The Characteristics of Mechanical Grinding on Kaolinite Structure and Thermal Behavior

AbstractThe relationship between kaolinite structure and the temperature of thermal transformation of phase was discussed in this paper through grinding and heating treatment. The results show that the structure of kaolinite is destroyed rapidly with increasing mechanical grinding time, and the kaolinite structure collapses completely after 1h grinding. The temperature of thermal transformation of phase decreases with the destruction of kaolinite structure. This result has a great significance for the utilization of kaolinite associated with coal measures in China

Monotonic Neural Ordinary Differential Equation: Time-series Forecasting for Cumulative Data

Time-Series Forecasting based on Cumulative Data (TSFCD) is a crucial problem in decision-making across various industrial scenarios. However, existing time-series forecasting methods often overlook two important characteristics of cumulative data, namely monotonicity and irregularity, which limit their practical applicability. To address this limitation, we propose a principled approach called Monotonic neural Ordinary Differential Equation (MODE) within the framework of neural ordinary differential equations. By leveraging MODE, we are able to effectively capture and represent the monotonicity and irregularity in practical cumulative data. Through extensive experiments conducted in a bonus allocation scenario, we demonstrate that MODE outperforms state-of-the-art methods, showcasing its ability to handle both monotonicity and irregularity in cumulative data and delivering superior forecasting performance.Comment: Accepted as CIKM'23 Applied Research Trac

SpliceMix: A Cross-scale and Semantic Blending Augmentation Strategy for Multi-label Image Classification

Recently, Mix-style data augmentation methods (e.g., Mixup and CutMix) have shown promising performance in various visual tasks. However, these methods are primarily designed for single-label images, ignoring the considerable discrepancies between single- and multi-label images, i.e., a multi-label image involves multiple co-occurred categories and fickle object scales. On the other hand, previous multi-label image classification (MLIC) methods tend to design elaborate models, bringing expensive computation. In this paper, we introduce a simple but effective augmentation strategy for multi-label image classification, namely SpliceMix. The "splice" in our method is two-fold: 1) Each mixed image is a splice of several downsampled images in the form of a grid, where the semantics of images attending to mixing are blended without object deficiencies for alleviating co-occurred bias; 2) We splice mixed images and the original mini-batch to form a new SpliceMixed mini-batch, which allows an image with different scales to contribute to training together. Furthermore, such splice in our SpliceMixed mini-batch enables interactions between mixed images and original regular images. We also offer a simple and non-parametric extension based on consistency learning (SpliceMix-CL) to show the flexible extensibility of our SpliceMix. Extensive experiments on various tasks demonstrate that only using SpliceMix with a baseline model (e.g., ResNet) achieves better performance than state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, the generalizability of our SpliceMix is further validated by the improvements in current MLIC methods when married with our SpliceMix. The code is available at https://github.com/zuiran/SpliceMix.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

A behavioral mechanistic investigation of the role of 5-HT\u3csub\u3e1A\u3c/sub\u3e receptors in the mediation of rat maternal behavior

Previous work suggests that 5-HT1A receptors play a special role in rodent maternal aggression, but not in other aspects of maternal care (e.g. pup retrieval and nest building). The present study re-assessed the basic effects of 5-HT1A activation or blockade on various maternal responses in postpartum female rats. We also examined the possible behavioral mechanisms underlying the maternal effects of 5-HT1A. Sprague–Dawley mother rats were injected with a 5-HT1A agonist 8-OH-DPAT (0.1, 0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg, sc), a 5-HT1A antagonist WAY-101405 (0.1, 0.5 or 1.0 mg/kg, sc) or 0.9% saline solution on postpartum days 3, 5, and 7. Maternal behavior was tested 30 min before, 30 min, 120 min, and 240 min after the injection. Acute and repeated 8-OH-DPAT treatment significantly disrupted pup retrieval, pup licking, nursing, and nest building in a dose-dependent fashion, whereas WAY-101405 had no effect at the tested doses. The 5-HT1A receptor specificity of 8-OH-DPAT\u27s action was confirmed as its maternal disruption effect was reversed by pretreatment of WAY-100635 (a highly selective 5-HT1A receptor antagonist). Subsequent pup preference test found that 8-OH-DPAT did not decrease the pup preference over a novel object, thus no inhibition on maternal motivation or maternal affect. The pup separation test and pup retrieval on an elevated plus maze test also failed to find any motivational and motor impairment effect with 8-OH-DPAT. However, 8-OH-DPAT at the maternal disruptive dose did disrupt the prepulse inhibition (a measure of attentional function) of acoustic startle response and enhanced the basal startle response. These findings suggest that stimulation of 5-HT1A receptors by 8-OH-DPAT impairs maternal care by partially interfering with the attentional processing or basal anxiety. More work is needed to further delineate the psychological and neuronal mechanisms underlying the maternal disruptive effect of 5-HT1A receptor activation

Exploratory Factor Analysis for Validating Traditional Chinese Syndrome Patterns of Chronic Atrophic Gastritis

Background. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has long been used to treat chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the TCM syndrome characteristics of CAG and its core pathogenesis so as to promote optimization of treatment strategies. Methods. This study was based on a participant survey conducted in 4 hospitals in China. Patients diagnosed with CAG were recruited by simple random sampling. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on syndrome extraction. Results. Common factors extracted were assigned to six syndrome patterns: qi deficiency, qi stagnation, blood stasis, phlegm turbidity, heat, and yang deficiency. Distribution frequency of all syndrome patterns showed that qi deficiency, qi stagnation, blood stasis, phlegm turbidity, and heat excess were higher (76.7%–84.2%) compared with yang deficiency (42.5%). Distribution of main syndrome patterns showed that frequencies of qi deficiency, qi stagnation, phlegm turbidity, heat, and yang deficiency were higher (15.8%–20.8%) compared with blood stasis (8.3%). Conclusions. The core pathogenesis of CAG is combination of qi deficiency, qi stagnation, blood stasis, phlegm turbidity, heat, and yang deficiency. Therefore, treatment strategy of herbal prescriptions for CAG should include herbs that regulate qi, activate blood, resolve turbidity, clear heat, remove toxin, and warm yang

Involvement in bullying and sleep disorders in Chinese early adolescents

BackgroundSchool bullying may cause sleep disorders in early adolescents. Here, we determined the relationship between school bullying (considering all the features of bullying involvement) and sleep disorders, which are the common problems in Chinese early adolescents.Materials and methodsWe conducted a questionnaire survey among 5,724 middle school students from Xuancheng, Hefei, and Huaibei cities in Anhui province, China. The self-report questionnaires included the Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. We used latent class analysis to identify the potential subgroups of bullying behavior. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the association between school bullying and sleep disorders.ResultsActive participants in bullying interactions, including the bullies and victims, reported higher levels of sleep disorders compared with the non-active participants [Bully: physical (aOR = 2.62), verbal (aOR = 1.73), relational (aOR = 1.80), and cyber (aOR = 2.08); Victim: physical (aOR = 2.42), verbal (aOR = 2.59), relational (aOR = 2.61), and cyber (aOR = 2.81)]. A dose–response relationship was observed between the number of school bullying types and sleep disorders. In the context of bullying roles, bully-victims had the highest risk of reporting sleep disorders (aOR = 3.07, 95% CI: 2.55–3.69). We identified four potential categories of school bullying behaviors: low involvement in bullying, verbal and relational victims, medium bully-victims, and high bully-victims, and the highest frequency of sleep disorders was observed in the high bully-victims group (aOR = 4.12, 95% CI: 2.94–5.76).ConclusionOur findings indicate a positive correlation between bullying roles and sleep disorders in early adolescents. Therefore, targeted intervention for sleep disorders should include an evaluation of bullying experiences

Identification of loci affecting teat number by genome-wide association studies on three pig populations

Objective Three genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and a meta-analysis of GWAS were conducted to explore the genetic mechanisms underlying variation in pig teat number. Methods We performed three GWAS and a meta-analysis for teat number on three pig populations, including a White Duroc×Erhualian F2 resource population (n = 1,743), a Chinese Erhualian pig population (n = 320) and a Chinese Sutai pig population (n = 383). Results We detected 24 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that surpassed the genome-wide significant level on Sus Scrofa chromosomes (SSC) 1, 7, and 12 in the F2 resource population, corresponding to four loci for pig teat number. We highlighted vertnin (VRTN) and lysine demethylase 6B (KDM6B) as two interesting candidate genes at the loci on SSC7 and SSC12. No significant associated SNPs were identified in the meta-analysis of GWAS. Conclusion The results verified the complex genetic architecture of pig teat number. The causative variants for teat number may be different in the three population

MNK1 and MNK2 enforce expression of E2F1, FOXM1, and WEE1 to drive soft tissue sarcoma

Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a heterogeneous disease that arises from connective tissues. Clinical outcome of patients with advanced tumors especially de-differentiated liposarcoma and uterine leiomyosarcoma remains unsatisfactory, despite intensive treatment regimens including maximal surgical resection, radiation, and chemotherapy. MAP kinase-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 1 and 2 (MNK1/2) have been shown to contribute to oncogenic translation via phosphorylation of eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E). However, little is known about the role of MNK1/2 and their downstream targets in STS. In this study, we show that depletion of either MNK1 or MNK2 suppresses cell viability, anchorage-independent growth, and tumorigenicity of STS cells. We also identify a compelling antiproliferative efficacy of a novel, selective MNK inhibitor ETC-168. Cellular responsiveness of STS cells to ETC-168 correlates positively with that of phosphorylated ribosomal protein S6 (RPS6). Mirroring MNK1/2 silencing, ETC-168 treatment strongly blocks eIF4E phosphorylation and represses expression of sarcoma-driving onco-proteins including E2F1, FOXM1, and WEE1. Moreover, combination of ETC-168 and MCL1 inhibitor S63845 exerts a synergistic antiproliferative activity against STS cells. In summary, our study reveals crucial roles of MNK1/2 and their downstream targets in STS tumorigenesis. Our data encourage further clinical translation of MNK inhibitors for STS treatment