Internal Josephson-Like Tunneling in Two-Component Bose-Einstein Condensates Affected by Sign of the Atomic Interaction and External Trapping Potential

We study the Josephson-like tunneling in two-component Bose-Einstein condensates coupled with microwave field in respond to various attractive and repulsive atomic interaction under the various aspect ratio of trapping potential and the gravitational field. It is very interesting to find that the dynamic of Josephson-like tunneling can be controlled from fast damped oscillations and asymmetric occupation to nondamped oscillation and symmetric occupation.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Comparative Study on the Structures of Chinese and Korean Compound Words

The goal of the research was to compare the compound words in Chinese, an isolated language, and Korean, an agglutinative language. This research used library research. The researchers found that the main characteristics of the formation of Korean compound words were that the latter element was the central word. The method of word formation decided its lexical category. Moreover, most of the internal relationships of the compound words were connection and modification. While in Chinese, the endocentric compound noun decided the part of speech of the compound word, and could be the proceeding element or the latter element. Furthermore, Chinese contained no complicated morphological changes. It is concluded that Korean is a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) language, where verb elements demonstrate a central feature of the compound verb are always a trailing part. Thus, there is no exocentric compound verb in Korean. By contrast, Chinese is a typical SVO language. When constituting the compound verbs, nouns or adjectives can function as the structural elements. Therefore, there is no permanent position for head words

Empirical risk minimization for metric learning using privileged information

Traditional metric learning methods usually make decisions based on a fixed threshold, which may result in a suboptimal metric when the inter-class and inner-class variations are complex. To address this issue, in this paper we propose an effective metric learning method by exploiting privileged information to relax the fixed threshold under the empirical risk minimization framework. Privileged information describes useful high-level semantic information that is only available during training. Our goal is to improve the performance by incorporating privileged information to design a locally adaptive decision function. We jointly learn two distance metrics by minimizing the empirical loss penalizing the difference between the distance in the original space and that in the privileged space. The distance in the privileged space functions as a locally adaptive decision threshold, which can guide the decision making like a teacher. We optimize the objective function using the Accelerated Proximal Gradient approach to obtain a global optimum solution. Experiment results show that by leveraging privileged information, our proposed method can achieve satisfactory performance

Antibunching photons in a cavity coupled to an optomechanical system

We study the photon statistics of a cavity linearly coupled to an optomechanical system via second order correlation functions. Our calculations show that the cavity can exhibit strong photon antibunching even when optomechanical interaction in the optomechanical system is weak. The cooperation between the weak optomechanical interaction and the destructive interference between different paths for two-photon excitation leads to the efficient antibunching effect. Compared with the standard optomechanical system, the coupling between a cavity and an optomechanical system provides a method to relax the constraints to obtain single photon by optomechanical interaction.Comment: 7 papes, 5 figure

Effects of recombinant human collagen VI from Escherichia coli on UVA-irradiated human skin fibroblasts cells

In this study, we reported the cloning and over expression of a gene coding for human collagen peptide (CP6) in Escherichia coli and investigated the protective effects of CP6 on UVA-irradiated human skin fibroblasts cells. The collagen peptide (CP6) was highly soluble and the expression level was approximately 10% of the total bacteria proteins. Also, we performed assays with 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol- 2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), Annexin V-fluorescein isothiocyanate/propidine iodide (Annexin V-FITC/PI) and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) methods to investigate the cytoprotective effects of CP6 on the proliferation of UVA-damaged human skin fibroblasts cells. Radiation dosages (5 J/cm2) significantly decreased the proliferation activities of human skin fibroblasts cells (HSF). Compared with UVA irradiated group, in the given concentration, CP6 could improve the activities of cell’s proliferation (P<0.05) and decrease the apoptosis rate of cell significantly (P<0.01). UVA could damage the human skin fibroblasts cell in vitro. The CP6 had protective effects on HSF irradiated by UVA, and the mechanism of this effect might be associated with its anti-oxidative effect and enhancing cell’s proliferation.Key words: Protein expression, Collagen peptide, Human skin fibroblasts cells, UVA

Salvianolic Acid B Ameliorates Motor Dysfuntion in Spinal Cord Injury Rats

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of salvianolic acid B (Sal B) treatment on the motor function of spinal cord injury (SCI) rat.Methods: SCI rats were modelled by contusion, and then received 10 mg/kg Sal B, or methylprednisolone, or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) intraperitoneally daily for 4 weeks, two hours after the trauma occurred. During the treatment, footprint analysis (FA), inclined plane test (IPT), Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan (BBB) rating and Schnell Swim Test (SST) were used for estimating the recovery of motor function. At the same time, tissue edema was measured by wet-dry weighting, and the secretion of cytokines were indirectly quantitated by real time polymerase chain  reaction (qPCR).Results: Primarily, Sal B group rats scored higher by FA, IPT and BBB rating. Further statistical analysis of comprehensive SST data from   Student-t test indicates that Sal B can significantly ameliorate motor dysfunction after a 4-week treatment (p < 0.05) as well. Furthermore, Sal B decreased water content of the edema by 16.5 % during the first week, and sharply downregulated the transcription of interleukin 6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) 28- and 16-fold, respectively.Conclusion: The beneficial effect of motor function recovery was observed in SCI rats following intraperitoneal administration of Sal B.Keywords: Salvianolic acid B, Spinal cord injury, Motor dysfunction, Cytokine

Cooperative control of high-speed trains for headway regulation: A self-triggered model predictive control based approach

The advanced train-to-train and train-to-ground communication technologies equipped in high-speed railways have the potential to allow trains to follow each with a steady headway and improve the safety and performance of the railway systems. A key enabler is a train control system that is able to respond to unforeseen disturbances in the system (e.g., incidents, train delays), and to adjust and coordinate the train headways and speeds. This paper proposes a multi-train cooperative control model based on the dynamic features during train longitude movement to adjust train following headway. In particular, our model simultaneously considers several practical constraints, e.g., train controller output constraints, safe train following distance, as well as communication delays and resources. Then, this control problem is solved through a rolling horizon approach by calculating the Riccati equation with Lagrangian multipliers. Due to the practical communication resource constraints and riding comfort requirement, we also improved the rolling horizon approach into a novel self-triggered model predictive control scheme to overcome these issues. Finally, two case studies are given through simulation experiments. The simulation results are analyzed which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Is traditional Chinese medicine recommended in Western medicine clinicalpractice guidelines in China? A systematic analysis.

Background: Evidence-based medicine promotes and relies on the use of evidence in developing clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). The Chinese healthcare system includes both traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine, which are expected to be equally reflected in Chinese CPGs. Objective: To evaluate the inclusion of TCM-related information in Western medicine CPGs developed in China and the adoption of high level evidence. Methods: All CPGs were identified from the China Guideline Clearinghouse (CGC), which is the main Chinese organisation maintaining the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health of China, the Chinese Medical Association and the Chinese Medical Doctors' Association. TCM-related contents were extracted from all the CPGs identified. Extracted information comprised the institution issuing the guideline, date of issue, disease, recommendations relating to TCM, evidence level of the recommended content and references supporting the recommendations. Results: A total of 604 CPGs were identified, only a small number of which (74/604; 12%) recommended TCM therapy and only five guidelines (7%) had applied evidence grading. The 74 CPGs involved 13 disease systems according to the International Classification of Diseases 10th edition. TCM was mainly recommended in the treatment part of the guidelines (73/74, 99%), and more than half of the recommendations (43/74, 58%) were related to Chinese herbal medicine (single herbs or herbal treatment based on syndrome differentiation). Conclusions: Few Chinese Western medicine CPGs recommend TCM therapies and very few provide evidence grading for the TCM recommendation. We suggest that future guideline development should be based on systematic searches for evidence to support CPG recommendations and involve a multidisciplinary approach including TCM expertise

Novel Non-Toxic Xylene Substitute (SBO) for Histology

Xylene has been generally used as a clearing and deparaffinizing agent in histology. Because of the potential toxic and flammable nature of xylene, its substitutes have been introduced into some laboratories. In this study, we introduced a novel, non-toxic xylene substitute (SBO), which was  generated through a mixture of 86% of white oil No.2 and 14% of N-heptane. SBO had a high boiling point (188°C) and flash point (144°C) coupled with a scentless and decreased volatility. To compare the effectiveness of SBO and xylene in histology, a wide range of tissue samples from rats and human beings were processed in parallel in SBO and xylene, subjected to various staining procedures. Similar to the xylene-processed paraffin blocks, the SBO-processed counterparts were easy to section without any evidence of cell shrinkage. Assessment of the SBO-treated sections stained with hematoxylin-eosin revealed a good maintenance of cell morphology and structure, and a clear definition of the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Moreover, comparable good results were achieved between the SBO- and xylene-processed tissues in other histochemical and immunohistochemical stainings. Six-month clinical applications at one department of pathology supported the potentials of SBO as a xylene substitute. In conclusion, we suggest that SBO is a safe and efficient substitute of xylene and may probably replace xylene without losing valuable diagnostic information.Key words: SBO, clearing agent, xylene, histology, toxicit

Supply chain security certification and operational performance:The role of upstream complexity

Supply chain security (SCS) incidents increasingly cause financial losses to manufacturing facilities and logistics service providers. Thus, supply chain security certification can have implications for production economics, particularly for importing firms who rely on a smooth logistics flow across country borders. However, it largely remains unknown regarding how such certification could influence a firm's operational performance. To this end, we empirically examine whether and how the adoption of Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) certification, initiated by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), could improve operational performance in adopter firms. This study draws upon signaling theory to empirically investigate the value of C-TPAT certification on U.S. publicly-traded importer firms' operational performance by analyzing the longitudinal data of properly-matched sample-control groups. The data come from multiple sources: public announcements of C-TPAT certification from the News Retrieval Service database, import data from lading records, and financial data from Standard & Poor's COMPUSTAT database. Employing a coarsened exact matching (CEM) method and a difference-in-difference (DID) analysis, we find that C-TPAT certified importers have better operational performance than that of non-certified importers. We also find that the level of upstream supply chain complexity (detail, dynamic, and spatial complexity) enhances the operational performance derived from C-TPAT certification. This study sheds light on the performance value of a management standard that is attributed to the non-process mechanism (not due to process improvements) enabled by the signaling effectiveness incorporating the upstream supply chain complexities. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications for production economics and supply chain management studies