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Asking âwhat it doesâ rather than âwhat it isâ: the invisibility and opportunity of Taiwanâs role on the global health stage
In 2017, some twenty Taiwanese students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds formed a study group: medicine, epidemiology, law, sociology, politics, and geography. Its overall objective is to understand better what has been referred to as âglobal healthâ. For that, we have been thinking of a difficult yet crucial question: what is global health, and why should we, as Taiwanese citizens, need to study it? In this article, we reflect on our motivations and discussions. We began by reading the text âGoverning Global Health: Who Runs the World and Why?â, which compares the activities of different global health actors â intergovernmental and nongovernmental â and their relationships with nations states. Building on this approach, in this article we will draw on the limitations and opportunities for Taiwan to take part in the contemporary global health system
Topological susceptibility in 2+1 flavors lattice QCD with domain-wall fermions
We measure the topological charge and its fluctuation for the gauge
configurations generated by the RBC and UKQCD Collaborations using 2+1 flavors
of domain-wall fermions on the 16^3 x 32 lattice (L \simeq 2 fm) with length 16
in the fifth dimension at inverse lattice spacing a^{-1} \simeq 1.62 GeV. From
the spectral flow of the Hermitian operator H_w (2 + \gamma_5 H_w)^{-1}, we
obtain the topological charge Q_t of each gauge configuration in the three
ensembles with light sea quark masses m_q a = 0.01, 0.02, and 0.03, and with
the strange quark mass fixed at m_s a = 0.04. From our result of Q_t, we
compute the topological susceptibilty \chi_t = /volume. In the small
m_q regime, our result of \chi_t agrees with the chiral effective theory. Using
the formula \chi_t = \Sigma / (m_u^{-1} + m_d^{-1} + m_s^{-1}) by
Leutwyler-Smilga, we obtain the chiral condensate \Sigma^MSbar(2 GeV) =
[259(6)(9) MeV]^3.Comment: 9 pages, 3 EPS figure
Understanding the performance of thin-client gaming
AbstractâThe thin-client model is considered a perfect fit for online gaming. As modern games normally require tremendous computing and rendering power at the game client, deploying games with such models can transfer the burden of hardware upgrades from players to game operators. As a result, there are a variety of solutions proposed for thin-client gaming today. However, little is known about the performance of such thin-client systems in different scenarios, and there is no systematic means yet to conduct such analysis. In this paper, we propose a methodology for quantifying the performance of thin-clients on gaming, even for thin-clients which are close-sourced. Taking a classic game, Ms. Pac-Man, and three popular thin-clients, LogMeIn, TeamViewer, and UltraVNC, as examples, we perform a demonstration study and determine that 1) display frame rate and frame distortion are both critical to gaming; and 2) different thin-client implementations may have very different levels of robustness against network impairments. Generally, LogMeIn performs best when network conditions are reasonably good, while TeamViewer and UltraVNC are the better choices under certain network conditions. I
Measuring the latency of cloud gaming systems
Cloud gaming, i.e., real-time game playing via thin clients, relieves players from the need to constantly upgrade their computers and deal with compatibility issues when playing games. As a result, cloud gaming is generating a great deal of interest among entrepreneurs and the public. However, given the large design space, it is not yet known which plat-forms deliver the best quality of service and which design elements constitute a good cloud gaming system. This study is motivated by the question: How good is the real-timeliness of current cloud gaming systems? To ad-dress the question, we analyze the response latency of two cloud gaming platforms, namely, OnLive and StreamMy-Game. Our results show that the streaming latency of On-Live is reasonable for real-time cloud gaming, while that of StreamMyGame is almost twice the former when the StreamMyGame server is provisioned using an Intel Core i7-920 PC. We believe that our measurement approach can be generally applied to PC-based cloud gaming platforms, and that it will further the understanding of such systems and lead to improvements
Pterostilbene, a Methoxylated Resveratrol Derivative, Efficiently Eradicates Planktonic, Biofilm, and Intracellular MRSA by Topical Application
Pterostilbene is a methoxylated derivative of resveratrol originated from natural sources. We investigated the antibacterial activity of pterostilbene against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and the feasibility of using it to treat cutaneous bacteria. The antimicrobial effect was evaluated using an in vitro culture model and an in vivo mouse model of cutaneous infection. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) assay demonstrated a superior biocidal activity of pterostilbene compared to resveratrol (8~16-fold) against methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and clinically isolated vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA). Pterostilbene was found to reduce MRSA biofilm thickness from 18 to 10 ÎŒm as detected by confocal microscopy. Pterostilbene showed minimal toxicity to THP-1 cells and was readily engulfed by the macrophages, facilitating the eradication of intracellular MRSA. Pterostilbene exhibited increased skin absorption over resveratrol by 6-fold. Topical pterostilbene application improved the abscess formation produced by MRSA by reducing the bacterial burden and ameliorating the skin architecture. The potent anti-MRSA capability of pterostilbene was related to bacterial membrane leakage, chaperone protein downregulation, and ribosomal protein upregulation. This mechanism of action was different from that of resveratrol according to proteomic analysis and molecular docking. Pterostilbene has the potential to serve as a novel class of topically applied agents for treating MRSA infection in the skin while demonstrating less toxicity to mammalian cells
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Band-1 Receiver
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array(ALMA) Band 1 receiver covers
the 35-50 GHz frequency band. Development of prototype receivers, including the
key components and subsystems has been completed and two sets of prototype
receivers were fully tested. We will provide an overview of the ALMA Band 1
science goals, and its requirements and design for use on the ALMA. The
receiver development status will also be discussed and the infrastructure,
integration, evaluation of fully-assembled band 1 receiver system will be
covered. Finally, a discussion of the technical and management challenges
encountered will be presented
Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at â s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fbâ1 of â s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente
Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets
containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass
energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The
measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1.
The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary
decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from
the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is
used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive
b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the
range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet
cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the
range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets
and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are
compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed
between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG +
Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet
cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive
cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse
momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version published in European Physical Journal
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