Efficient Task Offloading Algorithm for Digital Twin in Edge/Cloud Computing Environment

In the era of Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twin (DT) is envisioned to empower various areas as a bridge between physical objects and the digital world. Through virtualization and simulation techniques, multiple functions can be achieved by leveraging computing resources. In this process, Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) and Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) have become two of the key factors to achieve real-time feedback. However, current works only considered edge servers or cloud servers in the DT system models. Besides, The models ignore the DT with not only one data resource. In this paper, we propose a new DT system model considering a heterogeneous MEC/MCC environment. Each DT in the model is maintained in one of the servers via multiple data collection devices. The offloading decision-making problem is also considered and a new offloading scheme is proposed based on Distributed Deep Learning (DDL). Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can effectively and efficiently decrease the system's average latency and energy consumption. Significant improvement is achieved compared with the baselines under the dynamic environment of DTs

The impact of different benefit packages of Medical Financial Assistance Scheme on health service utilization of poor population in Rural China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since 2003 and 2005, National Pilot Medical Financial Assistance Scheme (MFA) has been implemented in rural and urban areas of China to improve the poorest families' accessibility to health services. Local governments of the pilot areas formulated various benefit packages. Comparative evaluation research on the effect of different benefit packages is urgently needed to provide evidence for improving policy-making of MFA. This study was based on a MFA pilot project, which was one component of Health VIII Project conducted in rural China. This article aimed to compare difference in health services utilization of poor families between two benefit package project areas: H8 towns (package covering inpatient service, some designated preventive and curative health services but without out-patient service reimbursement in Health VIII Project,) and H8SP towns (package extending coverage of target population, covering out- patient services and reducing co-payment rate in Health VIII Supportive Project), and to find out major influencing factors on their services utilization.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2004, which used stratified cluster sampling method to select poor families who have been enrolled in MFA scheme in rural areas of ChongQing. All family members of the enrolled households were interviewed. 748 and 1129 respondents from two kinds of project towns participated in the survey. Among them, 625 and 869 respondents were included (age≥15) in the analysis of this study. Two-level linear multilevel model and binomial regressions with a log link were used to assess influencing factors on different response variables measuring service utilization.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In general, there was no statistical significance in physician visits and hospitalizations among all the respondents between the two kinds of benefit package towns. After adjusting for major confounding factors, poor families in H8SP towns had much higher frequency of MFA use (β = 1.17) and less use of hospitalization service (OR = 0.7 (H8SP/H8), 95%CI (0.5, 1.0)) among all the respondents. While calculating use of hospital services among those who needed, there was significant difference (p = 0.032) in percentage of hospitalization use between H8SP towns (46%) and H8 towns (33%). Meanwhile, the non-use but ought-to-use hospitalization ratio of H8SP (54%) was lower than that of H8 (67 %) towns. This indicated that hospitalization utilizations had improved in H8SP towns among those who needed. Awareness of MFA detailed benefit package and presence of physician diagnosed chronic disease had significant association with frequency of MFA use and hospitalizations. There was no significant difference in rate of borrowing money for illness treatment between the two project areas. Large amount of medical debt had strong association with hospitalization utilization.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The new extended benefit package implemented in pilot towns significantly increased the poor families' accessibility to MFA package in H8SP than that of H8 towns, which reduced poor families' demand of hospitalization services for their chronic diseases, and improved the poor population's utilization of out-patient services to some degree. It can encourage poor people to use more outpatient services thus reduce their hospitalization need. Presence of chronic disease and hospitalization had strong association with the presence of large amount of medical debt, which indicated that: although establishment of MFA had facilitated accessibility of poor families to this new system, and improved service utilization of poor families to some degree, but its role in reducing poor families' medical debt resulted from chronic disease and hospitalization was still very limited. Besides, the following requirements of MFA: co-payment for in-patient services, ceiling and deductibles for reimbursement, limitations on eligibility for diseases reimbursement, also served as most important obstacles for poor families' access to health care.</p> <p>Therefore, there is great need to improve MFA benefit package design in the future, including extending to cover out-patient services, raising ceiling for reimbursement, removing deductibles of MFA, reducing co-payment rate, and integrating MFA with New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme more closely so as to provide more protection to the poor families.</p

18F-FDG PET/CT may be a suitable method for preoperative diagnosis and evaluation of Chinese older patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma

Abstract Background As the most common cholangiocarcinoma, hilar cholangiocarcinoma (HCCA) is a challenge in hepatobiliary surgery and causes a very poor prognosis. This study was designed to explore whether 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) may be a suitable method for preoperative diagnosis and evaluation of Chinese older patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma. Methods This study enrolled 53 patients (≥ 65 years) with HCCA. 18F-FDG PET/CT scan was performed in all patients within one week before operation. Results 18F-FDG PET/CT identified the tumors in all patients (100%). There were 48 patients (90.6%) with the same Bismuth-Corlette classifications determined by 18F-FDG PET/CT and operative pathology, whereas Bismuth-Corlette classifications of 5 patients (9.4%) were underestimated by 18F-FDG PET/CT compared with that determined by operative pathology. 18F-FDG PET/CT identified 19 patients (sensitivity: 67.9%) in 28 patients with lymph node metastases, and 22 patients (specificity: 88.0%) in 25 patients without lymph node metastases, with an accuracy of 77.4%. 18F-FDG PET/CT identified 8 patients (sensitivity: 47.1%) in 17 patients with liver, peritoneal or other distant metastases, and 35 patients (specificity: 97.2%) in 36 patients without liver, peritoneal or other distant metastases, with an accuracy of 81.1%. 18F-FDG PET/CT identified 17 patients (sensitivity: 73.9%) in 23 patients with unresectable tumors, and 24 patients (specificity: 80.0%) in 30 patients with resectable tumors, with an accuracy of 77.4%. Conclusions 18F-FDG PET/CT may be a suitable method for preoperative diagnosis and evaluation, and offer valuable information for effective operation in Chinese older patients with HCCA

A Tent Map Based A

Force and tactile sensors are basic elements for robot perception and control, which call for large range and high-accuracy amplifier. In this paper, a novel A/D conversion circuit for array tactile sensor is proposed by using nonlinear tent map phenomenon, which is characterized by sensitivity to small signal and nonlinear amplifying function. The tent map based A/D conversion circuits can simultaneously realize amplifying and A/D converting functions. The proposed circuit is not only simple but also easy to integrate and produce. It is very suited for multipath signal parallel sampling and A/D converting of large array tactile sensor

A Tent Map Based / Conversion Circuit for Robot Tactile Sensor

Force and tactile sensors are basic elements for robot perception and control, which call for large range and high-accuracy amplifier. In this paper, a novel / conversion circuit for array tactile sensor is proposed by using nonlinear tent map phenomenon, which is characterized by sensitivity to small signal and nonlinear amplifying function. The tent map based / conversion circuits can simultaneously realize amplifying and / converting functions. The proposed circuit is not only simple but also easy to integrate and produce. It is very suited for multipath signal parallel sampling and / converting of large array tactile sensor

Research on the design and verification of the charging compatibility for electric vehicle ChaoJi charging

The international mainstream DC charging systems CHAdeMO 2.0 in Japan, GB/T 2015 in China, CCS1/CCS2 in Europe, and the U.S. have different control pilot circuit and the coupler designs. Control pilot circuit is an important component of the electric vehicle (EV) charging system and is used to monitor the function of the interaction between the EV and the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE). Existing system designs can make the difficult to achieve the compatibility between different charging systems, and reduce the user experience. This study first analyzes the practical applications of four existing mainstream DC charging systems. There are certain defects in structural design, safety, compatibility, and control pilot function, the introduction of a new generation of ChaoJi charging technology will change all these. Meanwhile the vehicle adapter design solution can perfectly solve the problem of physical compatibility between the existing charging system and ChaoJi vehicle. In addition, a new control pilot circuit design is proposed, to identify normal charging and abnormal states by hard node signals and states switches. By building a test environment, this new control pilot circuit has proven to its excellent characteristics in terms of fault monitoring, backward compatibility, and future-proof applications. ChaoJi charging technology has been adopted by CHAdeMO 3.0, laying the foundation for a globally harmonized charging system

Applicability Analysis of GF-2PMS and PLANETSCOPE Data for Ground Object Recognition in Karst Region

Remote sensing image with high spatial and temporal resolution is very important for rational planning and scientific management of land resources. However, due to the influence of satellite resolution, revisit period, and cloud pollution, it is difficult to obtain high spatial and temporal resolution images. In order to effectively solve the “space–time contradiction” problem in remote sensing application, based on GF-2PMS (GF-2) and PlanetSope (PS) data, this paper compares and analyzes the applicability of FSDAF (flexible spatiotemporal data fusion), STDFA (the spatial temporal data fusion approach), and Fit_FC (regression model fitting, spatial filtering, and residual compensation) in different terrain conditions in karst area. The results show the following. (1) For the boundary area of water and land, the FSDAF model has the best fusion effect in land boundary recognition, and provides rich ground object information. The Fit_FC model is less effective, and the image is blurry. (2) For areas such as mountains, with large changes in vegetation coverage, the spatial resolution of the images fused by the three models is significantly improved. Among them, the STDFA model has the clearest and richest spatial structure information. The fused image of the Fit_FC model has the highest similarity with the verification image, which can better restore the coverage changes of crops and other vegetation, but the actual spatial resolution of the fused image is relatively poor, the image quality is fuzzy, and the land boundary area cannot be clearly identified. (3) For areas with dense buildings, such as cities, the fusion image of the FSDAF and STDFA models is clearer and the Fit_FC model can better reflect the changes in land use. In summary, compared with the Fit_FC model, the FSDAF model and the STDFA model have higher image prediction accuracy, especially in the recognition of building contours and other surface features, but they are not suitable for the dynamic monitoring of vegetation such as crops. At the same time, the image resolution of the Fit_FC model after fusion is slightly lower than that of the other two models. In particular, in the water–land boundary area, the fusion accuracy is poor, but the model of Fit_FC has unique advantages in vegetation dynamic monitoring. In this paper, three spatiotemporal fusion models are used to fuse GF-2 and PS images, which improves the recognition accuracy of surface objects and provides a new idea for fine classification of land use in karst areas

The PARK2 Mutation Associated with Parkinson’s Disease Enhances the Vulnerability of Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes to Paraquat

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in middle-aged and elderly people. However, the etiology and pathogenesis of PD are still unclear and there is a lack of reliable biomarkers for early molecular diagnosis. Parkin (encoded by PARK2) is a ubiquitin E3 ligase that participates in mitochondrial homeostasis, the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, oxidative stress response, and cell death pathways, which are involved in the pathogenesis of PD. However, Parkin is also expressed in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs). In this study, permanent lymphocyte lines were established from the peripheral blood of sporadic PD (sPD) patients, PARK2 mutation carriers, and healthy controls. Reactive oxygen species (ROS), function of the mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I, and apoptosis were analyzed in the PBLs. There was no significant difference in ROS, mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I, and apoptosis between the experimental groups and the control group without paraquat treatment. Compared with the control group of healthy subjects, we found an increase of ROS (control 100±0, sPD 275.53±79.11, and C441R 340±99.67) and apoptosis, as well as a decline in the function of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I in PBLs of PARK2 mutation carriers and sPD after the treatment of paraquat (control 0.65±0.08, sPD 0.44±0.08, and C441R 0.32±0.08). Moreover, overexpression of the wild-type (WT) PARK2 in HeLa cells and immortalized PBLs could rescue mitochondrial function and partially inhibit apoptosis following paraquat treatment, while the C441R mutation could not. Thus, ROS levels, activity of mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I, and apoptosis of PBLs are potential diagnostic biomarkers of PD

A review on phospholipids and their main applications in drug delivery systems

Phospholipids have the characteristics of excellent biocompatibility and a especial amphiphilicity. These unique properties make phospholipids most appropriate to be employed as important pharmaceutical excipients and they have a very wide range of applications in drug delivery systems. The aim of this review is to summarize phospholipids and some of their related applications in drug delivery systems, and highlight the relationship between the properties and applications, and the effect of the species of phospholipids on the efficiency of drug delivery. We refer to some relevant literatures, starting from the structures, main sources and properties of phospholipids to introduce their applications in drug delivery systems. The present article focuses on introducing five types of carriers based on phospholipids, including liposomes, intravenous lipid emulsions, micelles, drug-phospholipids complexes and cochleates