Future interactions between sea level rise, tides, and storm surges in the world's largest urban area

The Pearl River Delta contains the world's largest urban area in both size and population. It is a low‐lying flood‐prone coastal environment exposed to sea level rise (SLR) and extreme water levels caused by typhoons. A Finite Volume Community Ocean Model implementation for the South China Sea and the Pearl River Delta is used to understand how future SLR, tides, and typhoon storm surges will interact and affect coastal inundation. The SLR signal and extreme surge levels provide the major contributions to flooding; however, amplification of tides could exceed 0.5 m for 2.1 m SLR and should be considered when planning future coastal defences. On the other hand, if typhoons like Hato or Mangkhut, the latest and strongest ones hitting the area, were to happen in the future, a surge level reduction up to 0.5 m could be expected in coastal areas

Comparing public and private hospitals in China: Evidence from Guangdong

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The literature comparing private not-for-profit, for-profit, and government providers mostly relies on empirical evidence from high-income and established market economies. Studies from developing and transitional economies remain scarce, especially regarding patient case-mix and quality of care in public and private hospitals, even though countries such as China have expanded a mixed-ownership approach to service delivery. The purpose of this study is to compare the operations and performance of public and private hospitals in Guangdong Province, China, focusing on differences in patient case-mix and quality of care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We analyze survey data collected from 362 government-owned and private hospitals in Guangdong Province in 2005, combining mandatorily reported administrative data with a survey instrument designed for this study. We use univariate and multi-variate regression analyses to compare hospital characteristics and to identify factors associated with simple measures of structural quality and patient outcomes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Compared to private hospitals, government hospitals have a higher average value of total assets, more pieces of expensive medical equipment, more employees, and more physicians (controlling for hospital beds, urban location, insurance network, and university affiliation). Government and for-profit private hospitals do not statistically differ in total staffing, although for-profits have proportionally more support staff and fewer medical professionals. Mortality rates for non-government non-profit and for-profit hospitals do not statistically differ from those of government hospitals of similar size, accreditation level, and patient mix.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In combination with other evidence on health service delivery in China, our results suggest that changes in ownership type alone are unlikely to dramatically improve or harm overall quality. System incentives need to be designed to reward desired hospital performance and protect vulnerable patients, regardless of hospital ownership type.</p

Image Fusion Algorithm Based On Orientation Information Motivated Pulse Coupled Neural Networks

Pulse Coupled Neural Networks (PCNN) is a visual cortex-inspired neural networks and characterized by the global coupling and pulse synchronization of neurons. It has been proven suitable for image processing and successfully employed in image fusion. However, in most PCNN-based fusion algorithms, only single pixel value is input to motivate PCNN neuron. This is not effective enough because humans are often sensitive to features, not only pixel value. In this paper, novel orientation information is considered as features to motivate PCNN. Visual observation and objective performance evaluation criteria demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms typical wavelet-based, lapacian pyramid transform-based and PCNN-based fusion algorithms.This work is supported by Navigation Science Foundation of China under grant no. 05F07001 and National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant no. 60472081

Differentiation potential of STRO-1+ dental pulp stem cells changes during cell passaging

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) can be driven into odontoblast, osteoblast, and chondrocyte lineages in different inductive media. However, the differentiation potential of naive DPSCs after serial passaging in the routine culture system has not been fully elucidated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>DPSCs were isolated from human/rat dental pulps by the magnetic activated cell sorting based on STRO-1 expression, cultured and passaged in the conventional culture media. The biological features of STRO-1⁺DPSCs at the 1^stand 9^thpassages were investigated. During the long-term passage, the proliferation ability of human STRO-1⁺DPSCs was downregulated as indicated by the growth kinetics. When compared with STRO-1⁺DPSCs at the 1^stpassage (DPSC-P1), the expression of mature osteoblast-specific genes/proteins (alkaline phosphatase, bone sialoprotein, osterix, and osteopontin), odontoblast-specific gene/protein (dentin sialophosphoprotein and dentin sialoprotein), and chondrocyte-specific gene/protein (type II collagen) was significantly upregulated in human STRO-1⁺DPSCs at the 9^thpassage (DPSC-P9). Furthermore, human DPSC-P9 cells in the mineralization-inducing media presented higher levels of alkaline phosphatase at day 3 and day 7 respectively, and produced more mineralized matrix than DPSC-P9 cells at day 14. <it>In vivo </it>transplantation results showed that rat DPSC-P1 cell pellets developed into dentin, bone and cartilage structures respectively, while DPSC-P9 cells can only generate bone tissues.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These findings suggest that STRO-1⁺DPSCs consist of several interrelated subpopulations which can spontaneously differentiate into odontoblasts, osteoblasts, and chondrocytes. The differentiation capacity of these DPSCs changes during cell passaging, and DPSCs at the 9^thpassage restrict their differentiation potential to the osteoblast lineage <it>in vivo</it>.</p

Role Stress, Job Burnout, and Job Performance in Construction Project Managers: The Moderating Role of Career Calling

This study aims to explore the influence of role stress (role ambiguity and role conflict) on job burnout and job performance in construction project managers in the Chinese construction industry. Based on the JD-R (Job Demands Resources) model, this study introduces career calling as the moderating variable, in order to develop a theoretical model. The theoretical model is then tested with structural equation modeling. This work uses data from 191 owners, contractors, subcontractors, and supervisors in the Chinese construction industry. The results indicate that: (i) role ambiguity has a negative and significant effect on job burnout and job performance; (ii) role conflict has a negative effect on job burnout, but has a non-significant influence on job performance; (iii) job burnout has a negative impact on job performance; (iv) career calling negatively moderates the relationship between role ambiguity and job burnout, and positively moderates the relationship between role conflict and job performance. Furthermore, the results also show that career calling can positively moderate the effect of role conflict on job burnout. This study expands the existing body of knowledge by reasonably controlling role stress and appropriately introducing career calling. In addition, the study provides some suggestions relevant to construction project management

Unravelling effects of project complexity on project success and project management success: a meta-analytic review

Construction project complexity can be daunting, so both academics and practitioners have been looking for guidance. Previous studies have attempted to reconcile the inconsistencies and complexities in the relationships among project complexity, project success, and project management success. However, such research has failed to establish these clear relationships. Accordingly, the approach of systematic review and meta-analysis is applied in this study to investigate and compare how different project complexity affects project success and project management success by selecting 22 articles and 77 effect sizes. The results indicate that integrational complexity significantly positively affects project success, whereas it is not significantly negatively associated with project management success. Within a technical-organizational-environmental (TOE) framework, effects of organizational, environmental, and technical complexity on project success and project management success are also discussed here. A possible moderator (the national/regional income level) is tested and verified. The findings contribute to the system of knowledge on project complexity and provide guidelines for decision-makers to achieve a balance between project success and project management success in routine operation of construction projects

Research on Drilling Rate Optimization of a UCS Identification System While Drilling for Coal Mine Roadway Roofs

In this paper, to identify the roof unconfined compressive strength (UCS) in the process of coal mine roadway support in real-time and optimize the real-time drilling speed while drilling, this paper proposes and establishes a drilling test method for assessing the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of a roof. This method can be used to optimize the speed of drilling. Moreover, a mathematical model of the power output is developed for a roof-strata identification system with a drilling test system. The results were as follows: (1) the system was able to identify the uniaxial compressive strength of roof rock; (2) the pressure of the drill leg of the pneumatic bolt did not match the output power of the pneumatic motor, the pneumatic motor could not reach the maximum power point, and the insufficient thrust of the pneumatic leg led to failure of the maximum output power of the pneumatic motor; (3) to increase the output power of the air motor and thus improve the drilling speed, we applied a booster valve for the system. The experimental results show that the power of the air motor has a linear relationship with drilling speed. In this way, the speed of the drill can be increased by increasing the motor power

Effects of structure characteristics of project network on conflicts and project success

Zhao, X ORCiD: 0000-0003-0153-5173Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between structure characteristics of project network, types of conflicts and project success. Design/methodology/approach - Network density and centrality were used to reflect the structure characteristics of project network. This study collected 254 valid responses from construction professionals (including project managers, department managers and project engineers) via a questionnaire survey and analyzed the data using structural equation modeling and bootstrapping techniques. Findings - The results showed that network centrality of project stakeholders negatively affected project success, whereas the effect of network density on project success was non-significant. The network density was positively related to task conflict, whereas negatively related to process and relationship conflict. Network centrality was positively related to relationship conflict and had negative effects on task and process conflict. Project conflicts served as the mediator, weakening the relationship between network structure characteristics and project success. Research limitations/implications - This study provides direction for project managers and other stakeholders (e.g. owners, contractors and subcontractors) to appropriately establish social ties and manage conflicts to achieve project success. However, the potential influence of conflict transformation on project success, the dynamic nature of project networks and the network diagram were not addressed in the context of diverse culture. The future research should cover different stakeholders in order to get an integrative understanding of project networks and collect data from different cultural and industrial characteristics, extending and verifying the results. Originality/value - The outcomes of the study provide evidence in regard to social network ties governance, which is comprised by the important or representative stakeholders, being a part of the effective strategy in improving project success. This study also contributes to the knowledge of conflict management in the project context, revealing the positive and negative of project conflicts and enriching the current understandings of the underlying mechanism of the project network characteristics on project success

Experimental Investigation and Numerical Analyses on Cyclic Behavior of the Prefabricated Concrete Frame Infilled with CFS-CLPM Composite Walls

A novel CFS composite wall filled with cement-based lightweight polymer material (CFS-CLPM composite wall) has been proposed and proven to have excellent architectural and mechanical performance. To promote its application in prefabricated concrete (PC) frame structures, two full-scale specimens were designed and tested under cyclic loading to investigate the failure mode, hysteretic response and energy dissipation of the PC frame infilled with the CFS-CLPM composite wall. The experimental results indicated that CFS-CLPM composite walls can significantly improve the lateral behavior of the PC frame in terms of load capacity, elastic stiffness and energy dissipation capacity, while slightly reducing its ductility because of the infill-frame interaction. Subsequently, finite element (FE) analyses for the PC frame infilled with CFS-CLPM composite walls were developed and verified against the experimental results. The force-transferring mechanisms between the PC frame and the CFS-CLPM composite walls were revealed by analyzing the stress distributions. The parametric analyses demonstrated that the influential parameters for lateral resistances of the PC frame structure infilled with CFS-CLPM composite walls were the strength of CLPM, the span-to-height ratio and the thickness of CFS-CLPM composite walls. Finally, a formula considering the mechanical contribution of the CFS-CLPM composite wall was proposed to predict the elastic lateral stiffness of the structures. The results of this study could provide a basis for the application of CFS-CLPM composite walls in PC frame structures