Tail risk connectedness between US industries

We use the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) quantile regression technique to construct and analyse the complete tail risk connectedness network of the whole US industry system. We also investigate the empirical relationship between input–output linkages and the tail risk spillovers among US industries. Our findings identify the tail‐risk drivers, tail‐risk receivers, and tail‐risk distributors among industries and confirm that the actual trade flow between industries is a major driver of their tail risk connectedness

Improving Domain Generalization by Learning without Forgetting: Application in Retail Checkout

Designing an automatic checkout system for retail stores at the human level accuracy is challenging due to similar appearance products and their various poses. This paper addresses the problem by proposing a method with a two-stage pipeline. The first stage detects class-agnostic items, and the second one is dedicated to classify product categories. We also track the objects across video frames to avoid duplicated counting. One major challenge is the domain gap because the models are trained on synthetic data but tested on the real images. To reduce the error gap, we adopt domain generalization methods for the first-stage detector. In addition, model ensemble is used to enhance the robustness of the 2nd-stage classifier. The method is evaluated on the AI City challenge 2022 -- Track 4 and gets the F1 score $40\%$ on the test A set. Code is released at the link https://github.com/cybercore-co-ltd/aicity22-track4

Characteristics and mechanisms of cadmium adsorption onto biogenic aragonite shells-derived biosorbent: Batch and column studies

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd Calcium carbonate (CaCO3)-enriched biomaterial derived from freshwater mussel shells (FMS) was used as a non-porous biosorbent to explore the characteristics and mechanisms of cadmium adsorption in aqueous solution. The adsorption mechanism was proposed by comparing the FMS properties before and after adsorption alongside various adsorption studies. The FMS biosorbent was characterized using nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherm, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and point of zero charge. The results of batch experiments indicated that FMS possessed an excellent affinity to Cd(II) ions within solutions pH higher than 4.0. An increase in ionic strength resulted in a significant decrease in the amount of Cd(II) adsorbed onto FMS. Kinetic study demonstrated that the adsorption process quickly reached equilibrium at approximately 60 min. The FMS biosorbent exhibited the Langmuir maximum adsorption capacity as follows: 18.2 mg/g at 10 °C Cd2+ > Cu2+ > Cr3+ > Zn2+. For column experiments, the highest Thomas adsorption capacity (7.86 mg/g) was achieved at a flow rate (9 mL/min), initial Cd(II) concentration (10 mg/L), and bed height (5 cm). The Cd(II) removal by FMS was regarded as non-activated chemisorption that occurred very rapidly (even at a low temperature) with a low magnitude of activation energy. Primary adsorption mechanism was surface precipitation. Cadmium precipitated in the primary (Cd,Ca)CO3 form with a calcite-type structure on the FMS surface. A crust of rhombohedral crystals on the substrate was observed by SEM. Freshwater mussel shells have the potential as a renewable adsorbent to remove cadmium from water

The Role of Anisotropy in Distinguishing Domination of Néel or Brownian Relaxation Contribution to Magnetic Inductive Heating: Orientations for Biomedical Applications

Magnetic inductive heating (MIH) has been a topic of great interest because of its potential applications, especially in biomedicine. In this paper, the parameters characteristic for magnetic inductive heating power including maximum specific loss power (SLPmax), optimal nanoparticle diameter (Dc) and its width (ΔDc) are considered as being dependent on magnetic nanoparticle anisotropy (K). The calculated results suggest 3 different Néel-domination (N), overlapped Néel/Brownian (NB), and Brownian-domination (B) regions. The transition from NB- to B-region changes abruptly around critical anisotropy Kc. For magnetic nanoparticles with low K (K Kc) are opposite. The decreases of the SLPmax when increasing polydispersity and viscosity are characterized by different rates of d(SLPmax)/dσ and d(SLPmax)/dη depending on each domination region. The critical anisotropy Kc varies with the frequency of an alternating magnetic field. A possibility to improve heating power via increasing anisotropy is analyzed and deduced for Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles. For MIH application, the monodispersity requirement for magnetic nanoparticles in the B-region is less stringent, while materials in the N- and/or NB-regions are much more favorable in high viscous media. Experimental results on viscosity dependence of SLP for CoFe2O4 and MnFe2O4 ferrofluids are in good agreement with the calculations. These results indicated that magnetic nanoparticles in the N- and/or NB-regions are in general better for application in elevated viscosity media

Gender differences in climate change perception and adaptation strategies: A case study on three provinces in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta

This brief summarizes the findings of a project output for the Policy Information and Response Platform on Climate Change and Rice in ASEAN and its Member Countries (PIRCCA), being implemented by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The report focuses on the results of the survey conducted in the first half of 2015 on climate change perception and adaptation strategies of male and female farmers in three selected provinces across the Mekong River Delta (MRD) region in Vietnam: An Giang, Bac Lieu, and Tra Vihn. The survey gathered information on current climate change perceptions and adaptation strategies and gaps between the identified male and female respondents

Causes and consequences of tipping points in river delta social-ecological systems

The sustainability of social-ecological systems within river deltas globally is in question as rapid development and environmental change trigger "negative” or “positive” tipping points depending on actors’ perspectives, e.g., regime shift from abundant sediment deposition to sediment shortage, agricultural sustainability to agricultural collapse or shift from rural to urban land. Using a systematic review of the literature, we show how cascading effects across anthropogenic, ecological, and geophysical processes have triggered numerous tipping points in the governance, hydrological and land use management of the world’s river deltas. Crossing tipping points had both positive and negative effects that generally enhanced economic development to the detriment of the environment. Assessment of deltas that featured prominently in the review revealed how outcomes of tipping points can inform the long-term trajectory of deltas towards sustainability or collapse. Management of key drivers at the delta scale can trigger positive tipping points to place social-ecological systems on a pathway towards sustainable development

Exponential dichotomies of evolution operators in Banach spaces

This paper considers three dichotomy concepts (exponential dichotomy, uniform exponential dichotomy and strong exponential dichotomy) in the general context of non-invertible evolution operators in Banach spaces. Connections between these concepts are illustrated. Using the notion of Green function, we give necessary conditions and sufficient ones for strong exponential dichotomy. Some illustrative examples are presented to prove that the converse of some implication type theorems are not valid

Pandemic Communication: Information Seeking, Evaluation, and Self-Protective Behaviors in Vietnam and the Republic of Korea

Saliou (Eur J Epidemiol, 1994, 10 (4), 515–517) argued that pandemics are special kinds of crises and requires the public health sector to focus on: 1) reducing uncertainty, 2) rumor mitigation, and 3) ensuring the public reduces their risk of contracting the disease. With this as a backdrop, the central aim of this research is to better understand the connections between public information seeking, evaluation, and self-protective behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on a comparison between the Republic of Korea and Vietnam to provide insights into the influence of the individual, institutional, and information factors influencing people’s experience with COVID-19. Thus, there are two major contributions of this study. First, it provides a cross-theory evaluation of the factors that contribute to information seeking, evaluation, and self-protective behaviors. Second, the study identifies potentially critical differences in information seeking, evaluation, and self-protective behaviors based on acute disease reproduction in countries with a successful pandemic suppression history. Findings suggest that in countries where there are high levels of trust and satisfaction even small changes in the infection rates lead to different information seeking and self-protective behaviors

Novel human liver-tropic AAV variants define transferable domains that markedly enhance the human tropism of AAV7 and AAV8

Recent clinical successes have intensified interest in using adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for therapeutic gene delivery. The liver is a key clinical target, given its critical physiological functions and involvement in a wide range of genetic diseases. Here, we report the bioengineering of a set of next-generation AAV vectors, named AAV-SYDs (where “SYD” stands for Sydney, Australia), with increased human hepato-tropism in a liver xenograft mouse model repopulated with primary human hepatocytes. We followed a two-step process that staggered directed evolution and domain-swapping approaches. Using DNA-family shuffling, we first mapped key AAV capsid regions responsible for efficient human hepatocyte transduction in vivo. Focusing on these regions, we next applied domain-swapping strategies to identify and study key capsid residues that enhance primary human hepatocyte uptake and transgene expression. Our findings underscore the potential of AAV-SYDs as liver gene therapy vectors and provide insights into the mechanism responsible for their enhanced transduction profile