Starting with the Internet of Things (IoT), new forms of system operation concepts have emerged to provide creative services through collaborations among autonomic devices. Following these ...paradigmatic changes, the ability of each participating system to automatically diagnose the degree of quality it is providing is inevitable. This paper proposed a method to automatically detect symptoms that hinder certain quality attributes. The method consisted of three steps: (1) extracting information from real usage logs and automatically generating an activity model from the captured information; (2) merging multiple user activity models into a single, representative model; and (3) detecting differences between the representative user activity model, and an expected activity model. The proposed method was implemented in a domain-independent framework, workable on the Android platform. Unlike other related works, we used quantitative evaluation results to show the benefits of applying the proposed method to five Android-based, open-source mobile applications. The evaluation results showed that the average precision rate for the automatic detection of symptoms was 70%, and the success rate for user implementation of usage scenarios demonstrated an improvement of around 21%, when the automatically detected symptoms were resolved.
With the emergence of various forms of smart devices and new paradigms such as the Internet of Things (IoT) concept, the IT (Information Technology) service areas are expanding explosively compared ...to the provision of services by single systems. A new system operation concept that has emerged in accordance with such technical trends is the IT ecosystem. The IT ecosystem can be considered a special type of system of systems in which multiple systems with various degrees of autonomy achieve common goals while adapting to the given environment. The single systems that participate in the IT ecosystem adapt autonomously to the current situation based on collected data from sensors. Furthermore, to maintain the services supported by the whole IT ecosystem sustainably, the configuration of single systems that participate in the IT ecosystem also changes appropriately in accordance with the changed situation. In order to support the IT ecosystem, this paper proposes an architecture framework that supports dynamic configuration changes to achieve the goal of the whole IT ecosystem, while ensuring the autonomy of single systems through the collection of data from sensors so as to recognize the situational context of individual participating systems. For the feasibility evaluation of the proposed framework, a simulated example of an IT ecosystem for unmanned forest management was constructed, and the quantitative evaluation results are discussed in terms of the extent to which the proposed architecture framework can continuously provide sustainable services in response to diverse environmental context changes.
Following the pioneering efforts of a federal Head Start program, U.S. state policymakers have rapidly expanded access to Early Care and Education (ECE) programs with strong bipartisan support. ...Within the past decade the enrollment of 4 year-olds has roughly doubled in state-funded preschool. Despite these public investments, the content and priorities of early childhood legislation-enacted and failed-have rarely been examined. This study integrates perspectives from public policy, political science, developmental science, and machine learning in examining state ECE bills in identifying key factors associated with legislative success. Drawing from the Early Care and Education Bill Tracking Database, we employed Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a statistical topic identification model, to examine 2,396 ECE bills across the 50 U.S. states during the 2015-2018. First, a six-topic solution demonstrated the strongest fit theoretically and empirically suggesting two meta policy priorities: 'ECE finance' and 'ECE services'. 'ECE finance' comprised three dimensions: (1) Revenues, (2) Expenditures, and (3) Fiscal Governance. 'ECE services' also included three dimensions: (1) PreK, (2) Child Care, and (3) Health and Human Services (HHS). Further, we found that bills covering a higher proportion of HHS, Fiscal Governance, or Expenditures were more likely to pass into law relative to bills focusing largely on PreK, Child Care, and Revenues. Additionally, legislative effectiveness of the bill's primary sponsor was a strong predictor of legislative success, and further moderated the relation between bill content and passage. Highly effective legislators who had previously passed five or more bills had an extremely high probability of introducing a legislation that successfully passed regardless of topic. Legislation with expenditures as policy priorities benefitted the most from having an effective legislator. We conclude with a discussion of the empirical findings within the broader context of early childhood policy literature and suggest implications for future research and policy.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A monopost seat is a novel, lightweight seat developed to utilize most of the interior space of vehicles. The space under the seat can be utilized by inserting a monopost columnar structure between a ...monopost seat rail and the floorboard. This design increases the perceived spaciousness of the vehicle and imparts passengers with a higher degree of freedom, because the seats can be adjusted more easily than standard seats. Meeting these requirements will require the seats to be sufficiently strong and sturdy in order to maintain passenger safety. Compared to traditional seats, it is more likely that a monopost seat will shift under the mass of the passenger, and these seats are more vulnerable to external vehicle collisions. Passenger safety is further compromised if an operational function is added. Therefore, further research on monopost seats is required. This study performed quasi-static and dynamic simulations to determine if the attachment of monopost seats to a vehicle meets international safety requirements in collision events. With a focus on clarifying the dynamic simulation process, the outcomes of quasi-static simulations were compared with the results obtained from dynamic simulations.
Highly porous nitrogen doped carbon fibers like churros morphology are prepared from a simple and cost-effective fabrication process, electrospinning with bicomponent polymer consisting of ...polystyrene (PS) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN). From appropriate ratio of two polymer and pyrolysis at 1100 °C, newly churros morphology with extremely high surface area (1271 m2 g−1) is prepared. During carbonization, more unstable PS than PAN plays a critical role in forming such morphology by acting as sacrifice materials, thus providing additional formation of inner pores and outer etched surfaces. Furthermore, it demonstrates excellent electrocatalytic activity toward ORR, which is attributed to highly meso- and macro porous nitrogen-doped large surface area and enhanced graphitic-nitrogen groups of carbon fibers. For example, the performance of a Zn–air cell based on the nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanofibers exhibits a peak power density of 194 mW cm−2, comparable to that based on a commercial Pt/C catalyst (192 mW cm−2). Further, the generation of hydrogen peroxide ions (<20%) in a half cell is similar to that on the commercial Pt/C catalyst.
•Highly porous carbon fibers with churros morphology are prepared using electrospinning method.•Polystyrene (PS) acts as sacrifice materials in developing porous structures.•Its highly catalytic activity for ORR is attributed to graphitic-nitrogen species and large surface area.
We describe a simple route for synthesizing electrically conductive Ag-coated Si anode materials with a high surface coverage via a simple chemical reduction process. A one-pot reduction process in ...the presence of alkylamine leads to a formation of Ag-coated Si particles at low temperature. The Ag-coated Si particles are highly dispersive and stable in aqueous and alcoholic solvents, and significantly enhance the poor electrical conductivity of Si particles. The electrically conductive Ag-coated Si electrodes exhibited excellent electrochemical performances, including a high reversible capacity (1550mAhg−1 at 0.1C rate), a stable cycling performance (a specific capacity of 1320mAhg−1 at 0.2C rate after 100 cycles), and excellent rate capability (a charge capacity of 640mAhg−1 at 5C rate). This simple route may open up an effective way to make other anode and cathode materials for practical lithium-ion battery applications.
We describe a simple, but straightforward process to synthesize electrically conductive Ag-coated Si anode materials via a simple chemical reduction process. One-pot reduction process in the presence of alkylamine leads to a formation of Ag-coated Si particles at low temperature. The Ag-coated Si particles are highly dispersive and stable in aqueous and alcoholic solvents and significantly enhance the electrical conductivity of Si particles with a poor conductivity. The electrically conductive Ag-coated Si electrodes exhibited excellent electrochemical performances. Display omitted
•We synthesized electrically conductive Ag-coated Si particles via a simple chemical reduction process.•Ag-coated Si particles are highly dispersive in water and alcoholic solvents and significantly enhance the electrical conductivity of Si materials.•Highly conductive Ag-coated Si electrodes show excellent electrochemical properties, including a high specific capacity and a stable cycling performance.
As the world population continues to increase to unsustainable levels, the importance of birth control and the development of new contraceptives are emerging. To date, male contraceptive options have ...been lagging behind those available to women, and those few options available are not satisfactory to everyone. To solve this problem, we have been searching for new candidate target proteins for non-hormonal contraceptives. Testis-specific proteins are appealing targets for male contraceptives because they are more likely to be involved in male reproduction and their targeting by small molecules is predicted to have no on-target harmful effects on other organs. Using in silico analysis, we identified Erich2, Glt6d1, Prss58, Slfnl1, Sppl2c, Stpg3, Tex33, and Tex36 as testis-abundant genes in both mouse and human. The genes, 4930402F06Rik and 4930568D16Rik, are testis-abundant paralogs of Glt6d1 that we also discovered in mice but not in human, and were also included in our studies to eliminate the potential compensation. We generated knockout (KO) mouse lines of all listed genes using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Analysis of all of the individual KO mouse lines as well as Glt6d1/4930402F06Rik/4930568D16Rik TKO mouse lines revealed that they are male fertile with no observable defects in reproductive organs, suggesting that these 10 genes are not required for male fertility nor play redundant roles in the case of the 3 Glt6D1 paralogs. Further studies are needed to uncover protein function(s), but in vivo functional screening using the CRISPR/Cas9 system is a fast and accurate way to find genes essential for male fertility, which may apply to studies of genes expressed elsewhere. In this study, although we could not find any potential protein targets for non-hormonal male contraceptives, our findings help to streamline efforts to find and focus on only the essential genes. Summary Sentence Ten testis-enriched genes are dispensable for male fertility, as determined by phenotypic analyses of knockout mice.
Alloys are recently receiving considerable attention in the community of rechargeable batteries as possible alternatives to carbonaceous negative electrodes; however, challenges remain for the ...practical utilization of these materials. Herein, we report the synthesis of germanium-zinc alloy nanofibers through electrospinning and a subsequent calcination step. Evidenced by in situ transmission electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy characterizations, this one-dimensional design possesses unique structures. Both germanium and zinc atoms are homogenously distributed allowing for outstanding electronic conductivity and high available capacity for lithium storage. The as-prepared materials present high rate capability (capacity of ~ 50% at 20 C compared to that at 0.2 C-rate) and cycle retention (73% at 3.0 C-rate) with a retaining capacity of 546 mAh g
even after 1000 cycles. When assembled in a full cell, high energy density can be maintained during 400 cycles, which indicates that the current material has the potential to be used in a large-scale energy storage system.
Controlling the orientation and lateral ordering of the block copolymer microdomains is essential to their use as templates and scaffolds for the fabrication of nanostructured materials. In addition, ...a process must be robust, simple to implement, and rapid, and should not introduce disruptive processing steps that would impede their use. Here, we describe thin films of poly(styrene-b-4-vinylpyridine) (PS-b-P4VP) diblock copolymers, spin-coated from mixed solvents that show highly oriented, cylindrical microdomains with a high degree of order on a wide range of substrates, including silicon oxide, polystyrene, germanium, polyimide, and poly(butylene terephthalate). In addition, the preferential solvation of the P4VP block with an alcohol caused a surface reconstruction that resulted in the formation of a nanoporous film upon drying. The evaporation of gold onto the reconstructed films produced thermally stable and reactive ion etching resistant films.
This investigation examines aerosol dynamics during major fine mode aerosol transboundary pollution events in South Korea primarily during the KORUS-AQ campaign from May 1 – June 10, 2016, ...particularly when cloud fraction was high and/or fog was present to quantify the change in aerosol characteristics due to near-cloud or fog interaction. We analyze the new AERONET Version 3 data that have significant changes to cloud screening algorithms, allowing many more fine-mode observations in the near vicinity of clouds or fog. Case studies for detailed investigation include May 25–26, 2016 when cloud fraction was high over much of the peninsula, associated with a weak frontal passage and advection of pollution from China. These cloud-influenced Chinese transport dates also had the highest aerosol optical depth (AOD), surface PM2.5 concentrations and fine mode particle sizes of the entire campaign. Another likewise cloud/high relative humidity (RH) case is June 9 and 10, 2016 when fog was present over the Yellow Sea that appears to have affected aerosol properties well downwind over the Korean peninsula. In comparison we also investigated aerosol properties on air stagnation days with very low cloud cover and relatively low RH (May 17 & 18, 2016), when local Korean emissions dominated. Aerosol volume size distributions show marked differences between the transport days (with high RH and cloud influences) and the local pollution stagnation days, with total column-integrated particle fine mode volume being an order of magnitude greater on the pollution transport dates. The PM2.5 over central Seoul were significantly greater than for coastal sites on the transboundary transport days yet not on stagnation days, suggesting additional particle formation from gaseous urban emissions in cloud/fog droplets and/or in the high RH humidified aerosol environment. Many days had KORUS-AQ research aircraft flights that provided observations of aerosol absorption, particle chemistry and vertical profiles of extinction. AERONET retrievals and aircraft in situ measurements both showed high single scattering albedo (weak absorption) on the cloudy or cloud influenced days, plus aircraft profile in situ measurements showed large AOD enhancements (versus dried aerosol) at ambient relative humidity (RH) on the pollution transport days, consistent with the significantly larger fine mode particle radii and weak absorption.
•Highest AOD and PM2.5 over S. Korea had significant cloud cover and/or sea fog.•Particle volume was at least 10 times larger on high RH pollution transport days.•Particle SSA was high (0.97–0.99 in mid-visible) on pollution transport days.•The PM2.5 was higher over central Seoul than the coast during pollution transport.
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