Indirect approach to continuous time system identification of food extruder

A three-stage approach to system identification in the continuous time is presented which is appropriate for day-to-day application by plant engineers in the process industry. The three stages are: data acquisition using relay feedback; non-parametric identification of the system step response; and parametric model fitting of the identified step response. The method is evaluated on a pilot-scale food-cooking extruder

Is There a Place for a Reasonable Woman in the Law? A Discussion of Recent Developments in Hostile Environment Sexual Harassment

In this study, we demonstrate piezoelectric power generation from zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires grown on paper substrate. Vertically aligned ZnO nanowires are deflected by an atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip in contact mode which generates an output voltage of up to 7 mV. Furthermore, the effects of different parameters mainly influencing the magnitude of the output voltage are discussed. We expect that due to its simplicity, this approach represents an important step within the development of nanoscale power generators. It offers a promising alternative powering source for the next generation of nanodevices on disposable paper

Trialing project-based learning in a new EAP ESP course: A collaborative reflective practice of three college English teachers

Currently in many Chinese universities, the traditional College English course is facing the risk of being ‘marginalized’, replaced or even removed, and many hours previously allocated to the course are now being taken by EAP or ESP. At X University in northern China, a curriculum reform as such is taking place, as a result of which a new course has been created called ‘xue ke’ English. Despite the fact that ‘xue ke’ means subject literally, the course designer has made it clear that subject content is not the target, nor is the course the same as EAP or ESP. This curriculum initiative, while possibly having been justified with a rationale of some kind (e.g. to meet with changing social and/or academic needs of students and/or institutions), this is posing a great challenge for, as well as considerable pressure on, a number of College English teachers who have taught this single course for almost their entire teaching career. In such a context, three teachers formed a peer support group in Semester One this year, to work collaboratively co-tackling the challenge, and they chose Project-Based Learning (PBL) for the new course. This presentation will report on the implementation of this project, including the overall designing, operational procedure, and the teachers’ reflections. Based on discussion, pre-agreement was reached on the purpose and manner of collaboration as offering peer support for more effective teaching and learning and fulfilling and pleasant professional development. A WeChat group was set up as the chief platform for messaging, idea-sharing, and resource-exchanging. Physical meetings were supplementary, with sound agenda but flexible time, and venues. Mosoteach cloud class (lan mo yun ban ke) was established as a tool for virtual learning, employed both in and after class. Discussions were held at the beginning of the semester which determined only brief outlines for PBL implementation and allowed space for everyone to autonomously explore in their own way. Constant further discussions followed, which generated a great deal of opportunities for peer learning and lesson plan modifications. A reflective journal, in a greater or lesser detailed manner, was also kept by each teacher to record the journey of the collaboration. At the end of the semester, it was commonly recognized that, although challenges existed, the collaboration was overall a success and they were all willing to continue with it and endeavor to refine it to be a more professional and productive approach

Harnack Inequalities on Manifolds with Boundary and Applications

On a large class of Riemannian manifolds with boundary, some dimension-free Harnack inequalities for the Neumann semigroup is proved to be equivalent to the convexity of the boundary and a curvature condition. In particular, for $p_t(x,y)$ the Neumann heat kernel w.r.t. a volume type measure $\mu$ and for $K$ a constant, the curvature condition \Ric-\nn Z\ge K together with the convexity of the boundary is equivalent to the heat kernel entropy inequality \int_M p_t(x,z)\log \ff{p_t(x,z)}{p_t(y,z)} \mu(\d z)\le \ff{K\rr(x,y)^2}{2(\e^{2Kt}-1)}, t>0, x,y\in M, where \rr is the Riemannian distance. The main result is partly extended to manifolds with non-convex boundary and applied to derive the HWI inequality.Comment: 24 page

Dark Energy Search with Supernovae

To determine the nature of dark energy from observational data, it is important that we use model-independent and optimal methods. We should probe dark energy using its density (allowed to be a free function of cosmic time) instead of its equation of state. We should minimize gravitational lensing effect on supernovae by flux-averaging. We need to include complementary data (for example, from the Cosmic Microwave Background [CMB] and large scale structure [LSS]) in a consistent manner to help break the degeneracy between the dark energy density and the matter density fraction. We should push for ambitious future supernova surveys that can observe a large number of supernovae at the highest possible redshifts. I discuss these and other issues that will be important in our quest to unravel the mystery of the nature of dark energy. Current supernova, CMB, and LSS data already rule out dark energy models with dark energy densities that vary greatly with time; with the cosmological constant model providing an excellent fit to the data. A precise measurement of dark energy density as a free function of cosmic time will have a fundamental impact on particle physics and cosmology.Comment: 9 pages, 3 color figures, to appear in proceedings of the 6th UCLA Symposium on "Sources and Detection of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe

About "On certain incomplete statistics" by Lima et al

Lima et al recently claim that ({\em Chaos, Solitons & Fractals,} 2004;19:1005)the entropy for the incomplete statistics based on the normalization$\sum_ip_i^q=1$ should be $S=-\sum_ip_i^{2q-1}\ln_qp_i$ instead of$S=-\sum_ip_i^{q}\ln_qp_i$ initially proposed by Wang. We indicate here that thisconclusion is a result of erroneous use of temperature definition for the incompletestatistics