Frequency Of Exchanges Research Articles

Digital technology adoption among smallholder farmers in Vietnam: Implications for digital agricultural extension strategies

AbstractThis study explores the adoption of digital technology among smallholders in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. Data were gathered by doing a survey of 455 farmers analysed by descriptive analysis and a Poisson Regression model. Key knowledge gaps include an incomplete understanding of farmers' digital technology adoption and insufficient empirical evidence supporting potential determinants in smallholders' digital adoption. Findings indicate active use of digital tools in agriculture, with factors such as education, farm size, digital experience, knowledge exchange frequency, access to digital information and internet costs positively influencing adoption. The study advocates for tailored training and targeted interventions to enhance adoption rates.

Basque Pelota and Europeanization: The Actions and Representations of Actors Involved in Two Cross-Border Projects in a Euroregion

ABSTRACT This article investigates Europeanization from the perspective of actors involved in the organization of cross-border projects promoting an autochthonous sport. It studies two projects involving Basque pelota, a sport historically played on both sides of the France-Spain border. Both projects were launched by entrepreneurs, in the sociological sense, within the EGTC area of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Euskadi Navarra Euroregion. The study identifies the characteristics of these local actors who have bet on their sport and on the cross-border concept. The intercultural experiences enabled by the projects and the increased frequency of consecutive sports exchanges have created a transactional space of Europeanization at the local scale desired by the EU but have not achieved the Europeanization expected from the Euroregion system. The transnational Basque dimension remains relevant, principally between France and Spain.

Novel energy exchange behaviors and mechanisms in nonlinear acoustic metamaterials with multiple nonlinear resonators

Wave-wave interactions in a nonlinear metamaterial or structure with two propagating waves can induce energy exchange within the nonlinear systems. The effects of nonlinear resonators on these interactions and energy exchanges in a nonlinear acoustic metamaterial have not been extensively studied in the literature. In this paper, a nonlinear monatomic acoustic metamaterial with multiple nonlinear resonators (NMAM-MNR) is constructed to investigate the new behaviors and mechanisms introduced by these nonlinear resonators. Stability analyses reveal that stability can be tuned by adjusting the number of nonlinear resonators and by selecting different intensities or masses of the resonators and the chain. Additionally, direct numerical simulations are performed to study the novel energy exchange behaviors and mechanisms in NMAM-MNR systems. The results demonstrate that the degree and frequency of energy exchange can be tuned by altering the mass ratios, stiffness ratios, intensities, and natural frequencies of the nonlinear resonators and the chain. The influence of mass and stiffness ratios on the time taken for the B-wave magnitude to first reach its maximum value in NMAM-MNR systems is also studied, showing that the rate of energy exchange induced by wave-wave interactions can be tuned by changing the stiffness and mass ratios of multiple nonlinear resonators. These properties have potential applications in the fields of energy harvesters, waveguides, and resonant energy transfer mechanisms.

A hierarchy of metabolite exchanges in metabolic models of microbial species and communities.

The metabolic network of an organism can be analyzed as a constraint-based model. This analysis can be biased, optimizing an objective such as growth rate, or unbiased, aiming to describe the full feasible space of metabolic fluxes through pathway analysis or random flux sampling. In particular, pathway analysis can decompose the flux space into fundamental and formally defined metabolic pathways. Unbiased methods scale poorly with network size due to combinatorial explosion, but a promising approach to improve scalability is to focus on metabolic subnetworks, e.g., cells' metabolite exchanges with each other and the environment, rather than the full metabolic networks. Here, we applied pathway enumeration and flux sampling to metabolite exchanges in microbial species and a microbial community, using models ranging from central carbon metabolism to genome-scale and focusing on pathway definitions that allow direct targeting of subnetworks such as metabolite exchanges (elementary conversion modes, elementary flux patterns, and minimal pathways). Enumerating growth-supporting metabolite exchanges, we found that metabolite exchanges from different pathway definitions were related through a hierarchy, and we show that this hierarchical relationship between pathways holds for metabolic networks and subnetworks more generally. Metabolite exchange frequencies, defined as the fraction of pathways in which each metabolite was exchanged, were similar across pathway definitions, with a few specific exchanges explaining large differences in pathway counts. This indicates that biological interpretation of predicted metabolite exchanges is robust to the choice of pathway definition, and it suggests strategies for more scalable pathway analysis. Our results also signal wider biological implications, facilitating detailed and interpretable analysis of metabolite exchanges and other subnetworks in fields such as metabolic engineering and synthetic biology.

Novel grayscale image encryption based on 4D fractional-order hyperchaotic system, 2D Henon map and knight tour algorithm

With the increasing frequency of data exchange, the security of transmitted information, especially images, has become paramount. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for encrypting grayscale images of any dimension by using a proposed fractional-order (FO) 4D hyperchaotic system, 2D Henon chaotic map permutation, and the knight tour algorithm. Initially, chaotic sequences are generated by utilizing the proposed FO 4D hyperchaotic system, which are later employed to rearrange and shuffle the entire image pixels to bolster the efficacy of image encryption. To introduce an additional layer of diffusion, 2D Henon chaotic map permutation is used. Furthermore, the knight tour algorithm is applied by starting from a chosen point and executing specified rounds on the scrambled image to increase the encryption’s robustness. The resultant image encryption algorithm undergoes thorough testing and evaluation. It exhibits high sensitivity to the encryption key and boasts a larger key space, rendering it more resistant to brute-force attacks. The proposed algorithm demonstrates an approximate correlation of 0 between adjacent pixels. Further, encryption of a grayscale image of size 256 × 256 takes approximately 0.4 seconds, rendering it more suitable for cryptographic purposes.

Replica Exchange of Expanded Ensembles: A Generalized Ensemble Approach with Enhanced Flexibility and Parallelizability.

Generalized ensemble methods such as Hamiltonian replica exchange (HREX) and expanded ensemble (EE) have been shown effective in free energy calculations for various contexts, given their ability to circumvent free energy barriers via nonphysical pathways defined by states with different modified Hamiltonians. However, both HREX and EE methods come with drawbacks, such as limited flexibility in parameter specification or the lack of parallelizability for more complicated applications. To address this challenge, we present the method of replica exchange of expanded ensembles (REXEE), which integrates the principles of HREX and EE methods by periodically exchanging coordinates of EE replicas sampling different yet overlapping sets of alchemical states. With the solvation free energy calculation of anthracene and binding free energy calculation of the CB7-10 binding complex, we show that the REXEE method achieves the same level of accuracy in free energy calculations as the HREX and EE methods, while offering enhanced flexibility and parallelizability. Additionally, we examined REXEE simulations with various setups to understand how different exchange frequencies and replica configurations influence the sampling efficiency in the fixed-weight phase and the weight convergence in the weight-updating phase. The REXEE approach can be further extended to support asynchronous parallelization schemes, allowing looser communications between larger numbers of loosely coupled processors such as cloud computing and therefore promising much more scalable and adaptive executions of alchemical free energy calculations. All algorithms for the REXEE method are available in the Python package ensemble_md, which offers an interface for REXEE simulation management without modifying the source code in GROMACS.

DCPFS: A Conditional Privacy-Preserving Authentication Scheme with Dual Cuckoo Pseudonym Filters for Vanets

With the increasing frequency of information dissemination and exchange, the attention paid to security and privacy in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is also on the rise. To protect user privacy, many anonymous authentication scheme have been proposed. These schemes assign pseudonyms to vehicles to hide their true identities when communicating with other vehicles or Roadside Units (RSUs). However, existing schemes also face pseudonym issues such as pseudonym abuse, high storage overhead, and low query efficiency. Motivated by this, we propose an RSU-based pseudonym assistance management scheme. In this scheme, RSUs employ dual cuckoo pseudonym filters to manage pseudonyms, effectively improving pseudonym query efficiency, preventing pseudonym abuse, and reducing storage overhead. Additionally, security and performance analyses demonstrate that the proposed protocol offers stronger security features and lower overhead. Besides, our scheme has reduced the generation time of pseudonym to only 0.0039 ms.

Cuffed versus uncuffed endotracheal tubes in neonates undergoing noncardiac surgeries: A randomized controlled trial.

The efficacy and safety of cuffed endotracheal tubes (ETTs) in neonates are still unclear, this study aimed to assess the efficacy of cuffed versus uncuffed ETTs in neonate undergoing noncardiac surgeries. Neonates scheduled for noncardiac surgeries were randomized into two groups according to the type of airway device during general anesthesia: cuffed ETT group (n = 60) and the uncuffed ETT group (n = 60). The primary outcome was the incidence of ETT exchange to find the appropriate ETT. Other outcomes included: duration of intubation, lung ultrasound score, and incidence of postoperative complications (croup, wheezes, hypoxia, etc.). The frequency of ETT exchange was lower in the cuffed ETT group compared to the uncuffed one {1 (1.7%) vs. 28 (46.7%), p = .0001; relative risk [95% confidence interval]: 0.54 [0.43-0.69]}. Postoperative adverse events were comparable between both groups except for significantly higher post extubation croup in the uncuffed ETT group compared to the cuffed ETT {10 (16.7%) vs. 3(5%), p value = .04, relative risk (95% confidence interval): 1.14 (1-1.29)}. In full term neonates undergoing noncardiac surgeries, the use of cuffed ETT was associated with less need to tracheal tube exchange and less incidence of postoperative croup, without increasing the postoperative respiratory complications compared to uncuffed ETT.

Efgartigimod in refractory autoimmune myasthenia gravis.

Efgartigimod, a neonatal Fc-receptor inhibitor, has recently been approved as treatment for myasthenia gravis (MG). In this retrospective cohort study, we aimed to systematically assess short- and long-term effectiveness of efgartigimod in patients with refractory MG. Sixteen patients with refractory autoimmune acetylcholine receptor MG were treated with efgartigimod. Data were collected from January 2021 to March 2023 on Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living (MG-ADL), Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis score (QMG), Myasthenia Gravis Composite score (MGC) and the 15-item revised version of the Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life questionnaire (MG-QoL15r). A favorable outcome was seen in 56% of patients at the last measurement. Out of 16 patients, 50% were an MG-ADL responder after the first treatment cycle. After 4 weeks, a clinically meaningful improvement compared to baseline was seen on the MG-ADL, QMG, and MGC. There was a statistically significant improvement on the MGQoL15r from baseline to week 4. The improvement was maintained until the last measurement for the MGC and the MGQoL15r. At the last visit, all patients had discontinued 4-weekly dosages, shifting to administration frequencies of 1, 2, or 3 weeks. Drug doses could be decreased for prednisolone (n = 7), azathioprine (n = 2), and intravenous immunoglobulin (n = 9). Frequency of plasma exchange was decreased in nine patients. In patients with refractory MG, efgartigimod was effective for at least half of all patients. Patients required more frequent dosing compared to the ADAPT phase 3 trial. In 80% of the patients concurrent medication could be reduced or discontinued.

A dynamic routing scheme for underwater acoustic sensor networks in submarine disaster applications

IntroductionThe ocean economy serves as a critical engine for the development of human society and economy, and its stable growth is of utmost importance. However, the frequent and unexpected occurrence of natural disasters, such as submarine disasters, poses significant threats to human society, especially disasters related to wave phenomena like the Ekman current, which has particularly prominent impacts.MethodsThe study proposes a dynamic routing scheme for underwater acoustic sensor networks. It establishes a cone-shaped distributed network, utilizing autonomous underwater vehicles to collect crucial data from nodes deployed on the seabed and transmitting it through the underwater cone-shaped distributed sensor network. Additionally, it adopts source location protection (SLP) technology to ensure the privacy of source locations. To validate the practicality and stability of this scheme, simulation experiments targeting the Ekman current were conducted in MATLAB.ResultsThe experimental results demonstrate that the cone–SLP network significantly reduces the frequency of routing information exchange and energy consumption among acoustic sensors, effectively enhancing the economy and durability of the sensor network. Furthermore, it exhibits robust practicality and high stability in complex and variable submarine environments.DiscussionThis research not only provides a practical method for effectively monitoring submarine disasters but also offers valuable experience and significant reference value for other similar projects, playing a more crucial role in the sustainable development of the ocean economy.

Research on Cross-Boundary Integration in Jun Porcelain Product Design Exploration and Reflection from Theory to Practice

With the increasing frequency of cultural exchanges in the current era of globalization, Jun porcelain has emerged as a distinctive manifestation of the fusion of Chinese and foreign cultures, owing to its unique craftsmanship and profound historical and cultural significance. As a traditional Chinese craft, Jun porcelain has garnered attention for its cross-boundary products, which have captured the public's interest. This paper aims to highlight successful cases of cross-boundary integration in Jun porcelain product design, while drawing on the theoretical foundations of such integration. It offers insights and recommendations on how current Jun porcelain products can enhance cross-boundary integration and innovation. Additionally, it provides an overview of the history and present status of Jun porcelain product design, along with a summary of the successful elements of cross-boundary integration in contemporary Jun porcelain products.

The Effect of Cyberbullying on Stress and Productivity of Remote Employees During COVID-19

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to enhance our understanding of cyberbullying from a conservation of resources perspective with the goal of advancing theory and providing practitioners with information aimed at well-being interventions. We examined perceived stress as an explanatory mechanism of the relationship between cyberbullying and work productivity in remote workers. Information exchange frequency and quality were considered as potential resources that were hypothesized to mitigate this indirect effect. A sample of 269 adults in the United States who were working remotely as a result of COVID-19 were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The results of this time-lagged study indicated that cyberbullying did indeed exhibit an indirect effect on productivity via stress. However, contrary to expectations, this indirect effect was stronger for those with higher information exchange quality rather than lower information exchange quality. The indirect effect was unaffected by information exchange frequency. We encourage future scholars to dig deeper into when resources may be detrimental to employee well-being. We also encourage practitioners to consider ways to reduce both cyberbullying and worker stress with interventions such as technology etiquette training and careful planning of information exchange.

Decision-Making Mechanism of Farmers in Land Transfer Processes Based on Sustainable Livelihood Analysis Framework: A Study in Rural China

The act of land transfer in rural areas is an important decision-making mechanism for farmers, to enhance resource allocation efficiency and promote capital mobility, and this act is of strategic importance in promoting the level of agricultural scale and mechanization, land system change, and, thus, the sustainable development of livelihoods and production in China. This study aims to explore farmers’ decision-making mechanisms in the process of land transfer in rural areas, by constructing a theoretical framework. Structural equation modeling was used, based on data from a survey of rural families in the Liaoning Province area of Northeastern China. The main findings are as follows: (1) The seven types of exogenous latent variables, including environmental vulnerability, policy, and five main livelihood assets (natural capital, physical capital, financial capital, human capital, and social capital), are intermediary in farmers’ land transfer behavior, which then positively affect farmers’ livelihood outcomes. (2) Among the exogenous latent variables affecting farmers’ land transfer, human assets have the most significant positive effect, followed by social assets and physical assets, family labor force share, frequency of work information exchange, and number of production tools, greatly affect the corresponding variable. (3) Natural assets play the most important role and have a negative effect on farmers’ land transfer decision; contracted area of land per family is the greatest impacted measurable variable of this. The results of the study suggest that the government should strengthen skills training for farmers, improve the land transfer policy system, and provide appropriate subsidies in a regionally targeted manner. Thus, it can promote the transformation of Chinese-style agricultural modernization and achieve rural revitalization.

Growth Substrate Geometry Optimization for the Productive Mechanical Dry Transfer of Carbon Nanotubes

The selection of growth substrate geometries for the mechanical dry transfer of carbon nanotubes to device substrates depends on the precision of the assembly equipment. Since these geometries play a decisive role in the overall efficiency of the process, an investigation of the most important geometry parameters is carried out. The substrate geometry affects the number of carbon nanotubes suspended during the growth process and the speed of mechanical assembly at the same time. Since those two criteria are interlinked and affect productivity, a meta-model for the growth and selection of the nanotubes is simulated and a time study of the resulting assembly motions is subsequently performed. The geometry parameters are then evaluated based on the total number of suspended carbon nanotubes and the throughput rate, measured in transfers per hour. The accuracy specifications are then taken into account. Depending on the overall accuracy that can be achieved, different offset angles and overlaps between the growth and receiving substrate can be reached, which affect productivity differently for different substrate geometries. To increase the overall productivity, growth substrate designs are adapted to allow fully automated operation. This measure also reduces the frequency of substrate exchanges once all carbon nanotubes have been harvested. The introduction of substrates with multiple, polygonally arranged edges increases the total number of nanotubes that can be harvested. The inclusion of polygonally arranged edges in the initial analysis shows a significant increase in overall productivity.

Effect of bottom stirring on bath mixing and transfer behavior during scrap melting in BOF steelmaking: A review

Abstract Basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking is a widely used method for steelmaking production, and the bath stirring has a significant influence on dynamics of bath flow and mixing. Therefore, the effect of bottom gas flowrate, nozzle number and configuration, and bottom gas distribution mode on bath stirring are summarized in this study. Reasonable matching of bottom gas flowrate, nozzle number and configuration, as well as intensive study on the coupling effect of gas flowrate gradient and exchange frequency on non-uniform stirring would receive more and more attention in the coming years. With wide concern on the low-carbon and high-efficient production for BOF steelmaking, as a kind of recyclable iron-containing resource, the rapid melting and reasonable utilization of scrap in converter bath were emphasized in recent works, which could be promoted with high-efficient bottom stirring. The effect of bottom stirring on heat and mass transfer during scrap melting process was reviewed in this work, and the influence mechanism of bottom stirring on coupled heat and mass transfer should be further investigated. In addition, an overview of recently published physical and numerical simulation describing the bottom stirring and its effect on scrap melting would provide an outlook for future work.

Design of a Convolutional Neural Network Accelerator Based on On-Chip Data Reordering

Convolutional neural networks have been widely applied in the field of computer vision. In convolutional neural networks, convolution operations account for more than 90% of the total computational workload. The current mainstream approach to achieving high energy-efficient convolution operations is through dedicated hardware accelerators. Convolution operations involve a significant amount of weights and input feature data. Due to limited on-chip cache space in accelerators, there is a significant amount of off-chip DRAM memory access involved in the computation process. The latency of DRAM access is 20 times higher than that of SRAM, and the energy consumption of DRAM access is 100 times higher than that of multiply–accumulate (MAC) units. It is evident that the “memory wall” and “power wall” issues in neural network computation remain challenging. This paper presents the design of a hardware accelerator for convolutional neural networks. It employs a dataflow optimization strategy based on on-chip data reordering. This strategy improves on-chip data utilization and reduces the frequency of data exchanges between on-chip cache and off-chip DRAM. The experimental results indicate that compared to the accelerator without this strategy, it can reduce data exchange frequency by up to 82.9%.

Experimental Observation of a Peculiar Effect in Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectra for Nitroxides Undergoing Fast Spin Exchange: Emission.

We report the experimental observation of an EPR spectral manifestation of spin exchange frequencies, ωex, larger than the 15N hyperfine separation, A0, predicted 50 years ago but previously not observed. For spectra with ωex/γA0 < 1, where γ is the gyromagnetic ratio of the electron, the spectrum consists of two "normal" spin modes each with one absorption and one dispersion component separated by Aabs < A0. Aabs decreases with ωex. In stark contrast, when ωex/γA0 > 1, the spectrum consists of two absorption spin modes, one of which is negative (emissive). We show that the experimental behavior of the spin modes agrees with theory: (a) the doubly integrated intensity of the first-derivative spectra remains constant because the increased intensity of the positive spin mode minus the negative emissive mode remains constant; (b) the value of the spin exchange rate constant Kex = ωex/C, where C is the molar concentration, is continuous through ωex/γA0 = 1.

Prospects and Challenges of Bacteriophage Substitution for Antibiotics in Livestock and Poultry Production.

The overuse and misuse of antibiotics in the livestock and poultry industry has led to the development of multi-drug resistance in animal pathogens, and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in bacteria transfer from animals to humans through the consumption of animal products, posing a serious threat to human health. Therefore, the use of antibiotics in livestock production has been strictly controlled. As a result, bacteriophages have attracted increasing research interest as antibiotic alternatives, since they are natural invaders of bacteria. Numerous studies have shown that dietary bacteriophage supplementation could regulate intestinal microbial composition, enhance mucosal immunity and the physical barrier function of the intestinal tract, and play an important role in maintaining intestinal microecological stability and normal body development of animals. The effect of bacteriophages used in animals is influenced by factors such as species, dose, and duration. However, as a category of mobile genetic elements, the high frequency of gene exchange of bacteriophages also poses risks of transmitting ARGs among bacteria. Hence, we summarized the mechanism and efficacy of bacteriophage therapy, and highlighted the feasibility and challenges of bacteriophage utilization in farm animal production, aiming to provide a reference for the safe and effective application of bacteriophages as an antibiotic alternative in livestock and poultry.

Educational big data mining: Mediation of academic performance in crime among digital age young adults

The connection between academic performance and crime has been proven in many studies, but there is a lack of recent literature documenting academic performance as a mediator between predictors and crime, especially in a large population that has grown up in the digital age of which the high frequency of communication exchange differentiates it from previous times. The present study aims to discover the mediating role of academic performance in the connections between each predictor (the Internet usage, biological sex, duration of sleep, fast food intake, medical history, alternate drug use, and illegal drug use) and crime using a large data set from the national longitudinal study of adolescent to adult health (&amp;gt;90,000 sample size). The bivariate correlation between each predictor and crime is presented, as well as the direct and indirect effects for each predictor on crime through academic performance as the mediator. The results highlighted that there is a significant relationship between the Internet usage with crime, a negative correlation of academic performance with crime and positive correlations of fast food intake, alternative medicine use, and illegal drug use with crime. In terms of mediation analyses, academic performance mediated the relationship between all the predictors (except for duration of sleep) and crime. Results may aid education policy makers in deterring crime in the digital age by improving academic performance while targeting its predictors.

Research on the cultivation mode of foreign-related rule of law talents in local colleges and universities

China's request to strengthen the promotion of the rule of law related to foreign affairs and to integrate the rule of law at home and the rule of law related to foreign affairs is an important part of the construction of institutional civilization. With the continuous advancement of the "The Belt and Road" initiative and the increasing frequency of international cultural exchanges and economic and trade exchanges, the cultivation of talents in the rule of law related to foreign affairs has become an urgent need of the times. As a local university, it should clarify its own position, improve the curriculum system and teaching mode according to the requirements of talent training, and train a group of new era legal talents with international vision, understanding of international rules, and able to participate in international legal affairs, safeguard the national interests, and provide legal services related to foreign affairs. To this end, it is necessary to establish a scientific guiding ideology for the cultivation of foreign-related rule of law talents, strengthen the cultivation of foreign-related legal practice ability, cross-cultural communication ability, innovative spirit, legal professionalism and global vision, and promote the quality of China's foreign-related talents training.