Motivating Knowledge Worker Using Financial Rewards

Nowadays, the competitions among organizations is not only limited to the technology area and the management area, but also to the talent area. Furthermore, knowledge workers are one of the most important assets of an organization. They are major role-players in creating profit. Thus, we need to understand how to take advantage of this type of human resource and therefore how to motivate knowledge workers in the organization becomes a point of issue. Resolving this problem entails building an effective knowledge workers motivation system. And the most sensitive part of this system is that of compensation incentives

Online Whole-body Motion Planning for Quadrotor using Multi-resolution Search

In this paper, we address the problem of online quadrotor whole-body motion planning (SE(3) planning) in unknown and unstructured environments. We propose a novel multi-resolution search method, which discovers narrow areas requiring full pose planning and normal areas requiring only position planning. As a consequence, a quadrotor planning problem is decomposed into several SE(3) (if necessary) and R^3 sub-problems. To fly through the discovered narrow areas, a carefully designed corridor generation strategy for narrow areas is proposed, which significantly increases the planning success rate. The overall problem decomposition and hierarchical planning framework substantially accelerate the planning process, making it possible to work online with fully onboard sensing and computation in unknown environments. Extensive simulation benchmark comparisons show that the proposed method is one to several orders of magnitude faster than the state-of-the-art methods in computation time while maintaining high planning success rate. The proposed method is finally integrated into a LiDAR-based autonomous quadrotor, and various real-world experiments in unknown and unstructured environments are conducted to demonstrate the outstanding performance of the proposed method

Impact of quenched random fields on the ferroelectric-to-relaxor crossover in the solid solution (1−x)BaTiO3−xDyFeO3

Lead-based perovskite relaxor ferroelectrics are widely used as materials for numerous applications due to their extraordinary dielectric, piezoelectric, and electrostrictive properties. While the mechanisms of relaxor behavior are disputable, the importance of quenched (static) random electric fields created at nanoscale by the disordered heterovalent cations has been well recognized. Meanwhile, an increasing amount of scientific and technological efforts has been concentrated on lead-free perovskites, in particular, solid solutions of classical ferroelectric BaTiO 3 (BT), which better meet ecological requirements. Among BT-based solutions the homovalent systems are elaborately studied where strong random electric fields are absent, while the solubility limit of heterovalent solutions is typically too low to fully reveal the peculiarities of relaxor behavior. In this paper, we prepare a perovskite solid solution system (1 − x )Ba 2 + Ti 4 + O 3 − x Dy 3 + Fe 3 + O 3 (0 x 0 . 3) and study it as a model heterovalent lead-free system. We determine crystal structure, ferroelectric, and dielectric properties of ceramics in a wide range of temperatures and concentrations, construct a phase diagram, and find and analyze the concentration-induced crossover from normal ferroelectric to relaxor behavior. We demonstrate that quenched random electric fields of moderate strength promote the ferroelectric-to-relaxor crossover, but do not change qualitatively the peculiarities of relaxor behavior, while strong enough fields destroy the relaxor state, so that the material becomes an ordinary linear dielectric. The experimental results are compared with the predictions of known theories of relaxor ferroelectricity

Effect of heat input on nanomechanical properties of wire-arc additive manufactured Al 4047 alloys

Heat input is one of the most important process parameters during additive manufacturing (AM). It is of great significance to understand the effect of heat input on the microstructure and nanomechanical properties, as well as the underlying mechanisms. Wire-arc additive manufactured (WAAM-ed) Al 4047 alloys under different heat inputs were produced and studied in this work. The as-manufactured Al alloys showed hypoeutectic microstructure that consisted of primary Al (α-Al) dendrite and ultrafine Al–Si eutectic. The effect of heat input on hardness and strain rate sensitivity (SRS) were investigated through nanoindentation. The nanohardness decreased with the increasing heat input, in accordance with the trend of yield strength and microhardness in the previous studies, in which the mechanism was usually explained by the grain growth model and Hall-Petch relationship. This work suggests a distinct mechanism regarding the effect of heat input on nanohardness, which is the enhanced solid solution strengthening produced by lower heat input. In addition, the heat input had little effect on the SRS and activation volume. It is hoped that this study leads to new insights into the understanding of the relation between heat input and nanomechanical properties, and further benefits to improve the targeted mechanical properties and engineering applications of the AM-ed materials.publishedVersio

Serum peptidome profiling for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer: Discovery and validation in two independent cohorts

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common malignant neoplasms worldwide. Except for the existing fecal occult blood test, colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy, no widely accepted in vitro diagnostic methods have been available. To identify potential peptide biomarkers for CRC, serum samples from a discovery cohort (100 CRC patients and 100 healthy controls) and an independent validation cohort (91 CRC patients and 91 healthy controls) were collected. Peptides were fractionated by weak cation exchange magnetic beads (MB-WCX) and analysed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDITOF MS). Five peptides (peaks at m/z 1895.3, 2020.9, 2080.7, 2656.8 and 3238.5) were identified as candidate biomarkers for CRC. A diagnostic panel based on the five peptides can discriminate CRC patients from healthy controls, with an accuracy of 91.8%, sensitivity of 95.6%, and specificity of 87.9% in the validation cohort. Peptide peaks at m/z 1895.3, 2020.9 and 3238.5 were identified as the partial sequences of complement component 4 (C4), complement component 3 (C3) and fibrinogen a chain (FGA), respectively. This study potentiated peptidomic analysis as a promising in vitro diagnostic tool for diagnosis of CRC. The identified peptides suggest the involvement of the C3, C4 and FGA in CRC pathogenesis

E^2TAD: An Energy-Efficient Tracking-based Action Detector

Video action detection (spatio-temporal action localization) is usually the starting point for human-centric intelligent analysis of videos nowadays. It has high practical impacts for many applications across robotics, security, healthcare, etc. The two-stage paradigm of Faster R-CNN inspires a standard paradigm of video action detection in object detection, i.e., firstly generating person proposals and then classifying their actions. However, none of the existing solutions could provide fine-grained action detection to the "who-when-where-what" level. This paper presents a tracking-based solution to accurately and efficiently localize predefined key actions spatially (by predicting the associated target IDs and locations) and temporally (by predicting the time in exact frame indices). This solution won first place in the UAV-Video Track of 2021 Low-Power Computer Vision Challenge (LPCVC)

Time Sequence Map for Interpreting the Thermal Runaway Mechanism of Lithium-Ion Batteries With LiNixCoyMnzO2 Cathode

Thermal runaway is one of the key failure reasons for the lithium-ion batteries. The potential of thermal runaway in applications increases when the industry starts to use high energy LiNixCoyMnzO2 cathode. The thermal runaway mechanism is still unclear, because the side reactions are complex. Heat generation during thermal runaway can be caused by the decomposition of individual cell components, or by interactive reactions between multiple components. This paper tries to comb the heat sources during thermal runaway using a novel method named the “Time Sequence Map” (TSM). The TSM tracks the heat sources according to the notion of thermodynamic systems. The thermodynamic system means a combination of materials that stay and react together, and generate heat independently without interruptions from other thermodynamic systems. With the help of the defined thermodynamic systems, researchers will be rescued from being trapped in the complex reactions, and the heat sources during thermal runaway can be clearly explained from bottom up. The thermal runaway results for two battery samples demonstrate the validity of the TSM. The TSM shows the heat sources including that: (1) fire, (2) internal short circuit, (3) oxidation-reduction reaction between the cathode and anode, etc. The contributions for the heat sources to the thermal runaway are further discussed. Conclusions come to: (1) the major heat source is the oxidation-reduction reaction; (2) the fire releases lots of heat, but most of the heat is not to heat the cell itself; (3) the internal short circuit is critical to trigger the oxidation-reduction reaction; (4) the internal short circuit is not the major heat source that heat the cell to 800°C or higher; (5) the oxidation-reduction reaction is triggered when the temperature reaches a critical temperature. The TSM helps depict the frontiers in the researches of battery thermal runaway. It suggests that we focus on: (1) the relationship between internal short circuit and thermal runaway; (2) the mechanism of the oxidation-reduction reaction between the cathode and anode; (3) the detailed reaction mechanisms for a specific thermodynamic system within the cell