Understanding the adoption context of China’s digital currency electronic payment

Central banks worldwide have started researching and developing central bank digital currencies(CBDCs).In the digital economy context,concerns regarding the integrity,competition,and privacy of CBDC systems have also gradually emerged.Against this backdrop,this study aims to evaluate users’willingness to use China’s digital currency electronic payment(DCEP)system,a digital payment and processing network,and its influencing factors by comprehensively considering and comparing the characteristics of cash and third-party payment services.Combining the push-pull-mooring frame-work(PPM)and task-technology fit(TTF)theory,we discuss the scenarios and mecha-nisms that may inspire users’DCEP adoption intention through an empirical study.The results reveal that privacy concerns regarding the original payment methods and technology-task fitting level of DCEP positively impact users’willingness to adopt DCEP.The technical characteristics of DCEP,users’payment requirements,and government support positively affect users’adoption intention by influencing the task-technology fitting degree of DCEP.Switching cost significantly and negatively impacts adop-tion intention,whereas relative advantage exhibits no significant effect.This research contributes to a better understanding of the factors that influence switching intentions and the actual use of DCEP,and provides policy guidance on promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of DCEP.

The Main and Interactive Effects of Fat and Salt Contents of the Diet on Characteristics of Metabolic Syndrome in Male Wistar Rats

The current Western diet contains high amounts of salt and fat. High salt and fat diets are known to have negative impacts on food intake (FI), body weight (BW), body composition (BC), glucose metabolism, and blood pressure. These factors have been studied as separate entities, but the main and interactive effects of dietary salt and fat received little study. The objective of this study was to examine the effect of sodium and fat content of the diet on FI, BW, and BC in male Wistar rats. Male Wistar Rats (n = 48) were allocated into 4 groups (n = 12) and received the following diets: 1. Normal sodium normal fat, 2. Normal sodium high fat, 3. High sodium normal fat, and 4. High sodium high-fat diet for 12 weeks. BW and FI were measured weekly. BC and organs’ weight were recorded post-termination. Regardless of sodium content, a greater FI was observed in normal-fat diet groups compared with high-fat diet groups. However, higher BW and fat (%) were observed in high-fat diet groups. Fasting blood glucose was higher in rats fed normal fat diets compared with those fed high-fat diets. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure was lower in rats fed either high fat, high salt, or normal fat, normal salt diet. In conclusion, fat but not salt content in the diet is a determining factor in the regulation of FI and body weight. Moreover, glucose metabolism can be influenced by both the fat and salt content of the diet.

Multimodality Medical Image Fusion Based on Pixel Significance with Edge-Preserving Processing for Clinical Applications

Multimodal medical image fusion has attained immense popularity in recent years due to its robust technology for clinical diagnosis.It fuses multiple images into a single image to improve the quality of images by retaining significant information and aiding diagnostic practitioners in diagnosing and treating many diseases.However,recent image fusion techniques have encountered several challenges,including fusion artifacts,algorithm complexity,and high computing costs.To solve these problems,this study presents a novel medical image fusion strategy by combining the benefits of pixel significance with edge-preserving processing to achieve the best fusion performance.First,the method employs a cross-bilateral filter(CBF)that utilizes one image to determine the kernel and the other for filtering,and vice versa,by considering both geometric closeness and the gray-level similarities of neighboring pixels of the images without smoothing edges.The outputs of CBF are then subtracted from the original images to obtain detailed images.It further proposes to use edge-preserving processing that combines linear lowpass filtering with a non-linear technique that enables the selection of relevant regions in detailed images while maintaining structural properties.These regions are selected using morphologically processed linear filter residuals to identify the significant regions with high-amplitude edges and adequate size.The outputs of low-pass filtering are fused with meaningfully restored regions to reconstruct the original shape of the edges.In addition,weight computations are performed using these reconstructed images,and these weights are then fused with the original input images to produce a final fusion result by estimating the strength of horizontal and vertical details.Numerous standard quality evaluation metrics with complementary properties are used for comparison with existing,well-known algorithms objectively to validate the fusion results.Experimental results from the proposed research article exhibit superior performance compared to other competing techniques in the case of both qualitative and quantitative evaluation.In addition,the proposed method advocates less computational complexity and execution time while improving diagnostic computing accuracy.Nevertheless,due to the lower complexity of the fusion algorithm,the efficiency of fusion methods is high in practical applications.The results reveal that the proposed method exceeds the latest state-of-the-art methods in terms of providing detailed information,edge contour,and overall contrast.

Morphological Effects of Natural Products on Schizosaccharomyces pombe Measured by Imaging Flow Cytometry

Gaining a full understanding of the mechanisms of action of natural products as therapeutic agents includes observing the effects of natural products on cellular morphology,because abnormal cellular morphology is an important aspect of cellular transformations that occur as part of disease states.In this study a set of natural products was examined in search of small molecules that influence the cylindrical morphology of fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe.Imaging flow cytometry of large populations of S.pombe exposed to natural products captured cell images and revealed changes in mean length and aspect ratio of cells.Several natural products were found to alter S.pombe’s morphology relative to control,in terms of elongating cells,shrinking them,or making them more round.These results may facilitate future investigations into methods by which cells establish and maintain specific shapes.

Evaluating Traffic Congestion Using the Traffic Occupancy and Speed Distribution Relationship: An Application of Bayesian Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Generalized Linear Model

Accurate classification and prediction of future traffic conditions are essential for developing effective strategies for congestion mitigation on the highway systems. Speed distribution is one of the traffic stream parameters, which has been used to quantify the traffic conditions. Previous studies have shown that multi-modal probability distribution of speeds gives excellent results when simultaneously evaluating congested and free-flow traffic conditions. However, most of these previous analytical studies do not incorporate the influencing factors in characterizing these conditions. This study evaluates the impact of traffic occupancy on the multi-state speed distribution using the Bayesian Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Generalized Linear Models (DPM-GLM). Further, the study estimates the speed cut-point values of traffic states, which separate them into homogeneous groups using Bayesian change-point detection (BCD) technique. The study used 2015 archived one-year traffic data collected on Florida’s Interstate 295 freeway corridor. Information criteria results revealed three traffic states, which were identified as free-flow, transitional flow condition (congestion onset/offset), and the congested condition. The findings of the DPM-GLM indicated that in all estimated states, the traffic speed decreases when traffic occupancy increases. Comparison of the influence of traffic occupancy between traffic states showed that traffic occupancy has more impact on the free-flow and the congested state than on the transitional flow condition. With respect to estimating the threshold speed value, the results of the BCD model revealed promising findings in characterizing levels of traffic congestion.

Management of Acute Skin Trauma

Acute skin trauma(ie,abrasions,avulsions,blis-ters,incisions,lacerations,and punctures)is common among individuals involved in work,recreational,and athletic activities.Appropriate management of these wounds is important to promote healing and lessen

An application of Bayesian multilevel model to evaluate variations in stochastic and dynamic transition of traffic conditions

This study seeks to investigate the variations associated with lane lateral locations and days of the week in the stochastic and dynamic transition of traffic regimes(DTTR).In the proposed analysis,hierarchical regression models fitted using Bayesian frameworks were used to calibrate the transition probabilities that describe the DTTR.Datasets of two sites on a freeway facility located in Jacksonville,Florida,were selected for the analysis.The traffic speed thresholds to define traffic regimes were estimated using the Gaussian mixture model(GMM).The GMM revealed that two and three regimes were adequate mixture components for estimating the traffic speed distributions for Site 1 and 2 datasets,respectively.The results of hierarchical regression models show that there is considerable evidence that there are heterogeneity characteristics in the DTTR associated with lateral lane locations.In particular,the hierarchical regressions reveal that the breakdown process is more affected by the variations compared to other evaluated transition processes with the estimated intra-class correlation(ICC)of about 73%.The transition from congestion on-set/dissolution(COD)to the congested regime is estimated with the highest ICC of 49.4%in the three-regime model,and the lowest ICC of 1%was observed on the transition from the congested to COD regime.On the other hand,different days of the week are not found to contribute to the variations(the highest ICC was 1.44%)on the DTTR.These findings can be used in developing effective congestion countermeasures,particularly in the application of intelligent transportation systems,such as dynamic lane-management strategies.

A Geospatial Approach to Measuring Surface Disturbance Related to Oil and Gas Activities in West Florida, USA

Oil and gas exploration and production activities (OGEPA) can produce surface disturbances created by the construction of roads, well pads, oil wells, pipelines, production facilities and storage pits. These alterations can range from landscape conversion to transformation depending on location, regulations and enforcement, environmental best practices and state vs. multinational management. Though not known as a major oil and gas state, Florida is ranked 23rd in gas and 24th in oil production nationally. Jay oilfield, located in West Florida’s panhandle region, is the largest and top producer in the state. Though production peaked in 1979, a nationwide upsurge is taking place that could affect Florida. The accounting from above approach proposed here is well suited to understand the role that the infrastructure surface footprint has on West Florida’s landscape and how to monitor potential changes underway. It involves remote sensing, GIS techniques and landscape ecology metrics to quantify surface disturbance in Santa Rosa County’s six oilfields and then ranks each field based on environmental performance (sustainability). Findings suggest that agricultural conversion is the leading driver of land-use and land-cover (LULC) change, while OGEPA have created small-scale surface alterations. This paper’s approach can help oil companies, land managers and local government authorities understand the spatial extent of OGEPA onshore alterations and plan future scenarios, particularly as drilling and production increase in the current shale revolution occurring throughout the US, as well as expanded drilling planned for Florida.

No Dose Response Relationship in the Effects of Commonly Consumed Sugars on Risk Factors for Diabetes across a Range of Typical Human Consumption Levels

Questions have been raised as to whether dietary carbohydrate intake is directly related to the development of type 2 diabetes. Of particular importance, fructose-induced insulin resistance has been previously shown in animals. However, the implications of such findings for humans are unclear as these models typically use very high doses of sugars and from sources not commonly consumed. Little is known about how the typical consumption of sugar in humans affects risk factors for diabetes. 355 weight-stable (weight change < 3% in previous 30 days) individuals aged 20 - 60 years old drank sugar-sweetened low fat milk every day for 10 weeks as part of their usual diet. Added sugar was provided in the milk as either high fructose corn syrup or sucrose at 8%, 18% or 30% of the calories required to maintain body weight. Insulin resistance was measured using the Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA IR) on fasting measures and a standard Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) was used to measure insulin and glucose areas under the curve resistance (AUC30 g *?AUC30 I) and whole body insulin sensitivity and hepatic insulin resistance using the Matsuda Composite Insulin Sensitivity Index (ISI). There was a small increase in weight in the entire cohort (169.1 ± 30.6 vs 171.6 ± 31.8 lbs, p < 0.001), which was greater in the 30% level than in the 8% or 18% levels (p < 0.05). Glucose, insulin, HOMA, glucose AUC, insulin AUC, Matsuda insulin sensitivity index, and hepatic insulin resistance did not vary by sugar level (p > 0.05) nor by sugar type (p > 0.05). In the entire cohort insulin sensitivity decreased as evidenced by an increase in HOMA IR (1.8 ± 1.3 vs 2.3 ± 3.4, p < 0.01) and a decrease in the Matsuda ISI (13.1 ± 21.3 vs 11.6 ± 16.1, p < 0.05). Hepatic insulin resistance was unchanged (2.4 ± 1.7 vs 2.4 ± 1.7 p > 0.05). Neither sugar level nor sugar type had any effect on any of these three measures (interaction p > 0.05). These data show that risk factors for diabetes do not vary between the 8% (25th percentile), and the 30% group (95th percentile) although insulin sensitivity may be affected by sugar consumption across a wide range of typical consumption levels. Importantly, the type of sugar (HFCS versus sucrose) had no effect on any response.

New System of Structural Health Monitoring

Monitoring of structures is an important challenge faced by researchers worldwide. This study developed a new structural health monitoring system which utilized the use of microprocessors, wireless communication, transducer, and cellular transmission that allows remote monitoring. The developed system will facilitate the monitoring process at any time and in any location with less human interference. The system is equipped with data processing subsystem which works on detection of structural behavior irregularity, defects, and potential failures. The system was tested using strain gages to measure the developed strains in different applications and structural models. The results developed using the new system showed that the generated readings from the system followed correctly the expected trend according to structural concepts. The developed system accomplished the desired features of lower cost, less power, reduced size, flexibility and easier implementation, remote accessing, early detection of problems, and simplified representation of the results.

Approximation of an Integral Markov Process Arising in the Approximation of Stochastic Differential Equation

We provide the derivation of a new formula for the approximation of an integral Markov process arising in the approximation of stochastic differential equations. This formula extends an existing formula derived in [1]. We have shown numerically that the leading order approximation of the differential equation with noise by solving an associated averaged problem and estimating the difference between them and the result is illustrated through some examples.

Motivated by a mandate: a university-clinic partnership to develop a perinatal depression registry at a community based hospital in the Midwest

Disparities in maternal mental health outcomes persist despite the myriad of existing evidence based treatments and recent public health prevention policy efforts. Integrated health care delivery models such as Collaborative Care and patient medical home models have the potential to reduce health disparities in clinic settings. These evidence-based approaches require multidisciplinary teams for successful implementation and to provide quality care to improve specified patient outcomes. However, strategies for successful collaboration and steps for critical reflection are often overlooked in clinical and health services research. Furthermore, a shared vision of social justice is essential in the process of building and sustaining patient-centered care models, but is often understated. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and implementation of a social justice-informed hospital-based perinatal depression registry to address maternal health disparities. Our partnership is informed by community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles for carrying out health services research. We describe the steps for building a sustainable university-hospital collaboration between traditional and non-traditional researchers using principles from CBPR in a clinic setting.

Improved Low-Temperature Aqueous Synthesis of ZnO Nanorods and Their Use in SERS Detection of 4-ABT and RDX

The growth-controlled synthesis of zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NR) in the aqueous phase has been investigated. The rods were grown on ZnO films previously deposited onto Si(100) and indium tin oxide (ITO) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering. The formation of the rods took place in the presence of hexamethylenetetramine (HMT) as habit-control reagent. The grains in the base ZnO film acted as seeds that promoted the longitudinal growth of the oxide. As-synthesized base films and rods were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), field emission SEM, optical absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy techniques. Subsequently, a wet chemistry procedure was performed to achieve ZnO NR growth. This methodology was conducive to the formation of rods of a relatively narrow distribution of diameters (60 - 70 nm) with lengths in the 1 - 3 μm range. Photoluminescence spectra were characterized by a dominant near-band-edge (NBE) peak followed by a green luminescence (GL) broad band, indicative of higher oxygen vacancy concentration in the ZnO NR grown on ZnO/ITO in comparison with those grown on ZnO/Si(100). A UV process was used for coating the ZnO NR with gold (Au). Au coating on ZnO NR was used to evaluate the detection capability by SERS of different analytes such as: 4-aminobenzenethiol (4-ABT) and 1,3,5-trinitroperhydro-1,3,5- triazine (RDX) at low levels. A strong SERS Raman spectrum was observed for 4-ABT. A limit of detection (LOD) of 1 × 10-8M for 4-ABT was achieved corresponding to a minimum of 5.4 × 105molecules detected under the experimental conditions at excitation wavelength of 785 nm with a sensitivity of the ZnO NR in the range of 1.1 × 10-16g under the laser spot.

Remote Sensing Applications: Beyond Land-Use and Land-Cover Change

Remotely sensed (RS) imagery is increasingly being adopted in investigations and applications outside of traditional land-use land-cover change (LUCC) studies. This is due to the increased awareness by governments, NGOs and Industry that earth observation data provide important and useful spatial and temporal information that can be used to make better decisions, design policies and address problems that range in scale from local to global. Additionally, citizens are increasingly adopting spatial analysis into their work as they utilize a suite of readily available geospatial tools. This paper examines some of the ways remotely sensed images and derived maps are being extended beyond LUCC to areas such as fire modeling, coastal and marine applications, infrastructure and urbanization, archeology, and to ecological, or infrastructure footprint analysis. Given the interdisciplinary approach of such work, this paper organizes selected studies into broad categories identified above. Findings demonstrate that RS data and technologies are being widely used in many fields, ranging from fishing to war fighting. As technology improves, costs go down, quality increases and data become increasingly available, greater numbers of organizations and local citizens will be using RS in important everyday applications.

Is Facebook Linked to Selfishness? Investigating the Relationships among Social Media Use, Empathy, and Narcissism

The rise of social networking sites have led to changes in the nature of our social relationships, as well as how we present and perceive ourselves. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship among the following in adults: use of a highly popular social networking site—Facebook, empathy, and narcissism. The findings indicated that some Facebook activities, such as chatting, were linked to aspects of empathic concern, such as higher levels of Perspective Taking in males. The Photo feature in Facebook was also linked to better ability to place themselves in fictional situations. For only the females, viewing videos was associated with the extent to which they could identify with someone’s distress. The data also indicated that certain aspects of Facebook use, such as the photo feature, were linked to narcissism. However, the overall pattern of findings suggests that social media is primarily a tool for staying connected, than for self-promotion.

Construction Safety and Occupational Health Education in Egypt, the EU, and US Firms

The construction industry has been considered an accident prone industry. Alarming statistics indicate thatthe construction industry accounts for 55,000 fatal injuries each year. That is because construction sites are often filled with potential hazards that can lead to serious injury or death. Responsibility for these injuries may be attributed to a variety of individuals including owners, contractors or subcontractors, engineers, equipment manufacturers, and architects. This mandated a new safety culture to emerge resulting in a decline in the incidence rate of all recordable nonfatal injury and illness for construction workers. This study explores the safety culture encountered in twolarge construction companies in the USA and Egypt, over the last five years. Comparison of the results recorded in both companies was also conducted. The study also investigated the benefits of focusing on the occupational health in the construction field in Egypt and USA. In addition to the literature review, the research methodology used for this study was inspired by the Contextual Design (CD) Methodology. The study indicated thepositive impact of implementing safety programs on significantly reducing the recordable injuries. It also showed the benefits of focusing on occupational health and wellness, training, and education of workers.

Cyclic E2 and P4 on Alzheimer’s Disease Pathways

In recent years, Alzheimer’s disease has been clearly linked to the degradation of microtubules and microtubule-associated tau (τ) and β-amyloid (βA) proteins. Through an examination and evaluation of current literature, we assess the possible effects of the steroid hormones on τ hyperphosphorylation and the regulation of βA proteins and their influence on Alzheimer’s dementia and memory loss. We present a mechanism by which Alzheimer’s cases may be reduced or perhaps even prevented through the use of non-synthetic, steroid hormones prescribed in a cyclic dosing schedule that mimics the rhythmic, escalating and descending production normally observed in a reproductive female body. Given the ability of estrogen to prevent τ hyperphosphorylation and increase metabolism of the βA precursor protein, we propose the possibility of controlling both protein cycles through the exogenous application of estrogen and progesterone may help those patients with active disease as well as prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Streptococcal Protein G Enhances Antibody Binding to Platinum Sensor Surfaces

Photo-Electric Microbe Sensor is a patented biotechnology that detects microbes in aqueous solution by measuring the change in photo-voltage in response to UV light stimulation of a platinum (Pt) disk surface on an electrode before and after immunoprecipitation of microbes. This study aimed to increase the sensitivity of microbe detection by pre-adsorbing recombinant Streptococcal Protein G (PG), to the Pt sensor surface. Streptococcal PG binds the Fc region of mammalian IgG molecules and we investigated the association of PG to Pt and the resulting ability to tether antibodies to the Pt-PG surface. An ELISA protocol was optimized to detect the presence of mouse monoclonal antibodies tethered to Pt immunoaffinity disks, and to determine the recommended blocking solution and reagent concentrations. Our results demonstrate that PG binds to bare Pt, increases IgG affinity to the Pt surface following Superblock Buffer application, and together offers design-options for Pt-based sensor technologies.

Radiation Therapy Prophylaxis for Heterotopic Ossification in Non-Hip Sites

Background: Radiation therapy prophylaxis for heterotopic ossification is well-established for the hip, either pre or post-operatively. There is limited data for this treatment in non-hip sites. We report our institution’s experience. Methods: From October 2004 to August 2015, a total of 39 non-hip sites in 38 patients were treated with prophylactic radiation therapy for heterotopic ossification at our institution. An IRB approved retrospective review was performed. There were 15 patients who received treatments to the elbow, 13 to the knee (1 bilateral for a total of 14 knees), and 10 to other sites (leg stump (2), pubic symphysis (2), femur (1), foot (1), humerus stump (1), abdominal wall (1), shoulder (1), thigh (1)). All but 1 patient were treated with a single fraction treatment with 700 or 800 cGy. One patient received 2000 cGy in 10 fractions to the abdominal wall for heterotopic ossification extending from the xiphoid process. Results: Fifteen patients underwent treatment to the elbow with a median follow-up of 5 months (0 - 99). Median age for this group was 50 years (37 - 69). Nine (60.0%) patients had evidence of heterotopic ossification prior to surgery. All (100%) of the elbow patients were free from recurrence at last follow-up. There were no acute or late toxicities noted. For treatment to the knee, there were 4 (28.6%) recurrences, all in cases where there were pre-operative heterotopic ossification. There were two other recurrences in the non-hip, elbow or knee sites: one patient who received radiation therapy to the abdominal wall and one patient who underwent treatment to the thigh. Conclusions: Prophylactic radiation therapy with 700 cGy or 800 cGy in 1 fraction either before or after surgery remains a safe and effective treatment for both hip and most non-hip sites. Fractionated treatment may be used for larger treatment fields, however experience is limited.