Comparison results for parallel multisplitting methods with applications to AOR methods

AbstractIn this paper we present some comparison theorems between two general parallel multisplittings. These comparison theorems can be applied to many classical splittings, such as Jacobi, Gauss–Seidel and AOR splittings. Some significant improvements and generalizations of the existing comparison results are obtained

Sizing Up Transport Poverty Alleviation: A Structural Equation Modeling Empirical Analysis

The aim of this paper was to systematically obtain the poverty reduction effects and diversified poverty alleviation paths of road infrastructure, to assist in the planning of transport poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in the concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken areas. The measurement methods for impact effects and paths of transport poverty alleviation have been scientifically proposed based on methods of transportation economics and transportation geography. Firstly, an overview of the interactive mechanism and processes by which road infrastructure investment influences poverty reduction has been offered, and the characteristics of poverty space and spatial coupling result of road infrastructure have been systematically obtained. The results show that about 70% of the district counties’ road infrastructure and poverty rate are in a state of spatial coupling imbalance; the coordinated synchronous type is mainly distributed along the road network. Secondly, the structural equation model system has been formulated with variables that reflect transportation input in adjacent geographical units to consider spatial spillover effects. The results show that the direct poverty reduction effect of road infrastructure (0.105) is much lower than the indirect poverty reduction effect (0.830). Thirdly, empirical analysis at regional level of the concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China has been conducted. As a result, while addressing the limitations of previous studies, the poverty alleviation path that has been proposed also aims to catalyze actions to reduce the transport-related exclusion in poverty-stricken areas caused by the lack of access to basic facilities

Correlation between Grafting Density and Confined Crystallization Behavior of Poly(ethylene glycol) Grafted to Silica

The interfacial interactions of polymer-nanoparticles have dramatical effects on the crystallization behavior of grafted polymers. In this study, methoxy polyethylene glycol (MPEG) (molecular weights 750, 2000 and 4000 g mol−1) was grafted onto amino-modified nanosized silica (SiO2-NH2) by the “grafting to” method. The effects of the grafting density and molecular weight on the confined crystallization of grafted MPEG (MPEG-g-SiO2) were systematically investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). It was found that confinement effects are stronger when lower molecular weights of grafted MPEG are employed. These grafted MPEG chains are more difficult to stretch out on SiO2-NH2 surfaces than when they are free in the bulk polymer. Both crystallization temperature (Tc) and crystallinity of grafted MPEG chains decrease with reductions of grafting density. Additionally, covalent bonding effects and interfacial interaction confinement effects are strengthened by the decrease in grafting density, leading to an increase in decomposition temperature and to the disappearance of the self-nucleation Domain (i.e., Domain II), when self-nucleation experiments are performed by DSC. Overall isothermal crystallization kinetics was studied by DSC and the results were analyzed with the Avrami equation. An Avrami index of n≈3 was obtained for neat MPEG (indicating that instantaneous spherulites are formed). However, in the case of MPEG-g-SiO2 with the lowest grafting density, the Avrami index of (n) was less than 1 (first order kinetics or lower), indicating that nucleation is the determining factor of the overall crystallization kinetics, a signature for confined crystallization. At the same time, the crystallization from the melt for this MPEG-g-SiO2 with the lowest grafting density occurs at Tc ≈-30 ºC, a temperature close to the glass transition temperature (Tg) of MPEG, indicating that this confined MPEG crystallizes from homogeneous nuclei.This project was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21574141) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2017YFE0117800). The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding of project BIODEST, Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) H2020-MSCA-RISE-2017-778092. The authors thank beamline BL16B1 (Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility) for providing the beam time and helps during experiments

Detection of small single-cycle signals by stochastic resonance using a bistable superconducting quantum interference device

We propose and experimentally demonstrate detecting small single-cycle and few-cycle signals by using the symmetric double-well potential of a radio frequency superconducting quantum interference device (rf-SQUID). We show that the response of this bistable system to single- and few-cycle signals has a non-monotonic dependence on the noise strength. The response, measured by the probability of transition from initial potential well to the opposite one, becomes maximum when the noise-induced transition rate between the two stable states of the rf-SQUID is comparable to the signal frequency. Comparison to numerical simulations shows that the phenomenon is a manifestation of stochastic resonance.Comment: 5 pages 3 figure

Gleason Grade Group Prediction for Prostate Cancer Patients with MR Images Using Convolutional Neural Network

Purpose: Gleason Grading (GG) Grouping system is an important index in determining treatment plan or predicting outcome for prostate cancer patients. Unfortunately, currently GG Grouping results can only be obtained from biopsy-driven pathological tests. We aim to predict GG groups for PCa patients from multiparametric magnetic resonance images (mp-MRI). Methods: The challenges include data heterogeneity, small sample size and highly imbalanced distribution among different groups. A retrospective collection of 201 patients with 320 lesions from the SPIE-AAPM-NCI PROSTATEx Challenge (https://doi.org/10.7937/K9TCIA.2017.MURS5CL) was studied, among which only 98 patients with 110 lesions having GG available. And number of lesions from each group was 36, 39, 20, 8, and 7, respectively, for GG 1-5. We approached the challenging task by bridging though easier one of classifying 320 lesions into benign or malignant, and transferring learned knowledge to GG prediction on 110 lesions. During implementation, a four-convolutional neural network (CNN) was used for malignancy classification. To prevent over-fitting on small sample size, instead of fine-tuning on CNN, learned features were extracted and classified by weighted extreme learning machine (wELM), traditional classifier that assigned larger weight to samples from minority class.Image pre-processing included registration and normalization. Image rotation and scaling were also used to increase sample size and re-balance number of malignant and benign lesions. Results: The best combination of modalities as input to CNN was found to be T2W, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and B-value maps (b=50 s/mm2). During phase 1 of CNN training, average and best results of (Sensitivity, Specificity, G-mean) over 10 folds were (0.53, 0.83, 0.65) and (1, 0.88, 0.91), respectively. Features from best performing model were extracted to represent each lesion, and those from the last convolutional layer were found constantly better than from all other layers (Table 1). This implies that semantic features regarding lesion information is more important than local and detailed features such as contrast change in GG prediction. Conclusion: This work has successfully tackled the challenging task of GG prediction from mp-MRI by bridging through an easier task and has combined feature extraction using deep learning model and small data classification using traditional classifier to benefit from both.https://scholarlycommons.henryford.com/merf2019basicsci/1003/thumbnail.jp

Comparison of the safety and efficacy of propofol and dexmedetomidine as sedatives when used as a modified topical formulation

Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of propofol and dexmedetomidine as sedatives in patients with anticipated difficult airways, used as a modified topical preparation.Methods: A total of 432 patients were enrolled in this study. They were classified as ASA I and ASA II. The patients were equally divided into group A (propofol group) and group B (dexmedetomidine group). A modified Awake Fiberoptic Intubation (AFOI) was carried out for these patients, followed by airway assessment and evaluation of clinical outcome based on intubation scores, adverse events, and postoperative data.Results: Patients in both groups had successful intubation at the first attempt. There was no significant difference in baseline characteristics between the two groups. The SARI scores which characterized the overall score for tracheal intubation were 4.6 and 4.2 for groups A and B, respectively. With respect to rescue infusion and consciousness, 11 patients (5.09 %) in group A required rescue, as against 5 patients (2.31 %) in group B. Seven (7) patients (3.24 %) in group A (propofol group) had severe airway obstruction, while only 4 patients (1.85) in group B had the same adverse reaction. Patients in group B had more satisfactory and favourable outcomes than those in group A who were treated with modified AFOI.Conclusion: The use of dexmedetomidine based on modified topical anaesthesia is safe and comfortable in terms of patient convenience and difficult airway management. Thus, dexmedetomidine is a safe, feasible and effective method for managing difficult airway when applied using the modified AFOI

Landau-Zener-St\"{u}ckelberg Interference of Microwave Dressed States of a Superconducting Phase Qubit

We present the first observation of Landau-Zener-St\"{u}ckelberg (LZS) interference of the dressed states arising from an artificial atom, a superconducting phase qubit, interacting with a microwave field. The dependence of LZS interference fringes on various external parameters and the initial state of the qubit agrees quantitatively very well with the theoretical prediction. Such LZS interferometry between the dressed states enables us to control the quantum states of a tetrapartite solid-state system with ease, demonstrating the feasibility of implementing efficient multipartite quantum logic gates with this unique approach.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures To appear in Physical Review B(R