The relationship between the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which is a traumatic event for adolescents, and procrastination is not clear. Mental health may play an important role in ...this relationship; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. This study aimed to construct chain mediation models to examine whether anxiety and depression symptoms mediate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on procrastination in adolescents.
A convenience sample of 12 middle and high schools in Harbin, China, with four follow-up online surveys was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 4,156 Chinese adolescents were enrolled in this study, of whom ages 11-18 (Mean = 13.55; SD = 1.18), 50.75% were male, and 93.24% were middle school students. Descriptive demographic analysis and Pearson's correlation analysis of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (T1), anxiety(T2), depression (T3), and procrastination (T4) were performed in SPSS 22.0. Chain mediation analysis performed with Mplus 8.3.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and procrastination were positively correlated (P < 0.01). The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have a direct link on adolescent procrastination (effect = 0.156; SE = 0.031; 95%CI: 0.092, 0.214), and have three indirect paths on procrastination: the independent mediating role of anxiety symptoms was 29.01% (effect = 0.047; SE = 0.012; 95%CI: 0.024, 0.072), the independent mediating role of depression symptoms was 29.01% (effect = 0.047; SE = 0.010; 95%CI: 0.030, 0.068), as well as the completely chain mediating role of anxiety and depression symptoms was 15.43% (effect = 0.025; SE = 0.005; 95%CI: 0.017, 0.036).
Our results suggest that anxiety and depressive symptoms are part of a causal chain between the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and procrastination among Chinese adolescents. To effectively reduce their procrastination, attention should be paid to the emotional distress caused to adolescents by major events such as the COVID-19 epidemic. All data were taken from self-reported measures and one city in China, which may bias the results and limit their generalizability.
Despite the growing attention given to adolescent behavior problems, little is known about the trajectories and factors that have influenced adolescent procrastination during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...This study monitors changes in procrastination behavior among Chinese adolescents during the pandemic and identifies vulnerable groups.
A four-wave study using a representative sample of 11-to 18-year-olds in China was conducted, with baseline data collected in June 2020 (
= 4,156; 49% girls) and follow-ups in December 2020 (
= 3,392; 50% girls), August 2021 (
= 2,380; 48% girls), and October 2021 (
= 1,485; 49% girls). Procrastination behavior was assessed using the General Procrastination Scale. Latent growth curve models, latent growth mixture modes, and multivariate logistic regression models were used to describe the trajectory of procrastination and identify predictors of deterioration.
The proportion and overall trends of adolescent procrastination increased with the pandemic. Higher parental over-protection was a contributing factor to the higher baseline levels leading to the faster growth of adolescent procrastination. The model identified three distinct trajectories of low-increasing including 2,057 participants (49.5%), moderate-stable including 1,879 participants (45.2%), and high-decreasing procrastination including 220 participants (5.3%). More daily leisure screen-time, lower frequency of exercise weekly, and dissatisfaction with distance learning were the top three risk factors for moderate-stable and high-decreasing procrastination compared to low-increasing procrastination. Adolescents with mothers with a higher level of education were more liable to be high-decreasing procrastination than moderate-stable procrastination.
The proportion and overall trends of adolescent procrastination increased with the pandemic. The categories of procrastination among adolescents during that time period were probed. Also, the study further clarified the risk factors for severe and moderate procrastination relative to no procrastination. Thus, effective procrastination prevention and intervention strategies need to be implemented to support adolescents, particularly those at risk.
Jellyfish detection is a challenge in the field of underwater biological identification. Although early works have solved some of the problems of jellyfish detection, there are still shortcomings. ...Earlier jellyfish datasets were not as extensive, necessitating heavy reliance on data augmentation. Moreover, the detection capability is limited, especially in scenarios involving jellyfish gatherings and occlusions. To overcome these limitations, we establish a high-quality dataset with more jellyfish species and propose a more robust real-time detection algorithm. Our algorithm primarily consists of a multi-gradient flow backbone and a feature fusion module GFPN. Additionally, we have designed a receptive field expansion module SPPFCSPC_G. The entire network employs the FReLU activation function, while the bounding box regression utilizes the WIOU loss function. Our methods demonstrate accuracy and run-time performance in comparison with the state-of-the-art yolo series algorithms. Results show that our algorithm achieves the highest Precision, Recall and mAP50, exceeding the baseline yolov5 by 1.1%, 4.1%, and 4.5%, and outperforming the latest yolov8 by 0.9%, 1.3%, and 2.5%. Importantly, our method effectively addresses aggregation, occlusion, and deformation issues commonly encountered in jellyfish detection.
Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are chronic wounds and one of the most common complications of diabetes, imposing significant physical and mental burdens on patients due to their poor prognosis and ...treatment efficacy. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) have been proven to promote wound healing, with studies increasingly attributing these beneficial effects to their paracrine actions. Consequently, research on ADSC secretome as a novel and promising alternative for DFU treatment has been extensively conducted. This article provides a comprehensive review of the mechanisms underlying refractory DFU wounds, the secretome of ADSCs, and its role in promoting wound healing in diabetes foot ulcers. And the review aims to provide reliable evidence for the clinical application of ADSC secretome in the treatment of refractory DFU wounds.Diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) are chronic wounds and one of the most common complications of diabetes, imposing significant physical and mental burdens on patients due to their poor prognosis and treatment efficacy. Adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) have been proven to promote wound healing, with studies increasingly attributing these beneficial effects to their paracrine actions. Consequently, research on ADSC secretome as a novel and promising alternative for DFU treatment has been extensively conducted. This article provides a comprehensive review of the mechanisms underlying refractory DFU wounds, the secretome of ADSCs, and its role in promoting wound healing in diabetes foot ulcers. And the review aims to provide reliable evidence for the clinical application of ADSC secretome in the treatment of refractory DFU wounds.
Background. Oxidative stress may be increased in a number of psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder (MDD). MDD has been shown to be related to insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) ...as well as to negative life events; exploring the interaction of IGF-1 polymorphisms and negative life events on the risk of MDD is needed. The aim of this study was to analyze the single and combined effects of IGF-1 polymorphisms (rs972936 and rs978458) and negative life events with MDD among Chinese population. Methods. 420 MDD patients (according to DSM-V) and 420 age- and gender-matched control subjects were recruited in a case-control study. Negative life events were assessed using standard rating scales. IGF-1 rs972936 and rs978458 were identified by sequencing. The chi-square (χ2) tests were performed to explore the association of negative life events and IGF-1 polymorphisms with MDD. Results. Our results found that the negative life events were associated with the risk of MDD (P<0.001; OR=3.28, 95% CI: 2.19-4.85). The genotypes of IGF-1 were associated with the risk of MDD (P<0.001); carrying the IGF-1 rs972936 C allele (OR=1.53, 95% CI: 1.26-1.85) and rs978458 T allele (OR=1.92, 95% CI: 1.58-2.34) had a higher risk of MDD. The combined effects between IGF-1 rs978458 and negative life events were associated with the risk of MDD (P<0.05; OR=2.94, 95% CI: 1.23-7.03), but IGF-1 rs972936 was not associated (P>0.05). Conclusions. Based on the oxidative stress hypothesis, we confirm that carrying IGF-1 rs972936 C allele and rs978458 T allele have a higher risk of MDD and the combined effects between IGF-1 rs978458 and negative life events were associated with the risk of MDD among Chinese population.
A class of neural dynamics, called Zhang dynamics (ZD), has been proposed for online solution of various time-varying problems. In this paper, Z-type and G-type models, including continuous-time and ...discrete-time Z-type models, are proposed and simulated for solving the time-varying inverse square root (or termed, Zhang inverse square root, ZISR) problem. Note that Z denotes Zhang and G denotes gradient. Moreover, the simplified Z-type models are generated for solving the static ISR (inverse square root) problem and the relationship between the Z-type models and Newton-Raphson iteration (NRI) is discovered. Through illustrative examples, the efficacy and superiority of the proposed Z-type models for time-varying and static ISR computation are verified.
As a floating-point divider, Newton-Raphson iteration (NRI) is an effective method with a quadratic convergence. In this paper, we propose a class of novel dynamic models called Zhang dynamics (ZD) ...for online time-varying reciprocals computation. Moreover, we discover the relationship between the resultant ZD models and NRI for the static reciprocals computation. Through illustrative examples, we verify the efficiency of the ZD models and their superior properties to the traditional NRI for online time-varying reciprocals computation.
A novel class of neural dynamics, Zhang dynamics (ZD), has been recently proposed for online time-varying problem solving. The design method of ZD is based on an indefinite error-monitoring function ...called the Zhang function (ZF), instead of the conventional norm-based scalar-valued energy function. In this paper, different ZD models based on different ZFs are proposed and developed for solving the time-varying inverse square root (TVISR) problem. In addition, this paper investigates the modeling of the proposed ZD models using MATLAB Simulink techniques. Results of the MATLAB Simulink modeling substantiate the efficacy and superiority of the ZD models for TVISR problem solving.
A novel class of recurrent neural network (RNN), termed Zhang neural network (ZNN), has been proposed for solving online time-varying problems by Zhang et al since 2001. In this paper, by defining ...different Zhang functions (ZFs), we construct different ZNN models correspondingly solving for time-varying Moore-Penrose inverse (MPI). As an error-monitoring function, ZF is the basis of the ZNN design method and can be positive, zero, negative, bounded or even unbounded (including lower-unbounded). Computer simulation results further illustrate the excellent convergence performance of the proposed ZNN models for online time-varying MPI solving.