In Singapore, the introduction of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (POFMA) generated considerable debate and feedback. One of the main concerns was whether the law ...would unduly restrict the freedom of expression. In focusing on the provisions of POFMA that could possibly apply to hate speech, this paper situates the criticisms within the larger framework of international human rights law and international practices and proposes some ways forward to improve the regulatory framework for online hate speech.
Suc transporters (SUTs) play a key role in the allocation and partitioning of photosynthetically fixed carbon in plants. While a function could be assigned to many members of the SUT family, almost ...no information is available on their regulation. Here, the transcriptional regulation of SUTs in response to various environmental stimuli in the leaves of five dicots (Arabidopsis Arabidopsis thaliana, soybean Glycine max, potato Solanum tuberosum, tomato Solanum lycopersicum, and poplar Populus spp.) and four monocots (maize Zea mays, rice Oryza sativa, wheat Triticum aestivum, and barley Hordeum vulgare) was investigated. Extensive data on expression of SUTs in relation to changes of environmental conditions were obtained through a global analysis of 168 transcriptomics data sets. Results were validated by quantitative PCR measurements and extended by the measurement of photosynthesis rate and phloem sugar content to draw insight on the correlation of SUT expression and sugar export from leaves. For the apoplasmic phloem loaders, a clear difference in transcriptional regulation in response to different environmental stimuli was observed. The consistent patterns of SUT expression under abiotic stress indicates which types of SUTs are involved in the regulation of leaf sugar status and in stress signaling. Furthermore, it is shown that down-regulation of phloem loading is likely to be caused by transcriptional regulation of SUTs, while up-regulation depends on post-transcriptional regulation. In poplar, expression of PtaSUT4 was found to consistently respond to environmental stimuli, suggesting a significant role in the regulation of sugar export from leaves in this passive symplasmic phloem loader.
Abstract Measuring cognitive load changes can contribute to better treatment of patients, can help design effective strategies to reduce medical errors among clinicians and can facilitate user ...evaluation of health care information systems. This paper proposes an eye-based automatic cognitive load measurement (CLM) system toward realizing these prospects. Three types of eye activity are investigated: pupillary response, blink and eye movement (fixation and saccade). Eye activity features are investigated in the presence of emotion interference, which is a source of undesirable variability, to determine the susceptibility of CLM systems to other factors. Results from an experiment combining arithmetic-based tasks and affective image stimuli demonstrate that arousal effects are dominated by cognitive load during task execution. To minimize the arousal effect on CLM, the choice of segments for eye-based features is examined. We then propose a feature set and classify three levels of cognitive load. The performance of cognitive load level prediction was found to be close to that of a reaction time measure, showing the feasibility of eye activity features for near-real time CLM.
Kaposiform hemangioendothelioma (KHE) is a rare vascular neoplasm with high morbidity and mortality. The initiating mechanism during the pathogenesis of KHE has yet to be discovered. The main ...pathological features of KHE are abnormal angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. KHEs are clinically heterogeneous and may develop into a life-threatening thrombocytopenia and consumptive coagulopathy, known as the Kasabach-Merritt phenomenon (KMP). The heterogeneity and the highly frequent occurrence of disease-related comorbidities make the management of KHE challenging. Currently, there are no medications approved by the FDA for the treatment of KHE. Multiple treatment regimens have been used with varying success, and new clinical trials are in progress. In severe patients, multiple agents with variable adjuvant therapies are given in sequence or in combination. Recent studies have demonstrated a satisfactory efficacy of sirolimus, an inhibitor of mammalian target of rapamycin, in the treatment of KHE. Novel targeted treatments based on a better understanding of the pathogenesis of KHE are needed to maximize patient outcomes and quality of life. This review summarizes the epidemiology, etiology, pathophysiology, clinical features, diagnosis and treatments of KHE. Recent new concepts and future perspectives for KHE will also be discussed.
ABSTRACT
We present an analytic model to describe the supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) merger rate in the Universe with astrophysical observables: galaxy stellar mass function, pair fraction, ...merger time-scale, and black hole–host galaxy relations. We construct observational priors and compute the allowed range of the characteristic spectrum hc of the gravitational wave background (GWB) to be 10−16 < hc < 10−15 at a frequency of f = 1 yr−1. We exploit our parametrization to tackle the problem of astrophysical inference from pulsar timing array (PTA) observations. We simulate a series of upper limits and detections and use a nested sampling algorithm to explore the parameter space. Corroborating previous results, we find that the current PTA non-detection does not place significant constraints on any observables; however, either future upper limits or detections will significantly enhance our knowledge of the SMBHB population. If a GWB is not detected at a level of hc(f = 1 yr−1) = 10−17, our current understanding of galaxy and SMBHB mergers is disfavoured at a 5σ level, indicating a combination of severe binary stalling, overestimating of the SMBH–host galaxy relations, and extreme dynamical properties of merging SMBHBs. Conversely, future detections of a Square Kilometre Array (SKA)-type instrument will allow to constrain the normalization of the SMBHB merger rate in the Universe, the time between galaxy pairing and SMBHB merging, the normalization of the SMBH–host galaxy relations and the dynamical binary properties, including their eccentricity and density of stellar environment.
Digital production, transmission and storage have revolutionized how we access and use information but have also made archiving an increasingly complex task that requires active, continuing ...maintenance of digital media. This challenge has focused some interest on DNA as an attractive target for information storage because of its capacity for high-density information encoding, longevity under easily achieved conditions and proven track record as an information bearer. Previous DNA-based information storage approaches have encoded only trivial amounts of information or were not amenable to scaling-up, and used no robust error-correction and lacked examination of their cost-efficiency for large-scale information archival. Here we describe a scalable method that can reliably store more information than has been handled before. We encoded computer files totalling 739 kilobytes of hard-disk storage and with an estimated Shannon information of 5.2 × 10(6) bits into a DNA code, synthesized this DNA, sequenced it and reconstructed the original files with 100% accuracy. Theoretical analysis indicates that our DNA-based storage scheme could be scaled far beyond current global information volumes and offers a realistic technology for large-scale, long-term and infrequently accessed digital archiving. In fact, current trends in technological advances are reducing DNA synthesis costs at a pace that should make our scheme cost-effective for sub-50-year archiving within a decade.
•The substitution effect of RPS and REC trade for the FIT was calculated and analyzed.•A multi-region power market model was proposed and developed.•REC trade can reduce the government’s expenditure ...on subsidies for renewable energy.•FIT subsidy provides guarantees of the local power sectors’ profit.•RPS, REC trade and FIT subsidy need to be considered together.
The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) has been successfully used to promote the development of renewable energy; nevertheless, it may cause financial burden on the governments at the same time. Compared with FIT, Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) and the Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) trading have been considered to reduce the government’s expenditure caused by the subsidization. To examine the effectiveness of RPS and REC trading, the development of renewable energy and the environmental and economic benefits under different policies have been quantitatively investigated by using a multi-region power market model and China has been chosen as a case study. The obtained results show that: (i) REC trading can efficiently reduce the government’s expenditure on subsidies for the development of renewable energy; (ii) Compared to FIT, RPS and REC trading will reduce the power sectors’ profit; and (iii) RPS and REC trading may not be enough to achieve the target on renewable energy especially when the capital cost is high, therefore, RPS, REC trade and FIT subsidy should be implemented as complementary policies, not independent.
Previous research on the effect of obstacles on crowd dynamics primarily focused on relationships between the scale or position of obstacles and pedestrian movement behavior. However, the influence ...of different obstacle layouts on pedestrian flow in corridors has not been well investigated. Here, we conducted an experimental study on the effect of three obstacle layouts (i.e., parallel, convex and concave layouts) on pedestrian flow in corridors, creating seven scenarios for unidirectional flow and four scenarios for bidirectional flow at low and high crowd densities. The image processing method is employed to collect pedestrian trajectories. Accordingly, typical phenomena, speed, density and flow rate are obtained. It was found that in comparison with the parallel layout, average speed at high crowd density increases approximately 19% in non-parallel layouts when the distance between obstacles is 1.6 m, while the decrease rate of average passing time reaches 17%. The relationship between group speed and time is U-shaped, and group speed is reduced sharply in the parallel layout. Congestion is the severest in the parallel layout in bidirectional flow, i.e. the largest density in the parallel layout is 16% higher than that in non-parallel layouts when the longitudinal distance between obstacles is 1.6 m. Congestion is alleviated with the increasing longitudinal distance between obstacles in the non-parallel layouts. Flow rate in the non-parallel layouts (especially in the concave layout) is greater than that in the parallel layout. These results suggest that the non-parallel obstacle layouts (especially the concave layout) with larger longitudinal distance between obstacles are more beneficial to pedestrian movement, when there are obstacles in corridors. It is hoped that this study will be helpful in crowd management and pedestrian facility design.
•A study on the effect of three obstacle layouts on pedestrian flow was conducted.•Pedestrian movement characteristics in different obstacle layouts was compared.•The concave layouts are more beneficial to pedestrian movement.
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