Degree-MM Bethe and Sinkhorn Permanent Based Bounds on the Permanent of a Non-negative Matrix

The permanent of a non-negative square matrix can be well approximated by finding the minimum of the Bethe free energy functions associated with some suitably defined factor graph; the resulting approximation to the permanent is called the Bethe permanent. Vontobel gave a combinatorial characterization of the Bethe permanent via degree-$M$ Bethe permanents, which is based on degree-$M$ covers of the underlying factor graph. In this paper, we prove a degree-$M$-Bethe-permanent-based lower bound on the permanent of a non-negative matrix, which solves a conjecture proposed by Vontobel in [IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, Mar. 2013]. We also prove a degree-$M$-Bethe-permanent-based upper bound on the permanent of a non-negative matrix. In the limit $M \to \infty$, these lower and upper bounds yield known Bethe-permanent-based lower and upper bounds on the permanent of a non-negative matrix. Moreover, we prove similar results for an approximation to the permanent known as the (scaled) Sinkhorn permanent.Comment: submitte

China’s choice on the participation in establishing marine protected areas in areas beyond national jurisdiction

Currently, the issue of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) has made a lot of significant progress in both international legislative process and national practices. As a State Party to UNCLOS, China has actively participated in the negotiations of the BBNJ agreement, in which the marine protected areas (MPAs) as one of the area-based management tools have been an issue of great concern. It is considered to be a feasible and direct conservation tool. In order to evaluate the possibility of China’s participation in the establishment of MPAs in the future, this paper analyzes the drivers for and limits on China’s involvement in the construction of MPAs in the context of the current Chinese situation. And it also puts forward possible countermeasures on how to deal with the challenges brought by the MPAs in ABNJ to China. It is concluded that there is a great possibility that China will eventually choose to participate in the establishment of MPAs in ABNJ as China advocates the concept of a maritime community with a shared future

Leveraging Trust Relations to Improve Academic Patent Recommendation

Academic patent trading is one of the important ways for university technology transfer. Compared to industry patent trading, academic patent trading suffers from a more serious information asymmetric problem. It needs a recommendation service to help companies identify academic patents that they want to pay. However, existing recommendation approaches have limitations in facilitating academic patent trading in online patent platforms because most of them only consider patent-level characteristics. A high trust degree of a company towards academic patents can alleviate the information asymmetry and encourage trading. This study proposes a novel academic patent recommendation approach with a hybrid strategy, combining citation-based relevance, connectivity, and trustworthiness. An offline experiment is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed recommendation approach. The results show that the proposed method performs better than the baseline methods in both accuracy and ranking

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of a standardized training model for improving patients' ability to use inhalers

ObjectiveTraining contributes to the effectiveness of aerosol inhalation therapy. However, qualitative and quantitative evaluation of effective training methods is rarely reported. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a standardized training model by pharmacists based on verbal instruction and physical demonstration in improving patients' ability to use inhalers using qualitative and quantitative methods. Risk or protective factors affecting correct inhaler use were also explored.Methods431 Outpatients with asthma or COPD were recruited and randomly divided into a standardized training group (n = 280) and a usual training group (control group, n = 151). A framework of qualitative (e.g., multi-criteria analysis) and quantitative comparisons [percentage of correct use (CU%), percentage of complete error (CE%), and percentage of partial error (PE%)] was established to evaluate the two training models. In addition, the changes of key factors (age, education level, adherence, device type, etc.) influencing patients' ability to use inhalers of two models were observed.ResultsThe multi-criteria analysis showed that the standardized training model had comprehensive advantages in qualitative indicators. The average correct use percentage (CU%) of the standardized training group was significantly higher than that of the usual training group (77.6% vs. 35.5%). A stratified analysis further demonstrated that the ORs (95%CI) in the usual training group of age and educational level was 2.263 (1.165–4.398) and 0.556 (0.379–0.815), while in the standardized training group, age and educational level were not the key factors influencing the ability to use inhaler devices (P > 0.05). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that standardized training was a protective factor for inhalation ability.ConclusionThese findings indicate that the framework of qualitative and quantitative comparisons could be used to evaluate training models, and the standardized training model by pharmacists can significantly improve patients' ability to use inhalers correctly and address the influence of older age and lower education because of its methodological advantages. Further studies with more extended follow-up are needed to validate the role of the standardized training model by pharmacists in the correct use of inhalers.Clinical trial registrationchictr.org.cn, ChiCTR2100043592 (23-02-2021)