Taking your next vacation from home: Motivations and impacts of using live-streaming tourism

The research investigates a novel and alternative form of tourism, namely, live-streaming tourism (LST). Live-streaming tourism empowers individuals to experience new destinations at home without the risks associated with large-scale travel. Meanwhile, it boosts the economy by enabling destinations and micro-entrepreneurs to launch an alternative business model and create new employment opportunities. Specifically, the current study proposes and tests a conceptual model of viewers’ motivations and consequences of using live-streaming tourism based on the United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2.0 (UTAUT2). We explore how existing UTAUT2 antecedents, together with newly incorporated LST antecedents, affect viewers’ reuse and Word-of-Mouth intention of LST through the mediated effect of co-creation value. We adopt an online survey method to collect an estimated sample of 1000 viewers who have participated in live-streaming tourism in the past twelve months

Reconstruction of regional and national population using intermittent census-type data: the case of Portugal, 1527-1864

We offer a new methodology for the construction of annual population stocks over the very long run. Our method does not require the assumption of a closed economy, and can be used in situations in which local annual gross flows are obtainable. Combining gross flows with intermittent census-type data, it is possible to arrive at local, regional and national population stock estimates at annual frequencies. We provide an application to early modern and nineteenth century Portugal, using a large sample of parishlevel statistics up to the first modern census of 1864. All six major regions of the country are considered.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

STUDY ON A NEW DESIGN OF GROUTING PUMP FOR MANAGING WATER INRUSH IN KARST TUNNELS

The low flow rate and efficiency of existing grouting pumps such as piston pumps and diaphragm pumps result in difficulty in managing sudden water and slurry discharges. In this study, a new design for grouting pumps is proposed to improve the grouting flow rate and efficiency. A grouting model test scheme to manage the water inrush of a tubular karst is designed. The power consumption of this system is equivalent to that of a diaphragm grouting pump. Improved performance was also observed for the newly designed rotary piston pump in grouting plugging tests. The retention of slurry and changes in moving water flow are observed and recorded to examine the grouting effects of the pumps. In addition, the pressure and flow rate changes of the grouting slurry are used to gauge the performance parameters of the pumps. A rotary piston pump and a traditional piston pump were tested in single- and separate-hole grouting experiments in tunnel engineering sites. In the grouting model test, which manages the water inrush of a tubular karst, the newly designed rotary piston pump had a distinct advantage in terms of the slurry retention thickness and fracture sealing effect. In particular, the efficiency of the rotary piston pump increased by a factor of 10 over the diaphragm grouting pump. During the experiments in the engineering site, the grouting flow rate of the rotary piston pump showed significant increase when compared to the traditional piston pump. The construction time was halved. The proposed rotary piston grouting pump has shown obvious advantages over existing grouting pumps

The application and sustainable development of coral in traditional medicine and its chemical composition, pharmacology, toxicology, and clinical research

This review discusses the variety, chemical composition, pharmacological effects, toxicology, and clinical research of corals used in traditional medicine in the past two decades. At present, several types of medicinal coral resources are identified, which are used in 56 formulas such as traditional Chinese medicine, Tibetan medicine, Mongolian medicine, and Uyghur medicine. A total of 34 families and 99 genera of corals are involved in medical research, with the Alcyoniidae family and Sarcophyton genus being the main research objects. Based on the structural types of compounds and the families and genera of corals, this review summarizes the compounds primarily reported during the period, including terpenoids, steroids, nitrogen-containing compounds, and other terpenoids dominated by sesquiterpene and diterpenes. The biological activities of coral include cytotoxicity (antitumor and anticancer), anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antibacterial, antiviral, immunosuppressive, antioxidant, and neurological properties, and a detailed summary of the mechanisms underlying these activities or related targets is provided. Coral toxicity mostly occurs in the marine ornamental soft coral Zoanthidae family, with palytoxin as the main toxic compound. In addition, nonpeptide neurotoxins are extracted from aquatic corals. The compatibility of coral-related preparations did not show significant acute toxicity, but if used for a long time, it will still cause toxicity to the liver, kidneys, lungs, and other internal organs in a dose-dependent manner. In clinical applications, individual application of coral is often used as a substitute for orthopedic materials to treat diseases such as bone defects and bone hyperplasia. Second, coral is primarily available in the form of compound preparations, such as Ershiwuwei Shanhu pills and Shanhu Qishiwei pills, which are widely used in the treatment of neurological diseases such as migraine, primary headache, epilepsy, cerebral infarction, hypertension, and other cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is undeniable that the effectiveness of coral research has exacerbated the endangered status of corals. Therefore, there should be no distinction between the advantages and disadvantages of listed endangered species, and it is imperative to completely prohibit their use and provide equal protection to help them recover to their normal numbers. This article can provide some reference for research on coral chemical composition, biological activity, chemical ecology, and the discovery of marine drug lead compounds. At the same time, it calls for people to protect endangered corals from the perspectives of prohibition, substitution, and synthesis

Sealing System Analysis of Rotary Piston Pump

Rotary piston pump is designed by the Wankel engine. The structure, working feature and sealing system of rotary piston pump are introduced. The mathematical model of the internal cylinder profile and the theoretical flow are obtained by analysing the structural characteristics of the new pump. The axial seal and face seal of the rotary piston pump and their structures are analysed. The force analysis of the sealing strip is carried out in various cases. It can be concluded from the analysis that, for axial sealing, the key parameters that affect seal strip wear are working pressure, rotate speed of the crankshaft and the friction coefficient between sealing strip and inner wall of the cylinder. For axial sealing, the force of the spring under the curved sealing strips, the size of the sealing rings and curved sealing strips and material of them are the key design parameters

Networked Time Series Prediction with Incomplete Data

A networked time series (NETS) is a family of time series on a given graph, one for each node. It has a wide range of applications from intelligent transportation, environment monitoring to smart grid management. An important task in such applications is to predict the future values of a NETS based on its historical values and the underlying graph. Most existing methods require complete data for training. However, in real-world scenarios, it is not uncommon to have missing data due to sensor malfunction, incomplete sensing coverage, etc. In this paper, we study the problem of NETS prediction with incomplete data. We propose NETS-ImpGAN, a novel deep learning framework that can be trained on incomplete data with missing values in both history and future. Furthermore, we propose Graph Temporal Attention Networks, which incorporate the attention mechanism to capture both inter-time series and temporal correlations. We conduct extensive experiments on four real-world datasets under different missing patterns and missing rates. The experimental results show that NETS-ImpGAN outperforms existing methods, reducing the MAE by up to 25%

The relationship between urinary selenium levels and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: A nested case–control study

BackgroundSelenium (Se) is an essential trace element for the human body. Serum Se and urinary Se are also biomarkers to assess Se exposure status. However, studies focusing on the association between urinary Se and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are rare.ObjectiveTo investigate the association between urinary Se and the risk of GDM.MethodsA nested case–control study based on a prospective birth cohort in Wuhan, China, which focuses on the effects of prenatal environmental factors exposure on pregnant women and children’s health was conducted. Two hundred and twenty-six cases and 452 controls were included. Maternal urine samples were collected before GDM diagnosis, and the urinary Se levels were determined. We assessed the association of urinary Se with GDM by conditional logistic regression with maternal urinary Se level as a categorical variable, and estimated the association between Se and glucose levels by multiple linear regression. The potential modifier roles of maternal age and fetal sex have also been assessed.ResultsLower urinary level of Se was significantly associated with a higher risk of GDM (OR = 2.35 for the tertile 1, 95% CI:1.36-4.06; adjusted OR = 1.79 for the tertile 2, 95%CI:1.09-2.95; p for trend = 0.01). Fetal sex had an interaction with Se in the association with GDM. The association was more pronounced among pregnant women with female fetuses than with male fetuses.DiscussionOur study suggested a significant negative association between urinary Se and the risk of GDM, and this association may vary depending on the fetal sex

MoIVD-Mediated Leucine Catabolism Is Required for Vegetative Growth, Conidiation and Full Virulence of the Rice Blast Fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

Isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase (IVD), a member of the acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (ACAD) family, is a key enzyme catalyzing the conversion of isovaleryl-CoA to β-methylcrotonyl-CoA in the third reaction of the leucine catabolism pathway and simultaneously transfers electrons to the electron-transferring flavoprotein (ETF) for ATP synthesis. We previously identified the ETF ortholog in rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae (MoETF) and showed that MoETF was essential for fungal growth, conidiation and pathogenicity. To further investigate the biological function of electron-transferring proteins and clarify the role of leucine catabolism in growth and pathogenesis, we characterized MoIVD (M. oryzaeisovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase). MoIvd is highly conserved in fungi and its expression was highly induced by leucine. The Δmoivd mutants showed reduced growth, decreased conidiation and compromised pathogenicity, while the conidial germination and appressorial formation appeared normal. Consistent with a block in leucine degradation, the Δmoivd mutants accumulated isovaleric acid, grew more slowly, fully lacked pigmentation and completely failed to produce conidia on leucine-rich medium. These defects were largely rescued by raising the extracellular pH, suggesting that the accumulation of isovaleric acid contributes to the growth and conidiation defects. However, the reduced virulence of the mutants was probably due to their inability to overcome oxidative stress, since a large amount of ROS (reactive oxygen species) accumulated in infected host cell. In addition, MoIvd is localized to mitochondria and interacted with its electron receptor MoEtfb, the β subunit of MoEtf. Taken together, our results suggest that MoIVD functions in leucine catabolism and is required for the vegetative growth, conidiation and full virulence of M. oryzae, providing the first evidence for IVD-mediated leucine catabolism in the development and pathogenesis of plant fungal pathogens