The Surrounded Atom Theory of Order-disorder Phase Transition in Binary Alloys

In this paper, the surrounded atom model is developed to study the order-disorder phase transition in binary alloys. We calculate the configurational free energy of the alloys, derive the equation of equilibrium and determine the critical temperature of the phase transition

Throughput analysis of non-orthogonal multiple access and orthogonal multiple access assisted wireless energy harvesting K-hop relaying networks

This study introduces the non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) technique into the wireless energy harvesting K-hop relay network to increase throughput. The relays have no dedicated energy source and thus depend on energy harvested by wireless from a power beacon (PB). Recently, NOMA has been promoted as a technology with the potential to enhance connectivity, reduce latency, increase fairness amongst users, and raise spectral effectiveness compared to orthogonal multiple access (OMA) technology. For performance considerations, we derive exact throughput expressions for NOMA and OMA-assisted multi-hop relaying and compare the performance between the two. The obtained results are validated via Monte Carlo simulations

Level of Factors impact on the Buyers’ Intention in Buying Private Health Insurance with the Case of Vietnam Non-Life Insurance Companies

The study aims to determine the influence of factors affecting the intention to purchase private health insurance at non-life insurance companies in Vietnam. The samples were surveyed from 500 people from many areas but mostly in Hanoi. The study identified and clarified 5 independent factors affecting the intention to buy private health insurance at non-life health insurance companies in Vietnam. The analysis results show 5 variables: "Past experience", "Perception of service quality of insurance companies", "Perceived behavioral control", "Attitude towards risks and private health insurance ", and the variable "Subjective norms on private health insurance" affect people's intention to buy private health insurance. Several policies have been proposed to increase customers' intention to buy private health insurance at non-life insurance companies from the analysis. To raise customer's intention to purchase private health insurance, the research team recommends non-life insurance company to improve service quality, especially after-sales service, the quality and expertise of staff, and the government to complete policies and legal framework on private health insurance. Moreover, the research team also recommend to renovate the quality of organizing the private health insurance regime and form the basis of the entire population pathology record. Keywords: private health insurance, intention to purchase, non-life insurance company. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-27-06 Publication date:September 30th 202

Impact of relations between employees and customers to the customers’ positive word-of-mouth in real estate industry

The study aims to explore and measure the relationship between employees and customers impacting positively to the word-of-mouth of customers who bought house from the real estate developers in Ho Chi Minh City. The study was based on survey data from 300 customers who bought house from the real estate developers in Ho Chi Minh City and using techniques of Cronbach Alpha analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The study shows 4 factors of customer relationship affecting positively customers’ word-of-mouth, including: (1) Familiarity; (2) Personal connection; (3) Care; (4) Trust. From the findings, the study suggests some policy implications to the real estate developers to improve the customers’ positive word-of-mouth

Performance of multi-hop cognitive MIMO relaying networks with joint constraint of intercept probability and limited interference

In this paper, we propose a multi-hop multiple input multiple output (MIMO) decode-and-forward relaying protocol in cognitive radio networks. In this protocol, a multi-antenna secondary source attempts to send its data to a multi-antenna secondary destination with assistance of multiple intermediate multi-antenna nodes, in presence of a multi-antenna secondary eavesdropper. A primary network includes a primary transmitter and a primary receiver which are equipped with multiple antennas, and use transmit antenna selection (TAS) and selection combining (SC) to communicate with each other. Operating on the underlay spectrum sharing method, the secondary source and relay nodes have to adjust their transmit power so that the outage performance of the primary network is not harmful and satisfy the quality of service (QoS). Moreover, these secondary nodes also reduce their transmit power so that the intercept probability (IP) at the eavesdropper at each hop is below a desired value. To improve the outage performance of the secondary network under the joint constraint of IP and limited interference, the TAS/SC method is employed to relay the source data hop-by-hop to the destination. We derived exact closed-form expressions of the end-to-end (e2e) outage probability (OP) and IP of the proposed protocol over Rayleigh fading channels. Monte Carlo simulations are then performed to verify the theoretical derivations

Analysis of rDNA reveals a high genetic diversity of Halophila major in the Wallacea region

The genus Halophila shows the highest species diversity within the seagrass genera. Southeast Asian countries where several boundary lines exist were considered as the origin of seagrasses. We hypothesize that the boundary lines, such as Wallace’s and Lydekker’s Lines, may act as marine geographic barriers to the population structure of Halophila major. Seagrass samples were collected at three islands in Vietnamese waters and analyzed by the molecular maker ITS. These sequences were compared with published ITS sequences from seagrasses collected in the whole region of interest. In this study, we reveal the haplotype and nucleotide diversity, linking population genetics, phylogeography, phylogenetics and estimation of relative divergence times of H. major and other members of the Halophila genus. The morphological characters show variation. The results of the ITS marker analysis reveal smaller groups of H. major from Myanmar, Shoalwater Bay (Australia) and Okinawa (Japan) with high supporting values. The remaining groups including Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Two Peoples Bay (Australia) and Tokushima (Japan) showed low supporting values. The Wallacea region shows the highest haplotype and also nucleotide diversity. Non-significant differences were found among regions, but significant differences were presented among populations. The relative divergence times between some members of section Halophila were estimated 2.15–6.64 Mya

A Large-Scale Study of a Sleep Tracking and Improving Device with Closed-loop and Personalized Real-time Acoustic Stimulation

Various intervention therapies ranging from pharmaceutical to hi-tech tailored solutions have been available to treat difficulty in falling asleep commonly caused by insomnia in modern life. However, current techniques largely remain ill-suited, ineffective, and unreliable due to their lack of precise real-time sleep tracking, in-time feedback on the therapies, an ability to keep people asleep during the night, and a large-scale effectiveness evaluation. Here, we introduce a novel sleep aid system, called Earable, that can continuously sense multiple head-based physiological signals and simultaneously enable closed-loop auditory stimulation to entrain brain activities in time for effective sleep promotion. We develop the system in a lightweight, comfortable, and user-friendly headband with a comprehensive set of algorithms and dedicated own-designed audio stimuli. We conducted multiple protocols from 883 sleep studies on 377 subjects (241 women, 119 men) wearing either a gold-standard device (PSG), Earable, or both concurrently. We demonstrate that our system achieves (1) a strong correlation (0.89 +/- 0.03) between the physiological signals acquired by Earable and those from the gold-standard PSG, (2) an 87.8 +/- 5.3% agreement on sleep scoring using our automatic real-time sleep staging algorithm with the consensus scored by three sleep technicians, and (3) a successful non-pharmacological stimulation alternative to effectively shorten the duration of sleep falling by 24.1 +/- 0.1 minutes. These results show that the efficacy of Earable exceeds existing techniques in intentions to promote fast falling asleep, track sleep state accurately, and achieve high social acceptance for real-time closed-loop personalized neuromodulation-based home sleep care.Comment: 33 pages, 8 figure

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in Investigating Consumption Behavior in Vietnam

This study explored the consumer behavior based on TPB model in Vietnam. The hypotheses are empirically tested using survey data obtained from consumer who purchased green products of household appliances in Hanoi– the capital of Vietnam. During the study, the research team added the “trend” variable which is a characteristic variable in Vietnam. The results of the multiple regression analysis show that attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, trend have significant and positive effect on household appliances product. The research findings are discussed and implications for government, manufacturing businesses, retail businesses to embrace green consumption behavior Keywords: Consumption Behavior; Vietnam; TPB; Household appliances DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-18-16 Publication date:June 30th 202

Plasma‐treated flammulina velutipes‐derived extract showed anticancer potential in human breast cancer cells

Natural products with medicinal properties are among alternative therapies of interest due to their high body tolerance. We aimed to determine whether nonthermal gas plasma could enhance the medicinal value of Flammulina velutipes mushrooms. Generated gas plasma was characterized by its emission spectrum in ambient air, pH, temperature, and H2O2 and NOx concentrations after exposure for various periods. Phenolic and flavonoid contents in the extracts were measured using antioxidant assays and Fourier transform infrared and ultraviolet‐visible spectroscopy. We analyzed the effects of the plasma‐treated mushroom‐derived extracts against breast carcinoma using the MCF7 and MDA‐MB231 cell lines. The extracts significantly and concentration dependently inhibited the growth of breast cancer cells without inducing toxicity in normal MCF10A cells, and induced apoptosis via oxidative stress, evidenced by DNA damage (γ‐ H2AX foci formation), and increased the population of MCF7 breast cancer cells arrested in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle. The extracts also induced mitochondrion‐mediated apoptosis of MCF7 cells through cytochrome c release and caspase cleavage activity. The plasma improved the biological activity of mushrooms by increasing their phenolic compounds that prevented the growth of breast cancer cells in vitro. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland