Report on Chinese Heritage Culture and Language Learning

This is a report/update on the School of Education project creating a website in Chinese on traditional Chinese holidays. It also includes other learning resources all listed in Chinese. This is a short report. Please check Supplemental or Related file(s) for the body of the short report

A Cased-Based Reasoning Decision Support System

Each bidding contractors estimates his likely costs of carrying out the work detailed in the project schedules and adds a percentage markup to form the bid value. The value of the markup crucially influences the chances of a bidder winning the contract. Clearly, a low markup value should increases the chance of winning but decrease the profit, whilst a high markup should increase the profit but decrease the chance of winning the contract. It is very difficult for contractors to decide a proper markup, which happens to produce a satisfactory balance between the probability of winning the contract and the profit generated as a result of winning the contract. This paper presents a case-based reasoning decision support system (CBR-DSS) that assists contractors in solving markup estimation problem. The CRR-DSS uses successful cases of previous completed projects to derive solution to new project markup estimation problem. The principle of the CBR-DSS is to analogy new project with previous projects. Key Words: Case-Based Reasoning, DSS, Bidding, Markup Résumé: Chaque contracteur demandé estime son coût d’application d’un travail détaillé dans les horaires et ajoute un percentage de maquillage pour avoir l’offre qui influence crucialement une éventuelle réussite d’un contrat. Evidemment une petite valeur de maquillage doit augmenter les chances de gagner mais réduire le profit tandis que un grand maquillage doit augmenter le profit mais réduire les chances d’arriver à un contract. Il est très difficile pour les contracteurs de décider une offre convenable, qui éventuellement produit une balance de satisfaction entre la probabilité d’achever le contrat et le profit considéré comme une réussite d’un contrat. Ce document présente un système du support decision rationnel basé sur les cas (CBR-DSS) qui permet aux contracteurs de s’engager dans la solution des problèmes estimés et demandés. Le CRR-DSS utilise des réussites de programmes pré-achévés qui servent à résoudre les problèmes d’estimation dans un nouveau programme. Le principe de CBR-DSS est trouver les solutions pour de nouveaux programmes par analogie ceux pré-achévés. Mots clés: Raisonnement basé sur les cas, DSS, offre, maquillage, acquisition Governmental

Novel proton conductors in the layered oxide material LixlAl0. 5Co0. 5O2

It is demonstrated that good proton conductors can be obtained in transition-element-rich layered intercalation materials such as LixAl0.5Co0.5O2. A power density of 173 mW cm−2 is achieved at 525 °C with a thick electrolyte (0.79 mm thick). The ionic conductivity of nominal LiAl0.5Co0.5O2 is 0.1 S cm−1 at 500 °C. This is the highest among known polycrystalline proton-conducting materials

Rashbon condensation in a Bose gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

We show that in a two-component Bose gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) two atoms can form bound states (Rashbons) with any intra-species scattering length. At zero center-of-mass momentum there are two degenerate Rashbons due to time-reversal symmetry, but the degeneracy is lifted at finite in-plane momentum with two different effective masses. A stable Rashbon condensation can be created in a dilute system with weakly attractive intra-species and repulsive inter-species interactions. The critical temperature of Rashbon condensation is about six times smaller than the BEC transition temperature of an ideal Bose gas. Due Rashba SOC, excitations in the Rashbon condensation phase are anisotropic in momentum space.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, text and figures update

GeV Scale Asymmetric Dark Matter from Mirror Universe: Direct Detection and LHC Signatures

Mirror universe is a fundamental way to restore parity symmetry in weak interactions. It naturally provides the lightest mirror nucleon as a unique GeV-scale asymmetric dark matter particle candidate. We conjecture that the mirror parity is respected by the fundamental interaction Lagrangian, and its possible soft breaking arises only from non-interaction terms in the gauge-singlet sector. We realize the spontaneous mirror parity violation by minimizing the vacuum Higgs potential, and derive the corresponding Higgs spectrum. We demonstrate that the common origin of CP violation in the visible and mirror neutrino seesaws can generate the right amount of matter and mirror dark matter via leptogenesis. We analyze the direct detections of GeV-scale mirror dark matter by TEXONO and CDEX experiments. We further study the predicted distinctive Higgs signatures at the LHC.Comment: 16pp. Plenary talk presented by HJH at the International Symposium on Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics (CosPA2011). To appear in the conference proceedings of IJMP. Minor refinement

Synthesis of ammonia directly from wet nitrogen using a redox stable La 0.75 Sr 0.25 Cr 0.5 Fe 0.5 O 3− δ–Ce 0.8 Gd 0.18 Ca 0.02 O 2− δ composite cathode

Ammonia was directly synthesised from wet nitrogen at an intermediate temperature (375–425 °C) based on the oxygen-ion conduction of the Ce0.8Gd0.18Ca0.02O2−δ–((Li/Na/K)2CO3) composite electrolyte. A redox stable perovskite-based catalyst, La0.75Sr0.25Cr0.5Fe0.5O3−δ (LSCrF), was synthesised via a combined EDTA–citrate complexing sol–gel process to be used as a component of the La0.75Sr0.25Cr0.5Fe0.5O3−δ–Ce0.8Gd0.18Ca0.02O2−δ composite cathode for ammonia synthesis. Ammonia formation was studied at 375, 400 and 425 °C and a maximum ammonia formation rate of 4.0 × 10−10 mol s−1 cm−2 with corresponding Faradaic efficiency of 3.87% was observed at 375 °C when the applied voltage was 1.4 V. This is much higher than 7.0 × 10−11 mol s−1 cm−2 at 1.4 V and 400 °C when Cr-free Sr-doped LaFeO3−δ, La0.6Sr0.4FeO3−δ was used as the catalyst for the electrochemical synthesis of ammonia, indicating LSCrF is potentially a better catalyst. Ammonia was successfully synthesised using a redox stable cathode with higher formation rates at reduced temperature. Introduction of Cr3+ ions at the B-site of doped LaFeO3 improves both the chemical stability and catalytic activity for ammonia synthesis

An International Comparison of Educational Research Review Mechanisms

This paper explores the current status of educational research review mechanisms, assessment and ethical mechanisms in the UK, USA, Germany, France and Australia, and assesses the merits and shortcomings of the mechanisms and ways in which to improve them in those countries. This exploration is based on the perspective of comparative education and the concept of the academic tribe of T. Becher to assess peer review mechanisms. The research results include, first, the peer review system that was gradually developed in the UK, USA, France and Germany in the 1950s, which became a common mechanism for academic gatekeeping of the quality of educational research. Second, to ensure academic excellence, peer reviewers are required to be fair, professional, and specialized in a variety of “procedural justice” designs. Third, anonymous or not, peer review depends on the subcultures of different countries or academic communities. In the UK and USA, the process tends to be more transparent, and authors can suggest potential reviewers; however, this is not the case in Germany and France. Fourth, for the purpose of improving malpractice in terms of ethics and reliability in peer review, the professional qualifications of reviewers should be evaluated regularly. Finally, the outcome of the comparative study may be used as a reference for improvement of review mechanisms for educational research in Taiwan

Investigation of Perovskite Oxide SrCo _0.8Cu _0.1Nb _0.1O _3–δ as a Cathode Material for Room Temperature Direct Ammonia Fuel Cells

Single‐phase perovskite oxide SrCo0.8Cu0.1Nb0.1O3–δ was synthesized using a Pechini method. X‐ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated a cubic structure with a=3.8806(7) Å. The oxide material was combined with active carbon, forming a composite electrode to be used as the cathode in a room temperature ammonia fuel cell based on an anion membrane electrolyte and NiCu/C anode. An open circuit voltage (OCV) of 0.19 V was observed with dilute 0.02 m (340 ppm) ammonia solution as the fuel. The power density and OCV were improved upon the addition of 1 m NaOH to the fuel, suggesting that the addition of NaOH, which could be achieved through the introduction of alkaline waste to the fuel stream, could improve performance when wastewater is used as the fuel. It was found that the SrCo0.8Cu0.1Nb0.1O3−δ cathode was converted from irregular shape into shuttle‐shape during the fuel cell measurements. As the key catalysts for electrode materials for this fuel cell are all inexpensive, after further development, this could be a promising technology for removal of ammonia from wastewater

Assessing Postural Stability Via the Correlation Patterns of Vertical Ground Reaction Force Components

Background Many methods have been proposed to assess the stability of human postural balance by using a force plate. While most of these approaches characterize postural stability by extracting features from the trajectory of the center of pressure (COP), this work develops stability measures derived from components of the ground reaction force (GRF). Methods In comparison with previous GRF-based approaches that extract stability features from the GRF resultant force, this study proposes three feature sets derived from the correlation patterns among the vertical GRF (VGRF) components. The first and second feature sets quantitatively assess the strength and changing speed of the correlation patterns, respectively. The third feature set is used to quantify the stabilizing effect of the GRF coordination patterns on the COP. Results In addition to experimentally demonstrating the reliability of the proposed features, the efficacy of the proposed features has also been tested by using them to classify two age groups (18–24 and 65–73 years) in quiet standing. The experimental results show that the proposed features are considerably more sensitive to aging than one of the most effective conventional COP features and two recently proposed COM features. Conclusions By extracting information from the correlation patterns of the VGRF components, this study proposes three sets of features to assess human postural stability during quiet standing. As demonstrated by the experimental results, the proposed features are not only robust to inter-trial variability but also more accurate than the tested COP and COM features in classifying the older and younger age groups. An additional advantage of the proposed approach is that it reduces the force sensing requirement from 3D to 1D, substantially reducing the cost of the force plate measurement system