Agenda setting and micro-blog use: An analysis of the relationship between Sina Weibo and newspaper agendas in China

The present study investigates the influence of micro-blogs on the major agenda-setting media in China in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic railway accident. Study findings are based on a content analysis of micro-blog messages and traditional mainstream media reports that were published in the nine days subsequent to the July 23, 2011 bullet train crash accident. Results suggest that, in the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic train wreck, alternative online media played a decisive role in setting mainstream media agendas and providing a citizen forum on a sensitive issue that their conventional counterparts downplayed, ignored, or missed altogether. In particular, the traditional media’s agenda setting power is no longer universal nor singular within micro-blogging outlets. Instead, traditional media—once a monolithic establishment—are now just one of the role players among many competing influences

Shear behaviour and design of diagonally stiffened stainless steel plate girders

The shear behaviour of stainless steel plate girders investigated in this study is related to the introduction of diagonal stiffeners. Four plate girders with or without diagonal stiffeners were fabricated by welding hot-rolled stainless steel plates of different thicknesses. All the plate girders were tested to failure subject to shear loading. The critical shear buckling stress, ultimate resistance and post-peak response were recorded and carefully analysed. Elaborate finite element (FE) models were developed by means of the FE software package ABAQUS and were validated against the test results. A comprehensive parametric analysis of key parameters including the web aspect ratio and slenderness, the flexural stiffness of diagonal stiffeners and the material properties was further conducted, reflecting the influence of these parameters on structural responses. The critical shear buckling stresses obtained from eigenvalue buckling analysis were compared with theoretical predictions of the elastic buckling stress, and a new calculation approach for the shear buckling coefficient of diagonally stiffened web panel that can account for the flexural stiffness of diagonal stiffeners and the effective restraint from flanges was proposed. Based on the obtained ultimate shear resistances, the existing design methods were assessed; and a new design proposal within the framework of EN 1993-1-4+A1 for predicting the shear resistance of diagonally stiffened stainless steel plate girders was developed. In this novel method, the shear contributions from diagonal stiffeners and the shear buckling coefficients for diagonally stiffened web panels were revised. The reliability of the new proposal was also confirmed by further statistical analysis

An online position error correction method for sensorless control of permanent magnet synchronous machine with parameter mismatch

To eliminate the influence of parameter mismatch for fundamental model based sensorless methods, an effective online position error correction method is proposed for permanent magnet synchronous machines in this paper. Based on the derived position error mechanism, i.e. the error varies proportionally to the dq -axis currents, the proposed method injects a sinusoidal current signal with a small amplitude and low frequency into the d - or q -axis current for a short period. During injection, the corresponding sinusoidal response for current injection can be acquired from the estimated speed of the sensorless position observer. It is found that the amplitude of the response in the estimated speed decreases as the parameter mismatch reduces, and eventually reaches a minimum if there is no parameter mismatch. Thus, by applying the least mean square (LMS) algorithm, the amplitude of the response in the estimated speed can be minimised as the parameters are adaptively adjusted to the actual values, and then the position error can be corrected. The proposed method is validated through experiments on a permanent magnet generator drive system

Characterization of the monoclonal antibody against classical swine fever virus glycoprotein E-rns and its application to an indirect sandwich ELISA

Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) E-rns is an envelope glycoprotein possessing RNase activity. The E-rns-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) has been considered a discriminating diagnostic test for differentiating infected from vaccinated animals. The purpose of this study was to produce a specific monoclonal antibody (MAb) to E-rns for further developing an indirect sandwich ELISA. The MAb CW813 was shown to specifically recognize both the monomer and dimer forms of Pichia pastoris yeast-expressed E-rns (yE(rns)). The antigenic site recognized by MAb CW813 was mapped to the region of amino acid residues 101-160 of E-rns where it was neither a neutralizing epitope nor essential to RNase activity. Furthermore, MAb CW813 was utilized as a capture antibody to develop a yE(rns)-based indirect sandwich ELISA for detecting swine antibody to E-rns. The assay demonstrated a high sensitivity and specificity that may provide an alternative method for developing a diagnostic kit with easy manipulation and low cost

Modeling water waves beyond perturbations

In this chapter, we illustrate the advantage of variational principles for modeling water waves from an elementary practical viewpoint. The method is based on a `relaxed' variational principle, i.e., on a Lagrangian involving as many variables as possible, and imposing some suitable subordinate constraints. This approach allows the construction of approximations without necessarily relying on a small parameter. This is illustrated via simple examples, namely the Serre equations in shallow water, a generalization of the Klein-Gordon equation in deep water and how to unify these equations in arbitrary depth. The chapter ends with a discussion and caution on how this approach should be used in practice.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figure, 39 references. This document is a contributed chapter to an upcoming volume to be published by Springer in Lecture Notes in Physics Series. Other author's papers can be downloaded at http://www.denys-dutykh.com

Identification of alpha-enolase as an autoantigen in lung cancer: Its overexpression is associated with clinical outcomes

Purpose: Although existence of humoral immunity has been previously shown in malignant pleural effusions, only a limited number of immunogenic tumor-associated antigens (TAA) have been identified and associated with lung cancer. In this study, we intended to identify more TAAs in pleural effusion-derived tumor cells. Experimental Design: Using morphologically normal lung tissues as a control lysate in Western blotting analyses, 54 tumor samples were screened with autologous effusion antibodies. Biochemical purification and mass spectrometric identification of TAAs were done using established effusion tumor cell lines as antigen sources. We identified a p48 antigen as of-enolase (ENO1). Semiquantitative immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate expression status of ENO1 in the tissue samples of 80 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and then correlated with clinical variables. Results: Using ENO1-specifc antiserum, up-regulation of ENO1 expression in effusion tumor cells from 11 of 17 patients was clearly observed compared with human normal lung primary epithelial and non-cancer-associated effusion cells. Immunohistochemical studies consistently showed high level of ENO1 expression in all the tumors we have examined thus far. Log-rank and Cox's analyses of ENO1 expression status revealed that its expression level in primary tumors was a key factor contributing to overall- and progression-free survivals of patients (P < 0.05). The same result was also obtained in the early stage of NSCLC patients, showing that tumors expressing relatively higher ENO1 level were tightly correlated with poorer survival outcomes. Conclusions: Our data strongly support a prognostic role of ENO1 in determining tumor malignancy of patients with NSCLC