Demographics, societal aging, and meat consumption in China

Drawn on the data collected by surveying 1 340 urban households from six cities in China, this paper estimates the impacts of demographic structure and population aging on household meat consumption, by jointly considering meat consumed at home and away from home. Based on the trajectories of population, a simple simulation on meat demand trend in China is conducted subsequently. The results suggest: 1) Meat consumed away from home averagely accounts for near 30% of household total meat consumption in terms of quantity, so that its omission likely leads to a significant underestimate of total meat consumption and misunderstanding the driving forces; 2) population aging significantly and negatively affects per capita meat consumption, suggesting that the expected meat demand in China without considering population aging will be overestimated. The findings from this study have important implications for better understanding the relative issues on China's meat consumption under the situation of population aging

The Design and Characterisation of Sinusoidal Toolpaths using Sub-Zero Bioprinting of Polyvinyl Alcohol

Sub-zero (°C) additive manufacturing (AM) systems present a promising solution for the fabrication of hydrogel structures with complex external geometry or a heterogeneous internal structure. Polyvinyl alcohol cryogels (PVA-C) are promising tissue-mimicking materials, with mechanical properties that can be designed to satisfy a wide variety of soft tissues. However, the design of more complex mechanical properties into AM PVA-C samples, which can be enabled using the toolpath, is a largely unstudied area. This research project will investigate the effect of toolpath variation on the elastic and viscoelastic properties of PVA-C samples fabricated using a sinusoidal toolpath. Samples were fabricated using parametric variation of a sinusoidal toolpath, whilst retaining the same overall cross-sectional area, using a sub-zero AM system. To mechanically characterise the samples, they were tested under tension in uniaxial ramp tests, and through dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). The elastic and viscoelastic moduli of the samples are presented. No correlations between the parametric variation of the design and the Young's modulus were observed. Analysis of the data shows high intra-sample repeatability, demonstrated robust testing protocols, and variable inter-sample repeatability, indicating differences in the printability and consistency of fabrication between sample sets. DMA of the wavelength samples, show a frequency-dependent loss moduli. The storage modulus demonstrates frequency independence, and a large increase in magnitude as the sample increases to 3 wavelengths

Creating an Explainable Intrusion Detection System Using Self Organizing Maps

Modern Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are complex black boxes. This means that a security analyst will have little to no explanation or clarification on why an IDS model made a particular prediction. A potential solution to this problem is to research and develop Explainable Intrusion Detection Systems (X-IDS) based on current capabilities in Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI). In this paper, we create a Self Organizing Maps (SOMs) based X-IDS system that is capable of producing explanatory visualizations. We leverage SOM's explainability to create both global and local explanations. An analyst can use global explanations to get a general idea of how a particular IDS model computes predictions. Local explanations are generated for individual datapoints to explain why a certain prediction value was computed. Furthermore, our SOM based X-IDS was evaluated on both explanation generation and traditional accuracy tests using the NSL-KDD and the CIC-IDS-2017 datasets

The iron/heme regulated genes of Haemophilus influenzae: comparative transcriptional profiling as a tool to define the species core modulon

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Haemophilus influenzae </it>requires heme for aerobic growth and possesses multiple mechanisms to obtain this essential nutrient. Although an understanding of the heme acquisition mechanisms of <it>H. influenzae </it>is emerging, significant gaps in our knowledge remain. Unresolved issues include the identities of all genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to iron and heme availability, the fraction of such genes functioning in iron/heme acquisition, and the heterogeneity of this gene set among clinical isolates. Previously we utilized <it>H. influenzae </it>strain Rd KW20 to demonstrate the utility of transcriptional profiling in defining the genes exhibiting altered transcription in response to environmental iron and heme levels. The current study expands upon those observations by determining the iron/heme modulons of two clinical isolates, the type b isolate 10810 and the nontypeable isolate R2866. These data are used to begin to define the core iron/heme modulon of the species.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Microarray studies were performed to compare gene expression on transition from iron/heme-restricted to iron/heme-replete conditions for each isolate. Of 1820 ORFs on the array corresponding to R2866 genes, 363 were significantly differentially expressed: 233 were maximally transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 130 under iron/heme-restricted conditions. Of the 1883 ORFs representing genes of strain 10810, 353 were significantly differentially transcribed: 150 were preferentially transcribed under iron/heme-replete conditions and 203 under iron/heme-restricted conditions. Comparison of the data sets indicated that 163 genes exhibited similar regulation in both isolates and that 74 of these exhibited similar patterns of regulation in Rd KW20. These comprise the putative core iron/heme modulon.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study provides evidence for a conserved core of <it>H. influenzae </it>genes the transcription of which is altered by the availability of iron and/or heme in the growth environment. Elucidation of this modulon provides a means to identify genes with unrecognized roles in iron/heme acquisition or homeostasis, unanticipated responsiveness to environmental levels of the micronutrients or potential roles in virulence. Defining these core genes is also of potential importance in identifying targets for therapeutic and vaccine designs since products of these genes are likely to be preferentially expressed during growth in iron/heme restricted sites of the human body.</p

Patient and Physician Race and the Allocation of Time and Patient Engagement Efforts to Mental Health Discussions in Primary Care: An Observational Study of Audiorecorded Periodic Health Examinations

This study investigated racial differences in patient-physician communication around mental health versus biomedical issues. Data were collected from audiorecorded periodic health examinations of adults with mental health needs in the Detroit area (2007-2009). Patients and their primary care physicians conversed for twice as long, and physicians demonstrated greater empathy during mental health topics than during biomedical topics. This increase varied by patient and physician race. Patient race predicted physician empathy, but physician race predicted talk time. Interventions to improve mental health communication could be matched to specific populations based on the separate contributions of patient and physician race

A Model to Predict the Density Profile of Particleboard

Certain mechanical properties of particleboard panels depend on the density variations that occur through the panel thickness (density profile). Particleboard density profiles result from the felting and hot pressing operations. Repeatedly altering a commercial particleboard manufacturing process to produce a predetermined density profile is undesirable from economic and production standpoints. An analytical tool to predict density profile as a function of the manufacturing processes was needed. Computer simulation modeling was employed to satisfy this need. A multilayer description of the density and moisture gradients resulting from the felting process provides input for this model. Inputs for the pressing process include platen temperature and press closing rate.The model simulates the physical and mechanical processes that occur in the press and mat system. Heat conduction, gas transport, layer compaction, and water phase changes were included in the model. Thermal properties were taken from the literature, and gas transport properties required approximation.A steeper density gradient with increasing platen temperature was predicted by the model. This result conforms to general expectations. Changes in press closing rates resulted in model-predicted density profiles that contradict the expected pattern. The probable reason for this effect is that the core layers remained at or near the ambient temperature, and the maximum mat resistance increased as closing rate increased. Simulation of an initially uneven moisture gradient resulted in increased heat penetration, as expected