Elite Capture of the Local Party in Village Elections

The Elite Capture theory suggests that the village elites in China are tempted to capture the local institution and resources for their own benefits. This paper studies the villager leaders' information distortion (as one of the major forms of elite capture) on election process. Based on the 2005 MCA survey, this paper finds that in around one fourth of the Chinese villages, the village party elites have provided distorted information when asked about the election process. The local Communist Party members within the village committee, as well as geographic regions and distance to administrative centers, determine the level of information distortion

Thanatomicrobiome composition profiling as a tool for forensic investigation.

Thanatomicrobiome, or the postmortem microbiome, has been recognized as a useful microbial marker of the time and location of host death. In this mini-review, we compare the experimental methods commonly applied to thanatomicrobiome studies to the state-of-the-art methodologies in the microbiome field. Then, we review present findings in thanatomicrobiome studies, focusing on the diversity of the thanatomicrobiome composition and prediction models that have been proposed. Finally, we discuss potential improvements and future directions of the field

Revisiting Lq(0≤q<1)L_q(0\leq q<1) Norm Regularized Optimization

Sparse optimization has seen its advances in recent decades. For scenarios where the true sparsity is unknown, regularization turns out to be a promising solution. Two popular non-convex regularizations are the so-called $L_0$ norm and $L_q$ norm with $0<q<1$, giving rise to extensive research on their induced optimization. This paper explores $L_q$ norm regularized optimization in a unified way for any $0\leq q<1$. In particular, based on the proximal operator of the $L_q$ norm, we establish the first-order and second-order optimality conditions under mild assumptions. Then we integrate the proximal operator and Newton method to develop a proximal Newton pursuit algorithm, followed by the achievements of its global sequence convergence. Moreover, this is the first paper maintaining the locally quadratic convergence rate for an algorithm solving the $L_q$ norm regularization problem for any $0<q<1$. The assumptions to guarantee these results are relatively mild, In particular, there does not necessarily need the strong smoothness. Finally, some numerical experiments have demonstrated its high performance in comparison with several existing leading solvers

Assessment of government supervision on the loss of sea sand resource in China

Illegal mining activities on offshore sands have recently increased dramatically in China owing to the strong demand of the construction industry and restriction of river sand mining. By studying the loss mechanism of marine sand resources, this study proposes a simplified linear programming model to quantitatively analyse the control effects related to resource loss and law enforcement costs. To accurately simulate the effectiveness of law enforcement activity, a set of variables is designed in the model to describe the severity of illegal mining and enforcement skills of the officers. Subsequently, based on different settings of law enforcement capability, the model can not only make reasonable projections for sand losses but also provide a minimum cost solution for marine sand control for government agencies. Finally, various regulatory measurements and suggestions are discussed to improve the effectiveness of the government’s regularisation and cost optimisation for law enforcement

Protecting public’s wellbeing against COVID-19 infodemic: The role of trust in information sources and rapid dissemination and transparency of information over time

ObjectivesThis study examined how trust in the information about COVID-19 from social media and official media as well as how the information was disseminated affect public’s wellbeing directly and indirectly through perceived safety over time.MethodsTwo online surveys were conducted in China, with the first survey (Time1, N = 22,718) being at the early stage of the pandemic outbreak and the second one (Time 2, N = 2,901) two and a half years later during the zero-COVID policy lockdown period. Key measured variables include trust in official media and social media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, and emotional responses toward the pandemic. Data analysis includes descriptive statistical analysis, independent samples t-test, Pearson correlations, and structural equation modeling.ResultsTrust in official media, perceived rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19-related information, perceived safety, as well as positive emotional response toward COVID-19 increased over time, while trust in social media and depressive response decreased over time. Trust in social media and official media played different roles in affecting public’s wellbeing over time. Trust in social media was positively associated with depressive emotions and negatively associated with positive emotion directly and indirectly through decreased perceived safety at Time 1. However, the negative effect of trust in social media on public’s wellbeing was largely decreased at Time 2. In contrast, trust in official media was linked to reduced depressive response and increased positive response directly and indirectly through perceived safety at both times. Rapid dissemination and transparency of COVID-19 information contributed to enhanced trust in official media at both times.ConclusionThe findings highlight the important role of fostering public trust in official media through rapid dissemination and transparency of information in mitigating the negative impact of COVID-19 infodemic on public’s wellbeing over time

Real-time Management of groundwater resource based on wireless sensor networks

Groundwater plays a vital role in the arid inland river basins, in which the groundwater management is critical to the sustainable development of area economy and ecology. Traditional sustainable management approaches are to analyze different scenarios subject to assumptions or to construct simulation–optimization models to obtain optimal strategy. However, groundwater system is time-varying due to exogenous inputs. In this sense, the groundwater management based on static data is relatively outdated. As part of the Heihe River Basin (HRB), which is a typical arid river basin in Northwestern China, the Daman irrigation district was selected as the study area in this paper. First, a simulation–optimization model was constructed to optimize the pumping rates of the study area according to the groundwater level constraints. Three different groundwater level constraints were assigned to explore sustainable strategies for groundwater resources. The results indicated that the simulation–optimization model was capable of identifying the optimal pumping yields and satisfy the given constraints. Second, the simulation–optimization model was integrated with wireless sensors network (WSN) technology to provide real-time features for the management. The results showed time-varying feature for the groundwater management, which was capable of updating observations, constraints, and decision variables in real time. Furthermore, a web-based platform was developed to facilitate the decision-making process. This study combined simulation and optimization model with WSN techniques and meanwhile attempted to real-time monitor and manage the scarce groundwater resource, which could be used to support the decision-making related to sustainable management

Improved Performance of High Voltage Graphite/LiNi\u3csub\u3e0.5\u3c/sub\u3eMn\u3csub\u3e1.5\u3c/sub\u3eO\u3csub\u3e4\u3c/sub\u3e Batteries with Added Lithium Tetramethyl Borate

Lithium tetramethyl borate (LTMB, LiB(OCH3)4) has been prepared and investigated as a novel cathode film forming additive to improve the performance of LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cathodes cycled to high potential (4.25-4.8 V). Addition of LTMB to 1.2 M LiPF6 in EC/EMC (3/7, v/v) improves the capacity retention of graphite/LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 cells cycled at 55°C. The added LTMB is sacrificially oxidized on the surface of the cathode during the first charging cycle. Ex-situ surface analysis of the LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) reveals the presence of a borate based passivating layer which appears to inhibit electrolyte oxidation on the cathode surface