Dynamic Optimal Production Strategies Based on the Inventory-Dependent Demand under the Cap-and-Trade Mechanism

Cap-and-trade system is the most popularly applied mechanism that is currently recognized to be effective in stimulating the enterprises to environmentally friendly operate through emission reduction. In this paper, we consider a single company whose carbon emission is generated from not only its production process but also its inventory management activity. A continuous optimal control model is used to find the optimal dynamic production policy on the objective of profit maximization with respect to the cap-and-trade mechanism. Some properties of the strategies are derived concerning the timing of production rate adjustment and the length of the decision duration period. The capacitated strategy is also discussed, in which different combinations of different decision intervals of different production rates are explicitly explored. The impact of various factors on the length of these intervals is qualitatively described. Through the sensitivity analysis, we further discuss the impact of product prices on the positions of the switch time points between the decision intervals. Company’s performance including profit and emission is numerically compared in the situation of joining or not joining the cap-and-trade system

AliCHI: A Large-scale Multi-modal Dataset and Automated Evaluation Tool for Human-like Dialogue Systems

A well-designed interactive human-like dialogue system is expected to take actions (e.g. smiling) and respond in a pattern similar to humans. However, due to the limitation of single-modality (only speech) or small volume of currently public datasets, most dialogue systems can only respond in speech and cannot take human-like actions. In this work, we build a large-scale multi-modal dataset of human-to-human conversation in a face-to-face fashion, with fine-grained annotations. The raw data in video format contains 635 dialogue sessions, being collected from 200 participants on designed topics and lasting 52 hours in total. Moreover, we manually annotated the verbal and non-verbal behaviors in each dialogue session on their start/end timestamp. Furthermore, we developed a corresponding evaluation tool for human-like dialogue systems to automatically evaluates the accuracy of two basic tasks, turn-taking prediction, and backchannel prediction, on both time and content. We have opened the data, the tools will be released at the conference

Differential Features of Culprit Intracranial Atherosclerotic Lesions: A Whole-Brain Vessel Wall Imaging Study in Patients With Acute Ischemic Stroke.

BackgroundIntracranial atherosclerotic disease tends to affect multiple arterial segments. Using whole-brain vessel wall imaging, we sought to study the differences in plaque features among various types of plaques in patients with a recent unilateral anterior circulation ischemic stroke.Methods and resultsSixty-one patients with unilateral anterior circulation ischemic stroke were referred to undergo whole-brain vessel wall imaging (before and after contrast) within 1 month of symptom onset for intracranial atherosclerotic disease evaluations. Each plaque was classified as a culprit, probably culprit, or nonculprit lesion, according to its likelihood of causing the stroke. The associations between plaque features (thickening pattern, plaque-wall contrast ratio, high signal on T1-weighted images, plaque contrast enhancement ratio, enhancement grade, and enhancement pattern) and culprit lesions were estimated using mixed multivariable logistic regression after adjustment for maximum wall thickness. In 52 patients without motion corruption in whole-brain vessel wall imaging, a total of 178 intracranial plaques in the anterior circulation were identified, including 52 culprit lesions (29.2%), 51 probably culprit lesions (28.7%), and 75 nonculprit lesions (42.1%). High signal on T1-weighted images (adjusted odds ratio, 9.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.9-44.1; P=0.006), grade 2 (enhancement ratio of plaque ≥ enhancement ratio of pituitary) contrast enhancement (adjusted odds ratio, 17.4; 95% confidence interval, 1.8-164.9; P=0.013), and type 2 (≥50% cross-sectional wall involvement) enhancement pattern (adjusted odds ratio, 10.1; 95% confidence interval, 1.3-82.2; P=0.030) were independently associated with culprit lesions.ConclusionsHigh signal on T1-weighted images, grade 2 contrast enhancement, and type 2 enhancement pattern are associated with cerebrovascular ischemic events, which may provide valuable insights into risk stratification

Transdisciplinary, co-designed and adaptive management for the sustainable development of rongcheng, a coastal city in China in the context of human activities and climate change

Half the population of China live in coastal zones where 70% of large cities are also located. Intensive human activities pose significant environmental and ecological hazards to these cities that are already vulnerable to natural hazards and climate change. The sustainable development of coastal cities is thus both a national and international issue. Rongcheng is a typical coastal city in east China. It is a national marine ranch demonstration area that is subjected to multi-stressors from human activities and climate change. The dominant economic sectors include aquaculture and fisheries, agriculture, shipping and tourism. A multitude of resulting pressures come mainly from intensified human activities, such as intensive aquaculture, overfishing, industrial pollutants, agricultural runoff, land reclamation and port expansion. In addition, Rongcheng is also facing exogenic pressures from extreme climate events such as intensified storms, storm surges, droughts and sea ice. A growing awareness of these problems brought together a trans-disciplinary group from local government, research institutions, local practitioners and coastal representatives to jointly explore and co-design adaptive coastal management options. In this transdisciplinary study, a social-ecological analysis based on a combination of the Systems Approach Framework and the Drivers-Pressures-States-Impacts-Responses framework was used to analyze and formulate an adaptive management plan for the sustainability of Rongcheng. More than 40 stakeholders including government, companies, civil society and institutions participated in the study through questionnaires and on-site meetings. A statistical analysis of the results identified urgent issues impeding the sustainable development of Rongcheng. The issues identified were poorly regulated aquaculture, loss of shoreline, and the decline of seagrass and cultural heritage.The study identified management options and measures, some of which were adopted by the local government in a co-designed management plan. The measures included upgrading of aquaculture industry, habitat conservation and restoration, and the development of cultural tourism. Another outcome was the increased knowledge exchange between stakeholders to inform management, policy, and decision making, as well as raised awareness of vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change. The success of this case study provides a reference for the adaptive management of other coastal cities and their sustainable development in a changing climate.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Changes in Quality Characteristics of Snakehead Surimi during Fermentation

In this study, the effects of Pediococcus pentosaceus inoculation on the quality characteristics of snakehead surimi during fermentation were analyzed in comparison with natural fermentation. The quality of fermented surimi was evaluated in terms of pH, total acid, total volatile basic nitrogen (TVB-N), fatty acids, color difference, texture, amino acids and sensory scores. The results showed that pH declined and total acid content gradually increased during fermentation. After fermentation for 48 h, total acid content in the inoculated fermentation group increased by 52.29% when compared with that in the natural fermentation group. Compared with the natural fermentation group, the increase in TVB-N content was significantly inhibited in the inoculated fermentation group. The content of saturated fatty acids increased during natural fermentation, but decreased during inoculated fermentation. The content of monounsaturated fatty acids was lower while the content of polyunsaturated fatty acids was higher in the inoculated fermentation group than in the natural fermentation group at the end of fermentation. The inoculated fermentation group showed an increase in L* value and the absolute values of hardness and adhesiveness, and increased the contents of total essential amino acids and umami amino acids in surimi samples and the essential amino acid index from 73.9 to 74.8. After fermentation for 48 h, the scores for odor, color and overall acceptability in the inoculated fermentation group were higher than those in the natural fermentation group, which were significantly correlated with quality characteristics. Therefore, the quality of snakehead surimi can be better improved by fermentation with P. pentosaceus

Extensive analysis of D7S486 in primary gastric cancer supports TESTIN as a candidate tumor suppressor gene

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>High frequency of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) was found at D7S486 in primary gastric cancer (GC). And we found a high frequency of LOH region on 7q31 in primary GC from China, and identified D7S486 to be the most frequent LOH locus. This study was aimed to determine what genes were affected by the LOH and served as tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) in this region. Here, a high-throughput single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) microarray fabricated in-house was used to analyze the LOH status around D7S486 on 7q31 in 75 patients with primary GC. Western blot, immunohistochemistry, and RT-PCR were used to assess the protein and mRNA expression of TESTIN (TES) in 50 and 140 primary GC samples, respectively. MTS assay was used to investigate the effect of TES overexpression on the proliferation of GC cell lines. Mutation and methylation analysis were performed to explore possible mechanisms of TES inactivation in GC.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>LOH analysis discovered five candidate genes (<it>ST7</it>, <it>FOXP2</it>, <it>MDFIC</it>, <it>TES </it>and <it>CAV1</it>) whose frequencies of LOH were higher than 30%. However, only <it>TES </it>showed the potential to be a TSG associated with GC. Among 140 pairs of GC samples, decreased <it>TES </it>mRNA level was found in 96 (68.6%) tumor tissues when compared with matched non-tumor tissues (<it>p </it>< 0.001). Also, reduced TES protein level was detected in 36 (72.0%) of all 50 tumor tissues by Western blot (<it>p </it>= 0.001). In addition, immunohistochemical staining result was in agreement with that of RT-PCR and Western blot. Down regulation of TES was shown to be correlated with tumor differentiation (<it>p </it>= 0.035) and prognosis (<it>p </it>= 0.035, log-rank test). Its overexpression inhibited the growth of three GC cell lines. Hypermethylation of <it>TES </it>promoter was a frequent event in primary GC and GC cell lines. However, no specific gene mutation was observed in the coding region of the <it>TES </it>gene.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Collectively, all results support the role of <it>TES </it>as a TSG in gastric carcinogenesis and that <it>TES </it>is inactivated primarily by LOH and CpG island methylation.</p