Changes in sex ratio at birth in China: a decomposition by birth order

The long-term high sex ratio at birth (SRB) is a serious issue in China. In this study, changes in SRB were decomposed into variations in SRB by birth order and compositional changes in female births by birth order. With SRB data from China's surveys and censuses, and SRB data from South Korea's vital registration and censuses from 1980-2015, the trend and decomposition results in SRB were compared between China and South Korea, and the decomposition results for urban and rural SRBs, and for provinces, are presented. In both China and South Korea the rise in the SRB was driven by a rise in the SRB at all birth orders, which was only partly counteracted by the change in the distribution of births by order. The overall rise in the SRB ended when there was a decline in the SRB at second birth or above in South Korea. In China the total effect of variations in SRB of all birth orders increased more for the rural population than for the urban population before 2000, resulting in a higher total SRB for rural than urban population. After 2000, the total effect of variations in SRB of all birth orders lowered the total SRB for the rural population, whereas the effect of compositional change increased the total SRB, leading to a very slight rise in the total SRB for the rural population. At the province level, there was no spatial auto-correlation for the changes in total SRB by province, the total effect of variations in SRB of all birth orders or the effect of compositional change. The effect of variations in SRB by birth order accounted for the majority of changes in total SRB in most provinces.This work was jointly supported by the Key Project of Social Sciences Foundation of China (Grant No. 15ZDB136) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CSO2012-31206)

High-temperature terahertz optical diode effect without magnetic order in polar FeZnMo3_3O8_8

We present a terahertz spectroscopic study of polar ferrimagnet FeZnMo$_3$O$_8$. Our main finding is a giant high-temperature optical diode effect, or nonreciprocal directional dichroism, where the transmitted light intensity in one direction is over 100 times lower than intensity transmitted in the opposite direction. The effect takes place in the paramagnetic phase with no long-range magnetic order in the crystal, which contrasts sharply with all existing reports of the terahertz optical diode effect in other magnetoelectric materials, where the long-range magnetic ordering is a necessary prerequisite. In \fzmo, the effect occurs resonantly with a strong magnetic dipole active transition centered at 1.27 THz and assigned as electron spin resonance between the eigenstates of the single-ion anisotropy Hamiltonian. We propose that the optical diode effect in paramagnetic FeZnMo$_3$O$_8$ is driven by signle-ion terms in magnetoelectric free energy

Preparation and deep characterization of composite/hybrid multi-scale and multi-domain polymeric microparticles

Polymeric microparticles were produced following a three-step procedure involving (i) the production of an aqueous nanoemulsion of tri and monofunctional acrylate-based monomers droplets by an elongational-flow microemulsifier, (ii) the production of a nanosuspension upon the continuous-flow UV-initiated miniemulsion polymerization of the above nanoemulsion and (iii) the production of core-shell polymeric microparticles by means of a microfluidic capillaries-based double droplets generator; the core phase was composed of the above nanosuspension admixed with a water-soluble monomer and gold salt, the shell phase comprised a trifunctional monomer, diethylene glycol and a silver salt; both phases were photopolymerized on-the-fly upon droplet formation. Resulting microparticles were extensively analyzed by energy dispersive X-rays spectrometry and scanning electron microscopy to reveal the core-shell morphology, the presence of silver nanoparticles in the shell, organic nanoparticles in the core but failed to reveal the presence of the gold nanoparticles in the core presumably due to their too small size (c.a. 2.5 nm). Nevertheless, the reddish appearance of the as such prepared polymer microparticles emphasized that this three-step procedure allowed the easy elaboration of composite/hybrid multi-scale and multi-domain polymeric microparticles

Kinetic Analysis of Bio-Oil Aging by Using Pattern Search Method

Bio-oil derived from fast pyrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass is unstable, and aging would occur during its storage, handling, and transportation. The kinetic analysis of bio-oil aging is fundamental for the investigation of bio-oil aging mechanisms and the utilization of bio-oil as biofuels, biomaterials or biochemicals. The aging kinetic experiments of bio-oil from poplar wood pyrolysis were conducted at different aging temperatures of 303, 333, 353, and 363 K for different specified periods of time in capped glass vessels. The traditional method with two separate fittings was employed to fit experimental data, and the results indicated that the obtained kinetic parameters could not fit the experimental data well. An advanced approach for kinetic modeling of bio-oil aging has been developed by simultaneously processing experimental data at different aging temperatures and using the pattern search method. The aging kinetic model with the optimized parameters predicted the aging kinetic experimental data of the bio-oil sample very well for different aging temperatures

Nanoengineering room temperature ferroelectricity into orthorhombic SmMnO 3 films

Abstract: Orthorhombic RMnO3 (R = rare-earth cation) compounds are type-II multiferroics induced by inversion-symmetry-breaking of spin order. They hold promise for magneto-electric devices. However, no spontaneous room-temperature ferroic property has been observed to date in orthorhombic RMnO3. Here, using 3D straining in nanocomposite films of (SmMnO3)0.5((Bi,Sm)2O3)0.5, we demonstrate room temperature ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism with TC,FM ~ 90 K, matching exactly with theoretical predictions for the induced strain levels. Large in-plane compressive and out-of-plane tensile strains (−3.6% and +4.9%, respectively) were induced by the stiff (Bi,Sm)2O3 nanopillars embedded. The room temperature electric polarization is comparable to other spin-driven ferroelectric RMnO3 films. Also, while bulk SmMnO3 is antiferromagnetic, ferromagnetism was induced in the composite films. The Mn-O bond angles and lengths determined from density functional theory explain the origin of the ferroelectricity, i.e. modification of the exchange coupling. Our structural tuning method gives a route to designing multiferroics

Terahertz-frequency magnetoelectric effect in Ni-doped CaBaCo4O7

We present a study of the terahertz-frequency magnetoelectric effect in ferrimagnetic pyroelectric CaBaCo4O7 and its Ni-doped variants. The terahertz absorption spectrum of these materials consists of spin excitations and low-frequency infrared-active phonons. We studied the magnetic-field-induced changes in the terahertz refractive index and absorption in magnetic fields up to 17 T. We find that the magnetic field modulates the strength of infrared-active optical phonons near 1.2 and 1.6 THz. We use the Lorentz model of the dielectric function to analyze the measured magnetic-field dependence of the refractive index and absorption. We propose that most of the magnetoelectric effect is contributed by the optical phonons near 1.6 THz and higher frequency resonances. Our experimental results can be used to construct and validate more detailed theoretical descriptions of magnetoelectricity in CaBaCo4−xNixO7

Abstractive Summary of Public Opinion News Based on Element Graph Attention

The summary of case–public opinion refers to the generation of case-related sentences from public opinion information related to judicial cases. Case–public opinion news refers to the judicial cases (intentional homicide, rape, etc.) that cause large public opinion. The public opinion news in these cases usually contains case element information such as the suspect, victim, time, place, process, and sentencing of the case. In the multi-document summary of case–public opinion, due to the problem of information cross and information redundancy between different documents under the same case, in order to generate a concise and smooth summary, this paper proposes an abstractive summary model of case–public opinion based on the attention of a case element diagram. Firstly, multiple public opinion documents in the same case are split into paragraphs, and then the paragraphs and case elements are coded based on the transformer method to construct a heterogeneous graph containing paragraph nodes and case element nodes. Finally, in the decoding process, the two-layer attention mechanism is applied to the case element node and paragraph node, so that the model can effectively solve the redundancy problem in summary generation