Phase diagram and exotic spin-spin correlations of anisotropic Ising model on the Sierpi\'nski gasket

The anisotropic antiferromagnetic Ising model on the fractal Sierpi\'{n}ski gasket is intensively studied, and a number of exotic properties are disclosed. The ground state phase diagram in the plane of magnetic field-interaction of the system is obtained. The thermodynamic properties of the three plateau phases are probed by exploring the temperature-dependence of magnetization, specific heat, susceptibility and spin-spin correlations. No phase transitions are observed in this model. In the absence of a magnetic field, the unusual temperature dependence of the spin correlation length is obtained with $0 \leq$J$_b/$J$_a<1$, and an interesting crossover behavior between different phases at J$_b/$J$_a=1$ is unveiled, whose dynamics can be described by the J$_b/$J$_a$-dependence of the specific heat, susceptibility and spin correlation functions. The exotic spin-spin correlation patterns that share the same special rotational symmetry as that of the Sierpi\'{n}ski gasket are obtained in both the $1/3$ plateau disordered phase and the $5/9$ plateau partially ordered ferrimagnetic phase. Moreover, a quantum scheme is formulated to study the thermodynamics of the fractal Sierpi\'{n}ski gasket with Heisenberg interactions. We find that the unusual temperature dependence of the correlation length remains intact in a small quantum fluctuation.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figure

The Positive Effect of Negative Word-of-mouth on Consumers’ Purchase Intention Towards Experience Goods

The purpose of the present study is to examine the positive effect of negative word-of-mouth on consumers’ purchase intention towards an experience good. By introducing consumer’s need for closure as a moderator, the results of two situation-based experiments reveal that negative word-of-mouth of a well-known experience good would increase the purchase intention of consumers with a high-level need for closure (Vs. a low-level need for closure); the same effect would not happen to an unknown experience good; and the positive effect of negative word-of-mouth on the purchase intention of consumers with a high-level need for closure towards a well-known experience good only happens in the case of negative word-of-mouth for the first time (Vs. the second time). The findings contribute to the literature on online review and word-of-mouth from a new perspective

High-Accuracy and Fast-Response Flywheel Torque Control

Compared with current mode flywheel torque controller, speed mode torque controller has superior disturbance rejection capability. However, the speed loop delay reduces system dynamic response speed. To solve this problem, a two-degrees-of-freedom controller (2DOFC) which consists of a feedback controller (FBC) and a command feedforward controller (FFC) is proposed. The transfer function of FFC is found based on the inverse model of motor drive system, whose parameters are identified by recursive least squares (RLS) algorithm in real-time. Upon this, Kalman filter with softening factor is introduced for the improved parameters identification and torque control performances. Finally, the validity and the superiority of the proposed control scheme are verified through experiments with magnetically suspended flywheel (MSFW) motor

Optimal pricing strategy:How to sell to strategic consumers?

Technological advances are preparing consumers to plan their purchases strategically. Selling to strategic consumers at a fixed price forgoes the profit from salvaging inventory, whereas high-low pricing, as a ubiquitous pricing strategy, is costly due to the offered markdown discount. This research explores the overall impact of consumer's strategic buying behaviour on a pricing strategy, and identifies conditions where fixed pricing, strategic high pricing, or high-low pricing is the best approach by analytically comparing the profits of the three pricing strategies. Our results show that high-low pricing is appropriate only if the offered markdown discount is relatively small. If strategic consumers have a small population and the needed markdown discount is relatively large, retailers can ignore strategic buying behaviour and sell products at a fixed price. Our results emphasize that the markdown discount for clearance sales and the market structure of heterogeneous consumers play vital roles in determining the optimal pricing strategy

Comparative proteomic profiling reveals molecular characteristics associated with oogenesis and oocyte maturation during ovarian development of Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel)

Time-dependent expression of proteins in ovary is important to understand oogenesis in insects. Here, we profiled the proteomes of developing ovaries from Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) to obtain information about ovarian development with particular emphasis on differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) involved in oogenesis. A total of 4838 proteins were identified with an average peptide number of 8.15 and sequence coverage of 20.79%. Quantitative proteomic analysis showed that a total of 612 and 196 proteins were differentially expressed in developing and mature ovaries, respectively. Furthermore, 153, 196 and 59 potential target proteins were highly expressed in early, vitellogenic and mature ovaries and most tested DEPs had the similar trends consistent with the respective transcriptional profiles. These proteins were abundantly expressed in pre-vitellogenic and vitellogenic stages, including tropomyosin, vitellogenin, eukaryotic translation initiation factor, heat shock protein, importin protein, vitelline membrane protein, and chorion protein. Several hormone and signal pathway related proteins were also identified during ovarian development including piRNA, notch, insulin, juvenile, and ecdysone hormone signal pathways. This is the first report of a global ovary proteome of a tephritid fruit fly, and may contribute to understanding the complicate processes of ovarian development and exploring the potentially novel pest control targets

A Joint Model and Data Driven Method for Distributed Estimation

This paper considers the problem of distributed estimation in wireless sensor networks (WSN), which is anticipated to support a wide range of applications such as the environmental monitoring, weather forecasting, and location estimation. To this end, we propose a joint model and data driven distributed estimation method by designing the optimal quantizers and fusion center (FC) based on the Bayesian and minimum mean square error (MMSE) criterions. First, universal mean square error (MSE) lower bound for the quantization-based distributed estimation is derived and adopted as the design metric for the quantizers. Then, the optimality of the mean-fusion operation for the FC with MMSE criterion is proved. Next, by exploiting different levels of the statistic information of the desired parameter and observation noise, a joint model and data driven method is proposed to train parts of the quantizer and FC modules as deep neural networks (DNNs), and two loss functions derived from the MMSE criterion are adopted for the sequential training scheme. Furthermore, we extend the above results to the case with multi-bit quantizers, considering both the parallel and one-hot quantization schemes. Finally, simulation results reveal that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art schemes in typical scenarios.Comment: in IEEE Internet of Things Journa