2,316 research outputs found
Consumer debt delinquency by family lifecycle categories
Postprint.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to document debt delinquency patterns by family lifecycle categories using multiple data sets that are nationally representative of American families. Findings: The results show that among the 15 household lifecycle categories, the top three most likely to be delinquent are young couples with children aged seven or older, middle-aged singles with children aged 15 or older, and middle-aged singles with children under 15. Younger households are more financially distressed than their older counterparts. Presence of children increases the probability of debt delinquency.Includes bibliographical references
Effects of Age on Saving Motives of Chinese Urban Consumers
Prior research on the saving behavior of Chinese consumers gave indirect evidence of various saving motives. In contrast, this study examined saving motives directly reported by consumers in a national survey in China. Findings indicated that the three most commonly reported motives were saving for emergency, children’s education, and retirement. Mediation analysis results suggested that saving motives reported by Chinese survey participants had clear life cycle patterns
Ozone and haze pollution weakens net primary productivity in China
Atmospheric pollutants have both beneficial and detrimental effects on carbon uptake by land ecosystems. Surface ozone (O3) damages leaf photosynthesis by oxidizing plant cells, while aerosols promote carbon uptake by increasing diffuse radiation and exert additional influences through concomitant perturbations to meteorology and hydrology. China is currently the world’s largest emitter of both carbon dioxide and short-lived air pollutants. The land ecosystems of China are estimated to provide a carbon sink, but it remains unclear whether air pollution acts to inhibit or promote carbon uptake. Here, we employ Earth system modeling and multiple measurement datasets to assess the separate and combined effects of anthropogenic O3 and aerosol pollution on net primary productivity (NPP) in China. In the present day, O3 reduces annual NPP by 0.6 Pg C (14 %) with a range from 0.4 Pg C (low O3 sensitivity) to 0.8 Pg C (high O3 sensitivity). In contrast, aerosol direct effects increase NPP by 0.2 Pg C (5 %) through the combination of diffuse radiation fertilization, reduced canopy temperatures, and reduced evaporation leading to higher soil moisture. Consequently, the net effects of O3 and aerosols decrease NPP by 0.4 Pg C (9 %) with a range from 0.2 Pg C (low O3 sensitivity) to 0.6 Pg C (high O3 sensitivity). However, precipitation inhibition from combined aerosol direct and indirect effects reduces annual NPP by 0.2 Pg C (4 %), leading to a net air pollution suppression of 0.8 Pg C (16 %) with a range from 0.6 Pg C (low O3 sensitivity) to 1.0 Pg C (high O3 sensitivity). Our results reveal strong dampening effects of air pollution on the land carbon uptake in China today. Following the current legislation emission scenario, this suppression will be further increased by the year 2030, mainly due to a continuing increase in surface O3. However, the maximum technically feasible reduction scenario could drastically relieve the current level of NPP damage by 70 % in 2030, offering protection of this critical ecosystem service and the mitigation of long-term global warming
DifferSketching: How Differently Do People Sketch 3D Objects?
Multiple sketch datasets have been proposed to understand how people draw 3D
objects. However, such datasets are often of small scale and cover a small set
of objects or categories. In addition, these datasets contain freehand sketches
mostly from expert users, making it difficult to compare the drawings by expert
and novice users, while such comparisons are critical in informing more
effective sketch-based interfaces for either user groups. These observations
motivate us to analyze how differently people with and without adequate drawing
skills sketch 3D objects. We invited 70 novice users and 38 expert users to
sketch 136 3D objects, which were presented as 362 images rendered from
multiple views. This leads to a new dataset of 3,620 freehand multi-view
sketches, which are registered with their corresponding 3D objects under
certain views. Our dataset is an order of magnitude larger than the existing
datasets. We analyze the collected data at three levels, i.e., sketch-level,
stroke-level, and pixel-level, under both spatial and temporal characteristics,
and within and across groups of creators. We found that the drawings by
professionals and novices show significant differences at stroke-level, both
intrinsically and extrinsically. We demonstrate the usefulness of our dataset
in two applications: (i) freehand-style sketch synthesis, and (ii) posing it as
a potential benchmark for sketch-based 3D reconstruction. Our dataset and code
are available at https://chufengxiao.github.io/DifferSketching/.Comment: SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 (Journal Track
Vasopressin and epinephrine versus epinephrine in management of patients with cardiac arrest: a meta-analysis
Objective. A combination of vasopressin and epinephrine may be more effective than epinephrine alone in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but evidence is lacking to make clinical recommendations. This meta-analysis compares the efficacy of vasopressin and epinephrine used together versus epinephrine alone in cardiac arrest (CA).
Methods. We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE for randomized trials comparing the efficacy of vasopressin and epinephrine versus epinephrine alone in adults with cardiac arrest. The primary outcome was the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and the survival rate on admission and discharge .We also analyzed ROSC in subgroups of patients presenting with different arrest rhythms, such as asystole, pulseless electrical activity (PEA), ventricular fibrillation (VF).
Results. We analyzed 6 randomized trials out of 485 articles. We did not find evidence supporting the superiority of vasopressin and epinephrine used in combination, except for the survival rate at 24h 2.99 95% CI(1.43,6.28). No evidence supports the conclusion that vasopressin combined with epinephrine is better than epinephrine alone for ROSC, even amongst subgroups of patients.
Conclusion. This systematic review of the efficacy of vasopressin and epinephrine use found that its combined use is better for 24h survival rate but only in one study which included 122 patients. Further investigation will be needed to support the use of this combination for cardiac arrest management
High-resolution X-ray microdiffraction analysis of natural teeth
In situ microzone X-ray diffraction analysis of natural teeth is presented. From our experiment, layer orientation and continuous crystal variations in teeth could be conveniently studied using fast online measurements by high-resolution X-ray microdiffraction equipment
Ulinastatin attenuates oxidation, inflammation and neural apoptosis in the cerebral cortex of adult rats with ventricular fibrillation after cardiopulmonary resuscitation
OBJECTIVE: The role of Ulinastatin in neuronal injury after cardiopulmonary resuscitation has not been elucidated. We aim to evaluate the effects of Ulinastatin on inflammation, oxidation, and neuronal injury in the cerebral cortex after cardiopulmonary resuscitation. METHODS: Ventricular fibrillation was induced in 76 adult male Wistar rats for 6 min, after which cardiopulmonary resuscitation was initiated. After spontaneous circulation returned, the rats were split into two groups: the Ulinastatin 100,000 unit/kg group or the PBS-treated control group. Blood and cerebral cortex samples were obtained and compared at 2, 4, and 8 h after return of spontaneous circulation. The protein levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) were assayed using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and mRNA levels were quantified via real-time polymerase chain reaction. Myeloperoxidase and Malondialdehyde were measured by spectrophotometry. The translocation of nuclear factor-κB p65 was assayed by Western blot. The viable and apoptotic neurons were detected by Nissl and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL). RESULTS: Ulinastatin treatment decreased plasma levels of TNF-α and IL-6, expression of mRNA, and Myeloperoxidase and Malondialdehyde in the cerebral cortex. In addition, Ulinastatin attenuated the translocation of nuclear factor-κB p65 at 2, 4, and 8 hours after the return of spontaneous circulation. Ulinastatin increased the number of living neurons and decreased TUNEL-positive neuron numbers in the cortex at 72 h after the return of spontaneous circulation. CONCLUSIONS: Ulinastatin preserved neuronal survival and inhibited neuron apoptosis after the return of spontaneous circulation in Wistar rats via attenuation of the oxidative stress response and translocation of nuclear factor-κB p65 in the cortex. In addition, Ulinastatin decreased the production of TNF-α, IL-6, Myeloperoxidase, and Malondialdehyde
One Neuron Saved Is One Neuron Earned: On Parametric Efficiency of Quadratic Networks
Inspired by neuronal diversity in the biological neural system, a plethora of
studies proposed to design novel types of artificial neurons and introduce
neuronal diversity into artificial neural networks. Recently proposed quadratic
neuron, which replaces the inner-product operation in conventional neurons with
a quadratic one, have achieved great success in many essential tasks. Despite
the promising results of quadratic neurons, there is still an unresolved issue:
\textit{Is the superior performance of quadratic networks simply due to the
increased parameters or due to the intrinsic expressive capability?} Without
clarifying this issue, the performance of quadratic networks is always
suspicious. Additionally, resolving this issue is reduced to finding killer
applications of quadratic networks. In this paper, with theoretical and
empirical studies, we show that quadratic networks enjoy parametric efficiency,
thereby confirming that the superior performance of quadratic networks is due
to the intrinsic expressive capability. This intrinsic expressive ability comes
from that quadratic neurons can easily represent nonlinear interaction, while
it is hard for conventional neurons. Theoretically, we derive the approximation
efficiency of the quadratic network over conventional ones in terms of real
space and manifolds. Moreover, from the perspective of the Barron space, we
demonstrate that there exists a functional space whose functions can be
approximated by quadratic networks in a dimension-free error, but the
approximation error of conventional networks is dependent on dimensions.
Empirically, experimental results on synthetic data, classic benchmarks, and
real-world applications show that quadratic models broadly enjoy parametric
efficiency, and the gain of efficiency depends on the task.Comment: We have shared our code in
https://github.com/asdvfghg/quadratic_efficienc
- …