Effects of peer relationship and peer presence on giving and repaying in preschoolers' triad interactions

This study aimed to assess social preferences in dynamic interpersonal interactions among preschool children and to examine the effects of peer relationship (friend vs. stranger) and peer presence (peer presence vs. peer absence) on giving and repaying. Ninety-nine children participated in a triad game, which consisted of two mixed-dictator games. The allocations from a proposer in the first dictator game were evaluated as giving, and the allocations from two respondents in the second dictator game were evaluated as repaying friends and strangers. The results indicated that children did not have any specific social preferences for friends in giving and repaying but had altruistic and fair preferences for giving to strangers, and strangers had egoistic preferences in repaying. Furthermore, children allocated more to strangers than to friends and allocated more in peer presence. Besides, friends positively reciprocated to proposers in peer absence and repaid less in peer presence. However, strangers consistently repaid less regardless of whether peers were present or not. These results provide more evidence for the assumption of weak ties in giving and demonstrate the strength of strong ties in repaying. These findings enhance our understanding of the interplay of childhood interactions in the development of early relationships.</p

Preparation and Study of a Simple Three-Matrix Solid Electrolyte Membrane in Air

Solid-state lithium batteries have attracted much attention due to their special properties of high safety and high energy density. Among them, the polymer electrolyte membrane with high ionic conductivity and a wide electrochemical window is a key part to achieve stable cycling of solid-state batteries. However, the low ionic conductivity and the high interfacial resistance limit its practical application. This work deals with the preparation of a composite solid electrolyte with high mechanical flexibility and non-flammability. Firstly, the crystallinity of the polymer is reduced, and the fluidity of Li+ between the polymer segments is improved by tertiary polymer polymerization. Then, lithium salt is added to form a solpolymer solution to provide Li+ and anion and then an inorganic solid electrolyte is added. As a result, the composite solid electrolyte has a Li+ conductivity (3.18 &times; 10&minus;4 mS cm&minus;1). The (LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4)LNMO/SPLL (PES-PVC-PVDF-LiBF4-LAZTP)/Li battery has a capacity retention rate of 98.4% after 100 cycles, which is much higher than that without inorganic oxides. This research provides an important reference for developing all-solid-state batteries in the greenhouse

Image-Based Automatic Watermeter Reading under Challenging Environments

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence and fifth-generation mobile network technologies, automatic instrument reading has become an increasingly important topic for intelligent sensors in smart cities. We propose a full pipeline to automatically read watermeters based on a single image, using deep learning methods to provide new technical support for an intelligent water meter reading. To handle the various challenging environments where watermeters reside, our pipeline disentangled the task into individual subtasks based on the structures of typical watermeters. These subtasks include component localization, orientation alignment, spatial layout guidance reading, and regression-based pointer reading. The devised algorithms for orientation alignment and spatial layout guidance are tailored to improve the robustness of our neural network. We also collect images of watermeters in real scenes and build a dataset for training and evaluation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method even under challenging environments with varying lighting, occlusions, and different orientations. Thanks to the lightweight algorithms adopted in our pipeline, the system can be easily deployed and fully automated

An improved multi-ary search based anti-collision algorithm

Conference Name:2013 International Conference on Future Computer and Information Technology, ICFCIT 2013. Conference Address: Tianjin, China. Time:August 22, 2013 - August 23, 2013.WIT Transactions on Engineering SciencesThe RFID technology is widely used and spread, but there exists a problem that collision will happen when identification tags. Ways to solve the trouble are inefficient, though many methods are able to solve the problem. Attention is paid as to how to improve identification efficiency in this paper ad the search algorithm is improved by means of a dynamic search tree. A function, which is used to estimate throughput, is put forward in this paper to decide the branch number of a search tree on the base of binary and quaternary search trees. A simulation experiment is carried out to prove the efficiency of the new algorithm. ? 2014 WIT Press

Epidemiological characteristics of seasonal influenza under implementation of zero-COVID-19 strategy in China

Objective: Respiratory viral diseases have posed a persistent threat to public health due to their high transmissibility. Influenza virus and SARS-Cov-2 are both respiratory viruses that have caused global pandemics. A zero-COVID-19 strategy is a public health policy imposed to stop community transmission of COVID-19 as soon as it is detected. In this study, we aim to examine the epidemiological characteristics of seasonal influenza in the past five years before and after the emergence of COVID-19 in China and observe the possible impact of the strategy on influenza. Methods: Data from two data sources were retrospectively analyzed. A comparison on influenza incidence rate between Hubei and Zhejiang provinces was conducted based on data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Then a descriptive and comparative analysis on seasonal influenza based on data from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and Hangzhou Ninth People`s Hospital before and after the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 was conducted. Results: From 2010–2017, both provinces experienced relatively low influenza activity until the 1st week of 2018, when they reached peak incidence rates of 78.16/100000PY, 34.05/100000PY respectively. Since then, influenza showed an obvious seasonality in Hubei and Zhejiang until the onset of COVID-19. During 2020 and 2021, there was a dramatic decline in influenza activity compared to 2018 and 2019. However, influenza activity seemed to rebound at the beginning of 2022 and surged in summer, with positive rates of 20.52% and 31.53% in Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University and Hangzhou Ninth People`s Hospital respectively as of the time writing this article. Conclusions: Our results reinforce the hypothesis that zero-COVID-19 strategy may impact the epidemiological pattern of influenza. Under the complex pandemic situation, implementation of NPIs could be a beneficial strategy containing not only COVID-19 but also influenza

An improved RFID tag anti-collision batch rapid recognition algorithm based on group

Conference Name:2013 International Conference on Future Computer and Information Technology, ICFCIT 2013. Conference Address: Tianjin, China. Time:August 22, 2013 - August 23, 2013.WIT Transactions on Engineering SciencesBased on the study of the anti-collision problem of RFID's tags, this paper finds the drawbacks of the traditional algorithms and comes up with its own improved algorithm. The improved algorithm follows the principles of "according to the collision bits, grouping and multi-threaded, quad-tree search, parameterized command, combined with ALOHA". Its performances have been verified by the simulation tests. Compared to the original binary algorithm, dynamic binary algorithm and backtracking binary algorithm, the search time and the amount of data transmission have been both improved. ? 2014 WIT Press

Successful treatment of a centenarian with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) using convalescent plasma

Because treatment options for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are very limited, the use of convalescent plasma has bee explored. A male centenarian with cough and dyspnea for 2 months was diagnosed with COVID-19. Without effective treatments and with the increased risks of antiviral therapy for the elderly, this patient was given convalescent plasma. The viral load, complete blood count, inflammatory indicators, vital signs, and clinical symptoms were observed before and after COVID-19 convalescent plasma transfusion. After convalescent plasma transfusion, significant improvement was observed on laboratory indicators and clinical symptoms of the patient. Concurrently, SARS-CoV-2 viral load decreased sharply after the first transfusion (from 2.55 × 104 to 1.39 × 103 copies/mL) and became undetectable after the second transfusion. With the substantial increase of COVID-19 in recent months,treatment for elderly patients has become restricted in some countries. The successful treatment of this 100-year-old patient using convalescent plasma suggests that we should consider adding convalescent plasma in th management of the elderly