Dynamical Behavior of Nonautonomous Stochastic Reaction-Diffusion Neural Network Models

This brief investigates nonautonomous stochastic reaction-diffusion neural-network models with S-type distributed delays. First, the existence and uniqueness of mild solution are studied under the Lipschitz condition without the linear growth condition. Due to the existence of a nonautonomous reaction-diffusion term and the infinite dimensional Wiener process, the criteria for the well-posedness of the models are established based on the evolution system theory. Then, the S-type distributed delay, which is an infinite delay, is handled by the truncation method, and sufficient conditions for the global exponential stability are obtained by constructing a simple Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional candidate. Finally, neural-network examples and an illustrative example are given to show the applications of the obtained results.</p

Ethnic discordance in serum anti-Müllerian hormone in healthy women: a population study from China and Europe

Research question: Chinese women are known to have an earlier age of natural menopause than their European counterparts, but whether they also have a lower functional ovarian reserve is unknown. This study was designed to assess whether there are ethnic differences in anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) concentrations in women of reproductive age. Design: Women in China and Europe with regular menstrual cycles, not on hormonal contraception and with no medical history of note, were recruited to provide a day 2–5 early follicular phase sample. AMH concentration was determined using the Roche Elecsys assay. Decline in AMH was modelled with linear, quadratic and quadratic with interaction on age equations to assess the impact of ethnicity. Results: A total of 887 European and 461 Chinese women participated in the study. Despite the Chinese population being slightly younger (34.1 ± 8.4 years) than their European counterparts (34.8±8.9 years), their median AMH was lower, at 1.87 ng/ml (interquartile range [IQR] 0.28–3.64) compared with 2.11 ng/ml (IQR 0.73–3.96), with evidence of increasing discordance from age 25 years. In all regression models of the age-related decline in AMH, there was evidence of a difference between Chinese and European women. Although AMH was 28.1% (95% confidence interval [CI] 18.2–36.7%) lower in the Chinese population at age 30, this decline increased to 79.4% (95% CI 75.4– 82.9%) at age 45. Conclusions: There were independent effects of age and ethnicity on serum AMH concentrations, with Chinese women having a substantially lower AMH in adult life than their European counterparts from age 25 onwards

Metabolomics Analytics Workflow for Epidemiological Research: Perspectives from the Consortium of Metabolomics Studies (COMETS)

The application of metabolomics technology to epidemiological studies is emerging as a new approach to elucidate disease etiology and for biomarker discovery. However, analysis of metabolomics data is complex and there is an urgent need for the standardization of analysis workflow and reporting of study findings. To inform the development of such guidelines, we conducted a survey of 47 cohort representatives from the Consortium of Metabolomics Studies (COMETS) to gain insights into the current strategies and procedures used for analyzing metabolomics data in epidemiological studies worldwide. The results indicated a variety of applied analytical strategies, from biospecimen and data pre-processing and quality control to statistical analysis and reporting of study findings. These strategies included methods commonly used within the metabolomics community and applied in epidemiological research, as well as novel approaches to pre-processing pipelines and data analysis. To help with these discrepancies, we propose use of open-source initiatives such as the online web-based tool COMETS Analytics, which includes helpful tools to guide analytical workflow and the standardized reporting of findings from metabolomics analyses within epidemiological studies. Ultimately, this will improve the quality of statistical analyses, research findings, and study reproducibility

Can Crop Insurance Encourage Farmers to Adopt Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Technology&mdash;The Evidence from Shandong Province in China

It is critical to encourage farmers to adopt agriculture technology that is beneficial to the environment in the context of the ongoing emphasis on the ecological growth of agriculture, yet risk and uncertainty diminish the incentive to adopt these technologies. This research examines whether crop insurance might affect and increase willingness to adopt Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Technology (EFAT) from a psychological perspective, utilizing data from 219 questionnaires in Shandong Province. The findings suggest that crop insurance can boost readiness to embrace technology in three ways: motivation, ability, and opportunity; however, the positive effect of motivation on farmers diminishes as capacity increases. Insurance companies must offer products that contain the risk of adopting EFAT as an insurance obligation as soon as feasible to successfully boost willingness to use technologies and collaborate with agricultural technology departments to provide farmers with training as well as disaster avoidance services

Can Crop Insurance Encourage Farmers to Adopt Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Technology—The Evidence from Shandong Province in China

It is critical to encourage farmers to adopt agriculture technology that is beneficial to the environment in the context of the ongoing emphasis on the ecological growth of agriculture, yet risk and uncertainty diminish the incentive to adopt these technologies. This research examines whether crop insurance might affect and increase willingness to adopt Environmentally Friendly Agricultural Technology (EFAT) from a psychological perspective, utilizing data from 219 questionnaires in Shandong Province. The findings suggest that crop insurance can boost readiness to embrace technology in three ways: motivation, ability, and opportunity; however, the positive effect of motivation on farmers diminishes as capacity increases. Insurance companies must offer products that contain the risk of adopting EFAT as an insurance obligation as soon as feasible to successfully boost willingness to use technologies and collaborate with agricultural technology departments to provide farmers with training as well as disaster avoidance services