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Qingchun Li

Publications and source records attributed to Qingchun Li.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

A fractional attraction-repulsion chemotaxis system with generalized logistic source and nonlinear productions

This paper studies a fractional attraction-repulsion system with generalized logistic source and nonlinear productions: \begin{equation*} \left\{ \begin{aligned} &u_t = -(-\Delta)^\alpha u - \chi_1 \nabla \cdot (u \nabla v) + \chi_2 \nabla \cdot (u \nabla w) + au - bu^\gamma, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0, \\ &0 = \Delta v - \lambda_1 v + \mu_1 u^k, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0, \\ &0 = \Delta w - \lambda_2 w + \mu_2 u^k, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0. \end{aligned} \right. \end{equation*} We first establish the global boundedness of classical solutions with nonnegative bounded and uniformly continuous initial data in two different cases: $\gamma \geq k + 1$ and $\gamma < k + 1$, respectively. Next, we show the asymptotic behavior of the global solutions for both cases $\gamma = k + 1$ and $\gamma \neq k + 1$. Finally, we obtain the spreading speed of solutions. In particular, when $\gamma = k + 1$, the upper bound of the spreading speed increases monotonically with $k$. If the condition of balanced attraction-repulsion intensities is further specified, the spreading speed will be equal to $\frac{a}{N + 2\alpha}$.

math.AP

A fractional attraction-repulsion chemotaxis system with time-space dependent growth source and nonlinear productions

This paper studies a fractional attraction-repulsion system with time-space dependent growth source and nonlinear productions: \begin{equation*} \left\{ \begin{aligned}\label{1.1} &u_t = -(-\Delta)^\alpha u - \chi_1 \nabla \cdot (u \nabla v_1) + \chi_2 \nabla \cdot (u \nabla v_2) + a(x,t)u - b(x,t)u^\gamma, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0, \\ &0 = \Delta v_1 - \lambda_1 v_1 + \mu_1 u^k, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0, \\ &0 = \Delta v_2 - \lambda_2 v_2 + \mu_2 u^k, &x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \, t > 0. \end{aligned} \right. \end{equation*} We first establish the global boundedness of classical solutions with nonnegative bounded and uniformly continuous initial data in two different cases: $\gamma \geq k + 1$ and $\gamma < k + 1$, respectively. For a fixed $\gamma$, when $k$ exceeds the critical value $\gamma - 1$, a larger $b$ must be chosen to suppress the blow-up of the solution. Moreover, we show the persistence of the global solutions for both cases $\gamma = k + 1$ and $\gamma \neq k + 1$.

math.AP

Downscaling human mobility data based on demographic socioeconomic and commuting characteristics using interpretable machine learning methods

Understanding urban human mobility patterns at various spatial levels is essential for social science. This study presents a machine learning framework to downscale origin-destination (OD) taxi trips flows in New York City from a larger spatial unit to a smaller spatial unit. First, correlations between OD trips and demographic, socioeconomic, and commuting characteristics are developed using four models: Linear Regression (LR), Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Neural Networks (NN). Second, a perturbation-based sensitivity analysis is applied to interpret variable importance for nonlinear models. The results show that the linear regression model failed to capture the complex variable interactions. While NN performs best with the training and testing datasets, SVM shows the best generalization ability in downscaling performance. The methodology presented in this study provides both analytical advancement and practical applications to improve transportation services and urban development.

cs.LG

Situational Preparedness Dynamics for Sequential Tropical Cyclone Hazards

Sequential tropical cyclone hazards--two tropical cyclones (TCs) making landfall in the same region within a short time--are becoming increasingly likely. This study investigates situational preparedness dynamics for six sequential TC events that affected seven states in the United States from 2020 to 2024. We find a combined effect of forecast wind speed and landfall sequence of a TC. Stronger forecast wind is always associated with higher preparedness levels. People tend to show a higher preparedness level for the second TC but are more sensitive to the increasing forecast wind speed of the first TC. We also find that the counties showing high preparedness levels for the first TC consistently show high preparedness levels for the subsequent one. Power outages induced by the first TC significantly increase preparedness for the subsequent TC (e.g., approximately 13% pct for mobility needs preparedness and 24% for structural reinforcement preparedness when increasing one-unit customers out). We identified spatial dependency in preparedness across counties. Power outage experiences in first TCs show statistically significant spillover effects on neighboring counties' preparedness levels for second TCs. Throughout sequential TCs, people with access and functional needs consistently show lower preparedness levels.

physics.soc-ph

Uncovering cooling center usage as an adaptation strategy for hurricane-blackout-heat compound hazards during Hurricane Beryl (2024)

Extreme heat and hurricane-induced blackouts could occur simultaneously in the summer, posing great challenges to community health and well-being. Cooling centers serve as a key adaptation strategy to alleviate heat stress, especially among heat-vulnerable populations. This study leverages mobility data to examine how affected communities utilize cooling centers in response to hurricane-blackout-heat compound hazards. Additionally, it examines disparities in cooling center usage, focusing on individuals with access and functional needs (AFNs) who are usually overlooked in emergency management practices. These populations include but are limited to older adults, individuals with limited English proficiency, people with disabilities, those without vehicle access, and lower-income households. Using the empirical case of Hurricane Beryl (2024) in Harris County, Texas, we find no statistically significant difference in visiting formal (established by the government) and informal cooling centers (operated by volunteer organizations). Census block groups closer to the nearest cooling center and those with lower income are more likely to seek shelter from extreme heat at cooling centers in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. Lower-income block groups also tend to be situated closer to cooling centers, suggesting that Harris County may have strategically placed them in areas with greater social vulnerability. Furthermore, we investigate visiting hotels as an alternative but more expensive adaptation strategy during Hurricane Beryl. Between these two adaptation options, shorter distances to cooling centers, lower income, and elder age are statistically significantly associated with a higher probability of visiting cooling centers rather than hotels, while limited English proficiency significantly decreases such probability.

physics.soc-ph

Global boundedness and asymptotic stability of the Keller-Segel system with logistic-type source in the whole space

In this paper, we investigate the Cauchy problem of the parabolic-parabolic Keller-Segel system with the logistic-type term $au-bu^\gamma$ on $\mathbb{R}^N, N\geq2$. We discuss the global boundedness of classical solutions with nonnegative bounded and uniformly continuous initial functions when $\gamma>1$. Moreover, based on the persistence of classical solution we show the large time behavior of the positive constant equilibria with strictly positive initial function in the case of $\gamma\in(1,2)$.

math.AP

Self-Supervised Speech Denoising Using Only Noisy Audio Signals

In traditional speech denoising tasks, clean audio signals are often used as the training target, but absolutely clean signals are collected from expensive recording equipment or in studios with the strict environments. To overcome this drawback, we propose an end-to-end self-supervised speech denoising training scheme using only noisy audio signals, named Only-Noisy Training (ONT), without extra training conditions. The proposed ONT strategy constructs training pairs only from each single noisy audio, and it contains two modules: training audio pairs generated module and speech denoising module. The first module adopts a random audio sub-sampler on each noisy audio to generate training pairs. The sub-sampled pairs are then fed into a novel complex-valued speech denoising module. Experimental results show that the proposed method not only eliminates the high dependence on clean targets of traditional audio denoising tasks, but also achieves on-par or better performance than other training strategies. Availability-ONT is available at https://github.com/liqingchunnnn/Only-Noisy-Training

eess.AS

Attributed Network Embedding Model for Exposing COVID-19 Spread Trajectory Archetypes

The spread of COVID-19 revealed that transmission risk patterns are not homogenous across different cities and communities, and various heterogeneous features can influence the spread trajectories. Hence, for predictive pandemic monitoring, it is essential to explore latent heterogeneous features in cities and communities that distinguish their specific pandemic spread trajectories. To this end, this study creates a network embedding model capturing cross-county visitation networks, as well as heterogeneous features to uncover clusters of counties in the United States based on their pandemic spread transmission trajectories. We collected and computed location intelligence features from 2,787 counties from March 3 to June 29, 2020 (initial wave). Second, we constructed a human visitation network, which incorporated county features as node attributes, and visits between counties as network edges. Our attributed network embeddings approach integrates both typological characteristics of the cross-county visitation network, as well as heterogeneous features. We conducted clustering analysis on the attributed network embeddings to reveal four archetypes of spread risk trajectories corresponding to four clusters of counties. Subsequently, we identified four features as important features underlying the distinctive transmission risk patterns among the archetypes. The attributed network embedding approach and the findings identify and explain the non-homogenous pandemic risk trajectories across counties for predictive pandemic monitoring. The study also contributes to data-driven and deep learning-based approaches for pandemic analytics to complement the standard epidemiological models for policy analysis in pandemics.

cs.LG

Unraveling the Temporal Importance of Community-scale Human Activity Features for Rapid Assessment of Flood Impacts

The objective of this research is to explore the temporal importance of community-scale human activity features for rapid assessment of flood impacts. Ultimate flood impact data, such as flood inundation maps and insurance claims, becomes available only weeks and months after the floods have receded. Crisis response managers, however, need near-real-time data to prioritize emergency response. This time lag creates a need for rapid flood impact assessment. Some recent studies have shown promising results for using human activity fluctuations as indicators of flood impacts. Existing studies, however, used mainly a single community-scale activity feature for the estimation of flood impacts and have not investigated their temporal importance for indicating flood impacts. Hence, in this study, we examined the importance of heterogeneous human activity features in different flood event stages. Using four community-scale big data categories we derived ten features related to the variations in human activity and evaluated their temporal importance for rapid assessment of flood impacts. Using multiple random forest models, we examined the temporal importance of each feature in indicating the extent of flood impacts in the context of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey in Harris County, Texas. Our findings reveal that 1) fluctuations in human activity index and percentage of congested roads are the most important indicators for rapid flood impact assessment during response and recovery stages; 2) variations in credit card transactions assumed a middle ranking; and 3) patterns of geolocated social media posts (Twitter) were of low importance across flood stages. The results of this research could rapidly forge a multi-tool enabling crisis managers to identify hotspots with severe flood impacts at various stages then to plan and prioritize effective response strategies.

cs.SI

Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks for Road Network Inundation Status Prediction during Urban Flooding

The objective of this study is to predict the near-future flooding status of road segments based on their own and adjacent road segments current status through the use of deep learning framework on fine-grained traffic data. Predictive flood monitoring for situational awareness of road network status plays a critical role to support crisis response activities such as evaluation of the loss of access to hospitals and shelters. Existing studies related to near-future prediction of road network flooding status at road segment level are missing. Using fine-grained traffic speed data related to road sections, this study designed and implemented three spatio-temporal graph convolutional network (STGCN) models to predict road network status during flood events at the road segment level in the context of the 2017 Hurricane Harvey in Harris County (Texas, USA). Model 1 consists of two spatio-temporal blocks considering the adjacency and distance between road segments, while Model 2 contains an additional elevation block to account for elevation difference between road segments. Model 3 includes three blocks for considering the adjacency and the product of distance and elevation difference between road segments. The analysis tested the STGCN models and evaluated their prediction performance. Our results indicated that Model 1 and Model 2 have reliable and accurate performance for predicting road network flooding status in near future (e.g., 2-4 hours) with model precision and recall values larger than 98% and 96%, respectively. With reliable road network status predictions in floods, the proposed model can benefit affected communities to avoid flooded roads and the emergency management agencies to implement evacuation and relief resource delivery plans.

cs.LG

Revealing Critical Characteristics of Mobility Patterns in New York City during the Onset of COVID-19 Pandemic

New York has become one of the worst-affected COVID-19 hotspots and a pandemic epicenter due to the ongoing crisis. This paper identifies the impact of the pandemic and the effectiveness of government policies on human mobility by analyzing multiple datasets available at both macro and micro levels for the New York City. Using data sources related to population density, aggregated population mobility, public rail transit use, vehicle use, hotspot and non-hotspot movement patterns, and human activity agglomeration, we analyzed the inter-borough and intra-borough moment for New York City by aggregating the data at the borough level. We also assessed the internodal population movement amongst hotspot and non-hotspot points of interest for the month of March and April 2020. Results indicate a drop of about 80% in people's mobility in the city, beginning in mid-March. The movement to and from Manhattan showed the most disruption for both public transit and road traffic. The city saw its first case on March 1, 2020, but disruptions in mobility can be seen only after the second week of March when the shelter in place orders was put in effect. Owing to people working from home and adhering to stay-at-home orders, Manhattan saw the largest disruption to both inter- and intra-borough movement. But the risk of spread of infection in Manhattan turned out to be high because of higher hotspot-linked movements. The stay-at-home restrictions also led to an increased population density in Brooklyn and Queens as people were not commuting to Manhattan. Insights obtained from this study would help policymakers better understand human behavior and their response to the news and governmental policies.

physics.soc-ph

Unraveling the Dynamic Importance of County-level Features in Trajectory of COVID-19

The objective of this study was to investigate the importance of multiple county-level features in the trajectory of COVID-19. We examined feature importance across 2,787 counties in the United States using a data-driven machine learning model. We trained random forest models using 23 features representing six key influencing factors affecting pandemic spread: social demographics of counties, population activities, mobility within the counties, movement across counties, disease attributes, and social network structure. Also, we categorized counties into multiple groups according to their population densities, and we divided the trajectory of COVID-19 into three stages: the outbreak stage, the social distancing stage, and the reopening stage. The study aims to answer two research questions: (1) The extent to which the importance of heterogeneous features evolves in different stages; (2) The extent to which the importance of heterogeneous features varies across counties with different characteristics. We fitted a set of random forest models to determine weekly feature importance. The results showed that: (1) Social demographic features, such as gross domestic product, population density, and minority status maintained high-importance features throughout stages of COVID-19 across the 2787 studied counties; (2) Within-county mobility features had the highest importance in county clusters with higher population densities; (3) The feature reflecting the social network structure (Facebook, social connectedness index), had higher importance in the models for counties with higher population densities. The results show that the data-driven machine learning models could provide important insights to inform policymakers regarding feature importance for counties with various population densities and in different stages of a pandemic life cycle.

physics.soc-ph

Early Indicators of COVID-19 Spread Risk Using Digital Trace Data of Population Activities

The spread of pandemics such as COVID-19 is strongly linked to human activities. The objective of this paper is to specify and examine early indicators of disease spread risk in cities during the initial stages of outbreak based on patterns of human activities obtained from digital trace data. In this study, the Venables distance (D_v), and the activity density (D_a) are used to quantify and evaluate human activities for 193 US counties, whose cumulative number of confirmed cases was greater than 100 as of March 31, 2020. Venables distance provides a measure of the agglomeration of the level of human activities based on the average distance of human activities across a city or a county (less distance could lead to a greater contact risk). Activity density provides a measure of level of overall activity level in a county or a city (more activity could lead to a greater risk). Accordingly, Pearson correlation analysis is used to examine the relationship between the two human activity indicators and the basic reproduction number in the following weeks. The results show statistically significant correlations between the indicators of human activities and the basic reproduction number in all counties, as well as a significant leader-follower relationship (time lag) between them. The results also show one to two weeks' lag between the change in activity indicators and the decrease in the basic reproduction number. This result implies that the human activity indicators provide effective early indicators for the spread risk of the pandemic during the early stages of the outbreak. Hence, the results could be used by the authorities to proactively assess the risk of disease spread by monitoring the daily Venables distance and activity density in a proactive manner.

physics.soc-ph

Detecting Early-warning signals in Time Series of Visits to Points of Interests to Examine Population Response to COVID -19 Pandemic

The objective of this paper is to examine population response to COVID-19 and associated policy interventions through detecting early-warning signals in time series of visits to points of interest (POIs). Complex systems, such as cities, demonstrate early-warning signals when they approach phase transitions responding to external perturbation, including crises, policy changes, and human behavior changes. In urban systems, population visits to POIs represent a state in the complex systems that are cities. These states may undergo phase transitions due to population response to pandemic risks and intervention policies. In this study, we conducted early-warning signal detection on population visits to POIs to examine population response to pandemic risks. We examined two early-warning signals, the increase of autocorrelation at-lag-1 and standard deviation, in time series of population visits to POIs in 17 metropolitan cities in the United States of America. The results show that: (1) early-warning signals for population response to COVID-19 were detected between February 14 and March 11, 2020 in 17 cities; (2) detected population response had started prior to shelter-in-place orders in 17 cities; (3) early-warning signals detected from the essential POIs visits appeared earlier than those from non-essential POIs; and 4) longer time lags between detected population response and shelter-in-place orders led to a less decrease in POI visits. The results show the importance of detecting early-warning signals during crises in cities as complex systems. Early-warning signals could provide important insights regarding the timing and extent of population response to crises to inform policy makers.

physics.soc-ph

Disparate Patterns of Movements and Visits to Points of Interests Located in Urban Hotspots across U.S. Metropolitan Cities during COVID-19

We examined the effect of social distancing on changes in visits to urban hotspot points of interest. Urban hotspots, such as central business districts, are gravity activity centers orchestrating movement and mobility patterns in cities. In a pandemic situation, urban hotspots could be potential superspreader areas as visits to urban hotspots can increase the risk of contact and transmission of a disease among a population. We mapped origin-destination networks from census block groups to points of interest (POIs) in sixteen cities in the United States. We adopted a coarse-grain approach to study movement patterns of visits to POIs among the hotspots and non-hotspots from January to May 2020. Also, we conducted chi-square tests to identify POIs with significant flux-in changes during the analysis period. The results showed disparate patterns across cities in terms of reduction in POI visits to hotspot areas. The sixteen cities are divided into two categories based on visits to POIs in hotspot areas. In one category, which includes the cities of, San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago, we observe a considerable decrease in visits to POIs in hotspot areas, while in another category, including the cites of, Austin, Houston, and San Diego, the visits to hotspot areas did not greatly decrease during the social distancing period. In addition, while all the cities exhibited overall decreasing visits to POIs, one category maintained the proportion of visits to POIs in the hotspots. The proportion of visits to some POIs (e.g., Restaurant and Other Eating Places) remained stable during the social distancing period, while some POIs had an increased proportion of visits (e.g., Grocery Stores). The findings highlight that social distancing orders do yield disparate patterns of reduction in movements to hotspots POIs.

physics.soc-ph

Effects of Population Co-location Reduction on Cross-county Transmission Risk of COVID-19 in the United States

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in the United States has imposed a major threat to public health, the real economy, and human well-being. With the absence of effective vaccines, the preventive actions of social distancing and travel reduction are recognized as essential non-pharmacologic approaches to control the spread of COVID-19. Prior studies demonstrated that human movement and mobility drove the spatiotemporal distribution of COVID-19 in China. Little is known, however, about the patterns and effects of co-location reduction on cross-county transmission risk of COVID-19. This study utilizes Facebook co-location data for all counties in the United States from March to early May 2020. The analysis examines the synchronicity and time lag between travel reduction and pandemic growth trajectory to evaluate the efficacy of social distancing in ceasing the population co-location probabilities, and subsequently the growth in weekly new cases. The results show that the mitigation effects of co-location reduction appear in the growth of weekly new cases with one week of delay. Furthermore, significant segregation is found among different county groups which are categorized based on numbers of cases. The results suggest that within-group co-location probabilities remain stable, and social distancing policies primarily resulted in reduced cross-group co-location probabilities (due to travel reduction from counties with large number of cases to counties with low numbers of cases). These findings could have important practical implications for local governments to inform their intervention measures for monitoring and reducing the spread of COVID-19, as well as for adoption in future pandemics. Public policy, economic forecasting, and epidemic modeling need to account for population co-location patterns in evaluating transmission risk of COVID-19 across counties.

physics.soc-ph

Social Media Attention Increases Article Visits: An Investigation on Article-Level Referral Data of PeerJ

In order to better understand the effect of social media in the dissemination of scholarly articles, employing the daily updated referral data of 110 PeerJ articles collected over a period of 345 days, we analyze the relationship between social media attention and article visitors directed by social media. Our results show that social media presence of PeerJ articles is high. About 68.18% of the papers receive at least one tweet from Twitter accounts other than @PeerJ, the official account of the journal. Social media attention increases the dissemination of scholarly articles. Altmetrics could not only act as the complement of traditional citation measures but also play an important role in increasing the article downloads and promoting the impacts of scholarly articles. There also exists a significant correlation among the online attention from different social media platforms. Articles with more Facebook shares tend to get more tweets. The temporal trends show that social attention comes immediately following publication but does not last long, so do the social media directed article views.

cs.DL

The poor altmetric performance of publications authored by researchers in mainland China

China's scientific output has risen precipitously over the past decade; it is now the world's second-largest producer of scientific papers, behind only the United States. The quality of China's research is also on the rise (Van Noorden, 2016). The online visibility and impact of China's research are also important issues worth exploring. In this study, we investigate the altmetric performance of publications in the field of Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology and published by authors from Chinese affiliations. We find that papers published by those authors from Chinese affiliations have much lower visibility on the social web than articles from other countries, when there is no significant difference for the citations. Fewer of China's publications get tweeted, and those tweeted publications attract less social attention. A geographical analysis of tweeters shows that scholarly articles get most of their social attention from the authors' home countries, a finding that is also confirmed by correlation and regression analysis. This situation, which is unfavorable for researchers from Chinese affiliations, is caused, in part, by the inaccessibility of mainstream social networking platforms in mainland China.

cs.DL