The magnitude homology of a hypergraph

The magnitude homology, introduced by R. Hepworth and S. Willerton, offers a topological invariant that enables the study of graph properties. Hypergraphs, being a generalization of graphs, serve as popular mathematical models for data with higher-order structures. In this paper, we focus on describing the topological characteristics of hypergraphs by considering their magnitude homology. We begin by examining the distances between hyperedges in a hypergraph and establish the magnitude homology of hypergraphs. Additionally, we explore the relationship between the magnitude and the magnitude homology of hypergraphs. Furthermore, we derive several functorial properties of the magnitude homology for hypergraphs. Lastly, we present the K\"{u}nneth theorem for the simple magnitude homology of hypergraphs

An Analysis of Cost Efficiency and Loan Loss Provisioning Behaviour in Chinese Commercial Banks

This paper investigates loan loss provisioning (LLP) behaviour by Chinese banks during the period 2011-2015. We test the income-smoothing, capital management, and business cycle hypotheses, in the meanwhile, test whether the cost efficiency has the influence on LLP behaviour. Our results show that Chinese commercial banks have a high level of cost efficiency but it does not affect the LLP behaviour. And there is no evidence that Chinese commercial banks have income smoothing and capital management behaviour, while the results reflect that Chinese commercial banks have pro-cyclical provisioning behaviour. Besides, we find that lagged term of loan loss provisions, total interest income on loans, growth of gross loans and non-performing loans have influences on provisioning behaviour. At last, some advice is proposed on how to mitigate pro-cyclical provisioning behaviour

Interactions of the apolipoprotein C-III 3238C>G polymorphism and alcohol consumption on serum triglyceride levels

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Both apolipoprotein (Apo) C-III gene polymorphism and alcohol consumption have been associated with increased serum triglyceride (TG) levels, but their interactions on serum TG levels are not well known. The present study was undertaken to detect the interactions of the ApoC-III 3238C>G (rs5128) polymorphism and alcohol consumption on serum TG levels.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 516 unrelated nondrinkers and 514 drinkers aged 15-89 were randomly selected from our previous stratified randomized cluster samples. Genotyping of the ApoC-III 3238C>G was performed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism combined with gel electrophoresis, and then confirmed by direct sequencing. Interactions of the ApoC-III 3238C>G genotype and alcohol consumption was assessed by using a cross-product term between genotypes and the aforementioned factor.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Serum total cholesterol (TC), TG, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), ApoA-I and ApoB levels were higher in drinkers than in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.05-0.001). There was no significant difference in the genotypic and allelic frequencies between the two groups. Serum TG levels in nondrinkers were higher in CG genotype than in CC genotype (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Serum TC, TG, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and ApoB levels in drinkers were higher in GG genotype than in CC or CG genotype (<it>P </it>< 0.01 for all). Serum HDL-C levels in drinkers were higher in CG genotype than in CC genotype (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Serum TC, TG, HDL-C and ApoA-I levels in CC genotype, TC, HDL-C, ApoA-I levels and the ratio of ApoA-I to ApoB in CG genotype, and TC, TG, LDL-C, ApoA-I and ApoB levels in GG genotype were higher in drinkers than in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.05-0.01). But the ratio of ApoA-I to ApoB in GG genotype was lower in drinkers than in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.01). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the levels of TC, TG and ApoB were correlated with genotype in nondrinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.05 for all). The levels of TC, LDL-C and ApoB were associated with genotype in drinkers (<it>P </it>< 0.01 for all). Serum lipid parameters were also correlated with age, sex, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, blood pressure, body weight, and body mass index in both groups.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This study suggests that the ApoC-III 3238CG heterozygotes benefited more from alcohol consumption than CC and GG homozygotes in increasing serum levels of HDL-C, ApoA-I, and the ratio of ApoA-I to ApoB, and lowering serum levels of TC and TG.</p

Association of age and night flight duration with sleep disorders among Chinese airline pilots

ObjectiveNight flights might aggravate sleep disorders among aging airline pilots, posing a threat to flight safety. In this study, we assess the prevalence of sleep disorders as well as the combined effects of night flight duration and aging on sleep disorders.MethodA cross-sectional study was conducted between July and December, 2021. Participants were recruited from a commercial airline. Sleep disorders were evaluated using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The interaction effect of night flight duration and age on sleep disorders and their correlates were examined using logistic regression models.ResultsIn total, 1,208 male airline pilots were included in the study, with a median age of 34 (interquartile range [IQR]: 29–39) years. The overall prevalence of sleep disorders was 42.6%. The multivariate logistic regression identified an interaction between night flight duration and age on sleep disorders (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] of the interaction term was 5.85 95% CI: 2.23–15.34 for age ≥ 45 years; 1.96 95% CI:1.01–3.81 for the age group 30–44 years). Longer night flight duration (aOR: 4.55; 95%CI: 1.82–11.38) and body mass index (BMI) ≥28.0 kg/m2 (aOR: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.03–0.91) were significantly associated with sleep disorders in participants aged ≥45 years. Hyperuricemia (aOR: 1.54; 95% CI: 1.09–2.16) and regular exercise (aOR: 0.23; 95% CI: 0.08–0.70) were significantly associated with sleep disorders in the 30–44 years age group.ConclusionThe mean monthly night flight duration and aging had a synergistic effect on airline pilots’ sleep disorders, implying an aging and work-related mechanistic pathogenesis of sleep disorders in airline pilots that requires additional exploration and intervention

Long Non-Coding RNA Urothelial Carcinoma Associated 1 Promotes Proliferation, Migration and Invasion of Osteosarcoma Cells by Regulating microRNA-182

Background/Aims: Previous studies demonstrated the oncogenic roles of lncRNA UCA1 in osteosarcoma. This study aimed to explore the internal molecular mechanism of UCA1 on promoting osteosarcoma cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Methods: qRT-PCR was conducted to measure the expression levels of UCA1, miR-182 and TIMP2. Cell transfection was used to change the expression levels of UCA1, miR-182 and TIMP2. Cell viability, migration, invasion and apoptosis were measured using CCK-8 assay, two-chamber migration (invasion) assay and Guava Nexin assay, respectively. The associations between UCA1, miR-182 and iASPP were analyzed by dual luciferase activity assay. The protein expression levels of key factors involved in cell apoptosis, PI3K/AKT/GSK3β pathway and NF-κB pathway, as well as p53, Rb, RECQ family and iASPP were evaluated by western blotting. Results: UCA1 was highly expressed in osteosarcoma MG63 and OS-732 cells. Knockdown of UCA1 inhibited OS-732 cell viability, migration and invasion, but promoted cell apoptosis. miR-182 was up-regulated in OS-732 cells after UCA1 knockdown and participated in the effects of UCA1 on OS-732 cells. TIMP2 was downstream factor of miR-182 and involved in the regulatory roles of miR-182 on OS-732 cell viability, migration, invasion, apoptosis, as well as PI3K/AKT/GSK3β and NF-κB pathways. UCA1 knockdown up-regulated p53, Rb and RECQL5 levels in OS-732 cells, while down-regulated the expression of iASPP. TGF-β or TNF-α treatment could enhance the expression of UCA1 in OS-732 cells. Conclusion: Our research verified that UCA1 exerted oncogenic roles in osteosarcoma cells by regulating miR-182 and TIMP2, as well as PI3K/AKT/GSK3β and NF-κB pathways

Pricing decision with conspicuous customers: quick responses versus value-added services

In order to eliminate the negative effects of customer strategic behavior, retailers often adopt quick response or value-added services. While in a luxury market with conspicuous customers, retailers’ pricing decisions of these two strategies become more complicated. This paper studies a supply chain with a retailer serving a mixture of conspicuous and ordinary strategic customers. We develop three models so that the retailer provides i) neither quick response nor value-added services; ii) only quick response; iii) only value-added services. Subsequently, we analyze the impacts of conspicuous customers on quick response and value-added services by pricing and strategy comparisons. The model further extends to the situation including both strategies. The results show that, firstly, when the proportion is less than a threshold, the retailer should adopt a low price strategy, and vice versa. Besides, the quick response could induce the retailer to adopt high price while value-added services inhibit it. Secondly, the customer conspicuous behavior can motivate retailers to provide quick response and inhibit their value-added services. Finally, by observing the retailer’s decisions when they can adopt two strategies simultaneously, we find that the existence of quick response can amplify the benefits of value-added services

Confocal Raman microscopy for assessing effects of preservation methods on symbiotic deep-sea mussel gills

Confocal Raman microscopy (CRM) is a powerful tool for biological research, which can provide information regarding the composition and distribution of biomolecules in an in situ, label-free, non-destructive manner and with high spatial resolution. Sample preservation is often an unavoidable step, especially for symbiotic deep-sea samples. Moreover, protocols for the preservation of samples for CRM have not been established and specific effects of different preservation methods on biomolecules have not been studied for relevant samples. In this study, we used deep-sea mussel Gigantidas platifrons, an ideal model in the study of deep-sea symbiosis and investigated the effect of four common preservation methods on the results of CRM imaging and signals. The methods included snap-freeze (SF), SF followed by rapid fixation in methanol (SF-MeOH), 2.5% glutaraldehyde and 2% paraformaldehyde fixation (SF-GP), and 4% paraformaldehyde and alcohol fixation (PS-PA). The results of this study indicate that SF was the most effective method for the comprehensive analysis of the biomolecular composition although the sectioning success rate was relatively low. Moreover, SF-MeOH was found to be effective when SF is not sufficient in obtaining good morphology in sections, or when the effect of chemical bonding on the composition of biomolecules upon SF-MeOH can be neglected. Finally, SF-GP and PS-PA were found to be the most effective methods considering the overall morphological observation. However, they were less suitable for metabolic studies. We believe our results can provide guidance for further studies of Raman on symbiotic deep-sea biological samples. It is of great importance for the wide application of Raman technique

Visual Robotic Manipulation with Depth-Aware Pretraining

Recent work on visual representation learning has shown to be efficient for robotic manipulation tasks. However, most existing works pretrained the visual backbone solely on 2D images or egocentric videos, ignoring the fact that robots learn to act in 3D space, which is hard to learn from 2D observation. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of pretraining for vision backbone with public-available large-scale 3D data to improve manipulation policy learning. Our method, namely Depth-aware Pretraining for Robotics (DPR), enables an RGB-only backbone to learn 3D scene representations from self-supervised contrastive learning, where depth information serves as auxiliary knowledge. No 3D information is necessary during manipulation policy learning and inference, making our model enjoy both efficiency and effectiveness in 3D space manipulation. Furthermore, we introduce a new way to inject robots' proprioception into the policy networks that makes the manipulation model robust and generalizable. We demonstrate in experiments that our proposed framework improves performance on unseen objects and visual environments for various robotics tasks on both simulated and real robots.Comment: submitted to ICRA202