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In this article we consider Bayesian inference for partially observed Andersson-Madigan-Perlman (AMP) Gaussian chain graph (CG) models. Such models are of particular interest in applications such as biological networks and financial time series. The model itself features a variety of constraints which make both prior modeling and computational inference challenging. We develop a framework for the aforementioned challenges, using a sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) method for statistical inference. Our approach is illustrated on both simulated data as well as real case studies from university graduation rates and a pharmacokinetics study.

Food ingredient adulteration, especially the adulteration of milk and dairy products, is one of the important issues of food safety. A rapid, simple, sensitive, specific, and low-cost DNA detection method was established to screen bovine milk adulterated in three different kinds of special milk (camel, horse, and goat milk). This method can detection both bovine milk and special milk in a single duplex polymerase chain reaction (duplex PCR). In this study, specific primers of duplex PCR were designed based on 16S-RNA genes from camel and bovine mitochondria and D-LOOP genes from horse and goat mitochondria. The designed primers had good specificity and could accurately amplify the target fragments (711 bp, 584 bp, 241 bp, and 184 bp). The duplex PCR was applied to the binary mixtures of raw milk fixed percentage and processed dairy products (freeze-dried, pasteurized, and ultra-high temperature (UHT) sterilized with the same mixtures and commercial samples). The limit of detection (LOD) of special milk adulterated with bovine milk was 0.1% in raw milk mixture. Pasteurized and UHT sterilized raised the LOD to 0.2% and 0.5%, but freeze-dried did not raise the LOD. Duplex PCR maintained preferable selectivity and sensitivity in the detection of samples with different processed, and it is expected to be used in market detection.

Background: Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) is one of the common gynecological diseases, the incidence of PD is on the rise and young women are more likely to have it, which seriously affects women's physical, mental health and work life. Intradermal acupuncture is effective in treating PD. However, due to the lack of evidence, there is no specific method or suggestion, so it is necessary to carry out systematic evaluation on intradermal acupuncture and provide effective evidence for further research. Methods: We will search the following electronic databases from their inception to July 2020: Electronic database includes PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biomedical Database WangFang, VIP medicine information, and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure). Primary outcomes: the overall effective rate, VAS score. Secondary outcomes: blood serum estradiol (E2), progesterone (P), prostaglandin F2α (PGF-2α), adverse events Data will be extracted by 2 researchers independently, risk of bias of the meta-analysis will be evaluated based on the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. All data analysis will be conducted by data statistics software Review Manager V.5.3. and Stata V.12.0. Results: The results of this study will systematically evaluate the effectiveness and safety of intradermal acupuncture in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea. Conclusion: The systematic review of this study will summarize the currently published evidence of intradermal acupuncture therapy for primary dysmenorrhea to further guide its promotion and application.

Plastic mulch film is widely used in agricultural production. However, there are very few studies on degradable mulch film. In order to investigate the effects of using degradable mulch film in arid regions on crop yield and water use efficiency, we used fully biodegradable mulch films on both maize and bare land cultivation experimental areas. The DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) model was used to analyze changes in maize biomass in the future under different climate scenario models. We found that using fully biodegradable mulch film in an arid region had a positive effect on biomass yields. In 2015&ndash, 2017, the annual maize biomass yield increased by 24.5%, 28.9%, and 32.9%, respectively. Hence, this method has expansion and promotion value. A comparison of the DNDC model simulated biomass yields and actual measured values found that the ranges of R2, root mean square error (RMSE), and model efficiency (ME) were 0.98&ndash, 0.99, 0.38&ndash, 0.86 mg C ha&minus, 1, and 0.80&ndash, 0.98. This result shows that the DNDC model can accurately simulate changes in maize biomass in this region. Under the premise of a good model fit, future climate scenario model data were used to drive the DNDC model. The results showed that the possible range of maize biomass yields in the future is &minus, 6.5% to 10.3%, with the most probable range being 0.2&ndash, 1.5%. Using future climatic conditions, our work suggests that degradable mulch films can increase water use efficiency by an average of 9.5%. The results of this study can be used to promote the use of degradable mulch films in arid regions, significantly improving sustainable agricultural development.

Background: Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a chronic disease, which is also recognized as a common disease affecting the elderly. However, the application of Western medicine is limited in clinical because of its obvious adverse reactions. Warm needle acupuncture (WNA) has a long history in the treatment of KOA and is widely used in Chinese. Here we will submit a protocol to evaluate the efficacy and safety of WNA in the treatment of KOA. Methods: We will search 5 English databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science), 4 Chinese databases [China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), China Biology Medicine, Chinese Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), and Wanfang database] and grey literature for randomized controlled trials of WNA in the treatment of KOA. The primary outcome measure is Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC), and the secondary outcome will include degree of knee flexion and adverse events caused by WNA, such as dizziness, nausea, abdominal pain, arrhythmia, etc. The selection of the literatures will be conducted by endnote X7 software, and we will use Review Manger V.5.3 software to conduct the meta-analysis. Results: This study will provide reliable evidence for WNA in the treatment of KAO. Conclusion: The conclusion of this study will testify the efficacy and safety of WNA in the treatment of KAO. Registration: OSF Preregistration. 2020, October 11; osf.io/bu5qw

In this study, a three-dimensional vehicle–bridge coupled model is used to analyze the impact factors of bridges in service by considering the effect of the stochastic traffic flow and road surface progressive deterioration. A three-dimensional vehicle model with 18 degrees of freedom was adopted. An improved cellular automaton model considering the influence of the next-nearest neighbor vehicle and a progressive deterioration model for road roughness were introduced. Based on the equivalent dynamic wheel loading approach, the coupled equations of motion of the bridge and traffic flow are established by combining the equations of both the bridge and vehicles using the displacement relationship and interaction force relationship at the patch contact. The numerical simulations show that the proposed method can rationally simulate the impact factor of the bridge under the effect of stochastic traffic flow. Based on the existing highway bridge design code, expressions of impact factor for evaluating the dynamic responses of in-service bridges are proposed.

In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a vision system for power transmission facilities detection based on UAV videos. The vision system consists of two main parts, the client part and the server part. The aim of the system is to detect the power transmission facilities in complex background. In order to achieve this aim, several novel methods are proposed for detecting the power transmission facilities which include the power line, the power tower, and the insulator. The experiment results on real image data demonstrate that the proposed methods are accurate and effective. The system is presented to demonstrate the performance of the detection methods.

This article examines the market discounts and announcement effects of private equity placements in China. We find that, on average, Chinese firms have about 30% market discounts for private placements, which is higher in number than those of US firms. Firms experience positive announcement effects for private placements and such effects are positively related with the market discounts.

Ge1-xMnx (x=0.05, 0.07, 0.11, 0.15, 0.19, 0.23, 0.26, 0.29) thin films were prepared by magnetron sputtering. All the films had a Ge cubic structure, and no indication of a secondary phase was found in any sample using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The crystal lattice constant increases with the Mn concentration, in accordance with Vegard's law. No films show clear magnetic domain structure under a magnetic force microscope (MFM). Atom force microscope (AFM) measurements show that all films have a uniform particle size distribution, and a columnar growth pattern. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements indicate that the Mn atoms are not singlely in the bivalent. Electrical transport properties show that the resistance of the films increases with increasing Mn concentration, suggesting that the Mn ions are in deep-level acceptor states, while resistance decreases with increasing temperature, which is a typical semiconductor property.

Micro-credit pushed by the rural financial institutions play a significant role in supporting the economic development and solving the three issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers. Pointing at the outstanding issues current micro-credit confront such as the inability to meet the strong demand for the loans from rural areas, slow cash flows and difficulty vulnerable farmers faced in application, this essay makes deep analyses in the reasons and put forward countermeasures to break the dilemma. There are four ways: accelerating the construction of rural financial institutions and outlets; lowering the threshold while improving the efficiency of loaning; perfecting rural credit legal system with reduced risks; expediting management mechanism innovation when focusing on the rural capital contradiction of supply and demand.

Due to its magnetostructural phase transition (the structural phase transition and the magnetic phase transition are strongly coupled together and occur simultaneously),Mn-based Heusler alloys exhibit attractive physical effects,such as ferromagnetic shape memory effect,magnetostrain effect,magnetocaloric effect,magnetoresistance effect,and exchange bias effect.These effects are receiving increasing attentions from the applications in actuating,sensing,magnetic cooling,heat pump,and energy conversion.However,Mn-based Heusler alloys display these potentially useful magnetic effects only in the vicinity of the magnetostructural transformation temperature.Therefore,from the application point of view,being able to tune the magnetostructural transformation temperature and the magnetism simultaneously is highly desirable.Recently,our group has developed a new Mn-based Heusler alloy (Mn2NiSn) with magnetostructural phase transition.Considering that the magnetostructural transformation temperature of Mn50Ni41Sn9 alloy is relatively high (278 K) and its magnetism is relatively weak (19.5 emu/g at 5 K,1 emu/g=1 Am2kg-1),we expect to lower its magnetostructural transformation temperature and enhance its magnetism in order to expand its scope of application.In this paper,the role of Ni-Mn hybridization on the martensitic transformation temperature and the magnetism of the martensitic state of Mn50Ni41Sn9Cux alloys was studied.XRD measurement shows that the lattice constants increase with increasing Cu content in Mn50Ni41-xSn9Cux (x=0,1,3,5) alloys,and thus Ni-Mn hybridizatiidion between normal Ni 3d e g and excess Mn 3d decreases due to the lattice expansion and the decrease in the Ni content. The weakened Ni-Mn hybridization leads to the decrease of both the martensitic transformation temperature and the austenitic Curie temperature from 278 K and 290 K to 129 K and 237 K,respectively.It should be pointed out that the phenomenological and conventional valence electron concentration rule has not been able to explain the change of the martensitic transformation temperature in Mn50Ni41-xSn9Cux alloys,and only the microscopic Ni-Mn hybridization theory can explain that.Ni-Mn hybridization not only affects the martensitic transformation but also influences the magnetism of the martensitic state.It is found that the martensite is changed from a canonical spin glass to a cluster spin glass and its saturation magnetization increases from 19.5 emu/g to 24.1 emu/g.Furthermore,both the ac magnetic susceptibility and the magnetic relaxation measurements show that the system has changed gradually from a spin glass state with coexistence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interaction to a single ferromagnetic state.Therefore, increasing the Cu content in Mn50Ni41-xSn9Cux alloys has been proven to be an effective way of enhancing the ferromagnetic interaction of the martensitic state.Tuning the exchange interaction of the system is very crucial to tailoring the exchange bias effect of the system.With different Cu contents,a continuous tailoring of the spontaneous exchange bias field from 0 Oe (1 Oe=79.5775 A/m) to 1182 Oe is realized.The method of changing the Ni-Mn hybridization strength mentioned above provides a new way to control the martensitic transformation temperature and the magnetic properties of the martensitic state.

According to the blindness and randomness of the traditional collaboration in design process, a dialogue-based multi-agent collaboration model was proposed. the task was simplified by the task tree form of """"and /or"""" structure. Communication efficiency has been raised through dividing the communications area and establishing Agent server. Agent dialogue interaction semantics were defined due to the dialogue model and used in multi-agent collaboration model. the entire collaborative process was described. and the utility and cost of the model were analyzed. the model which is Agent collaboration design provides a flexible and effective means of interaction and the efficiency of the system can be significantly improved.

—Large-scale enterprises need their software systems to deal with massive extremely important heterologous and heterogeneous data, which makes the quality assurance to them also very critical, and this also made an enormous challenge to QA staffs. To automate this process as far as possible is the key factor to ensure that terrifically useful information is effective and the validating is time-saving. In this paper, we designed an ETC-based general framework through which we can enhance the efficiency of validation of software used to process huge data remarkably.

The N doped SiO 2 thin films were prepared by radio frequency magnetron reaction sputtering technique. It is found that the N doped SiO 2 thin films have ferromagnetism. Magnetic order is easy to form in the system in which silicon nitride particles with relatively small sizes are distributed uniformly in silicon oxide matrix. When the substrate temperature of the film was 400℃，the N doped SiO 2 thin film possesses the largest saturation magnetization and coercivity，being 35 emu/cm 3 and 75 Oe，respectively. The magnetism of the film may originate from the interfaces between silicon nitride and silicon oxide. Calculations based on the first principles show that net spins exist in the N doped SiO 2 film. The orbit magnetic moments caused by the charge transfer through the interface between silicon nitride and silicon oxide also contribute to the ferromagnetism of the film.