An effective data placement strategy for XML documents

As XML is increasingly being used in Web applications, new technologies need to be investigated for processing XML documents with high performance. Parallelism is a promising solution for structured document processing and data placement is a major factor for system performance improvement in parallel processing. This paper describes an effective XML document data placement strategy. The new strategy is based on a multilevel graph partitioning algorithm with the consideration of the unique features of XML documents and query distributions. A new algorithm, which is based on XML query schemas to derive the weighted graph from the labelled directed graph presentation of XML documents, is also proposed. Performance analysis on the algorithm presented in the paper shows that the new data placement strategy exhibits low workload skew and a high degree of parallelism

Design of high-frequency Gm-C wavelet filters

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.” DOI: 10.1109/ECCTD.2009.5274969A high-frequency wavelet filter which employs Gm-C blocks based on leap-frog (LF) multiple-loop feedback (MLF) structure is presented. The proposed method is well suitable for high-quality high-frequency operation since the Gm-C based filter can achieve high frequency, whilst LF MLF configuration has the characteristics of lower magnitude sensitivity and capability of realizing arbitrary rational functions. The Marr wavelet is selected as an example in this paper, and the design for a 100 MHz frequency operation is elaborated. The wavelet filter is simulated using TSMC 1.8 V 0.18 mum CMOS technology. Simulation results indicate that the proposed method is feasible for high frequency operation with relatively low power consumption.Peer reviewe

The effect of financial development, financial agglomeration, and financial constraint on China’s economic development

It has been generally acknowledged that financial development has been critical to economic growth for several decades. Nonetheless, the empirical evidence supporting the association between financial development and economic growth is inconclusive. The majority of existing studies mainly concerned developed countries such as the USA and the UK; there is only a few research focusing on this topic in the context of China. Thus, the main goal of our study is to fill the gap in the previous empirical research. We investigate the impacts of financial development on the economy from both the macro and micro levels in three different aspects: the impact of the informal financial sector (shadow banking sector) on the economic growth in Chinese provinces, the spatial effect of financial agglomeration spillovers on the economic growth among three different regions of China, and the financial constraint on firms’ innovation activities. Firstly, to better understand China's financial industry and the influence it has on the country's economic growth, we conducted an assessment of the present status of the development in China's financial sector. Based on endogenous growth theory, we have gathered data from more than 4000 enterprises to create a shadow banking index and employ a unique dataset from 30 provinces and municipalities during the period 2005 to 2016, which we use to estimate the impact of the financial sector on provincial economic growth in China. According to the findings, we find that the development in both the formal financial sector and shadow banking sector is positively affecting the economic development in China's provinces. Although the shadow banking coefficients are not as high as the formal financial sector, economic development in China's provinces is still supported to a large extent by the informal financial sector. Secondly, we attempt to determine the indirect effect of financial agglomeration (also called the spatial spillover effect) on economic growth in different regions of China by adopting the spatial econometric approach with data collected from 30 provinces and municipalities between 2005 and 2016. We find out that the different spatial effects of financial agglomeration spillovers within regions could be believed as one of the reasons to explain the regional growth disparity in China. Specifically, the spatial effect of financial agglomeration spillovers provided a significant favourable influence on economic development in the eastern region of China, which ties the local economic growth and development in the neighbouring areas together. By contrast, the spillover effect generated a depressing effect on provincial economic growth in the central region of China. At the same time, financial agglomerating has an insignificant spillover effect in China’s western region. Last, we examine how financial constraint impacts Chinese enterprises' innovative activities at a micro-level. We introduced the Euler equation to estimate the financial constraint on different types of firms in China. According to the Euler equation, the financial constraint is associated with the sensitivity of investment in innovation activities to cash flow. We believe that the firm’s cash flow should not influence future investment if absent financial constraint; otherwise, the results can be interpreted as the financial constraint exists, the availability of capital flow has little effect on the innovative activities of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and collective enterprises’ assets, but it has the most significant impact on private firm

Performance Analysis of Hybrid UAV Networks for Probabilistic Content Caching

Caching content in small-cell networks can reduce the traffic congestion in backhaul. In this paper, we develop a hybrid caching network comprising of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and ground small-cell base stations (SBSs), where UAVs are preferred because of their flexibility and elevated platform for line-of-sight. First, we derive the association probability for the ground user affiliated with a UAV and ground SBS. Then, we derive the successful content delivery probability by considering both the inter-cell and intra-cell interference. We also analyze the energy efficiency of the hybrid network and compare it with the separate UAV and ground networks. We further propose the caching scheme to improve the successful content delivery by managing the content popularity, where the part of the caching capacity in each UAV and ground SBS is reserved to store the most popular content (MPC), while the remaining stores less popular contents. Numerical results unveil that the proposed caching scheme has an improvement of 26.6% in content delivery performance over the MPC caching which overlooks the impact of content diversity during caching

Empathy and point of view in literature: a (cognitive) stylistic analysisof ‘clash moments’ in Americanah

This thesis explores how readers’ empathy is engendered through the representation of characters’ point of view, as well as the activation of socially and culturally shared knowledge-based schemata between the characters and the reader. It considers how textual features are used to construct mental representations of characters, events or situations, allowing readers to potentially empathise with them. I undertake a stylistic analysis that combines cognitive-based theoretical approaches. I employ five extracts from the novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014) to illustrate how empathy is potentially achieved. In this novel, I discovered that the way in which some parts of the text presented are deviant and different to other parts, making them psychologically salient or striking for readers. I call these ‘clash moments’. The concept of ‘clash moment’ is, therefore, taken as a device to select the data, as well as applied to the analysis to help readers to gain a sense of viewpoint differences. In particular, this thesis considers the relevant and influential stylistic devices within stylistics: point of view, and more importantly how points of view are created by the interplay between indicators of viewpoints and the category of speech and thought presentation. Cognitive-based approaches, the socially and culturally shared knowledge-based schemata are used to make inferences about readers’ potential perspectives. Therefore, this thesis argues that the linguistic evidence that stylistic features in the text can activate readers’ potential empathy for characters through socially and culturally shared knowledge-based schemata by taking character’s points of view. I consider this study my contribution to the field of (cognitive) stylistics; specifically, the growing body of work in the emerging field combining of linguistics and cognition. Furthermore, this detailed study of language with regard to readers, focusing in depth on one particular novel with a specific narrative technique, offers a possible explanation on how point of view invites readers’ empathy and/or change their knowledge-based schemata

Prediction of Earth rotation and polar motion

Based on the analysis of the polar motion behavior, the possibility of predicting polar motion up to one year in advance was found. Comparing these predicted polar coordinates with the observed ones (smoothed), the root mean square (rms) of the differences is about 0.02 seconds. The differences of the relative polar motion are much smaller. For any time interval of 20 to 30 days throughout the whole year, the rms of the relative polar motion differences is about 0.01 second. Compared with the best available VLBI results (from 1977 to 1980), the rms of pred. to obs. is 0.013 seconds, and the relative rms (for time intervals less than two months) is 0.008 seconds (here the observed data is unsmoothed). It appears that 80 to 90% of the polar motion is composed of the stable, predictable Chandler and annual terms. The UT1-UTC has more complicated changes than polar motion making it difficult to find a satisfactory method of long term prediction. So far the rms prediction error is 0.0023 s for up to 30 days

Programmable Metasurface Based Multicast Systems: Design and Analysis

© 2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. This paper considers a multi-antenna multicast system with programmable metasurface (PMS) based transmitter. Taking into account of the finite-resolution phase shifts of PMSs, a novel beam training approach is proposed, which achieves comparable performance as the exhaustive beam searching method but with much lower time overhead. Then, a closed-form expression for the achievable multicast rate is presented, which is valid for arbitrary system configurations. In addition, for certain asymptotic scenario, simple approximated expressions for the multicase rate are derived. Closed-form solutions are obtained for the optimal power allocation scheme, and it is shown that equal power allocation is optimal when the pilot power or the number of reflecting elements is sufficiently large. However, it is desirable to allocate more power to weaker users when there are a large number of RF chains. The analytical findings indicate that, with large pilot power, the multicast rate is determined by the weakest user. Also, increasing the number of radio frequency (RF) chains or reflecting elements can significantly improve the multicast rate, and as the phase shift number becomes larger, the multicast rate improves first and gradually converges to a limit. Moreover, increasing the number of users would significantly degrade the multicast rate, but this rate loss can be compensated by implementing a large number of reflecting elements

Measures to enforce mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes in China

Mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes strictly govern the energy consumption of new buildings in China. As the promotion of building energy efficiency in China has increased in recent years, compliance with mandatory civil building energy efficiency codes has also improved, increasing from less than 10% in 2000 to nearly 100% in 2012, a remarkable achievement. However, because the promotion of energy efficiency strategies in China has followed a unique pattern, some researchers doubt these statistics. In response to these doubts, this paper summarises and analyses the framework of measures implemented by the Chinese government to enforce mandatory building energy efficiency codes. First, the development and implementation of China's mandatory civil building energy efficiency code system is summarised. Second, the building supervision and inspection systems used to assess energy efficiency are introduced and analysed in detail in order to provide a framework for the development of energy policies in other countries. Third, the assessment and reporting processes used to determine compliance rates are reviewed. Finally, the improvement of compliance rates and its impact on building energy savings in China are discussed. Along with the increase in compliance rates in the construction stage from 71% in 2007 to 100% in 2012, the energy savings of new buildings per increased floor area per year increased from 20.4 kWh/m2 to 28.4 kWh/m2. The supervision and inspection systems reported in this paper are the keys to enforcing building energy efficiency codes