Approach to E-Business: A Case Study of Shanghai Tobacco Group Corporation

With the fast development of Internet, e-Business is prospering in the recently five years. Many traditional companies have been convinced of this revolutionary change, and they are exploring a feasible way to adapt to the transition. Chinese companies have weaker bases than the developed countries, but they are also cognizant of the big trend, and are making great efforts to grasp the opportunities. This paper introduces a practical Chinese case that illustrates the increasingly strategic role of e-business applications in traditional manufacturing industries. The company we studied is a large Chinese tobacco corporation, which locates in Shanghai, one of the most developed areas of China. After the WTO entry of China, the regulation system of Chinese tobacco industry will be transformed from STMA (State Tobacco Monopoly Administration) to a more open one. This will bring about more competitive pressures to Chinese tobacco enterprises. How can traditional large corporations adapt to the real new economy in the new environment, it is a big problem that most of the Chinese tobacco corporation faced on. Sensing the challenges and opportunities, Shanghai Tobacco Group Corporation started to search after a new development way, and they intend to develop an e-business application model to improve its distribution processes to integrate their purchasing, manufacturing, delivering, logistics, and sales. Studying such a typical large company , it may be helpful for other large company in other industry. This paper first reports the background of Chinese tobacco industry and a brief history of the IT applications in Shanghai Tobacco Group Corporation (in the next part we use SHTG for short), then we discusses the environment and business factors that led to the e-business application. Based on the above introductions and discussions, we illustrate an e-business solution to handle the situation SHTG faced

Small Molecules Engage Hot Spots through Cooperative Binding To Inhibit a Tight Protein–Protein Interaction

Protein–protein interactions drive every aspect of cell signaling, yet only a few small-molecule inhibitors of these interactions exist. Despite our ability to identify critical residues known as hot spots, little is known about how to effectively engage them to disrupt protein–protein interactions. Here, we take advantage of the ease of preparation and stability of pyrrolinone 1, a small-molecule inhibitor of the tight interaction between the urokinase receptor (uPAR) and its binding partner, the urokinase-type plasminogen activator uPA, to synthesize more than 40 derivatives and explore their effect on the protein–protein interaction. We report the crystal structure of uPAR bound to previously discovered pyrazole 3 and to pyrrolinone 12. While both 3 and 12 bind to uPAR and compete with a fluorescently labeled peptide probe, only 12 and its derivatives inhibit the full uPAR·uPA interaction. Compounds 3 and 12 mimic and engage different hot-spot residues on uPA and uPAR, respectively. Interestingly, 12 is involved in a π–cation interaction with Arg-53, which is not considered a hot spot. Explicit-solvent molecular dynamics simulations reveal that 3 and 12 exhibit dramatically different correlations of motion with residues on uPAR. Free energy calculations for the wild-type and mutant uPAR bound to uPA or 12 show that Arg-53 interacts with uPA or with 12 in a highly cooperative manner, thereby altering the contributions of hot spots to uPAR binding. The direct engagement of peripheral residues not considered hot spots through π–cation or salt-bridge interactions could provide new opportunities for enhanced small-molecule engagement of hot spots to disrupt challenging protein–protein interactions

An assessment for health education and health promotion in chronic disease demonstration districts: a comparative study from Hunan Province, China

Background Cost-effective strategies of chronic disease control, integrated health education and health promotion play important roles in the programs of chronic disease demonstration districts in China. The performance of these districts can be directly assessed by their health education and promotion work. However, there have been only a few performance assessments done on these programs, most of which made without the inclusion of proper quality indicators. This study was designed to establish a framework of indicators for outcome evaluation of health education and promotion efforts in Chinese districts, and explore the factors involved in promoting these efforts. Methods A modified two-round Delphi survey was first used to construct quality indicators on a nine-point Likert scale. With those indicators, the rank sum ratio (RSR) method was then conducted through rank conversion and parametric statistics, to assess and classify the performance of ten districts or counties randomly chosen both from demonstration and non-demonstration districts in the Hunan province. Results The Delphi process produced seven themes and 25 sub-themes as quality indicators. The seven themes included organizational management, financial support, professional personnel, health education and promotion, residents’ health awareness and behaviors, residents’ satisfaction, and residents’ health literacy. The districts were classified into four levels by RSR as follows: One demonstration district at the first-ranked level, five other demonstration districts at the second-ranked level, all non-demonstration districts at the third-ranked level. None were at the fourth-qualified level. Discussion Chronic disease demonstration districts performed better on the work of health education and health promotion than the non-demonstration districts. The work should be focused on the following measures of chronic diseases: organizational management, financial support, media-related broadcasting, technical support, community-based promotion and supportive environment, and people’s enhanced awareness and health literacy

Non-Fermi liquid behavior in a correlated flatband pyrochlore lattice

Electronic correlation effects are manifested in quantum materials when either the onsite Coulomb repulsion is large or the electron kinetic energy is small. The former is the dominant effect in the cuprate superconductors or heavy fermion systems while the latter in twisted bilayer graphene or geometrically frustrated metals. However, the simultaneous cooperation of both effects in the same quantum material--the design principle to produce a correlated topological flat bands pinned at the Fermi level--remains rare. Here, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we report the observation of a flat band at the Fermi level in a 3$d$ pyrochlore metal CuV$_2$S$_4$. From a combination of first-principles calculations and slave-spin calculations, we understand the origin of this band to be a destructive quantum-interference effect associated with the V pyrochlore sublattice and further renormalization to the Fermi level by electron interactions in the partially filled V $t_{2g}$ orbitals. As a result, we find transport behavior that indicates a deviation from Fermi-liquid behavior as well as a large Sommerfeld coefficient. Our work demonstrates the pathway into correlated topology by constructing and pinning correlated flat bands near the Fermi level out of a pure $d$-electron system by the combined cooperation of local Coulomb interactions and geometric frustration in a pyrochlore lattice system.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Nature Physic

Emergence of Quasiparticles in a Doped Mott Insulator

How a Mott insulator develops into a weakly coupled metal upon doping is a central question to understanding various emergent correlated phenomena. To analyze this evolution and its connection to the high-$T_c$ cuprates, we study the single-particle spectrum for the doped Hubbard model using cluster perturbation theory on superclusters. Starting from extremely low doping, we identify a heavily renormalized quasiparticle dispersion that immediately develops across the Fermi level, and a weakening polaronic side band at higher binding energy. The quasiparticle spectral weight roughly grows at twice the rate of doping in the low doping regime, but this rate is halved at optimal doping. In the heavily doped regime, we find both strong electron-hole asymmetry and a persistent presence of Mott spectral features. Finally, we discuss the applicability of the single-band Hubbard model to describe the evolution of nodal spectra measured by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) on the single-layer cuprate La$_{2-x}$Sr$_x$CuO$_4$ ($0 \le x \le 0.15$). This work benchmarks the predictive power of the Hubbard model for electronic properties of high-$T_c$ cuprates.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Assessing the effectiveness of national park’s policies and laws in promoting biodiversity conservation and ecological development in Pakistan

Ecological history is crucial in ecosystem restoration, serving as a tool to identify and characterize suitable restoration targets. Pakistan has implemented laws and policies to enhance forest sustainability and preserve biodiversity, as it is becoming a global strategy for future water planning and management. This study seeks to analyze the impact of national park policies and laws on various factors, including biodiversity conservation, ecological processes preservation, water resource protection, consumptive and non-consumptive benefits, research and education, and the promotion of recreation and tourism. To assess the effectiveness of established policies in 19 National Parks in Pakistan, a mixed-mode research design was utilized, combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Data was collected from 300 participants through a close-ended questionnaire employing a Likert scale. Analysis of the collected data was conducted using the software Smart Partial Least Squares method. The findings demonstrate that the existing policies and laws have contributed to the preservation of forest sustainability in Pakistan. The policies related to recreation and tourism; consumptive benefits; and research are more effective respectively compared to other sets of regulations. The laws and policies related to preservation of ecological processes are least effective. The study suggests that laws related to national parks need to be revised to preserve biodiversity and ecological processes. The preservation of water resources should be a major concern, and the consumptive benefits of these parks should be rechecked. Awareness campaigns are to be part of the expansionary policy framework, and while tourism opportunities should be created, a check on natural resource misuse should be implemented. The non-consumptive benefits of these parks should also be assessed. Due to its potential limitations, such as limited stakeholder analysis, difficulty in creating legitimacy in national parks due to bureaucratic structures, lack of community sensitization, and long-term trends in sustainable conservation strategies, there are certain future research directions that can address challenges in studying the impact of policies on national park habitats. There is a pressing demand for a more dynamic approach to ecological policymaking. Continuous evaluation and adaptation of policies will be essential in creating an environment conducive to sustainable development

Testing Inflation with Large Scale Structure: Connecting Hopes with Reality

The statistics of primordial curvature fluctuations are our window into the period of inflation, where these fluctuations were generated. To date, the cosmic microwave background has been the dominant source of information about these perturbations. Large scale structure is however from where drastic improvements should originate. In this paper, we explain the theoretical motivations for pursuing such measurements and the challenges that lie ahead. In particular, we discuss and identify theoretical targets regarding the measurement of primordial non-Gaussianity. We argue that when quantified in terms of the local (equilateral) template amplitude $f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc}$ ($f_{\rm NL}^{\rm eq}$), natural target levels of sensitivity are $\Delta f_{\rm NL}^{\rm loc, eq.} \simeq 1$. We highlight that such levels are within reach of future surveys by measuring 2-, 3- and 4-point statistics of the galaxy spatial distribution. This paper summarizes a workshop held at CITA (University of Toronto) on October 23-24, 2014.Comment: 27 pages + reference

Safe passing critical criterion for drawn top-coal on rear conveyor and accurate control approach for drawing opening dimension

Fully mechanized top coal caving technology has become the mainstream way of high yield and high efficiency mining in extra thick coal seams in China. The accurate control of the top-coal drawing mechanical parts is of significance to realize the automation and intellectualization of top-coal caving mining. Mastering the spatial motion law of the coal caving mechanism is the premise of accurate control. The immediate shape of the hydraulic support coal caving mechanism is jointly controlled by the support height, support attitude, extension length of the plug plate, and the relative position of the rear scraper, which has an important impact on the coal caving opening and the coal-passing height of the support. This study establishes a 3–D numerical model of four- legs top-coal caving hydraulic support (No. ZF15000/27.5/42) by using the finite element software ABAQUS. Hinge and translator connectors are used to simulate the rotation behavior and expansion-contraction behavior for hinge point and plug plate, respectively. Taking the support height (H), tail beam swing angle (α), and the plug plate extension length (l) as control variables, the spatial motion law of the hinge point between shield beam and tail beam and the end of the plug plate are modeled. The critical security equation for evaluating collision between top-coal drawing mechanical parts and rear scraper is obtained by using Levenberg-Marquardt fitting iteration method. A database for describe the calibration relationship, which contains the end coordination of plug plate, the dimension of the top-coal drawing opening, and H, α, and l, is established. The sensor type and installation position for sensing and controlling the attitude of the top-coal drawing mechanism are recommended, the approach for calculating the tail beam angle based on travel sensor is derived. Through field verification of top-coal drawing opening width, it is concluded that the relative error between measured value and calculated value meets the requirements for accurate control of top-coal drawing mechanism. The approach for controlling the top-coal drawing opening dimension is proposed, which has been successfully applied in the field