An Intelligent Auxiliary Vacuum Brake System

The purpose of this paper focuses on designing an intelligent, compact, reliable, and robust auxiliary vacuum brake system (VBS) with Kalman filter and self-diagnosis scheme. All of the circuit elements in the designed system are integrated into one programmable system-on-chip (PSoC) with entire computational algorithms implemented by software. In this system, three main goals are achieved: (a) Kalman filter and hysteresis controller algorithms are employed within PSoC chip by software to surpass the noises and disturbances from hostile surrounding in a vehicle. (b) Self-diagnosis scheme is employed to identify any breakdown element of the auxiliary vacuum brake system. (c) Power MOSFET is utilized to implement PWM pump control and compared with relay control. More accurate vacuum pressure control has been accomplished as well as power energy saving. In the end, a prototype has been built and tested to confirm all of the performances claimed above

Asymmetric Adjustments in the Ethanol and Grains Markets

This paper examines the long- and short-run asymmetric adjustments for nine pairs of spot and futures prices, itemized as three own pairs for three different bio-fuel ethanol types, three own pairs for three related agricultural products, namely corn, soybeans and sugar, and three cross pairs that included hybrids of the spot price of each of the agricultural products and an ethanol futures price. Most of the spreads’ asymmetric adjustments generally happen during narrowing. The three ethanol pairs that contain the eCBOT futures with each of Chicago spot, New York Harbor spot and Western European (Rotterdam) spot show different long-run adjustments, arbitrage profitable opportunities and price risk hedging capabilities. The asymmetric spread adjustments for the three grains are also different, with corn spread showing the strongest long-run widening adjustment, and sugar showing the weakest narrowing adjustment. Among others, the empirical analysis indicates the importance of potentially hedging the spot prices of agricultural commodities with ethanol futures contracts, which sends an important message that the ethanol futures market is capable of hedging price risk in agricultural commodity markets. The short-run asymmetric adjustments for individual prices in the nine pairs (with exception of the corn own pair underscore the importance of futures prices in the price discovery and hedging potential, particularly for ethanol futures.Long-run and short-run asymmetric adjustments; ethanol; agricultural products; arbitrage opportunities; hedging; widening and narrowing adjustment

Using Semantic Web Technology to Design Agent-to-Agent Argumentation Mechanism in an E-Marketplace

In existing e-marketplaces, buyers can use search engines to find products that exactly match their demands, but some products those are potentially interesting to them cannot be found out. This research aims to design a multi-agent e-marketplace in which buyers and sellers can delegate their agents to argue over product attributes via an agent-to-agent argumentation mechanism. A seller agent is able to persuade a buyer agent to believe the seller’s product is interesting to the buyer. To make this idea possible, this research adopts the Semantic Web technology to express agents’ ontologies and uses an abstract argumentation framework with dialectical game approach to support defeasible reasoning. This research hopes the proposed architecture and approach can help buyers to find out potential interesting products and help sellers to increase revenue through their agents and help existing and initiative e-marketplaces to design their argumentation mechanisms

Institutionalization, Organizational Commitment, and Hope for Personal Fulfillment in The Shawshank Redemption

Institutionalization is a socialization process through which the values, beliefs, policies, and practices of an organization are instilled within the members of that organization that they might collectively adopt these values or rules and commit themselves to that organization. However, those being institutionalized under authoritarian discipline may lose the freedom of their soul and a personal level of self. In order to raise readers’ awareness of the impact of institutionalization and commitment on the individual or collective actors, this study intends to use the film The Shawshank Redemption as a case study, using content analysis as a qualitative research technique to analyze the symbolic scenes in the film in order to reveal how commitment and stability via institutionalization can be brought into the organization. To achieve this goal, the study uses Scott’s institutional theory and Meyer and Allen’s organizational commitment model to demonstrate how commitment may greatly impact people. Those being institutionalized, like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption, may lose their ability to think and act independently and thus lose their hope for fulfillment. However, those like Andy and, later, Red, choosing to hold on to freedom of the soul and a personal level of self, can deinstitutionalize themselves; break free of the shackles, either physically or spiritually, of the organization; and make a commitment toward their own inner development

Potential roles of microRNAs and ROS in colorectal cancer: diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets

As one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide, colorectal adenocarcinoma often occurs sporadically in individuals aged 50 or above and there is an increase among younger patients under 50. Routine screenings are recommended for this age group to improve early detection. The multifactorial etiology of colorectal cancer consists of both genetic and epigenetic factors. Recently, studies have shown that the development and progression of colorectal cancer can be attributed to aberrant expression of microRNA. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) that play a key role in cancer cell survival, can also lead to carcinogenesis and cancer exacerbations. Given the rapid accumulating knowledge in the field, an updated review regarding microRNA and ROS in colorectal cancer is necessary. An extensive literature search has been conducted in PubMed/Medline databases to review the roles of microRNAs and ROS in colorectal cancer. Unique microRNA expression in tumor tissue, peripheral blood, and fecal samples from patients with colorectal cancer is outlined. Therapeutic approaches focusing on microRNA and ROS in colorectal cancer treatment is also delineated. This review aims to summarize the newest knowledge on the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer in the hopes of discovering novel diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic techniques

Identifiability of the Simplex Volume Minimization Criterion for Blind Hyperspectral Unmixing: The No Pure-Pixel Case

In blind hyperspectral unmixing (HU), the pure-pixel assumption is well-known to be powerful in enabling simple and effective blind HU solutions. However, the pure-pixel assumption is not always satisfied in an exact sense, especially for scenarios where pixels are heavily mixed. In the no pure-pixel case, a good blind HU approach to consider is the minimum volume enclosing simplex (MVES). Empirical experience has suggested that MVES algorithms can perform well without pure pixels, although it was not totally clear why this is true from a theoretical viewpoint. This paper aims to address the latter issue. We develop an analysis framework wherein the perfect endmember identifiability of MVES is studied under the noiseless case. We prove that MVES is indeed robust against lack of pure pixels, as long as the pixels do not get too heavily mixed and too asymmetrically spread. The theoretical results are verified by numerical simulations

Comparison of Radical Scavenging Activity, Cytotoxic Effects and Apoptosis Induction in Human Melanoma Cells by Taiwanese Propolis from Different Sources

Propolis is a sticky substance that is collected from plants by honeybees. We previously demonstrated that propolins A, B, C, D, E and F, isolated from Taiwanese propolis (TP), could effectively induce human melanoma cell apoptosis and were strong antioxidant agents. In this study, we evaluated TP for free radical scavenging activity by DPPH (1,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl). The phenolic concentrations were quantified by the Folin–Ciocalteu method. The apoptosis trigger activity in human melanoma cells was evaluated. TP contained a higher level of phenolic compounds and showed strong capability to scavenge free radicals. Additionally, TP1g, TP3, TP4 and TP7 exhibited a cytotoxic effect on human melanoma cells, with an IC(50) of ∼2.3, 2.0, 3.3 and 3.3 μg/ml, respectively. Flow cytometric analysis for DNA fragmentation indicated that TP1g, TP2, TP3 and TP7 could induce apoptosis in human melanoma cells and there is a marked loss of cells from the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. To address the mechanism of the apoptosis effect of TP, we evaluated its effects on induction of apoptosis-related proteins in human melanoma cells. The levels of procaspase-3 and PARP [poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase] were markedly decreased. Furthermore, propolins A, B, C, D, E and F in TP were determined using HPLC. The results indicate that TP is a rich source of these compounds. The findings suggest that TP induces apoptosis in human melanoma cells due to its high level of propolins