Search results for: Ming -Chang Tsai

Authors: Arthur C. Tsai, Chii-Shyang Kuo, Vincent S. C. Chien, Michelle Liou, Philip E. Cheng

Abstract:

Meditation enhances mental abilities and it is an antidote to anxiety. However, very little is known about brain mechanisms and cortico-subcortical interactions underlying meditation-induced anxiety relief. In this study, the changes of phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) in which the amplitude of the beta frequency band were modulated in phase with delta rhythm were investigated after eight-week of meditation training. The study hypothesized that through a concentrate but relaxed mental training the delta-beta coupling in the frontal regions is attenuated. The delta-beta coupling analysis was applied to within and between maximally-independent component sources returned from the extended infomax independent components analysis (ICA) algorithm on the continuous EEG data during mediation. A unique meditative concentration task through relaxing body and mind was used with a constant level of moderate mental effort, so as to approach an ‘emptiness’ meditative state. A pre-test/post-test control group design was used in this study. To evaluate cross-frequency phase-amplitude coupling of component sources, the modulation index (MI) with statistics to calculate circular phase statistics were estimated. Our findings reveal that a significant delta-beta decoupling was observed in a set of frontal regions bilaterally. In addition, beta frequency band of prefrontal component were amplitude modulated in phase with the delta rhythm of medial frontal component.

Keywords: phase-amplitude coupling, ICA, meditation, EEG

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Authors: Yingjie Zhang, Ming Li, Ying Zhang, Jing Zhang, Zuolei Hu

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In the actual start-up process of DC motors, the DC drive system often faces a conflict between energy consumption and acceleration performance. To resolve the conflict, this paper proposes a comprehensive performance index that energy consumption index is added on the basis of classical control performance index in the DC motor starting process. Taking the comprehensive performance index as the cost function, particle swarm optimization algorithm is designed to optimize the comprehensive performance. Then it conducts simulations on the optimization of the comprehensive performance of the DC motor on condition that the weight coefficient of the energy consumption index should be properly designed. The simulation results show that as the weight of energy consumption increased, the energy efficiency was significantly improved at the expense of a slight sacrifice of fastness indicators with the comprehensive performance index method. The energy efficiency was increased from 63.18% to 68.48% and the response time reduced from 0.2875s to 0.1736s simultaneously compared with traditional proportion integrals differential controller in energy saving.

Keywords: comprehensive performance index, energy consumption, acceleration performance, particle swarm optimal control

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Authors: Shiu-Wan Hung, Che-Wei Chang, Han-Yu Lin

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Internet celebrities possess high visibility and a great number of fans on the Internet and are the targets that various companies are keen to collaborate with. This study investigated the para-social interaction and its antecedents among internet celebrities and their fans. The effects of Internet celebrity advertising from the perspectives of source credibility and endorser suitability were studied. This study gathered 283 valid questionnaires from people who regularly follow internet celebrities for analysis. The experimental results suggest that expertise has the most significant and direct influence on advertising. Additionally, Internet celebrities with high attractiveness can better influence the thinking of their fans and enhance homophily. However, when considering the construction of source credibility, the direct influence of attractiveness is the least significant, suggesting that the attractiveness of internet celebrities can only promote advertising via the mediating effect of homophily.

Keywords: celebrity, para-social interaction, homophily, source credibility

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Authors: R. J. Chang

Abstract:

A cyclostationary Gaussian linearization method is formulated for investigating the time average response of nonlinear system under sinusoidal signal and white noise excitation. The quantitative measure of cyclostationary mean, variance, spectrum of mean amplitude, and mean power spectral density of noise is analyzed. The qualitative response behavior of stochastic jump and bifurcation are investigated. The validity of the present approach in predicting the quantitative and qualitative statistical responses is supported by utilizing Monte Carlo simulations. The present analysis without imposing restrictive analytical conditions can be directly derived by solving non-linear algebraic equations. The analytical solution gives reliable quantitative and qualitative prediction of mean and noise response for the Duffing system subjected to both sinusoidal signal and white noise excitation.

Keywords: cyclostationary, duffing system, Gaussian linearization, sinusoidal, white noise

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Authors: Liangliang Tang, Chang Xu, Xingying Chen

Abstract:

GaInAsSb cells probably show better performance than GaSb cells in low-temperature thermophotovoltaic systems due to lower bandgap; however, few experiments proved this phenomenon so far. In this paper, numerical simulation is used to evaluate GaInAsSb and GaSb cells with similar structures under different radiation temperatures. We found that GaInAsSb cells with n-type emitters show slightly higher output power densities compared with that of GaSb cells with n-type emitters below 1,550 K-blackbody radiation, and the power density of the later cells will suppress the formers above this temperature point. During the temperature range of 1,000~2,000 K, the efficiencies of GaSb cells are about twice of GaInAsSb cells if perfect filters are used to prevent the emission of the non-absorbed long wavelength photons. Several parameters that affect the GaInAsSb cell were analyzed, such as doping profiles, thicknesses of GaInAsSb epitaxial layer and surface recombination velocity. The non-p junctions, i.e., n-type emitters are better for GaInAsSb cell fabrication, which is similar to that of GaSb cells.

Keywords: thermophotovoltaic cell, GaSb, GaInAsSb, diffused emitters

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Authors: Joon Sang Kang, Ming Ke, Yongjie Hu

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Controlling heat transfer and thermal properties of materials is important to many fields such as energy efficiency and thermal management of integrated circuits. Significant progress over the past decade has been made to improve material performance through structuring at the nanoscale, however a clear relationship between structure dimensions, interfaces, and thermal properties remains to be established. The main challenge comes from the unknown intrinsic spectral contribution from different phonons. Here, we describe our current progress on quantifying and controlling thermal spectra based on our recently developed technical approach using ultrafast optical spectroscopy. Our work brings further the promise of rational material design to achieve high performance through a synergistic experimental-modeling approach. This approach can be broadly applicable to a wide range of materials and energy systems. In particular, we demonstrate in-situ characterization and tunable thermal properties of 2D van der waals materials through ionic intercalations. The significant impacts of this research in improving the efficiency of thermal energy conversion and management will also be illustrated.

Keywords: energy, mean free path, nanoscale heat transfer, nanostructure, phonons, TDTR, thermoelectrics, 2D materials

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Authors: Tai-Ping Chang

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In the present study, the effects on chaotic motion of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) due to the linear and nonlinear damping are investigated. By using the Hamilton’s principle, the nonlinear governing equation of the single-walled carbon nanotube embedded in a matrix is derived. The Galerkin’s method is adopted to simplify the integro-partial differential equation into a nonlinear dimensionless governing equation for the SWCNT, which turns out to be a forced Duffing equation. The variations of the Lyapunov exponents of the SWCNT with damping and harmonic forcing amplitudes are investigated. Based on the computations of the top Lyapunov exponent, it is concluded that the chaotic motion of the SWCNT occurs when the amplitude of the periodic excitation exceeds certain value, besides, the chaotic motion of the SWCNT occurs with small linear damping and tiny nonlinear damping.

Keywords: chaotic motion, damping, Lyapunov exponents, single-walled carbon nanotube

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Authors: Chang Lee Shu-Jung, Mei-Se Chien, Chien-Chiang Lee, Hui-Ting Hu

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This paper applies recursive cointegration analysis to examine the dynamic changes in Feldstein-Horioka saving-investment (S-I) coefficients across China and the ASEAN-5 countries over time. To the extent that the S-I coefficients measure international capital mobility, the main empirical results are as follows. The recursive trace statistics show that the investment- savings nexus varies in these six countries. There is no cointegration between investment and savings in three countries (China, Malaysia, and Singapore), which means that the mobility of the capital markets in the three is high and that domestic investment in them will be financed by the global pool of capital. As to the other three countries (Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines), there is cointegration between investment and savings for part of the sample period in the three, including before 2002 for Thailand, before 2001 for Indonesia, and before 2002 for Philippines. This shows these three countries achieved highly mobile and open capital markets later.

Keywords: investment, savings, recursive cointegration test, ASEAN, China

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Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Hsi-Ya Chang

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Cloud virtualization technologies are becoming more and more prevalent, cloud users usually encounter the problem of how to access to the virtualized remote desktops easily over the web without requiring the installation of special clients. To resolve this issue, we took advantage of the HTML5 technology and developed web-based remote desktop. It permits users to access the terminal which running in our cloud platform from anywhere. We implemented a sketch of web interface following the cloud computing concept that seeks to enable collaboration and communication among users for high performance computing. Given the development of remote desktop virtualization, it allows to shift the user’s desktop from the traditional PC environment to the cloud platform, which is stored on a remote virtual machine rather than locally. This proposed effort has the potential to positively provide an efficient, resilience and elastic environment for online cloud service. This is also made possible by the low administrative costs as well as relatively inexpensive end-user terminals and reduced energy expenses.

Keywords: virtualization, remote desktop, HTML5, cloud computing

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Authors: Chih-I. Tsai, Yu-Chien. Lin

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Through experiences of clinical practices, it is discovered that locations on the body at a level of four fingerbreadth above and below the joints are the points at which muscles connect to tendons, and since the muscles and tendons possess opposite characteristics, muscles are full of blood but lack qi, while tendons are full of qi but lack blood, these points on our body become easily blocked. It is proposed that through doing acupuncture or creating localized pressure to the areas four fingerbreadths above and below our joints, with an elastic bandage, we could help the energy, also known as qi, to flow smoothly in our body and further improve our health. Based on the Four Fingers Theory, we understand that human height is 22 four fingerbreadths. In addition, qi and blood travel through 24 meridians, 50 times each day, and they flow through 6 cun with every human breath. We can also understand the average number of human heartbeats is 75 times per minute. And the function of qi-blood circulation system in Traditional Chinese Medicine is the same as the blood circulation in Western Medical Science. Informed by Four Fingers Theory, this study further examined its applications in acupuncture practices. The research question is how Four Fingers Theory proves what has been mentioned in Nei Jing that there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. In responding to the research question, there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. Four Fingers Theory facilitated the creation of the acupuncture naming and teaching system. It is expected to serve as an approachable and effective way to deliver knowledge of acupuncture to the public worldwide.

Keywords: four fingers theory, meridians circulation, 66 acupoints under human elbow and knee, acupuncture

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Authors: Shuenn-Yih Chang, Chiu-Li Huang

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Three structure-dependent integration methods have been developed for solving equations of motion, which are second-order ordinary differential equations, for structural dynamics and earthquake engineering applications. Although they generally have the same numerical properties, such as explicit formulation, unconditional stability and second-order accuracy, a different performance is found in solving the free vibration response to either linear elastic or nonlinear systems with high frequency modes. The root cause of this different performance in the free vibration responses is analytically explored herein. As a result, it is verified that a weak instability is responsible for the different performance of the integration methods. In general, a weak instability will result in an inaccurate solution or even numerical instability in the free vibration responses of high frequency modes. As a result, a weak instability must be prohibited for time integration methods.

Keywords: dynamic analysis, high frequency, integration method, overshoot, weak instability

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Authors: Yu Pu, Chien-Ping Hsiao, Chien-Chang Huang, Chieh-Lun Cheng

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Free radicals can accelerate aging on human skin by causing lipid oxidation, protein denaturation, and even DNA mutation. Substances with the ability of anti-free radicals can be used as functional components in cosmetic products. Research are attracted to develop new anti-free radical components for cosmetic application. This study was aimed to evaluate the microbial metabolites on free radical scavenging ability. Two microorganisms, PU-01 and PU-02, were isolated from soil of hot spring environment and grew in LB agar at 50°C for 24 h. The suspension was collected by centrifugation at 4800 g for 3 min, The anti-free radical activity was determined by DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) scavenging assay. The result showed that the growth medium of PU-01 presented a higher DPPH scavenging effect than that of PU-02. This study presented potential anti-free radical components from microbial metabolites that might be applied in anti-aging cosmetics.

Keywords: anti-ageing, anti-free radical, biotechnology, microorganism

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Authors: Xi Luo, Xu Ji, Yunfeng Wang, Guoliang Li, Chongqiang Yan, Ming Li

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Two different kinds of cross V-shape solar air collectors are designed and constructed. In the transverse cross V-shape collector, the V-shape bottom plate is along the air flow direction and the absorbing plate is perpendicular to the air flow direction. In the lengthway cross V-shape collector, the V-shape absorbing plate is along the air flow direction and the bottom plate is perpendicular to the air flow direction. Based on heat balance, the mathematical model is built to evaluate their performances. These thermal performances of the two cross V-shape solar air collectors and an extra traditional flat-plate solar air collector are characterized under various operating conditions by experiments. The experimental results agree well with the calculation values. The experimental results prove that the thermal efficiency of transverse cross V-shape collector precedes that of others. The air temperature at any point along the flow direction of the transverse cross V-shape collector is higher than that of the lengthway cross V-shape collector. For the transverse cross V-shape collector, the most effective length of flow channel is 0.9m. For the lengthway cross V-shape collector, a longer flow channel is necessary to achieve a good thermal performance.

Keywords: cross v-shape, performance, solar air collector, thermal efficiency

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Authors: Chih-Hsiang Chang, Pei-Shan Kao

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This paper discusses the reaction of investors in the Taiwan stock market to the most probable unknown earnings-related information and the most probable known earnings-related information. As compared with the previous literature regarding the effect of an official announcement of earnings forecast revision, this paper further analyzes investors’ cognitive bias toward the unknown and known earnings-related information, and the role of media during the investors' reactions to the foresaid information shocks. The empirical results show that both the unknown and known earnings-related information provides useful information content for a stock market. In addition, cognitive bias and disposition effect are the behavioral pitfalls that commonly occur in the process of the investors' reactions to the earnings-related information. Finally, media coverage has a remarkable influence upon the investors' trading decisions.

Keywords: cognitive bias, role of media, disposition effect, earnings-related information, behavioral pitfall

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Authors: Renuka Mahadevan, Sharon Chang

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This exploratory study is based on potential cruisers’ monetary valuation of cruise attributes. Using choice experiment, monetary trade-offs between four different cruise attributes are examined with Australians as a case study. We found 50% of the sample valued variety of onboard cruise activities the least while 30% were willing to pay A$87 for cruise-organised activities per day, and the remaining 20% regarded an ocean view to be most valuable at A$125. Latent class modelling was then applied and results revealed that potential cruisers’ valuation of the attributes can be used to segment the market into adventurers, budget conscious and comfort lovers. Evidence showed that socio demographics are not as insightful as lifestyle preferences in developing cruise packages and pricing that would appeal to potential cruisers. Marketing also needs to counter the mindset of potential cruisers’ belief that cruises are often costly and that cruising can be done later in life.

Keywords: latent class modelling, choice experiment, potential cruisers, market segmentation, willingness to pay

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Authors: Yun-Hsuan Chang, Chih-Chun Huang, Ru-Band Lu

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Dopamine, metabolized to 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) by aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), ALDH2*1/*1, and ALDH2*1/*2+ALDH*2/*2 equally carried in Han Chinese. The relationship between dopamine metabolic enzyme and cognitive performance in bipolar II disorder comorbid with anxiety disorder (AD) remains unclear. This study proposed to explore the association between ALDH2 polymorphisms, anxiety comorbidity in bipolar II disorder. One hundred and ninety-seven BPII with or without AD comorbidity were recruited and compared with 130 Health controls (HC). A polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis was used to determine genotypes for ALDH2, and neuropsychological battery was performed. Two factor analyses with AD comorbidity and ALDH2 showed a significant main effect of ALDH2 on attention and marginally significant interaction between AD and ALDH2 memory performance. The ALDH2 polymorphisms may play a different role in the neuropsychological performance on varied neuropsychological performance in BPII comorbid with and without AD.

Keywords: anxiety disorder, bipolar II disorder, comorbidity, genetic

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Authors: Min Kyu Kim, Eun Young Lee, Dong Woo Son, Yoon Seok Chang

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In this paper, we introduce a flexible box erecting machine (BEM) that swiftly and automatically transforms cardboard into a three dimensional box. Recently, the parcel service and home-shopping industries have grown rapidly, and there is an increasing need for various box types to ship various products. However, workers cannot fold thousands of boxes manually in a day. As such, automatic BEMs are garnering greater attention. This study takes equipment operation into consideration as well as mechanical improvements in order to design a BEM that is able to outperform its conventional counterparts. We analyzed six dispatching rules – First In First Out (FIFO), Shortest Processing Time (SPT), Earliest Due Date (EDD), Setup Avoidance, EDD + SPT, and EDD + Setup Avoidance – to determine which one was most suitable for BEM operation. Consequently, SPT and Setup Avoidance were found to be the most critical rules, followed by EDD + Setup Avoidance, EDD + SPT, EDD, and FIFO. This hierarchy was valid for both our conventional BEM and our new flexible BEM from the viewpoint of processing time. We believe that this research can contribute to flexible BEM management, which has the potential to increase productivity and convenience.

Keywords: automation, box erecting machine, dispatching rule, setup time

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Authors: Shyh-Ming Chern, Wei-Ling Lin

Abstract:

Lignin is a major constituent of woody biomass, and exists abundantly in nature. It is the major byproducts from the paper industry and bioethanol production processes. The byproducts are mainly used for low-valued applications. Instead, lignin can be converted into higher-valued gaseous fuel, thereby helping to curtail the ever-growing price of oil and to slow down the trend of global warming. Although biochemical treatment is capable of converting cellulose into liquid ethanol fuel, it cannot be applied to the conversion of lignin. Alternatively, it is possible to convert lignin into gaseous fuel thermochemically. In the present work, trans-4-hydroxycinnamic acid, a model compound for lignin, which closely resembles the basic building blocks of lignin, is gasified in an autoclave with ethanol at elevated temperatures and pressures, that are above the critical point of ethanol. Ethanol, instead of water, is chosen, because ethanol dissolves trans-4-hydroxycinnamic acid easily and helps to convert it into lighter gaseous species relatively well. The major operating parameters for the gasification reaction include temperature (673-873 K), reaction pressure (5-25 MPa) and feed concentration (0.05-0.3 M). Generally, more than 80% of the reactant, including trans-4-hydroxycinnamic acid and ethanol, were converted into gaseous products at an operating condition of 873 K and 5 MPa.

Keywords: ethanol, gasification, lignin, supercritical

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Authors: Ming Lu, Xiaojun Li, Bodi Lu, Juehui Xing

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Earthquake damage phenomenon of each large earthquake gives comprehensive and profound real test to the dynamic performance and failure mechanism of different engineering structures. Cognitive engineering structure characteristics through seismic damage phenomenon are often far superior to expensive shaking table experiments. After the earthquake, people will record a variety of different types of engineering damage photos. However, a large number of earthquake damage photographs lack sufficient information and reduce their using value. To improve the research value and the use efficiency of engineering seismic damage photographs, this paper objects to explore and show seismic damage background information, which includes the earthquake magnitude, earthquake intensity, and the damaged structure characteristics. From the research requirement in earthquake engineering field, the authors use the 2008 China Wenchuan M8.0 earthquake photographs, and provide four kinds of attribute indexes and classification, which are seismic information, structure types, earthquake damage parts and disaster causation factors. The final object is to set up an engineering structural seismic damage database based on these four attribute indicators and classification, and eventually build a website providing seismic damage photographs.

Keywords: attribute index, classification method, earthquake damage picture, engineering structure

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Authors: Cha’o-Kuang Chen, Ching-Chang Cho

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This paper investigates the natural convection heat transfer performance in a complex-wavy-wall cavity filled with power-law fluid. In performing the simulations, the continuity, Cauchy momentum and energy equations are solved subject to the Boussinesq approximation using a finite volume method. The simulations focus specifically on the effects of the flow behavior index in the power-law model and the Rayleigh number on the flow streamlines, isothermal contours and mean Nusselt number within the cavity. The results show that pseudoplastic fluids have a better heat transfer performance than Newtonian or dilatant fluids. Moreover, it is shown that for Rayleigh numbers greater than Ra=103, the mean Nusselt number has a significantly increase as the flow behavior index is decreased.

Keywords: non-Newtonian fluid, power-law fluid, natural convection, heat transfer enhancement, cavity, wavy wall

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Authors: Chieh-Nan Chen, Ji-Yu Lin, I-Ming Chu

Abstract:

Polypeptide thermosensitive hydrogel is an excellent candidate as a smart device to deliver drugs and cells due to its remarkable biocompatibility, low gelation concentration, and respond to temperature stimuli, it can be easily injected as a polymer solution into the patient’s body where it undergoes gelation due to an elevation in temperature. Poly (ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether-poly (ethyl-l-glutamate) (mPEG-PELG) contains a hydrophobic side chain –C2H5 which is useful in encapsulating and stabilizing hydrophobic drugs. In this study, we plan to focus on the hydrophobic anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory drug curcumin, which due its insolubility in water, requires a proper carrier for delivery into the body. Our main concept is to use mPEG-PELG to stabilize curcumin, inject the curcumin-loaded hydrogel into the tumor site, and allow the enzymatically-sensitive hydrogel to be degraded by bodily fluids and release the drug. The polymers of interest have been successfully synthesized and characterized by 1H-NMR, FT-IR, SEM, and CMC. Curcumin loading content and drug release were assayed using HPLC. Preliminary results show that these materials have potential as a delivery vehicle for poorly soluble drugs.

Keywords: curcumin, drug release, hydrogel, polypeptide material

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Authors: Te-Jen Chang, I-Hui Pan, Kuang-Hsiung Tan, Shan-Jen Cheng, Chien-Wu Lan, Chih-Chan Hu

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With the event of multimedia age in order to protect data not to be tampered, damaged, and faked, information hiding technologies are proposed. Information hiding means important secret information is hidden into cover multimedia and then camouflaged media is produced. This camouflaged media has the characteristic of natural protection. Under the undoubted situation, important secret information is transmitted out.Reversible information hiding technologies for high capacity is proposed in this paper. The gray images are as cover media in this technology. We compress gray images and compare with the original image to produce the estimated differences. By using the estimated differences, expression information hiding is used, and higher information capacity can be achieved. According to experimental results, the proposed technology can be approved. For these experiments, the whole capacity of information payload and image quality can be satisfied.

Keywords: cover media, camouflaged media, reversible information hiding, gray image

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Authors: Wann-Ming Wey

Abstract:

In today's popularity and progress of information technology, the big data set and its analysis are no longer a major conundrum. Now, we could not only use the relevant big data to analysis and emulate the possible status of urban development in the near future, but also provide more comprehensive and reasonable policy implementation basis for government units or decision-makers via the analysis and emulation results as mentioned above. In this research, we set Taipei City as the research scope, and use the relevant big data variables (e.g., population, facility utilization and related social policy ratings) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach to implement in-depth research and discussion for the possible reduction of land use in primary and secondary schools of Taipei City. In addition to enhance the prosperous urban activities for the urban public facility utilization, the final results of this research could help improve the efficiency of urban land use in the future. Furthermore, the assessment model and research framework established in this research also provide a good reference for schools or other public facilities land use and adaptive reuse strategies in the future.

Keywords: adaptive reuse, analytic network process, big data, land use strategy

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Authors: Cheng-Chih Tsai, Yu-Hsuan Liu, Cheng-Ying Ho, Chun-Chin Huang

Abstract:

The aim of this study evaluated the in vitro and in vivo antimicrobial activity of selected lactic acid bacteria (LAB) against Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) for prevention and amelioration of UTIs. We screened LAB strains with antimicrobial effects on UPEC using a well-diffusion assay, bacterial adherence to the uroepithelium cell line SV-HUC-1 (BCRC 60358), and a coculture inhibition assay. The results showed that the 7 LAB strains (Lactobacillus paracasei, L. salivarius, two Pediococcus pentosaceus strains, two L. plantarum strains, and L. crispatus) and the fermented probiotic products produced by these multi-LAB strains exhibited potent zones of inhibition against UPEC. Moreover, the LAB strains and probiotic products adhered strongly to the uroepithelium SV-HUC-1 cell line. The growth of UPEC strains was also markedly inhibited after co-culture with the LAB strains and probiotic products in human urine. In addition, the enhanced levels of IL-6, IL-8 and lactic acid dehydrogenase were significantly decreased by treatments with the LAB strains and probiotic products in UPEC-induced SV-HUC-1 cells. Furthermore, oral administration of probiotic products reduced the number of viable UPEC in the urine of UPEC-challenged BALB/c mice. Taken together, this study demonstrates that probiotic supplementation may be useful as an adjuvant therapy for the treatment of bacterial-induced urinary tract infections.

Keywords: lactic acid bacterium, SV-HUC-1 uroepithelium, urinary tract infection, uropathogenic Escherichia coli, BALB/c mice

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Authors: Chiang Wei, Hui-Chung Yeh, Yen-Chang Chen

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The objective of this study is to estimate the rainfall using the new generation Himawari-8 meteorological satellite with multi-band, high-bit format, and high spatiotemporal resolution, ground rainfall data at the Chen-Yu-Lan watershed of Joushuei River Basin (443.6 square kilometers) in Central Taiwan. Accurate and fine-scale rainfall information is essential for rugged terrain with high local variation for early warning of flood, landslide, and debris flow disasters. 10-minute and 2 km pixel-based rainfall of Typhoon Megi of 2016 and meiyu on June 1-4 of 2017 were tested to demonstrate the new generation Himawari-8 meteorological satellite can capture rainfall variation in the rugged mountainous area both at fine-scale and watershed scale. The results provide the valuable rainfall information for early warning of future disasters.

Keywords: estimation, Himawari-8, rainfall, satellite imagery

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Authors: Tsui-Tsai Lin

Abstract:

Cooperative orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission, which possesses the advantages of better connectivity, expanded coverage, and resistance to frequency selective fading, has been a more powerful solution for the physical layer in wireless communications. However, such a hybrid scheme suffers from the carrier frequency offset (CFO) effects inherited from the OFDM-based systems, which lead to a significant degradation in performance. In addition, insertion of a cyclic prefix (CP) at each symbol block head for combating inter-symbol interference will lead to a reduction in spectral efficiency. The design on the CFO estimation for the cooperative OFDM system without CP is a suspended problem. This motivates us to develop a low complexity CFO estimator for the cooperative OFDM decode-and-forward (DF) communication system without CP over the multipath fading channel. Especially, using a block-type pilot, the CFO estimation is first derived in accordance with the least square criterion. A reliable performance can be obtained through an exhaustive two-dimensional (2D) search with a penalty of heavy computational complexity. As a remedy, an alternative solution realized with an iteration approach is proposed for the CFO estimation. In contrast to the 2D-search estimator, the iterative method enjoys the advantage of the substantially reduced implementation complexity without sacrificing the estimate performance. Computer simulations have been presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed CFO estimation.

Keywords: cooperative transmission, orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), carrier frequency offset, iteration

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Authors: Hao Mi, Ming Yang, Tian-yue Yang

Abstract:

Ultrasonic infrared nondestructive testing is a kind of testing method with high speed, accuracy and localization. However, there are still some problems, such as the detection requires manual real-time field judgment, the methods of result storage and viewing are still primitive. An intelligent non-destructive detection system based on embedded linux is put forward in this paper. The hardware part of the detection system is based on the ARM (Advanced Reduced Instruction Set Computer Machine) core and an embedded linux system is built to realize image processing and defect detection of thermal images. The CLAHE algorithm and the Butterworth filter are used to process the thermal image, and then the boa server and CGI (Common Gateway Interface) technology are used to transmit the test results to the display terminal through the network for real-time monitoring and remote monitoring. The system also liberates labor and eliminates the obstacle of manual judgment. According to the experiment result, the system provides a convenient and quick solution for industrial non-destructive testing.

Keywords: remote monitoring, non-destructive testing, embedded Linux system, image processing

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Authors: Chien-Hung Chen, Yan-Chun Hsing, Yung-Chun Chang

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The Internet has grown into a powerful medium for information dispersion and social interaction that leads to a rapid growth of social media which allows users to easily post their emotions and perspectives regarding certain topics online. Our research aims at using natural language processing and text mining techniques to explore the public emotions expressed on Twitter by analyzing the sentiment behind tweets. In this paper, we propose a composite kernel method that integrates tree kernel with the linear kernel to simultaneously exploit both the tree representation and the distributed emotion keyword representation to analyze the syntactic and content information in tweets. The experiment results demonstrate that our method can effectively detect public emotion of tweets while outperforming the other compared methods.

Keywords: emotion recognition, natural language processing, composite kernel, sentiment analysis, text mining

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Authors: Chiang-Ho Cheng, An-Shik Yang, Hon-Yi Cheng, Ming-Yu Lai

Abstract:

This paper presents the design and fabrication of a novel piezoelectric actuator for a gas micropump with check valve having the advantages of miniature size, light weight and low power consumption. The micropump is designed to have eight major components, namely a stainless steel upper cover layer, a piezoelectric actuator, a stainless steel diaphragm, a PDMS chamber layer, two stainless steel channel layers with two valve seats, a PDMS check valve layer with two cantilever-type check valves and an acrylic substrate. A prototype of the gas micropump, with a size of 52 mm × 50 mm × 5.0 mm, is fabricated by precise manufacturing. This device is designed to pump gases with the capability of performing the self-priming and bubble-tolerant work mode by maximizing the stroke volume of the membrane as well as the compression ratio via minimization of the dead volume of the micropump chamber and channel. By experiment apparatus setup, we can get the real-time values of the flow rate of micropump and the displacement of the piezoelectric actuator, simultaneously. The gas micropump obtained higher output performance under the sinusoidal waveform of 250 Vpp. The micropump achieved the maximum pumping rates of 1185 ml/min and back pressure of 7.14 kPa at the corresponding frequency of 120 and 50 Hz.

Keywords: PDMS, check valve, micropump, piezoelectric

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Authors: Iván Rivet, Narges Dialami, Miguel Cervera, Michele Chiumenti

Abstract:

Process parameters in Additive Manufacturing (AM) play a critical role in the mechanical performance of the final component. In order to find the input configuration that guarantees the optimal performance of the printed part, the process-performance relationship must be found. Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is the selected demonstrative AM technology due to its great popularity in the industrial manufacturing world. A material model that considers the different printing patterns present in a FFF part is used. A voxelized mesh is built from the manufacturing toolpaths described in the G-Code file. An Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) based on the octree strategy is used in order to reduce the complexity of the mesh while maintaining its accuracy. High-fidelity and cost-efficient Finite Element (FE) simulations are performed and the influence of key process parameters in the mechanical performance of the component is analyzed. A robust optimization process based on appropriate failure criteria is developed to find the printing direction that leads to the optimal mechanical performance of the component. The Tsai-Wu failure criterion is implemented due to the orthotropy and heterogeneity constitutive nature of FFF components and because of the differences between the strengths in tension and compression. The optimization loop implements a modified version of an Anomaly Detection (AD) algorithm and uses the computed metrics to obtain the optimal printing direction. The developed methodology is verified with a case study on an industrial demonstrator.

Keywords: additive manufacturing, optimization, printing direction, mechanical performance, voxelization

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