Simulating Public Administration Crisis: A Novel Generative Agent-Based Simulation System to Lower Technology Barriers in Social Science Research

This article proposes a social simulation paradigm based on the GPT-3.5 large language model. It involves constructing Generative Agents that emulate human cognition, memory, and decision-making frameworks, along with establishing a virtual social system capable of stable operation and an insertion mechanism for standardized public events. The project focuses on simulating a township water pollution incident, enabling the comprehensive examination of a virtual government's response to a specific public administration event. Controlled variable experiments demonstrate that the stored memory in generative agents significantly influences both individual decision-making and social networks. The Generative Agent-Based Simulation System introduces a novel approach to social science and public administration research. Agents exhibit personalized customization, and public events are seamlessly incorporated through natural language processing. Its high flexibility and extensive social interaction render it highly applicable in social science investigations. The system effectively reduces the complexity associated with building intricate social simulations while enhancing its interpretability.Comment: 12 Pages, 14 figures. This paper was submitted to IEEE TCSS on November 12, 202

Foreign exchange rate exposure, hedging activities and corporate governance: evidence from Hong Kong market

In this research, we aim to estimate whether firm-specific exchange rate exposures affected by hedging activities can be improved through corporate governance or strict monitoring. To analyse this, we conduct three-step estimations (Kim and Kim, 2015) by using a sample of Hang Seng Index constitutent firms from 2008 to 2015. First, we investigate the correlation between exchange rate exposure and hedging activities and find out whether corporate governance had any effect on hedging activities. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of hedging activities on exchange rate exposure, caused by tight monitoring in the form of corporate governance. Besides, we compare the findings obtained in the strongly governed firms and weakly governed firms and find out whether the same tendency exists in the firms with different intensities of corporate monitoring and we report the following findings. Firstly, firms are less likely to be exposed to exchange risk when there are more hedging activities and this trend is stronger in weakly governed firms. Secondly, corporate governance has a negative impact on the hedging activities in all sample sets. Firms use hedging more conservatively when they have a strong structure in terms of board monitoring, compensation system, and a better control of CEO’s power; and ultimately, the connection becomes stronger in times of crisis. These results are generalized for two subsamples, firms with the mainland China background and Non-financial companies, while the magnitude of the significance becomes smaller during the financial crisis. Overall, the results serve as the comprehensive evidence to show the impact of hedging activities on exchange rate exposure and the impact of firm-level corporate governance on firms' use of derivatives

Nonviral gene editing via CRISPR/Cas9 delivery by membrane-disruptive and endosomolytic helical polypeptide

Effective and safe delivery of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing elements remains a challenge. Here we report the development of PEGylated nanoparticles (named P-HNPs) based on the cationic α-helical polypeptide poly(γ-4-((2-(piperidin-1-yl)ethyl)aminomethyl)benzyl-L-glutamate) for the delivery of Cas9 expression plasmid and sgRNA to various cell types and gene-editing scenarios. The cell-penetrating α-helical polypeptide enhanced cellular uptake and promoted escape of pCas9 and/or sgRNA from the endosome and transport into the nucleus. The colloidally stable P-HNPs achieved a Cas9 transfection efficiency up to 60% and sgRNA uptake efficiency of 67.4%, representing an improvement over existing polycation-based gene delivery systems. After performing single or multiplex gene editing with an efficiency up to 47.3% in vitro, we demonstrated that P-HNPs delivering Cas9 plasmid/sgRNA targeting the polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) gene achieved 35% gene deletion in HeLa tumor tissue to reduce the Plk1 protein level by 66.7%, thereby suppressing the tumor growth by >71% and prolonging the animal survival rate to 60% within 60 days. Capable of delivering Cas9 plasmids to various cell types to achieve multiplex gene knock-out, gene knock-in, and gene activation in vitro and in vivo, the P-HNP system offers a versatile gene-editing platform for biological research and therapeutic applications

Effects of yeast culture and oxalic acid supplementation on in vitro nutrient disappearance, rumen fermentation, and bacterial community composition

Hemicellulose is an important polysaccharide in ruminant nutrition, but it has not been studied as thoroughly as cellulose. Further research is needed to explore supplements that can improve its digestibility and ruminal buffering effects. Our previous research demonstrated the efficacy of oxalic acid (OA) as an essential nutrient in yeast culture (YC) for improving rumen fermentation performance. Consequently, we conducted in vitro rumen digestion experiments to examine the effects of YC and OA on rumen fermentation and bacterial composition. Two diets containing different levels of hemicellulose were formulated: diet 1 with 10.3% and diet 2 with 17% hemicellulose. Three levels of YC (0.00, 0.625, and 1.25 g/kg) and three doses of OA (0.0, 0.4, and 0.8 g/kg, DM) were added into each diet with a 3 × 3 factorial design. A comprehensive assessment was conducted on a total of 18 experimental treatments at fermentation periods of 0, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h. In the first experiment (diet 1), the supplementation of YC, OA, and their interaction significantly increased in vitro DM disappearance (IVDMD) and NDF disappearance (IVNDFD; p < 0.001). In the second experiment (diet 2), the supplementation of OA and the interaction between YC and OA (p < 0.001) increased IVDMD and IVCPD, but had no significant effects on IVNDFD. The interactions of YC and OA significantly increased ammonia nitrogen (p < 0.001). The production of acetic acid, propionic acid, and total volatile fatty acids (TVFA), and pH levels were significantly higher in treatments supplemented with YC and OA (p < 0.001). YC and OA in both diets significantly altered the rumen bacterial community leading to increased Shannon and Simpson diversity indices (p < 0.001). In both diets, OA supplementation significantly increased the relative abundance of the phylum Bacteroidetes and Prevotella genus. The result also showed a positive correlation between the Prevotella and Selenomonas genera with IVDMD, IVNDFD, propionic acid, and TVFA production, suggesting that these dominant bacteria enhanced nutrient disappearance in the rumen. In conclusion, adding YC and OA resulted in modifications to the bacterial community’s composition and diversity, and improved nutrient disappearance. These changes indicate improved rumen fermentation efficiency, which is promising for future in vivo studies

Potential of Core-Collapse Supernova Neutrino Detection at JUNO

JUNO is an underground neutrino observatory under construction in Jiangmen, China. It uses 20kton liquid scintillator as target, which enables it to detect supernova burst neutrinos of a large statistics for the next galactic core-collapse supernova (CCSN) and also pre-supernova neutrinos from the nearby CCSN progenitors. All flavors of supernova burst neutrinos can be detected by JUNO via several interaction channels, including inverse beta decay, elastic scattering on electron and proton, interactions on C12 nuclei, etc. This retains the possibility for JUNO to reconstruct the energy spectra of supernova burst neutrinos of all flavors. The real time monitoring systems based on FPGA and DAQ are under development in JUNO, which allow prompt alert and trigger-less data acquisition of CCSN events. The alert performances of both monitoring systems have been thoroughly studied using simulations. Moreover, once a CCSN is tagged, the system can give fast characterizations, such as directionality and light curve

Detection of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background with JUNO

As an underground multi-purpose neutrino detector with 20 kton liquid scintillator, Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is competitive with and complementary to the water-Cherenkov detectors on the search for the diffuse supernova neutrino background (DSNB). Typical supernova models predict 2-4 events per year within the optimal observation window in the JUNO detector. The dominant background is from the neutral-current (NC) interaction of atmospheric neutrinos with 12C nuclei, which surpasses the DSNB by more than one order of magnitude. We evaluated the systematic uncertainty of NC background from the spread of a variety of data-driven models and further developed a method to determine NC background within 15\% with {\it{in}} {\it{situ}} measurements after ten years of running. Besides, the NC-like backgrounds can be effectively suppressed by the intrinsic pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) capabilities of liquid scintillators. In this talk, I will present in detail the improvements on NC background uncertainty evaluation, PSD discriminator development, and finally, the potential of DSNB sensitivity in JUNO

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Foreign exchange rate exposure, hedging activities and corporate governance: evidence from Hong Kong market

In this research, we aim to estimate whether firm-specific exchange rate exposures affected by hedging activities can be improved through corporate governance or strict monitoring. To analyse this, we conduct three-step estimations (Kim and Kim, 2015) by using a sample of Hang Seng Index constitutent firms from 2008 to 2015. First, we investigate the correlation between exchange rate exposure and hedging activities and find out whether corporate governance had any effect on hedging activities. Furthermore, we estimate the effect of hedging activities on exchange rate exposure, caused by tight monitoring in the form of corporate governance. Besides, we compare the findings obtained in the strongly governed firms and weakly governed firms and find out whether the same tendency exists in the firms with different intensities of corporate monitoring and we report the following findings. Firstly, firms are less likely to be exposed to exchange risk when there are more hedging activities and this trend is stronger in weakly governed firms. Secondly, corporate governance has a negative impact on the hedging activities in all sample sets. Firms use hedging more conservatively when they have a strong structure in terms of board monitoring, compensation system, and a better control of CEO’s power; and ultimately, the connection becomes stronger in times of crisis. These results are generalized for two subsamples, firms with the mainland China background and Non-financial companies, while the magnitude of the significance becomes smaller during the financial crisis. Overall, the results serve as the comprehensive evidence to show the impact of hedging activities on exchange rate exposure and the impact of firm-level corporate governance on firms' use of derivatives

A Wave-corrected Assessment of the Local Midplane

As the number of known Galactic structures mounts thanks to the Gaia Space Telescope, it is now pertinent to study methods for disentangling structures occupying the same regions of the Milky Way. Indeed, understanding the precise form of each individual structure and the interactions between structures may aid in understanding their origins and chronology. Moreover, accounting for known structures allows one to probe still finer Galactic structure. In order to demonstrate this, we have developed an odd low-pass filter (OLPF), which removes smaller, odd-parity structures like the vertical waves, and use the filtered data to examine the location of the Galaxy’s midplane. We find that the radial wave identified by Xu et al. continues inward to at least the Sun’s location, with an amplitude that decreases toward the inner, denser parts of the disk, consistent with a simple, qualitative simulation. Additionally, we employ the OLPF results to determine the solar offset, z _⊙ , with smaller structures filtered out. We find that z _⊙ = 34.2 ± 0.3 pc