of Ce[B5O8(OH)(H2O)]NO3·2H2O

The crystal structure of Ce[B5O8(OH)(H2O)]NO3·2H2O, cerium(III) aqua­hydroxidoocta­oxidopenta­borate nitrate dihydrate, has been redetermined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction data. In contrast to the previous determination [Li et al. (2003 ▶). Chem. Mater. 15, 2253–2260], the present study reveals the location of all H atoms, slightly different fundamental building blocks (FBBs) of the polyborate anions, more reasonable displacement ellipsoids for all non-H atoms, as well as a model without disorder of the nitrate anion. The crystal structure is built from corrugated polyborate layers parallel to (010). These layers, consisting of [B5O8(OH)(H2O)]2− anions as FBBs, stack along [010] and are linked by Ce3+ ions, which exhibit a distorted CeO10 coordination sphere. The layers are additionally stabilized via O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds between water mol­ecules and nitrate anions, located at the inter­layer space. The [BO3(H2O)]-group shows a [3 + 1] coordination and is considerably distorted from a tetra­hedral configuration. Bond-valence-sum calculation shows that the valence sum of boron is only 2.63 valence units (v.u.) when the contribution of the water mol­ecule (0.49 v.u.) is neglected

Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) expression on polymorphonuclear neutrophil leukocytes during perinatal period of dairy cow

To establish a foundation for further researches on the improvement of polymorphonuclear neutrophil leukocytes (PMN) functions in dairy cow during perinatal period, the counting of PMN, as well as the mRNA and protein expression of toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) on PMN was studied during this critical period. Blood samples were taken 21, 14 and 7 days, and at calving (0) day before expected calving time, and 7, 14 and 21 days after calving. The PMN changes were measured by automatic blood cell analyzer, and mRNA and protein expression of TLR-4 were analyzed by quantity real-time PCR (RT-PCR) and western blot. The results show that the quantity of neutrophil leukocytes reached the peak (3.12 ± 0.26 × 109, p&lt;0.05) at 0 day. The mRNA expression of TLR-4 was down-regulated from the -21days before calving to the 14 day after calving (P&lt;0.01). The protein of expression TLR-4 was lower from 7 to 14 days. The down-regulation of TLR-4 expression may be the major factor of PMN dysfunction of cows from 7 to 14 days after calving.Keywords: Cow, hematology, perinatals period, toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) pathwayAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(16), pp. 2100-210