Search results for: Jing Yuan

Authors: Wei-Hwa Chiang, Wei-Ting Hsu, Yuan-Chi Liu, Cheng-Che Tsai

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A sustainable built environment aims for minimizing both regional and global environmental impact while maintaining a healthy living for individuals. Sustainability of performing venues has rarely been discussed when compared with residential, office, and other popular building types. Life-cycle carbon emission due to the high standard requirements in acoustics, stage engineering, HVAC, and building structure need to be carefully examined. This can be complicated by social-economic and cultural concerns in addition to technical excellence. This paper reported case-based study and statistics of performing venues regarding urban connectivity and spatial layouts in enhancing facility usage and promoting cultural vitality. Interviews conducted for a major venue at Taipei indicated high linkage with surrounding leisure activity and the need for quality pedestrian and additional spaces open to the general public. Statistics of venues with various size and function suggested the possibility and strategies limit the size and height of reception and foyer spaces, and to maximize their use when there are no performances. Design strategies are identified to increase visual contact or facility sharing between the artists and the audience or the general public in reducing facility size and promoting potential involvement in cultural activities.

Keywords: sustainability, performing venue, design, operation

Procedia PDF Downloads 103

Authors: Jing Li, Li Jin, Fulin Wang, Jie Dong, Wenjiang Ding

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Mg-Li dual-phase alloy exhibits better combination of yield strength and elongation than the Mg single-phase alloy. To exploit its deformation behavior, the deformation mechanisms of Mg-2Gd alloy with or without Li addition, i.e., Mg-6Li-2Gd and Mg-2Gd alloy, have been studied at both microscale and mesoscale. EBSD-assisted slip trace, twin trace, and texture evolution analysis show that the α-Mg phase of Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy exhibits different microscopic deformation mechanisms with the Mg-2Gd alloy, i.e., mainly prismatic slip in the former one, while basal slip, prismatic slip and extension twin in the latter one. Further Schmid factor analysis results attribute this different intra-phase deformation mechanisms to the higher critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) value of extension twin and lower ratio of CRSSprismatic /CRSSbasal in the α-Mg phase of Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy. Additionally, Li addition can induce dual-phase microstructure in the Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy, leading to the formation of hetero-deformation induced (HDI) stress at the mesoscale. This can be evidenced by the hysteresis loops appearing during the loading-unloading-reloading (LUR) tensile tests and the activation of multiple slip activity in the α-Mg phase neighboring β-Li phase. The Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy shows higher yield strength is due to the harder α-Mg phase arising from solid solution hardening of Li addition, as well asthe strengthening of soft β-Li phase by the HDI stress during yield stage. Since the strain hardening rate of Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy is lower than that of Mg-2Gd alloy after ~2% strain, which is partly due to the weak contribution of HDI stress, Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy shows no obvious increase of uniform elongation than the Mg-2Gd alloy.But since the β-Li phase is effective in blunting the crack tips, the Mg-6Li-2Gd alloy shows ununiform elongation, which, thus, leads to the higher total elongation than the Mg-2Gd alloy.

Keywords: Mg-Li-Gd dual-phase alloy, phase boundary, HDI stress, dislocation slip activity, mechanical properties

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Authors: Chuan Yang, Jing Bie, Zhong Wang, Panagiotis Psimoulis

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Contemporary studies investigating the association between the spatial configuration of the urban network and economic activities at the street level were mostly conducted within space syntax conceptual framework. These findings supported the theory of 'movement economy' and demonstrated the impact of street configuration on the distribution of pedestrian movement and land-use shaping, especially retail activities. However, the effects varied between different urban contexts. In this paper, the relationship between economic activity distribution and the urban configurational characters was examined at the segment level. In the study area, three kinds of neighbourhood types, urban, suburban, and rural neighbourhood, were included. And among all neighbourhoods, three kinds of urban network form, 'tree-like', grid, and organic pattern, were recognised. To investigate the nested effects of urban configuration measured by space syntax approach and urban context, multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) regression models were constructed. Additionally, considering the spatial autocorrelation, spatial lag was also concluded in the model as an independent variable. The random effect ZINB model shows superiority over the ZINB model or multilevel linear (ML) model in the explanation of economic activities pattern shaping over the urban environment. And after adjusting for the neighbourhood type and network form effects, connectivity and syntax centrality significantly affect economic activities clustering. The comparison between accumulative and new established economic activities illustrated the different preferences for economic activity location choice.

Keywords: space syntax, economic activities, multilevel model, Chinese city

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Authors: Bin Mu, Site Li, Shijin Yuan

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Under the circumstance of environment deterioration, people are increasingly concerned about the quality of the environment, especially air quality. As a result, it is of great value to give accurate and timely forecast of AQI (air quality index). In order to simplify influencing factors of air quality in a city, and forecast the city’s AQI tomorrow, this study used MATLAB software and adopted the method of constructing a mathematic model of PCA-GABP to provide a solution. To be specific, this study firstly made principal component analysis (PCA) of influencing factors of AQI tomorrow including aspects of weather, industry waste gas and IAQI data today. Then, we used the back propagation neural network model (BP), which is optimized by genetic algorithm (GA), to give forecast of AQI tomorrow. In order to verify validity and accuracy of PCA-GABP model’s forecast capability. The study uses two statistical indices to evaluate AQI forecast results (normalized mean square error and fractional bias). Eventually, this study reduces mean square error by optimizing individual gene structure in genetic algorithm and adjusting the parameters of back propagation model. To conclude, the performance of the model to forecast AQI is comparatively convincing and the model is expected to take positive effect in AQI forecast in the future.

Keywords: AQI forecast, principal component analysis, genetic algorithm, back propagation neural network model

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Authors: Shuofen Hsu, Ya-Yi Chao, Chao-Wei Li

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This paper investigates the factors of whether firms’ quarterly consolidated financial statements to be voluntary reviewed by auditor. To promote the information transparency, the Financial Supervisory Commission of Executive Yuan in Taiwan ruled the Taiwanese listed companies should announce the first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements since 2008 to 2012, while the Commission didn’t require the consolidated financial statements should be reviewed by auditors. This is a very special practice in emerging market, especially in Taiwan. The valuable data of this period is suitable for us to research the determinants of firms’ voluntary review decision in emerging markets. We collected the auditors' report of each company and each year of Taiwanese listed companies since 2008 to 2012 for our research samples. We use probit model to test and analyze the determinants of voluntary review decision of the first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements. Our empirical result shows that the firms whose first and third quarterly consolidated financial statements are voluntary to be reviewed by auditors have better ranking of information transparency, higher audit quality, and better corporate governance, suggesting that voluntary review is a good signal to firms’ better information and corporate governance quality.

Keywords: voluntary review, information transparency, audit quality, quarterly consolidated financial statements

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Authors: Yuan Yang, Mickey Lam

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Oral dissolvable films have been considered as a unique alternative approach to conventional oral dosage forms. The films could be administrated via the gastrointestinal tract as conventional dosages or through sublingual/buccal mucosa membranes, which could enhance drug bioavailability by avoiding the first-pass effect and improving permeability due to high blood flow and lymphatic circulation. This work has described a state-of-art technic using nano-emulsion/nano-suspension as a precursor for the film to enhance the bioavailability of BCS class II drugs. The drug molecules are consequentially processed through the emulsification, gelation, and film-casting processes. The gelation process is critical to stabilizing the nano-emulsion for the film-casting as well as controlling the drug release process. Furthermore, the size of the nanoparticle on the film has a strong correlation with the size of the micelles in the precursor and the condition of the gelation process. It has been discovered that nanoparticle from 200 nm to 300 nm has shown the highest permeability for sublingual administration. In one example shown in work, the bioavailability of a low solubilize drug has been increased from 10% to 24% via sublingual administration of the film. The increasing of the bioavailability was thought to be associated with the enhancement of the diffusion process of the drug in the saliva layer above the mucosa membrane and the fact that the presents of the emulsifier help lose the rigid junction of the mucosa cells.

Keywords: oral dissolvable film, nano-suspension, nano-emulsion, bioavailability

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: Chang-Liang Shih, Kuei-Min Liao, Ya-Yuan Wang, Wu-Chun Tu

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Forcipomyia taiwana, an important vexing pest, influences the development of the industry of Taiwan tourism and the quality of country life. Using human-attractant method to investigate the blood-sucking behavior of Forcipomyia taiwana in three districts in Taichung, it revealed that female F. taiwana only exhibits blood-sucking behavior in daytime, not in nighttime. The blooding-sucking behavior of female F. taiwana was affected by some factors, i.e., season and atmospheric factors. During 2008 to 2010, our study revealed that blood-sucking behavior commenced from 7:00 to 8:00 in the spring equinox, the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, but from 8:00 to 9:00 in the winter solstice. However, regardless of any seasons, it revealed that blood-sucking behavior reached the acme between 13:00 and 15:00, and then descending. In those four seasons, the summer solstice had longer lighting and higher temperature, the average sucking activity was around 12 hours, on the contrary, the winter solstice had shorter lighting and lower temperature, the average sucking activity bridled to around 8 hours whilst it retrenched to 11 hours in the spring equinox and the autumnal equinox. To analyze the correlation between blood-sucking behavior and atmospheric factors, it revealed that female blood-sucking behavior was correlated positively to temperature and lighting but negatively to humidity. In addition, our study also showed that there is no blood-sucking behavior under 18ºC.

Keywords: Forcipomyia taiwana, circadian rhythm, blood-sucking behavior, season

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Authors: Gong Zhilin, Jing Yang, Jian Yin

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The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel system for credit card fraud detection based on sequential modeling of data using hybrid deep learning models. The projected model encapsulates five major phases are pre-processing, imbalance-data handling, feature extraction, optimal feature selection, and fraud detection with an ensemble classifier. The collected raw data (input) is pre-processed to enhance the quality of the data through alleviation of the missing data, noisy data as well as null values. The pre-processed data are class imbalanced in nature, and therefore they are handled effectively with the K-means clustering-based SMOTE model. From the balanced class data, the most relevant features like improved Principal Component Analysis (PCA), statistical features (mean, median, standard deviation) and higher-order statistical features (skewness and kurtosis). Among the extracted features, the most optimal features are selected with the Self-improved Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (SI-AOA). This SI-AOA model is the conceptual improvement of the standard Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm. The deep learning models like Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and optimized Quantum Deep Neural Network (QDNN). The LSTM and CNN are trained with the extracted optimal features. The outcomes from LSTM and CNN will enter as input to optimized QDNN that provides the final detection outcome. Since the QDNN is the ultimate detector, its weight function is fine-tuned with the Self-improved Arithmetic Optimization Algorithm (SI-AOA).

Keywords: credit card, data mining, fraud detection, money transactions

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Authors: Yufeng Li, Yinan Ma, Jing Wu, Chengnian Long

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Infrared object detection aims at separating small and dim target from clutter background and its capabilities extend beyond the limits of visible light, making it invaluable in a wide range of applications such as improving safety, security, efficiency, and functionality. However, existing methods are usually sensitive to the noise of the input infrared image, leading to a decrease in target detection accuracy and an increase in the false alarm rate in high-noise environments. To address this issue, an infrared small target detection algorithm called YOLO-IR is proposed in this paper to improve the robustness to high infrared noise. To address the problem that high noise significantly reduces the clarity and reliability of target features in infrared images, we design a soft-threshold coordinate attention mechanism to improve the model’s ability to extract target features and its robustness to noise. Since the noise may overwhelm the local details of the target, resulting in the loss of small target features during depth down-sampling, we propose a deep and shallow feature fusion neck to improve the detection accuracy. In addition, because the generalized Intersection over Union (IoU)-based loss functions may be sensitive to noise and lead to unstable training in high-noise environments, we introduce a Wasserstein-distance based loss function to improve the training of the model. The experimental results show that YOLO-IR achieves a 5.0% improvement in recall and a 6.6% improvement in F1-score over existing state-of-art model.

Keywords: infrared small target detection, high noise, robustness, soft-threshold coordinate attention, feature fusion

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Authors: Rhay-Hung Weng, Ching-Yuan Huang, Wan-Ping Chen

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Recently, many hospitals have put much emphasis upon the development of nurse innovation. The present study aimed to clarify how nurse innovation is related to medical service quality and medical service experience. This study adopted questionnaire-survey method with nurses and customers of the inpatient wards from three Taiwanese hospitals as the research subjects. After pairing, there were 294 valid questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis was utilized to test the possible impact of nurse innovation on medical service quality and experience. In terms of the dimensions of nurse innovation, “innovation behavior” ranked the highest (3.24), followed by knowledge creation and innovation diffusion; in terms of the degree of the medical service quality, 'reliability' ranked the highest (4.35). As for the degree of the medical service experience, 'feel experience' ranked the highest (4.44). All dimensions of nurse innovation have no significant effects on medical service quality and medical service experience. Of these three dimensions of nurse innovation, the level of innovation behavior was perceived by the nurses as the highest. The study found that nurse innovation has no significant effects on medical service quality and medical service experience. Managers shall provide sufficient resources and budget for fostering innovation development and encourage their nurses to develop nursing innovation for patents. The education and training courses on “patient-centered ” shall be enhanced among hospital nurses. Health care managers shall also explore the difficulties about innovation diffusion and find the solutions for nurses.

Keywords: innovation, employee innovative behavior, service quality, service experience

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Authors: Lei Zhao, Zhe Yuan, Wenyue Kuang

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This paper studies two-warehouse inventory models for a deteriorating item considering that the demand is influenced by inventory levels. The problem mainly focuses on the optimal order policy and the optimal order cycle with inventory-level-dependent demand in two-warehouse system for retailers. It considers the different deterioration rates and the inventory holding costs in owned warehouse (OW) and rented warehouse (RW), and the conditions of transportation cost, allowed shortage and partial backlogging. Two inventory models are formulated: last-in first-out (LIFO) model and first-in-first-out (FIFO) model based on the policy choices of LIFO and FIFO, and a comparative analysis of LIFO model and FIFO model is made. The study finds that the FIFO policy is more in line with realistic operating conditions. Especially when the inventory holding cost of OW is high, and there is no difference or big difference between deterioration rates of OW and RW, the FIFO policy has better applicability. Meanwhile, this paper considers the differences between the effects of warehouse and shelf inventory levels on demand, and then builds retailers’ inventory decision model and studies the factors of the optimal order quantity, the optimal order cycle and the average inventory cost per unit time. To minimize the average total cost, the optimal dispatching policies are provided for retailers’ decisions.

Keywords: FIFO model, inventory-level-dependent, LIFO model, two-warehouse inventory

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Authors: Jing Niu, Jun X. Wang

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Arterial stiffness predicts mortality and morbidity, independently of other cardiovascular risk factors. And it is a major risk factor for age-related morbidity and mortality. The non-invasive industry gold standard measurement system of arterial stiffness utilizes pulse wave velocity method. However, the desktop device is expensive and requires trained professional to operate. The main objective of this research is the proof of concept of the proposed non-invasive method which uses measurement of magnetic flux disturbance and electrocardiogram (ECG) signal for measuring arterial stiffness. The method could enable accurate and easy self-assessment of arterial stiffness at home, and to help doctors in research, diagnostic and prescription in hospitals and clinics. A platform for assessing arterial stiffness through acquisition and analysis of radial artery pulse waveform and ECG signal has been developed based on the proposed method. Radial artery pulse waveform is acquired using the magnetic based sensing technology, while ECG signal is acquired using two dry contact single arm ECG electrodes. The measurement only requires the participant to wear a wrist strap and an arm band. Participants were recruited for data collection using both the developed platform and the industry gold standard system. The results from both systems underwent correlation assessment analysis. A strong positive correlation between the results of the two systems is observed. This study presents the possibility of developing an accurate, easy to use and affordable measurement device for arterial stiffness assessment.

Keywords: arterial stiffness, electrocardiogram, pulse wave velocity, Magnetic Flux Disturbance

Procedia PDF Downloads 163

Authors: Pei-Jung Wu, Ching-Ying Huang, Chih-Chia Lin, Chun-Han Li, Chien-Yuan Wang

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The fuel cell market has considerable development potential, but the cost is still less competitive. Replacing the traditional graphite plate with a stainless steel plate as a bipolar plate can greatly reduce the weight and volume of the stack, and has more cost advantages. However, the passivation layer on the surface of stainless steel makes the contact resistance reach the ohmic level and reduces the performance of the fuel cell. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the interfacial contact resistance through the surface treatment. In this research, the thickness, uniformity, interfacial contact resistance (ICR), and adhesion of the carbon-based layer was analyzed. On the other hand, the effect of coating properties on the performance of the fuel cell was verified through I-V tests. The results show that after coating the contact resistance is greatly reduced by three stages to the microohm level, and as the film thickness is reduced, the contact resistance is reduced from 229~118 mΩ-cm² to 135~73 mΩ-cm² at a general assembly pressure of 1 to 2 MPa., and the current density at 0.6 V increased from 485.7 mA/cm² to 575.7 mA/cm². This study verifies the importance of the uniformity and ICR of the coating on proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), and the surface coating technology is the key to affecting the characteristics of the coating.

Keywords: contact resistance, proton exchange membrane fuel cell, PEMFC, SS bipolar plate, spray coating process

Procedia PDF Downloads 183

Authors: Yuan Fang, Wang-Ming Li, Yi-Chen Ruan

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Rural healthy old-age care for urban elderly who go to surrounding villages on vacation is a new mode of old-age care in developed coastal areas of China. Such villages that receive urban elderly can be called old-caring villages. Due to the popularity of healthy old-age care in rural areas, more and more urban elderly people participate in the ranks of rural old-age care, resulting in excessive number of tourists in some old-caring villages, exceeding the carrying capacity of the village. Excessive passenger flow may damage the ecological environment, social environment, and facilities environment of the village, and even affect the development potential of the village pension industry. On the basis of on-site investigation and questionnaire survey, this paper summarizes the willingness and behavioral characteristics of the urban elderly population and finds that it will have a certain impact on the old-caring villages in the process of pension vacation in the aspects of ecology, construction, society, and economy. According to the influence of tourists, the paper constructs a system of capacity restriction factors of the old-caring villages, which includes four types: ecological environment capacity, policy environment capacity, perceived congestion capacity, and village service capacity, and fourteen specific indicators. It will provide a theoretical basis for reasonable control of the development scale of the old-caring villages.

Keywords: old-caring villages, restriction factors system, tourists' influence, environmental capacity

Procedia PDF Downloads 123

Authors: Chin-Chih Chiou, Tai-Yuan Su, Ti-Yu Chen, Wen-Yu Chiu, Chungyu Chen

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of reaction time (RT) or balance performance as the number of stimulus-response choices increases, the amount of information processing of 0-bit and 1-bit conditions based on Hick’s law, using the dual-task design. Eighteen children (age: 9.38 ± 0.27 years old) were recruited as the participants for this study, and asked to assess RT and balance performance separately and simultaneously as following five conditions: simple RT (0-bit decision), choice RT (1-bit decision), single balance control, balance control with simple RT, and balance control with choice RT. Biodex 950-300 balance system and You-Shang response timer were used to record and analyze the postural stability and information processing speed (RT) respectively for the participants. Repeated measures one-way ANOVA with HSD post-hoc test and 2 (balance) × 2 (amount of information processing) repeated measures two-way ANOVA were used to test the parameters of balance performance and RT (α = .05). The results showed the overall stability index in the 1-bit decision was lower than in 0-bit decision, and the mean deflection in the 1-bit decision was lower than in single balance performance. Simple RTs were faster than choice RTs both in single task condition and dual task condition. It indicated that the chronometric approach of RT could use to infer the attention requirement of the secondary task. However, this study did not find that the balance performance is interfered for children by the increasing of the amount of information processing.

Keywords: capacity theory, reaction time, Hick’s law, balance

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Authors: Anisul Islam

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The U.S. has a very strong trade relationship with China but with a large and persistent trade deficit. Some has argued that the undervalued Chinese Yuan is to be blamed for the persistent trade deficit. The empirical results are mixed at best. This paper empirically estimates the U.S. export function along with the U.S. import function with its trade with China with the purpose of testing for the existence of the Marshall-Lerner (ML) condition as well for the possible existence of the J-curve hypothesis. Annual export and import data will be utilized for as long as the time series data exists. The export and import functions will be estimated using advanced econometric techniques, along with appropriate diagnostic tests performed to examine the validity and reliability of the estimated results. The annual time-series data covers from 1975 to 2022 with a sample size of 48 years, the longest period ever utilized before in any previous study. The data is collected from several sources, such as the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, IMF Financial Statistics, IMF Direction of Trade Statistics, and several other sources. The paper is expected to shed important light on the ongoing debate regarding the persistent U.S. trade deficit with China and the policies that may be useful to reduce such deficits over time. As such, the paper will be of great interest for the academics, researchers, think tanks, global organizations, and policy makers in both China and the U.S.

Keywords: exports, imports, marshall-lerner condition, j-curve hypothesis, united states, china

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Authors: Han Chih Feng, Yi-Cheng Hou, Jing-Huei Wu

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Diabetes is a chronic disease. Nutrition knowledge and skills enable individuals with type 2 diabetes to optimize metabolic self-management and quality of life. This research studies the effect of nutritional education on diabetes inpatients in terms of their cognition, behavior, and attitude. The participants are inpatients diagnosed with diabetes at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital. A total of 103 participants, 58 male, and 45 females, enrolled in the research between January 2018 and July 2018. The research evaluates cognition, behavior, and attitude level before and after nutritional education conducted by dietitians. The result shows significant improvement in actual consumption (2.5 ± 1.4 vs 3.8 ± 0.7; p<.001), diet control motivation (2.7 ± 0.8 vs 3.4 ± 0.6; p<.001), correct nutrition concept (1.2± 0.4 vs 2.4 ± 0.5; p<.001), learning willingness (2.7± 0.9 vs 3.4 ± 0.6; p<.001), cognitive behaviors (1.4 ± 0.5 vs 2.9 ± 0.7; p<.001). AC sugar (278.5 ± 321.5 vs 152.2 ± 49.1; p<.001) and HbA1C (10.3 ± 2.6 vs 8.6 ± 1.9; p<.001) are significant improvement after nutritional education. After nutritional education, participants oral hypoglycemic agents increased from 16 (9.2%) to 33 (19.0%), insulin decreased from 75 (43.1%) to 68 (39.1%), and hypoglycemic drugs combined with insulin decreased from 83 (47.7%) to 73 (42.0%).Further analysis shows that female inpatients have significant improvement in diet control motivation (3.91 ± 0.85 vs 4.44 ± 0.59; p<0.000), correct nutrition concept (3.24± 0.48 vs 4.47± 0.51; p<0.000), learning willingness (3.89 ± 0.86 vs 4.44 ± 0.59; p<0.000) and cognitive behaviors (2.42 ± 0.58 vs 4.02 ± 0.69; p<0.000); male inpatients have significant improvement in actual food intake (4.41± 0.92 vs 3.97 ± 0.42; p<0.000), diet control motivation (3.62 ± 0.86 vs 4.29 ± 0.62; p<0.000), correct nutrition concept (3.26 ± 0.44 vs 4.36 ± 0.49; p<0.000), learning willingness (3.72± 0.93 vs 4.33± 0.63; p<0.000) and cognitive behaviors (2.45± 0.54 vs 4.03± 0.77; p<0.000). In conclusion, nutritional education proves effective, regardless of gender, in improving an inpatient’s cognition, behavior, and attitude toward diabetes self-management.

Keywords: diabetes, nutrition education, actual consumption, diet control motivation, nutrition concept, learning willingness, cognitive behaviors

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Authors: Ming-Yang Guo, Cheng-Xian Wu, Wei-Xiang Chen, Chun-Yuan Lin, Yen-Jen Lin, Ann-Shyn Chiang

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With more and more Drosophila Driver and Neuron images, it is an important work to find the similarity relationships among them as the functional inference. There is a general problem that how to find a Drosophila Driver image, which can cover a set of Drosophila Driver/Neuron images. In order to solve this problem, the intersection/union region for a set of images should be computed at first, then a comparison work is used to calculate the similarities between the region and other images. In this paper, three encoding schemes, namely Integer, Boolean, Decimal, are proposed to encode each image as a one-dimensional structure. Then, the intersection/union region from these images can be computed by using the compare operations, Boolean operators and lookup table method. Finally, the comparison work is done as the union region computation, and the similarity score can be calculated by the definition of Tanimoto coefficient. The above methods for the region computation are also implemented in the multi-core CPUs environment with the OpenMP. From the experimental results, in the encoding phase, the performance by the Boolean scheme is the best than that by others; in the region computation phase, the performance by Decimal is the best when the number of images is large. The speedup ratio can achieve 12 based on 16 CPUs. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology under the grant MOST 106-2221-E-182-070.

Keywords: Drosophila driver image, Drosophila neuron images, intersection/union computation, parallel processing, OpenMP

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Authors: Kun Xu, Yuan Xu, Jia Qiao

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The document detection plays an important role in optical character recognition and text analysis. Because the traditional detection methods have weak generalization ability, and deep neural network has complex structure and large number of parameters, which cannot be well applied in mobile devices, this paper proposes a lightweight Document Corner Detection Network (DCDNet). DCDNet is a two-stage architecture. The first stage with Encoder-Decoder structure adopts depthwise separable convolution to greatly reduce the network parameters. After introducing the Feature Attention Union (FAU) module, the second stage enhances the feature information of spatial and channel dim and adaptively adjusts the size of receptive field to enhance the feature expression ability of the model. Aiming at solving the problem of the large difference in the number of pixel distribution between corner and non-corner, Weighted Binary Cross Entropy Loss (WBCE Loss) is proposed to define corner detection problem as a classification problem to make the training process more efficient. In order to make up for the lack of Dataset of document corner detection, a Dataset containing 6620 images named Document Corner Detection Dataset (DCDD) is made. Experimental results show that the proposed method can obtain fast, stable and accurate detection results on DCDD.

Keywords: document detection, corner detection, attention mechanism, lightweight

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Authors: Yuan Wan, Shumei Cui, Shaopeng Wu

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Toroidal windings were taken advantage of to reduce of axial length of the motor, so as to match the applications that have severe restrictions on the axial length. But slotting in the out edge of the stator will decrease the heat-dissipation capacity of the water cooling of the housing. Besides, the windings in the outer slots will increase the copper loss, which will further increase the difficult for heat dissipation of the motor. At present, carbon-fiber composite retaining sleeve are increasingly used to be mounted over the magnets to ensure the rotor strength at high speeds. Due to the poor thermal conductivity of carbon-fiber sleeve, the cooling of the rotor becomes very difficult, which may result in the irreversible demagnetization of magnets for the excessively high temperature. So it is necessary to analyze the temperature rise of such motor. This paper builds a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of a toroidal-winding high-speed permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) with water cooling of housing and forced air cooling of rotor. Thermal analysis was carried out based on the model and the factors that affects the temperature rise were investigated. Then thermal optimization for the prototype was achieved. Finally, a small-size prototype was manufactured and the thermal analysis results were verified.

Keywords: thermal analysis, temperature rise, toroidal windings, high-speed PMSM, CFD

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Authors: Yanyue Yuan

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In this paper, the author shares the findings of a pilot study that examines students’ creative expressions and their perceptions of creativity when engaged in project-based learning. The study is based on an elective course that the author co-designed and co-taught with a colleague to sixteen grade six and seven students over the spring semester in 2019. Using the Little Prince story as the main prompt, they facilitated students’ original creation of a storytelling concert that integrated script writing, music production, lyrics, songs, and visual design as a result of both individual and collaborative work. The author will share the specific challenges we met during the project, including learning cultures of the school, class management, teachers' and parents’ attitude, process-oriented versus product-oriented mindset, and facilities and logistical resources. The findings of this pilot study will inform the ongoing research initiative of exploring how we can foster creative learning in public schools in the Chinese context. While K-12 schools of China’s public education system are still dominated by exam-oriented and teacher-centered approaches, the author proposes that expression-based learning can be a starting point for promoting students’ creativity and can serve as experimental efforts to initiate incremental changes within the current education framework. The paper will also touch upon insights gained from collaborations between university and K-12 schools.

Keywords: creativity, expression-based learning, K-12, incremental changes

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Authors: Ying-chang Yu, Yuan-lung Lo

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More and more building envelopes consist of the construction of balconies, canopies, handrails, sun-shading, vertical planters or gardens, maintenance platforms, display devices, lightings, ornaments, and also the most commonly seen double skin system. These components form a uniform but three-dimensional disturbance structure and create a complex surface wind field in front of the actual watertight building interface. The distorted wind behavior would affect the façade performance and building ventilation. Comparing with sole windscreen walls, these three-dimensional structures perform like distributed air portal assembly, and each portal generates air turbulence and consume wind pressure and energy simultaneously. In this study, we attempted to compare the behavior of 2D porous windscreens without internal construction, porous tubular portal windscreens, porous tapered portal windscreens, and porous coned portal windscreens. The wind energy reduction phenomenon is then compared to the different distributed air portals. The experiments are conducted in a physical wind tunnel with 1:25 in scale to simulate the three-dimensional structure of a real building envelope. The experimental airflow was set up to smooth flow. The specimen is designed as a plane with a distributed tubular structure behind, and the control group uses different tubular shapes but the same fluid volume to observe the wind damping phenomenon of various geometries.

Keywords: volumized building envelope, porous air portal, wind damping, wind tunnel test, wind energy loss

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Authors: Dong-ping Yuan, Lin Gu, Jun Long, Jie Chen, Ni Jie, Ying-Li Shi

Abstract:

Endometriosis is a common disease in women of reproductive age, whose classic characteristic is mononuclear cell infiltration into lesions. Shikonin is an anti-inflammatory phytocompound from Lithospermum erythrorhizon, whose potential therapeutic effects for the endometriosis remain unclear. The working hypothesis was that shikonin can inhibit the development of endometriosis by the inhibition of chemotactic effect. Shikonin significantly inhibited the growth of human endometrial tissue implanted into mice (P<0.05). No observable adverse effects were found. The mouse regulated upon activation normal T-cell expressed and secreted (mRANTES) level in peritoneal fluid of animal endometriosis model was higher than that in normal SCID mice (P<0.05), and decreased dramatically after shikonin treatment in a dose-dependent manner (P<0.05). Peritoneal fluid from NOD/SCID mice treated with shikonin inhibited monocytes chemotaxis, which could be abolished by mRANTES antibody. In vitro, shikonin significantly inhibited RANTES expression of U937 cells cultured alone or co-cultured with human methothelail cells and endometrial stromal cells, and inhibited RANTES-induced chemotaxis of U937 cells (P<0.05). The present results suggest that shikonin can inhibit the development of endometriosis by mechanisms that at least include the inhibition of RANTES expression and decreased migration of mononuclear cells to lesions. Shikonin may be a useful and safe new approach for treating endometriosis.

Keywords: endometriosis, shikonin, RANTES chemotaxis

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Authors: Yuan-Ching Chiang, Chien-Yeh Hsu, Chen Chih-Hao, Sih-Li Chen

Abstract:

The p-n junction temperature of LEDs directly influences their operating life and luminous efficiency. An excessively high p-n junction temperature minimizes the output flux of LEDs, decreasing their brightness and influencing the photon wavelength; consequently, the operating life of LEDs decreases and their luminous output changes. The maximum limit of the p-n junction temperature of LEDs is approximately 120 °C. The purpose of this research was to devise an approach for dissipating heat generated in a confined space when LEDs operate at low temperatures to reduce light decay. The cooling mode of existing commercial LED lights can be divided into natural- and forced convection cooling. In natural convection cooling, the volume of LED encapsulants must be increased by adding more fins to increase the cooling area. However, this causes difficulties in achieving efficient LED lighting at high power. Compared with forced convection cooling, heat transfer through water convection is associated with a higher heat transfer coefficient per unit area; therefore, we dissipated heat by using a closed loop water cooling system. Nevertheless, cooling water exposed to air can be easily influenced by environmental factors. Thus, we incorporated a ground heat exchanger into the water cooling system to minimize the influence of air on cooling water and then observed the relationship between the amounts of heat dissipated through the ground and LED efficiency.

Keywords: helical ground heat exchanger, high power LED, ground source cooling system, heat dissipation

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Authors: Jie Ji, Jing Xu, Yuehong Zhuang, Xiangqing Kang, Ying Qian, Ping Zhou, Di Xue

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Background: In 2014, there were 28,341 health professionals in Pudong new area of Shanghai and the number per 1000 population was 5.199, 55.55% higher than that in 2006. But it was always less than the average number of health professionals per 1000 population in Shanghai from 2006 to 2014. Therefore, allocation planning for the health professionals in Pudong new area has become a high priority task in order to meet the future demands of health care. In this study, we constructed an objective-based system dynamics model to forecast the number of health professionals in Pudong new area of Shanghai in 2020. Methods: We collected the data from health statistics reports and previous survey of human resources in Pudong new area of Shanghai. Nine experts, who were from health administrative departments, public hospitals and community health service centers, were consulted to estimate the current and future status of nine variables used in the system dynamics model. Based on the objective of the number of health professionals per 1000 population (8.0) in Shanghai for 2020, the system dynamics model for health professionals in Pudong new area of Shanghai was constructed to forecast the number of health professionals needed in Pudong new area in 2020. Results: The system dynamics model for health professionals in Pudong new area of Shanghai was constructed. The model forecasted that there will be 37,330 health professionals (6.433 per 1000 population) in 2020. If the success rate of health professional recruitment changed from 20% to 70%, the number of health professionals per 1000 population would be changed from 5.269 to 6.919. If this rate changed from 20% to 70% and the success rate of building new beds changed from 5% to 30% at the same time, the number of health professionals per 1000 population would be changed from 5.269 to 6.923. Conclusions: The system dynamics model could be used to simulate and forecast the health professionals. But, if there were no significant changes in health policies and management system, the number of health professionals per 1000 population would not reach the objectives in Pudong new area in 2020.

Keywords: allocation planning, forecast, health professional, system dynamics

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Authors: Ruiyuan Wang, Jing Han, Bruno Di Biase, Mark Antoniou

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The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between working memory (WM) capacity and Chinese-English consecutive interpreting (CI) performance in interpreting learners with different study abroad experience (SAE). Such relationship is not well understood. This study also examines whether Chinese interpreting learners with SAE in English-speaking countries, demonstrate a better performance in inflectional morphology and agreement, notoriously unstable in Chinese speakers of English L2, in their interpreting output than learners without SAE. Fifty Chinese university students, majoring in Chinese-English Interpreting, were recruited in Australia (n=25) and China (n=25). The two groups matched in age, language proficiency, and interpreting training period. Study abroad (SA) group has been studying in an English-speaking country (Australia) for over 12 months, and none of the students recruited in China (the no study abroad = NSA group) had ever studied or lived in an English-speaking country. Data on language proficiency and training background were collected via a questionnaire. Lexical retrieval performance and working memory (WM) capacity data were collected experimentally, and finally, interpreting data was elicited via a direct CI task. Main results of the study show that WM significantly correlated with participants' CI performance independently of learning context. Moreover, SA outperformed NSA learners in terms of subject-verb number agreement. Apart from that, WM capacity was also found to correlate significantly with their morphosyntactic accuracy. This paper sheds some light on the relationship between study abroad, WM capacity, and CI performance. Exploring the effect of study abroad on interpreting trainees and how various important factors correlate may help interpreting educators bring forward more targeted teaching paradigms for participants with different learning experiences.

Keywords: study abroad experience, consecutive interpreting, working memory, inflectional agreement

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Authors: Yuan-Lin Liu, Ye Li, Tian Xia

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Taxi-calling APPs have been used widely, while brought both benefits and a variety of issues for the taxi market. Many countries do not know whether the benefits are remarkable than the issues or not. This paper established a comparison between the basic scenario (2009-2012) and a taxi-calling software usage scenario (2012-2015) to explain the impact of taxi-calling APPs. The impacts of taxi-calling APPs illustrated by the comparison results are: 1) The supply and demand distribution is more balanced, extending from the city center to the suburb. The availability of taxi service has been improved in low density areas, thin market attribute has also been improved; 2)The ratio of short distance taxi trip decreased, long distance service increased, the utilization of mileage increased, and the rate of empty decreased; 3) The popularity of taxi-calling APPs was able to reduce the average empty distance, cruise time, empty mileage rate and average times of loading passengers, can also enhance the average operating speed, improve the taxi operating level, and reduce social cost although there are some disadvantages. This paper argues that the taxi industry and government can establish an integrated third-party credit information platform based on credit evaluated by the data of the drivers’ driving behaviors to supervise the drivers. Taxi-calling APPs under fully covered supervision in the mobile Internet environment will become a new trend.

Keywords: taxi, taxi-calling APPs, credit, scenario comparison

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Authors: Yue Sun, Yuan Wang

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Most of the earliest national industries in Wuhan are located along the Hanjiang River, and Qiaokou is considered to be a gathering place for Dahankou old industrial base. Zongguan Waterworks, Pacific Soap Factory, Fuxin Flour Factory, Nanyang Tobacco Factory and other hundred-year-old factories are located along Hanjiang River in Qiaokou District, especially the Gutian Industrial Zone, which was listed as one of 156 national restoration projects at the beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. After decades of development, Qiaokou has become the gathering place of the chemical industry and secondary industry, causing damage to the city and serious pollution, becoming a marginalized area forgotten by the central city. In recent years, with the accelerated pace of urban renewal, Qiaokou has been constantly reforming and innovating, and has begun drastic changes in the transformation of old cities and the development of new districts. These factories have been listed as key reconstruction projects, and a large number of industrial heritage with historical value and full urban memory have been relocated, demolished and reformed, with only a few factory buildings preserved. Through the methods of industrial archaeology, image analysis, typology and field investigation, this paper analyzes and summarizes the spatial characteristics of industrial heritage in Qiaokou District, explores urban renewal from the perspective of industrial heritage protection, and provides design strategies for the regeneration of urban industrial sites and industrial heritage.

Keywords: industrial heritage, urban renewal, protection, urban memory

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Authors: Pui-Lai To, Yi-Jing Tsai

Abstract:

As the advance of e-commerce technologies, the consumers buying behavior have changed. The focus on consumer buying behavior has already shifted from physical space to the cyberspace, which impulse buying is a major issue of concern. This study examines the stimulus effect of web environment on the consumer's emotional states, and in turn, affecting the urge of impulse buying based on a stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory. Website ambiance and website service quality are the two stimulus variables. The study also explores the effects and the moderator effects of contextual variables and individual characteristic variables on the web environment, the emotional states and the urge of impulse buying. A total of 328 valid questionnaires were collected. Structural equation modeling was used to test the research hypothesis. This study found that both website ambiance and website service quality have a positive effect on consumer emotion, which in turn positively affect the urge of impulse buying. Consumer’s trait of impulse buying has a positive effect on the urge of impulse buying. Consumer’s hedonic motivation has a positive effect on both emotion state and the urge of impulse buying. On the other hand, the study found that money available for the consumer would positively affect consumer's emotion state and time available for the consumer would negatively affect the relationship between website service quality and consumer emotion. The result of this study validates Internet impulse buying behavior based on the S-O-R theory. This study also suggests that having a good website atmosphere and service quality is important to influencing consumers’ emotion and increasing the likelihood of consumer purchasing. The study could serve as a basis for the future research regarding online consumer behavior.

Keywords: emotion state, impulse buying, stimulus-organism-response, the urge of impulse buying

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Authors: Wei-Jing Li, Ren-Xuan Yang, Kui-Hao Chuang, Ming-Yen Wey

Abstract:

Nowadays, plastic product and utilization are extensive and have greatly improved our life. Yet, plastic wastes are stable and non-biodegradable challenging issues to the environment. Waste-to-energy strategies emerge a promising way for waste management. This work investigated the co-production of hydrogen and carbon nanotubes from the syngas which was from the gasification of polypropylene. A nickel-silica core-shell catalyst was applied for syngas reaction from plastic waste gasification in a fixed-bed reactor. SiO2 were prepared through various synthesis solvents by Stöber process. Ni plays a role as modified SiO2 support, which were synthesized by deposition-precipitation method. Core-shell catalysts have strong interaction between active phase and support, in order to avoid catalyst sintering. Moreover, Fe or Co metal acts as promoter to enhance catalytic activity. The effects of calcined atmosphere, second metal addition, and reaction temperature on hydrogen production and carbon yield were examined. In this study, the catalytic activity and carbon yield results revealed that the Ni/SiO2 catalyst calcined under H2 atmosphere exhibited the best performance. Furthermore, Co promoted Ni/SiO2 catalyst produced 3 times more than Ni/SiO2 on carbon yield at long-term operation. The structure and morphological nature of the calcined and spent catalysts were examined using different characterization techniques including scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction. In addition, the quality and thermal stability of the nano-carbon materials were also evaluated by Raman spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis.

Keywords: plastic wastes, hydrogen, carbon nanotube, core-shell catalysts

Procedia PDF Downloads 296