Precommitted Investment Strategy versus Time-Consistent Investment Strategy for a Dual Risk Model

We are concerned with optimal investment strategy for a dual risk model. We assume that the company can invest into a risk-free asset and a risky asset. Short-selling and borrowing money are allowed. Due to lack of iterated-expectation property, the Bellman Optimization Principle does not hold. Thus we investigate the precommitted strategy and time-consistent strategy, respectively. We take three steps to derive the precommitted investment strategy. Furthermore, the time-consistent investment strategy is also obtained by solving the extended Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. We compare the precommitted strategy with time-consistent strategy and find that these different strategies have different advantages: the former can make value function maximized at the original time t=0 and the latter strategy is time-consistent for the whole time horizon. Finally, numerical analysis is presented for our results

The Influence of Intense Chemical Pollution on the Community Composition, Diversity and Abundance of Anammox Bacteria in the Jiaojiang Estuary (China)

Continuous chemical pollution is one of the most serious environmental problems in the Jiaojiang Estuary of the East Sea (China). This chemical pollution has significantly changed the estuarine environmental conditions and may have profoundly influenced the distribution of anammox bacterial communities in this estuary. Here, we investigated the influence of chemical pollution on the community composition, diversity and abundance of anammox bacteria in Jiaojiang estuarine sediments. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA genes showed that the majority of anammox bacterial sequences retrieved from the estuarine intertidal sediments were associated with Kuenenia. In contrast, different anammox communities composed of Brocadia, Kuenenia, Scalindua and Jettenia were found in the estuarine subtidal sediments. Redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that the sediment nitrobenzene and organic content had significant impacts on the distribution of anammox communities in the intertidal sediments. Pearson correlation analysis showed that the diversity of anammox bacteria in the intertidal sediments was positively correlated with the organic content. In contrast, RDA results showed that the nitrobenzene content, NO3− concentration and salinity significantly influenced the distribution of anammox communities in the subtidal sediments. The diversity and relative abundance of anammox bacteria in the subtidal sediments were positively correlated with NO3− concentration

Precommitted Investment Strategy versus Time-Consistent Investment Strategy for a General Risk Model with Diffusion

We mainly study a general risk model and investigate the precommitted strategy and the time-consistent strategy under mean-variance criterion, respectively. A lagrange method is proposed to derive the precommitted investment strategy. Meanwhile from the game theoretical perspective, we find the time-consistent investment strategy by solving the extended Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations. By comparing the precommitted strategy with the time-consistent strategy, we find that the company under the time-consistent strategy has to give up the better current utility in order to keep a consistent satisfaction over the whole time horizon. Furthermore, we theoretically and numerically provide the effect of the parameters on these two optimal strategies and the corresponding value functions

A knowledge regularized hierarchical approach for emotion cause analysis

Emotion cause analysis, which aims to identify the reasons behind emotions, is a key topic in sentiment analysis. A variety of neural network models have been proposed recently, however, these previous models mostly focus on the learning architecture with local textual information, ignoring the discourse and prior knowledge, which play crucial roles in human text comprehension. In this paper, we propose a new method to extract emotion cause with a hierarchical neural model and knowledge-based regularizations, which aims to incorporate discourse context information and restrain the parameters by sentiment lexicon and common knowledge. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method achieves the state-of-the-art performance on two public datasets in different languages (Chinese and English), outperforming a number of competitive baselines by at least 2.08% in F-measure

Continuous and Noninvasive Measurement of Arterial Pulse Pressure and Pressure Waveform using an Image-free Ultrasound System

The local beat-to-beat local pulse pressure (PP) and blood pressure waveform of arteries, especially central arteries, are important indicators of the course of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Nevertheless, noninvasive measurement of them remains a challenge in the clinic. This work presents a three-element image-free ultrasound system with a low-computational method for real-time measurement of local pulse wave velocity (PWV) and diameter waveforms, enabling real-time and noninvasive continuous PP and blood pressure waveforms measurement without calibration. The developed system has been well-validated in vitro and in vivo. In in vitro cardiovascular phantom experiments, the results demonstrated high accuracy in the measurement of PP (error < 3 mmHg) and blood pressure waveform (root-mean-square-errors (RMSE) < 2 mmHg, correlation coefficient (r) > textgreater 0.99). In subsequent human carotid experiments, the system was compared with an arterial tonometer, which showed excellent PP accuracy (mean absolute error (MAE) = 3.7 +- 3.4 mmHg) and pressure waveform similarity (RMSE = 3.7 +- 1.6 mmHg, r = 0.98 +- 0.01). Furthermore, comparative experiments with the volume clamp device demonstrated the system's ability to accurately trace blood pressure changes (induced by deep breathing) over a period of one minute, with the MAE of DBP, MAP, and SBP within 5 +- 8 mmHg. The present results demonstrate the accuracy and reliability of the developed system for continuous and noninvasive measurement of arterial PP and blood pressure waveform measurements, with potential applications in the diagnosis and prevention of CVDs.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

SPEEK Membrane of Ultrahigh Stability Enhanced by Functionalized Carbon Nanotubes for Vanadium Redox Flow Battery

Proton exchange membrane is the key factor of vanadium redox flow battery (VRB) as their stability largely determine the lifetime of the VRB. In this study, a SPEEK/MWCNTs-OH composite membrane with ultrahigh stability is constructed by blending sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) with multi-walled carbon nanotubes toward VRB application. The carbon nanotubes disperse homogeneously in the SPEEK matrix with the assistance of hydroxyl group. The blended membrane exhibits 94.2 and 73.0% capacity retention after 100 and 500 cycles, respectively in a VRB single cell with coulombic efficiency of over 99.4% at 60 mA cm−2 indicating outstanding capability of reducing the permeability of vanadium ions and enhancing the transport of protons. The ultrahigh stability and low cost of the composite membrane make it a competent candidate for the next generation larger-scale vanadium redox flow battery

Exploring the nano-wonders: unveiling the role of Nanoparticles in enhancing salinity and drought tolerance in plants

Plants experience diverse abiotic stresses, encompassing low or high temperature, drought, water logging and salinity. The challenge of maintaining worldwide crop cultivation and food sustenance becomes particularly serious due to drought and salinity stress. Sustainable agriculture has significant promise with the use of nano-biotechnology. Nanoparticles (NPs) have evolved into remarkable assets to improve agricultural productivity under the robust climate alteration and increasing drought and salinity stress severity. Drought and salinity stress adversely impact plant development, and physiological and metabolic pathways, leading to disturbances in cell membranes, antioxidant activities, photosynthetic system, and nutrient uptake. NPs protect the membrane and photosynthetic apparatus, enhance photosynthetic efficiency, optimize hormone and phenolic levels, boost nutrient intake and antioxidant activities, and regulate gene expression, thereby strengthening plant’s resilience to drought and salinity stress. In this paper, we explored the classification of NPs and their biological effects, nanoparticle absorption, plant toxicity, the relationship between NPs and genetic engineering, their molecular pathways, impact of NPs in salinity and drought stress tolerance because the effects of NPs vary with size, shape, structure, and concentration. We emphasized several areas of research that need to be addressed in future investigations. This comprehensive review will be a valuable resource for upcoming researchers who wish to embrace nanotechnology as an environmentally friendly approach for enhancing drought and salinity tolerance

Mouse Strain– and Charge-Dependent Vessel Permeability of Nanoparticles at the Lower Size Limit

Remarkable advancement has been made in the application of nanoparticles (NPs) for cancer therapy. Although NPs have been favorably delivered into tumors by taking advantage of the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect, several physiological barriers present within tumors tend to restrict the diffusion of NPs. To overcome this, one of the strategies is to design NPs that can reach lower size limits to improve tumor penetration without being rapidly cleared out by the body. Several attempts have been made to achieve this, such as selecting appropriate nanocarriers and modifying surface properties. While many studies focus on the optimal design of NPs, the influence of mouse strains on the effectiveness of NPs remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to assess whether the vascular permeability of NPs near the lower size limit differs among mouse strains. We found that the vessel permeability of dextran NPs was size-dependent and dextran NPs with a size below 15 nm exhibited leakage from postcapillary venules in all strains. Most importantly, the leakage rate of 8-nm fluorescein isothiocyanate dextran was significantly higher in the BALB/c mouse strain than in other strains. This strain dependence was not observed in slightly positive TRITC-dextran with comparable sizes. Our results indicate that the influence on mouse strains needs to be taken into account for the evaluation of NPs near the lower size limit