Application of artificial neural network for the critical flow prediction of discharge nozzle

System thermal-hydraulic (STH) code is adopted for nuclear safety analysis. The critical flow model (CFM) is significant for the accuracy of STH simulation. To overcome the defects of current CFMs (low precision or long calculation time), a CFM based on a genetic neural network (GNN) has been developed in this work. To build a powerful model, besides the critical mass flux, the critical pressure and critical quality were also considered in this model, which was seldom considered before. Comparing with the traditional homogeneous equilibrium model (HEM) and the Moody model, the GNN model can predict the critical mass flux with a higher accuracy (approximately 80% of results are within the ±20% error limit); comparing with the Leung model and the Shannak model for critical pressure prediction, the GNN model achieved the best results (more than 80% prediction results within the ±20% error limit). For the critical quality, similar precision is achieved. The GNN-based CFM in this work is meaningful for the STH code CFM development

Effects of fence enclosure on vegetation community characteristics and productivity of a degraded temperate meadow steppe in Northern China

Species composition and biomass are two important indicators in assessing the effects of restoration measures of degraded grasslands. In this paper, we present a field study on the temporal changes in plant community characteristics, species diversity and biomass production in a degraded temperate meadow steppe in response to an enclosure measure in Hulunbuir in Northern China. Our results showed that the plant community responded positively to the fence enclosure in terms of vegetation coverage, height, above- and belowground biomass. A year-to-year increase in aboveground biomass was observed, and this increase plateaued at the ninth year of the enclosure. Our results also showed that the existing dominant and foundation species gained predominance against other species. The sum of the biomass of these two species was more than doubled after the ninth year of the enclosure. However, belowground biomass only briefly increased until the fifth year of the enclosure and then decreased until the end of the experimental period. Plant diversity, evenness, and richness indices showed similar trends to that of belowground biomass. Overall, we found that the degraded temperate meadow steppe responded significantly positively to the enclosure treatment, but an optimal condition was only reached after approximately 5-7 years of continuous protection, providing a solid use case for grassland conservation and management at regional scales

DavarOCR: A Toolbox for OCR and Multi-Modal Document Understanding

This paper presents DavarOCR, an open-source toolbox for OCR and document understanding tasks. DavarOCR currently implements 19 advanced algorithms, covering 9 different task forms. DavarOCR provides detailed usage instructions and the trained models for each algorithm. Compared with the previous opensource OCR toolbox, DavarOCR has relatively more complete support for the sub-tasks of the cutting-edge technology of document understanding. In order to promote the development and application of OCR technology in academia and industry, we pay more attention to the use of modules that different sub-domains of technology can share. DavarOCR is publicly released at https://github.com/hikopensource/Davar-Lab-OCR.Comment: Short paper, Accept by ACM MM202

Plasma mRNA expression levels of BRCA1 and TS as potential predictive biomarkers for chemotherapy in gastric cancer

OBJECTIVE: Personalized chemotherapy based on predictive biomarkers can maximize efficacy. However, tumor tissue obtained at the time of initial diagnosis will not reflect genetic alterations observed at the time of disease progression. We have examined whether plasma mRNA levels can be a surrogate for tumor levels in predicting chemosensitivity. METHODS: In 150 gastric cancer patients, mRNA levels of BRCA1 and TS were assessed in plasma and paired tumor tissue. The Mann-Whitney U-test was used to compare mRNA expression levels between tumor samples exhibiting in vitro sensitivity or resistance to docetaxel and pemetrexed. All statistical tests were two-sided. RESULTS: There were significant correlations between plasma and tumor mRNA levels of BRCA1 (rho = 0.696, P < 0.001) and TS (rho = 0.620, P < 0.001). BRCA1 levels in plasma (docetaxel-sensitive: 1.25; docetaxel-resistant: 0.50, P < 0.001) and tumor (docetaxel-sensitive: 8.81; docetaxel-resistant: 4.88, P < 0.001) were positively associated with docetaxel sensitivity. TS levels in plasma (pemetrexed-sensitive: 0.90; pemetrexed-resistant: 1.82, P < 0.001) and tumor (pemetrexed-sensitive: 6.56; pemetrexed-resistant: 16.69, P < 0.001) were negatively associated with pemetrexed sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma mRNA expression levels mirror those in the tumor and may have a promising role as potential predictive biomarkers for chemotherapy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12967-014-0355-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategy for Nuclear Safety: Opportunities and Challenges

The concept and methodology of traditional Defense in Depth (DID) was challenged in the Fukushima nuclear accident. In order to fix the weakness of the traditional emergency strategies of nuclear power plants (NPPs) and to enhance the DID for nuclear safety, the U.S. Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) put forward the concept of Diverse and Flexible Coping Strategies (FLEX) for the special purpose of beyond-design-basis external event (BDBEE) hazard mitigation and the corresponding FLEX support guidelines (FSG). The theory has been wildly spread and accepted by many countries that generate nuclear power. The research on the FLEX strategy is a new trend in nuclear engineering in the recent decade. It provides not only fixed on-site equipment/devices but also on- and off-site portable resources to strengthen the reliability of the nuclear safety system, especially for the disaster/hazards (similar to the Fukushima nuclear accident) triggered by BDBEEs. After a brief introduction of the FLEX strategy, four opportunities and ten challenges are summarized. Subsequently, in view of these challenges and technical difficulties, five suggestions for future work are recommended

Processing Linguistic and Non-linguistic Information in L2 Mandarin

Xu, B., Wei, Y. (2022) Integration of World Knowledge and Classifier Information in Native and Non-native Language Processing. Poster at 2022 Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP). doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28893.0816

Anticipating object shapes using world knowledge and classifier information: Evidence from eve-movements in L1 and L2 processing

This study explores how L1 and L2 Chinese speakers use world knowledge and classifier information to predict fine-grained referent features. In a visual-world-paradigm eye-tracking experiment, participants were presented with two visual objects that were denoted by the same noun in Chinese but matched different shape classifiers. Meanwhile, they heard sentences containing world knowledge triggering context and classifiers. The effect of world knowledge has been differentiated from word-level associations. Native speakers generated anticipations about the shape/state features of the referents at an early processing stage and quickly integrated linguistic information with world knowledge upon hearing the classifiers. In contrast, L2 speakers show delayed, reduced anticipation based on world knowledge and minimal use of classifier cues. The findings reveal different cue-weighting strategies in L1 and L2 processing. Specifically, L2 speakers whose first languages lack obligatory classifiers do not employ classifier cues in a timely manner, even though the semantic meanings of shape classifiers are accessible to them. No evidence supports over-reliance on world knowledge in L2 processing. This study contributes to the understanding of L2 real-time processing, particularly in L2 speakers’ utility of linguistic and non-linguistic information in anticipating fine-grained referent features

Rhythmic Coordination Affects Children’s Perspective-Taking during Online Communication

We examined how rhythmic activities affect children’s perspective-taking in a referential communication task with 69 Chinese 5- to 6-year-old children. The child first played an instrument with a virtual partner in one of three coordination conditions: synchrony, asynchrony, and antiphase synchrony. Eye movements were then monitored with the partner giving instructions to identify a shape referent which included a pre-nominal scalar adjective (e.g., big cubic block). Participants with awareness of their partner’s perspective could, in principle, identify the intended referent before the shape was named when the target contrast (a small cubic block) was in shared ground whereas a competitor contrast was occluded for the partner. Children in the asynchrony and antiphase synchrony conditions, but not the synchrony condition, showed anticipatory looks to the target, suggesting that playing instruments asynchronously or in alternation facilitates perspective-taking, likely by training self-other discrimination and inhibitory control