Extenics-based Study on Evaluation of Urban Community Home-care Service for the Elderly

AbstractThis paper tries to introduce extenics theory into the evaluation of the urban community home-care service for the elderly. The paper analyzes the feasibility of using extenics to evaluate the service, uses analytic hierarchy process to decide the weight of index and constructs a comprehensive evaluation model for the service on the basis of extenics. Based on the case study of communities in Ningbo, the paper has completed the evaluation of home-care service in operation and put forward countermeasures to the existing problems

EEG-based fatigue driving detection using correlation dimension

Driver fatigue is an important cause of traffic accidents and the detection of fatigue driving has been a hot issue in automobile active safety during the past decades. The purpose of this study is to develop a novel method to detect fatigue driving based on electroencephalogram (EEG). The volunteer is asked to perform simulated driving tasks under different mental state while EEG signals are acquired simultaneously from six electrodes at central, parietal and occipital lobe, including C3, C4, P3, P4, O1 and O2. Due to the non-linearity of human brain responses, correlation dimension is estimated with G-P algorithm to quantify the collected EEGs. Statistical analysis reveals significant decreases from awake to fatigue state of the correlation dimension for all the channels across 5 subjects (awake state: 3.87±0.13; fatigue state: 2.76±0.34; p< 0.05, paired t-test), which indicates that the correlation dimension is a promising parameter in detecting fatigue driving with EEGs

Examining coordination and equilibrium: an analysis of supply index and spatial evolution characteristics for older adult services in Zhejiang Province

ObjectiveThis study aims to analyze the spatial distribution and dynamic evolution of older adult service supply in Zhejiang Province from 2010 to 2019. Additionally, this research seeks to propose an optimized resource allocation strategy for older adult care services, promoting regional fairness and coordinated development.MethodsTo evaluate the older adult service supply capacity, this research first constructed an evaluation index system based on the Chinese modernization development pattern. Then, an empirical analysis was carried out using a combination of the entropy-TOPSIS method, kernel density estimation, Markov chain analysis, Dagum Gini coefficient, and panel regression model.ResultsThe results show an overall upward trend in the supply and service capacity of older adult care in the whole province. However, the spatial distribution of older adult service supply capacity in Zhejiang Province still exhibits a gradient effect, even in the most recent year of 2019. Furthermore, the supply capacity of older adult services shifted to a higher level in the whole province, and regions with high supply capacity had a positive spillover effect on adjacent regions. The overall difference in the older adult service supply capacity of the province showed a decreasing trend. The level of economic development, urbanization rate, transportation capacity, the level of opening up, and the proportion of employees in the tertiary industry had a significant impact on the supply capacity and spatial difference of older adult services.ConclusionFrom the findings, this study puts forth countermeasures and suggestions to optimize the spatial distribution of older adult care services. This includes giving full play to the regional spatial linkage effect, promoting new-type urbanization construction, upgrading the transportation network, and expanding the opening up of the industrial structure. By implementing these measures, a more equitable and coordinated older adult services system can be developed in Zhejiang Province

Gold on graphene as a substrate for surface enhanced Raman scattering study

In this paper, we report our study on gold (Au) films with different thicknesses deposited on single layer graphene (SLG) as surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates for the characterization of rhodamine (R6G) molecules. We find that an Au film with a thickness of ~7 nm deposited on SLG is an ideal substrate for SERS, giving the strongest Raman signals for the molecules and the weakest photoluminescence (PL) background. While Au films effectively enhance both the Raman and PL signals of molecules, SLG effectively quenches the PL signals from the Au film and molecules. The former is due to the electromagnetic mechanism involved while the latter is due to the strong resonance energy transfer from Au to SLG. Hence, the combination of Au films and SLG can be widely used in the characterization of low concentration molecules with relatively weak Raman signals.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

Compositional Model Checking of Concurrent Systems

This paper presents a compositional framework to address the state explosion problem in model checking of concurrent systems. This framework takes as input a system model described as a network of communicating components in a high-level description language, finds the local state transition models for each individual component where local properties can be verified, and then iteratively reduces and composes the component state transition models to form a reduced global model for the entire system where global safety properties can be verified. The state space reductions used in this framework result in a reduced model that contains the exact same set of observably equivalent executions as in the original model, therefore, no false counter-examples result from the verification of the reduced model. This approach allows designs that cannot be handled monolithically or with partial-order reduction to be verified without difficulty. The experimental results show significant scale-up of this compositional verification framework on a number of non-trivial concurrent system models

Intracellular Alkalinization Induces Cytosolic Ca2+ Increases by Inhibiting Sarco/Endoplasmic Reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA)

Intracellular pH (pHi) and Ca2+ regulate essentially all aspects of cellular activities. Their inter-relationship has not been mechanistically explored. In this study, we used bases and acetic acid to manipulate the pHi. We found that transient pHi rise induced by both organic and inorganic bases, but not acidification induced by acid, produced elevation of cytosolic Ca2+. The sources of the Ca2+ increase are from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Ca2+ pools as well as from Ca2+ influx. The store-mobilization component of the Ca2+ increase induced by the pHi rise was not sensitive to antagonists for either IP3-receptors or ryanodine receptors, but was due to inhibition of the sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA), leading to depletion of the ER Ca2+ store. We further showed that the physiological consequence of depletion of the ER Ca2+ store by pHi rise is the activation of store-operated channels (SOCs) of Orai1 and Stim1, leading to increased Ca2+ influx. Taken together, our results indicate that intracellular alkalinization inhibits SERCA activity, similar to thapsigargin, thereby resulting in Ca2+ leak from ER pools followed by Ca2+ influx via SOCs

Genotypic and Phenotypic Characterization of IncX3 Plasmid Carrying blaNDM-7 in Escherichia coli Sequence Type 167 Isolated From a Patient With Urinary Tract Infection

Infections due to New Delhi metallo-beta lactamase (NDM)-7-producing Escherichia coli are infrequent and sporadic. In this study, we report one case of recurrent urinary tract infection caused by blaNDM-7-producing E. coli belonging to phylogenetic group A, sequence type (ST) 167. In this study, we aimed to describe the genotype and phenotype of blaNDM-7-producing E. coli in China. The isolate exhibited resistance to β-lactam antimicrobials, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, quinolones, and aminoglycosides. blaNDM-7 is located on a conjugative plasmid designated pJN05NDM-7 belonging to type IncX3. pJN05NDM-7 was fully sequenced and compared with all publicly available blaNDM-7-harboring plasmids. pJN05NDM-7 is almost identical to pKpN01-NDM7 and pKW53T, although the plasmids are geographically unrelated. The comparison of IncX3 plasmids harboring blaNDM in China showed high similarity, with genetic differences within insertion fragments. Notably, the differences in plasmids of animal and human origin were insignificant, because only one plasmid showed deletion inside the ISAba125 region compared with pJN05NDM7. Our study demonstrates that E. coli carrying IncX3 plasmids play an important role as a reservoir and in the spread of blaNDM. Further studies should be performed to control the dissemination of blaNDM among food animals

Prognostic value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio in lung cancer: A meta-analysis

Recently, a series of studies explored the correlation between the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and the prognosis of lung cancer. However, the current opinion regarding the prognostic role of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio in lung cancer is inconsistent. We performed a meta-analysis of published articles to investigate the prognostic value of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio in lung cancer. The hazard ratio (HR) and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. An elevated neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio predicted worse overall survival, with a pooled HR of 1.243 (95%CI: 1.106-1.397; Pheterogeneity=0.001) from multivariate studies and 1.867 (95%CI: 1.487-2.344; Pheterogeneity=0.047) from univariate studies. Subgroup analysis showed that a high neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio yielded worse overall survival in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (HR=1.192, 95%CI: 1.061-1.399; Pheterogeneity=0.003) as well as small cell lung cancer (SCLC) (HR=1.550, 95% CI: 1.156-2.077; Pheterogeneity=0.625) in multivariate studies. The synthesized evidence from this meta-analysis of published articles demonstrated that an elevated neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio was a predictor of poor overall survival in patients with lung cancer