A Broad Learning Approach for Context-Aware Mobile Application Recommendation

With the rapid development of mobile apps, the availability of a large number of mobile apps in application stores brings challenge to locate appropriate apps for users. Providing accurate mobile app recommendation for users becomes an imperative task. Conventional approaches mainly focus on learning users' preferences and app features to predict the user-app ratings. However, most of them did not consider the interactions among the context information of apps. To address this issue, we propose a broad learning approach for \textbf{C}ontext-\textbf{A}ware app recommendation with \textbf{T}ensor \textbf{A}nalysis (CATA). Specifically, we utilize a tensor-based framework to effectively integrate user's preference, app category information and multi-view features to facilitate the performance of app rating prediction. The multidimensional structure is employed to capture the hidden relationships between multiple app categories with multi-view features. We develop an efficient factorization method which applies Tucker decomposition to learn the full-order interactions within multiple categories and features. Furthermore, we employ a group $\ell_{1}-$norm regularization to learn the group-wise feature importance of each view with respect to each app category. Experiments on two real-world mobile app datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

Ultra-fast charging in aluminum-ion batteries: electric double layers on active anode

With the rapid iteration of portable electronics and electric vehicles, developing high-capacity batteries with ultra-fast charging capability has become a holy grail. Here we report rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries capable of reaching a high specific capacity of 200 mAh g−1. When liquid metal is further used to lower the energy barrier from the anode, fastest charging rate of 104 C (duration of 0.35 s to reach a full capacity) and 500% more specific capacity under high-rate conditions are achieved. Phase boundaries from the active anode are believed to encourage a high-flux charge transfer through the electric double layers. As a result, cationic layers inside the electric double layers responded with a swift change in molecular conformation, but anionic layers adopted a polymer-like configuration to facilitate the change in composition

The structure and function of the global citrus rhizosphere microbiome

Citrus is a globally important, perennial fruit crop whose rhizosphere microbiome is thought to play an important role in promoting citrus growth and health. Here, we report a comprehensive analysis of the structural and functional composition of the citrus rhizosphere microbiome. We use both amplicon and deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing of bulk soil and rhizosphere samples collected across distinct biogeographical regions from six continents. Predominant taxa include Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Acidobacteria and Bacteroidetes. The core citrus rhizosphere microbiome comprises Pseudomonas, Agrobacterium, Cupriavidus, Bradyrhizobium, Rhizobium, Mesorhizobium, Burkholderia, Cellvibrio, Sphingomonas, Variovorax and Paraburkholderia, some of which are potential plant beneficial microbes. We also identify over-represented microbial functional traits mediating plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions, nutrition acquisition and plant growth promotion in citrus rhizosphere. The results provide valuable information to guide microbial isolation and culturing and, potentially, to harness the power of the microbiome to improve plant production and health

Research on Constructing Composite Index of Objective Well-Being from China Mainland

This paper presents some results of the study employing the Quality of Life (QOL) index that was initiated in China during 1980s. Currently, some progress has been made in the research field. For one thing, many researchers defined QOL as a composite structure which included subjective and objective elements. Considerable summary of well-being indices has been constructed from different analysis units (e.g., cities, province, and nations). For another, statistical methods played an important part in determining the weights of these indices, either objective weighting or subjective weighting. This paper defines the concept of QOL as the quality of people's being, which is used in analyzing the well-being of people' living condition and also reflected their subjective well-being to the living condition. Based on this concept, an analytical system of Chinese people's well-being was elaborated. 115 indices from five aspects reflecting the characteristics of the Chinese people's objective well-being have been initially proposed. Economic well-being, health and basic survival well-being, social well-being, cultural well-being, political well-being and environmental well-being have been taken into consideration. Through the analysis of content validity of experts and correlation analysis, 58 indices were selected. The weights of the subjective and objective indices were determined through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and principal component method respectively. By combining the weight coefficients obtained from the two approaches, the composite indicator of Chinese people’s objective well-being was performed and the objective well-being level of 30 Chinese provinces was evaluated

Expression of MicroRNA-301a and its Functional Roles in Malignant Melanoma

Background/Aims: Although microRNA-301a has been reported to function as an oncogene in many human cancers, the roles of miR-301a in malignant melanoma (MM) is unclear. The present study aims to investigate the functional roles of miR-301a in MM and its possible molecular mechanisms. Methods: Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) assay was performed to detect the expression of miR-301a in MM tissues, and analyze its correlation with metastasis and prognosis of MM patients. In vitro, miR-301a was ectopically expressed using overexpression and knock-down strategies, and the effects of miR-301a expression on growth, apoptosis, migration, invasion and chemosensitivity of MM cells were further investigated. Furthermore, the potential and functional target gene was identified by luciferase reporter, qRT-PCR, Western blot assays. Results: We showed that the expression of miR-301a was significantly upregulated in MM tissues, and upregulation of miR-301a correlated with metastasis and poor prognosis of MM patients. Transfection of miR-301a/inhibitor significantly inhibited growth, colony formation, migration, invasion and enhanced apoptosis and chemosensitivity in MM cells, while transfection of miR-301a/mimic could induce the inverse effects on phenotypes of MM cells. Luciferase reporter, qRT-PCR and Western blot assays showed that phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) was a direct and functional target of miR-301a. It was also observed that the Akt and FAK signaling pathways were involved in miR-301/PTEN-promoting MM progression. Conclusion: Taken together, our study suggests that miR-301a may be used as a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of human MM

Application of Quantum Dots in Biological Imaging

Quantum dots (QDs) are a group of semiconducting nanomaterials with unique optical and electronic properties. They have distinct advantages over traditional fluorescent organic dyes in chemical and biological studies in terms of tunable emission spectra, signal brightness, photostability, and so forth. Currently, the major type of QDs is the heavy metal-containing II-IV, IV-VI, or III-V QDs. Silicon QDs and conjugated polymer dots have also been developed in order to lower the potential toxicity of the fluorescent probes for biological applications. Aqueous solubility is the common problem for all types of QDs when they are employed in the biological researches, such as in vitro and in vivo imaging. To circumvent this problem, ligand exchange and polymer coating are proven to be effective, besides synthesizing QDs in aqueous solutions directly. However, toxicity is another big concern especially for in vivo studies. Ligand protection and core/shell structure can partly solve this problem. With the rapid development of QDs research, new elements and new morphologies have been introduced to this area to fabricate more safe and efficient QDs for biological applications