The Prevalence of Sexual Partner Concurrency Is Not Correlated with Markers of Poverty or Gender Inequality: An Ecological Analysis

High rates of overlapping sexual relationships (concurrency) are believed to be important in the generation of generalized HIV epidemics in sub-Saharan Africa. Different authors favor socioeconomic, gender-equity or cultural explanations for the high concurrency rates in this region. We performed linear regression to analyze the association between the point-prevalence of concurrency in 15 - 49 years old males and various indicators of socioeconomic status and gender-equity using data from 11 countries surveyed in 1989/1990. We found no meaningful association between concurrency and the various markers of socioeconomic status and gender-equity. This analysis supports the findings of other studies that high concurrency rates in sub-Saharan Africa could be reduced without having to address socioeconomic and gender-equity factors.

Validation concurrency control protocol in parallel real-time database systems

In parallel real-time database systems, concurrency control protocols must satisfy time constraints as well as the integrity constraints. The authors present a validation concurrency control(VCC) protocol, which can enhance the performance of real-time concurrency control mechanism by reducing the number of transactions that might miss their deadlines, and compare the performance of validation concurrency control protocol with that of HP2PL(High priority two phase locking) protocol and OCC-TI-WAIT-50(Optimistic concurrency control-time interval-wait-50) protocol under shared-disk architecture by simulation. The simulation results reveal that the protocol the author presented can effectively reduce the number of transactions restarting which might miss their deadlines and performs better than HP2PL and OCC-TI-WAIT-50. It works well when arrival rate of transaction is lesser than threshold. However, due to resource contention the percentage of missing deadline increases sharply when arrival rate is greater than the threshold.

Study on Agent Based Methods for Concurrency Control in CSCW

Concurrency control is a critical technology and one of the problems in CSCW systems. With the development of agent based technology, it has also been applied to research and development of CSCW systems. An Agent based method for concurrency control in CSCW is explored in this paper. This new way is achieved by making use of the thoughts of AOP (Agent Oriented Programming) to improve traditional locking method, on the basis of researching characteristics and functional requirements of concurrency control in CSCW, and analyzing various usually used concurrency control methods. All amendments to locking method are done on the basis of the analysis of limitations brought by locking. In this paper, a new algorithm supporting queue of locking request for Agent based concurrency control is also presented. All above aspects are discussed in some detail in this paper.

Remaining Time Prediction for Business Processes with Concurrency Based on Log Representation

Remaining time prediction of business processes plays an important role in resource scheduling and plan making.The structural features of single process instance and the concurrent running of multiple process instances are the main factors that affect the accuracy of the remaining time prediction.Existing prediction methods does not take full advantage of these two aspects into consideration.To address this issue,a new prediction method based on trace representation is proposed.More specifically,we first associate the prefix set generated by the event log to different states of the transition system,and encode the structural features of the prefixes in the state.Then,an annotation containing the feature representation for the prefix and the corresponding remaining time are added to each state to obtain an extended transition system.Next,states in the extended transition system are partitioned by the different lengths of the states,which considers concurrency among multiple process instances.Finally,the long short-term memory(LSTM)deep recurrent neural networks are applied to each partition for predicting the remaining time of new running instances.By extensive experimental evaluation using synthetic event logs and reallife event logs,we show that the proposed method outperforms existing baseline methods.

Weak Serializable Concurrency Control in Real-time Broadcast Environments

Given the asymmetric communication capabilities in mobile real time environments, traditional serializability based approaches are too restrictive, unnecessary, and impractical. Thus propose the use of a new weaker correctness criterion is proposed. This paper first formally defines the new notion of correctness called weak serializability. After the necessary and sufficient conditions for weak serializability are shown, corresponding concurrency control protocol based on this criterion is outlined for real time broadcast environments. Finally, the simulation results confirmed that the proposed techniques help mobile transactions to meet their deadlines and improve query response time.

The Prevalence of Syphilis Is Associated with the Prevalence of Male Point-Concurrency: An Ecological Analysis

Objective: The prevalence of syphilis differs considerably between different populations and indi-vidual level risk factors such as number of sex partners seem unable to completely explain these differences. The effect of network level factors, such as the prevalence of partner concurrency, on syphilis prevalence has not hitherto been investigated. Study design: Linear regression was per-formed to assess the relationship between the prevalence of male concurrency and prevalence of syphilis in each of 11 countries for which we could obtain comparable data. The data for concur-rency prevalence was taken from the WHO/Global Programme on AIDS (GPA) sexual behavioural surveys. Syphilis prevalence rates were obtained from antenatal syphilis serology surveys done in the same countries. In addition, we used linear regression to assess if there was a relationship between syphilis and concurrency prevalence of various racial and ethnic groups within the United States and South Africa. Results: In the international study, we found a strong relationship between the prevalence of male concurrency and syphilis prevalence (r = 0.79, P = 0.003). In the subnational studies, the relationship between concurrency and syphilis prevalence was positive in all cases but was only statistically significant so in the case of South Africa’s racial groups (r = 0.98, P = 0.01). Conclusions: The findings of an ecological-level association between syphilis and partner concurrency need to be replicated but suggest that efforts directed towards decreasing partner concurrency may reduce syphilis prevalence.

NEHASH:high-concurrency extendible hashing for non-volatile memory

Extendible hashing is an effective way to manage increasingly large file system metadata,but it suffers from low concurrency and lack of optimization for non-volatile memory(NVM).In this paper,a multilevel hash directory based on lazy expansion is designed to improve the concurrency and efficiency of extendible hashing,and a hash bucket management algorithm based on groups is presented to improve the efficiency of hash key management by reducing the size of the hash bucket,thereby improving the performance of extendible hashing.Meanwhile,a hierarchical storage strategy of extendible hashing for NVM is given to take advantage of dynamic random access memory(DRAM)and NVM.Furthermore,on the basis of the device driver for Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory,the prototype of high-concurrency extendible hashing named NEHASH is implemented.Yahoo cloud serving benchmark(YCSB)is used to test and compare with CCEH,level hashing,and cuckoo hashing.The results show that NEHASH can improve read throughput by up to 16.5%and write throughput by 19.3%.

Multi-source heterogeneous data access management framework and key technologies for electric power Internet of Things

The power Internet of Things(IoT)is a significant trend in technology and a requirement for national strategic development.With the deepening digital transformation of the power grid,China’s power system has initially built a power IoT architecture comprising a perception,network,and platform application layer.However,owing to the structural complexity of the power system,the construction of the power IoT continues to face problems such as complex access management of massive heterogeneous equipment,diverse IoT protocol access methods,high concurrency of network communications,and weak data security protection.To address these issues,this study optimizes the existing architecture of the power IoT and designs an integrated management framework for the access of multi-source heterogeneous data in the power IoT,comprising cloud,pipe,edge,and terminal parts.It further reviews and analyzes the key technologies involved in the power IoT,such as the unified management of the physical model,high concurrent access,multi-protocol access,multi-source heterogeneous data storage management,and data security control,to provide a more flexible,efficient,secure,and easy-to-use solution for multi-source heterogeneous data access in the power IoT.

Anthropogenic Influence on Decadal Changes in Concurrent Hot and Dry Events over China around the Mid-1990s

The frequency and duration of observed concurrent hot and dry events(HDEs) over China during the growing season(April–September) exhibit significant decadal changes across the mid-1990s. These changes are characterized by increases in HDE frequency and duration over most of China, with relatively large increases over southeastern China(SEC), northern China(NC), and northeastern China(NEC). The frequency of HDEs averaged over China in the present day(PD,1994–2011) is double that in the early period(EP, 1964–81);the duration of HDEs increases by 60%. Climate experiments with the Met Office Unified Model(MetUM-GOML2) are used to estimate the contributions of anthropogenic forcing to HDE decadal changes over China. Anthropogenic forcing changes can explain 60%–70% of the observed decadal changes,suggesting an important anthropogenic influence on HDE changes over China across the mid-1990s. Single-forcing experiments indicate that the increase in greenhouse gas(GHG) concentrations dominates the simulated decadal changes,increasing the frequency and duration of HDEs throughout China. The change in anthropogenic aerosol(AA) emissions significantly decreases the frequency and duration of HDEs over SEC and NC, but the magnitude of the decrease is much smaller than the increase induced by GHGs. The changes in HDEs in response to anthropogenic forcing are mainly due to the response of climatological mean surface air temperatures. The contributions from changes in variability and changes in climatological mean soil moisture and evapotranspiration are relatively small. The physical processes associated with the response of HDEs to GHG and AA changes are also revealed.

RSMC:A Safety Model Checker for Concurrency and Memory Safety of Rust

Rust is a system-level programming language that provides thread and memory safety guarantee through a suite of static compiler checking rules and prevents segmentation errors.However,since compiler checking is too strict to confine Rust's programmability,the developers prefer to use the keyword"unsafe"to bypass compiler checking,through which the caller could interact with OS directly.Unfortunately,the code block with"unsafe"would easily lead to some serious bugs such as memory safety violation,race condition and so on.In this paper,to verify memory and concurrency safety of Rust programs,we present RSMC(Safety Model Checker for Rust),a tool based on Smack to detect concurrency bugs and memory safety errors in Rust programs,in which we combine concurrency primitives model checking and memory boundary model checking.RSMC,with an assertion generator,can automatically insert assertions and requires no programmer annotations to verify Rust programs.We evaluate RSMC on two categories of Rust programs,and the result shows that RSMC can effectively find concurrency bugs and memory safety errors in vulnerable Rust programs,which include unsafe code.

Survival benefit of concurrent chemoradiotherapy for advanced ampulla of Vater cancer

BACKGROUND Currently,there is no standard adjuvant therapy for patients with resected ampulla of Vater(AoV)cancer.AIM To evaluate the effectiveness of adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy(CCRT)in patients with advanced AoV cancer who underwent curative resection.METHODS This single-centered,retrospective study included 29 patients with advanced AoV cancer who underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy between 2006 and 2018.The impact of CCRT on advanced AoV cancer was analyzed.RESULTS The 1-,3-,and 5-yr recurrence-free survival(RFS)rates for patients with advanced AoV cancer were 82.8%,48.3%,and 40.8%,respectively,and the overall survival(OS)rates were 89.7%,62.1%,and 51.7%,respectively.Lymphovas-cular invasion was found to be a significant risk factor for RFS and OS in patients with advanced AoV cancer in the univariate analysis,whereas T stage and lymph node metastasis were significantly associated with OS in the multivariate analysis.Compared to the patients who did not receive adjuvant CCRT,those who received adjuvant CCRT did not show statistically significant improvements in the RFS and OS,although they had a significantly lower average age and significantly higher platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio.CONCLUSION Adjuvant CCRT did not improve survival outcomes in patients with advanced AoV cancer.These findings contribute to existing knowledge on the effectiveness of CCRT in this patient population and provide important insights for clinical decision-making.

Labeled Network Stack: A High-Concurrency and Low-Tail Latency Cloud Server Framework for Massive IoT Devices

Internet of Things(IoT)applications have massive client connections to cloud servers,and the number of networked IoT devices is remarkably increasing.IoT services require both low-tail latency and high concurrency in datacenters.This study aims to determine whether an order of magnitude improvement is possible in tail latency and concurrency in mainstream systems by proposing a hardware-software codesigned labeled network stack(LNS)for future datacenters.The key innovation is a cross-layered payload labeling mechanism that distinguishes different requests by payload across the full network stack,including application,TCP/IP,and Ethernet layers.This type of design enables prioritized data packet processing and forwarding along the full datapath,such that latency-insensitive requests cannot significantly interfere with high-priority requests.We build a prototype datacenter server to evaluate the LNS design against a commercial X86 server and the mTCP research,using a cloud-supported IoT application scenario.Experimental results show that the LNS design can provide an order of magnitude improvement in tail latency and concurrency.A single datacenter server node can support over 2 million concurrent long-living connections for IoT devices as a 99-percentile tail latency of 50 ms is maintained.In addition,the hardware-software codesign approach remarkably reduces the labeling and prioritization overhead and constrains the interference of high-priority requests to low-priority requests.

Multi-Clock Snapshot Isolation Concurrency Control for NVM Database

Multi-Clock Snapshot Isolation(MCSI)is a concurrency control mechanism that implements snapshot isolation on a single-layer Non-Volatile Memory(NVM)database.It stores a single copy of data by using multi-version storage to ensure durability and runtime access.With multi-clock transaction timestamp assignment,MCSI can efficiently generate snapshots with vector clocks and use per-thread transaction status arrays to identify uncommitted versions in NVM.For evaluation,we compared MCSI with the PostgreSQL-style concurrency control used in the single-layer NVM database N2DB.The maximum transaction throughput of MCSI is 101%–195%higher than that of N2DB for the YCSB workloads,and 25%–49%higher for the TPC-C workloads.Moreover,the transaction latency of MCSI remains relatively stable as the thread count increases.With 18 worker threads,the average transaction latency of MCSI is 65%–84%lower than that of N2DB for the YCSB workloads and 16%–43%lower for the TPC-C workloads.

Adaptive Consistent Management to Prevent System Collapse on Shared Object Manipulation in Mixed Reality

A concurrency control mechanism for collaborative work is akey element in a mixed reality environment. However, conventional lockingmechanisms restrict potential tasks or the support of non-owners, thusincreasing the working time because of waiting to avoid conflicts. Herein, wepropose an adaptive concurrency control approach that can reduce conflictsand work time. We classify shared object manipulation in mixed reality intodetailed goals and tasks. Then, we model the relationships among goal,task, and ownership. As the collaborative work progresses, the proposedsystem adapts the different concurrency control mechanisms of shared objectmanipulation according to the modeling of goal–task–ownership. With theproposed concurrency control scheme, users can hold shared objects andmove and rotate together in a mixed reality environment similar to realindustrial sites. Additionally, this system provides MS Hololens and Myosensors to recognize inputs from a user and provides results in a mixed realityenvironment. The proposed method is applied to install an air conditioneras a case study. Experimental results and user studies show that, comparedwith the conventional approach, the proposed method reduced the number ofconflicts, waiting time, and total working time.

Efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy with thalidomide and S-1 for esophageal carcinoma and its influence on serum tumor markers

BACKGROUND Although the current conventional treatment strategies for esophageal carcinoma(EC)have been proven effective,they are often accompanied by serious adverse events.Therefore,it is still necessary to continue to explore new therapeutic strategies for EC to improve the clinical outcome of patients.AIM To elucidate the clinical efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy(CCRT)with thalidomide(THAL)and S-1(tegafur,gimeracil,and oteracil potassium capsules)in the treatment of EC as well as its influence on serum tumor markers(STMs).METHODS First,62 patients with EC treated at the Zibo 148 Hospital between November 2019 and November 2022 were selected and grouped according to the received treatment.Among these,30 patients undergoing CCRT with cis-platinum and 5-fluorouracil were assigned to the control group(Con),and 32 patients receiving CCRT with THAL and S-1 were assigned to the research group(Res).Second,inter-group comparisons were carried out with respect to curative efficacy,incidence of drug toxicities,STMs[carbohydrate antigen 125(CA125)and macrophage inflammatory protein-3α(MIP-3α)],angiogenesis-related indicators[vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF);VEGF receptor-1(VEGFR-1);basic fibroblast growth factor(bFGF);angiogenin-2(Ang-2)],and quality of life(QoL)[QoL core 30(QLQ-C30)]after one month of treatment.RESULTS The analysis showed no statistical difference in the overall response rate and disease control rate between the two patient cohorts;however,the incidences of grade I–II myelosuppression and gastrointestinal reactions were significantly lower in the Res than in the Con.Besides,the post-treatment CA125,MIP-3α,VEGF,VEGFR-1,bFGF,and Ang-2 Levels in the Res were markedly lower compared with the pre-treatment levels and the corresponding post-treatment levels in the Con.Furthermore,more evident improvements in QLQ-C30 scores from the dimensions of physical,role,emotional,and social functions were determined in the Res.CONCLUSION The above results demonstrate the effectiveness of THAL+S-1 CCRT for EC,which contributes to mild side effects and significant reduction of CA125,MIP-3α,VEGF,VEGFR-1,bFGF,and Ang-2 Levels,thus inhibiting tumors from malignant progression and enhancing patients’QoL.

Design of a High Precision Multichannel 3D Bioprinter

Three-dimensional(3D)printing technology is expected to solve the organ shortage problem.However,owing to the accuracy limitations,it is difficult for the current bioprinting technology to achieve an accurate control of the spatial position and distribution of a single cell or single component droplet.In this study,to accurately achieve the directional deposition of different cells and biological materials in the spatial position for the construction of large transplantable tissues and organs,a high-precision multichannel 3D bioprinter with submicron-level motion accuracy is designed,and concurrent and synergistic printing methods are proposed.Based on the high-precision motion characteristics of the gantry structure and the requirements of concurrent and synergistic printing,a 3D bioprint-ing system with a set of 6 channels is designed to achieve six-in-one printing.Based on the Visual C++environ-ment,a control system software that integrates the programmable multi-axis controller(PMAC)motion,pneumatic,and temperature control subsystems was developed and designed.Finally,based on measurements and experiments,the 3D bioprinter and its control system was verified to fulfil the requirements of multichannel,concurrent,and syn-ergistic printing with submicron-level motion accuracy,significantly shortening the printing time and improving the printing efficiency.This study not only provides an equipment basis for printing complex heterogeneous tissue structures,but also improves the flexibility and functionality of bioprinting,and ultimately makes the construction of complex multicellular tissues or organs possible.

Parameterized monogamy and polygamy relations of multipartite entanglement

Monogamy and polygamy relations are important properties of entanglement,which characterize the entanglement distribution of multipartite systems.We explore monogamy and polygamy relations of entanglement in multipartite systems by using two newly derived parameterized mathematical inequalities,and establish classes of parameterized monogamy and polygamy relations of multiqubit entanglement in terms of concurrence and entanglement of formation.We show that these new parameterized monogamy and poelygamy inequalities are tighter than the existing ones by detailed examples.

A Smart Heart Disease Diagnostic System Using Deep Vanilla LSTM

Effective smart healthcare frameworks contain novel and emerging solutions for remote disease diagnostics,which aid in the prevention of several diseases including heart-related abnormalities.In this context,regular monitoring of cardiac patients through smart healthcare systems based on Electrocardiogram(ECG)signals has the potential to save many lives.In existing studies,several heart disease diagnostic systems are proposed by employing different state-of-the-art methods,however,improving such methods is always an intriguing area of research.Hence,in this research,a smart healthcare system is proposed for the diagnosis of heart disease using ECG signals.The proposed framework extracts both linear and time-series information on the ECG signals and fuses them into a single framework concurrently.The linear characteristics of ECG signals are extracted by convolution layers followed by Gaussian Error Linear Units(GeLu)and time series characteristics of ECG beats are extracted by Vanilla Long Short-Term Memory Networks(LSTM).Following on,the feature reduction of linear information is done with the help of ID Generalized Gated Pooling(GGP).In addition,data misbalancing issues are also addressed with the help of the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique(SMOTE).The performance assessment of the proposed model is done over the two publicly available datasets named MIT-BIH arrhythmia database(MITDB)and PTB Diagnostic ECG database(PTBDB).The proposed framework achieves an average accuracy performance of 99.14%along with a 95%recall value.

Co‑infection of fasciolosis and hydatidosis and their financial loss in cattle slaughtered at Wolaita Sodo municipal abattoir,southern Ethiopia

Fasciolosis and hydatidosis are the world’s most common zoonotic major parasitic ailments of domesticated animals with financial and public health implications.A cross-sectional study was conducted on 384 randomly selected cattle slaughtered at Wolaita Sodo municipal abattoir to estimate the prevalence and associated risk factors for co-infection of hydatidosis and fasciolosis using the ante-and postmortem examination techniques.Of the 384 examined cattle,4.17%were found to harbor co-infections of hydatidosis and fasciolosis.Similarly,the prevalence of concurrent fasciolosis and hydatidosis infections was 76.56%and 23.44%in local and crossbred animals,respectively.The current study took into account risk factors such as age,breed,origin,and body condition score;however,there is a statistically insignificant association between the risk factors and the prevalence of concurrent fasciolosis and hydatidosis infection.In this study,overall fasciolosis was recorded at a rate of 9.38%,with the highest prevalence of F.hepatica at 8.59%,followed by unidentified flukes at 4.17%and F.gigantica at 0.78%.Likewise,the single prevalence of hydatidosis was recorded at 10.94%.Of the 142 examined cysts,the liver alone harbors 54 cysts,and the lung alone harbors 88 cysts,with a total of 43 calcified,21 sterile,56 viable,9 nonviable,and 13 mixed cysts.The predicted yearly financial loss from organ condemnation was 15,436,142.00 ETB Birr.This study demonstrated that hydatidosis and fasciolosis are two relatively widespread parasite diseases of cattle in Ethiopia,causing significant economic loss attributable to organ rejection and indirect weight loss.Thus,awareness of the impact of the disease on the community could disrupt the parasite’s life cycle,and its economic significance was forwarded to other points.

Hepatitis B virus infection in patients with Wilson disease:A large retrospective study

BACKGROUND Wilson disease(WD)is the most common genetic metabolic liver disease.Some studies have shown that comorbidities may have important effects on WD.Data on hepatitis B virus(HBV)infection in patients with WD are limited.AIM To investigate the prevalence and clinical impact of HBV infection in patients with WD.METHODS The clinical data of patients with WD were analyzed retrospectively,and the data of patients with concurrent WD and HBV infection were compared with those of patients with isolated WD.RESULTS Among a total of 915 WD patients recruited,the total prevalence of current and previous HBV infection was 2.1%[95%confidence interval(CI):1.2%-3.0%]and 9.2%(95%CI:7.3%-11.1%),respectively.The main finding of this study was the identification of 19 patients with concurrent WD and chronic hepatitis B(CHB)infection.The diagnosis of WD was missed in all but two patients with CHB infection.The mean delay in the diagnosis of WD in patients with concurrent WD and CHB infection was 32.5 mo,which was significantly longer than that in patients with isolated WD(10.5 mo).The rates of severe liver disease and mortality in patients with concurrent WD and CHB infection were significantly higher than those in patients with isolated WD(63.1%vs 19.3%,P=0.000 and 36.8%vs 4.1%,P<0.001,respectively).Binary logistic regression analysis revealed a significantly higher risk of severe liver disease at the diagnosis of WD in patients with current HBV infection[odds ratio(OR)=7.748;95%CI:2.890-20.774;P=0.000)]or previous HBV infection(OR=5.525;95%CI:3.159-8.739;P=0.000)than in patients with isolated WD.CONCLUSION The total prevalence of current HBV infection in patients with WD was 2.1%.The diagnosis of WD in CHB patients is usually missed.HBV infection is an independent risk factor for severe liver disease in WD patients.The diagnosis of WD should be ruled out in some patients with CHB infection.