Analysis of nonlinear dynamic behavior and pull-in prediction of micro circular plate actuator

The dynamic behavior of micro circular plate electrostatic devices is not easily analyzed using traditional methods such as perturbation theory or Galerkin approach method due to the complexity of the interactions among the electrostatic coupling effect, the residual stress and the nonlinear electrostatic force. Accordingly, the present study proposes a approach for analyzing the dynamic response of such devices using a hybrid numerical scheme comprising the differential transformation method and the finite difference method. The feasibility of the proposed approach is demonstrated by modeling the dynamic response of a micro circular plate actuated by a DC voltage. The numerical results for the pull-in voltage are found to deviate by no more than 0.27 % from those derived in the literature using various computational methods. Thus, the basic validity of the hybrid numerical scheme is confirmed. Moreover, the effectiveness of a combined DC/AC loading scheme in driving the micro circular actuator is examined. It is shown that the use of an AC actuating voltage in addition to the DC driving voltage provides an effective means of tuning the dynamic response of the micro circular plate

Reproductive Contributions of Foreign Wives in Taiwan: Similarities and Differences among Major Source Countries

In light of the entrenchment of sub-replacement fertility and the sharp increase in the stock of foreign wives in Taiwan in recent years, this research studies the reproductive contributions of Taiwan’s foreign wives from the top five source countries (China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines), based mainly on an application of a multinomial logit model to the micro data of the 2003 census of foreign wives. Our main findings are as follows. First, the overall fertility level of the foreign wives was probably somewhat higher than that of the native-born women and definitely lower than the replacement level. Second, among the five nationalities, those from China were much less reproductive than those from the other countries, mainly because the former were more prone to (1) having a rather old marriage age, (2) having a very large spousal age gap, (3) being separated or divorced, (4) having their current marriage being their second marriage, and (5) having a veteran as the husband. Third, among the four Southeast Asian nationalities, those from Indonesia and the Philippines were more reproductive than those from Thailand and Vietnam. This contrast was a muted reflection of the fertility difference in countries of origin. Fourth, for every nationality, marriage duration and marriage age were the most powerful explanatory factors and must be included in the model to avoid getting misleading estimated coefficients of other less powerful explanatory factors, whereas current age was a spurious factor that should not be used in the model. Fifth, in the context of marriage duration and marriage age, the explanatory factors with rather strong explanatory powers for at least one nationality included spousal age gap, marital status, remarriage status, co-residence with parent, and wife’s employment status. Sixth, the expected negative effect of wife’s educational attainment on lifetime fertility turned out to be either non-existent or modest. In particular, it had practically no effect on the probability of being childless. These findings implied that getting better educated foreign wives could increase the quality of their children with little or no reduction in the number of their children and in their probability of being childlessASEAN countries, China, international marriage, international migration, fertility, Taiwan

Reproductive contributions of Taiwan´s foreign wives from the top five source countries

This research studies the reproductive contributions of Taiwan’s foreign wives from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, based on applications of the multinomial logit model to the micro data of the 2003 Census of Foreign Spouses. Wives from China are found to have the lowest lifetime fertility of 1.4 children, mainly because they were more prone to marry later, have a very large spousal age gap, be separated or divorced, and have their current marriage be their second marriage. The effect of wife’s educational attainment on lifetime fertility turned out to be either modest or nonexistent.fertility, international marriage, international migration, reproductive contribution, Taiwan

Acute exacerbation of psychiatric symptoms during influenza treatment with oseltamivir in chronic schizophrenia

AbstractInfluenza treatment and prophylaxis with oseltamivir are critically important in reducing the morbidity and mortality of patients in chronic psychiatric facilities. Abnormal behavior, delusions, perceptual disturbances, mania, and depression have all been reported as oseltamivir-related psychiatric side effects. We hereby report two chronic schizophrenia patients in Taiwan manifesting psychiatric instability who were being treated with oseltamivir for suspected influenza infection, and further discuss other potential contributing factors. The possibility that oseltamivir can cause psychotic or affective symptoms suggests that additional caution is necessary for its use in patients with an established psychiatric diagnosis

Internationalisation Process of Retailers: A Case Study of B&Q in China and Taiwan

The study seeks to testify the generalisability and applicability of internationalisation theories developed in the manufacturing sector, which mainly include the motivations of firm internationalization and international expansion patterns, in the context of retailing sector. Specifically, the study attempts to make a closer examination of the determinants in entry mode decisions and the expansion strategies of large retailers at firm, industry and country level. Furthermore, as the marketplaces in many developing countries become more and more open, more and more companies have been monitoring opportunities in emerging markets such as China, India, and countries in the rest of Asia and Europe. Therefore, a case study approach is adopted to investigate the international expansion pattern of an individual retailer- B&Q- in emerging markets, namely China and Taiwan, to reflect the changing nature of business opportunities and to clarify the current internationalization process of retailers. The finding from B&Q case suggests that on current stage retailers may take rather proactive approaches to international expansions, to the markets where higher growth opportunities are available, even the markets are psychic-distant from home market, which contrasts with the assumption of psychic distance in Uppsala model. In addition, the industry-specific characteristics of retailers may cause retailers not to follow the sequence of stages proposed in Uppsala model

Small-scale universality in the spectral structure of transitional pipe flows

Turbulent flows are not only everywhere, but every turbulent flow is the same at small scales. The extraordinary simplification engendered by this "small-scale universality" is a hallmark of turbulence theory. However, on the basis of the restrictive assumptions invoked by A. N. Kolmogorov to demonstrate this universality, it is widely thought that only idealized turbulent flows conform to this framework. Using experiments and simulations that span a wide range of Reynolds number, we show that small-scale universality governs the spectral structure of a class of flows with no apparent ties to the idealized flows: transitional pipe flows. Our results not only extend the universality of Kolmogorov\u27s framework beyond expectation but also establish an unexpected link between transitional pipe flows and Kolmogorovian turbulence

Deep Learning-based Fall Detection Algorithm Using Ensemble Model of Coarse-fine CNN and GRU Networks

Falls are the public health issue for the elderly all over the world since the fall-induced injuries are associated with a large amount of healthcare cost. Falls can cause serious injuries, even leading to death if the elderly suffers a "long-lie". Hence, a reliable fall detection (FD) system is required to provide an emergency alarm for first aid. Due to the advances in wearable device technology and artificial intelligence, some fall detection systems have been developed using machine learning and deep learning methods to analyze the signal collected from accelerometer and gyroscopes. In order to achieve better fall detection performance, an ensemble model that combines a coarse-fine convolutional neural network and gated recurrent unit is proposed in this study. The parallel structure design used in this model restores the different grains of spatial characteristics and capture temporal dependencies for feature representation. This study applies the FallAllD public dataset to validate the reliability of the proposed model, which achieves a recall, precision, and F-score of 92.54%, 96.13%, and 94.26%, respectively. The results demonstrate the reliability of the proposed ensemble model in discriminating falls from daily living activities and its superior performance compared to the state-of-the-art convolutional neural network long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) for FD

Rejuvenation of brain, liver and muscle by simultaneous pharmacological modulation of two signaling determinants, that change in opposite directions with age.

We hypothesize that altered intensities of a few morphogenic pathways account for most/all the phenotypes of aging. Investigating this has revealed a novel approach to rejuvenate multiple mammalian tissues by defined pharmacology. Specifically, we pursued the simultaneous youthful in vivo calibration of two determinants: TGF-beta which activates ALK5/pSmad 2,3 and goes up with age, and oxytocin (OT) which activates MAPK and diminishes with age. The dose of Alk5 inhibitor (Alk5i) was reduced by 10-fold and the duration of treatment was shortened (to minimize overt skewing of cell-signaling pathways), yet the positive outcomes were broadened, as compared with our previous studies. Alk5i plus OT quickly and robustly enhanced neurogenesis, reduced neuro-inflammation, improved cognitive performance, and rejuvenated livers and muscle in old mice. Interestingly, the combination also diminished the numbers of cells that express the CDK inhibitor and marker of senescence p16 in vivo. Summarily, simultaneously re-normalizing two pathways that change with age in opposite ways (up vs. down) synergistically reverses multiple symptoms of aging