Men, Women, Microblogging: Where Do We Stand?

With millions of users worldwide, microblogging has developed into a powerful tool for interaction and information dissemination. While both men and women readily use this technology, there are significant differences in how they embrace it. Understanding these differences is important to ensure gender parity, provide advertisers with actionable insights on the marketing potential of both groups, and to inform current theories on how microblogging affordances shape gender roles. So far, existing research has not provided a unified framework for such analysis, with gender insights scattered across multiple studies. To fill this gap, our study conducts a comprehensive meta-review of existing research. We find that current discourse offers a solid body of knowledge on gender differences in adoption, shared content, stylistic presentation, and a rather convoluted picture of female and male interaction. Together, our structured findings offer a deeper insight into the underlying dynamics of gender differences in microblogging

Pair Nodes Clock Synchronization Algorithm Based on Kalman Filter for Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Time synchronization is the basis of many applications. Aiming at the limitations of the existing clock synchronization algorithms in underwater wireless sensor networks, we propose a pairwise synchronization algorithm called K-Sync, which is based on the Kalman filter. The algorithm does not need the assistance of the position sensor or the speed sensor, and the high time synchronization accuracy can be realized only by utilizing the time-stamps information in the process of message exchange. The K-Sync uses the general constraints of the motion characteristics of the sensor nodes to establish the recursive equations of the clock skew, clock offset, relative mobility velocity, and relative distance. At the same time, the time-stamps are viewed as the observation variables and the system observation equation is obtained. The K-Sync estimates the normalized clock skew and offset of the node via the Kalman filter to achieve high-precision clock synchronization between the two nodes. The simulation shows that the K-Sync has obvious advantages in the key indicators such as the estimated accuracy of clock skew and clock offset, convergence speed, etc. In addition, the K-Sync is more robust to a variety of underwater motion scenes

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic control measures on amblyopia treatment: a retrospective study of records from a tertiary eye hospital in China

Objectives Amblyopia is the most common cause of unilateral visual impairment in children and requires long-term treatment. This study aimed to quantify the impact of pandemic control measures on amblyopia management.Design and setting This was a retrospective cohort study of data from a large amblyopia management database at a major tertiary eye care centre in China.Participants Outpatients with amblyopia who visited the hospital from 1 June 2019, through 28 February 2022.Primary and secondary outcome measures The primary outcome was the number of first and follow-up in-person visits to the hospital for amblyopia treatment. Secondary outcomes included the time interval between consecutive visits and improvement of vision (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and stereopsis). Patient records were grouped into prepandemic and during pandemic periods.Results A total of 10 060 face-to-face visits for 5361 patients (median age 6.7 years, IQR 5.4, 8.9) that spanned two lockdown periods were included in the analysis, of which 28% were follow-up visits. Pandemic control measures caused a sharp decline in the number of outpatient visits (3% and 30% of prepandemic levels in the months directly after the start of the first (2020) and second (2021) periods of pandemic control measures, respectively). However, these drops were followed by pronounced rebounds in visits that exceeded prepandemic levels by 51.1% and 108.5%, respectively. The interval between consecutive visits increased significantly during the pandemic from a median (IQR) of 120 (112, 127) days in 2019 to 197 (179, 224) in 2020 (p<0.001) and 189 (182, 221) in 2021 (p<0.001). There were no significant differences in the improvement of visual function or treatment compliance between the prepandemic and postpandemic groups.Conclusions The number of amblyopia patient hospital visits spiked well above prepandemic levels following lockdown periods. This pattern of patient behaviour can inform planning for amblyopia treatment services during and after public health-related disruptions

Data_Sheet_1_Assessing the contrast sensitivity function in myopic parafovea: A quick contrast sensitivity functions study.pdf

PurposeCompare peripheral contrast sensitivity functions (CSF) between myopes and emmetropes to reveal potential myogenic risks during emmetropization.Materials and methodsThis observational, cross-sectional, non-consecutive case study included data from 19 myopes (23.42 ± 4.03 years old) and 12 emmetropes (22.93 ± 2.91 years old) who underwent central and peripheral quick CSF (qCSF) measurements. Summary CSF metrics including the cut-off spatial frequency (cut-off SF), area under log CSF (AULCSF), low-, intermediate-, and high-spatial-frequency AULCSFs (l-, i-, and h-SF AULCSFs), and log CS at 19 SFs in the fovea and 15 peripheral locations (superior, inferior, temporal, and nasal quadrants at 6, 12, 18, and 24° eccentricities, excluding the physiological scotoma at 18°) were analyzed with 3-way and 4-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) (α = 0.05).ResultsThree-way ANOVA showed that myopes had significantly increased AULCSF at 6° (mean difference, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.02–0.13; P = 0.007) and 12° (mean difference, 0.09; 95% CI, 0.03–0.14; P = 0.003). Log CS at all 19 SFs were higher in the myopia group compared to the normal group (mean differencesuperior, 0.02; 95% CI, 0.01–0.20; P = 0.02 and mean differenceinferior, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.02–0.21; P = 0.01) at 12°. The h-SF AULCSF at 6° (mean differenceinferior, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.32–2.22; P = 0.009) and i-SF AULCSF at 12° (mean differencesuperior, 5.31; 95% CI, 4.35–6.27; P ConclusionWe found myopia increased contrast sensitivity in superior and inferior visual field locations at 6° parafoveal and 12° perifoveal regions of the retina. The observation of increased contrast sensitivities within the macula visual field in myopia might provide important insights for myopia control during emmetropization.</p