Belief reliability:a scientific exploration of reliability engineering

This paper systematically introduces and reviews a scientific exploration of reliability called the belief reliability.Beginning with the origin of reliability engineering,the problems of present theories for reliability engineering are summarized as a query,a dilemma,and a puzzle.Then,through philosophical reflection,we introduce the theoretical solutions given by belief reliability theory,including scientific principles,basic equations,reliability science experiments,and mathematical measures.The basic methods and technologies of belief reliability,namely,belief reliability analysis,function-oriented belief reliability design,belief reliability evaluation,and several newly developed methods and technologies are sequentially elaborated and overviewed.Based on the above investigations,we summarize the significance of belief reliability theory and make some prospects about future research,aiming to promote the development of reliability science and engineering.

Improved Belief Propagation Decoder for LDPC-CRC-Polar Codes with Bit-Freezing

Though belief propagation bit-flip(BPBF)decoding improves the error correction performance of polar codes,it uses the exhaustive flips method to achieve the error correction performance of CA-SCL decoding,thus resulting in high decoding complexity and latency.To alleviate this issue,we incorporate the LDPC-CRC-Polar coding scheme with BPBF and propose an improved belief propagation decoder for LDPC-CRC-Polar codes with bit-freezing(LDPCCRC-Polar codes BPBFz).The proposed LDPCCRC-Polar codes BPBFz employs the LDPC code to ensure the reliability of the flipping set,i.e.,critical set(CS),and dynamically update it.The modified CS is further utilized for the identification of error-prone bits.The proposed LDPC-CRC-Polar codes BPBFz obtains remarkable error correction performance and is comparable to that of the CA-SCL(L=16)decoder under medium-to-high signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)regions.It gains up to 1.2dB and 0.9dB at a fixed BLER=10-4compared with BP and BPBF(CS-1),respectively.In addition,the proposed LDPC-CRC-Polar codes BPBFz has lower decoding latency compared with CA-SCL and BPBF,i.e.,it is 15 times faster than CA-SCL(L=16)at high SNR regions.

Heterogeneous information fusion recognition method based on belief rule structure

To solve the problem that the existing situation awareness research focuses on multi-sensor data fusion,but the expert knowledge is not fully utilized,a heterogeneous informa-tion fusion recognition method based on belief rule structure is proposed.By defining the continuous probabilistic hesitation fuzzy linguistic term sets(CPHFLTS)and establishing CPHFLTS distance measure,the belief rule base of the relationship between feature space and category space is constructed through information integration,and the evidence reasoning of the input samples is carried out.The experimental results show that the proposed method can make full use of sensor data and expert knowledge for recognition.Compared with the other methods,the proposed method has a higher correct recognition rate under different noise levels.

Improved Segmented Belief Propagation List Decoding for Polar Codes with Bit-Flipping

Belief propagation list(BPL) decoding for polar codes has attracted more attention due to its inherent parallel nature. However, a large gap still exists with CRC-aided SCL(CA-SCL) decoding.In this work, an improved segmented belief propagation list decoding based on bit flipping(SBPL-BF) is proposed. On the one hand, the proposed algorithm makes use of the cooperative characteristic in BPL decoding such that the codeword is decoded in different BP decoders. Based on this characteristic, the unreliable bits for flipping could be split into multiple subblocks and could be flipped in different decoders simultaneously. On the other hand, a more flexible and effective processing strategy for the priori information of the unfrozen bits that do not need to be flipped is designed to improve the decoding convergence. In addition, this is the first proposal in BPL decoding which jointly optimizes the bit flipping of the information bits and the code bits. In particular, for bit flipping of the code bits, a H-matrix aided bit-flipping algorithm is designed to enhance the accuracy in identifying erroneous code bits. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly improves the errorcorrection performance of BPL decoding for medium and long codes. It is more than 0.25 d B better than the state-of-the-art BPL decoding at a block error rate(BLER) of 10^(-5), and outperforms CA-SCL decoding in the low signal-to-noise(SNR) region for(1024, 0.5)polar codes.

Chinese Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Belief in a Just World Scale for College Students

This study aims to revise the Belief in a Just World Scale(BJWS)for Chinese college students and test its reliability and validity(construct validity,convergent and divergent validity).Two samples of 546 and 595 college students were selected,respectively,using stratified cluster random sampling.Item analysis,exploratory factor analysis(EFA),confirmatory factor analysis(CFA),reliability analysis and convergent and divergent validity tests were carried out.The results showed that the 13 items of the BJWS have good item discrimination.The corrected item–total correlation in the general belief in a just world subscale was found to range from 0.464 to 0.655,and that in the personal belief in a just world subscale was 0.553 to 0.715.The internal consistency coefficients of the revised version of the BJWS and its subscales are good.The EFA and CFA results show that the structure and items of the revised scale are the same as those of the original scale.Belief in a just world was found to have significant positive correlations with gratitude and empathy,and has a significant negative correlation with anxiety,thereby exhibiting good convergent and divergent validity.Therefore,the Chinese revised version of the BJWS has good reliability and validity.

Evaluation of the effects of health education interventions for hypertensive patients based on the health belief model

BACKGROUND Hypertension is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and stroke,and its prevalence is increasing worldwide.Health education interventions based on the health belief model(HBM)can improve the knowledge,attitudes,and behaviors of patients with hypertension and help them control their blood pressure.AIM To evaluate the effects of health education interventions based on the HBM in patients with hypertension in China.METHODS Between 2021 and 2023,140 patients with hypertension were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group.The intervention group received health education based on the HBM,including lectures,brochures,videos,and counseling sessions,whereas the control group received routine care.Outcomes were measured at baseline,three months,and six months after the intervention and included blood pressure,medication adherence,self-efficacy,and perceived benefits,barriers,susceptibility,and severity.RESULTS The intervention group had significantly lower systolic blood pressure[mean difference(MD):-8.2 mmHg,P<0.001]and diastolic blood pressure(MD:-5.1 mmHg,P=0.002)compared to the control group at six months.The intervention group also had higher medication adherence(MD:1.8,P<0.001),self-efficacy(MD:12.4,P<0.001),perceived benefits(MD:3.2,P<0.001),lower perceived barriers(MD:-2.6,P=0.001),higher perceived susceptibility(MD:2.8,P=0.002),and higher perceived severity(MD:3.1,P<0.001)than the control group at six months.CONCLUSION Health education interventions based on the HBM effectively improve blood pressure control and health beliefs in patients with hypertension and should be implemented in clinical practice and community settings.

Faith and Belief in Autism in Cote d’Ivoire: About Judith, God’s Strange Gift

Faced with autism, motherhood and parenthood are turned upside down in many ways. Coping with stress and mental health problems, continuing to assume a rewarding parental role and finding suitable care are the trials and tribulations that mark out the journey of African parents. Faith and belief have been described as providing meaning and coping mechanisms in the frightening ordeal of disability. An encounter with a young girl and her parents provided an opportunity to analyse the mother’s experience and the impact of beliefs and discourses on her commitment to care. Based on this clinical story, we discuss the place of other-actors (parents and carers) and the Other-God in relation to the psychopathological dynamics of the mother.

A study on the cognitive status of human papillomavirus among adult males in Tianjin based on the health belief model

Background:To understand the health beliefs and knowledge of human papillomavirus among adult males in Tianjin.Methods:An online questionnaire survey was conducted from 18 January 2023 to 6 March 2023 using snowball sampling method.Analyze the health belief scores and human papillomavirus(HPV)and HPV vaccine knowledge scores of adult males in Tianjin,and analyze their influencing factors.Results:A total of 388 adult males in Tianjin were surveyed,with an average total score of 3.23±0.04 for their health beliefs.Among them,the average scores for perceived severity,perceived susceptibility,perceived impairment,perceived benefit,and self-efficacy were 3.41±1.05,2.37±1.20,2.96±1.00,3.51±0.90,and 3.36±1.08,respectively.Multiple linear regression analyses showed education was a factor influencing health beliefs.The average total score of knowledge is 64.09±15.62,with 277 people scoring above 60,and a pass rate of 71.4%.Through multiple linear regression analysis,education level,emotional status,whether disease testing has been done,and whether family and friends have been diagnosed with HPV positive are the main influencing factors.Conclusion:The awareness rate of HPV among adult males in Tianjin is still acceptable,but there are still misconceptions.The overall level of health beliefs is moderate,and the perceived susceptibility level is low.It is necessary to strengthen health education on HPV related knowledge for males and improve their cognitive level.

A Health State Prediction Model Based on Belief Rule Base and LSTM for Complex Systems

In industrial production and engineering operations,the health state of complex systems is critical,and predicting it can ensure normal operation.Complex systems have many monitoring indicators,complex coupling structures,non-linear and time-varying characteristics,so it is a challenge to establish a reliable prediction model.The belief rule base(BRB)can fuse observed data and expert knowledge to establish a nonlinear relationship between input and output and has well modeling capabilities.Since each indicator of the complex system can reflect the health state to some extent,the BRB is built based on the causal relationship between system indicators and the health state to achieve the prediction.A health state prediction model based on BRB and long short term memory for complex systems is proposed in this paper.Firstly,the LSTMis introduced to predict the trend of the indicators in the system.Secondly,the Density Peak Clustering(DPC)algorithmis used todetermine referential values of indicators for BRB,which effectively offset the lack of expert knowledge.Then,the predicted values and expert knowledge are fused to construct BRB to predict the health state of the systems by inference.Finally,the effectiveness of the model is verified by a case study of a certain vehicle hydraulic pump.

Optimal Insurance with Background Risk under the Ambiguity and Belief Heterogeneity Structure

In this paper, we discuss the optimal insurance in the presence of background risk while the insured is ambiguity averse and there exists belief heterogeneity between the insured and the insurer. We give the optimal insurance contract when maxing the insured’s expected utility of his/her remaining wealth under the smooth ambiguity model and the heterogeneous belief form satisfying the MHR condition. We calculate the insurance premium by using generalized Wang’s premium and also introduce a series of stochastic orders proposed by [1] to describe the relationships among the insurable risk, background risk and ambiguity parameter. We obtain the deductible insurance is the optimal insurance while they meet specific dependence structures.

Evaluation of the Application Effect of Enteral and Parenteral Nutrition Therapy Combined with a Health Belief Education Model in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Objective:To evaluate the application effect of enteral and parenteral nutrition therapy combined with a health belief education model in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.Methods:80 patients with inflammatory bowel disease admitted to the Shanghai Zhangjiang Institute of Medical Innovation were chosen.This study was carried out from August 2022 to October 2023.The patients were randomly divided into a study group(40 cases)and a control group(40 cases).The treatment plan for the control group was the conventional treatment model,while the treatment plan for the study group was to provide enteral and parenteral nutrition therapy combined with a health belief education model based on the control group.The efficacy of both groups was compared.Results:In the study group,the therapeutic effect for 31 patients(77.50%)was markedly effective and 7 was effective(17.50%),accounting for 95.0%of the total,which was higher than the control group at 80.0%(P<0.05).The relief time of relevant symptoms in the study group was shorter than that of the control group(P<0.05).Before treatment,there were no differences in the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein(hs-CRP),interleukin 10(IL-10),and tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)between both groups(P>0.05).After treatment,the levels of inflammatory factors in the study group(hs-CRP(8.02±1.13)mg/L,IL-10(9.24±1.25)pg/mL,and TNF-α(7.19±1.04)ng/L)were lower than those in the control group(P<0.05).Conclusion:Enteral and parenteral nutritional therapy combined with a health belief education model showed significant efficacy in inflammatory bowel disease patients.Patient symptoms were relieved and inflammatory reactions were reduced.This method is worthy of popularization.

Assessment of knowledge,cultural beliefs,and behavior regarding medication safety among residents in Harbin,China

BACKGROUND Medication misuse or overuse is significantly associated with poor health outcomes.Information regarding the knowledge,cultural beliefs,and behavior about medication safety in the general population is important.AIM To conduct a survey on medication habits and explored the potential factors impacting medication safety.METHODS The current survey included adults from 18 districts and counties in Harbin,China.A questionnaire on medication safety was designed based on knowledge,cultural beliefs,and behavior.Both univariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore the factors that impacted medication safety.RESULTS A total of 394 respondents completed the questionnaires on medication safety.The mean scores for knowledge,cultural beliefs,and behavior about medication safety were 59.41±19.33,40.66±9.24,and 60.97±13.69,respectively.The medication knowledge score was affected by age(P=0.044),education(P<0.001),and working status(P=0.015).Moreover,the cultural beliefs score was significantly affected by education(P<0.001).Finally,education(P=0.003)and working status(P=0.011)significantly affected the behavior score.CONCLUSION The knowledge,cultural beliefs,and behavior about medication safety among the general population was moderate.Health education should be provisioned for the elderly,individuals with a low education level,and the unemployed to improve medication safety in Harbin,China.

Tunnelling performance prediction of cantilever boring machine in sedimentary hard-rock tunnel using deep belief network

Evaluating the adaptability of cantilever boring machine(CBM) through in-depth excavation and analysis of tunnel excavation data and rock mass parameters is the premise of mechanical design and efficient excavation in the field of underground space engineering.This paper presented a case study of tunnelling performance prediction method of CBM in sedimentary hard-rock tunnel of Karst landform type by using tunneling data and surrounding rock parameters.The uniaxial compressive strength(UCS),rock integrity factor(Kv),basic quality index([BQ]),rock quality index RQD,brazilian tensile strength(BTS) and brittleness index(BI) were introduced to construct a performance prediction database based on the hard-rock tunnel of Guiyang Metro Line 1 and Line 3,and then established the performance prediction model of cantilever boring machine.Then the deep belief network(DBN) was introduced into the performance prediction model,and the reliability of performance prediction model was verified by combining with engineering data.The study showed that the influence degree of surrounding rock parameters on the tunneling performance of the cantilever boring machine is UCS > [BQ] > BTS >RQD > Kv > BI.The performance prediction model shows that the instantaneous cutting rate(ICR) has a good correlation with the surrounding rock parameters,and the predicting model accuracy is related to the reliability of construction data.The prediction of limestone and dolomite sections of Line 3 based on the DBN performance prediction model shows that the measured ICR and predicted ICR is consistent and the built performance prediction model is reliable.The research results have theoretical reference significance for the applicability analysis and mechanical selection of cantilever boring machine for hard rock tunnel.

A Novel Belief Rule-Based Fault Diagnosis Method with Interpretability

Fault diagnosis plays an irreplaceable role in the normal operation of equipment.A fault diagnosis model is often required to be interpretable for increasing the trust between humans and the model.Due to the understandable knowledge expression and transparent reasoning process,the belief rule base(BRB)has extensive applications as an interpretable expert system in fault diagnosis.Optimization is an effective means to weaken the subjectivity of experts in BRB,where the interpretability of BRB may be weakened.Hence,to obtain a credible result,the weakening factors of interpretability in the BRB-based fault diagnosis model are firstly analyzed,which are manifested in deviation from the initial judgement of experts and over-optimization of parameters.For these two factors,three indexes are proposed,namely the consistency index of rules,consistency index of the rule base and over-optimization index,tomeasure the interpretability of the optimizedmodel.Considering both the accuracy and interpretability of amodel,an improved coordinate ascent(I-CA)algorithmis proposed to fine-tune the parameters of the fault diagnosis model based on BRB.In I-CA,the algorithm combined with the advance and retreat method and the golden section method is employed to be one-dimensional search algorithm.Furthermore,the random optimization sequence and adaptive step size are proposed to improve the accuracy of the model.Finally,a case study of fault diagnosis in aerospace relays based on BRB is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Belief Propagation List Decoding for Polar Codes:Performance Analysis and Software Implementation on GPU

Belief propagation(BP)decoding outputs soft information and can be naturally used in iterative receivers.BP list(BPL)decoding provides comparable error-correction performance to the successive cancellation list(SCL)decoding.In this paper,we firstly introduce an enhanced code construction scheme for BPL decoding to improve its errorcorrection capability.Then,a GPU-based BPL decoder with adoption of the new code construction is presented.Finally,the proposed BPL decoder is tested on NVIDIA RTX3070 and GTX1060.Experimental results show that the presented BPL decoder with early termination criterion achieves above 1 Gbps throughput on RTX3070 for the code(1024,512)with 32 lists under good channel conditions.

Safety Assessment of Liquid Launch Vehicle Structures Based on Interpretable Belief Rule Base

A liquid launch vehicle is an important carrier in aviation,and its regular operation is essential to maintain space security.In the safety assessment of fluid launch vehicle body structure,it is necessary to ensure that the assessmentmodel can learn self-response rules from various uncertain data and not differently to provide a traceable and interpretable assessment process.Therefore,a belief rule base with interpretability(BRB-i)assessment method of liquid launch vehicle structure safety status combines data and knowledge.Moreover,an innovative whale optimization algorithm with interpretable constraints is proposed.The experiments are carried out based on the liquid launch vehicle safety experiment platform,and the information on the safety status of the liquid launch vehicle is obtained by monitoring the detection indicators under the simulation platform.The MSEs of the proposed model are 3.8000e-03,1.3000e-03,2.1000e-03,and 1.8936e-04 for 25%,45%,65%,and 84%of the training samples,respectively.It can be seen that the proposed model also shows a better ability to handle small sample data.Meanwhile,the belief distribution of the BRB-i model output has a high fitting trend with the belief distribution of the expert knowledge settings,which indicates the interpretability of the BRB-i model.Experimental results show that,compared with other methods,the BRB-i model guarantees the model’s interpretability and the high precision of experimental results.

The Mediating Role of Religious Beliefs in the Relationship between Well-Being and Fear of the Pandemic

Religion is one of the social entities that has had a significant impact on the pandemic.The study’s goals are to investigate the relationship between well-being and fear of COVID-19,as well as to test whether religious beliefs mediate the effect of wellbeing on fear of COVID-19.The sample comprised of 433 participants in Vietnam.Independent Sample t-Test,One-way ANOVA,mediation analysis were used to analyze the data.In the levels of well-being,individuals who engage in religious services daily have higher levels than those hardly and never attend,and people from the age of 18 to 30 have higher levels than individuals from 31 to above 60 years.In addition,people aged from 51 to above 60 have higher levels of religious beliefs than people aged from 18 to 50.Females experience more fear of COVID-19 compared to males.The latter illustrates that religious beliefs mediate the effect of well-being on fear of COVID-19.Social workers and clinicians must prioritize older adults and people with chronic diseases for early mental interventions,and they should be aware of the role of religion in psychological treatment integration.

Parity-check and G-matrix based intelligent early stopping criterion for belief propagation decoder for polar codes

The error correction performance of Belief Propagation(BP)decoding for polar codes is satisfactory compared with the Successive Cancellation(SC)decoding.Nevertheless,it has to complete a fixed number of iterations,which results in high computational complexity.This necessitates an intelligent identification of successful BP decoding for early termination of the decoding process to avoid unnecessary iterations and minimize the computational complexity of BP decoding.This paper proposes a hybrid technique that combines the“paritycheck”with the“G-matrix”to reduce the computational complexity of BP decoder for polar codes.The proposed hybrid technique takes advantage of the parity-check to intelligently identify the valid codeword at an early stage and terminate the BP decoding process,which minimizes the overhead of the G-matrix and reduces the computational complexity of BP decoding.We explore a detailed mechanism incorporating the parity bits as outer code and prove that the proposed hybrid technique minimizes the computational complexity while preserving the BP error correction performance.Moreover,mathematical formulation for the proposed hybrid technique that minimizes the computation cost of the G-matrix is elaborated.The performance of the proposed hybrid technique is validated by comparing it with the state-of-the-art early stopping criteria for BP decoding.Simulation results show that the proposed hybrid technique reduces the iterations by about 90%of BP decoding in a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio(SNR)(i.e.,3.5~4 dB),and approaches the error correction performance of G-matrix and conventional BP decoder for polar codes.

A New Prediction System Based on Self-Growth Belief Rule Base with Interpretability Constraints

Prediction systems are an important aspect of intelligent decisions.In engineering practice,the complex system structure and the external environment cause many uncertain factors in the model,which influence the modeling accuracy of the model.The belief rule base(BRB)can implement nonlinear modeling and express a variety of uncertain information,including fuzziness,ignorance,randomness,etc.However,the BRB system also has two main problems:Firstly,modeling methods based on expert knowledge make it difficult to guarantee the model’s accuracy.Secondly,interpretability is not considered in the optimization process of current research,resulting in the destruction of the interpretability of BRB.To balance the accuracy and interpretability of the model,a self-growth belief rule basewith interpretability constraints(SBRB-I)is proposed.The reasoning process of the SBRB-I model is based on the evidence reasoning(ER)approach.Moreover,the self-growth learning strategy ensures effective cooperation between the datadriven model and the expert system.A case study showed that the accuracy and interpretability of the model could be guaranteed.The SBRB-I model has good application prospects in prediction systems.

Iterative Receiver for Orthogonal Time Frequency Space with Index Modulation via Structured Prior-Based Hybrid Belief and Expectation Propagation

Orthogonal Time Frequency Space(OTFS)signaling with index modulation(IM)is a promising transmission scheme characterized by high transmission efficiency for high mobility scenarios.In this paper,we study the receiver for coded OTFS-IM system.First,we construct the corresponding factor graph,on which the structured prior incorporating activation pattern constraint and channel coding is devised.Then we develop a iterative receiver via structured prior-based hybrid belief propagation(BP)and expectation propagation(EP)algorithm,named as StrBP-EP,for the coded OTFS-IM system.To reduce the computational complexity of discrete distribution introduced by structured prior,Gaussian approximation conducted by EP is adopted.To further reduce the complexity,we derive two variations of the proposed algorithm by using some approximations.Simulation results validate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.