Advancing Public Diplomacy during Cold Sino-Japan Relations A Case Study of the Confucius Institute at Ritsumeikan

Tense political relations are seen as a barrier to China's public diplomacy with Japan.Despite various setbacks,Confucius Institutes,a classic example of public diplomacy,have continued to stay open in Japan.This paper uses the Confucius Institute at Ritsumeikan(CIR) as a case study to explore how public diplomacy can be carried out when political relations between China and Japan are cold.It concludes that cold political relations do not necessarily mean public diplomacy will fail.Good cooperation with Japanese partners can bring positive results.Also,choosing the right partner is important;government "interference" should be avoided.Finally,China should deal with each Confucius Institute differently,and Japanese universities' enthusiasm should be stimulated through encouragement and retreat mechanisms.

Tunable dispersion relations manipulated by strain in skyrmion-based magnonic crystals

We theoretically investigate the propagation characteristics of spin waves in skyrmion-based magnonic crystals. It is found that the dispersion relation can be manipulated by strains through magneto-elastic coupling. Especially, the allowed bands and forbidden bands in dispersion relations shift to higher frequency with strain changing from compressive to tensile,while shifting to lower frequency with strain changing from tensile to compressive. We also confirm that the spin wave with specific frequency can pass the magnonic crystal or be blocked by tuning the strains. The result provides an advanced platform for studying the tunable skyrmion-based spin wave devices.

Understanding the Relationship Between Shrinking Cities and Land Prices:Spatial Pattern,Effectiveness,and Policy Implications

Urban shrinkage has emerged as a widespread phenomenon globally and has a significant impact on land,particularly in terms of land use and price.This study focuses on 2851 county-level cities in China in 2005–2018(excluding Hong Kong,Macao,Taiwan,and‘no data’areas in Qinhai-Tibet Plateau)as the fundamental units of analysis.By employing nighttime light(NTL)data to identify shrinking cities,the propensity score matching(PSM)model was used to quantitatively examine the impact of shrinking cities on land prices,and evaluate the magnitude of this influence.The findings demonstrate the following:1)there were 613 shrinking cities in China,with moderate shrinkage being the most prevalent and severe shrinkage being the least.2)Regional disparities are evident in the spatial distribution of shrinking cities,especially in areas with diverse terrain.3)The spatial pattern of land price exhibits a significant correlated to the economic and administrative levels.4)Shrinking cities significantly negatively impact on the overall land price(ATT=–0.1241,P<0.05).However,the extent of the effect varies significantly among different spatial regions.This study contributes novel insights into the investigation of land prices and shrinking cities,ultimately serving as a foundation for government efforts to promote the sustainable development of urban areas.

Generating Sets of the Complete Semigroup of Binary Relations Defined by Semilattices of the Class Σ8(X, 5)

In this article, we study generating sets of the complete semigroups of binary relations defined by X-semilattices of unions of the class Σ8(X, 5). Found uniquely irreducible generating set for the given semigroups and when X is finite set formulas for calculating the number of elements in generating sets are derived.

Dispersion Relations in Diffraction in Time

In agreement with Titchmarsh’s theorem, we prove that dispersion relations are just the Fourier-transform of the identity, g(x′)=±Sgn(x′)g(x′), which defines the property of being a truncated functions at the origin. On the other hand, we prove that the wave-function of a generalized diffraction in time problem is just the Fourier-transform of a truncated function. Consequently, the existence of dispersion relations for the diffraction in time wave-function follows. We derive these explicit dispersion relations.

Enhancing Data Forwarding Efficiency in SIoT with Multidimensional Social Relations

Effective data communication is a crucial aspect of the Social Internet of Things(SIoT)and continues to be a significant research focus.This paper proposes a data forwarding algorithm based on Multidimensional Social Relations(MSRR)in SIoT to solve this problem.The proposed algorithm separates message forwarding into intra-and cross-community forwarding by analyzing interest traits and social connections among nodes.Three new metrics are defined:the intensity of node social relationships,node activity,and community connectivity.Within the community,messages are sent by determining which node is most similar to the sender by weighing the strength of social connections and node activity.When a node performs cross-community forwarding,the message is forwarded to the most reasonable relay community by measuring the node activity and the connection between communities.The proposed algorithm was compared to three existing routing algorithms in simulation experiments.Results indicate that the proposed algorithmsubstantially improves message delivery efficiency while lessening network overhead and enhancing connectivity and coordination in the SIoT context.

Defining the We-map Reference Frames and Providing Mathematical Expressions for Transformation Relations

We-map is an interactive mobile map that can be easily communicated and applied on personal electronic devices,such as personal computers and mobile phones.Therefore,the study of direction systems and coordinate systems is critical,and exploring reference frames is essential in direction and coordinate systems.Despite its significance,existing research on We-map lacks specific solutions for the exploration of reference frames is indispensable for the establishment of accurate direction and coordinate systems.In this paper,we endeavor to address this gap by elucidating the significance of We-map reference frames,defining them with mathematical constraints,summarizing their nature and characteristics,deriving their transformation relationships and representing them through mathematical formulars and equations.Our work contributes to the fundamental theory of We-map and provides valuable systems and support for the mathematical foundation of We-map,map production,and platform development.Ultimately,this research serves to advance the development of We-map.

Relational Turkish Text Classification Using Distant Supervised Entities and Relations

Text classification,by automatically categorizing texts,is one of the foundational elements of natural language processing applications.This study investigates how text classification performance can be improved through the integration of entity-relation information obtained from the Wikidata(Wikipedia database)database and BERTbased pre-trained Named Entity Recognition(NER)models.Focusing on a significant challenge in the field of natural language processing(NLP),the research evaluates the potential of using entity and relational information to extract deeper meaning from texts.The adopted methodology encompasses a comprehensive approach that includes text preprocessing,entity detection,and the integration of relational information.Experiments conducted on text datasets in both Turkish and English assess the performance of various classification algorithms,such as Support Vector Machine,Logistic Regression,Deep Neural Network,and Convolutional Neural Network.The results indicate that the integration of entity-relation information can significantly enhance algorithmperformance in text classification tasks and offer new perspectives for information extraction and semantic analysis in NLP applications.Contributions of this work include the utilization of distant supervised entity-relation information in Turkish text classification,the development of a Turkish relational text classification approach,and the creation of a relational database.By demonstrating potential performance improvements through the integration of distant supervised entity-relation information into Turkish text classification,this research aims to support the effectiveness of text-based artificial intelligence(AI)tools.Additionally,it makes significant contributions to the development ofmultilingual text classification systems by adding deeper meaning to text content,thereby providing a valuable addition to current NLP studies and setting an important reference point for future research.

Explanation of Two Important Empirical Relations for Galaxies

The phenomenon of “missing mass” in galaxies has triggered new theoretical exploration, forming a competition between dark matter assumption, modified Newtonian dynamics and modified gravity. Over the past forty years, various versions of the modified scenario have been proposed to simulate the effects of missing mass. These schemes replace the dynamic effect of dark matter by introducing some tiny extra force terms in the dynamic equations. Such extra forces have mainly interactions on large scales of galaxies, such as fitting the Tully-Fisher relation or asymptotically flat rotation curves. The discussion in this paper shows that the evidence of taking the modified schemes as fundamental theory is still insufficient. In this paper, we display a system of simplified galactic dynamical equations derived from weak field and low-speed approximations of Einstein field equations, and then we use it to discuss two important empirical relations in galactic dynamics, namely the Faber-Jackson relation and Tully-Fisher relation, as well as the related fundamental plane. These discussions provide a reference scheme for improving the dispersion of the empirical relations, and also provide a theoretical foundation to analyze the properties of dark matter and galactic structures.

Influence of slope position and aspect on the vegetation attributes and treewater relations in forests of the central Himalayas

While the need for understanding the effects of topographical factors on forest structure and function is well recognized,comprehensive studies are scarce.This study evaluates the effect of slope aspect and slope position on water relations and forest attributes across six forest types occurring between 400 m and 2600 m altitude in the Central Himalaya(27°-38°N).We found that predawn tree water potential and soil water potential were generally higher on moist north slope aspect(-0.78±0.05 MPa and-3.34±0.18 MPa,respectively)than dry south slope aspect(-0.82±0.18 MPa and-3.77±0.18 MPa,respectively).Across six different forests,these values were higher at hill base(-0.71±0.06 MPa and-2.77±0.19 MPa,tree predawn water potential and soil water potential,respectively)than other topographical positions.The favorable effect of north aspect and hill base was also observed in maintaining soil water and tree water potential during the dry season.Vegetation attributes,such as species richness,unique species and plant density were also generally higher on north slope and hill base than southern aspect and lowest at hill top.Across forest types,the hill base provided shelter to 46 unique species,compared to 16-18 at the other positions,thus emphasizing its importance as refugia for species to survive climate change induced perturbations.The favorable conditions of hill base position not only contribute to increase in alpha diversity,but also to extended species distributional range.

Interpersonal Perception in Virtual Groups: Examining Homophily, Identification and Individual Attraction Using Social Relations Model in Network

With the penetration of the Internet, virtual groups have become more and more popular. The reliability and accuracy of interpersonal perception in the virtual environment is an intriguing issue. Using the Social relations model (SRM) [1], this paper investigates interpersonal perception in virtual groups from a multilevel perspective. In particular, it examines the following three areas: homophily, identification, and individual attraction, and explores how much of these directional and dyadic relational evaluations can be attributed to the effect of the actor, the partner, and the relationship.

Solving Arithmetic Word Problems of Entailing Deep Implicit Relations by Qualia Syntax-Semantic Model

Solving arithmetic word problems that entail deep implicit relations is still a challenging problem.However,significant progress has been made in solving Arithmetic Word Problems(AWP)over the past six decades.This paper proposes to discover deep implicit relations by qualia inference to solve Arithmetic Word Problems entailing Deep Implicit Relations(DIR-AWP),such as entailing commonsense or subject-domain knowledge involved in the problem-solving process.This paper proposes to take three steps to solve DIR-AWPs,in which the first three steps are used to conduct the qualia inference process.The first step uses the prepared set of qualia-quantity models to identify qualia scenes from the explicit relations extracted by the Syntax-Semantic(S2)method from the given problem.The second step adds missing entities and deep implicit relations in order using the identified qualia scenes and the qualia-quantity models,respectively.The third step distills the relations for solving the given problem by pruning the spare branches of the qualia dependency graph of all the acquired relations.The research contributes to the field by presenting a comprehensive approach combining explicit and implicit knowledge to enhance reasoning abilities.The experimental results on Math23K demonstrate hat the proposed algorithm is superior to the baseline algorithms in solving AWPs requiring deep implicit relations.

A Testing Time for U.S.-China Relations

While the unipolar world is still orbiting in the sphere of influence of Anglo-American elite and some of their allies,the rest of the world is marching in a different direction.THE year 2022 proved to be a turbulent one for U.S.-China relations.

Serum proteins differentially expressed in gestational diabetes mellitus assessed using isobaric tag for relative and absolute quantitation proteomics

BACKGROUND As a well-known fact to the public,gestational diabetes mellitus(GDM)could bring serious risks for both pregnant women and infants.During this important investigation into the linkage between GDM patients and their altered expression in the serum,proteomics techniques were deployed to detect the differentially expressed proteins(DEPs)of in the serum of GDM patients to further explore its pathogenesis,and find out possible biomarkers to forecast GDM occurrence.METHODS Subjects were divided into GDM and normal control groups according to the IADPSG diagnostic criteria.Serum samples were randomly selected from four cases in each group at 24-28 wk of gestation,and the blood samples were identified by applying iTRAQ technology combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.Key proteins and signaling pathways associated with GDM were identified by bioinformatics analysis,and the expression of key proteins in serum from 12 wk to 16 wk of gestation was further verified using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).RESULTS Forty-seven proteins were significantly differentially expressed by analyzing the serum samples between the GDMgravidas as well as the healthy ones. Among them, 31 proteins were found to be upregulated notably and the rest16 proteins were downregulated remarkably. Bioinformatic data report revealed abnormal expression of proteinsassociated with lipid metabolism, coagulation cascade activation, complement system and inflammatory responsein the GDM group. ELISA results showed that the contents of RBP4, as well as ANGPTL8, increased in the serumof GDM gravidas compared with the healthy ones, and this change was found to initiate from 12 wk to 16 wk ofgestation.CONCLUSION GDM symptoms may involve abnormalities in lipid metabolism, coagulation cascade activation, complementsystem and inflammatory response. RBP4 and ANGPTL8 are expected to be early predictors of GDM.

Picture Fuzzy Relations over Picture Fuzzy Sets

Nowadays, picture fuzzy set theory is a flourishing field in mathematics with uncertainty by incorporating the concept of positive, negative and neutral membership degrees of an object. A traditional crisp relation represents the satisfaction or the dissatisfaction of relationship, connection or correspondence between the objects of two or more sets. However, there are some problems that can’t be solved through classical relationships, such as the relationship between two objects being vague. In those situations, picture fuzzy relation over picture fuzzy sets is an important and powerful concept which is suitable for describing correspondences between two vague objects. It represents the strength of association of the elements of picture fuzzy sets. It plays an important role in picture fuzzy modeling, inference and control system and also has important applications in relational databases, approximate reasoning, preference modeling, medical diagnosis, etc. In this article, we define picture fuzzy relations over picture fuzzy sets, including some other fundamental definitions with illustrations. The max-min and min-max compositions of picture fuzzy relations are defined in the light of picture fuzzy sets and discussed some properties related to them. The reflexivity, symmetry and transitivity of a picture fuzzy relation are described over a picture fuzzy set. Finally, various properties are explored related to the picture fuzzy relations over a picture fuzzy set.

A Study of the Effects of Employee Engagement on Job Satisfaction:Mediating Effect of Labor Relations Climate

With the rapid advancement of new technologies and the transformation of the economic model on a global scale,enterprises are facing unprecedented changes in the external environment and more diversified demands from employees.Therefore,it is essential for enterprises to bolster employee engagement by enhancing employees’job satisfaction,building a stable and harmonious internal climate,and adapting to the dynamic,complex external environment.This study analyzes the positive effects of employee engagement on job satisfaction,explores the mediating effect of labor relations climate in the relationship between the two,and proposes corresponding practical countermeasures and suggestions.

A Joint Entity Relation Extraction Model Based on Relation Semantic Template Automatically Constructed

The joint entity relation extraction model which integrates the semantic information of relation is favored by relevant researchers because of its effectiveness in solving the overlapping of entities,and the method of defining the semantic template of relation manually is particularly prominent in the extraction effect because it can obtain the deep semantic information of relation.However,this method has some problems,such as relying on expert experience and poor portability.Inspired by the rule-based entity relation extraction method,this paper proposes a joint entity relation extraction model based on a relation semantic template automatically constructed,which is abbreviated as RSTAC.This model refines the extraction rules of relation semantic templates from relation corpus through dependency parsing and realizes the automatic construction of relation semantic templates.Based on the relation semantic template,the process of relation classification and triplet extraction is constrained,and finally,the entity relation triplet is obtained.The experimental results on the three major Chinese datasets of DuIE,SanWen,and FinRE showthat the RSTAC model successfully obtains rich deep semantics of relation,improves the extraction effect of entity relation triples,and the F1 scores are increased by an average of 0.96% compared with classical joint extraction models such as CasRel,TPLinker,and RFBFN.

Kant and Confucius:Moral Ethics Behind Western and Eastern Approaches to International Relations

International relations(IR)as a discipline is currently experiencing a crisis that may be viewed as a protest against the Euro-centric theories in humanities and the Western view on global politics,some of the most vocal opponents coming from Asia,with China at its core.This paper aims to compare the principles that depict moral ethics serving as a base for political idealism in the West and the East with Kant’s views as a foundation for Western idealism and Confucius’s ethical theory as a ground for an ideal society from the Asian perspective.The comparison is conducted along the following axes:the notions of autonomy,will,and freedom,initially developed to depict an ideal world order in the Kantian view.As a result of this comparison,the common feature between the two types of ethics,namely the strive for human dignity,becomes apparent.In conclusion,the paper suggests that researchers should concentrate on common features in the two philosophies instead of juxtaposing their apparent differences,which politically reflect the opposition of individualism and collectivism.Stress on human dignity shall become a unifying factor in modern international politics instead.

The Revolution’s Result: The Change of Cuban-American Relations During the 1959-1962 Period

Cuban-American relations have become one of the most attractive bilateral relations since the Cold War era.With historical methods and international relations theory,this paper aims to discuss the Cuban Revolution and the change of Cuban-American relations through two issues.One is the Cuban Revolution and the gradual rupture of traditional Cuban-American ties,demonstrating that since Castro’s radical reform of nationalization deeply violated the economic interests of the United States,conflicts and confrontations had already been incurred.At the same time,with Moscow’s intervention,the Cuban Revolution gradually became complicated and sensitive to deal with from Washington’s perspective.The other one is the evolution of confrontation between the Castro revolutionary regime and the United States government during the 1959-1962 period.The Bay of Pigs Invasion rapidly caused political tensions in Cuban-American relations,and soon,the Cuban Missile Crisis institutionalized the escalating confrontation and deeply worsened bilateral relations.As a result,the Castro regime had no choice but to rely on Soviet assistance to maintain a delicate balance with the United States for several decades,which indicated the tragedy of the small nations’destiny.

The Prevalence of Overweight/Obesity and Related Comorbidities among HIV-Positive and HIV-Negative Patients Attending the Same Clinics in Gaborone, Botswana

Context: Antiretroviral therapy (ART) helps restore the health status of people living with HIV (PLHIV). Likewise, it increases the risk of overweight/obesity and related comorbidities among the recipients. In countries like Botswana where ±84% of PLHIV is on ART, the paucity of data comparing overweight/obesity between HIV-positive on ART and HIV-negative patients may impede clinical and policy decision-making. This study sought to estimate and compare: i) the prevalence of overweight/obesity between HIV-positive on ART and HIV-negative patients;ii) the prevalence of hypertension (HTN), diabetes mellitus (DM)/coronary heart disease (CHD) between HIV-positive patients on ART and HIV-negative patients attending same outpatient departments of general clinics in Gaborone, Botswana. Patients and Methods: Five hundred eighty-one (581) outpatients were recruited in four major clinics of Gaborone, Botswana, between June and July 2019;294 or 51% of them were HIV-negative and 287 or 49% were HIV-positive on ART. The prevalence of overweight/obesity and of HTN and DM/CHD were calculated and examined using stratified analysis. Subgroups were compared using Chi-square analysis with Yates correction or Fisher exact test and t-student test for continuous data. Results: Major findings after stratification of the study population by HIV status were: i) the prevalence of all categories of (BMI), including overweight/obesity, were comparable between HIV-negative-patients and HIV-positive. In fact, there were 24 (8.0%) cases of underweight among HIV-negative-Patients and 15(5%) cases among HIV-positive patients, p = 0.2;145 (49%) HIV-negative-patients and 128 (45%) HIV-positive, p = 0.07 cases of normal weight;72 (25%) HIV-negative-patients and 87 (30%) HIV-positive, p = 0.08, were overweight;53 (18%) HIV-negative-patients and 57 (20%) HIV-positive, p = 0.12, were obese;125 (43%) HIV-negative patients and 144 (50%) HIV-positive, p=0.06 were overweight/obese;ii) the prevalence of HTN and DM/CHD among HIV-positive-patients were significantly lower (p < 0.05) compared to HIV-negative patients: There were 32 (10.9%) cases of HTN among HIV-negative patients compared to 18 (6.3%) cases of HTN among HIV-positive patients, p = 0.001;32 (11%) cases of DM/CHD HIV-negative patients compared to 4 (1.4%) cases of DM/CHD among HIV-positive patients, p = 0.001. Conclusion: the prevalence of overweight/obesity observed between HIV-negative and HIV-positive patients may suggest that the two groups shared the same exposure factors. That HTN and DM/CHD prevalence was lower among HIV-positive compared to HIV-negative patients, is possibly due to interplay factors of ART, HIV or the host population. Further studies are, however, recommended for clarifications.