Chinese university students' perspectives toward their gay and lesbian peers

In this research, our participants were asked five questions: Do gay and lesbian people fit into Chinese society? Are Chinese university students open and tolerant on gay and lesbian issues? How do these students perceive their gay and lesbian peers? How do their beliefs affect their attitudes toward their gay and lesbian peers? Is their university a safe and welcoming place for gay and lesbian students? To answer these questions, a qualitative methodology was employed involving six one-on-one interviews and two focus group interviews. The participants did not believe that gay and lesbian people fit into Chinese society; however, the students themselves are becoming more open and tolerant on gay and lesbian issues in recent years because of the influence of technological innovation, media, and Western culture. The findings suggest a degree of acceptance of gays and lesbians though the participants simultaneously distanced themselves from their homosexual peers. They perceived the university to be a safe place for gay and lesbian students in the sense that nobody would hurt them, but they did not see the university as a welcoming place. To better understand the students’ perspectives, the transcripts were analyzed within a Chinese cultural and social context. Offering a realistic picture of heterosexual students’ perspectives might encourage them to reduce discrimination against their gay and lesbian peers, and to create a better learning environment for both heterosexual and homosexual students

Hydrates Production Prediction With Computer Modelling Group (CMG) Stars. A Comprehensive Review

Abstract: Hydrates are an enormous energy resource with global circulation in the permafrost and in the oceans. Even if conventional estimates are deliberated and only a small fraction is recoverable, the pure size of the resource is so huge that it demands assessment as a potential energy source. In this research work, we discuss the hydrate production prediction with Computer Modeling Group STARS (CMG STARS). In this paper different literatures reviews have been visited concerning hydrate production prediction with CMG STARS and this have been done through consulting internet search in which secondary data were extracted. It was observed that most literatures does not quantify the knowledge on how hydrates production prediction with CMG STARS can be done. It was recommended that in the future, the research work on hydrate production prediction with CMG needs to be done by performing sensitivity analysis of different reservoir parameters which affect production process and commences the simulation model for the production predictio

The Ethics of Unlocking a Billion More Brains

Online programs that engage a global audience are often promoted as “democratizing” education worldwide. However, the ethics of expecting students globally to conform to Western academic values and processes is largely ignored. Until programs are designed and delivered with cultural intelligence and humility, their full value will be compromised

Longitudinal response of parallel hoisting system with time-varying rope length

The longitudinal vibration model of parallel hoisting system with tension auto balance device (TABD) attached to the ends of all hoisting ropes is established, and the governing equations of the model are derived based on Hamilton’s principle. Galerkin’s effort is applied to discretize the infinite-dimensional partial differential equations into a set of finite-dimensional ordinary differential equations, so that the model can be solved with numerical solutions. Subsequently, an ADAMS simulation is carried out, and the simulation result has verified the validity of the numerical solution. Consequently, in order to investigate the longitudinal responses of the two hoisting ropes, the model is calculated numerically with different coefficients and excitations. The results of the numerical solution have shown that: For the parallel hoisting system with TABD attached to the ends of all hoisting ropes, the conveyance will be the main excitation that affects the longitudinal vibration of the ropes, and the system acceleration will also cause a relatively large longitudinal vibration in the ropes

Passive MDI-QKD

A recently proposed fully passive QKD removes all source modulator side channels. In this work, we combine the fully passive sources with MDI-QKD to remove simultaneously side channels from source modulators and detectors. We show a numerical simulation of the passive MDI-QKD, and we obtain an acceptable key rate while getting much better implementation security, as well as ease of implementation, compared with a recently proposed fully passive TF-QKD, paving the way towards more secure and practical QKD systems. We have proved that a fully passive protocol is compatible with MDI-QKD and we also proposed a novel idea that could potentially improve the sifting efficiency

Lateral response and energetics of cable-guided hoisting system with time-varying length

The lateral response, energetics and stability of the cable-guided hoisting system that differs from the rail-guided, such as elevator systems, is investigated in this paper. While the equations of motion are established by Hamilton's principle, the boundary conditions are obtained to calculate the natural frequencies with the modified velocity of wave propagation. Then, the governing equation is transformed into a set of ordinary differential equations through the Galerkin method and the rate of change in the energy is derived from the control volume viewpoint. The system frequencies, response of each order and energy characteristics are analyzed. The results show that the system frequencies first decrease, and then increase with the increase of the length and demonstrate that the modified velocity of wave propagation is reasonable by comparison of three approaches. The presented method proves to be effective to obtain the response of each order. According to Lyapunov’s second method, the rate of change in the energy indicates the cable-guided hoisting system experiences stability and instability during downward and upward movements, respectively

Finite element analysis of coupled vibration for hoisting cable with time-varying length

The coupled axial-torsional responses of the hoisting cable with time-varying length are investigated in order to predict the longitudinal vibration more accurately. The equations of motion are formulated by Hamilton’s principle and the finite element method (FEM), in which a variable-length cable element is introduced. In order to validate this theoretical model, an ADAMS simulation model is established in the framework of the multi-body system dynamic. The result shows that the numerical solution is in reasonably good agreement with the ADAMS simulation. The frequencies of the cables with the coupling considered and neglected are analyzed by varying the excitation frequency, which indicates that the coupling effect reduces the natural frequency of the cable and the maximum amplitude shifts from the resonance region to the deceleration stage as the coupling coefficient increases

Coupled vibration of hoisting cable in cable-guided hoisting system with different swivels

In most cases, the hoisting cable in the cable-guided hoisting system is connected to the hoisting bucket with the swivel. The coupled longitudinal-torsional responses of the hoisting cable with time-varying length are investigated. The hoisting cable and two guiding cables are discretized by employing the assumed modes method, while the equations of motion are derived using Lagrange equations of the first kind, where a coefficient λ varying from 0 to 1 is introduced to represent the free spinning, proportional and self-locking swivels. The longitudinal and torsional displacements with different swivels are obtained. The results indicate the torsional displacement in the free spinning swivel is much larger than that in the proportional and there is one resonance in the former, while the longitudinal resonance in the free spinning swivel occurs earlier than that in the other two, which implies the system frequencies decrease. In addition, the presented model could also be used to describe the coupled vibration in the rigid rail-guided hoisting system but needs more modes

Study on Fatigue Characteristics of Concrete Sleepers with Porous Basalt as the Aggregate

Due to the shortage of local materials, porous basalt was used as the coarse aggregate in the prefabrication of sleepers for the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway in Kenya. To study their fatigue characteristics, the sleepers were measured under fatigue loading for their local strain, overall deformation and crack initiation. The methods used include the traditional strain measurement, the sleeper deflection measurement and the 3D optical strain measurement. To be more specific, the traditional strain measurement method was employed to compare the strain-load relation of the sleepers under different cyclic loading times. Deflection variations of the sleepers were taken into consideration to analyze sleeper local defects and the variation law of the constitutive relation for concrete. And the 3D optical non-contact strain measurement method was adopted to monitor the sleeper crack initiation and growth process under fatigue loading and analyze the crack growth law