Deconvolution approach for floating wind turbines

Green renewable energy is produced by floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT), a crucial component of the modern offshore wind energy industry. It is a safety concern to accurately evaluate excessive weights while the FOWT operates in adverse weather conditions. Under certain water conditions, dangerous structural bending moments may result in operational concerns. Using commercial FAST software, the study's hydrodynamic ambient wave loads were calculated and converted into FOWT structural loads. This article suggests a Monte Carlo-based engineering technique that, depending on simulations or observations, is computationally effective for predicting extreme statistics of either the load or the response process. The innovative deconvolution technique has been thoroughly explained. The suggested approach effectively uses the entire set of data to produce a clear but accurate estimate for severe response values and fatigue life. In this study, estimated extreme values obtained using a novel deconvolution approach were compared to identical values produced using the modified Weibull technique. It is expected that the enhanced new de-convolution methodology may offer a dependable and correct forecast of severe structural loads based on the overall performance of the advised de-convolution approach due to environmental wave loading.publishedVersio

An audio-quality-based multi-strategy approach for target speaker extraction in the MISP 2023 Challenge

This paper describes our audio-quality-based multi-strategy approach for the audio-visual target speaker extraction (AVTSE) task in the Multi-modal Information based Speech Processing (MISP) 2023 Challenge. Specifically, our approach adopts different extraction strategies based on the audio quality, striking a balance between interference removal and speech preservation, which benifits the back-end automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. Experiments show that our approach achieves a character error rate (CER) of 24.2% and 33.2% on the Dev and Eval set, respectively, obtaining the second place in the challenge.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

Parental self-medication with antibiotics for children promotes antibiotic over-prescribing in clinical settings in China.

BACKGROUND: Self-medication with antibiotics (SMA) is one of the most dangerous inappropriate antibiotic use behaviors. This study aims to investigate the impact of parental SMA for children before a consultation on their doctor's subsequent antibiotic prescribing behavior, including intravenous (IV) antibiotic use in the clinical setting of China. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted between June 2017 and April 2018 in three provinces of China. A total of 9526 parents with children aged 0-13 years were investigated. Data from 1275 parents who had self-medicated their children and then visited a doctor in the past month were extracted and analyzed. RESULTS: One-third (410) of the studied children had parental SMA before the consultation and 83.9% of them were subsequently prescribed antibiotics by doctors. Children with parental SMA were more likely to be prescribed antibiotics (aOR = 7.79, 95% CI [5.74-10.58]), including IV antibiotics (aOR = 3.05, 95% CI [2.27-4.11]), and both oral and IV antibiotics (aOR = 3.42, 95% CI [2.42-4.84]), than children without parental SMA. Parents with SMA behaviors were more likely to request antibiotics (aOR = 4.05, 95% CI [2.59-6.31]) including IV antibiotics (aOR = 2.58, 95% CI [1.40-4.76]), and be fulfilled by doctors (aOR = 3.22, 95% CI [1.20-8.63]). CONCLUSIONS: Tailored health education for parents is required in both community and clinical settings to discourage parental SMA for children. The doctors should not prescribe unnecessary antibiotics to reinforce parents' SMA behaviors. We recommend expanding the current IV antibiotics ban in outpatient settings of China to cover outpatient pediatrics

A Wohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica with a novel type of blaVEB–1-carrying plasmid isolated from a zebra in China

BackgroundWohlfahrtiimonas chitiniclastica is an emerging fly-borne zoonotic pathogen, which causes infections in immunocompromised patients and some animals. Herein, we reported a W. chitiniclastica BM-Y from a dead zebra in China.MethodsThe complete genome sequencing of BM-Y showed that this isolate carried one chromosome and one novel type of blaVEB–1-carrying plasmid. Detailed genetic dissection was applied to this plasmid to display the genetic environment of blaVEB–1.ResultsThree novel insertion sequence (IS) elements, namely ISWoch1, ISWoch2, and ISWoch3, were found in this plasmid. aadB, aacA1, and gcuG were located downstream of blaVEB–1, composing a gene cassette array blaVEB–1–aadB–aacA1–gcuG bracketed by an intact ISWoch1 and a truncated one, which was named the blaVEB–1 region. The 5′-RACE experiments revealed that the transcription start site of the blaVEB–1 region was located in the intact ISWoch1 and this IS provided a strong promoter for the blaVEB–1 region.ConclusionThe spread of the blaVEB–1-carrying plasmid might enhance the ability of W. chitiniclastica to survive under drug selection pressure and aggravate the difficulty in treating infections caused by blaVEB–1-carrying W. chitiniclastica. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of the genetic characterization of a novel blaVEB–1-carrying plasmid with new ISs from W. chitiniclastica

Clinical Implementation of a 6D Treatment Chair for Fixed Ion Beam Lines

PurposeTo verify the practicality and safety of a treatment chair with six degrees of freedom (6DTC) through demonstrating the efficacy of the workflow in clinical settings and analyzing the obtained technical data, including intra-fraction patient movement during the use of the 6DTC.Materials and MethodsA clinical study was designed and conducted to test the clinical treatment workflow and the safety of the 6DTC. Based on the demonstrated dosimetric advantages, fifteen patients with head and neck tumors were selected and treated with the 6DTC. The positional error at the first beam position (PE-B1) and the second beam position (PE-B2) were analyzed and compared with the results from daily quality assurance (QA) procedures of the 6DTC and imaging system performed each day before clinical treatment. The intra-fraction patient movement was derived from the total patient alignment positional error and the QA data based on a Gaussian distribution formulism.ResultsThe QA results showed sub-millimeter mechanical accuracy of the 6DTC over the course of the clinical study. For 150 patient treatment fractions, the mean deviations between PE-B1 and PE-B2 were 0.13mm (SD 0.88mm), 0.25mm (SD 1.17mm), -0.57mm (SD 0.85mm), 0.02° (SD 0.35°), 0.00° (SD 0.37°), and -0.02° (SD 0.37°) in the x, y, z (translational), and u, v, w (rotational) directions, respectively. The calculated intra-fraction patient movement was -0.08mm (SD 0.56mm), 0.71mm (SD 1.12mm), -0.52mm (SD 0.84mm), 0.10° (SD 0.32°), 0.09° (SD 0.36°), and -0.04° (SD 0.36°) in the x, y, z, u, v, w directions, respectively.ConclusionsThe performance stability of the 6DTC was satisfactory. The position accuracy and intra-fraction patient movement in an upright posture with the 6DTC were verified and found adequate for clinical implementation

Changes in residents' hygiene awareness and behaviors in public toilets before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Hangzhou, China: a two-round cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Hygiene behaviors in public toilets are important to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases, especially during the pandemic. All through the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, governments in many countries published guidance on personal hygiene for the general population to prevent disease transmission. This study aimed to investigate improvements in residents' hygiene awareness and behaviors in public toilets before and during the pandemic. METHODS: We recruited 316 residents between November and December 2018 before the pandemic, and 314 residents between December 2020 and January 2021 during the pandemic in the same study sites in Hangzhou, a well-developed city in China. Residents' hygiene behaviors in public toilets, hygiene awareness, risk perception, and sociodemographic factors were collected. Bivariate analysis and multivariable logistic regressions were used to test the differences between the two rounds. We conducted an observational study to record the provision of hygiene amenities at toilets during the pandemic. RESULTS: After controlling for sociodemographic factors (gender, marital status, age, education level, and monthly household income), compared with respondents recruited before the pandemic, respondents recruited during the pandemic were more likely to perceive the risks of infection when using public toilets (aOR = 1.77, 95%CI [1.20, 2.60]), and were more likely to be aware of the risks of touching contaminated toilet facilities (aOR = 1.72, 95%CI [1.17, 2.54]) and the risks of not using soap to wash one's hands after using the toilet (aOR = 1.93, 95%CI [1.38, 2.72]). They were more likely to always clean their toilet seat with alcohol (aOR = 1.88, 95%CI [1.01, 3.51]), wash hands with soap (aOR = 1.52, 95%CI [1.09, 2.10]) and dry their hands with a dryer (aOR = 1.78, 95%CI [1.16, 2.71]), but they were less likely to always wash their hands after using the toilets (aOR = 0.57, 95%CI [0.32, 1.00]). Among 70 public toilets observed, 9 provided alcohol for toilet seat disinfection, 52 provided soap, 33 provided paper towels, and 41 had working hand dryers. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the overall improvement, residents' hygiene behaviors in public toilets and the supply of hygiene amenities were still suboptimal during the pandemic. Further hygiene education and an adequate supply of hygiene amenities in public toilets are needed to promote residents' hygiene behaviors

ICMC-ASR: The ICASSP 2024 In-Car Multi-Channel Automatic Speech Recognition Challenge

To promote speech processing and recognition research in driving scenarios, we build on the success of the Intelligent Cockpit Speech Recognition Challenge (ICSRC) held at ISCSLP 2022 and launch the ICASSP 2024 In-Car Multi-Channel Automatic Speech Recognition (ICMC-ASR) Challenge. This challenge collects over 100 hours of multi-channel speech data recorded inside a new energy vehicle and 40 hours of noise for data augmentation. Two tracks, including automatic speech recognition (ASR) and automatic speech diarization and recognition (ASDR) are set up, using character error rate (CER) and concatenated minimum permutation character error rate (cpCER) as evaluation metrics, respectively. Overall, the ICMC-ASR Challenge attracts 98 participating teams and receives 53 valid results in both tracks. In the end, first-place team USTCiflytek achieves a CER of 13.16% in the ASR track and a cpCER of 21.48% in the ASDR track, showing an absolute improvement of 13.08% and 51.4% compared to our challenge baseline, respectively.Comment: Accepted at ICASSP 202

Making “cold” tumors “hot”- radiotherapy remodels the tumor immune microenvironment of pancreatic cancer to benefit from immunotherapy: a case report

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have limited efficacy in metastatic pancreatic cancer due to the complex tumor immune microenvironment (TIME). Studies have shown that radiotherapy can cause cell lesions to release tumor antigens and then take part in the remodeling of the tumor environment and the induction of ectopic effects via regional and systemic immunoregulation. Here, we reported a case of advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer treated with immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy and radiotherapy and a sharp shift of the TIME from T3 to T2 was also observed. One hepatic metastasis within the planning target volume (PTV) was evaluated complete response (CR), the other one was evaluated partial response (PR) and 2 hepatic metastases outside the PTV were surprisingly considered PR. In the study, we found that immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy and radiotherapy achieved significant therapeutic benefits, which may provide a new strategy for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer

Genetic variation and marker−trait association affect the genomic selection prediction accuracy of soybean protein and oil content

IntroductionGenomic selection (GS) is a potential breeding approach for soybean improvement.MethodsIn this study, GS was performed on soybean protein and oil content using the Ridge Regression Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (RR-BLUP) based on 1,007 soybean accessions. The SoySNP50K SNP dataset of the accessions was obtained from the USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD lab, and the protein and oil content of the accessions were obtained from GRIN.ResultsOur results showed that the prediction accuracy of oil content was higher than that of protein content. When the training population size was 100, the prediction accuracies for protein content and oil content were 0.60 and 0.79, respectively. The prediction accuracy increased with the size of the training population. Training populations with similar phenotype or with close genetic relationships to the prediction population exhibited better prediction accuracy. A greatest prediction accuracy for both protein and oil content was observed when approximately 3,000 markers with -log10(P) greater than 1 were included.DiscussionThis information will help improve GS efficiency and facilitate the application of GS