Signed Distance-based Deep Memory Recommender

Personalized recommendation algorithms learn a user's preference for an item by measuring a distance/similarity between them. However, some of the existing recommendation models (e.g., matrix factorization) assume a linear relationship between the user and item. This approach limits the capacity of recommender systems, since the interactions between users and items in real-world applications are much more complex than the linear relationship. To overcome this limitation, in this paper, we design and propose a deep learning framework called Signed Distance-based Deep Memory Recommender, which captures non-linear relationships between users and items explicitly and implicitly, and work well in both general recommendation task and shopping basket-based recommendation task. Through an extensive empirical study on six real-world datasets in the two recommendation tasks, our proposed approach achieved significant improvement over ten state-of-the-art recommendation models

Implementing Path of Zhengzhou University\u27s Establishment of Football Academy

Under the new policy background of the 2020 Opinions on Deepening the Integration of Sports and Education and Promoting the Healthy Development of Adolescents , as the highest educational institution in China, higher education institutions should shoulder the responsibility of cultivating high-quality talents to meet social needs. As the highest-quality higher education institution in Henan Province, Zhengzhou University\u27s innovation and exploration of teaching methods and talent training models under the background of the integration of sports and education will play a leading role in the development of higher education in Henan Province. Through combing and analyzing the existing policy documents, firstly, explore the reasons, significance, and social background of the construction of the football academy; secondly, analyze the theoretical basis for the construction of the football academy in the context of relevant policies, and analyze the demand for talent training required by the policy. It was combining with the construction situation of my country’s football academy at this stage, implementing the specific requirements of the integration strategy of sports and education, establishing the guiding ideology of “diversified integration” after establishing the academy from the three levels of discipline establishment, talent training, and talent transfer. Investigate the needs of the talent market at the stage, determine the direction of talent training, and discuss how to set up specific majors for domestic enrollment after the establishment of the college. Based on this, it proposes the professional setting direction and specific curriculum arrangement and assessment methods for talent training from five aspects: education and teaching, sports competitions, sports medicine, sports media, economics, and management. Finally, it discusses the difficulties faced by students, teachers, and employment development after graduation in the process of football academy construction and how to use existing resources and related policy support to solve the difficulties. As an innovative way of running a school, the Football Academy provides new opportunities for the reform and innovation of sports talent cultivation. In the torrent of sports and education integration reform, make full use of existing resources, integrate and mobilize various high-quality resources in the region, and finally transform them into the winning resources for the new development of our school\u27s sports discipline in this innovative school-running method. After the football academy is established, it will become a link between campus football and professional football in the province, and a breeding base for national high-quality football industry talents. It will also provide a strong impetus for the development of football in my country

How FinTech affects total factor energy efficiency? Evidence from Chinese cities

The advancement of Financial Technology (FinTech) is crucial for government entities, the National Grid, and various energy corporations to facilitate the transition towards sustainable and green production methods. This study investigates the relationship between FinTech and Total Factor Energy Efficiency (TFEE) using data from a selected sample of 254 city groups in China. We examine how the development of FinTech impacts TFEE from both non-spatial and spatial perspectives. The results from the non-spatial panel model indicate that FinTech development has a significant positive impact on TFEE. Comparative studies were conducted using fixed effects (FE), feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) models, and system generalized method of moments (GMM) models, and the main findings remained consistent, confirming the robustness of our conclusions. Spatial autocorrelation results reveal a significant positive spatial spillover effect on TFEE. Both the spatial Durbin model and the dynamic spatial Durbin model demonstrate that FinTech also has a significant positive impact on TFEE, and this effect increases over time. These conclusions remain robust even after considering various spatial weight matrices and alternative methods for calculating TFEE. Additionally, we discovered that the digital economy plays a vital role in strengthening the relationship between FinTech and TFEE. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that, compared to cities without resource-based economies, FinTech development in growing resource-based cities has a more substantial impact on TFEE

An Analysis of the Construction and Development of ‘Starry Star’ Training Camp in Zhengzhou City

Since 2017, the Ministry of Education has taken the lead in establishing the \u27Starry Star\u27 pilot training camp. As a leading city of school football campaign/activity, Zhengzhou City takes up heavy responsibility of continuously promoting the rapid development of school football in Henan Province. This paper adopts such methodologies such as literature, fieldwork, mathematical statistics and logical analysis to identify the weaknesses in the current phase of construction and to make reasonable recommendations according to policies and the actual situation for pointing out the direction for the future development. In terms of organizational leadership, all relevant policies and documents are well-developed reflecting the high degree of importance attached to each training camp, but very few of them have omissions in the development of the system of admissions and training management regulations. In terms of condition guarantee, three aspects are prominent, including the treatment of coaches (calculation of hours), the size of the training grounds at each training site not meeting the requirements of the camps\u27 participation groups (due to limited size of the campus), and the lack of implementation of supporting funds (in the surrounding counties). In terms of competition and training, all schools lost points to varying degrees in the various detailed assessment indicators of the survey and assessment such as inappropriate teaching attitude of the teaching staff, unsystematic training syllabus, unfinished work arrangements for two tournaments and one practice and insufficient attention to the campers\u27 performance in cultural subjects. In terms of reserve training and training participation rate, nearly 30% of the camps failed to send outstanding athletes to higher level schools; half of the camps failed to ensure over 90% attendance of campers. It is suggested that relevant authorities should in future give standardized and clear policies regarding admissions and other related systems. Further, the authorities should clarify the way of coaches\u27 salary and title appraisal, focus on the implementation of matching funds for training camps, and gradually adjust the correspondence between matching camper groups and camp site conditions. As the main task of the Starry Star training camps, more attention should be placed in future work, improving policies, seriously correcting and dealing with various situations that affect the quality of race training in each camp. The authorities should optimize the way of supplying outstanding athletes, and at the same time strengthen regular inspections and random checks for the attendance, putting equal emphasis on training quality and participation

Individual-based morphological brain network organization and its association with autistic symptoms in young children with autism spectrum disorder

Individual-based morphological brain networks built from T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) reflect synchronous maturation intensities between anatomical regions at the individual level. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a socio-cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorder with high neuroanatomical heterogeneity, but the specific patterns of morphological networks in ASD remain largely unexplored at the individual level. In this study, individual-based morphological networks were constructed by using high-resolution structural MRI data from 40 young children with ASD (age range: 2-8 years) and 38 age-, gender-, and handedness-matched typically developing children (TDC). Measurements were recorded as threefold. Results showed that compared with TDC, young children with ASD exhibited lower values of small-worldness (i.e., sigma) of individual-level morphological brain networks, increased morphological connectivity in cortico-striatum-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) circuitry, and decreased morphological connectivity in the cortico-cortical network. In addition, morphological connectivity abnormalities can predict the severity of social communication deficits in young children with ASD, thus confirming an associational impact at the behavioral level. These findings suggest that the morphological brain network in the autistic developmental brain is inefficient in segregating and distributing information. The results also highlight the crucial role of abnormal morphological connectivity patterns in the socio-cognitive deficits of ASD and support the possible use of the aberrant developmental patterns of morphological brain networks in revealing new clinically-relevant biomarkers for ASD.China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 2019M660236; National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant/Award Numbers: 61901129, 62036003, 81871432, U1808204; The Basque Foundation for Science and from Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad (Spain) and FEDER, Grant/Award Number: DPI2016-79874-R; the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Grant/Award Numbers: 2672018ZYGX2018J079, ZYGX2019Z017; the Sichuan Science and Technology Program, Grant/Award Number: 2019YJ018

Elevated Foxp3+ double-negative T cells are associated with disease progression during HIV infection

Persistent immune activation, which occurs during the whole course of HIV infection, plays a pivotal role in CD4+ T cells depletion and AIDS progression. Furthermore, immune activation is a key factor that leads to impaired immune reconstitution after long-term effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), and is even responsible for the increased risk of developing non-AIDS co-morbidities. Therefore, it’s imperative to identify an effective intervention targeting HIV-associated immune activation to improve disease management. Double negative T cells (DNT) were reported to provide immunosuppression during HIV infection, but the related mechanisms remained puzzled. Foxp3 endows Tregs with potent suppressive function to maintain immune homeostasis. However, whether DNT cells expressed Foxp3 and the accurate function of these cells urgently needed to be investigated. Here, we found that Foxp3+ DNT cells accumulated in untreated people living with HIV (PLWH) with CD4+ T cell count less than 200 cells/µl. Moreover, the frequency of Foxp3+ DNT cells was negatively correlated with CD4+ T cell count and CD4/CD8 ratio, and positively correlated with immune activation and systemic inflammation in PLWH. Of note, Foxp3+ DNT cells might exert suppressive regulation by increased expression of CD39, CD25, or vigorous proliferation (high levels of GITR and ki67) in ART-naive PLWH. Our study underlined the importance of Foxp3+ DNT cells in the HIV disease progression, and suggest that Foxp3+ DNT may be a potential target for clinical intervention for the control of immune activation during HIV infection

Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the United States

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org/) collected, disseminated, and synthesized tens of millions of specific predictions from more than 90 different academic, industry, and independent research groups. A multimodel ensemble forecast that combined predictions from dozens of groups every week provided the most consistently accurate probabilistic forecasts of incident deaths due to COVID-19 at the state and national level from April 2020 through October 2021. The performance of 27 individual models that submitted complete forecasts of COVID-19 deaths consistently throughout this year showed high variability in forecast skill across time, geospatial units, and forecast horizons. Two-thirds of the models evaluated showed better accuracy than a naïve baseline model. Forecast accuracy degraded as models made predictions further into the future, with probabilistic error at a 20-wk horizon three to five times larger than when predicting at a 1-wk horizon. This project underscores the role that collaboration and active coordination between governmental public-health agencies, academic modeling teams, and industry partners can play in developing modern modeling capabilities to support local, state, and federal response to outbreaks

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data