Thermostat-assisted continuously-tempered Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for Bayesian learning

We propose a new sampling method, the thermostat-assisted continuously-tempered Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, for Bayesian learning on large datasets and multimodal distributions. It simulates the Nos\'e-Hoover dynamics of a continuously-tempered Hamiltonian system built on the distribution of interest. A significant advantage of this method is that it is not only able to efficiently draw representative i.i.d. samples when the distribution contains multiple isolated modes, but capable of adaptively neutralising the noise arising from mini-batches and maintaining accurate sampling. While the properties of this method have been studied using synthetic distributions, experiments on three real datasets also demonstrated the gain of performance over several strong baselines with various types of neural networks plunged in

Perspectives on Open Educational Resources by University Students in Jiangxi Province of China: An Interview Analysis With UTAUT2 Model Framework

Open educational resources (OER) have become crucial for university students to explore as a shared digital resource. Although some accomplishments have been made in the research on OER adoption domestically and globally, there are three persistent limitations. It is limited from the perspective of university students, more focused on technology diffusion, university information system, digital library, high-quality course website, online learning, and mobile learning technology. Based on the grounded theory, this study took university students in Jiangxi province, China, as the research object to probe the phenomenon of adoption and use of OER. It preliminarily constructed the model of influencing the use of OERs by university students and initiated the application of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model in a new field. The findings show that perceived value, perceived risk, facilitation conditions, social influence, habit, and hedonic motivation directly influence willingness to use. While facilitating needs and desire to use directly influence user behavior. It provides a new research idea and reference basis for educational management researchers to carry out similar related research in the future

Negotiable Instruments, in Particular Bills of Exchange in Macau, China

The rapid development of Information Technology has revolutionized the way people and businesstransfer funds and has led European nations to enact new laws to regulate payments conducted electronically. TheMacau law of negotiable instruments, mainly stipulated in Commercial Code of Macau and regulations concerningelectronic fund transfers, have been influenced by modern European Law and principles in the way of absorbing thecurrent legal expertise from western countries. In Macau, the Electronic Funds Transfer System provides a costeffectiveand efficient method to transfer funds electronically directly into a specified bank or building societyaccount. At the same time, it has significantly reduced the importance of the traditional negotiable instruments bothin domestic and in International trade

Global stability of vaccine-age/staged-structured epidemic models with nonlinear incidence

We consider two classes of infinitely dimensional epidemic models with nonlinear incidence, where one assumes that the rate of a vaccinated individual losing immunity depends on the vaccine-age and another assumes that, before the vaccine begins to wane, there is a period during which the vaccinated individuals have complete immunity against the infection. The first model is given by a coupled ordinary-hyperbolic differential system and the second class is described by a delay differential system. We calculate their respective basic reproduction numbers, and show they characterize the global dynamics by constructing the appropriate Lyapunov functionals

5′-Methyl­sulfanyl-4′-oxo-7′-phenyl-3′,4′-dihydro-1′H-spiro­[cyclo­hexane-1,2′-quinazoline]-8′-carbonitrile dimethyl­formamide monosolvate

In the title compound, C21H21N3OS·C3H7NO, the carbonitrile mol­ecule is built up of two fused six-membered rings and one six-membered ring linked through a spiro C atom. The 1,3-diaza ring adopts an envelope conformation and the cyclo­hexane ring adopts a chair conformation. The dihedral angle between the aromatic rings is 46.7 (3)°. In the crystal, the components are linked by N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

pH-sensitive polymeric micelles triggered drug release for extracellular and intracellular drug targeting delivery

AbstractMost of the conventional chemotherapeutic agents used for cancer chemotherapy suffer from multidrug resistance of tumor cells and poor antitumor efficacy. Based on physiological differences between the normal tissue and the tumor tissue, one effective approach to improve the efficacy of cancer chemotherapy is to develop pH-sensitive polymeric micellar delivery systems. The copolymers with reversible protonation–deprotonation core units or acid-liable bonds between the therapeutic agents and the micelle-forming copolymers can be used to form pH-sensitive polymeric micelles for extracellular and intracellular drug smart release. These systems can be triggered to release drug in response to the slightly acidic extracellular fluids of tumor tissue after accumulation in tumor tissues via the enhanced permeability and retention effect, or they can be triggered to release drug in endosomes or lysosomes by pH-controlled micelle hydrolysis or dissociation after uptake by cells via the endocytic pathway. The pH-sensitive micelles have been proved the specific tumor cell targeting, enhanced cellular internalization, rapid drug release, and multidrug resistance reversal. The multifunctional polymeric micelles combining extracellular pH-sensitivity with receptor-mediated active targeting strategies are of great interest for enhanced tumor targeting. The micelles with receptor-mediated and intracellular pH targeting functions are internalized via receptor-mediated endocytosis followed by endosomal-pH triggered drug release inside the cells, which reverses multidrug resistance. The pH sensitivity strategy of the polymeric micelles facilitates the specific drug delivery with reduced systemic side effects and improved chemotherapeutical efficacy, and is a novel promising platform for tumor-targeting drug delivery