Influence Of Networks Research Articles

A digital twin framework for efficient electric power restoration and resilient recovery in the aftermath of hurricanes considering the interdependencies with road network and essential facilities

The community's resilience in the face of natural hazards relies heavily on the rapid and efficient restoration of electric power networks, which plays a critical role in emergency response, economic recovery, and the functionality of essential lifeline and social infrastructure systems. Leveraging the recent data revolution, the digital twin (DT) concept emerges as a promising tool to enhance the effectiveness of post-disaster recovery efforts. This paper introduces a novel framework for post-hurricane electric power restoration using a hybrid DT approach that combines physics-based and data-driven models by utilizing a dynamic Bayesian network. By capturing the complexities of power system dynamics and incorporating the road network's influence, the framework offers a comprehensive methodology to guide real-time power restoration efforts in post-disaster scenarios. A discrete event simulation is conducted to demonstrate the proposed framework's efficacy. The study showcases how the electric power restoration DT can be monitored and updated in real-time, reflecting changing conditions and facilitating adaptive decision-making. Furthermore, it demonstrates the framework's flexibility to allow decision-makers to prioritize essential, residential, and business facilities and compare different restoration plans and their potential effect on the community.

Decoding the neurotoxic effects of propofol: insights into the RARα-Snhg1-Bdnf regulatory cascade.

The potential neurotoxic effects of propofol, an extensively utilized anesthetic, underline the urgency to comprehend its influence on neuronal health. Insights into the role of the retinoic acid receptor-α, small nucleolar RNA host gene 1, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (RARα-Snhg1-Bdnf) network can offer significant advancements in minimizing these effects. The study targets the exploration of the RARα and Snhg1 regulatory network's influence on Bdnf expression in the realm of propofol-induced neurotoxicity. Harnessing the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database and utilizing JASPAR and RNA-Protein Interaction Prediction (RPISeq) database for projections, the study embarks on an in-depth analysis employing both in vitro and in vivo models. The findings draw a clear link between propofol-induced neurotoxicity and the amplification of RAR signaling pathways, impacting hippocampal development and apoptosis and leading to increased RARα and Snhg1 and decreased Bdnf. Propofol is inferred to accentuate neurotoxicity by heightening RARα and Snhg1 interactions, culminating in Bdnf suppression.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study aimed to decode propofol's neurotoxic effects on the regulatory cascade, provide insights into the RARα-Snhg1-Bdnf interaction, apply extensive validation techniques, provide a detailed analysis and exploration of propofol's neurotoxicity, and offer a comprehensive approach to understanding molecular interactions.

Network-based structure optimization method of the anti-aircraft system

The anti-aircraft system plays an irreplaceable role in modern combat. An anti-aircraft system consists of various types of functional entities interacting to destroy the hostile aircraft moving in high speed. The connecting structure of combat entities in it is of great importance for supporting the normal process of the system. In this paper, we explore the optimizing strategy of the structure of the anti-aircraft network by establishing extra communication channels between the combat entities. Firstly, the thought of combat network model (CNM) is borrowed to model the anti-aircraft system as a heterogeneous network. Secondly, the optimization objectives are determined as the survivability and the accuracy of the system. To specify these objectives, the information chain and accuracy chain are constructed based on CNM. The causal strength (CAST) logic and influence network (IN) are introduced to illustrate the establishment of the accuracy chain. Thirdly, the optimization constraints are discussed and set in three aspects: time, connection feasibility and budget. The time constraint network (TCN) is introduced to construct the timing chain and help to detect the timing consistency. Then, the process of the multi-objective optimization of the structure of the anti-aircraft system is designed. Finally, a simulation is conducted to prove the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method. Non-dominated sorting based genetic algorithm-II (NSGA2) is used to solve the multi-objective optimization problem and two other algorithms including non-dominated sorting based genetic algorithm-III (NSGA3) and strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm-II (SPEA2) are employed as comparisons. The deciders and system builders can make the anti-aircraft system improved in the survivability and accuracy in the combat reality.

Probabilistic modeling of an injectable aqueous crystalline suspension using influence networks

Probabilistic modeling using influence networks is an efficient, intuitive, and easy to communicate strategy in the development of complex pharmaceutical products. This study was aimed to use a risk-based approach to explore the complex interactions between product and process design parameters affecting size and shape of the particles in injectable aqueous crystalline suspensions (ACS). Based on a risk assessment, a design of experiments (DOE) was applied to evaluate the most important parameters, i.e., four critical material attributes and two critical process parameters. A model hydrophobic drug (carbamazepine) was milled and homogenized in a multistep process (dispersion and milling steps). The final formulations were characterized with automated at-line image analysis of thousands of individual particles. The particle size and shape distributions were summarized with descriptive parameters, and the relationship of these parameters and the DOE was modeled using influence networks (INs). This approach was compared and contrasted with a classical modeling approach based on multivariate linear regression (MVLR). INs had a superior visual interpretation capability of the complex and multivariate ACS system making the risk-based decision making more accessible. The probability and causality were included in the IN, i.e., the relationships between size and shape. Moreover, IN allowed to incorporate prior knowledge in a systematic way by implementing a ‘black and white list’. An IN based model was created with the following model performance: a mean absolute percentage error of 1.7% and 1.1% for the size and 6.2% and 5.0% for the shape, respectively for dispersed and milled ACS. Parameters with the highest and lowest probability to control the critical quality attributes of ACS could be identified. Consequently, the parameter settings giving the optimum particle size and shape could be predicted using a Monte Carlo simulation to calculate the probability of success including the uncertainty of the model. The cubic MVLR model for the size of milled ACS was comparable to the IN in terms of the mean absolute percentage error, i.e., 1.1%. However, IN was more efficient in visualizing the complex and multivariate data set, including all the critical quality attributes and formulation/process parameters of the ACS at the same time. Moreover, the prior knowledge used in probabilistic modeling of IN could be systematically documented.

The challenge and path choice of political socialization of young students in the new era

As socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, the growth and development of young students have also brought about new historical orientation and environmental conditions, political socialization is of great significance to the progress and development of social and political life at three levels: individual, political system and political culture. At present, young students are facing a series of challenges in the process of political socialization, mainly from the lack of political socialization of young students practical, young students prone to cognitive bias, young students political values have a certain degree of complexity, domestic and foreign environment and their own factors caused by the lack of faith. To address these challenges in order to promote the positive development of young students' political socialization, which needs government, society, school, family four synergy, actively carry out social practice, attach importance to innovation, the way to a variety of means of political socialization, attaches great importance to the network's influence to the young students' political socialization environment, attaches great importance to the young students psychological health is stable, at the same time, the new era of young students should also actively play to subjective initiative, form conducive to the development of the political socialization of political culture.

A Conceptual Model of the Impact of Returning Entrepreneurs’ Social Networks on Entrepreneurial Competency: The Regulation of Internet Embedding

Integrating the theoretical research on social network, internet embedding and entrepreneurial competency, using internet embedding as a regulatory variable, exploring the impact model of returning entrepreneurs social network's influence on entrepreneurial competency under the embedding of the internet, trying to provide theoretical guidance and countermeasures for improving entrepreneurial competency through social networks and the internet.

From global agenda-setting to domestic implementation: successes and challenges of the global health network on tobacco control.

Global policy attention to tobacco control has increased significantly since the 1990 s and culminated in the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of the World Health Organization--the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Although the political process that led to the creation of the FCTC has been extensively researched, the FCTC's progression from an aspirational treaty towards a global health governance framework with tangible policy effects within FCTC member countries has not been well-understood to date. This article analyses the role of the global health network of tobacco control advocates and scientists, which formed during the FCTC negotiations during the late 1990 s, in translating countries' commitment to the FCTC into domestic policy change. By comparing the network's influence around two central tobacco control interventions (smoke-free environments and taxation), the study identifies several scope conditions, which have shaped the network's effectiveness around the FCTC's implementation: the complexity of the policy issue and the relative importance of non-health expertise, the required scope of domestic political buy-in, the role of the general public as network allies, and the strength of policy opposition. These political factors had a greater influence on the network's success than the evidence base for the effectiveness of tobacco control interventions. The network's variable success points to a trade-off faced by global health networks between their need to maintain internal cohesion and their ability to form alliances with actors in their social environment.

Global Environmentalism and Local Politics: Transnational Advocacy Networks in Brazil, Ecuador, and India

Global Environmentalism and Local Politics: Transnational Advocacy Networks in Brazil, Ecuador, and India. By Maria Guadalupe Moog Rodrigues. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. 195p. 18.95 paper.This book brings a new angle to the study of transnational advocacy networks (TANs) by making local choices, priorities, and outcomes the central focus of its analysis. TANs link actors at local, national, and international levels in campaigns across national boundaries. As Maria Guadalupe Moag Rodrigues points out, most such studies have focused on the campaigns' impacts on governmental policies or on public opinion. Her focus is on a network's influence on a part of itself instead. Are local participants empowered by TANs to formulate their own autonomous conceptions of sustainable development and to gain institutionalized mechanisms to articulate those? To answer these questions, a focus on the internal dynamics of politics, resources, cohesion, and legitimacy in the network becomes central. This is not a wholly new approach and is actually quite common in other fields, but does represent a departure from many studies of similar phenomena in political science. Rodrigues argues that it is especially important to look at the impact on local network members because that is central for local outcomes.

The Holmes Scholars Network: A Study of the Holmes Group Initiative for Recruitment and Retention of Minority Faculty

Advocates for restructuring K-12 education recognize the link between effective teachers and student learning (Lewis, 1989). Effective teachers must address the needs of all children in a K-12 student population that is growing more diverse (Nieto, 1996) even as teachers are becoming less so (Ladson-Billings, 1991). Although the cultural distance between teachers and students continues to widen, few new teachers believe their preservice education experience has adequately prepared them to teach students from cultural backgrounds unlike their own (Ashton, 1996). Preservice teachers typically experience professional education programs taught by White male professors (Ducharme, 1993). Although the American professoriate encompasses numerous disciplines and reflects different backgrounds, attitudes, traditions, and values among its members (Bowen & Schuster, 1986), it is largely homogeneous in race and gender. Women and minority scholars remain underrepresented within the academy (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994), despite institutional efforts to recruit and retain them (Dunn, Rouse, & Seff, 1994). Women and people of color are similarly absent from the education professoriate (Ducharme, & Agne, 1989; Ducharme & Ducharme, 1996). The Holmes Group, a consortium of 96 research universities formed in 1987, has sought to improve both the preparation of teachers and the quality of K-12 schooling through research and development (Holmes Group, 1986). A primary goal of the consortium has been to increase the numbers of quality minority faculty in schools of education (Holmes Group, 1995). In 1991, the Holmes Group board of directors asked member institutions to create and maintain a network of minority students across levels of advanced study. The Holmes Scholar Network was designed to enhance minority graduate experience[s], and thus help to increase the pool of persons preparing to become faculty in schools of education and Professional Development Schools (Devaney, 1991, p. 2). In this study, we explored the perceptions of three Holmes Scholars regarding the Network's influence upon their career development. Our purpose was to identify conditions that facilitated and impeded successful entry of these Holmes Scholars into the professoriate. Two central questions guided the study: How did the Holmes Scholar experience influence the thinking of three individuals about professional roles? How does the Holmes experience affect their current roles and practice within academe? Two bodies of literature, faculty socialization and the education professoriate, form the conceptual framework for our investigation. To demonstrate the complexities inherent in the socialization process, we briefly examine relevant literature. This review focuses on aspiring academics preparing for faculty roles in research institutions. Faculty Socialization Within workplace settings, socialization processes serve to build commitment and loyalty to the organization (Schein, 1968, p. 7) as members gain knowledge of the organizational culture. Socialization of new faculty into the culture of higher education occurs in two phases, anticipatory and organizational (Tierney & Rhoads, (1994). Anticipatory Socialization In addition to grounding students in the specialized knowledge and skills associated with their given disciplines, graduate and professional schools offer aspiring faculty the first phase of intensive socialization into the academic culture (Dunn et al., 1994). As faculty apprentices (Merton, Reader, & Kendall, 1957), graduate students may gain familiarity with the attitudes, beliefs, and characteristics valued within their disciplines and by the faculty at large (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994). Thus, students may anticipate the types of roles and behaviors they must enact to succeed as faculty members (p. 23). Although graduate programs form a powerful socializing force, many novice faculty are inadequately prepared for their first faculty appointment (Whitt, 1991). …

Research note: a study of direct selling perceptions in Australia

Direct selling as a type of non‐store retailing continues to increase internationally and in Australia in its use and popularity. One non‐store retailing method, multilevel marketing or network marketing, has recently incurred a degree of consumer suspicion and negative perceptions. A study was developed to investigate consumer perceptions and concerns in New South Wales and Victoria. Consumers were surveyed to determine their perception of direct selling and its relationship to consumer purchasing decisions. Responses indicate consumers had a negative perception towards network marketing, while holding a low positive view of direct selling. There appears to be no influence of network marketing on consumer purchase decisions.