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Small and medium enterprises can employ a digital payment system to increase the trade and satisfy the trading partners and other stakeholders. The use of digital payment system faster the business transactions, and decrease the cost among parties. This study conducted to examines the effects of the digital payment system on SME’s performance. This study used a technology-organizational-environmental framework to investigate the effects of the digital payment system. This study used a closed-ended self-administered questionnaire to collect data. Data collected from September 2019 to November 2019. The respondents of the study were executives and owners of SMEs. The partial least squares structural equation modeling approach utilized to analyze the data. The findings of the study include significant effects of technology, organizational, environmental, and use of digital payment systems on SME’s performance. This study helps the owner of SME’s to execute the digital payment system to foster trade and relationship with stakeholders. KEYWORDS: Small and medium enterprises, Digital payment system, technological-organizational-environmental framework, Developing countries, SME’s performance, Ghana

The low-light-level sensing technology has been subject to the development of image sensors. The later, developed in the recent decades, has been improved from the low light level image intensifier, EBCCD, to recently, the CMOS technology. New technologies, for instance, APS(Active Pixel Sensor), back illuminated, etc. have been supplied following the CMOS process technology, resulting in a series of CMOS detectors with high sensitivity, lower noise and fewer operation restrictions. However, as a weak signal detection system, the operation condition, for example, the temperature characteristics related with the exposure time, ambient brightness, and target brightness, also cannot be ignored. In this paper, we presented a detailed temperature characteristic analysis based on a low-light-level CMOS system. The dark current was verified based on all black tests. The calculation as followed was drawn based on the varying ambient conditions and settings of the system:1, A typical dark current curve was obtained from the experiment, double every 9℃ with environment temperature increased.2, the information acquisition ability is affected by the exposure time, ambient brightness, and target brightness, reflected by the dark current and photon noise. Meanwhile, it was proofed in this paper, in a low light level system, the traditional signal to noise ratio calculation could not delaminate the brightness caused by the dominate photo noise, resulting an error strong enough to affect signal. Therefore, in this paper, a SNR evaluate method which could improve the objectivity of the evaluation of the low light level image was provided. It was believed to be helpful to the future research.

Hypertension is a common chronic disease in middle-aged and elderly people and is an important risk factor for many cardiovascular diseases. Its pathogenesis remains unclear. Epidemiological studies have found that the loss of telomere length in peripheral blood cells can increase the risk of coronary heart disease, myocardial infarction, and other diseases. However, a correlation between loss of telomere length and hypertension has not been established. In this study, we aimed to explore the association between telomere length and the risk of essential hypertension (EH) in Chinese coal miners. A case-control study was performed with 215 EH patients and 222 healthy controls in a large coal mining group located in North China. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by trained staff with the necessary medical knowledge. Relative telomere length (RTL) was measured by a quantitative real-time PCR assay using DNA extracted from peripheral blood. In the control group, the age-adjusted RTL was statistically significantly lower in miners performing hard physical labour compared with nonphysical labour ( P = 0.043 ). A significantly shorter age-adjusted RTL was found in the control group of participants who consumed alcohol regularly compared with those who do not consume alcohol ( P = 0.024 ). Age-adjusted RTL was negatively correlated with body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. Hypertension was also found to be significantly correlated with factors such as age, BMI, alcohol consumption, smoking, and tea consumption. Our results suggest that RTL is associated with hypertension in coal miners.

In our diurnal cycles, a purchase is performed all the time and at this instant, we are always forced to reflect for a second to choose between two main product types being utilitarian and hedonic. Utilitarian products being practical, functional, and instrumental to satisfy the individuals "needs" whereas hedonic products are accompanied by sensational and experiential effects to satisfy the individuals "wants". Previous studies have over the years has revealed that there is always a hint of a quilt when the product to be purchased is hedonic or has hedonic characteristics as compared to products with utilitarian attributes.. This research seeks to investigates the effect of information quality (i.e., that is a selected different dimension of information quality being completeness, concise representation, consistent representation and free from error given to a potential customer before a purchase is made) which will be in favor of hedonic or utilitarian products. The process in which consumers selecting themselves on whether to purchase the two laptop concepts being Conovo laptop " Hedonic product in this scenario" or the Maximus laptop " Utilitarian product" after the observation of a manipulated detailed specifications of each product. Laptop concepts were used in this study to do away with any bias associated with any distinct laptop brand.

In order to further optimize the treatment strategy for the patients with acute basilar artery occlusion, we were dedicated to study the therapeutic effects and influential factors in the process of treated basilar artery occlusion with thrombolytic combined vascular interventional therapy. 75 patients with acute basilar artery occlusion treated with arterial thrombolytic therapy were analyzed retrospectively. In accordance with the discharge records of patients, their short-term curative effect with 24-hour treatment and 14-days treatment were evaluated. Our data showed that the survival condition of the patients with acute acute basilar artery occlusion were visibly improved by combination thrombolytic and interventional therapy. Moreover, their BI scores were remarkably improved, while NIHSS and mRS scores were evidently reduced. These data proved that our treatment strategy was able to improve the survival condition of patients with acute basilar artery occlusion. Furthermore, our data showed that coagulation related factors remarkably improved in the patients, when they treated by combination thrombolytic therapy with interventional therapy. In addition, our results suggested that the patients' bilateral Babinski(+), revascularization and coma symptom were closely related to their prognosis after treated the patients with combination thrombolytic and vascular interventional therapy, and the difference was statistically significant (p

Achieving a resource-conserving and environment friendly supply chain while pursuing economic development has always been the goal of countries across the world. As an emerging industrial nation, China is battling serious environmental problems. While there have been efforts to address waste processing, researchers are now interested in gauging the efficiency of waste treatment policies. We built a two-stage data envelopment analysis model with undesirable input to assess the efficiency of recycle treating and industrial waste reuse, including wastewater, waste gas and solid wastes in China. Our model is based on a circular economy structure that proposed by Environmental Protection Institute of China. The proposed method can serve as evaluation tool for the government policy in China as well as other emerging economy. We collected the data during the critical environmental policy enforcement period: the 11th five-year plan (from 2006 to 2010). We also analyze the waste treatment efficacy for the solid waste in the 11th and 12th five-year plan period (from 2011 to 2015). In contrast to earlier studies that have mainly focused on pollution disposal efficiency, this work takes both pollution and resource attributes of waste into consideration. The results revealed that integrated efficiency of industrial waste processing system was stable over five years. It also showed that efficiency at the pollution disposal stage was higher than that at the resources reuse stage, and contributed more to overall efficiency. We also find that the efficiency of the pollution and disposal of the solid waste improved during the 11th and 12th five-year plan. Further, the study reveal that the pollution disposal stage shows a similar trend as the integrated system, while the resources reuse stage does not. Finally, it also displays that there are three efficient development modes, namely, balanced, ecosystem, and coordinate development modes. In discussion, we provide benchmarks from developed countries for different development mode. We also point out other emerging countries that can benefit from our research by identifying their development mode and formulating their environmental policy based on these benchmarks in the future.

Background Mercury (Hg) is a well-recognized environmental pollutant known by its toxicity of development and neurotoxicity, which results in adverse health outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying the teratogenic effects of Hg are not well understood. Imprinting genes are emerging regulators for fetal development subjecting to environmental pollutants impacts. In this study, we examined the association between preconceptional Hg exposure and the alteration of DNA methylation of imprinting genes H19, Meg3, and Peg3 in human sperm DNA. Methods A total of 616 men, aged from 22 to 59, were recruited from Reproductive Medicine Clinic of Maternal and Child Care Service Center and the Urologic Surgery Clinic of Shanxi Academy of Medical Sciences during April 2015 and March 2016. Demographic information was collected through questionnaires. Urine was collected and urinary Hg concentrations were measured using a fully-automatic double-channel hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometer. Methylation of imprinting genes H19, Meg3 and Peg3 of sperm DNA from 242 participants were examined by bisulfite pyrosequencing. Spearman’s rank and multivariate regression analysis were used for correlation analysis between sperm DNA methylation status of imprinting genes and urinary Hg levels. Results The median concentration of Hg for 616 participants was 9.14μg/l (IQR: 5.56–12.52 μg/l; ranging 0.16–71.35μg/l). A total of 42.7% of the participants are beyond normal level for non-occupational exposure according to the criterion of Hg poisoning (≥10 μg/L). Spearman’s rank analysis indicated a negative correlation between urinary Hg concentrations and average DNA methylation levels of imprinted genes H19 (rs = −0.346, p

This paper aims to promote a national and international occupational health and safety (OHS) intervention for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within internal and external resources. Based on the characteristics of small SME management, the work environment and occupational health may be positively affected by the dual-effects of employees and government. Evolutionary game theory is utilized to identify relevant interactions among the government, small enterprises, and employees. Furthermore, dynamic simulations of the evolutionary game model are used to explore stability strategies and to identify modes of equilibrium.

The OHS services of SMEs are still in their start-up stage in China. As such, there is an absence of mature market norms, which in turn makes it difficult to guarantee the quality of OHS services. The government, as the “night watchman” of the market, is supposed to not only involve itself in the regulation of OHS service quality, but also introduce and implement proper regulatory strategies. This paper employs a computational experiment approach to construct an experimental platform based on multiagent interactions. By simulating the OHS service transaction activities of SMEs, this paper takes the perspective of dynamic evolution. From this perspective, we probe into the optimal regulatory strategy covering the positive influence of government punishment, policy supports, and service quality ratings of the OHS services of SMEs. These strategies should be built on the foundation of proper punishment standard and intensity, proper support standard and intensity, and quality rating information disclosure.

PurposeThis paper attempts to construct a public‐key coding system using grey generation and braid group.Design/methodology/approachThe identification (ID) codes of both sides for communication are public for everyone and considered as public keys. Starting from the ID code of both sides of communication, the temporary secret key of communication can be obtained by the grey 1‐AGO algorithm first. Then the new formal common secret key can be obtained by using the element exchangeability of the braid group during the exchanging process of the temporary secret key between two sides of communication. The paper presents an exchange protocol of secret key based on grey data generation and braid group. It also constructs a cipher communication system by using Hash function based on the exchange protocol of secret key last.FindingsThe exchange protocol of secret key and the system of cipher communication which are proposed in this paper make use of the difficult problem of resolving disper se logarithm from generated code to ID code and the conjugate problem which is not ever resolved in braid group, which can ensure the security of the algorithm theoretically.Practical implicationsThe main steps of the exchange protocol and cipher communication system in this paper can be achieved through a computer program. They can be used in many communication processes on the internet.Originality/valueThe paper succeeds in realising both secret key generation and exchanging protocol of communication by using grey systems theory and braid group properties.

In this paper, we proposed a novel audio video synchronization compression approach based on H.264/AVC, which is audio is embedded into quantized DCT coefficients of video in the encoder utilizing the parity properties of coefficients, then audio and video signals are compressed simultaneously. Different from the traditional methods, the proposed approach realizes the synchronization between video and audio in the coding layer. We've verified the synchronization processing method based on H.264/AVC using JM Model and experimental results show that this method does not increase the amount of data, and audio signal can be extracted without distortion. At the same time the algorithm has little effect on the quality of video.

A fully reconfigurable architecture of a LDPC (low-density parity check) decoder for IEEE 802.11n system is proposed in this paper. This architecture can be operated in 12 kinds of modes specified in IEEE 802.11 system. Under the proposed architecture, memory usage and hardware complexity obviously improved, as compared with the other research works. Furthermore, the proposed decoder also able to support multi-rate and multi-size LDPC codes decoding. The proposed decoder was implemented in UMC 0.18µm CMOS technology. The maximum operating frequency is measured 200MHz and the corresponding power dissipation is 691.23mW and total area is 4.61mm2.

When the image matching method is used for motion estimation, the performance parameters like searching scope, searching speed, accuracy and robustness of the method normally are significant and need enhancement. In this paper, a novel method of block matching containing the wide range image block matching strategy and the strategy of multi-start points and parallel searching are presented. In the wide range matching strategy, the size of template block and searching block are same. And the average value of cumulative results by pixels in calculation is taken to ensure matching parameters can accurately represent the matching degree. In the strategy of multi-start points and parallel searching, the way of choosing starting points evenly is presented based on the characteristic of the block matching search, and the adaptive conditions and adaptive schedule is established based on the searching region. In the processing of iteration, the new strategy can not only adapt to the solution that lead the objective to the correct direction, but also adapt to the solution that have a little offset comparing with the objective. Therefore the multi-start points and parallel searching algorithm can be easy to keep from the trap of local minima effectively. The image processing system based on the DSP chip of TMS320C6415 is used to make the experiment for the video image stabilization. The results of experiment show that, the application of two methods can improve the range of motion estimation and reduce the searching computation.

The effect of ultrasound on the leaching process, in which Geniposide is leached from the Gardenia fruit by deionized water at 20 degrees C, was investigated. The phase equilibrium and the dynamics were measured at static, stirring, and ultrasonically assisted conditions, respectively. The experimental results show that the extraction yield of Geniposide with ultrasound at 0.1533 W cm(-2), is increased by 16.5%, in comparison with that without ultrasound when the ratio of the solvent volume to the fruit weight is 40 ml/g. A model for mass transfer, based on the intraparticle diffusion and the external mass transfer, was developed. And the dynamic curves calculated by the model are in a good agreement with the experimental data. The external mass transfer coefficient k(f)/R and intraparticle diffusion coefficient D(e)/R2 were obtained by fitting of the experiment data. The external mass transfer coefficient with ultrasound at 0.1533 W cm(-2) is 1.63 times higher than that in static process, and the intraparticle diffusion coefficient with ultrasound at 0.1533 W cm(-2) is 3.25 times higher than that in static process.

The heat transfer characteristics of passive containment cooling system (PCS) are very important to protect the nuclear reactor from early release in some severe accident scenarios. In this paper, based on the natural convection and the VOF (Volume of Fluid) multiphase model, the two-phase flow and heat transfer characteristics of the water film of PCS at postulated accident was numerically investigated. To economize the calculation resource, a two dimensional axis symmetry cooling system was included in the simulation model owing to the symmetry of the system. The transportation of mass and energy during the phase change at film interface was established by adding source terms to the mass and energy equations with User Defined Function (UDF). Because of the lower heat capacity of the cooling gas, the air flow rate and flow pattern of natural convection were the governing factor of the heat transfer through containment. Generally, the heat transfer rate is very lower because the heat and flow attached layer at air baffle and water film are very thick due to the flat plate air baffle, but stronger vortex produced by air baffle will reduce the heat transfer because of damage of the water film. The dimensions and the shape of the air baffle have important effect on air flow rate and flow pattern of the natural convection, and the optimal option was chosen based on the simulation results.Copyright © 2013 by ASME

DC injection suppression is crucial for the transformerless PV systems. IEEE Std.929-2000 specifies that the PV systems shall not inject the dc current greater than 0.5% of the full rated output current. DC injection measurement is not only useful for evaluating whether a transformerless PV system meets IEEE standards, but also for the effective dc suppression with injecting an equal but opposite dc component via a proper control scheme. In practice, however, it is difficult to extract the very low-level (0.5% I rated ) dc currents in the presence of high levels of ac currents in transformerless PV systems. In order to overcome the limitation, this paper presents a real-time dc injection measurement technique. Some major issues such as the basic operating principle, frequency excursion effect mitigation and discrete-domain implementation of the proposed method are discussed. Theoretical analysis and performance evaluation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed dc injection measurement technique.

More and more Small and Middle Sized Enterprises (SMEs)have started the development of Electronic Commerce (EC) recently. It is important and valuable to study the EC application decision-making in SMEs according to its peculiarity. The present project, first establishes the decision-making index systems about the EC application decision-making of SMEs based on Theory of Planned Behavior, obtains the weight of every index by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and entropy of information theory. Then it uses the EWAA/LHA arithmetic operators and Grey Relativity analysis to study the EC application decision-making in SMEs. A simple example of EC decision-making on a small enterprise shows the specific steps of this method and proves the scientificity of the decision-making index systems and the validity of the decision-making method.

Long-term development is a very important factor for small sized E-commerce companies(SSEC) when they are faced with more intese competition. How to measure the long-term development of these companies is very useful in practice. It is hard for us to know the fact of SSEC long-term development because there are not eligible methods with quantitative analysis for SSEC in the present researches. We try to adopt the method of AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) in fuzzy mathematics to establish fuzzy comprehensive measurement indicators system and synthetically measure the long-term development of SSEC from three aspects of Economic capability, operation ability and innovation ability. At last we verify and improve the effectiveness of the method by means of an example analysis.

Recently, small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises(SMME) have become key growth pole in Chinese economy. In the process of resolving the financing problems of SMME, how to estimate the competitive capacity of these enterprises is very important in practice. Aiming at lack of the model with quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis for SMME in the present researches home and abroad, this article tries to adopt the method of AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) in fuzzy mathematics to set up fuzzy comprehensive appraisal indicators system and synthetically estimate the competitive capacity of SMME and then test the effectiveness of the model by means of an example analysis.

An optical waveguide for a polymer modulator based on organic/inorganic hybrid electro-optic (EO) materials is designed and fabricated by utilizing a strip-loading structure. This hybrid material has a controllable refractive index, high EO coefficient and good poled stability, which are suitable for the EO modulators and switches. The embedded waveguide made of the above EO material can reduce the coupling loss. The light is coupled into the guided-core layer and then undergoes a transition from the buried waveguide into the EO material. Obvious modulation is observed by application of ac voltage to the EO material. The measured Vπ of co-planar waveguide (CPW) is 5 V for the Mach–Zehnder (MZ) modulator in length of 3.5 cm.