Regulated Market, Trapped Workers: The Impacts of the Tolerant and Prudent Policy on Labour Precarity in China’s Online Ridehailing Sector

Since 2017, China has adopted the tolerant and prudent policy in regulating emerging digital platform industries. The impacts of this policy on labour precarity have been rarely studied. Drawing on an original survey of over 600 ride-hailing drivers in two Chinese cities, Nanjing and Beijing, we conduct a political economy analysis for a three-party framework involving the municipal government, capital, and labour. We find that, in accordance with the tolerant and prudent principle, municipal governments stipulated regulations regarding the qualifications of ride-hailing vehicles and drivers. These regulations, although they can help reduce labour precarity in the marketplace for licensed drivers, have exacerbated precarity in the workplace. Specifically, in response to the regulations, the ride-hailing platforms aligned with third- party rental companies that provided licensed vehicles. This arrangement has effectively trapped many ride- hailing drivers in the industry: our quantitative analysis shows that drivers bounded by a rental or rent-to- own agreement worked significantly longer hours than counterparts who steered their own vehicles

Soliton States From Quadratic Electron-Phonon Interaction

We present the first numerically exact study of self-trapped, a.k.a. soliton, states of electrons that form in materials with strong quadratic coupling to the phonon coordinates. Previous studies failed to observe predictions based on the variational approach in continuum space because soliton states form only when system parameters are taken to the extreme limit. At the variational level, we establish that finite-radius solitons emerge through the weak first-order transition as the coupling strength is increased, and subsequently collapse to the single-site state through strong first-order transition. Both transitions transform into smooth crossovers between the light and heavy polaron states in the full quantum treatment. The most surprising effect not observed in any other polaron model is non-monotonic dependence of the soliton effective mass and the residue at strong coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Influence of welding quality on stability of SUS304 tube-compression by viscous pressure forming

One of the major problems affecting viscous pressure forming (VPF) is the stability of tubecompression, whereas the main defect influencing the stability of welded tube-compression is the quality of welded joints. This article utilizes the finite element method to analyze the influence of weld joint strength and width on stability of SUS304 tube-compression by VPF. Meanwhile, SUS304 welded tube-blanks with different weld joint strength and width are obtained by plasma welding, TIG-Tungsten Inert Gas welding, laser welding and high frequency welding and then the stability test by VPF is carried out. The results showed that the weld joint strength and width affect the stability of tube-compression. The system and process of controlling weld joint width can improve the stability of tube-blank preferably relative to weld joint strength

Influence of welding quality on stability of SUS304 tube-compression by viscous pressure forming

One of the major problems affecting viscous pressure forming (VPF) is the stability of tubecompression, whereas the main defect influencing the stability of welded tube-compression is the quality of welded joints. This article utilizes the finite element method to analyze the influence of weld joint strength and width on stability of SUS304 tube-compression by VPF. Meanwhile, SUS304 welded tube-blanks with different weld joint strength and width are obtained by plasma welding, TIG-Tungsten Inert Gas welding, laser welding and high frequency welding and then the stability test by VPF is carried out. The results showed that the weld joint strength and width affect the stability of tube-compression. The system and process of controlling weld joint width can improve the stability of tube-blank preferably relative to weld joint strength

Fine-Tuning Pre-Trained Language Models Effectively by Optimizing Subnetworks Adaptively

Large-scale pre-trained language models have achieved impressive results on a wide range of downstream tasks recently. However, fine-tuning an extremely large-scale pre-trained language model on limited target datasets is often plagued by overfitting and representation degradation. In this paper, we propose a Dynamic Parameter Selection (DPS) algorithm for the large-scale pre-trained models during fine-tuning, which adaptively selects a more promising subnetwork to perform staging updates based on gradients of back-propagation. Experiments on the GLUE benchmark show that DPS outperforms previous fine-tuning methods in terms of overall performance and stability, and consistently achieves better results with variable pre-trained language models. In addition, DPS brings a large magnitude of improvement in out-of-domain transferring experiments and low-resource scenarios, which shows that it can maintain stable general contextual features and reduce the representation collapse. We release our code at https://github.com/ZhangHaojie077/DPSComment: NeurIPS 202

Polaron with Quadratic Electron-phonon Interaction

We present the first numerically exact study of a polaron with quadratic coupling to the oscillator displacement, using two alternative methodological developments. Our results cover both anti-adiabatic and adiabatic regimes and the entire range of electron-phonon coupling $g_2$, from the system's stability threshold at attractive $g_2=-1$ to arbitrary strong repulsion at $g_2 \gg 1$. Key properties of quadratic polarons prove dramatically different from their linear counterparts. They (i) are insensitive even to large quadratic coupling except in the anti-adiabatic limit near the threshold of instability at attraction; (ii) depend only on the adiabatic ratio but are insensitive to the electron dispersion and dimension of space; (iii) feature weak lattice deformations even at the instability point. Our results are of direct relevance to properties of electrons at low densities in polar materials, including recent proposals for their superconducting states.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures + supplemental materia

Diploid mycelia of Ustilago esculenta fails to maintain sustainable proliferation in host plant

Smut fungi display a uniform life cycle including two phases: a saprophytic phase in vitro and a parasitic phase in host plants. Several apathogenic smut fungi are found, lacking suitable hosts in their habitat. Interestingly, MT-type Ustilago esculenta was found to maintain a parasitic life, lacking the saprophytic phase. Its long period of asexual proliferation in plant tissue results in severe defects in certain functions. In this study, the growth dynamics of U. esculenta in plant tissues were carefully observed. The mycelia of T- and MT-type U. esculenta exhibit rapid growth after karyogamy and aggregate between cells. While T-type U. esculenta successfully forms teliospores after aggregation, the aggregated mycelia of MT-type U. esculenta gradually disappeared after a short period of massive proliferation. It may be resulted by the lack of nutrition such as glucose and sucrose. After overwintering, infected Zizania latifolia plants no longer contained diploid mycelia resulting from karyogamy. This indicated that diploid mycelia failed to survive in plant tissues. It seems that diploid mycelium only serves to generate teliospores. Notably, MT-type U. esculenta keeps the normal function of karyogamy, though it is not necessary for its asexual life in plant tissue. Further investigations are required to uncover the underlying mechanism, which would improve our understanding of the life cycle of smut fungi and help the breeding of Z. latifolia

Enhanced sampling in molecular dynamics using metadynamics, replica-exchange, and temperature-acceleration

We review a selection of methods for performing enhanced sampling in molecular dynamics simulations. We consider methods based on collective variable biasing and on tempering, and offer both historical and contemporary perspectives. In collective-variable biasing, we first discuss methods stemming from thermodynamic integration that use mean force biasing, including the adaptive biasing force algorithm and temperature acceleration. We then turn to methods that use bias potentials, including umbrella sampling and metadynamics. We next consider parallel tempering and replica-exchange methods. We conclude with a brief presentation of some combination methods. \ua9 2013 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Preservation of Hezhen Fish Skin Tradition through Fashion Higher Education

The use of fish skin for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by coastal Arctic societies. A subsistence lifestyle developed depending on aquatic resources for food and clothing. Arctic indigenous peoples need formidable resourcefulness to thrive in inhospitable ecosystems; fish skin provide them physical and spiritual protection. During the last century, Arctic indigenous peoples resisted both colonization and repression by humans and dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. Fish skin craft became a way to communicate traditional knowledge combined with cultural resilience. As market goods have replaced traditional fish skin clothing, the need for the skills required to create these items have diminished. The decrease of local natural resources also threatens the craft. The film focus is primarily to identify the historical, cultural, environmental and socio-economic importance of fish skin as an innovative sustainable material. Secondarily, it proposes a vision of sustainability as an anthropological study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the Arctic indigenous peoples, their lifestyles and fish skin practices; and thirdly, it can help to preserve them. The application of the craft to fashion has been tested through a participatory workshop with fashion students from Central Saint Martins taught by Hezhen craftspeople to investigate how this material and the transmission of fish skin skills can contribute to sustainability practices in fashion. The Hezhen are one of China’s smallest ethnic minorities living in north eastern China by the Amur river basin, with a traditional economy based on hunting and fishing. In 2006, the Hezhen method of making clothes with fish skin was listed as intangible cultural heritage, and Wenfeng You – our main craftsperson during this workshop – was appointed its heir