Search results for: early Buddhism in China

Authors: Olivia Meeschaert

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The Conference of the Parties (COP) refers to the countries that signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This annual conference provides a platform for countries to voice their major climate concerns, negotiate on a number of global issues, and come to agreements with the world’s largest emitters on how to make incremental changes that will achieve global climate goals. Historically, the outcome of COP includes major climate pledges and international agreements. COP27 will take place in Egypt at the beginning of November 2022. The 197 parties will come together to develop solutions to the dire consequences of climate change that many people around the world are already experiencing. The war in Ukraine will require a different tone from last year’s COP, particularly given that major impacts of the war are being felt throughout Europe and have had a detrimental effect on the region’s progress in achieving the benchmarks set in their climate pledges. Last year’s COP opened with many climate advocates feeling optimistic but the commitments made in Glasgow have so far remained empty promises, and the main contributors to climate change – China, the European Union, and the United States of America – have not moved fast enough.

Keywords: environment, law and policy, climate change, greenhouse gas, conference of the parties, China, United States, European Union

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Authors: Xing Lyu

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Multimodal metaphor promotes the further development and refinement of multimodal discourse study. Cultural aspects matter a lot not only in creating but also in comprehending multimodal metaphor. By analyzing the target domain and the source domain in 10 public service advertisements of China and Germany about environmental protection, this paper compares the source when the target is alike in each multimodal metaphor in order to seek similarities and differences across cultures. The findings are as follows: first, the multimodal metaphors center around three major topics: the earth crisis, consequences of environmental damage, and appeal for environmental protection; second, the multimodal metaphors mainly grounded in three universal conceptual metaphors which focused on high level is up; earth is mother and all lives are precious. However, there are five Chinese culture-specific multimodal metaphors which are not discovered in Germany ads: east is high leve; a purposeful life is a journey; a nation is a person; good is clean, and water is mother. Since metaphors are excellent instruments on studying ideology, this study can be helpful on intercultural/cross-cultural communication.

Keywords: multimodal metaphor, cultural aspects, public service advertising, cross-cultural communication

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Authors: Tianchen Dai

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Shantytowns are special historical products in china, possessing strong particularity and typicality, the theoretical value and the practical significance of which are deemed to hold great importance in the modern development of residential areas in China. The renovation planning of shantytowns can be very challenging in terms of cultural inheritance. The traditional lifestyle, one of the key elements building up residents’ perception of affiliation, should be carried forward in the renovation planning of shantytowns. Mobile vending can be considered as a rare business model survived within modern commercial environment, thanks to the unique spatial characteristics of Chinese shantytowns. This article mainly investigates the unique phenomenon of mobile vending in shantytowns, discussing the operating mechanism and rationality behind this commercial phenomenon. For humanistic concern, the innovative conservation of mobile vending, as a means to preserve the vivacious traditional lifestyle of local residents, can be realized through substantial urban design strategies, including spatial design of public space, height control of the facades, and traffic management around and inside shantytowns.

Keywords: cultural inheritance, mobile vending, renovation planning, shantytowns

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Authors: Zahra Khalid, Gul Muhammad Khan, Arbab Masood Ahmad

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Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP) is explored to design an optimal circuit capable of early stage breast cancer detection. CGP is used to evolve simple multiplexer circuits for detection of malignancy in the Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) samples of breast. The data set used is extracted from Wisconsins Breast Cancer Database (WBCD). A range of experiments were performed, each with different set of network parameters. The best evolved network detected malignancy with an accuracy of 99.14%, which is higher than that produced with most of the contemporary non-linear techniques that are computational expensive than the proposed system. The evolved network comprises of simple multiplexers and can be implemented easily in hardware without any further complications or inaccuracy, being the digital circuit.

Keywords: breast cancer detection, cartesian genetic programming, evolvable hardware, fine needle aspiration

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Authors: Xining Wang

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After-school educational service has been proven that it could benefit children’s academic performance, socio-emotional skills, and physical health level. However, there is little research demonstrating parents’ perspectives on the choice of after-school educational service from a level of cross-cultural backgrounds. China and Ireland are typical representatives of collectivist countries (e.g., estimated individualism score is 20) and individualist countries (e.g., estimated individualism score is 70) according to Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. Living in countries with distinguished cultural backgrounds, there is an evident discrepancy in parents’ attitudes towards domestic after-school education and parents’ motivations for choosing after-school educational services. Through conducting a semi-structured interview with 15 parents from China and 15 parents from Ireland, using thematic analysis software (ATLAS) to extract the key information, and applying a comparative approach to process data analysis; results present polarization of Chinese and Irish parents' perspectives and motivations on after-school educational service. For example, Chinese parents tend to view after-school education as a complement to school education. It is a service they purchased for their children to acquire extra knowledge and skills so that they could adapt to the highly competitive educational setting. Given the fact that children’s education is a priority for Chinese families, most parents believe that their children would succeed in the future through massive learning. This attitude reflects that Chinese parents are more likely to apply authoritarian parenting methods and having a strong expectations for their children. Conversely, Irish parents' choice of after-school educational service is a consideration that primarily based on their own situation, secondly, for their family. For instance, with the expansion of the labor market, there is a change in household structure. Irish mothers are more likely to seek working opportunities instead of looking after the family. Irish parents view that after-school educational service is an essential need for themselves and a beneficial component for their family due to the external pressure (e.g., the growing work intensity and extended working hours, increasing numbers of separated families, as well as parents’ pursuit of higher education and promotion). These factors are fundamental agents that encourage Irish parents to choose after-school educational services. To conclude, the findings could provide readers with a better understanding of parents’ disparate and contrasting perspectives on after-school educational services from a multi-culture level.

Keywords: after-school, China, family studies, Ireland, parents

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Authors: Sibusiso Mkwananzi

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The health of mother and child remain at risk among pregnant adolescents. Nevertheless, these are placed in even greater jeopardy when an expectant adolescent experiences violence. This paper sought to explore the levels and determinants of expecting adolescents in five Southern African countries. The study used the most recent (2010/2015) nationally representative demographic health survey (DHS) data from Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The highest levels of violence during pregnancy occurred amongst adolescent females living in Zimbabwe at 11.4%, followed by Zambia (8.3%) and Namibia (7.7%). Lowest levels were seen in Mozambique at 3.6%. Additionally, the determinants of experiencing violence during pregnancy included educational attainment, marital status, wealth and place of residence. Expectant adolescents that had a higher likelihood of experiencing violence were married and lived predominantly in rural settings. Higher risk was also associated with lower acquisition of education and poverty. These results show a very similar pattern to the risk factors associated with early pregnancy in the region. The predictors point to issues of possible lowered empowerment amongst younger women in their relationships and the structural challenges faced by this fledgling group. Nevertheless, addressing these dynamics could go a long way in not only decreasing the likelihood of unwanted motherhood at this early stage of the life course, but indeed even ensuring the prevention of violence during wanted early pregnancy. This would lead to improved levels of maternal and child health despite younger maternal age and aid in achieving a number of sustainable development goals.

Keywords: adolescents, determinants, Southern Africa, violence during pregnancy

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Authors: Dalila Lino, Maria Joao Hortas, Carla Rocha, Clarisse Nunes, Natalia Vieira, Marina Fuertes, Kátia Sa

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The value of play is recognized worldwide and is considered a fundamental right of all children, as defined in Article 31 of the United Nations Children’s Rights. It is consensual among the scientific community that play, and toys are of vital importance for children’s learning and development. Play promotes the acquisition of language, enhances creativity and improves social, affective, emotional, cognitive and motor development of young children. Young children ages 0 to 6 who have had many opportunities to get involved in play show greater competence to adapt to new and unexpected situations and more easily overcome the pain and suffering caused by traumatic situations. The PlayTrain Project aims to understand the places/spaces of play in the education of children from 0 to 6 years and promoting the training of preschool teachers to become capable of developing practices that enhance children’s agency, experimentation in the physical and social world and the development of imagination and creativity. This project follows the Design-Based-Research (DBR) and has two dimensions: research and intervention. The participants are 120 students from the Master in Pre-school Education of the Higher School of Education, Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon enrolled in the academic year 2018/2019. The development of workshops focused on the role of play and toys for young children’s learning promotes the participants reflection and the development of skills and knowledge to construct developmentally appropriated practices in early childhood education. Data was collected through an online questionnaire and focal groups. Results show that the PlayTrain Project contribute to the development of a body of knowledge about the role of play for early childhood education. It was possible to identify the needs of preschool teacher education and to enhance the discussion among the scientific and academic community about the importance of deepening the role of play and toys in the study plans of the masters in pre-school education.

Keywords: children's learning, early childhood education, play, teacher education, toys

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Authors: Ming Zhou, Taeho Park

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Early stage technologies have been particularly challenging to manage due to high degrees of their numerous uncertainties. Most research results directly out of a research lab tend to be at their early, if not the infant stage. A long while uncertain commercialization process awaits these lab results. The majority of such lab technologies go nowhere and never get commercialized due to various reasons. Any efforts or financial resources put into managing these technologies turn fruitless. High stake naturally calls for better results, which make a patenting decision harder to make. A good and well protected patent goes a long way for commercialization of the technology. Our preliminary research showed that there was not a simple yet productive procedure for such valuation. Most of the studies now have been theoretical and overly comprehensive where practical suggestions were non-existent. Hence, we attempted to develop a simple and highly implementable procedure for efficient and scalable valuation. We thoroughly reviewed existing research, interviewed practitioners in the Silicon Valley area, and surveyed university technology offices. Instead of presenting another theoretical and exhaustive research, we aimed at developing a practical guidance that a government agency and/or university office could easily deploy and get things moving to later steps of managing early stage technologies. We provided a procedure to thriftily value and make the patenting decision. A patenting index was developed using survey data and expert opinions. We identified the most important factors to be used in the patenting decision using survey ratings. The rating then assisted us in generating good relative weights for the later scoring and weighted averaging step. More importantly, we validated our procedure by testing it with our practitioner contacts. Their inputs produced a general yet highly practical cut schedule. Such schedule of realistic practices has yet to be witnessed our current research. Although a technology office may choose to deviate from our cuts, what we offered here at least provided a simple and meaningful starting point. This procedure was welcomed by practitioners in our expert panel and university officers in our interview group. This research contributed to our current understanding and practices of managing early stage technologies by instating a heuristically simple yet theoretical solid method for the patenting decision. Our findings generated top decision factors, decision processes and decision thresholds of key parameters. This research offered a more practical perspective which further completed our extant knowledge. Our results could be impacted by our sample size and even biased a bit by our focus on the Silicon Valley area. Future research, blessed with bigger data size and more insights, may want to further train and validate our parameter values in order to obtain more consistent results and analyze our decision factors for different industries.

Keywords: technology management, early stage technology, patent, decision

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Authors: Harley Bray, Helen Pymar, Michelle Liu, Chau Pham, Tomislav Jelic, Fran Mulhall

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Background: Our study assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early pregnancy assessment clinic (EPAC) referrals and the use of virtual consultation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Our clinic expanded to accept referrals from all Winnipeg Emergency Department (ED)/Urgent Care (UC) sites beginning November 2019 to April 2020. By May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic reached Manitoba and EPAC virtual care was expanded by performing hCG remotely and reviewing blood and ED/UC ultrasound results by phone. Methods: Emergency Department Information Systems (EDIS) and EPAC data reviewed ED/UC visits for pregnancy <20 weeks and vaginal bleeding 1-year pre-COVID (March 12, 2019, to March 11, 2020) and during COVID (March 12, 2020 (first case in Manitoba) to March 11, 2021). Results: There were fewer patient visits for vaginal bleeding or pregnancy of <20 weeks (4264 vs. 5180), diagnoses of threatened abortion (1895 vs. 2283), and ectopic pregnancy (78 vs. 97) during COVID compared with pre-COVID, respectively. ICD 10 codes were missing in 849 (20%) and 1183 (23%) of patients during COVID and pre-COVID, respectively. Wait times for all patient visits improved during COVID-19 compared to pre-COVID (5.1 ± 4.4 hours vs. 5.5 ± 3.8 hours), more patients received obstetrical ultrasounds, 761 (18%) vs. 787 (15%), and fewer patients returned within 30 days (1360 (32%) vs. 1848 (36%); p<0.01). EPAC saw 708 patients (218; 31% new ED/UC) during COVID-19 compared to 552 (37; 7% new ED/UC) pre-COVID. Fewer operative interventions for pregnancy loss (346 vs. 456) and retained products (236 vs. 272) were noted. Surgeries to treat ectopic pregnancy (106 vs 113) remained stable during the study time interval. Conclusion: Accurate identification of pregnancy complications was difficult, with over 20% missing ICD-10 diagnostic codes. There were fewer ED/UC visits and surgical management for threatened abortion during COVID-19, but ectopic pregnancy operative management remained unchanged.

Keywords: early pregnancy, ultrasound, COVID-19, obstetrics

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Authors: Khaled Mahmud Gaddah

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Cretaceous deposits in the southeast of the Sirt Basin of Libya occur in several grabens that formed during a major phase of rifting related to the opening of the Tethys. They include continental deposits of Early Cretaceous age that belong to the Nubian Formation and marginal to fully marine deposits of Late Cretaceous age that belong to the Lidam Formation and transitional beds. The sequence was extensively sampled from twenty-two boreholes and palynologically analysed. Much of the sequence is barren. However, subordinate shales in all formations yield diverse assemblages of poorly to well preserved and thermally middle to post mature palynomorphs. Most of the assemblages contain non-marine palynomorphs (spores, pollen, and freshwater algae), although some contain rare marine elements (dinoflagellate cysts and acritarchs). The palynofloras enabled the recognition of six assemblage zones of the late Barremian-Turonian age based on the dominant and base/top occurrences of stratigraphically useful palynomorphs: AI (Afropollisspp.-Aequitriraditesspinulosus) of late Barremian age; AIIa (Scenedesmusbifidus-S. sp.) of late Barremian?-early Aptian age; AIIb (Afropollisoperculatus-A. zonatus) of Aptian age; AIII (Crybelosporitespannuceus-Afropollisjardinus) of early Albian age; AIV (Subtilisphaera sp.-Lophosphaeridiumspp.) of Cenomanian-?Turonian age; AIV (Pediastrumbifidites-Leiosphaeridiaspp.) of Cenomanian?-Turonian age. These assemblages are comparable to others from Northern Gondwana (particularly from Libya and Egypt) and correspond to established Cretaceous palynofloral provinces. Palynofacies analysis is used to interpret the depositional environments, and five palynofacies types are recognised that reflect increasing marine influence up section.

Keywords: palynology, palynomorphs, palynofacies, tethys, sirt basin

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Authors: Fathi Ihmeideh

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The study aimed at investigating parents’ attitudes towards a school-based family program in developing kindergarten children’s literacy skills. The study surveyed 160 parents of preschool children, gathering information about their attitudes toward the development of children’s early literacy. Results indicated that parents hold positive attitudes towards the school-based family literacy program. The results also revealed statistically significant differences among parents due to a number of study variables. The study concludes with putting forward a number of practical and theoretical recommendations for the field of study. Acknowledgment: This paper was made possible by NPRP grant # (NPRP 8-921-5-122) from the Qatar national research fund (a member of Qatar foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Keywords: parents, literacy development, preschool children, family involvement

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Authors: Yuanyuan Fu

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Background and Purpose: Along with the change of society and economy, the traditional home function of old people has gradually weakened in the contemporary China. Acknowledging these situations, to better meet old people’s needs on formal services and improve the quality of later life, this study seeks to identify patterns of intended service use among frail old people living in the communities and examined determinants that explain heterogeneous variations in old people’s intended service use patterns. Additionally, this study also tested the relationship between culture value and intended service use patterns and the mediating role of enabling factors in terms of culture value and intended service use patterns. Methods：Participants were recruited from Haidian District, Beijing, China in 2015. The multi-stage sampling method was adopted to select sub-districts, communities and old people aged 70 years old or older. After screening, 577 old people with limitations in daily life, were successfully interviewed. After data cleaning, 550 samples were included for data analysis. This study establishes a conceptual framework based on the Anderson Model (including predisposing factors, enabling factors and need factors), and further developed it by adding culture value factors (including attitudes towards filial piety and attitudes towards social face). Using a latent class analysis (LCA), this study classifies overall patterns of old people’s formal service utilization. Fourteen types of formal services were taken into account, including housework, voluntary support, transportation, home-delivered meals, and home-delivery medical care, elderly’s canteen and day-care center/respite care and so on. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the direct effect of culture value on service use pattern, and the mediating effect of the enabling factors. Results: The LCA classified a hierarchical structure of service use patterns: multiple intended service use (N=69, 23%), selective intended service use (N=129, 23%), and light intended service use (N=352, 64%). Through SEM, after controlling predisposing factors and need factors, the results showed the significant direct effect of culture value on older people’s intended service use patterns. Enabling factors had a partial mediation effect on the relationship between culture value and the patterns. Conclusions and Implications: Differentiation of formal services may be important for meeting frail old people’s service needs and distributing program resources by identifying target populations for intervention, which may make reference to specific interventions to better support frail old people. Additionally, culture value had a unique direct effect on the intended service use patterns of frail old people in China, enriching our theoretical understanding of sources of culture value and their impacts. The findings also highlighted the mediation effects of enabling factors on the relationship between culture value factors and intended service use patterns. This study suggests that researchers and service providers should pay more attention to the important role of culture value factors in contributing to intended service use patterns and also be more sensitive to the mediating effect of enabling factors when discussing the relationship between culture value and the patterns.

Keywords: frail old people, intended service use pattern, culture value, enabling factors, contemporary China, latent class analysis

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Authors: Yuanyuan Liu, Yuanqing Wang, Di Li

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Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions mitigation from road construction activities is one of the potential pathways to deal with climate change due to its higher use of materials, machinery energy consumption, and high quantity of vehicle and equipment fuels for transportation and on-site construction activities. Aiming to assess the environmental impact of the road infrastructure construction activities and to identify hotspots of emissions sources, this study developed a life-cycle CO2 emissions assessment framework covering three stages of material production, to-site and on-site transportation under the guidance of the principle of LCA ISO14040. Then streamlined inventory analysis on sub-processes of each stage was conducted based on the budget files from cases of highway projects in China. The calculation results were normalized into functional unit represented as ton per km per lane. Then a comparison between the amount of emissions from each stage, and sub-process was made to identify the major contributor in the whole highway lifecycle. In addition, the calculating results were used to be compared with results in other countries for understanding the level of CO2 emissions associated with Chinese road infrastructure in the world. The results showed that materials production stage produces the most of the CO2 emissions (for more than 80%), and the production of cement and steel accounts for large quantities of carbon emissions. Life cycle CO2 emissions of fuel and electric energy associated with to-site and on-site transportation vehicle and equipment are a minor component of total life cycle CO2 emissions from highway project construction activities. Bridges and tunnels are dominant large carbon contributor compared to the road segments. The life cycle CO2 emissions of road segment in highway project in China are slightly higher than the estimation results of highways in European countries and USA, about 1500 ton per km per lane. In particularly, the life cycle CO2 emissions of road pavement in majority cities all over the world are about 500 ton per km per lane. However, there is obvious difference between the cities when the estimation on life cycle CO2 emissions of highway projects included bridge and tunnel. The findings of the study could offer decision makers a more comprehensive reference to understand the contribution of road infrastructure to climate change, especially understand the contribution from road infrastructure construction activities in China. In addition, the identified hotspots of emissions sources provide the insights of how to reduce road carbon emissions for development of sustainable transportation.

Keywords: carbon dioxide emissions, construction activities, highway, life cycle assessment

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Authors: Yun Zhang

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Urban housing in China is typified by residential districts that occupy 25 to 40 percentage of the urban land. In residential districts, squares, roads, and building facades, as well as plants, usually form a four-grade spatial structure: district entrances, central landscapes, housing cluster entrances, green spaces between dwellings. This spatial structure and its elements not only compose the visible residential landscape but also play a major role of carrying rain water. These elements, therefore, imply ecological significance to urban fitness. Based upon theories of landscape ecology, residential landscape can be understood as a pattern typified by minor soft patch of planted area and major hard patch of buildings and squares, as well as hard corridors of roads. Use five landscape districts in Hangzhou as examples; this paper finds that the size, shape and slope direction of soft patch, the bend of roads, and the form of the four-grade spatial structure are influential for adapting to natural rainwater circulation.

Keywords: Hangzhou China, rainwater, residential landscape, spatial character, urban housing

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Authors: Abeba Nigussie Turi, Xiangming Samuel Li

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Data-driven business models are more typical for established businesses than early-stage startups that strive to penetrate a market. This paper provided an extensive discussion on the principles of data analytics for early-stage digital entrepreneurial businesses. Here, we developed data-driven decision-making (DDDM) framework that applies to startups prone to multifaceted barriers in the form of poor data access, technical and financial constraints, to state some. The startup DDDM framework proposed in this paper is novel in its form encompassing startup data analytics enablers and metrics aligning with startups' business models ranging from customer-centric product development to servitization which is the future of modern digital entrepreneurship.

Keywords: startup data analytics, data-driven decision-making, data acquisition, data generation, digital entrepreneurship

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Authors: Arvind Srivastav, Tarun Kanti Bhattacharyya

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The north-eastern, Himalayan, and Eastern Ghats Belt of India comprise of earthquake-prone, remote, and hilly terrains. Earthquakes have caused enormous damages in these regions in the past. A wireless sensor network based earthquake early warning system (EEWS) is being developed to mitigate the damages caused by earthquakes. It consists of sensor nodes, distributed over the region, that perform majority voting of the output of the seismic sensors in the vicinity, and relay a message to a base station to alert the residents when an earthquake is detected. At the heart of the EEWS is a low-power two-stage seismic sensor that continuously tracks seismic events from incoming three-axis accelerometer signal at the first-stage, and, in the presence of a seismic event, triggers the second-stage P-wave detector that detects the onset of P-wave in an earthquake event. The parameters of the P-wave detector have been optimized for minimizing detection time and maximizing the accuracy of detection.Working of the sensor scheme has been verified with seven earthquakes data retrieved from IRIS. In all test cases, the scheme detected the onset of P-wave accurately. Also, it has been established that the P-wave onset detection time reduces linearly with the sampling rate. It has been verified with test data; the detection time for data sampled at 10Hz was around 2 seconds which reduced to 0.3 second for the data sampled at 100Hz.

Keywords: earthquake early warning system, EEWS, STA/LTA, polarization, wavelet, event detector, P-wave detector

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Authors: Jing Zhang

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Sustainable development in the new energy vehicles field is the requirement of the net zero aim. Green bonds are accepted as a practical financial tool to boost the transformation of relevant enterprises. The paper analyzes the interactions among governments, enterprises of new energy vehicles, and financial institutions by an evolutionary game theory model and offers advice to stakeholders in China. The decision-making subjects of green behavior are affected by experiences, interests, perception ability, and risk preference, so it is difficult for them to be completely rational. Based on the bounded rationality hypothesis, this paper applies prospect theory in the evolutionary game analysis framework and analyses the costs of government regulation of enterprises adopting green bonds. The influence of the perceived value of revenue prospect and the probability and risk transfer coefficient of the government's active regulation on the decision-making agent's strategy is verified by numerical simulation. Finally, according to the research conclusions, policy suggestions are given to promote green bonds.

Keywords: green bonds, new energy vehicles, sustainable development, evolutionary Game Theory model

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Authors: Fung Sze Wai Veera, Peter W. Ferretto

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Gender functions as a principle in organizing society based on the cultural meanings given to males and females. It is an essential component in constructing the spatial reality, one that is in most cases in favor of men’s needs and disregards that of women’s. Similar to other minorities in China, men of the Dong community hold the primary position in policymaking, moral standards, social values, and, furthermore, the building of the physical environment. This study, therefore, aims to investigate the residential architecture of Dong through the lens of gender. Specifically, it examines how the patriarchal practice of Dong is manifested in terms of the spatial organization, the architectural feature, and the construction process of Dong houses in the southern dialect areas. While the residential architecture of Dong has been extensively researched, the role of gender culture in designing and constructing it deserves more research attention. Ultimately, the objective of this study is to challenge the notion of gender-inclusive design in the rural China context while opening up a cross-disciplinary discussion concerning Chinese minority architecture and gender studies.

Keywords: Dong minority residential architecture, gender study, built environment, male-dominated society, gender-inclusive design

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Authors: Sam Khozama, Ali M. Mayya

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Breast cancer is one of the most common types in women. Early prediction of breast cancer helps physicians detect cancer in its early stages. Big cancer data needs a very powerful tool to analyze and extract predictions. Machine learning and deep learning are two of the most efficient tools for predicting cancer based on textual data. In this study, we developed a fusion model of two machine learning and deep learning models. To obtain the final prediction, Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) and ensemble learning with hyper parameters optimization are used, and score-level fusion is used. Experiments are done on the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) dataset after balancing and grouping the class categories. Five different training scenarios are used, and the tests show that the designed fusion model improved the performance by 3.3% compared to the individual models.

Keywords: machine learning, deep learning, cancer prediction, breast cancer, LSTM, fusion

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Authors: Hoda Dehghani, Zahra Dehghani

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Considering the obvious growth and variety of veterinary biological product and increase consumption and also the price, it is necessary to establish the rules and serious monitoring of this products which are less expensive than the original products. The scope of this research is the study of comparing the registration criteria and procedures of veterinary biological drugs in the world's leading agencies such as EMA, FDA, and WHO. For this, purpose the rules and regulations for registration of these drugs in prestigious organizations such as the FDA, EMA and WHO were examined and compared with the existing legislation in Iran. Studies show that EMA is the forefront of the compilation and registration of drugs in the world. China is a one of the greatest country in the development of drugs and establishes very closely guidelines with creditable global guidelines, and Now, is the first country to implement the rules codified in the Far East and followed by china, India and, South Korea and Taiwan have taken incorporate the industry's top ranking in Asia. At now, Asia by creating appropriate indicators not only as a powerful center in the field of drug delivery but also as a competitor to the United States is a major source of drug discovery and creation of innovation. the activities such as clinical trials and pharmaceutical investment is the speed of technology on the continent.

Keywords: veterinary biological product, regulation of registration, biological products, regularity authorities

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Authors: Yun Zhang, Zhu Wang

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Renewing ancient residential areas is an integral part of the sustainable development of modern cities. Compared with a metropolis, the old areas of small and medium-sized cities is more complicated to update, as the spatial form is more fragmented. In this context, the author takes as the research object, the ancient town of Changshu City, which is a small city representative in China with a history of more than 1,200 years. Through the analysis of urban research and update projects, the spatial evolution characteristics and renewal strategies of small ancient urban settlements are studied. On this basis, it is proposed to protect the residential area from the perspective of integrity and sustainability, strengthen the core public part, control the district building, and reshape the important interface. Renewing small and medium-sized urban areas should respect the rhythm of their own urban development and gradually complete the update, not blindly copying the experience of large cities.

Keywords: ancient residential area, Changshu, city renewal strategy, small and medium-sized cities

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Authors: Feifei Wu, Pius Babuna, Xiaohua Yang

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The suitability evaluation of human settlements over time and space is essential to track potential challenges towards suitable human settlements and provide references for policy-makers. This study established a theoretical framework of human settlements based on the nature, human, economy, society and residence subsystems. Evaluation indicators were determined with the consideration of the coupling effect among subsystems. Based on the extended Fourier amplitude sensitivity test algorithm, the global sensitivity analysis that considered the coupling effect among indicators was used to determine the weights of indicators. The human settlement suitability was evaluated at both subsystems and comprehensive system levels in 30 provinces of China between 2000 and 2016. The findings were as follows: (1) human settlements suitability index (HSSI) values increased significantly in all 30 provinces from 2000 to 2016. Among the five subsystems, the suitability index of the residence subsystem in China exhibited the fastest growinggrowth, fol-lowed by the society and economy subsystems. (2) HSSI in eastern provinces with a developed economy was higher than that in western provinces with an underdeveloped economy. In con-trast, the growing rate of HSSI in eastern provinces was significantly higher than that in western provinces. (3) The inter-provincial difference of in HSSI decreased from 2000 to 2016. For sub-systems, it decreased for the residence system, whereas it increased for the economy system. (4) The suitability of the natural subsystem has become a limiting factor for the improvement of human settlements suitability, especially in economically developed provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong. The results can be helpful to support decision-making and policy for improving the quality of human settlements in a broad nature, human, economy, society and residence context.

Keywords: human settlements, suitability evaluation, extended fourier amplitude, human settlement suitability

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Authors: Wang Zhaoming, Shao Shegang, Chen Xiaorong, Qi Yanan, Tian Lei, Wang Jian

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This study conducts a comparative analysis of the spectral curves of asphalt pavements at various aging stages to improve road information extraction from high-resolution remote sensing imagery. By examining the distinguishing capabilities and spectral characteristics, the research aims to establish a pavement information extraction methodology based on China's high-resolution satellite images. The process begins by analyzing the spectral features of asphalt pavements to construct a spectral assessment model suitable for evaluating pavement health. This model is then tested at a national highway traffic testing site in China, validating its effectiveness in distinguishing different pavement aging levels. The study's findings demonstrate that the proposed model can accurately assess road health, offering a valuable tool for road maintenance planning and infrastructure management.

Keywords: spectral analysis, asphalt pavement aging, high-resolution remote sensing, pavement health assessment

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Authors: Yuhong Niu, Na Li, Chunlin Jin, Hansheng Ding

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The study reviewed all types of patents applied by Shanghai health system to analyze how patent development in China from the year of 1990 to 2012. The study used quantitative and comparative analysis to investigate the change and trends of patent numbers, patent types, patent claims, forward citations, patent life, patent transactions, etc. Results reflected an obviously increased numbers of invention patents, applications, and authorizations and short-life patents, but the ratio of invention patents represented an up and down change. Forward citations and transactions ratio always kept at a low level. The results meant that the protection of intellectual property in the Shanghai health sector had made great progress and lots of positive changes due to incentive policies by local government. However, the low-quality patents, at the same time, increased rapidly. Thus, in the future, it is suggested that the quality management should be strengthened, and invents should be estimated before patent application. It is also suggested that the incentives for intellectual property should be optimized to promote the comprehensive improvement of patent quantity and quality.

Keywords: patent claims, forward citations, patent life, patent transactions ratio

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Authors: John Acire, Wilfred Lajul, Ogwang Tom

Abstract:

Using a qualitative research technique, this study investigates the influence of Early Childhood Education (ECE) on learning outcomes in lower primary schools in Gulu City, Uganda. The study, which is based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of human learning, fills gaps in the current literature on the influence of ECE on learning outcomes. The aims of the study include analyzing the state of learning outcomes, investigating ECE practices, and determining the influence of these practices on learning outcomes in lower primary schools. The findings highlight the critical significance of ECE in promoting children's overall development. Nursery education helps children improve their handwriting, reading abilities, and general cognitive development. Children who have received nursery education have improved their abilities to handle pencils, form letters, and engage in social interactions, highlighting the significance of fine motor skills and socializing. Despite the good elements, difficulties in implementing ECE practices were found, such as differences in teaching styles, financial limits, and potential weariness due to prolonged school hours. The study suggests focused interventions to improve the effectiveness of ECE practices, ensure their connection with educational goals and maximize their influence on children's development. The study's findings show that respondents agree on the importance of nursery education in supporting holistic development, socialization, language competency, and conceptual comprehension. Challenges in nursery education, such as differences in teaching techniques and insufficient resources, highlight the need for comprehensive measures to address these challenges. Furthermore, parental engagement in home learning activities was revealed as an important factor affecting early education outcomes. Children who were engaged at home performed better in lower primary, emphasizing the value of a supportive family environment. Finally, the report suggests measures to enhance parental participation, changes in teaching methods through retraining, and age-appropriate enrolment. Future studies might concentrate on the involvement of parents, ECE policy practice, and the influence of ECE teachers on lower primary school learning results. These ideas are intended to help create a more favorable learning environment by encouraging holistic development and preparing children for success in succeeding academic levels.

Keywords: early childhood education, learning outcomes in lower primary schools, early childhood education practices, how ECE practices influence learning outcomes in lower primary schools

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Authors: Yu Bingqing

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Research on the meteorological observation data of conventional meteorological stations in Jiangnan area from 2001 to 2020 and digital elevation DEM, the "golden section" comfort index calculation method was used to refine the spatial estimation of climate comfort in Jiangnan area under undulating terrain on the Gis platform, and its spatiotemporal distribution characteristics in the region were analyzed. The results can provide reference for the development and utilization of climate resources in Jiangnan area.The results show that: ① there is a significant spatial difference between winter and summer climate comfort from low latitude to high latitude. ②There is a significant trend of decreasing climate comfort from low altitude to high altitude in winter, but the opposite is true in summer. ③There is a trend of decreasing climate comfort from offshore to inland in winter, but the difference is not significant in summer. The climate comfort level in the natural lake area is higher in summer than in the surrounding areas, but not in winter. ⑤ In winter and summer, altitude has the greatest influence on the difference in comfort level.

Keywords: vernacular courtyards, thermal environment, depth-to-height ratio, climate adaptability，Southeast China

Procedia PDF Downloads 57

Authors: M. Aghili, S. Tabarestani, C. Freytes, M. Shojaie, M. Cabrerizo, A. Barreto, N. Rishe, R. E. Curiel, D. Loewenstein, R. Duara, M. Adjouadi

Abstract:

A major challenge in medical studies, especially those that are longitudinal, is the problem of missing measurements which hinders the effective application of many machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, recent Alzheimer's Disease studies have focused on the delineation of Early Mild Cognitive Impairment (EMCI) and Late Mild Cognitive Impairment (LMCI) from cognitively normal controls (CN) which is essential for developing effective and early treatment methods. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper explores the potential of using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm in handling missing values in multiclass classification. We seek a generalized classification scheme where all prodromal stages of the disease are considered simultaneously in the classification and decision-making processes. Given the large number of subjects (1631) included in this study and in the presence of almost 28% missing values, we investigated the performance of XGBoost on the classification of the four classes of AD, NC, EMCI, and LMCI. Using 10-fold cross validation technique, XGBoost is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art classification algorithms by 3% in terms of accuracy and F-score. Our model achieved an accuracy of 80.52%, a precision of 80.62% and recall of 80.51%, supporting the more natural and promising multiclass classification.

Keywords: eXtreme gradient boosting, missing data, Alzheimer disease, early mild cognitive impairment, late mild cognitive impair, multiclass classification, ADNI, support vector machine, random forest

Procedia PDF Downloads 188

Authors: Robin L. Rohrer

Abstract:

Introduction: Pre-natal or early childhood exposure to the medical radiation used in diagnosis or treatment is an identified risk for childhood cancers but can be difficult to document. The author developed a family questionnaire/interview form to identify possible exposures. Aims: This retrospective study examines pre-natal and early childhood medical radiation exposure in a cohort of children diagnosed with a solid tumor including brain tumors from 1985-2015 at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP). The hospital is a tri-state regional referral center which treats about 150-180 new cases of cancer in children per year. About 70% are diagnosed with a solid tumor. Methods: Each consented family so far (approximately 50% of the cohort) has been interviewed in person or by the phone call. Medical staff and psycho- social staff referred patient families for the interview with the author. Results: Among the families interviewed to date at least one medical radiation exposure has been identified (pre-conception, pre-natal or early childhood) in over 70% of diagnosed children. These exposures have included pre-conception sinus or chest CT or X-ray in either parent, sinus CT or X-ray in the mother or diagnostic radiation of chest or abdomen in children. Conclusions: Exposures to medical radiation for a child later diagnosed with cancer may occur at several critical junctures. These exposures may well contribute to a ‘perfect storm’ in the still elusive causes of childhood cancer. The author plans to expand the study from 1975 to present to hopefully further document these junctures.

Keywords: pediatric, solid tumors, medical radiation, cancer

Procedia PDF Downloads 264

Authors: Yuqing Sun

Abstract:

Chinese has been regarded as one of the most difficult languages in learning due to its complex spelling structure, difficult pronunciation, as well as its varying forms. Since vocabulary acquisition is the basic process to acquire a language, to express yourself, to compose a sentence, and to conduct a communication, so learning the vocabulary is of great importance. However, the vocabulary contains pronunciation, spelling, recognition and application which may seem as a huge work. This may pose a question for the language teachers (language teachers in China who teach Chinese to the foreign students): How to teach them in an effective way? Traditionally, teachers have no choice but teach it all by themselves, then with the development of technology, they can use computer as a tool to help them (Computer Assisted Language Learning or CALL). Now, they move into the Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) method to guide their teaching, upon which the appraisal is convincing. It diversifies the learning material and the way of output, which can activate learners’ curiosity and accelerate their understanding. This paper will focus on actual case studies occurring in the universities in China of teaching the foreign students to learn Chinese, and the analysis of the utilization of WeChat channel as an example of MALL model to explore the active role of MALL to enhance the effectiveness of Chinese vocabulary acquisition.

Keywords: Chinese, vocabulary acquisition, MALL, case

Procedia PDF Downloads 414

Authors: Yinglisong, Jingge Chen, Jingxuan Chen, Yan Wang, Hui Huang, Jing Zhnag, Qianqian Zhang, Zhenzhen Zhang, Ji Zhang

Abstract:

Purpose: The study aims to establish a nomogram prediction model for postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in vaginal delivery. Patients and Methods: Clinical data were retrospectively collected from vaginal delivery patients admitted to a hospital in Zhengzhou, China, from June 1, 2022 - October 31, 2022. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used to filter out independent risk factors. A nomogram model was established for PPH in vaginal delivery based on the risk factors coefficient. Bootstrapping was used for internal validation. To assess discrimination and calibration, receiver operator characteristics (ROC) and calibration curves were generated in the derivation and validation groups. Results: A total of 1340 cases of vaginal delivery were enrolled, with 81 (6.04%) having PPH. Logistic regression indicated that history of uterine surgery, induction of labor, duration of first labor, neonatal weight, WBC value (during the first stage of labor), and cervical lacerations were all independent risk factors of hemorrhage (P <0.05). The area-under-curve (AUC) of ROC curves of the derivation group and the validation group were 0.817 and 0.821, respectively, indicating good discrimination. Two calibration curves showed that nomogram prediction and practical results were highly consistent (P = 0.105, P = 0.113). Conclusion: The developed individualized risk prediction nomogram model can assist midwives in recognizing and diagnosing high-risk groups of PPH and initiating early warning to reduce PPH incidence.

Keywords: vaginal delivery, postpartum hemorrhage, risk factor, nomogram

Procedia PDF Downloads 77