An investigation of the effectiveness of prefabrication incentive policies in China

Prefabrication is a technology that can reduce the material consumption during the construction process. Thus, it is regarded as a technology that be of assistance in the pursuit of sustainable development in the construction industry. In China, a series of policies has been formulated to promote the implementation of prefabrication; however, the effectiveness of these policies has not been investigated. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the current prefabrication incentive policies in China. To achieve this research aim, a policy framework was first developed in order to understand the existing policies. Then, four indicators-namely, the number of prefabricated component production enterprises, the prefabricated floor area, the prefabricated building market size, and the expected prefabricated building area ratio-were selected to evaluate each policy's effectiveness. It was found that the growth rates of these four indicators had increased slowly, and had even shown declining trends before 2015; however, with the incentive policies promulgated after 2015, the growth rates have increased. This study is of value not only in helping readers to understand the existing framework of incentive policies in China, but also in revealing the effectiveness of the identified prefabrication incentive policies. These research findings can also provide insights useful for policy formulation in other jurisdictions for the promotion of prefabrication

Quenched Chiral Log and Light Quark Mass from Overlap Fermions

We study the quenched chiral behavior of the pion with mass as low as $\approx 180$ MeV. The calculation is done on a quenched lattice of size $16^3\times 28$ and $a = 0.2$ fm with 80 configurations using overlap fermions and an improved gauge action. Using an improved constrained curve fitting technique, we find that the ground state pseudoscalar mass versus bare quark mass behavior is well controlled with small statistical errors; this permits a reliable fit of the quenched chiral log effects, a determination of the chiral log parameter ($\delta = 0.26(3)$), and an estimate of the renormalized mass of the light quark ($m^{\bar{MS}}(\mu=2 {\rm GeV}) = 3.7(3) {\rm MeV}$).Comment: Lattice2002(spectrum), 3 pages, 3 figure

Visualizing and Understanding Shrinking Cities and Towns (SCT) Research: A Network Analysis

The world is undergoing an unprecedented trend of fast urbanization, which causes a range of socio-environmental consequences, one of which is shrinking cities and towns (SCT). SCT refer to the cities or towns that are experiencing population decline and economic downturn. In the existing literature, there have been numerous studies on SCT; however, there is a lack of study which investigates its knowledge domains. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a scientometric analysis to achieve an outline of the SCT research status. Through the procedures of literature search and screening, a total of 716 SCT-related studies were extracted from the Scopus. The VOSviewer software system program was then utilized to visualize the present SCT-related studies. The visualization results revealed that the journal of Sustainability made significant contributions to the SCT research in terms of relevant publications. In addition, Haase, Annegret received the most co-citations, and was also the most productive author in this field. Furthermore, it was identified that current SCT research is mainly conducted in developed countries. Through the analysis of keywords, the emerging research topics were revealed. Discussions were further made from the perspectives of prevailing research methods, evaluation criteria, and solutions for SCT problems

TeaDiseaseNet: multi-scale self-attentive tea disease detection

Accurate detection of tea diseases is essential for optimizing tea yield and quality, improving production, and minimizing economic losses. In this paper, we introduce TeaDiseaseNet, a novel disease detection method designed to address the challenges in tea disease detection, such as variability in disease scales and dense, obscuring disease patterns. TeaDiseaseNet utilizes a multi-scale self-attention mechanism to enhance disease detection performance. Specifically, it incorporates a CNN-based module for extracting features at multiple scales, effectively capturing localized information such as texture and edges. This approach enables a comprehensive representation of tea images. Additionally, a self-attention module captures global dependencies among pixels, facilitating effective interaction between global information and local features. Furthermore, we integrate a channel attention mechanism, which selectively weighs and combines the multi-scale features, eliminating redundant information and enabling precise localization and recognition of tea disease information across diverse scales and complex backgrounds. Extensive comparative experiments and ablation studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, demonstrating superior detection results in scenarios characterized by complex backgrounds and varying disease scales. The presented method provides valuable insights for intelligent tea disease diagnosis, with significant potential for improving tea disease management and production

A more general interacting model of holographic dark energy

So far, there have been no theories or observational data that deny the presence of interaction between dark energy and dark matter. We extend naturally the holographic dark energy (HDE) model, proposed by Granda and Oliveros, in which the dark energy density includes not only the square of the Hubble scale, but also the time derivative of the Hubble scale to the case with interaction and the analytic forms for the cosmic parameters are obtained under the specific boundary conditions. The various behaviors concerning the cosmic expansion depend on the introduced numerical parameters which are also constrained. The more general interacting model inherits the features of the previous ones of HDE, keeping the consistency of the theory.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, references adde

Exdpf Is a Key Regulator of Exocrine Pancreas Development Controlled by Retinoic Acid and ptf1a in Zebrafish

Both endocrine and exocrine pancreatic cells arise from pancreatic-duodenal homeobox 1 (pdx1)-positive progenitors. The molecular mechanisms controlling cell fate determination and subsequent proliferation, however, are poorly understood. Unlike endocrine cells, less is known about exocrine cell specification. We report here the identification and characterization of a novel exocrine cell determinant gene, exocrine differentiation and proliferation factor (exdpf), which is highly expressed in the exocrine cell progenitors and differentiated cells of the developing pancreas in zebrafish. Knockdown of exdpf by antisense morpholino caused loss or significant reduction of exocrine cells due to lineage-specific cell cycle arrest but not apoptosis, whereas the endocrine cell mass appeared normal. Real-time PCR results demonstrated that the cell cycle arrest is mediated by up-regulation of cell cycle inhibitor genes p21Cip, p27Kip, and cyclin G1 in the exdpf morphants. Conversely, overexpression of exdpf resulted in an overgrowth of the exocrine pancreas and a severe reduction of the endocrine cell mass, suggesting an inhibitory role for exdpf in endocrine cell progenitors. We show that exdpf is a direct target gene of pancreas-specific transcription factor 1a (Ptf1a), a transcription factor critical for exocrine formation. Three consensus Ptf1a binding sites have been identified in the exdpf promoter region. Luciferase assay demonstrated that Ptf1a promotes transcription of the exdpf promoter. Furthermore, exdpf expression in the exocrine pancreas was lost in ptf1a morphants, and overexpression of exdpf successfully rescued exocrine formation in ptf1a-deficient embryos. Genetic evidence places expdf downstream of retinoic acid (RA), an instructive signal for pancreas development. Knocking down exdpf by morpholino abolished ectopic carboxypeptidase A (cpa) expression induced by RA. On the other hand, exdpf mRNA injection rescued endogenous cpa expression in embryos treated with diethylaminobenzaldehyde, an inhibitor of RA signaling. Moreover, exogenous RA treatment induced anterior ectopic expression of exdpf and trypsin in a similar pattern. Our study provides a new understanding of the molecular mechanisms controlling exocrine cell specification and proliferation by a novel gene, exdpf. Highly conserved in mammals, the expression level of exdpf appears elevated in several human tumors, suggesting a possible role in tumor pathogenesis

Actively implementing an evidence-based feeding guideline for critically ill patients (NEED): a multicenter, cluster-randomized, controlled trial

Background: Previous cluster-randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of implementing evidence-based guidelines for nutrition therapy in critical illness do not consistently demonstrate patient benefits. A large-scale, sufficiently powered study is therefore warranted to ascertain the effects of guideline implementation on patient-centered outcomes. Methods: We conducted a multicenter, cluster-randomized, parallel-controlled trial in intensive care units (ICUs) across China. We developed an evidence-based feeding guideline. ICUs randomly allocated to the guideline group formed a local "intervention team", which actively implemented the guideline using standardized educational materials, a graphical feeding protocol, and live online education outreach meetings conducted by members of the study management committee. ICUs assigned to the control group remained unaware of the guideline content. All ICUs enrolled patients who were expected to stay in the ICU longer than seven days. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality within 28 days of enrollment. Results: Forty-eight ICUs were randomized to the guideline group and 49 to the control group. From March 2018 to July 2019, the guideline ICUs enrolled 1399 patients, and the control ICUs enrolled 1373 patients. Implementation of the guideline resulted in significantly earlier EN initiation (1.20 vs. 1.55 mean days to initiation of EN; difference − 0.40 [95% CI − 0.71 to − 0.09]; P = 0.01) and delayed PN initiation (1.29 vs. 0.80 mean days to start of PN; difference 1.06 [95% CI 0.44 to 1.67]; P = 0.001). There was no significant difference in 28-day mortality (14.2% vs. 15.2%; difference − 1.6% [95% CI − 4.3% to 1.2%]; P = 0.42) between groups. Conclusions: In this large-scale, multicenter trial, active implementation of an evidence-based feeding guideline reduced the time to commencement of EN and overall PN use but did not translate to a reduction in mortality from critical illness. Trial registration: ISRCTN, ISRCTN12233792. Registered November 20th, 2017