Completing incomplete cohort fertility schedules

This paper develops a simple age-period-cohort framework in completing incomplete cohort fertility schedules, and makes full use of 1917--2005 U.S. data to obtain robust outcomes. Empirically, we indicate that the period effect is the key to transforming a fertility level into a fertility schedule. Accompanied by the smoothed version of tempo-variance-adjusted total fertility rates proposed in Kohler and Philipov (2001), we approximate the cohort fertility schedules fairly well and the estimates of all distributional parameters can be thereby obtained. Our approach is easy to implement and the data requirement is relatively light, indicating that the proposed method is readily applicable to countries whose data lengths are insufficiently long, and would be helpful for further empirical investigation of the relationship between cohort fertility behavior and other cohort-specific socioeconomic factors.APC model, cohort fertility schedule, fertility forecast

Dependence of Nanocrystal Dimensionality on the Polymer Nanomorphology, Anisotropic Optical Absorption, and Carrier Transport in P3HT:TiO2 Bulk Heterojunctions

[[abstract]]It is known that the nanoscale morphological organization of donors or acceptors in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells is critical to device performance and strongly affects carrier generation, transporting, and collection. This work demonstrates the dependence of nanocrystal dimensionality and organization on the polymer nanomorphology in P3HT:TiO2 hybrid bulk heterojunctions, which were revealed using grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD) using a synchrotron X-ray beam and electron tomography. We further performed a multiscale molecular dynamic simulation to understand the morphological orientation of a polymer blended with TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) or nanorods (NRs). The correlation between polymer nanoscale morphology and the dimensionality and anisotropy of nanocrystals in P3HT:TiO2 hybrids clearly explains the observation of different optical absorption and carrier transport behaviors in directions perpendicular or parallel to the film substrate. Our results provide crucial information toward understanding the interplay between nanocrystal dimensionality and polymer morphology in developing organic/inorganic hybrid electronic devices such as thin film transistors (TFTs) or photovoltaics (PVs).[[notice]]補正完畢[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]電子版[[iscallforpapers]]

COMPARISON OF PLAYER’S CENTER OF MASS MOVEMENT BETWEEN HIGH AND LOW IMPACT POSITIONS IN TENNIS FOREHAND STROKE

During the tennis forehand stroke, the displacement of body center of mass (COM) changes with the body movement. The COM movement influences the recovery from one stroke to the next. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the differences of COM movement and joint kinematics between high and low-impact positions on different skilled players. This study adopted a 3-D motion analysis system for recording and tracing the advanced (n = 5; level 3-4) and intermediate (n = 7; level 5-6) athletes’ motion of whole body during high and low-impact positions in tennis forehand stroke. The results showed that significant difference was not found between both impact positions and level groups in ball velocity. Advanced group showed greater anterior/posterior displacement than the intermediate group in low-impact position that increased the kinetic energy

Proposal of managerial standards for new product portfolio management in Brazilian pharmaceutical companies

New Product Portfolio Management is aimed at helping decision-makers better select projects for new products based on key criteria for the manufacturer. The Brazilian pharmaceutical industry has been undergoing change due to stricter sanitary requirements following the enactment of the Generic Law in 1999. This paper presents the results of a research study aimed at clarifying the rationale employed by national pharmaceutical companies in selecting and prioritizing their new product development projects. Consequently, proposals for an analytical structure that could help these companies better select their products were produced. The research was carried out using case study methodology in which four different companies were investigated. The results of the field study confirmed that these companies had a non-structured Product Development System and that the selection of new product development projects was made on a non-systematic basis. The research also identified key criteria for the selection of projects of new pharmaceutical products, which provided the basis for the preparation of a proposal for a managerial standard for application of New Product Portfolio Management.A gestão de portfólio de projetos de novos produtos visa a auxiliar os tomadores de decisão a selecionar projetos de novos produtos considerando critérios importantes para a organização. A indústria farmacêutica brasileira tem passado por transformações devido ao aumento das exigências sanitárias após a Lei de Genéricos, de 1999. O objetivo deste trabalho foi entender como as indústrias farmacêuticas brasileiras selecionam seus projetos de desenvolvimento de novos produtos e propor uma estrutura que possa auxiliar estas empresas a selecionar seus projetos de produtos. Foi utilizada a metodologia de estudo de caso e uma mostra de quatro organizações foi investigada. Os resultados indicam que essas empresas apresentam um desenvolvimento de produtos não estruturado e que a seleção de projetos de novos produtos é realizada de forma não-sistemática. Critérios importantes para a seleção de projetos de novos produtos foram identificados e utilizados para elaboração de um padrão gerencial para aplicação da gestão de portfólio de projetos de novos produtos

An interactively recurrent functional neural fuzzy network with fuzzy differential evolution and its applications

In this paper, an interactively recurrent functional neural fuzzy network (IRFNFN) with fuzzy differential evolution (FDE) learning method was proposed for solving the control and the prediction problems. The traditional differential evolution (DE) method easily gets trapped in a local optimum during the learning process, but the proposed fuzzy differential evolution algorithm can overcome this shortcoming. Through the information sharing of nodes in the interactive layer, the proposed IRFNFN can effectively reduce the number of required rule nodes and improve the overall performance of the network. Finally, the IRFNFN model and associated FDE learning algorithm were applied to the control system of the water bath temperature and the forecast of the sunspot number. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method

Uma experiência de análise e diagnóstico do fluxo de cana numa usina de açucar

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-graduação em Engenharia de Produçã

Analysis of the e-learning innovation process in higher education

E-Learning perhaps is the exciting topic related to higher education in the current decade. Large numbers of researchers devote their enthusiasm to this area. The early days of E-Learning were product-driven, and the dialogue about E-Learning took place primarily among vendors who were heavily funded by investment capital. Most of the E-Learning vendors promoted their technology, but less attention was paid to the issues surrounding implementation or to the usage of E-Learning by the end users. However, the behaviour of end users or of the organizations which had introduced E-Learning should be the main concern of an innovation in the management process. Included in an entire E-Learning development strategy should be a detailed analysis and action plan to obtain a comprehensive overview of three aspects of innovation processes: organizational, technological, and products/services. A successful E-Learning launch should also pay close consideration to all of the interactions during the triple innovation process, a proposal which will be addressed in this research. Given the multiple objectives of investigating the processes of E-Learning innovation, the interaction between different aspects of innovation and the issues which influence those processes, a qualitative case study approach is appropriate for establishing empirical evidence and describing the phenomenon of the E-Learning innovation process in higher education. The fieldwork started in March 2004 and finished in August 2008. It comprised one pilot study at National Chung Cheng University Taiwan, and the main research context at the University of Nottingham. The data collected were used to analyse and conceptualise the E-Learning innovation process with three sub-processes, outlined in detail in a following subsection: research methodology and design. This research contributes to the understanding of E-Learning innovation processes by providing triple aspects of organizational, technological and service innovation individually, and maps the E-Learning innovation processes in its different aspects. The relationships and interactions in the E-Learning innovation process within organizational, technological and service innovation are conceptualized in order to explain their complexity, and they also summarized the main interaction categories for different interactions. The series of detailed analyses indicates that organizational, technological and service innovations are inseparable and show a strong link with one another. Moreover, a framework of simplified triple E-Learning innovation with triple interactions is proposed