The Effect of Flow and Motivation on Users’ Learning Outcomes in Second Life

This study aims to investigate the effect of the users’ immersion experience, motivation, and learning outcomes in Second Life. The data collected for this study occurred over a 2 month period. Participants were 113 students taking classes in Second Life at a university. Their ages ranged from 18-22 years, with 47 participants as male and 66 as female. From the analysis of the collected data, the immersion experience and motivation have effects on the learning outcomes in Second Life. The results revealed more one was immersed in Second Life, the motivation was improved, and thus, the learning outcomes were reinforced. These findings are also discussed in virtual learning and teaching design

Observation of quantum fingerprinting beating the classical limit

Quantum communication has historically been at the forefront of advancements, from fundamental tests of quantum physics to utilizing the quantum-mechanical properties of physical systems for practical applications. In the field of communication complexity, quantum communication allows the advantage of an exponential reduction in the information transmitted over classical communication to accomplish distributed computational tasks. However, to date, demonstrating this advantage in a practical setting continues to be a central challenge. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of a quantum fingerprinting protocol that for the first time surpasses the ultimate classical limit to transmitted information. Ultra-low noise superconducting single-photon detectors and a stable fibre-based Sagnac interferometer are used to implement a quantum fingerprinting system that is capable of transmitting less information than the classical proven lower bound over 20 km standard telecom fibre for input sizes of up to two Gbits. The results pave the way for experimentally exploring the advanced features of quantum communication and open a new window of opportunity for research in communication complexity and testing the foundations of physics.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Pairing Symmetry in Iron-Pnictide Superconductor KFe2_2As2_2

The pairing symmetry is one of the major issues in the study of iron-based superconductors. We adopt a low-energy effective kinetic model based on the first-principles band structure calculations combined with the $J_1$-$J_2$ model for KFe$_2$As$_2$, the phase diagram of pairing symmetries is constructed. Putting the values of $J_1$ and $J_2$ of the $J_1$-$J_2$ model obtained by the first-principles calculations into this phase diagram, we find that the pairing symmetry for KFe$_2$As$_2$ is a nodal $d_{xy}$-wave in the folded Brillouin zone with two iron atoms per unit cell. This is in good agreement with experiments observed a nodal order parameter.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (The pairing symmetry is dependent on choosing an effective tight-binding model. In the publication version, we adopt a ten-orbital model by using the maximally localized Wannier functions based on the first-principles band structure calculations, and give an s-wave pairing for KFe$_2$As$_2$

Obciążenie chorobami układu sercowo-naczyniowego u osób hospitalizowanych w szpitalu w Guangzhou w Chinach, w latach 2006–2015

Introduction. To explore the epidemiological characters of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients and to give a certain clues for disease prevention and clinical treatment. Material and methods. We carried out an investigation using retrospective study method by the medical records retrieval system, and extracted the data of inpatients suffered from CVD in a hospital in Guangzhou from 2006 to 2015, including age, gender, disease onset time, clinical diagnosis, hospitalization days, cost and so on. Results. The average admissions per 5 years kept increasing in the study period. Most inpatients suffered from the CVD in December (n = 9288, 9.10%), while least in February (n = 7309, 7.16%). Most of the inpatients were 66–75-years- -old (n = 24,891, 24.37%). Gender ratio (male vs. female) of CVD inpatients showed a downward trend came with age. The gender ratio was 1.9 and 0.99 among inpatients below 26-years-old and above 85-years-old, respectively. Most common CVD were ischemic heart diseases (29.46%), cerebrovascular diseases (21.59%) and hypertensive diseases (15.18%). The adjusted hospitalization cost was 4600.30 USD in 2006 and 5473.66 USD in 2006, while the average hospitalization days were 15.63 in 2006 and 9.98 in 2015. Conclusions. More attention should be paid to the middle and elderly people with CVD risk factors, especially the senile women, to reduce the disease burden. The change of gender ratio suggested there may be other significant causes leading to the gender differences besides estrogen.Wstęp. Badanie przeprowadzono w celu oceny cech epidemiologicznych chorych hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego i sformułowanie wskazówek dotyczących zapobiegania tym chorobom oraz ich leczenia. Materiał i metody. Badanie przeprowadzono w sposób retrospektywny na podstawie analizy danych medycznych, korzystając z dokumentacji pacjentów hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego w szpitalu w Guangzhou w latach 2006–2015. Dane włączone do analizy obejmowały między innymi wiek, płeć, czas rozpoczęcia choroby, rozpoznanie kliniczne, okres hospitalizacji (dni), koszty związane z hospitalizacją. Wyniki. Średnia liczba hospitalizacji na 5 lat zwiększała się stale w badanym okresie. Najwięcej chorych zgłaszało się do szpitala z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego w grudniu (n = 9288; 9,10%), natomiast najmniej w lutym (n = 7309; 7,16%). Największą grupę hospitalizowanych stanowiły osoby w wieku 66–75 lat (n = 24 891; 24,37%). Wartość współczynnika płci chorych (stosunek liczby mężczyzn do liczby kobiet) wśród osób hospitalizowanych z powodu chorób układu sercowo-naczyniowego zmniejszała się z wiekiem. Współczynnik ten wynosił 1,9 i 0,99, odpowiednio, w grupach chorych w wieku poniżej 26 lat oraz powyżej 85 lat. Do najczęstszych CVD należały choroba niedokrwienna serca (29,46%), choroba naczyniowa mózgu (21,59%) i nadciśnienie tętnicze (15,18%). Skorygowane koszty hospitalizacji wynosiły 4600,30 USD w 2006 roku i 5473,66 USD w 2015 roku, natomiast średni czas hospitalizacji wynosił odpowiednio 15,63 i 9,98 dnia. Wnioski. Aby zmniejszyć obciążenie chorobami sercowo-naczyniowymi należy zwrócić większa uwagę na osoby w średnim i podeszłym wieku, u których występują czynniki ryzyka sercowo-naczyniowego; dotyczy to zwłaszcza starszych kobiet. Zmiana proporcji płci chorych sugeruje, że oprócz estrogenu mogą istnieć inne przyczyny powodujące różnicę w liczbie zachorowań na choroby sercowo-naczyniowe

Multi-Scenario Ranking with Adaptive Feature Learning

Recently, Multi-Scenario Learning (MSL) is widely used in recommendation and retrieval systems in the industry because it facilitates transfer learning from different scenarios, mitigating data sparsity and reducing maintenance cost. These efforts produce different MSL paradigms by searching more optimal network structure, such as Auxiliary Network, Expert Network, and Multi-Tower Network. It is intuitive that different scenarios could hold their specific characteristics, activating the user's intents quite differently. In other words, different kinds of auxiliary features would bear varying importance under different scenarios. With more discriminative feature representations refined in a scenario-aware manner, better ranking performance could be easily obtained without expensive search for the optimal network structure. Unfortunately, this simple idea is mainly overlooked but much desired in real-world systems.Further analysis also validates the rationality of adaptive feature learning under a multi-scenario scheme. Moreover, our A/B test results on the Alibaba search advertising platform also demonstrate that Maria is superior in production environments.Comment: 10 pages