A Comparative Analysis of English Education Between Chinese and Japanese Universities

With the strengthening of the trend of global integration, the world needs more and more bilingual talents. English, as the first common language in the world, is undoubtedly important. Both China and Japan are in Asia, so there are many similarities in education that can be borrowed from each other. This article makes a comparative analysis in Chinese and Japanese college English education from the following three perspectives: educator, educatee and educational influence. In this paper, documentation method, comparison analytic method and logic reasoning are used to study Chinese and Japanese college English education which includes faculty, student source, students’ attitude, instructional objectives and educational evaluation. The result makes a reference to the college English education reform in the future. It also helps to improve the English teaching method and the quality of teaching

Wind Tunnel Study on the Aerodynamic Performance of Deflectors with Different Shapes

The continuously increasing gasoline and diesel fuel costs generated immense interest in road vehicle efficiency. Because the aerodynamic drag of road vehicles is a major contributor to the fuel consumption at highway speeds, renewed interests are focusing on attempts to find novel drag-reducing technology. In this project, a newly designed air deflector with the shape of three concave surfaces was proposed. The effect of the deflector shape on the aerodynamic performance of a truck model, such as drag coefficient, was investigated. The results were compared to the same truck model with conventional convex deflector and without deflector. The relationship between the deflector shape and the drag force coefficient, as well as Reynolds number was revealed in all cases. The impact of deflector details on the characteristics of the airflow around the truck model, focusing on the wake area behind the trailer was also investigated

Fund family tournament and performance consequences: evidence from the UK fund industry

By applying tournament analysis to the UK Unit Trusts data, the results support significant risk shifting in the family tournament; i.e. interim winning managers tend to increase their level of risk exposure more than losing managers. It also shows that the risk-adjusted returns of the winners outperform those of the losers following the risk taking, which implies that risk altering can be regarded as an indication of managers’ superior ability. However, the tournament behaviour can still be a costly strategy for investors, since winners can be seen to beat losers in the observed returns due to the deterioration in the performance of their major portfolio holdings

Immobilized biocatalytic process to prepare enantiopure pregabalin intermediate using engineered hydantoinase

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CityFlow: A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Environment for Large Scale City Traffic Scenario

Traffic signal control is an emerging application scenario for reinforcement learning. Besides being as an important problem that affects people's daily life in commuting, traffic signal control poses its unique challenges for reinforcement learning in terms of adapting to dynamic traffic environment and coordinating thousands of agents including vehicles and pedestrians. A key factor in the success of modern reinforcement learning relies on a good simulator to generate a large number of data samples for learning. The most commonly used open-source traffic simulator SUMO is, however, not scalable to large road network and large traffic flow, which hinders the study of reinforcement learning on traffic scenarios. This motivates us to create a new traffic simulator CityFlow with fundamentally optimized data structures and efficient algorithms. CityFlow can support flexible definitions for road network and traffic flow based on synthetic and real-world data. It also provides user-friendly interface for reinforcement learning. Most importantly, CityFlow is more than twenty times faster than SUMO and is capable of supporting city-wide traffic simulation with an interactive render for monitoring. Besides traffic signal control, CityFlow could serve as the base for other transportation studies and can create new possibilities to test machine learning methods in the intelligent transportation domain.Comment: WWW 2019 Demo Pape

A Systematic Review on Different Treatment Methods of Bone Metastasis from Cancers

Background and objective Skeletal metastase is one of the most common complications related to advanced cancer. The aim of this study is to analyze the effectiveness and safety of radiotherapy plus intravenous bisphosphonates versus radiotherapy alone for treating bone metastasis. Methods We searched the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, CBM, CNKI and VIP, as well as the reference lists of reports and reviews. The quality of included trials was evaluated by the Cochrane Handbook. Data were extracted and evaluated by two reviewers independently. The Cochrane Collaboration’s Rev-Man 5.0 was used for data analysis. Results Twenty-two trials involving 1 585 patients were included. Compared with radiotherapy alone, radiotherapy plus intravenous bisphosphonates was more effective in total effective rate of pain relive (RR=1.21, 95%CI: 1.13-1.30, P < 0.001), average abated time (WMD=16.00, 95%CI: 10.12-21.88, P < 0.001), and quality of life (RR=1.25, 95%CI: 1.08-1.45, P=0.003, with significant differences. Side effects have no significant differences between the two groups except fever (RR=5.61, 95%CI: 3.11-10.13, P < 0.001). Conclusion Current evidence supports more effective of radiotherapy plus intravenous bisphosphonates for bone metastases. The combine treatment is safe and effective

Surgical treatment of the osteoporotic spine with bone cement-injectable cannulated pedicle screw fixation: technical description and preliminary application in 43 patients

OBJECTIVES: To describe a new approach for the application of polymethylmethacrylate augmentation of bone cement-injectable cannulated pedicle screws. METHODS: Between June 2010 and February 2013, 43 patients with degenerative spinal disease and osteoporosis (T-scor

Particle velocity measurement of binary mixtures in the riser of a circulating fluidized bed by the combined use of electrostatic sensing and high-speed imaging

Zhang WB acknowledges the financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61403138) and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 3202028). Zhan W and Wang CH acknowledge the research programme funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) programme. Grant Number R-706-001-102–281, National University of Singapore.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Selective adsorption of Pb (II) and Cu (II) on mercapto-functionalized aerogels: Experiments, DFT studies and LCA analysis

Mercapto-functionalized aerogels (MA-X) were fabricated using γ-mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMS) as a modification reagent to eliminate Pb (II) and Cu (II) ions from wastewater. Mercapto-functionalized aerogel (MA2) with the MPTMS/TEOS molar ratio of 0.5 exhibited the maximum adsorption amounts of 163.99 mg/g for Pb (II) and 172.41 mg/g for Cu (II) in single ion system, respectively. In binary ion system, selective adsorption experiments revealed that the equilibrium adsorption capacity for Cu (II) (161.29 mg/g) was significantly greater than Pb (II) (90.42 mg/g), and the selectivity factor α showed greater selectivity for Cu (II), demonstrating that Cu (II) was more readily adsorbed on MA2. The results showed that adsorption was consistent with pseudo- second order model and Langmuir model. Thermodynamic results demonstrated that adsorption phenomenon was an exothermic reaction that occurred spontaneously. XPS analysis and density functional theory (DFT) simulations showed that the main mechanism for the adsorption of Pb (II) and Cu (II) on MA2 was through coordination chelation of the –SH groups with Pb (II) and Cu (II). DFT calculations showed a lower adsorption energy (Eads) of Cu (II) ( 2.72 eV) with respect to Pb (II) ( 0.80 eV), indicating that Cu (II) was more stably adsorbed on MA2 and more difficult to exchange by Pb (II). In order to determine the environmental impact of the MA2 preparation process, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was conducted and contribution of each material to MA2 production was analyzed. Finally, a strategy that is environmentally friendly and effective has been pro-posed in order to facilitate MA-X adsorbents production and to improve their application for the treatment of heavy metal polluted wastewater

Schiff base functionalized silica aerogels for enhanced removal of Pb (II) and Cu (II): Performances, DFT calculations and LCA analysis

Schiff base silica aerogels (SCA-X) were synthesized using amino-containing organosilanes and salicylic aldehyde as functional monomers with ethyl orthosilicate hydrolysis condensation as carrier. The influence of SCA-X on the adsorption of Pb (II) and Cu (II) under different adsorption conditions was evaluated, including the effect of solution pH, isotherm, kinetics, thermodynamics and adsorption mechanism. The batch adsorption experiments showed that SCA2 had the optimum adsorption capacity for Pb (II) (357.1 mg/g) and Cu (II) (243.9 mg/g), leading to adsorption equilibrium within 120 min and 360 min, respectively. After six adsorption–desorption cycles, SCA2 still possessed satisfactory adsorption for Pb (II) and Cu (II), demonstrating the reusability of the SCA2 adsorbent material. Kinetic studies indicated that the adsorption process could be described by a pseudo- second-order kinetic model, adsorption isotherms were in accordance with the Langmuir model, indicative of monomolecular layer adsorption. Thermodynamics evaluation revealed the nature of the adsorption process was an endothermic spontaneous process. XPS analysis combined with DFT calculations confirmed that the inter- action mechanism between SCA2 and Pb (II) occurred through the coordination between the nitrogen atom donor in the Schiff base and the oxygen atom donor in the benzene ring, while the interaction between SCA2 and Cu (II) occurred mainly through the coordination between the nitrogen atom in the Schiff base and Cu (II). Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was introduced to analyze the environmental impact of the SCA2 fabrication process and eco-friendly approaches were provided, which eventually provided theoretical evidence for the application of as-prepared material in the handling of heavy metal effluents