The Marshall plan and its achievements

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityIn conclusion, we may find that the world trade is fundamentally out of balance. Other countries simply are not earning enough dollars to pay for what they import from us. They have a "dollar shortage". It was mainly because of: loss of the Western European's overseas investment; reduced imports by the United States; and lastly, the rise in prices of importing primary commodity prices. The critical lack of balance in world trade should be corrected primarily by stimulating an expansion or exports of goods and services from other countries to the United States, accompanied by an expansion, as far as feasible, or United States foreign invesment. The task is to be achieved by mutual cooperation of both business and government on both sides of the Atlantic

Solar Battery Charger in CMOS 0.25 um Technology

A solar cell powered Li-ion battery charger in CMOS 0.25um is proposed. The solar battery charger consists of a DC/DC boost converter and a battery charger. The voltage generated by a solar cell is up converted from 0.65V to 1.8V, which is used as the VDD of the battery charger.  In this way, the solar battery charger automatically converts solar energy to electricity and stores it directly to a Li-ion rechargeable battery. In this system, a super capacitor is needed as a charge buffer between the boost converter and the charger.<br /

Plasma metabolomic profiles predict near-term death among individuals with lower extremity peripheral arterial disease

BackgroundIndividuals with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) have a nearly two-fold increased risk of all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality compared to those without PAD. This pilot study determined whether metabolomic profiling can accurately identify patients with PAD who are at increased risk of near-term mortality.MethodsWe completed a case-control study using 1H NMR metabolomic profiling of plasma from 20 decedents with PAD, without critical limb ischemia, who had blood drawn within 8 months prior to death (index blood draw) and within 10 to 28 months prior to death (preindex blood draw). Twenty-one PAD participants who survived more than 30 months after their index blood draw served as a control population.ResultsResults showed distinct metabolomic patterns between preindex decedent, index decedent, and survivor samples. The major chemical signals contributing to the differential pattern (between survivors and decedents) arose from the fatty acyl chain protons of lipoproteins and the choline head group protons of phospholipids. Using the top 40 chemical signals for which the intensity was most distinct between survivor and preindex decedent samples, classification models predicted near-term all-cause death with overall accuracy of 78% (32/41), a sensitivity of 85% (17/20), and a specificity of 71% (15/21). When comparing survivor with index decedent samples, the overall classification accuracy was optimal at 83% (34/41) with a sensitivity of 80% (16/20) and a specificity of 86% (18/21), using as few as the top 10 to 20 chemical signals.ConclusionsOur results suggest that metabolomic profiling of plasma may be useful for identifying PAD patients at increased risk for near-term death. Larger studies using more sensitive metabolomic techniques are needed to identify specific metabolic pathways associated with increased risk of near-term all-cause mortality among PAD patients

The Dual-mediation Effect of Perceived Accuracy and Perceived Connectedness on Consumer Attitude Toward Social Network Advertising

Despite the importance of social media advertising, few studies have investigated the factors that influence its effectiveness (Jung, Shim, Jin, and Khang 2016). Because advertising on social media is a relatively new phenomenon (Okazaki and Taylor 2013), several studies are exploratory in nature and lack a solid theoretical framework (e.g., Campbell, Pitt, Parent, and Berthon 2011; Pehlivan, Sarican, and Berthon 2011; Sashittal, Sriramachandramurthy, and Hodis 2012; Waters and Jones 2011). For this reason, the present study examines the factors affecting consumers’ attitudes toward advertisements they view on social media. This paper draws on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to investigate the dual mediation effect of perceived accuracy and perceived connectedness between endorsement from satisfied customers/review credibility/social influence and consumers’ attitudes toward social network advertising. Analysis of 1,031 valid responses to a survey show that endorsement from satisfied customers, review credibility, and social influence are antecedents of perceived accuracy and perceived connectedness. These variables are also antecedents of consumers’ attitudes toward social network advertising. In turn, perceived accuracy and connectedness partially mediate the relationships between endorsement from satisfied customers/review credibility/social influence and consumers’ attitudes toward social network advertising

Updated Inventory of Carbon Monoxide in The Taurus Molecular Cloud

The most extensive survey of carbon monoxide (CO) gas in the Taurus molecular cloud relied on $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO $J=1 \rightarrow 0$ emission only, distinguishing the region where $^{12}$CO is detected without $^{13}$CO (named mask 1 region) from the one where both are detected (mask 2 region). We have taken advantage of recent $^{12}$CO $J=3\rightarrow2$ JCMT observations where they include mask 1 regions to estimate density, temperature, and $N$(CO) with a LVG model. This represents 1395 pixels out of $\sim$1.2 million in the mark 1 region. Compared to Pineda et al. (2010) results, and assuming a $T_\textrm{kin}$ of 30 K, we find a higher volume density of molecular hydrogen of 3.3$\rm \times\ 10^3$ $\textrm{cm}^{-3}$, compared to their 250--700 $\textrm{cm}^{-3}$ and a CO column density of 5.7$\rm \times\ 10^{15}\ \textrm{cm}^{-2}$, about a quarter of their value. The differences are important and show the necessity to observe several CO transitions to better describe the intermediate region between the dense cloud and the diffuse atomic medium. Future observations to extend the$^{12}$CO$J=3\rightarrow2$mapping further away from the$^{13}$CO--detected region comprising mask 1 are needed to revisit our understanding of the diffuse portions of dark clouds.Comment: Accepted for publication in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 15 pages, 2 tables, 8 figure

Discovery of a New Molecular Bubble-Outflow Structure in the Taurus B18 Cloud

Star formation can produce bubbles and outflows, as a result of stellar feedback. Outflows and bubbles inject momentum and energy into the surrounding interstellar medium, and so are related to the overall energy balance of the molecular cloud. Molecular bubbles can be resolved by higher-resolution radio telescopes to quantify the effect of star formation on molecular clouds. We report here the identification of a new molecular bubble with an outflow, and an Herbig Haro object, HH319, located at the bubble center. Multi-wavelength data have been utilized to study its spatial structure, energy injection, and dynamical timescale. This bubble has a kinetic energy of $\rm 5.8 \times 10^{43}$ erg within the smallest radius of a bubble in Taurus, 0.077 pc. The bubble formed $\sim$70,000 years ago. According to the proper motion velocities of protostars from $Gaia$ EDR3, the T Tauri binary stars (FY Tau and FZ Tau) at the southwest edge of the bubble may have produced the outflow-bubble structure. This is an unusual new structure found in low- and intermediate-mass star formation regions. Only a bubble in Orion A, driven by V380 Ori, has a similar structure. The bubble-outflow structure provides additional observational evidence for the theory of stellar wind from T Tauri stars. It enhances our understanding of how stellar feedback acts on molecular clouds.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 14 pages, 2 tables, 9 figure

A balanced Memristor-CMOS ternary logic family and its application

The design of balanced ternary digital logic circuits based on memristors and conventional CMOS devices is proposed. First, balanced ternary minimum gate TMIN, maximum gate TMAX and ternary inverters are systematically designed and verified by simulation, and then logic circuits such as ternary encoders, decoders and multiplexers are designed on this basis. Two different schemes are then used to realize the design of functional combinational logic circuits such as a balanced ternary half adder, multiplier, and numerical comparator. Finally, we report a series of comparisons and analyses of the two design schemes, which provide a reference for subsequent research and development of three-valued logic circuits.Comment: 15 pages, 30 figure

MobiCeal: Towards secure and practical plausibly deniable encryption on mobile devices

National Research Foundation (NRF) Singapor