Picturing the Times

A man with his face painted to appear like a spirit,participates in the He Neak Ta ritual in Phum Boeung village,northwest of Phnom Penh,Cambodia,on June 11.Cambodian villagers took part in a rare traditional guardian spirit ceremony praying for good fortune,rain,and prosperity as part of efforts to preserve this ancient tradition.

Trends of the Times

BUILDING a resilient workforce of the future means understanding your workers.Over the past five years,the Adecco Group has interviewed over 82,000 employees across 25 countries-including China-to capture global workers’perspectives and equip employers with the tools to future-proof their workforce.These are some of the findings about the labor market trends that have transformed the world of work since 2020。

Achieving Common Development in Step with the Times

As long as China and the EU adhere to strategic consensuses,keep in step with the times,and maintain mutual trust,they will be able to ensure the prosperity and stability of both sides.

Picturing the Times

Girls with flowers on their heads at a celebration for the traditional Ngarot festival in West Java,Indonesia,on December 13,2023.The festival is a traditional ceremony to welcome the rice planting season.

Picturing the Times

On September 25,locals and tourists pose for photos with a giant decorative flower basket on Tiananmen Square in Beijing to celebrate the forthcoming National Day.The four Chinese characters adorning the basket mean"blessing the motherland."(IC PHOTO)

Picturing the Times

Cherry blossoms at Qingchuan Pavilion in Wuhan,capital of central China’s Hubei Province,attract throngs of visitors on March 23.Illuminated by night lights,the cherry blossoms shone brightly,creating fantastic scenes of light and shadow with neon-clad bridges and landmark buildings along the Yangtze River.

Picturing the Times

Tourists sightsee on a boat in a massive lotus pond scenic area in Xinghua,Taizhou,east China’s Jiangsu Province,on August 5.When summer peaks,lotus flowers enter their blooming season,attracting throngs of tourists to admire their beauty.

The joint Laplace transforms for killed diffusion occupation times

The approach of Li and Zhou(2014)is adopted to find the Laplace transform of occupation time over interval(0,a)and joint occupation times over semi-infinite intervals(-∞,a)and(b,∞)for a time-homogeneous diffusion process up to an independent exponential time e_(q)for 0<a<b.The results are expressed in terms of solutions to the differential equations associated with the diffusion generator.Applying these results,we obtain explicit expressions on the Laplace transform of occupation time and joint occupation time for Brownian motion with drift.

Characterization of Hydroxyapatite Extracted from Crab Shell Using the Hydrothermal Method with Varying Holding Times

Hydroxyapatite(HA)is a bio ceramic commonly utilized in bone tissue engineering due to its bioactive and osteoconductive properties.Crab shells are usually disregarded as waste material despite their significant CaCO_(3) content,and have not been widely utilized in the synthesis of HA.This study aims to synthesize and analyze HA derived from crab shells using the hydrothermal method with different durations of holding time.This study utilized precipitated calcium carbonate(PCC)derived from crab shells.With a hydrothermal reactor set at 160℃ and varying holding times of 14(HA_14),16(HA_16),and 18(HA_18)h,a PCC and(NH4)2HPO4 mixture was used to synthesize HA.The synthesis results were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy(SEM),fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR),and X-ray diffraction(XRD)tests.This study has accomplished the synthesis of HA from crab shells.Nonetheless,the final product of synthesis still contained CaCO_(3) as an impurity.The prolonged hydrothermal holding time of 14 to 18 h resulted in a reduction of impurities while increasing the percentage of crystal weight and crystallite size of HA.Specimen CH_18 is the best-quality product generated in this study.This specimen produced HA with the highest percentage of crystal weight and crystallite size compared to the other specimens.Furthermore,specimen CH_18 exhibited the lowest concentration of impurities.The Ca/P ratio in this specimen was also the closest to 1.67.The Ca/P ratio,crystallite size,and crystal weight percentage of this specimen are 1.54,19.06 nm,and 99.1%,respectively.

RL and AHP-Based Multi-Timescale Multi-Clock Source Time Synchronization for Distribution Power Internet of Things

Time synchronization(TS)is crucial for ensuring the secure and reliable functioning of the distribution power Internet of Things(IoT).Multi-clock source time synchronization(MTS)has significant advantages of high reliability and accuracy but still faces challenges such as optimization of the multi-clock source selection and the clock source weight calculation at different timescales,and the coupling of synchronization latency jitter and pulse phase difference.In this paper,the multi-timescale MTS model is conducted,and the reinforcement learning(RL)and analytic hierarchy process(AHP)-based multi-timescale MTS algorithm is designed to improve the weighted summation of synchronization latency jitter standard deviation and average pulse phase difference.Specifically,the multi-clock source selection is optimized based on Softmax in the large timescale,and the clock source weight calculation is optimized based on lower confidence bound-assisted AHP in the small timescale.Simulation shows that the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce time synchronization delay standard deviation and average pulse phase difference.

Optimal Multi-Timescale Scheduling of Integrated Energy Systems with Hybrid Energy Storage System Based on Lyapunov Optimization

The economic operation of integrated energy system(IES)faces new challenges such as multi-timescale characteristics of heterogeneous energy sources,and cooperative operation of hybrid energy storage system(HESS).To this end,this paper investigates the multi-timescale rolling opti-mization problem for IES integrated with HESS.Firstly,the architecture of IES with HESS is established,a comparative analysis is conducted to evaluate the advantages of the HESS over a single energy storage system(SESS)in stabilizing power fluctuations.Secondly,the dayahead and real-time scheduling cost functions of IES are established,the day-ahead scheduling mainly depends on operation costs of the components in IES,the real-time optimal scheduling adopts the Lya-punov optimization method to schedule the battery and hydrogen energy storage in each time slot,so as to minimize the real-time average scheduling operation cost,and the problem of day-ahead and real-time scheduling error,which caused by the uncertainty of the energy storage is solved by online optimization.Finally,the proposed model is verified to reduce the scheduling operation cost and the dispatching error by performing an arithmetic example analysis of the IES in Shanghai,which provides a reference for the safe and stable operation of the IES.

A Comparison of Turnaround-Times for Two Popular Specimen Types Used for Newborn Toxicology: Meconium and Umbilical Cord Tissue

Background: Prenatal exposure to illicit substances is responsible for several long-term negative health consequences. It is critical for healthcare professionals to know the extent and scope of prenatal substance exposure in their cases. Several studies exist with mixed results comparing the effectiveness of umbilical cord tissue (UCT) and meconium (MEC) as toxicology specimen types. The specific aim of this study is to compare the use of UCT and MEC regarding the time interval between the birth of the neonate, receipt of the specimen at the laboratory, and the hospital’s receipt of the final toxicology report. Method: The study queried de-identified results of 5358 consecutive UCT and 706 MEC from our laboratory. Results: The mean time from birth to receipt of the specimen at the laboratory for MEC and UCT was 4.5 days ± 2.9 days and 2.8 days ± 1.9 days, respectively. The mean time from birth to final report for MEC was 6.9 days ± 3.8 days, 5.7 days ± 3.3 days, and 8.4 days ± 3.8 days for all MEC specimens, negative MEC, and positive MEC, respectively. The mean time from birth to final report for UCT was 4.3 days ± 2.4 days, 3.5 days ± 2.2 days, and 5.4 days ± 2.2 days for all UCT, negative UCT and positive UCT, respectively. Discussion/Conclusion: Receipt of drug test results of the neonate prior to release from the hospital is critical. This study shows that UCT offers an advantage when results are needed quickly to make informed decisions about the health and well-being of newborns.

Times管理方案在心内科护士多参数心电监护仪警报疲劳中的应用

探讨Times管理方案在心内科护士多参数心电监护仪警报疲劳中的应用效果,以提高护士临床警报知识水平,改善警报管理态度和行为,减轻护士的警报疲劳,降低心电监护仪错误警报发生率。

Prediction of impedance responses of protonic ceramic cells using artificial neural network tuned with the distribution of relaxation times

A deep-learning-based framework is proposed to predict the impedance response and underlying electrochemical behavior of the reversible protonic ceramic cell(PCC) across a wide variety of different operating conditions.Electrochemical impedance spectra(EIS) of PCCs were first acquired under a variety of opera ting conditions to provide a dataset containing 36 sets of EIS spectra for the model.An artificial neural network(ANN) was then trained to model the relationship between the cell operating condition and EIS response.Finally,ANN model-predicted EIS spectra were analyzed by the distribution of relaxation times(DRT) and compared to DRT spectra obtained from the experimental EIS data,enabling an assessment of the accumulative errors from the predicted EIS data vs the predicted DRT.We show that in certain cases,although the R^(2)of the predicted EIS curve may be> 0.98,the R^(2)of the predicted DRT may be as low as~0.3.This can lead to an inaccurate ANN prediction of the underlying time-resolved electrochemical response,although the apparent accuracy as evaluated from the EIS prediction may seem acceptable.After adjustment of the parameters of the ANN framework,the average R^(2)of the DRTs derived from the predicted EIS can be improved to 0.9667.Thus,we demonstrate that a properly tuned ANN model can be used as an effective tool to predict not only the EIS,but also the DRT of complex electrochemical systems.

Noise color influence on escape times in nonlinear oscillators-experimental and numerical results

The interplay between noise and nonlinearites can lead to escape dynamics.Associated nonlinear phe-nomena have been observed in various applications ranging from climatology to biology and engineering.For reasons of computational ease,in most studies,Gaussian white noise is used.However,this noise model is not physical due to the associated infinite energy content.Here,the authors present extensive experimental investigations and numerical simulations conducted to examine the impact of noise color on escape times in nonlinear oscillators.With a careful parameterization of the numerical simulations,the authors are able to make quantitative comparisons with experimental results.Through the experi-ments and simulations,it is illustrated that the noise color can drastically influence escape times and escape probability.

Hybrid Flow Shop with Setup Times Scheduling Problem

The two-stage hybridflow shop problem under setup times is addressed in this paper.This problem is NP-Hard.on the other hand,the studied problem is modeling different real-life applications especially in manufacturing and high performance-computing.Tackling this kind of problem requires the development of adapted algorithms.In this context,a metaheuristic using the genetic algorithm and three heuristics are proposed in this paper.These approximate solutions are using the optimal solution of the parallel machines under release and delivery times.Indeed,these solutions are iterative procedures focusing each time on a particular stage where a parallel machines problem is called to be solved.The general solution is then a concatenation of all the solutions in each stage.In addition,three lower bounds based on the relaxation method are provided.These lower bounds present a means to evaluate the efficiency of the developed algorithms throughout the measurement of the relative gap.An experimental result is discussed to evaluate the performance of the developed algorithms.In total,8960 instances are implemented and tested to show the results given by the proposed lower bounds and heuristics.Several indicators are given to compare between algorithms.The results illustrated in this paper show the performance of the developed algorithms in terms of gap and running time.

Vehicle Density Prediction in Low Quality Videos with Transformer Timeseries Prediction Model(TTPM)

Recent advancement in low-cost cameras has facilitated surveillance in various developing towns in India.The video obtained from such surveillance are of low quality.Still counting vehicles from such videos are necessity to avoid traf-fic congestion and allows drivers to plan their routes more precisely.On the other hand,detecting vehicles from such low quality videos are highly challenging with vision based methodologies.In this research a meticulous attempt is made to access low-quality videos to describe traffic in Salem town in India,which is mostly an un-attempted entity by most available sources.In this work profound Detection Transformer(DETR)model is used for object(vehicle)detection.Here vehicles are anticipated in a rush-hour traffic video using a set of loss functions that carry out bipartite coordinating among estimated and information acquired on real attributes.Every frame in the traffic footage has its date and time which is detected and retrieved using Tesseract Optical Character Recognition.The date and time extricated and perceived from the input image are incorporated with the length of the recognized objects acquired from the DETR model.This furnishes the vehicles report with timestamp.Transformer Timeseries Prediction Model(TTPM)is proposed to predict the density of the vehicle for future prediction,here the regular NLP layers have been removed and the encoding temporal layer has been modified.The proposed TTPM error rate outperforms the existing models with RMSE of 4.313 and MAE of 3.812.

Adaptive Conditional Hazard Regression Modeling of Multiple Event Times

Recurrent event time data and more general multiple event time data are commonly analyzed using extensions of Cox regression, or proportional hazards regression, as used with single event time data. These methods treat covariates, either time-invariant or time-varying, as having multiplicative effects while general dependence on time is left un-estimated. An adaptive approach is formulated for analyzing multiple event time data. Conditional hazard rates are modeled in terms of dependence on both time and covariates using fractional polynomials restricted so that the conditional hazard rates are positive-valued and so that excess time probability functions (generalizing survival functions for single event times) are decreasing. Maximum likelihood is used to estimate parameters adjusting for right censored event times. Likelihood cross-validation (LCV) scores are used to compare models. Adaptive searches through alternate conditional hazard rate models are controlled by LCV scores combined with tolerance parameters. These searches identify effective models for the underlying multiple event time data. Conditional hazard regression is demonstrated using data on times between tumor recurrence for bladder cancer patients. Analyses of theory-based models for these data using extensions of Cox regression provide conflicting results on effects to treatment group and the initial number of tumors. On the other hand, fractional polynomial analyses of these theory-based models provide consistent results identifying significant effects to treatment group and initial number of tumors using both model-based and robust empirical tests. Adaptive analyses further identify distinct moderation by group of the effect of tumor order and an additive effect to group after controlling for nonlinear effects to initial number of tumors and tumor order. Results of example analyses indicate that adaptive conditional hazard rate modeling can generate useful insights into multiple event time data.

Adaptive Conditional Hazard Regression Modeling of Multiple Event Times

Recurrent event time data and more general multiple event time data are commonly analyzed using extensions of Cox regression, or proportional hazards regression, as used with single event time data. These methods treat covariates, either time-invariant or time-varying, as having multiplicative effects while general dependence on time is left un-estimated. An adaptive approach is formulated for analyzing multiple event time data. Conditional hazard rates are modeled in terms of dependence on both time and covariates using fractional polynomials restricted so that the conditional hazard rates are positive-valued and so that excess time probability functions (generalizing survival functions for single event times) are decreasing. Maximum likelihood is used to estimate parameters adjusting for right censored event times. Likelihood cross-validation (LCV) scores are used to compare models. Adaptive searches through alternate conditional hazard rate models are controlled by LCV scores combined with tolerance parameters. These searches identify effective models for the underlying multiple event time data. Conditional hazard regression is demonstrated using data on times between tumor recurrence for bladder cancer patients. Analyses of theory-based models for these data using extensions of Cox regression provide conflicting results on effects to treatment group and the initial number of tumors. On the other hand, fractional polynomial analyses of these theory-based models provide consistent results identifying significant effects to treatment group and initial number of tumors using both model-based and robust empirical tests. Adaptive analyses further identify distinct moderation by group of the effect of tumor order and an additive effect to group after controlling for nonlinear effects to initial number of tumors and tumor order. Results of example analyses indicate that adaptive conditional hazard rate modeling can generate useful insights into multiple event time data.

Trend of the Times

The rise of the Chinese economy and China’s cultural confidence is driving the popularity of brands rooted in the unique Chinese culture.LITERALLY meaning a national wave or national trend,Guochao denotes a new consumer trend emerging in China in recent years.With the rise of the Chinese economy,domestic brands are embracing traditional cultural elements boosted by the Chinese pride in the achievements of the nation.Traditional culture has become a unique feature of Chinese brands going abroad and even foreign brands courting the Chinese market.From clothing and daily necessities to cell phones and cars。