China’s Investment in African Special Economic Zones: Prospects, Challenges, and Opportunities

China’s recent moves to establish special economic zones (SEZs) in several African countries can make a significant contribution to industrialization in Africa. But the success of these projects is by no means guaranteed. Meeting the objectives of both China and African countries will require an active partnership and a framework for collaboration that includes engagement from host governments, processes for phasing-in local control, communication and enforcement of standards, and support for integration with local economies.China, investment, Africa, special economic zone, SEZ, industrialization, partnership, development, World Bank, foreign direct investment

Multimodal-Enhanced Objectness Learner for Corner Case Detection in Autonomous Driving

Previous works on object detection have achieved high accuracy in closed-set scenarios, but their performance in open-world scenarios is not satisfactory. One of the challenging open-world problems is corner case detection in autonomous driving. Existing detectors struggle with these cases, relying heavily on visual appearance and exhibiting poor generalization ability. In this paper, we propose a solution by reducing the discrepancy between known and unknown classes and introduce a multimodal-enhanced objectness notion learner. Leveraging both vision-centric and image-text modalities, our semi-supervised learning framework imparts objectness knowledge to the student model, enabling class-aware detection. Our approach, Multimodal-Enhanced Objectness Learner (MENOL) for Corner Case Detection, significantly improves recall for novel classes with lower training costs. By achieving a 76.6% mAR-corner and 79.8% mAR-agnostic on the CODA-val dataset with just 5100 labeled training images, MENOL outperforms the baseline ORE by 71.3% and 60.6%, respectively. The code will be available at https://github.com/tryhiseyyysum/MENOL.Comment: 7 pages,6 figure

Selling the Data Product: Pricing Strategies and Welfare Implications

This paper examines the pricing and welfare implications of data as a factor of production with a stylized economic model. We introduce a generalized framework that specifies two types of data: 1) public data pricing, which maximizes social welfare, and 2) commercial data pricing, which maximizes the profit. The model reveals two takeaways: first, two prices may converge in the data economy. It is due to that data come from citizens and may be used to create value back to them. Therefore, a profit- seeking data seller might find it optimal to extend the user base, which is in line with the interest of the welfare maximizer. Second, the pricing gap between optimal prices does not change monotonically with the improvement of data quality. These findings shed new light on the current and future of data product operations, particularly in the understudied public sectors

Numerical analysis of yield properties of closed-cell aluminum foam under multiaxial loads by 3D voronoi model

Metallic foam is a typical porous material whose yield surface is related to not only von Mises equivalent stress but also the hydrostatic pressure. It is essential to study the yield properties of closed-cell aluminum foam under complex loading conditions. However, because the current experimental technique may support only a few proportions of multiaxial loading, it is hard to learn the yield surface well especially for the tensile hydrostatic pressure. In this article, we explored a numerical method to learn the yield properties of aluminum foam, in which the meso structures of aluminum foam were simulated by 3D Voronoi method. In addition, the yield surface of aluminum foam was drawn successfully with the numerical method. The main works included: (1) In our numerical simulation, we tested the calculating parameters such as mass scaling, elements number, and loading velocity on simulation results and verified the homogeneity of the 3D Voronoi model firstly. Furthermore, the optimized calculating parameters were determined by considering both reliability and feasibility of the calculation. Homogeneity of 3D Voronoi model was checked by the compression behaviors of aluminum in different directions. (2) In order to overcome the difficulty to determine critical yield state of metallic foams under complex loads, we recommended criterion by setting a dimensionless plastic dissipation value to determine the onset yield state of the foam under multiaxial loads. The critical value of dimensionless plastic dissipation was deduced from the common criterion—0.2% plastic strain in uniaxial loading, and the effect of relative densities on critical values was analyzed. (3) Three normal stresses were applied on cubic aluminum foam proportionally to implement the proportional loading. The different loading proportional factors of the three normal stresses were set widely to insure the yield surface including enough data, such as the hydrostatic loads cover from minimum negative to maximum positive values; each proportion has three loading proportional factors. Further, effects of the relative density on yield surface were investigated

Developments of multistep inverse finite element method and its application in formability prediction of multistage sheet metal forming [J

In the paper, the multistep inverse finite element method (FEM

Zinner syndrome: a case report and literature review

Objective To investigate the key issues of clinical diagnosis and treatment of Zinner syndrome and reduce the misdiagnosis rate. Methods Clinical data of 1 case of Zinner syndrome were retrospectively analyzed. Zinner syndrome cases presenting hematuria， frequent urination and dysuria as initial manifestations were retrieved from PubMed， CNKI， Wanfang Data and Chongqing VIP until November 2022 by using the searching words of Zinner syndrome， renal agenesis and seminal vesicle cyst. Clinical characteristics， developmental characteristics and treatment methods were summarized. Results The 46-year-old male patient was admitted to the hospital because of “bladder space-occupying lesion for more than 8 years， hematuria with dysuria for 1 week”， and was diagnosed with Zinner syndrome by imaging examination. He successfully underwent “transurethral cystoscopy + transrectal pelvic mass puncture biopsy”， and was discharged from the hospital at postoperative 2 d. The patient was advised to continually receive anti-infection treatment after discharge. According to literature review， 16 cases of Zinner syndrome presenting with hematuria， dysuria and other urinary symptoms as the first manifestations were collected. All patients developed abnormalities in the urinary system by imaging examination. Surgical resection and puncture biopsy were the main treatment methods. Among 8 patients receiving follow-up， 7 cases did not recur， and 1 suspected recurrent case underwent puncture biopsy. Conclusions Zinner syndrome is mainly manifested with imaging characteristics of unilateral seminal vesicle cyst， ipsilateral renal agenesis and ipsilateral ejaculatory duct obstruction triad. Ultrasound， CT scan， and MRI are important diagnostic tools for Zinner syndrome. Laparoscopic seminal vesicle cystectomy can reduce the risk of recurrence