How Rumors Spread and Stop over Social Media: a Multi-Layered Communication Model and Empirical Analysis

In this paper, we present a multi-layered communication (MLC) model that includes a trust-constructing procedure that can be used to explain how rumors spread and stop over social media. We define two structures in our MLC model: the social structure (SS) in the social layer, and the communication structure (CS) in the communicating layer. We propose two trust-building mechanisms (TBM): the social-based TBM (SBTBM) and the communicating-aimed TBM (CATBM). We discuss the trust-constructing procedure to demonstrate that an individual will sequentially decide to spread information based on three factors: the opinion environment, the individual’s social influence, and the cost to confirm the information. The model predicts that individuals will tend to create links with others in social layers to extend their social structures (social clustering principle) when they use social media. Thus, a rumor will spread because a spreading core is formed in the CS. However, a rumor will be stopped by interactions that occur in the SS. Our empirical case supports this prediction. We analyzed the topology of CS to indicate how a spreading core forms and CS evolves, and how a rumor stops spreading because social behaviors in SS encourage the development of more accurate information based on reality

Differential sensitivity of the cystic fibrosis (CF)-associated mutants G551D and G1349D to potentiators of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl- channel.

The genetic disease cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by loss of function of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl- channel. Two CF mutants, G551D and G1349D, affect equivalent residues in the highly conserved LSGGQ motifs that are essential components of the ATP-binding sites of CFTR. Both mutants severely disrupt CFTR channel gating by decreasing mean burst duration (MBD) and prolonging greatly the interburst interval (IBI). To identify small molecules that rescue the gating defects of G551D- and G1349D-CFTR and understand better how these agents work, we used the patch clamp technique to study the effects on G551D- and G1349D-CFTR of phloxine B, pyrophosphate (PP(i)), and 2'-deoxy ATP (2'-dATP), three agents that strongly enhance CFTR channel gating. Phloxine B (5 microm) potentiated robustly G551D-CFTR Cl- channels by altering both MBD and IBI. In contrast, phloxine B (5 microm) decreased the IBI of G1349D-CFTR, but this effect was insufficient to rescue G1349D-CFTR channel gating. PP(i) (5 mm) potentiated weakly G551D-CFTR and was without effect on the G1349D-CFTR Cl- channel. However, by altering both MBD and IBI, albeit with different efficacies, 2'-dATP (1 mm) potentiated both G551D- and G1349D-CFTR Cl- channels. Using the ATP-driven nucleotide-binding domain dimerization model of CFTR channel gating, we suggest that phloxine B, PP(i) and 2'-dATP alter channel gating by distinct mechanisms. We conclude that G551D- and G1349D-CFTR have distinct pharmacological profiles and speculate that drug therapy for CF is likely to be mutation-specific

Effect of total stress path and gas volume change on undrained shear strength of gassy clay

Clay with free gas bubbles can be frequently encountered in the seabed. Gassy clay is an unsaturated soil, but its mechanical behavior cannot be described using conventional unsaturated soil mechanics because it has a composite internal structure with a saturated soil matrix and gas bubbles. The gas bubbles can have either a detrimental or beneficial effect on the undrained shear strength of clay. New lower and upper bounds for the undrained shear strength of gassy clay are derived by considering the effect of total stress path and plastic hardening of the saturated soil matrix. For the upper bound, it is assumed that there is only bubble flooding, and the shear strength of an unsaturated soil sample is the same as that of the saturated soil matrix. Bubble flooding makes the saturated soil matrix partially drained and increases the undrained shear strength. The amount of bubble flooding is calculated using the modified Cam-Clay model and Boyle's law for ideal gas. The lower bound is derived based on the assumption that the entire soil fails without bubble flooding and the gas cavity size evolves due to plastic hardening of the saturated soil matrix. Compared with Wheeler's upper and lower bounds that do not consider plastic hardening of the saturated soil matrix, the new theoretical results give a better prediction of the undrained shear strength of gassy clays, especially for the upper bound. Implications for constitutive modeling of gassy clay are discussed based on the new research outcomes

Cognitive flexibility as a protective factor for empathy

Although cognitive flexibility has always been considered essential to empathy, the relevant findings have been inconsistent. Inconsistent results may be because cognitive flexibility is a multi-level structure, while empathy is also a multilayer structure, and there are differences in how researchers define and measure cognitive flexibility. Therefore, the study explores the relationship between cognitive flexibility and empathy from a multi-dimensional perspective. This study involved 105 China students aged between 18 and 22 (M age = 20.26, SD = 2.00) who completed the Cognitive Flexibility Scale (cognitive flexibility trait, cognitive flexibility at the individual level), perspective-switching flexibility task (perspective-switching flexibility, cognitive flexibility at the cognitive level), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index scale (IRI, traits empathy), Multi-dimensional Empathy Test (state empathy), 2-back task (inhibitory control), and Stroop task (working memory). After controlling for additional variables, the results showed that: (1) Cognitive flexibility traits negatively predicted trait cognitive (IRI-PT) and affective empathy (IRI-EC). (2) The Other/Self perspective-switching flexibility negatively predicted the affective component of state empathy. (3) Cognitive flexibility traits and Other/Self perspective-switching flexibility negatively predicted empathy even after controlling for one of these. The study’s results suggested that cognitive flexibility negatively predicts empathy and is a protective factor for reducing the cost of empathy and promoting emotion regulation

Codeposition of Platinum and Gold on Nickel Wire Electrodes via Galvanic Replacement Reactions for Electrocatalytic Oxidation of Alcohols

Codeposition of Pt and Au on Ni wire was performed using a simple treatment of immersing Ni wire in aqueous solutions containing both K₂PtCl₄ and HAuCl₄. For evaluating the electrochemical properties of the thus-prepared electrodes, cyclic voltammograms (CVs) of 1.0 M ethanol in 1.0 M NaOH aqueous solutions were recorded. Compared with Pt- or Au-deposited Ni wire electrodes prepared by treating Ni wire in aqueous solutions of a single component, e.g., 1.0 mM K₂PtCl₄ or 1.0 mM HAuCl₄, a noteworthy increase in the electrocatalytic current was observed for the oxidation of ethanol with a PtAu-codeposited Ni (PtAu/Ni) wire electrode even when it was prepared in an aqueous solution containing both 0.10 mM K₂PtCl₄ and 0.10 mM HAuCl₄. In addition, the shape and the peak potentials of CVs recorded using PtAu/Ni wire electrodes were found to be different from those recorded with the Pt- or Au-deposited Ni wire electrodes. Because the CV responses typical of the PtAu/Ni wire electrodes were observed even when a PtAu/Ni wire electrode was prepared in an aqueous solution containing both 0.010 mM K₂PtCl₄ and 1.0 mM HAuCl₄, it is considered that a small amount of Pt was effectively modified or incorporated and affected the electrochemical properties significantly. The CV results for ethanol oxidation were compared with those for the electrocatalytic oxidations of methanol, 1-propanol, and 2-propanol. Besides, the CV results recorded with the present PtAu/Ni wire electrodes are discussed in comparison with some previous results obtained using other PtAu nanoelectrocatalysts

Modification with platinum of silver-deposited nickel wire electrodes for electrocatalytic oxidation of alcohols

A silver-deposited nickel (Ag/Ni) wire electrode was prepared via a galvanic replacement reaction between Ag⁺ and Ni wire in aqueous solution. It was then found that the Ag/Ni wire electrode could be modified with Pt simply by treating it in an aqueous solution of K₂PtCl₄. Although the deposition of Ag on Ni wire was limited in amount, forming Ag deposits less than 100 nm in size, a considerable increase in the electrocatalytic currents for the oxidation of alcohols could be observed after further modification of the Ag/Ni wire electrodes with Pt. This is in contrast to the fact that it was difficult to produce sufficient electrocatalytic response by modifying Ni wire with Pt directly via a simple galvanic replacement between PtCl₄²⁻ and Ni wire. Thus, the prior deposition of Ag was found to strongly promote modification with Pt via a simple stepwise treatment using AgNO₃ and K₂PtCl₄. This approach should be effective in modifying various Ni materials with Pt, including Ni microparticles

QLLM: Accurate and Efficient Low-Bitwidth Quantization for Large Language Models

Large Language Models (LLMs) excel in NLP, but their demands hinder their widespread deployment. While Quantization-Aware Training (QAT) offers a solution, its extensive training costs make Post-Training Quantization (PTQ) a more practical approach for LLMs. In existing studies, activation outliers in particular channels are identified as the bottleneck to PTQ accuracy. They propose to transform the magnitudes from activations to weights, which however offers limited alleviation or suffers from unstable gradients, resulting in a severe performance drop at low-bitwidth. In this paper, we propose QLLM, an accurate and efficient low-bitwidth PTQ method designed for LLMs. QLLM introduces an adaptive channel reassembly technique that reallocates the magnitude of outliers to other channels, thereby mitigating their impact on the quantization range. This is achieved by channel disassembly and channel assembly, which first breaks down the outlier channels into several sub-channels to ensure a more balanced distribution of activation magnitudes. Then similar channels are merged to maintain the original channel number for efficiency. Additionally, an adaptive strategy is designed to autonomously determine the optimal number of sub-channels for channel disassembly. To further compensate for the performance loss caused by quantization, we propose an efficient tuning method that only learns a small number of low-rank weights while freezing the pre-trained quantized model. After training, these low-rank parameters can be fused into the frozen weights without affecting inference. Extensive experiments on LLaMA-1 and LLaMA-2 show that QLLM can obtain accurate quantized models efficiently. For example, QLLM quantizes the 4-bit LLaMA-2-70B within 10 hours on a single A100-80G GPU, outperforming the previous state-of-the-art method by 7.89% on the average accuracy across five zero-shot tasks.Comment: ICLR 2024 camera ready; Code is available at https://github.com/ziplab/QLLM and https://github.com/ModelTC/QLL

Sugemalimab combined with chemotherapy for the treatment of advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: a cost-effectiveness analysis

BackgroundThis study aims to systematically analyze the cost-effectiveness of the combination therapy comprising sugemalimab and chemotherapy in the management of advanced ESCC from the Chinese healthcare system perspective.MethodsAn advanced ESCC patient simulation partitioned survival approach model was developed to mimic the disease progression of patients undergoing treatment with sugemalimab in combination with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone. To ensure accuracy and precision, clinical data, treatment costs, and utility values were collected from comprehensive clinical trials and reliable economic databases. The cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted by assessing the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in relation to the established willingness-to-pay threshold. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the robustness of the model.ResultsThe cumulative expenditure for the group of patients administered with sugemalimab amounted to US$41734.87, whereas the placebo group was associated with a total cost of US$ 22926.25. By evaluating the ICER, which quantifies the additional cost incurred per QALY gained, a value of US$61066.96 per QALY was determined. It is imperative to note that this ICER value surpasses the predetermined threshold for WTP in China, set at US$ 39,855.79 per QALY. Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that the results were sensitive to the cost of sugemalimab, progression-free survival, and utility values. These fluctuations did not result in a reversal of the study findings.ConclusionThe combination of sugemalimab with chemotherapy for the treatment of ESCC in China is currently not considered a cost-effective therapeutic approach. However, it is suggested that additional reductions in price may facilitate the potential for achieving cost-effectiveness

Relationship between the cumulative exposure to atherogenic index of plasma and ischemic stroke: A retrospective cohort study

Background: Atherogenic index of plasma (AIP) has been demonstrated as a surrogate marker for ischemic stroke, but there is limited evidence for the effect of long-term elevation of AIP on ischemic stroke. Therefore, we aimed to characterize the relationship between cumulative exposure to AIP and the risk of ischemic stroke. Methods: A total of 54,123 participants in the Kailuan Study who attended consecutive health examinations in 2006, 2008, and 2010 and had no history of ischemic stroke or cancer were included. The time-weighted cumulative AIP (cumAIP) was calculated as a weighted sum of the mean AIP values for each time interval and then normalized to the total duration of exposure (2006–2010). Participants were divided into four groups according to quartile of cumAIP: the Q1 group, ≤ −0.50; Q2 group, − 0.50 to − 0.12; Q3 group, − 0.12 to 0.28; and Q4 group, ≥ 0.28. Cox proportional hazard models were used to evaluate the relationship between cumAIP and ischemic stroke by calculating hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs). Results: After a median follow-up of 11.03 years, a total of 2,742 new ischemic stroke events occurred. The risk of ischemic stroke increased with increasing quartile of cumAIP. After adjustment for potential confounders, Cox regression models showed that participants in the Q2, Q3, and Q4 groups had significantly higher risks of ischemic stroke than those in the Q1 group. The HRs (95% CIs) for ischemic stroke in the Q2, Q3, and Q4 groups were 1.17 (1.03, 1.32), 1.33 (1.18, 1.50), and 1.45 (1.28, 1.64), respectively. The longer duration of high AIP exposure was significantly associated with increased ischemic stroke risk. Conclusions: High cumulative AIP is associated with a higher risk of ischemic stroke, which implies that the long-term monitoring and maintenance of an appropriate AIP may help prevent such events