Effect of Cement Asphalt Mortar Debonding on Dynamic Properties of CRTS II Slab Ballastless Track

The debonding of cement emulsified asphalt mortar (CA mortar) is one of the main damage types in China railway track system II slab ballastless track. In order to analyze the influence of mortar debonding on the dynamic properties of CRTS II slab ballastless track, a vertical coupling vibration model for a vehicle-track-subgrade system was established on the base of wheel/rail coupling dynamics theory. The effects of different debonding lengths on dynamic response of vehicle and track system were analyzed by using the finite element software. The results show that the debonding of CA mortar layer will increase the dynamic response of track. If the length of debonding exceeds 1.95 m, the inflection point will appear on the vertical displacement curve of track. The vertical vibration acceleration of slab increases 4.95 times and the vertical dynamic compressive stress of CA mortar near the debonding region increases 15 times when the debonding length reaches 3.9 m. Considering the durability of ballastless track, once the length of debonding reaches 1.95 m, the mortar debonding should be repaired

A New Method for Fast Computation of Moments Based on 8-neighbor Chain CodeApplied to 2-D Objects Recognition

2D moment invariants have been successfully applied in pattern recognition tasks. The main difficulty of using moment invariants is the computational burden. To improve the algorithm of moments computation through an iterative method, an approach for fast computation of moments based on the 8-neighbor chain code is proposed in this paper. Then artificial neural networks are applied for 2D shape recognition with moment invariants. Compared with the method of polygonal approximation, this approach shows higher accuracy in shape representation and faster recognition speed in experiment

Asian Care Workers’ Psychosocial Well-being in Taiwan

Special Edition : Transnational Caregiving for Older Adults and Wellness in North America, Latin America, and AsiaPart 2: Transnational Professional Caregiving for Older Adults and Care Workers’Wellness in North America, Latin America, and AsiaThe present study mainly focused on understanding the well-being of migrant care workers in Taiwan from the perspective of social inclusion. We created and distributed a questionnaire to measure the well-being and social inclusion of migrant care workers. Nearly 200 questionnaires were completed by a sample of care workers that was representative of migrant worker’s regional distribution in Taiwan. The results of our factor analysis and regression model showed that when various control variables are held constant, economic and residential environment factors (including income, community facilities, financial services, neighborhood safety, and housing quality) had the greatest impact on the respondents’ well-being. The government might need to review their migrant worker policies for increasing their socio-economic and living environment

A Typology Of Online Window Shopping Consumers

Consumer online shopping behaviors are well attended in the IS and marketing literature. Yet, there is another group of individuals who spend a lot of time online but do not purchase anything. This online window shopping phenomenon is intriguing to both scholars and marketers yet it is less studied and little understood. Questions such as what the online window shopping consumers do during their visits, how to differentiate their activities and how to design marketing strategies to stimulate them to buy are all essential and beg for investigation. To address this gap, we propose a typology of online window shopping consumers based on the Consumer Information Processing Model, then empirically validate and refine the typology using a set of clickstream data. The final typology contains four main types of online window shopper consumers: 1) promotion finders, 2) social & hedonic experience seekers, 3) information gatherers, and 4) learners & novices. This study extends consumer online behavior research in both e-commerce and social commerce by focusing on the specific group of consumers who only do online window shopping. Besides theoretical contributions, the findings also provide marketers and businesses with valuable references for designing targeted marketing strategies or promotional activities for online window shopping consumers

Which Constituent Quark Model Is Better?

A comparative study has been done by calculating the effective baryon-baryon interactions of the 64 lowest channels consisting of octet and decuplet baryons with three constituent quark models: the extended quark gluon exchange model, the Goldstone boson exchange model and the quark gluon meson exchange hybrid model. We find that these three models give similar results for 44 channels. Further tests of these models are discussed.Comment: 6pp., 3 figs., Asia-Pacific Few-Body Conf. II (Shanghai, Aug.25-30 2002), to appear in MPLA; references adde

Graphene-Based Heterogeneous Electrodes for Energy Storage

As an intriguing two dimensional material, graphene has attracted intense interest due to its high stability, large carrier mobility as well as the excellent conductivity. The addition of graphene into the heterogeneous electrodes has been proved to be an effective method to improve the energy storage performance. In this chapter, the latest graphene based heterogeneous electrodes will be fully reviewed and discussed for energy storage. In detail, the assembly methods, including the ball-milling, hydrothermal, electrospinning, and microwave-assisted approaches will be illustrated. The characterization techniques, including the x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy will also be presented. The mechanisms behind the improved performance will also be fully reviewed and demonstrated. A conclusion and an outlook will be given in the end of this chapter to summarize the recent advances and the future opportunities, respectively

Size-dependent spin-reorientation transition in Nd2Fe14B nanoparticles

Nd2Fe14B magnetic nanoparticles have been successfully produced using a surfactant-assisted ball milling technique. The nanoparticles with different size about 6, 20 and 300 nm were obtained by a size-selection process. Spin-reorientation transition temperature of the NdFeB nanoparticles was then determined by measuring the temperature dependence of DC and AC magnetic susceptibility. It was found that the spin-reorientation transition temperature (Tsr) of the nanoparticles is strongly size dependent, i.e., Tsr of the 300 nm particles is lower than that of raw materials and a significant decrease was observed in the 20 nm particles