A Temporal Usage Pattern-based Tag Recommendation Approach

While social tagging can benefit Internet users managing their resources, it suffers the problems such as diverse and/or unchecked vocabulary and unwillingness to tag. Use of freely new tags and/or reuse of frequent tags have degraded coherence of corresponding resources of each tag that further frustrates people in retrieving information due to cognitive dissonance. Tag recommender systems can recommend users the most relevant tags to the resource they intend to annotate, and drastically transfer the tagging process from generation to recognition to reduce user’s cognitive effort and time. Prior research on tag recommendation has addressed the time-dependence issues of tags by applying a time decaying measure to determine the recurrence probability of a tag according to its recency instead of its usage pattern. In response, this study intends to propose the temporal usage pattern-based tag recommendation technique to consider the usage patterns and temporal characteristic of tags for making recommendations

Characterizing First Arrival Position Channels: Noise Distribution and Capacity Analysis

This paper addresses two fundamental problems in diffusive molecular communication: characterizing the first arrival position (FAP) density and bounding the information transmission capacity of FAP channels. Previous studies on FAP channel models, mostly captured by the density function of noise, have been limited to specific spatial dimensions, drift directions, and receiver geometries. In response, we propose a unified solution for identifying the FAP density in molecular communication systems with fully-absorbing receivers. Leveraging stochastic analysis tools, we derive a concise expression with universal applicability, covering any spatial dimension, drift direction, and receiver shape. We demonstrate that several existing FAP density formulas are special cases of this innovative expression. Concurrently, we establish explicit upper and lower bounds on the capacity of three-dimensional, vertically-drifted FAP channels, drawing inspiration from vector Gaussian interference channels. In the course of deriving these bounds, we unravel an explicit analytical expression for the characteristic function of vertically-drifted FAP noise distributions, providing a more compact characterization compared to the density function. Notably, this expression sheds light on a previously undiscovered weak stability property intrinsic to vertically-drifted FAP noise distributions.Comment: 30 pages; 3 figures, 1 table; this paper is submitted to IEEE Transactions on Communication

Development of Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) System with PV Ceramic Tile and its Application for Building Façade

AbstractIn this paper, the single-crystal silicon-based solar cells laminated between tempered glass and ceramic tile is developed to be utilized in the building's façade. Firstly, the electrical, optical, and thermal properties of the proposed PV module are evaluated. Then, the wind-resistance test is implanted to evaluate the installation feasibility in Taiwan where have typhoon frequently. The electrical and deflection characteristics of the proposed PV module have no obviously changed after a 50 thermal cycling test and a 200hour humidity-freeze test, based on IEC 61215, and a wind-resistance test, respectively. Finally, electrical power generation of the proposed BIPV system with 1 kWp electrical power capacity installed in a demonstration house is performed. The experimental results indicate that accumulative power generation is 185 kWh during 6-month monitoring period. And that, the exterior temperature of the demonstration house is lower than that on the surface of the BIPV system about 10°C. The proposed BIPV system not only provides the passive energy for its power loading, but also improves the indoor thermal environment by fluent natural ventilation

The correlation between the capacity fade of LiFePO4 batteries and cycle life

A new model is developed by fitting the capacity of LiFePO$_4$ batteries, which can be used to investigate the relationship between capacity fade, state of health (SoH), electrochemical reactions and the number of cycles. The equation for the proposed model based on modified Thevenin circuit, Butler-Volmer kinetics and regression analysis consists of a constant term, a sine-exponential term and an exponential term. The constant term represents the rated capacity of a battery, while the sine-exponential term represents the variation in capacity in the active status and the exponential term represents the variation in capacity in the stable status. The model is divided into two parts. The first part is represented by the sine-exponential term, responsive to the activation of electrolyte and electrodes in the first 180 cycles; the second part can be described by the exponential term, estimating the capacity from cycle 180 to cycle 2000. In addition, the comparison between the model and mean absolute percentage error (mape) is able to predict the serious decay of capacity. The MAPE is only 0.47% for the tested battery. The proposed model also successfully estimates the capacity of a tested battery where the number of cycles is 2000 with the error of 0.90%. The results mean that the model is able to closely describe the correlation between capacity and the cycle numbers. References M. Zhao, G. Huang, W. Zhang, H. Zhang and X. Song, Electrochemical behaviors of limn1-xfexpo4$/$c cathode materials in an aqueous electrolyte with/without dissolved oxygen, Energy and Fuels 27 (2013), 2:1162-1167. doi:10.1021/ef301893b Y.-C. Wang, F.-M. Ni and T.-L. Lee, Hybrid modulation of bidirectional three-phase dual-active-bridge dc converters for electric vehicles, Energies 9 (2016), no. 7, 492. doi:10.3390/en9070492 A. H. N. Galapitage and P. Pudney, Scheduling electric vehicles with shared charging stations, ANZIAM Journal 57 (2016), 208. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.10443 T. Zhu, H. T. Min, Y. B. Yu, Z. M. Zhao, T. Xu, Y. Chen, X. Y. Li and C. Zhang, An optimized energy management strategy for preheating vehicle-mounted li-ion batteries at subzero temperatures, Energies 10 (2017), no. 2. doi:24310.3390/en10020243 K. M. Tsang and W. L. Chan, State of health detection for lithium ion batteries in photovoltaic system, Energ Convers Manage 65 (2013), 7-12. doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2012.07.006 Z. Rao, S. Wang, M. Wu, Z. Lin and F. Li, Experimental investigation on thermal management of electric vehicle battery with heat pipe, Energ Convers Manage 65 (2013), 92-97. doi:0.1016/j.enconman.2012.08.014 A. Nikolian, Y. Firouz, R. Gopalakrishnan, J.-M. Timmermans, N. Omar, P. van den Bossche and J. van Mierlo, Lithium ion batteries-development of advanced electrical equivalent circuit models for nickel manganese cobalt lithium-ion, Energies 9 (2016), no. 5, 360. doi:10.3390/en9050360 Z. Gao, C. Chin, W. Woo and J. Jia, Integrated equivalent circuit and thermal model for simulation of temperature-dependent lifepo_4 battery in actual embedded application, Energies 10 (2017), no. 1, 85. doi:10.3390/en10010085 S.-Y. Lee, W.-L. Chiu, Y.-S. Liao, K.-Y. Lee, J.-H. Chen, H.-J. Lin and K. Li, Modified empirical fitting of the discharge behavior of lifepo_4 batteries under various conditions, ANZIAM Journal textbf55 (2014), 368. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v55i0.8182 C.-Y. Chung, K.-Y. Lee, T.-J. Kuo, Z.-Y. Lin, S.-D. Wu, C. Fu, Mathematical fitting for the variation in capacity of lithium iron phosphate batteries corresponding to cycles, ANZIAM Journal 57 (2016), 291. doi:10.21914/anziamj.v57i0.10436 T. Zahid and W. Li, A comparative study based on the least square parameter identification method for state of charge estimation of a lifepo_4 battery pack using three model-based algorithms for electric vehicles, Energies 9 (2016), no. 9, 720. doi:10.3390/en9090720 T. Sasaki, Y. Ukyo and P. Novak, Memory effect in a lithium-ion battery, Nat Mater 12 (2013), no. 6, 569-575. doi:10.1038/nmat3623 B. R. Tiwari and M. M. Ghangrekar, Enhancing electrogenesis by pretreatment of mixed anaerobic sludge to be used as inoculum in microbial fuel cells, Energy $and$ Fuels 29 (2015), no. 5, 3518-3524. doi:10.1021/ef5028197 P. Bai and M. Z. Bazant, Charge transfer kinetics at the solid-solid interface in porous electrodes, Nat Commun 5 (2014), 3585. doi:10.1021/ef990039t A. Eddahech, O. Briat and J.-M. Vinassa, Determination of lithium-ion battery state-of-health based on constant-voltage charge phase, Journal of Power Sources 258 (2014), 218-227. doi:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2014.02.020 R. Castaing, Y. Reynier, N. Dupre, D. Schleich, S. J. S. Larbi, D. Guyomard and P. Moreau Degradation diagnosis of aged li4ti5012-lifepo_4 batteries, Journal of Power Sources 267 (2014), 744-752. doi:10.1016/jpowsour.2014.06.002 H. Bulter, F. Peters, J. Schwenzel and G. Wittstock, In situ quantification of the swelling of graphite composite electrodes by scanning electrochemical microscopy, J Electrochem Soc 163 (2016), no. 2, A27-A34. doi:10.1149/2.1061514je

Association of metabolic syndrome with erosive esophagitis and Barrett’s esophagus in a Chinese population

AbstractBackgroundMetabolic syndrome has been highlighted as a risk factor for several gastrointestinal diseases, including gastroesophageal reflux disease and Barrett’s esophagus (BE). The aim of this study was to investigate the association of metabolic syndrome with erosive esophagitis (EE) and BE.MethodsData were retrospectively collected from patients who visited the Medical Screening Center at Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan from January 2006 to December 2009. All patients underwent an open-access transoral upper gastrointestinal endoscopy, and serum laboratory data were collected. The exclusion criteria included prior gastric surgery, or presence of esophageal varices or peptic ulcers. These patients were assigned to groups according to their endoscopic findings as follows: (1) normal group; (2) EE group; and (3) BE group. Metabolic syndrome was diagnosed based on the International Diabetes Federation criteria.ResultsThere were 560/6499 (8.6%) patients, 214/1118 (9.6%) patients, and 19/95 (20%) patients with metabolic syndrome in the normal, EE, and BE groups, respectively. There was a significantly higher percentage of cases with hypertriglyceridemia in the EE group (67%) compared with the other groups. The BE group had significantly higher rates of central obesity (33%) and hypertension (29.5%) compared with rates in the normal and EE groups. After adjusting for confounders, the positive association with metabolic syndrome still existed in both the EE group (adjusted odds ratio=2.43; 95% confidence interval=1.02–3.44) and the BE group (adjusted odds ratio=2.82; 95% confidence interval=2.05–3.88).ConclusionOur research indicated that in fact there is a greater risk of concurrent metabolic syndrome in patients with EE or BE

Different immune responses to three different vaccines following H6N1 low pathogenic avian influenza virus challenge in Taiwanese local chicken breeds.

BACKGROUND: H6N1 low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV) are frequently isolated in Taiwan and lead to significant economic losses, either directly or indirectly through association with other infectious diseases. This study investigates immune responses to three different vaccines following a H6N1 challenge in different local breeds. METHODS: Experimental animals were sampled from six local chicken breeds maintained at the National Chung-Hsing University, namely Hsin-Yi, Ju-Chi, Hua-Tung (Taiwan), Quemoy (Quemoy Island), Shek-Ki (China), Nagoya (Japan) and a specific pathogen free (SPF) White Leghorn line. A total number of 338 chickens have been distributed between a control and a challenge group, H6N1 challenge was performed at 7 weeks of age; vaccination against Newcastle Disease (ND), Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD) and Infectious Bronchitis (IB) was performed at 11 weeks. The anti-H6N1 LPAIV antibody titers were measured by ELISA at days 0, 7, 14 and 21 after challenge, and the anti-ND, anti-IBD and anti-IB antibody titers were measured by inhibition of hemagglutination test and ELISA at days 0, 14, 28 after vaccination. RESULTS: There was no effect of the H6N1 LPAIV challenge at 7 weeks of age on the subsequent responses to ND and IBD vaccine at 11 weeks of age, but, surprisingly, the H6N1 LPAIV challenge significantly affected antibody levels to IB vaccine in some breeds, since IB0 and IB14 antibody titers were lower in the challenge groups. However, there was no significant difference in IB28 antibody titers among the experimental groups. CONCLUSIONS: Local breeds have different immune response to H6N1 LPAIV challenge and subsequent vaccines. Differences dealt mainly with kinetics of response and with peak values. Quemoy exhibited higher antibody levels to H6N1, ND and IBD. The negative effect of the H6N1 LPAIV challenge on IB vaccine response may be related to the fact that both viruses target the lung tissues, and the type of local immune response induced by LPAIV challenge may not be favourable for birds to make optimum IB-specific antibody response.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Pancreatic Tail Cancer with Sole Manifestation of Left Flank Pain: A Very Rare Presentation

Pancreatic cancer is sometimes called a “silent disease” because it often causes no symptoms in the early stage. The symptoms can be quite vague and various depending on the location of cancer in the pancreas. The anatomic site distribution is 78% in the head of the pancreas, 11% in the body, and 11% in the tail. Pancreatic cancer is rarely detected in the early stage, and it is very uncommon to diagnose pancreatic tail cancer during an emergency department visit. The manifestation of pancreatic tail cancer as left flank pain is very rare and has seldom been identified in the literature. We present a case of pancreatic tail cancer with the sole manifestation of dull left flank pain. Having negative findings on an ultrasound study initially, this female patient was misdiagnosed as having possible acute gastritis, urolithiasis or muscle strain after she received gastroendoscopy and colonofiberscopy. Her symptoms persisted for several months and she visited our emergency department due to an acute exacerbation of a persistent dull pain in the left flank area. Radiographic evaluation with computed tomography was performed, and pancreatic tail tumor with multiple metastases was found unexpectedly. We review the literature and discuss this rare presentation of pancreatic tail cancer