Adverse Childhood Experiences Among Chinese Adults: Patterns and Comparison Between Adults Who Grew up as Single and Left-Behind Children

Over the last 40 years, China implemented many socioeconomic policies, among which the “open-door” and “single-child” policies were two of the most noteworthy. Therefore, in China, the study of child maltreatment requires understanding the impact of family constellation changes that resulted from national policies. This study sought to examine adverse childhood experiences (ACE) differences among Chinese adults who grew up as left- behind children (LBC) and single-children (SC). In addition, as a response to the Ho et al. (2019a) call for “further investigations on cultural specific patterns of ACEs” (p. 187), this study examined patterns of ACEs among the Mainland Chinese participants. The sample consisted of 140 Chinese adults (ages 18 - 44 years) residing in Mainland China, with 70 identified as LBC and 70 as SC. Of the participants, 68 were male, and 72 were female. Participants were recruited via a Mechanic Turk. Each participant received monetary remuneration for completing demographic questionnaire and the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ). The results did not support the hypothesis that people who grew up as LBC experience more ACEs than those who grew up as SC. The results highlighted that SC are just as vulnerable as LBC in experiencing childhood adversities. In addition, this study revealed three distinct ACE class patterns within this sample. The first class, with the lowest ACEs, showed a pattern of parental discord in which people who experienced parental death, separation, or divorce were also likely to report experiencing emotional neglect. The second class revealed a pattern of environmental discord in which people who frequently witnessed collective violence also had a high probability of experiencing emotional and physical neglect. The last class accounted for the smallest percentage of participants and demonstrated a pattern of elevated ACEs across multiple categories. Except for the last class, the first two classes differ significantly from the Ho et al. (2019a) findings. The ACE patterns from this Mainland Chinese sample shed light on the unique history of Mainland China for the past four decades and its impact on childhood adversities

Analytical considerations of flow boiling heat transfer in metal-foam filled tubes

Flow boiling in metal-foam filled tube was analytically investigated based on a modified microstructure model, an original boiling heat transfer model and fin analysis for metal foams. Microstructure model of metal foams was established, by which fiber diameter and surface area density were precisely predicted. The heat transfer model for flow boiling in metal foams was based on annular pattern, in which two phase fluid was composed by vapor region in the center of the tube and liquid region near the wall. However, it was assumed that nucleate boiling performed only in the liquid region. Fin analysis and heat transfer network for metal foams were integrated to obtain the convective heat transfer coefficient at interface. The analytical solution was verified by its good agreement with experimental data. The parametric study on heat transfer coefficient and boiling mechanism was also carried out.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

COUNTERPARTY CREDIT RISK FOR AMERICAN OPTIONS IN A REDUCED-FORM MODEL

This thesis follows the idea of Klein and Yang (2013) to study the effect of counterparty credit risk and valuation of Vulnerable American options. Most existing literatures use the structural model (Merton 1974) to study the vulnerable options. However, structural model uses the unrealistic assumptions for the corporate asset. In addition, calibration stochastic asset processes using public information in the structural model is some more difficult than anticipated (Wang 2009). This thesis uses the reduced-form (intensity) model to study the credit risk of vulnerable American put options and compare the results with Klein and Yang (2013). We conclude that counterparty credit risk will affect the vulnerable option value as Klein and Yang did in their paper. Throughout, we rely on binominal tree method to derive our numerical results

A Combined Gate Replacement and Input Vector Control Approach

Due to the increasing role of leakage power in CMOS circuit's total power dissipation, leakage reduction has attracted a lot of attention recently. Input vector control (IVC) takes advantage of the transistor stack effect to apply the minimum leakage vector (MLV) to the primary inputs of the circuit during the standby mode. However, IVC techniques become less effective for circuits of large logic depth because theMLV at primary inputs has little impact on internal gates at high logic level. In this paper, we propose a technique to overcome this limitation by directly controlling the inputs to the internal gates that are in their worst leakage states. Specifically, we propose a gate replacement technique that replaces such gates by other library gates while maintaining the circuit's correct functionality at the active mode. This modification of the circuit does not require changes of the design flow, but it opens the door for further leakage reduction, when the MLV is not effective. We then describe a divideand- conquer approach that combines the gate replacement and input vector control techniques. It integrates an algorithm that finds the optimal MLV for tree circuits, a fast gate replacement heuristic, and a genetic algorithm that connects the tree circuits. We have conducted experiments on all the MCNC91 benchmark circuits. The results reveal that 1) the gate replacement technique itself can provide 10% more leakage current reduction over the best known IVC methods with no delay penalty and little area increase; 2) the divide-and-conquer approach outperforms the best pure IVC method by 24% and the existing control point insertion method by 12%; 3) when we obtain the optimal MLV for small circuits from exhaustive search, the proposed gate replacement alone can still reduce leakage current by 13% while the divide-and-conquer approach reduces 17%

Teaching Cybersecurity in an Undergraduate Engineering Course

Organizations create a huge amount of sensitive and confidential data, which must be protected from unauthorized access or disclosure. Nowadays, most organizations store their business data in digital formats. With the increasing use of digital data, data breaches are more often and serious in recent years. Therefore, it is very important for next-generation engineers to be aware of the importance of information security, and be able to recognize vulnerabilities and threats to an information system and design user-friendly and effective security measures. To achieve it, two modules of information systems security, including lectures and in-class labs, were developed and taught in an undergraduate engineering course at North Carolina A&T State University. The learning objectives, teaching materials, and assessment outcomes of the two course modules are presented in this paper. Our survey results show that the course modules achieve the learning objectives and improve students’ interest in pursuing cybersecurity-related careers. Keywords: Engineering Education, Database Security, Usable and Effective Securit