Type-I superconductivity in Al6_6Re

While the pure elements tend to exhibit Type-I rather than Type-II superconductivity, nearly all compound superconductors are Type-II, with only a few known exceptions. We report single crystal growth and physical characterization of the rhenium aluminide Al$_6$Re, which we conclude is a Type-I superconductor based on magnetization, ac-susceptibility, and specific-heat measurements. This detection of superconductivity, despite the strong similarity of Al$_6$Re to a family of W and Mo aluminides that do not superconduct, suggests that these aluminides are an ideal testbed for identifying the relative importance of valence electron count and inversion symmetry in determining whether a material will superconduct.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, CIF file as ancillar

Investigating Impulse Buying Behavior in Live Streaming Commerce: The Role of Social Presence

Live streaming is changing the paradigm of people’s entertainment and consumption. It has been adopted by many small individual sellers to improve their market performance, leading to the emergence of live streaming commerce. Although existing literature has paid attention to consumer purchase behavior in live streaming commerce, little knowledge on impulse buying can be available. Drawing on social presence theory and cognitive-affective framework, this paper attempts to develop a theoretical model to investigate how social presence affects consumers’ urge to buy impulsively through the mediating mechanism of cognitive state (i.e., product risk) and affective state (i.e., affective intensity). This paper is expected to advance knowledge on consumers’ impulse buying in live streaming commerce

What Makes it Difficult to Understand a Scientific Literature?

In the artificial intelligence area, one of the ultimate goals is to make computers understand human language and offer assistance. In order to achieve this ideal, researchers of computer science have put forward a lot of models and algorithms attempting at enabling the machine to analyze and process human natural language on different levels of semantics. Although recent progress in this field offers much hope, we still have to ask whether current research can provide assistance that people really desire in reading and comprehension. To this end, we conducted a reading comprehension test on two scientific papers which are written in different styles. We use the semantic link models to analyze the understanding obstacles that people will face in the process of reading and figure out what makes it difficult for human to understand a scientific literature. Through such analysis, we summarized some characteristics and problems which are reflected by people with different levels of knowledge on the comprehension of difficult science and technology literature, which can be modeled in semantic link network. We believe that these characteristics and problems will help us re-examine the existing machine models and are helpful in the designing of new one.Comment: Accepted by SKG201

The New Treatment of Osteosarcoma by Biologic Response Modifiers

poster abstractOsteosarcoma is a kind of bone cancer mainly affecting children and young adults and is lethal in about a third of cases. The treatment of osteosarcoma has evolved greatly during the last 40 years, however, the great progress that was seen in the 1970s and early 1980s has since stalled. The main challenge now is that advanced combination treatment can’t continue prolong the survival. Based on the micro-metastatic disease related to shorter survival, biologic response modifiers become a new treatment which can stimulate the immune system to eradicate minimal residual disease post-surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. This kind immune treatment may improve the disease-free and long-term survival rates of patients. Mifamurtide is a novel biologic response modifier which is indicated for the treatment of highgrade, non-metastasizing, resectable osteosarcoma following complete surgical removal in children, adolescents, and young adults. In our study, we searched for non-phase l Mifamurtide clinical studies on osteosarcoma through Medline, Google Scholar, and Clinical Trial Government Database. Among six clinical studies we found, two phase ll trials, one phase lll trial, one patient-access study, one decision study, and one cohort study. We systematically analyzed these studies and further evaluated the efficacy, side effects and safety of Mifamurtide on osteosarcoma

Reconstruct the Mesoscale Information of Typhoon with BDA Method Combined with AMSU-A Data Assimilation Method

This paper conducts the assimilating experiments and simulating experiments on typhoon “Aere” (No. 0418), by use of bogus data assimilation (BDA) method combined with advanced microwave sounding unit-A (AMSU-A) data assimilation method in the fifth-generation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)/Penn State Mesoscale Model Version-3 (MM5V3), the Radiative Transfer for TIROS-N Operational Vertical Sounder Version-7 (RTTOV) model, and their adjoint models. The Bogus data constructed with BDA technique are mainly located at sea level, while the peak energy contribution levels of the sounder channels selected in AMSU-A data assimilation technique are mainly located at upper troposphere. The two types of data can reconstruct the meso-scale information and improve the typhoon initial fields under the model dynamic forcing effect, respectively from the low level and the upper level of atmosphere during the assimilating process. Numerical results show that with four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) technique the circulation of initial fields is improved, the “warm core” of typhoon is enhanced, the “cloud water” phenomenon that occurs in the optimal initial fields and the numerical model is changed into “warm start” from “cold start”

Muon radiography experiments on the subway overburden structure detection

Muon radiography is an innovative and non-destructive technique for internal density structure imaging, based on measuring the attenuation of cosmic-ray muons after they penetrate the target. Due to the strong penetration ability of muons, the detection range of muon radiography can reach the order of hundreds of meters or even kilometers. Using a portable muon detector composed of plastic scintillators and silicon photomultipliers, we performed a short-duration(1h) flux scanning experiment of the overburden above the platform and tunnel of the Xiaoying West Road subway station under construction. With the observation direction facing up, the detector is placed on the north side of the track and moved eastward from the platform section inside the station to the tunnel section. The scanning length is 264m and a total of 21 locations are observed. By comparing the observed and predicted values of the muon survival ratio at different locations, the experiment accurately detects the jump in thickness at the interface of the platform section and tunnel section. Furthermore, unknown anomalies caused by random placed light brick piles and side passage mouth above the observation locations are detected and confirmed later. This experiment verifies the feasibility of using natural muons to quickly detect abnormal structures of the overburden of tunnel, and shows that muon radiography has broad application prospects in tunnel safety and other similar aspects.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure