The Future of Combating Rumors? Retrieval, Discrimination, and Generation

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) technology development has facilitated the creation of rumors with misinformation, impacting societal, economic, and political ecosystems, challenging democracy. Current rumor detection efforts fall short by merely labeling potentially misinformation (classification task), inadequately addressing the issue, and it is unrealistic to have authoritative institutions debunk every piece of information on social media. Our proposed comprehensive debunking process not only detects rumors but also provides explanatory generated content to refute the authenticity of the information. The Expert-Citizen Collective Wisdom (ECCW) module we designed aensures high-precision assessment of the credibility of information and the retrieval module is responsible for retrieving relevant knowledge from a Real-time updated debunking database based on information keywords. By using prompt engineering techniques, we feed results and knowledge into a LLM (Large Language Model), achieving satisfactory discrimination and explanatory effects while eliminating the need for fine-tuning, saving computational costs, and contributing to debunking efforts.Comment: 8 page

The Effect of Taxes on the Pricing of Defaultable Debt

Empirical studies have documented the dependence of corporate credit spreads on default risk, equity premiums, and taxes. However, taxes have previously not been incorporated into reduced-form credit risk models. Therefore, we first extend the existing literature by considering a default intensity that depends on taxes as well as the default-free short rate and a market index. Consequently, we establish a theoretical basis to explain previous empirical findings regarding the significant impact of taxation on defaultable bond prices. Unlike previous models, tax implications for defaultable debt cannot be constructed from a sum of tax effects on zero coupon bonds. Our empirical tests then illustrate the importance of taxation. In particular, the impact of taxation increases as a function of the debt’s maturity and coupon rate

Genetic variants of p27 and p21 as predictors for risk of second primary malignancy in patients with index squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cell cycle deregulation is common in human cancer, and alterations of <it>p27 </it>and <it>p21</it>, two critical cell cycle regulators, have been implicated in the development of many human malignancies. Therefore, we hypothesize that <it>p27 </it>T109G polymorphism individually or in combination with <it>p21 </it>(C98A and C70T) polymorphisms modifies risk of second primary malignancy (SPM) in patients with index squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cohort of 1,292 patients with index SCCHN was recruited between May 1995 and January 2007 at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and followed for SPM occurrence. Patients were genotyped for the three polymorphisms. A log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards models were used to compare SPM-free survival and SPM risk.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that patients with <it>p27 </it>109 TG/GG, <it>p21 </it>98 CA/AA and <it>p21 </it>70 CT/TT variant genotypes had a worse SPM-free survival and an increased SPM risk than those with the corresponding <it>p27</it>109 TT, <it>p21 </it>98 CC, and <it>p21 </it>70 CC common genotypes, respectively. After combining the three polymorphisms, there was a trend for significantly increased SPM risk with increasing number of the variant genotypes (<it>P</it>_trend= 0.0002). Moreover, patients with the variant genotypes had an approximately 2.4-fold significantly increased risk for SPM compared with those with no variant genotypes (HR, 2.4, 95% CI, 1.6-3.6).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These results suggest that <it>p27 </it>T109G polymorphism individually or in combination with <it>p21 </it>(C98A and C70T) polymorphisms increases risk of SPM in patients with index SCCHN.</p

FengWu-GHR: Learning the Kilometer-scale Medium-range Global Weather Forecasting

Kilometer-scale modeling of global atmosphere dynamics enables fine-grained weather forecasting and decreases the risk of disastrous weather and climate activity. Therefore, building a kilometer-scale global forecast model is a persistent pursuit in the meteorology domain. Active international efforts have been made in past decades to improve the spatial resolution of numerical weather models. Nonetheless, developing the higher resolution numerical model remains a long-standing challenge due to the substantial consumption of computational resources. Recent advances in data-driven global weather forecasting models utilize reanalysis data for model training and have demonstrated comparable or even higher forecasting skills than numerical models. However, they are all limited by the resolution of reanalysis data and incapable of generating higher-resolution forecasts. This work presents FengWu-GHR, the first data-driven global weather forecasting model running at the 0.09$^{\circ}$ horizontal resolution. FengWu-GHR introduces a novel approach that opens the door for operating ML-based high-resolution forecasts by inheriting prior knowledge from a pretrained low-resolution model. The hindcast of weather prediction in 2022 indicates that FengWu-GHR is superior to the IFS-HRES. Furthermore, evaluations on station observations and case studies of extreme events support the competitive operational forecasting skill of FengWu-GHR at the high resolution.Comment: 19 page

Human DNA Exonuclease TREX1 Is Also an Exoribonuclease That Acts on Single-Stranded RNA

3\u27 repair exonuclease 1 (TREX1) is a known DNA exonuclease involved in autoimmune disorders and the antiviral response. In this work, we show that TREX1 is also a RNA exonuclease. Purified TREX1 displays robust exoribonuclease activity that degrades single-stranded, but not double-stranded, RNA. TREX1-D200N, an Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome disease-causing mutant, is defective in degrading RNA. TREX1 activity is strongly inhibited by a stretch of pyrimidine residues as is a bacterial homolog, RNase T. Kinetic measurements indicate that the apparent Km of TREX1 for RNA is higher than that for DNA. Like RNase T, human TREX1 is active in degrading native tRNA substrates. Previously reported TREX1 crystal structures have revealed that the substrate binding sites are open enough to accommodate the extra hydroxyl group in RNA, further supporting our conclusion that TREX1 acts on RNA. These findings indicate that its RNase activity needs to be taken into account when evaluating the physiological role of TREX1

Hybrid Biodegradable Nanomotors through Compartmentalized Synthesis

Designer particles that are embued with nanomachinery for autonomous motion have great potential for biomedical applications; however, their development is highly demanding with respect to biodegradability/compatibility. Previously, biodegradable propulsive machinery based on enzymes has been presented. However, enzymes are highly susceptible to proteolysis and deactivation in biological milieu. Biodegradable hybrid nanomotors powered by catalytic inorganic nanoparticles provide a proteolytically stable alternative to those based upon enzymes. Herein we describe the assembly of hybrid biodegradable nanomotors capable of transducing chemical energy into motion. Such nanomotors are constructed through a process of compartmentalized synthesis of inorganic MnO2 nanoparticles (MnPs) within the cavity of organic stomatocytes. We show that the nanomotors remain active in cellular environments and do not compromise cell viability. Effective tumor penetration of hybrid nanomotors is also demonstrated in proof-of-principle experiments. Overall, this work represents a new prospect for engineering of nanomotors that can retain their functionality within biological contexts

Efficacy of calcium dobesilate in treating Chinese patients with mild-to-moderate non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (CALM-DR): protocol for a single-blind, multicentre, 24-armed cluster-randomised, controlled trial.

INTRODUCTION Calcium dobesilate (CaD) has been used in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy (DR) due to its potential in protecting against retinal vascular damage. However, there is limited evidence exploring its efficacy in combating DR progression. This study is aimed at evaluating whether CaD could prevent DR progression into an advanced stage among Chinese patients with mild-to-moderate non-proliferative DR (NPDR). METHODS AND ANALYSIS This study is a single-blind, multicentre, cluster-randomised, controlled superiority trial. A total of 1272 patients with mild-to-moderate NPDR will be enrolled and randomly assigned at a 1:1 ratio into the control group (conventional treatment group) and the intervention group (conventional treatment plus CaD (500 mg three times per day) for 12 months). Patients will be followed at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after randomisation and receiving treatments, with the severity of DR assessed by the Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) scale. The primary endpoint is the progression of DR during follow-up, which is defined as an increase of two or more steps in the ETDRS scale. The secondary endpoints include the concomitant changes in visual acuity, presence, number, location and type of retinal lesions, and retinal blood vessel diameter as well as the arteriovenous ratio at different visits. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION Each local ethics committee (first Vote: Ethical Review Committees of Zhongda Hospital of Southeast University (2019ZDSYLL132-P01)) has approved the study. The results will be published in high impact peer-reviewed scientific journals aimed at the general reader. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBERS NCT04283162

The prognostic index PRIMA-PI combined with Ki67 as a better predictor of progression of disease within 24 months in follicular lymphoma

BackgroundProgression of disease within 24 months (POD24) is a risk factor for poor survival in follicular lymphoma (FL), and there is currently no optimal prognostic model to accurately predict patients with early disease progression. How to combine traditional prognostic models with new indicators to establish a new prediction system, to predict the early progression of FL patients more accurately is a future research direction.MethodsThis study retrospectively analyzed patients with newly diagnosed FL patients in Shanxi Provincial Cancer Hospital from January 2015 to December 2020. Data from patients undergoing immunohistochemical detection (IHC) were analyzed using χ2 test and multivariate Logistic regression. Also, we built a nomogram model based on the results of LASSO regression analysis of POD24, which was validated in both the training set and validation set, and additional external validation was performed using a dataset (n = 74) from another center, Tianjin Cancer Hospital.ResultsThe multivariate Logistic regression results suggest that high-risk PRIMA-PI group, Ki-67 high expression represent risk factors for POD24 (P&lt;0.05). Next, PRIMA-PI and Ki67 were combined to build a new model, namely, PRIMA-PIC to reclassify high and low-risk groups. The result showed that the new clinical prediction model constructed by PRIMA-PI with ki67 has a high sensitivity to the prediction of POD24. Compared to PRIMA-PI, PRIMA-PIC also has better discrimination in predicting patient’s progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). In addition, we built nomogram models based on the results of LASSO regression (histological grading, NK cell percentage, PRIMA-PIC risk group) in the training set, which were validated using internal validation set and external validation set, we found that C-index and calibration curve showed good performance.ConclusionAs such, the new predictive model-based nomogram established by PRIMA-PI and Ki67 could well predict the risk of POD24 in FL patients, which boasts clinical practical value

Keeping the Board in the Dark: CEO Compensation and Entrenchment

We study a model in which a CEO can entrench himself by hiding information from the board that would allow the board to conclude that he should be replaced. Assuming that even diligent monitoring by the board cannot fully overcome the information asymmetry visà- vis the CEO, we ask if there is a role for CEO compensation to mitigate the inefficiency. Our analysis points to a novel argument for high-powered, non-linear CEO compensation such as bonus pay or stock options. By shifting the CEO’s compensation into states where the firm’s value is highest, a high-powered compensation scheme makes it as unattractive as possible for the CEO to entrench himself when he expects that the firm’s future value under his management and strategy is low. This, in turn, minimizes the severance pay needed to induce the CEO not to entrench himself, thereby minimizing the CEO’s informational rents. Amongst other things, our model suggests how deregulation and technological changes in the 1980s and 1990s might have contributed to the rise in CEO pay and turnover over the same period