This study aimed to examine how family income and social distance influence young rural Chinese children's altruistic behavior in the dictator game (DG). A total of 469 four-year-old children from ...eight rural areas in China, including many children left behind by parents who had migrated to urban areas for work, played the DG. Stickers comprised the resource, while recipients in the game were assumed to be either their friends or strangers, with the social distance (i.e., strangers compared to friends) as a between-subjects variable. Children donated significantly more stickers to their friends than to strangers. Moreover, children from lower income families donated more stickers than children from higher income families. However, no gender and parental migrant status differences in children's prosocial behaviors were evident in this sample. Findings of this study suggest that children's altruistic behaviours to peers are influenced by family characteristics since preschool age. The probable influence of local socialization practices on development and the possible adaptive significance were discussed.
Focusing on the deficiencies of the current liquefaction evaluation methods typically on deep sandy-layers of 10m to 20m, a new liquefaction evaluation formula, which is based on the 156 SPT data ...from liquefaction investigation in China mainland, is proposed. The formula is plausible for wide depth range up to 20m. The formula which takes a hyperbolic function form fits the liquefaction data at shallow depth and predicts satisfactorily deep liquefaction. The liquefaction dataset available from China earthquakes and foreign earthquakes (i.e., Kobe earthquake and ChiChi earthquake) are statistically summarized. The deficiencies of prevailing liquefaction evaluation methods and the CSR method by Seed are pinpointed. To validate the proposed formula, a liquefaction dataset consist of 312 liquefaction data from China mainland and foreign countries is used for re-evaluation. The results indicate that the new formula is quite feasible for wide sandy-layer buried depth, different seismic intensities and varying groundwater tables. Comparing with the current Chinese code methods and the CSR method, the new formula which approaches to an asymptote eliminates the abnormality of the CSR method that decreases inversely when the depth exceeds a certain value. The new formulae solve the deficiency of Chinese codified liquefaction evaluation methods that are conservative for intensity VII at shallow depth <10m, and evenly predict liquefaction superior to the Chinese code methods for intensities VIII and IX at shallow depth. The new formula overcomes the considerably conservative predictions of the code methods on deep soil of 10m to 20m in intensities VIII and IX.
•Pinpointing the deficiencies of the current liquefaction evaluation methods•Proposal of a depth-consistent SPT-based hyperbolic model•A dataset consisting of shallow and deep liquefaction data•Verification of the hyperbolic formulae on shallow and deep data
A highly coherent wave is favorable for applications in which phase retrieval is necessary, yet a high-coherence wave is prone to encounter Rayleigh fading phenomenon as it passes through a medium of ...random scatters. As an exemplary case, a phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\Phi </tex-math></inline-formula>-OTDR) utilizes the coherent interference of backscattering light along a fiber to achieve ultra-sensitive acoustic sensing, but sensing locations with fading will not be functional. Apart from the sensing domain, fading is also ubiquitous in optical imaging and wireless telecommunication, and therefore, it is of great interest. In this paper, we theoretically describe and experimentally verify how the fading phenomenon in one-dimensional (1-D) optical scatters will be suppressed with an arbitrary number of independent probing channels. We initially theoretically explained why fading would cause severe noise in the demodulated phase of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\Phi </tex-math></inline-formula>-OTDR; then, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">M </tex-math></inline-formula>-degree summation of incoherent scattered light-waves is studied for the purpose of eliminating fading. Finally, the enhancement and the fluctuation of retrieved phase signal-to-noise-ratio were analytically derived and experimentally verified. This paper provides a guideline for the fading elimination in 1-D optical scatters, and it also provides insight for optical imaging and wireless telecommunication.
In this article, we designed an amphiphilic lipopeptide molecule, 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein-KKKKKKSKTK-Cys(C12H25)-OMe (FAM-lipopeptide-C12), and studied its assembly behavior at the ...4-cyano-4′-pentylbiphenyl (5CB)-aqueous interface. The ordering transitions of liquid crystals (LCs) revealed that FAM-lipopeptide-C12 can assemble at the LC–aqueous interface (both planar and curved interfaces). The assembly can be destroyed by adding trypsin, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of lipopeptides. Fluorescence measurements further confirmed the assembly and deassembly behavior of FAM-lipopeptide-C12 at the LC–aqueous interface. Overall, our work provides a general method for the construction of a biointerface by directly assembling amphiphilic lipopeptides at the LC–aqueous interface, which can potentially be used in selectively detecting the activity of specific enzymes and other biomolecular interactions.
To investigate the clinical outcomes of a novel soft tissue repair patch (porcine small intestinal submucosa patch, SIS patch) in the treatment of full-thickness hand skin defects.
From January 2017 ...to July 2019, 80 patients with hand soft tissue defects, who met the inclusion criteria, were retrospectively reviewed and divided into two groups. After debridement, patients in group A were treated with the novel SIS patch to cover the wound, and patients in group B were treated with autologous skin graft. The dimensions of skin defect area and healing outcome were evaluated and recorded. Scar assessment was carried out using Scar Cosmesis Assessment and Rating Scale (SCAR scale) at the last follow-up postoperation, and the recovery of wound sensation was assessed at the same time using British Medical Research Council (BMRC) grading of sensorimotor recovery. All the data were collected and statistically analyzed.
A total of 80 patients were enrolled in the study with 40 patients in each group. Four patients in group A and 5 patients in group B were excluded due to wound infection and lost to follow-up. There were 36 patients in group A and 35 patients in group B finally got follow-up postoperation with mean interval of 12.75 ± 5.61 months in group A and 14.11 ± 5.42 months in group B. The dimensions of skin defect area in group A ranged from 7.5 to 87.5 cm
(mean 25.97 ± 18.66 cm
) and in group B ranged from 7.5 to 86.25 cm
(mean 33.61 ± 19.27 cm
) which have no significant difference (P > 0.05). SCAR scale results of group A and group B were 10.98 ± 0.33 and 9.49 ± 0.35, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). BMRC grading results showed 6 cases of S4, 11 cases of S3+, 5 cases of S3, 6 cases of S2, 6 cases of S1 and 2 cases of S0 in group A, and 8 cases of S4, 10 cases of S3+, 7 cases of S3, 4 cases of S2, 5 cases of S1, and 1 case of S0 in group B, which had no significant difference between them (P > 0.05).
The novel SIS patch is an applicable biological material in the treatment of hand skin defect, which could achieve a better cosmetic appearance of the newborn skin tissue.
Artificial neural networks (ANNs) can be used to replace the traditional methods in various fields, making signal processing more efficient and meeting the real-time processing requirements of the ...Internet of Things (IoT). Recently, as a special type of ANN, the feedforward neural network (FNN) has been used to replace the time-consuming Lorentzian curve fitting (LCF) method in Brillouin optical time-domain analysis (BOTDA) system to retrieve the Brillouin frequency shift (BFS), which could be used as the indicator in temperature/strain sensing and so on. However, the FNN needs to be re-trained if the generalization ability is not satisfactory, or the frequency scanning step is changing in the experiment. This is a cumbersome and inefficient process. In this paper, the FNN only needs to be trained once with the proposed method, and 150.62 km BOTDA is built to verify the performance of the trained FNN. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method is promising in BOTDA because of its high computational efficiency and wide adaptability.
The phase-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (Φ-OTDR), which could locate and demodulate perturbation along tens of kilometers sensing fiber with high spatial resolution and high ...sensitivity, has been applied in many fields, such as seismic wave detection, structure health monitoring, and so on. The phase retrieval of the Rayleigh backscattering light is the most critical process of Φ-OTDR; therefore, the research on the phase retrieval of Φ-OTDR has attracted lots of attentions. It should be noted that in fiber-optic communications, the phase retrieval is also a crucial process for phase-encoded schemes. Particularly, as an effective phase retrieval scheme, the Kramers-Kronig (KK) receiver proposed recently has become a hot topic in fiber-optic communications for its high spectral efficiency and low requirement of continuous-wave-to-signal power ratio. Therefore, this paper discusses the feasibility of applying the KK receiver into Φ-OTDR and analyzes the signal retrieval error with KK relation in Φ-OTDR; then, its performance in phase retrieval is verified through numerical simulations and experiments. All the results show that generally the KK receiver is a good phase retrieval scheme for heterodyne Φ-OTDR.
Integration of electricity and gas distribution networks improves energy utilization and alleviates environmental pollution. In order to obtain a reasonable energy prices and optimize the day-ahead ...scheduling scheme under the premise of considering the interests of both supply and demand, an interactive equilibrium model considering electricity-gas energy distribution system and integrated load aggregators is established in this paper. In the upper level, the integrated energy distribution network (IEDN) maximizes the profit via solving the day-ahead optimal energy flow considering energy prices changing in the next day. In the lower level, integrated load aggregators (ILA) minimize charging costs, thus optimizing energy distribution based on integrated demand responses. By using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) optimality conditions and the duality theorem of linear programming, the master-slave game model is transformed into a single layer optimization problem. To solve this problem, second-order cone programming (SOCP) and penalty convex-concave procedure (PCCP) are used to deal with the non-convex functions of electricity-gas distribution system. Therefore, the proposed model is approximated by a mixed-integer second-order cone programming problem. Finally, case studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and method.
In the presence of the increasing penetration of electric vehicles (EVs) and conflict of independent optimization objectives among each electric vehicle aggregator (EVA), real-time optimal scheduling ...(RTOS) of large-scale EVs based on dynamic non-cooperative game approach is proposed for optimal decision makings in a dynamic pricing market. First, real-time optimal scheduling framework is designed to describe the flow of energy and information. Then, equivalent model of large-scale EVs is formulated to address "curse of dimensionality" caused by a large number of decision variables. Then, the potential game theory is used to study the existence and uniqueness of the Nash equilibrium (NE) solution. Finally, a distributed approach based on alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is designed to achieve the equilibrium. Case studies demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves peak load shifting and reduces cost of EVAs significantly. Furthermore, the proposed method obtains higher-quality solution compared with other methods and is more applicable for real-time optimal scheduling of large-scale EVs due to its high computation efficiency and privacy protection.
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