Celestial navigation is an important means of maritime navigation; it can automatically achieve inertially referenced positioning and orientation after a long period of development. However, the impact of different accuracy of observations and the influence of nonstationary states, such as ship speed change and steering, are not taken into account in existing algorithms. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an adaptively robust maritime celestial navigation algorithm, in which each observation value is given an equivalent weight according to the robust estimation theory, and the dynamic balance between astronomical observation and prediction values of vessel motion is adjusted by applying the adaptive factor. With this system, compared with the frequently used least square method and extended Kalman filter algorithm, not only are the real-time and high-precision navigation parameters, such as position, course, and speed for the vessel, calculated simultaneously, but also the influence of abnormal observation and vessel motion status change could be well suppressed.

We assessed the association between the dietary inflammatory index (DII) and the development of metabolic syndrome in the elderly over 55 years in Northern China. The data of 1936 Chinese adults aged 55 years and over from a community-based neurological disease cohort study from 2018 to 2019 were analysed. Multiple logistic regression and restricted cubic splines regression were used for analysis, and social demographics, lifestyle and health-related factors were adjusted. In the fully adjusted model, the risk of metabolic syndrome increased by 1·28-fold in people with a pro-inflammatory diet. When we divide the metabolic syndrome by its components, high pro-inflammatory diet and hyperglycaemia, TAG, hypertension and abdominal obesity, we failed to observe a significant association between a high pro-inflammatory diet and HDL-cholesterol. However, these associations are moving in the expected direction. At the same time, the results of BMI subgroup analysis showed that with the increase of DII, obese people are at increased risk of metabolic syndrome, hyperglycaemia, high TAG, hypertension and abdominal obesity. Also in overweight people, the increase in DII is accompanied by an increased risk of hyperglycaemia and abdominal obesity. Higher inflammatory diet is related to metabolic syndrome, hypertension, hyperglycaemia, abdominal obesity and hypertriglyceridaemia. Further research is needed to confirm the role of inflammation and diet in the development of metabolic syndrome; however, it is desirable to reduce the dietary components associated with inflammation.

Empirical research is largely supportive of the assertion of instrumental stakeholder theory that a positive relationship exists between “managing for stakeholders” and firm performance. However, despite considerable debate on the subject, the amount of variation across firm investments in stakeholders (stakeholder management performance) has not been adequately investigated. We address this gap using a sample of more than eighteen thousand firm-level observations over ten years. We find evidence to support an inverted U–shaped relationship between variation in stakeholder management performance and Tobin’s q, suggesting that firms that have some imbalance in their stakeholder management, but not too much, perform best. We discuss the implications of our study for instrumental stakeholder theory and managerial practice.

For torpedo electronic components tested by functional verification, there are characteristics of a few samples and few failures. During service life, it is difficult to analyse and predict the changes in reliability. At present, management's observation of quality is mainly base on failure data, and it is difficult to make predictions about the moments without failure in service life. In this paper, according to the failure data, we consider such factors as performance degradation and detection and use the model of instantaneous failure rate to evaluate the reliability of the detection moments periodically, and predict the reliability of stages through the results of detection moments. The method proposed in this paper, on the one hand, considers the service experience, and on the other combines the detection data, to make the final evaluation result more credible. In addition, this paper predicts the changing trend of reliability between adjacent detection moments, which can provide a useful reference for quality management work.

By integrating role theory and social identity theory, this study examines the differential effects of organizational identification of the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chief financial officer (CFO) on corporate philanthropy. We argue that CEO organizational identification can positively affect corporate philanthropy, whereas the opposite holds for CFO organizational identification. This is because the CEO and the CFO have varying attitudes about corporate philanthropy owing to their different role expectations; thus, those who identify strongly with their organizations would act for the best interests of the firm. Moreover, because the beliefs of top executives are probably influenced by those of other executives, we further explore the interaction between the CEO and the CFO. We propose that the positive influence of CEO organizational identification on corporate philanthropy will be weakened by CFO organizational identification, and the moderating effect of CFO organizational identification will become stronger when the CEO and the CFO have opposite genders or when the CFO has ownership. From a sample of 880 publicly traded firms in China, we found support for our hypotheses. Our study can contribute to the corporate philanthropy literature and research on executive organizational identification by highlighting the importance of executive roles and their interactions.

The present study evaluated whether fat mass assessment using the triceps skinfold (TSF) thickness provides additional prognostic value to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) framework in patients with lung cancer (LC). We performed an observational cohort study including 2672 LC patients in China. Comprehensive demographic, disease and nutritional characteristics were collected. Malnutrition was retrospectively defined using the GLIM criteria, and optimal stratification was used to determine the best thresholds for the TSF. The associations of malnutrition and TSF categories with survival were estimated independently and jointly by calculating multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HR). Malnutrition was identified in 808 (30·2 %) patients, and the best TSF thresholds were 9·5 mm in men and 12 mm in women. Accordingly, 496 (18·6 %) patients were identified as having a low TSF. Patients with concurrent malnutrition and a low TSF had a 54 % (HR = 1·54, 95 % CI = 1·25, 1·88) greater death hazard compared with well-nourished individuals, which was also greater compared with malnourished patients with a normal TSF (HR = 1·23, 95 % CI = 1·06, 1·43) or malnourished patients without TSF assessment (HR = 1·31, 95 % CI = 1·14, 1·50). These associations were concentrated among those patients with adequate muscle mass (as indicated by the calf circumference). Additional fat mass assessment using the TSF enhances the prognostic value of the GLIM criteria. Using the population-derived thresholds for the TSF may provide significant prognostic value when used in combination with the GLIM criteria to guide strategies to optimise the long-term outcomes in patients with LC.

We consider a gradual-impulse control problem of continuous-time Markov decision processes, where the system performance is measured by the expectation of the exponential utility of the total cost. We show, under natural conditions on the system primitives, the existence of a deterministic stationary optimal policy out of a more general class of policies that allow multiple simultaneous impulses, randomized selection of impulses with random effects, and accumulation of jumps. After characterizing the value function using the optimality equation, we reduce the gradual-impulse control problem to an equivalent simple discrete-time Markov decision process, whose action space is the union of the sets of gradual and impulsive actions.

This study is inspired by the velvety structures on an owl's upper wing surface. Anechoic wind tunnel experiments were conducted to study the effect of the velvety structures on trailing edge noise as well as the boundary layer flow of a flat plate model. The tests were conducted in The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology low-speed wind tunnel, ultra-quiet noise injection test and evaluation device (UNITED). It was found that the trailing edge noise spectra are significantly modified by the velvety structures. In general, the velvety structures increase the low-frequency noise below a cross-over Strouhal number $St_c$ but reduce the spectral level at higher frequencies. The velvety surface also changes the boundary layer characteristics in terms of the boundary layer thickness, non-dimensional velocity distribution and turbulence distribution. Vortex shedding is suppressed by the velvety coating despite the blunt trailing edge. An analytic model is proposed for the trailing edge noise of a flat plate, including the effect of finite trailing edge thickness and velvety structures on the flat plate surface. The model uses the near wake distribution of the mean and fluctuating velocities in the streamwise direction as the input. The predictions, which require no empirical corrections, match well with the experiments for both the baseline and velvet-coated configurations. With a detailed non-dimensional analysis, this study proposes a potential aeroacoustic function of velvet structures, i.e. noise control through manipulation of boundary layer statistics.

Nowadays, automated essay evaluation (AEE) systems play an important role in evaluating essays and have been successfully used in large-scale writing assessments. However, existing AEE systems mostly focus on grammar or shallow content measurements rather than higher-order traits such as ideas. This paper proposes a new formulation of graph-based features for concept maps using word embeddings to evaluate the quality of ideas for Chinese compositions. The concept map derived from the student’s composition is composed of the concepts appearing in the essay and the co-occurrence relationship between the concepts. By utilizing real compositions written by eighth-grade students from a large-scale assessment, the scoring accuracy of the computer evaluation system (named AECC-I: Automated Evaluation for Chinese Compositions—Ideas) is higher than the baselines. The results indicate that the proposed method deepens the construct-relevant coverage of automatic ideas evaluation in compositions and that it can provide constructive feedback for students.

To unveil the adaptation of Litopenaeus vannamei to elevated ambient ammonia-N, crustacean hyperglycaemic hormone (CHH) was knocked down to investigate its function in glucose metabolism pathway under ammonia-N exposure. When CHH was silenced, haemolymph glucose increased significantly during 3–6 h, decreased significantly during 12–48 h and recovered to the control groups’ level at 72 h. After CHH knock-down, dopamine (DA) contents reduced significantly during 3–24 h, which recovered after 48 h. Besides, the expressions of guanylyl cyclase (GC) and DA1R in the hepatopancreas decreased significantly, while DA4R increased significantly. Correspondingly, the contents of cyclic AMP (cAMP), cyclic GMP (cGMP) and diacylglycerol (DAG) and the expressions of protein kinase A (PKA), protein kinase G (PKG), AMP active protein kinase α (AMPKα) and AMPKγ were significantly down-regulated, while the levels of protein kinase C (PKC) and AMPKβ were significantly up-regulated. The expressions of cyclic AMP response element-binding protein (CREB) and GLUT2 decreased significantly, while GLUT1 increased significantly. Moreover, glycogen content, glycogen synthase and glycogen phosphorylase activities in hepatopancreas and muscle were significantly increased. Furthermore, the levels of key enzymes hexokinase, pyruvate kinase and phosphofructokinase in glycolysis (GLY), rate-limiting enzymes citrate synthase in tricarboxylic acid and critical enzymes phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, fructose diphosphate and glucose-6-phosphatase in gluconeogenesis (GNG) were significantly decreased in hepatopancreas. These results suggest that CHH affects DA and then they affect their receptors to transmit glucose metabolism signals into the hepatopancreas of L. vannamei under ammonia-N stress. CHH acts on the cGMP-PKG-AMPKα-CREB pathway through GC, and CHH affects DA to influence cAMP-PKA-AMPKγ-CREB and DAG-PKC-AMPKβ-CREB pathways, thereby regulating GLUT, inhibiting glycogen metabolism and promoting GLY and GNG. This study contributes to further understand glucose metabolism mechanism of crustacean in response to environmental stress.

With the characteristics of full autonomy and no accumulated errors, polarisation navigation shows tremendous prospects in underwater scenarios. In this paper, inspired by the polarisation vision of aquatic organisms, a novel point-source polarisation sensor with high spectral adaptability (400 nm–760 nm) is designed for underwater orientation. To enhance the environmental applicability of the underwater polarisation sensor, a novel sensor model based on the underwater light intensity attenuation coefficient and optical coupling coefficient is established. In addition, concerned with the influence of light intensity uncertainty on sensor performance underwater, an antagonistic polarisation algorithm is adopted for the first time, to improve the accuracy of angle of polarisation and degree of polarisation in the low signal-to-noise ratio environment underwater. Finally, indoor and outdoor experiments are carried out to evaluate the performance of the designed polarisation sensor. The results show that the designed point-source polarisation sensor can acquire polarised light and be used for heading determination underwater.

N6-Methyladenosine (m6A) regulates oocyte-to-embryo transition and the reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. However, the role of m6A methylation in porcine early embryonic development and its reprogramming characteristics in somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos are yet to be known. Here, we showed that m6A methylation was essential for normal early embryonic development and its aberrant reprogramming in SCNT embryos. We identified a persistent occurrence of m6A methylation in embryos between 1-cell to blastocyst stages and m6A levels abruptly increased during the morula-to-blastocyst transition. Cycloleucine (methylation inhibitor, 20 mM) treatment efficiently reduced m6A levels, significantly decreased the rates of 4-cell embryos and blastocysts, and disrupted normal lineage allocation. Moreover, cycloleucine treatment also led to higher levels in both apoptosis and autophagy in blastocysts. Furthermore, m6A levels in SCNT embryos at the 4-cell and 8-cell stages were significantly lower than that in parthenogenetic activation (PA) embryos, suggesting an abnormal reprogramming of m6A methylation in SCNT embryos. Correspondingly, expression levels of m6A writers (METTL3 and METTL14) and eraser (FTO) were apparently higher in SCNT 8-cell embryos compared with their PA counterparts. Taken together, these results indicated that aberrant nuclear transfer-mediated reprogramming of m6A methylation was involved in regulating porcine early embryonic development.

The study aimed to investigate behavioural intentions to receive free and self-paid COVID-19 vaccinations (BICV-F and BICV-SP) among Chinese university students if the vaccine was 80% effective with rare mild side effects, to examine their associations with social media exposures and peer discussions regarding COVID-19 vaccination, and to explore the mediational role of perceived information sufficiency about COVID-19 vaccination. An online anonymous survey (N = 6922) was conducted in November 2020 in five Chinese provinces. Logistic regression and path analysis were adopted. The prevalence of BICV-F and BICV-SP were 78.1% and 57.7%. BICV-F was positively associated with the frequencies of passive social media exposure (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.32, P < 0.001), active social media interaction (AOR = 1.13, P < 0.001) and peer discussions (AOR = 1.17, P < 0.001). Indirect effects of the three factors on BICV-F via perceived information sufficiency were all significant (P < 0.001). The direct effect of active social media interaction on BICV-F was significantly negative (P < 0.001). Similar associations/mediations were observed for BICV-SP. The COVID-19 vaccination intention of Chinese university students needs improvement. Boosting social media exposures and peer discussions may raise students' perceived information sufficiency and subsequently increase their vaccination intention. Considering the potential negative effect of active social media interaction, caution is needed when using social media to promote COVID-19 vaccination.

To assess the relationship between the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and related parameters to the severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) symptoms. Clinical data from 38 COVID-19 patients who were diagnosed, treated and discharged from the Qishan Hospital in Yantai over the period from January to February 2020 were analysed. NLR and procalcitonin (PCT) were determined in the first and fourth weeks after their admission, along with the clinical characteristics and laboratory test results of these patients. Based on results as obtained on the first and fourth weeks after admission, five indices consisting of NLR, white blood cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes (LY) and monocytes (MON) were selected to generate receiver operating characteristic curves, while optimal cutoff values, sensitivities and specificities were obtained according to the Yuden index. Statistically significant differences in neutrophils, LY and the NLR were present in the severe vs. moderate COVID-19 group from the first to the fourth week of their hospitalisation. The cut-off value of NLR for predicting the severity of COVID-19 was 4.425, with a sensitivity of 0.855 and a specificity of 0.979. A statistically significant positive correlation was present between PCT and NLR in the severe group as determined within the first week of admission. NLR can serve as a predictor of COVID-19 disease severity as patients' progress from the first to the fourth week of their hospitalisation. The statistically significant positive correlation between levels of NLR and PCT in severe patients indicated that increases in NLR were accompanied with gradual increases in PCT.