A New Business Model of Electronic Commerce with Innovative Strategies

There are a lot of problems that make the business of electronic stores very difficult, especially for those firms that lack the required expertise and resources for running an electronic business. This study proposes a new business model of electronic commerce (EC), which aims to tackle those problems and help enterprises run electronic stores well. This model applies the franchise system of chain store, a very successful modern business model, to the management of electronic stores to take advantage of the chain’s competitive power by integrating individual affiliate sites as a whole. There are eight components in the model. Implementation strategies of the model, which are quite different from those generic strategies commonly used in implementing business models, are also proposed. The feasibility of the model and its implementation strategies were validated using the Nominal Group Technique (NGT), the case study, and the questionnaire survey approaches. Finally, practical implications for applying the model are discussed, and directions for further study are also suggested

Prompting and Adapter Tuning for Self-supervised Encoder-Decoder Speech Model

Prompting and adapter tuning have emerged as efficient alternatives to fine-tuning (FT) methods. However, existing studies on speech prompting focused on classification tasks and failed on more complex sequence generation tasks. Besides, adapter tuning is primarily applied with a focus on encoder-only self-supervised models. Our experiments show that prompting on Wav2Seq, a self-supervised encoder-decoder model, surpasses previous works in sequence generation tasks. It achieves a remarkable 53% relative improvement in word error rate for ASR and a 27% in F1 score for slot filling. Additionally, prompting competes with the FT method in the low-resource scenario. Moreover, we show the transferability of prompting and adapter tuning on Wav2Seq in cross-lingual ASR. When limited trainable parameters are involved, prompting and adapter tuning consistently outperform conventional FT across 7 languages. Notably, in the low-resource scenario, prompting consistently outperforms adapter tuning.Comment: Accepted to IEEE ASRU 202

Evaluation of reanalysis and satellite-based sea surface winds using in situ measurements from Chinese Antarctic Expeditions

Sea surface winds from reanalysis (NCEP-2 and ERA-40 datasets) and satellite-based products (QuikSCAT and NCDC blended sea winds) are evaluated using in situ ship measurements from the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expeditions (CHINAREs) from 1989 through 2006, with emphasis on the Southern Ocean (south of 45°S). Compared with ship observations, the reanalysis winds have a positive mean bias (0.32 m∙s-1 for NCEP-2 and 0.13 m∙s-1 for ERA-40), and this bias is more pronounced in the Southern Ocean (0.57 m∙s-1 and 0.45 m∙s-1, respectively). However, mean biases are negative in the tropics and subtropics. The satellite-based winds also show positive mean biases, larger than those of the reanalysis data. All four wind products overestimate ship wind speed for weak winds (10 m∙s-1). Differences between the reanalysis and satellite winds are examined to identify regions with large discrepancies

EBV-positive Hodgkin lymphoma is associated with suppression of p21cip1/waf1 and a worse prognosis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>About 30-50% of Hodgkin lymphomas (HLs) harbor the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), but the impact of EBV infection on clinical outcomes has been unclear. EBV-encoded small RNAs (<it>EBER</it>s) are presented in all EBV-infected cells, but their functions are still less understood.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>EBER1 </it>was transfected into two HL cell lines, KMH2 and L428, and microarrays were used to screen for <it>EBER1</it>-induced changes. We found that <it>EBER1 </it>suppressed <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription in HL cell lines. In addition, positive regulators of <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription, such as p53, EGR1, and STAT1, were decreased. Suppression of <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1in the <it>EBER1</it>⁺HL cell lines was associated with increased resistance to histone deacetylase inhibitors or proteasome inhibitors, drugs known to cause apoptosis by increasing p21^cip1/waf1levels. On biopsy specimens, EBV⁺HLs had weaker expression of both p21^cip1/waf1and active caspase 3. Clinically, suppression of p21^cip1/waf1in EBV⁺HLs was associated with a worse 2-year disease-free survival rate (45% for EBV⁺HLs <it>vs</it>. 77% for EBV^-HLs, <it>p </it>= 0.002).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although the underlying mechanisms are still relatively unclear, <it>EBER1 </it>inhibits <it>p21</it>^cip1/waf1transcription and prevents apoptosis through down-regulation of p53, EGR1, and STAT1. The anti-apoptotic activity of <it>EBER1 </it>may be important in the rescue of Reed-Sternberg cells from drug-induced apoptosis and in the clinical behaviors of EBV⁺HLs.</p

Clinical analysis of 1 case of solitary brain metastases misdiagnosed as cerebral infarction

目的  通过报告1例误诊为脑梗死的单发性脑转移瘤患者的诊断过程，总结单发性脑转移瘤的临床、影像学特征及诊断治疗方法。方法  回顾性分析1例单发性脑转移瘤患者的诊断过程，并复习有关文献。结果  脑转移瘤常多发，单发者仅占25%，发病年龄以40～60岁多见，原发病灶以肺最常见。脑转移瘤常位于脑叶灰白质交界处，不同部位的肿瘤可出现不同的临床表现，影像学上常表现为“小病灶、大水肿”，与颅内原发肿瘤不易区分，头颅CT或 MRI增强检查并查到其他部位的原发肿瘤病灶后可确定诊断。目前主张单发性脑转移瘤应进行手术切除，术后辅以立体定向放射治疗和全脑放射治疗。结论  15%的脑转移瘤患者既往无肿瘤病史，因此诊断脑瘤后须在身体其他部位查找有无原发病灶，避免误诊、漏诊。对于中老年肺癌或其他恶性肿瘤患者，无论有无中枢神经系统症状，均应积极进行头颅CT甚至MRI检查，以发现较小的早期脑转移瘤病灶。对于易患肺癌人群，应该每年体检，进行胸部X线检查或低剂量CT筛查，以便早期发现肺癌病灶，早期治疗，防止肿瘤转移。Objective: To report 1 case was misdiagnosed as cerebral infarction solitary brain metastases (SBM) in patients with diagnosis process, and to summarize the clinical and imaging features of the SBM and its treatment. Methods: To retrospectively analyze the diagnostic process of 1 case of SBM patients, and to have literature review. Results: Patients with solitary and multiple brain metastases accounted for only 25%, the onset age was 40 ~ 60 years old, and the most common primary lesion is in lung. Brain metastases are often on the border, in between lobes grey matter. Different parts of the tumors can present different clinical manifestations. The diagnostic imaging is often shown as "small lesions, large edema", and intracranial primary tumor is not easy to distinguish, Head CT or MRI examination of tumors in other parts could confirm the diagnosis. Now that SBM should undergo surgery resection, postoperative supplemented by stereotactic radiotherapy and whole brain radiotherapy. Conclusions: 15% of the patients with brain metastases haven’t got previous medical history, the doctor is therefore must look for presence of primary lesions in other parts of the body for accurate diagnosis, to avoid the misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis. Middle-aged and elderly patients with lung cancer or other malignant tumor, regardless of the presence of the central nervous system symptoms, should carry on the head CT or MRI examination, and find smaller early brain metastatic lesions. People who are susceptible to lung cancer should have annual physical examination, chest X-ray or low dose CT screening for early detection of lung cancer lesions, early treatment and prevention of tumor metastasi

A feed-forward/feedback run-to-run control of a mixed product process: Simulation and experimental studies

Run-to-run (RtR) control is an important quality assurance method for batch-based manufacturing process. Usually, products of different grades are produced on a tool that will experience gradual drift between maintenance cycles. A feed-forward/feedback RtR control strategy that compensates this drift for all products manufactured on this tool was proposed. This and other RtR control schemes were analyzed and validated by simulation and experimentally using a bench scale reactor that produces silica particles with different diameters by a sol-gel process. A simple EWMA (exponentially weighted moving average) RtR control scheme based on products of the same grade was found to be stable but inefficient for infrequent products. A simple EWMA RtR control scheme that attributed disturbance entirely as the effect of tool drift was found to be unstable. The feed-forward/feedback RtR control proposed was able to maintain stable quality by effectively utilizing information about tool changes to adjust recipes of infrequent products