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Based on mathematics and engineering point of view, we aim to explore the establishment of model structure, and thus calculate the benefits and risks of a financial product. Specifically, we exploit a large amount of market data of futures options so as to address two issues in this work. The first issue is to discover an appropriate product choice and timing for profitable trading. Without loss of generality, we investigate the effectiveness of several trading constraints and technical indicators by scrutinizing and back testing with the long-term market data. The second issue is to use the spread strategies for risk control when being an options seller. Note that a spread position is constituted where one buys an option and sells another option against it. In general, we develop a scheme to simulate different trading strategies and thus identify some simple but profitable strategies. Experimental studies show that our strategies yield good profit in the TAIFEX market during 2009 to 2018.

We reviewed evidence of recent innovations in sedation education and discuss experiences with sedation training in Taiwan.Current Status of Sedation Training: Didactic training and supervised clinical mentoring are common methods of sedation training. Although training course designed by professional societies to meet individual hospital credentialing requirements, the course content and training expectations vary and are likely inadequate to non-anesthesiologist sedation practitioners. Less Common Forms of Sedation Training: These include screen-based simulation, high-fidelity manikin-based simulation. Screen-based simulation sedation training is popular, convenient, and relatively inexpensive. Although there are numerous courses available, course content has not been standardized. High-fidelity simulation has been accepted to improve knowledge, self-confidence, awareness of emergency, crisis resource management, and teamwork, but it is costly, time intensive, and requires expertise in using simulation equipment. Although screen-based training is attractive and convenient, there is no evidence to suggest that it can replace high-fidelity simulation. Another recently developed education modality is virtual reality simulation. It has gained recent popularity as an immersive approach to medical training, but minimal content has been developed for sedation training. Beyond training, several other potential innovations may improve sedation effectiveness and patient safety. These include adherence to practice guidelines established by professional organizations, utilization of a pre-procedure sedation checklist, interpreting capnography, and implementation of real-time bedside drug displays that provide predictions of concentrations and their associated effects.Effective sedation education and training, especially for nonanesthesiologists, is essential to improve patient safety for procedural sedation. Several innovative approaches have been proposed and are relatively early in their development and implementation. Further studies designed to assess the impact of these new training modalities on patient safety and outcomes are warranted.

Engineering economics is a course with strong application, in order to improve students' comprehensive application ability and realize the training goal of applied talents. In this paper, based on the idea of collaborative education, a model of multi-dimensional collaborative teaching model is constructed, and the model is improved by applying the model to the process of teaching practice. In the teaching practice, the teaching methods and means have been reformed, and the teaching design has been systematically combed. Finally, the problems and solutions in the application practice are put forward. Through the study of this paper, in order to promote the reform of personnel training model, promote the construction of the curriculum system.

In the Flipped Class, students can control the learning progress according to their own situation. In this paper, the flipped model was applied in the "installation of engineering measurement and pricing" course, the flip teaching mode were designed and implemented, the course content was structured and designed in detail process and steps for the flipped classroom. The implementation of the program for the promotion of higher education were Summarized, it can provide a reference for the effective implementation of the classroom.

This review of 3,289 native kidney biopsies over the past four decades in Singapore documents the changing pattern of biopsy-proven glomerulonephritis (GN)from that of a third world country to that of a developed nation. In the 1st decade, mesangial proliferative GN was the most common form of primary GN, similar to the Asian region. In the 2nd decade, the percentage of mesangial proliferative GN decreased, but membranous GN became more common, as was seen in China and Thailand. In the 3rd decade, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) and membranous nephropathy continued to rise, but it was only recently, in the 4th decade, that FSGS prevalence increased dramatically, although membranous nephropathy continues to increase in some Asian countries. In the last decade in Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan, prevalence of IgA nephritis has decreased but remains the most common GN. The percentage of FSGS continues to increase in many countries like in Italy, United States of America, United Kingdom, China, and Malaysia. We surmise that socioeconomic factors play significant roles in the evolution of the renal biopsy pattern. .

Anti–CTLA-4 mAb is efficacious in enhancing tumor immunity in humans. CTLA-4 is expressed by conventional T cells upon activation and by naturally occurring FOXP3(+)CD4(+) Treg cells constitutively, raising a question of how anti–CTLA-4 mAb can differentially control these functionally opposing T cell populations in tumor immunity. Here we show that FOXP3(high) potently suppressive effector Treg cells were abundant in melanoma tissues, expressing CTLA-4 at higher levels than tumor-infiltrating CD8(+) T cells. Upon in vitro tumor-antigen stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy individuals or melanoma patients, Fc-region–modified anti–CTLA-4 mAb with high antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC) and cellular phagocytosis (ADCP) activity selectively depleted CTLA-4(+)FOXP3(+) Treg cells and consequently expanded tumor-antigen–specific CD8(+)T cells. Importantly, the expansion occurred only when antigen stimulation was delayed several days from the antibody treatment to spare CTLA-4(+) activated effector CD8(+)T cells from mAb-mediated killing. Similarly, in tumor-bearing mice, high-ADCC/ADCP anti–CTLA-4 mAb treatment with delayed tumor-antigen vaccination significantly prolonged their survival and markedly elevated cytokine production by tumor-infiltrating CD8(+) T cells, whereas antibody treatment concurrent with vaccination did not. Anti–CTLA-4 mAb modified to exhibit a lesser or no Fc-binding activity failed to show such timing-dependent in vitro and in vivo immune enhancement. Thus, high ADCC anti–CTLA-4 mAb is able to selectively deplete effector Treg cells and evoke tumor immunity depending on the CTLA-4–expressing status of effector CD8(+) T cells. These findings are instrumental in designing cancer immunotherapy with mAbs targeting the molecules commonly expressed by FOXP3(+) Treg cells and tumor-reactive effector T cells.

A point of interest (POI) is a specific location that people may find useful or interesting, such as restaurants, stores, attractions, and hotels. With the recent proliferation of location-based social networks (LBSN), numerous users gather to interact and share information on various POIs. POI recommendations have become a crucial issue because it not only helps users to learn about new places but also gives LBSN providers chances to post POI advertisements. As we utilize a heterogeneous information network to represent an LBSN in this work, POI recommendations are remodeled as a link prediction problem, which is significant in the field of social network analysis. Moreover, we propose to utilize the meta-path-based approach to extract implicit but potentially useful relationships between a user and a POI. Then, the extracted topological features are used to construct a prediction model with appropriate data classification techniques. In our experiments, the Yelp dataset is utilized as our testbed for performance evaluation purposes. The results show that our prediction model is of good prediction quality in practical applications.

The first-come, first-served strategy is generally applied to implement customer premises equipment (CPE) wide area network management protocol, but may work poorly under overloaded conditions. Namely, many sessions established between CPEs and the corresponding auto configuration server (ACS) must be kept waiting. Therefore, a dynamic rescheduling and self-adaptive estimation (DRASE) approach is proposed in this letter to increase the throughput of an ACS with an acceptable drop rate. Specifically, the order of rescheduling is determined by the estimated processing time (EPT), the remaining lifetime, and the waiting time of each session. Once the session is completed, a self-adaptive technique is adopted to update the EPT to increase the effectiveness of rescheduling. Experimental studies show that the throughput of an ACS using DRASE at peak times reaches 1.129 times of the original value, and other evaluated performance metrics are also significantly improved.

The advent of mass cytometry has facilitated highly multi-parametric single-cell analysis allowing for the deep assessment of cellular diversity. While the data and analytical power of this approach are well described, associated technical and experimental hurdles remain. Issues like equipment breakdown and sampling of large-scale batches, which may require multiple days of data acquisition, are minor but critical obstacles that prompt a technical solution, especially when dealing with precious samples. An ability to cryopreserve mass cytometry samples that have already been stained would alleviate numerous technical limitations we face with currently used sample-handling approaches. Here, we evaluated two protocols for freezing of already-stained and fixed cellular samples and compared them with standard sample refrigeration in staining buffer. A comprehensive human T cell staining phenotypic and functional profiling panel was used and the signal intensity and reliability of each marker was assessed over a 4-week period. In general, cellular viability, DNA Ir-Intercalator and barcode staining were minimally affected by freezing compared to refrigeration, and the signal intensities for cell surface markers and receptors were not compromised. Intracellular cytokine staining did show some decreases in signal intensity after freezing, with the decreases more prominent in a methanol-based protocol compared to a protocol involving the use of 10% DMSO in FBS. We conclude that freezing already-stained samples suspended in 10% DMSO in FBS is practical and efficient way to preserve already-stained samples when needed. © 2016 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry.

In process synthesis, it is often useful to have generic design tools to allow process designers to assess various important aspects of chemical processes. In this work, a novel graphical visualisation tool, i.e. Piper diagram is proposed to trace the changes of composition of the process streams, while establishing relationship that contributes to various strategies for process design. This tool is generic in nature, hence is applicable to all processes and various process aspects that meet the objectives of the designer. Two case studies on the production of cinnamaldehyde and butanal are used to demonstrate the novel approach, with safety, environmental and economic aspects being investigated using the Piper diagram.

Depending on the tissue microenvironment, T cells can differentiate into highly diverse subsets expressing unique trafficking receptors and cytokines. Studies of human lymphocytes have primarily focused on a limited number of parameters in blood, representing an incomplete view of the human immune system. Here, we have utilized mass cytometry to simultaneously analyze T cell trafficking and functional markers across eight different human tissues, including blood, lymphoid, and non-lymphoid tissues. These data have revealed that combinatorial expression of trafficking receptors and cytokines better defines tissue specificity. Notably, we identified numerous T helper cell subsets with overlapping cytokine expression, but only specific cytokine combinations are secreted regardless of tissue type. This indicates that T cell lineages defined in mouse models cannot be clearly distinguished in humans. Overall, our data uncover a plethora of tissue immune signatures and provide a systemic map of how T cell phenotypes are altered throughout the human body.

With numerous connected devices and appliances, the smart home is one of the representative fields of Internet of Things (IoT). As the complexity of devices/appliances increase, numerous buttons (sometimes dozens) are designed on the remote controller in home spaces even if several of them are seldom used. A user may be confused with the controller even if he or she only intends to perform a simple operation. This confusion also leads to a higher probability of mal-operations. In addition, conventional methods of communication between remote controllers and connected devices, such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML) messages, are usually bandwidth-consumptive. To address these problems, an intelligent universal remote control system for home appliances named Point-n-Press is proposed. Point-n-Press addresses the directionality feature, which enables easy and intuitive control by pointing to the target device to display the target's control interface on the screen of the remote controller. By leveraging the state dependencies of home device/appliance operations, only functional buttons that are relevant to the current context are utilized. Two real prototypes are implemented to verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme. The evaluation results show that Point-n-Press is a useful and suitable control scheme for IoT-based smart homes.

With debranching and plasticization of starches, we have successfully prepared thermoplastic starches (TPS) with high processibility by a twin-screw extruder. Afterwards, the TPS have blended with appropriate amounts of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymers (ABS), compatibilizers, impact modifiers, and pigments to compound in a twin-screw extruder, manufacturing TPS/ABS biomass alloys. Finally, we have prepared white and black filaments, whose diameters of 1.75 mm, for additive manufacturing (AM) with TPS/ABS biomass alloys by a single-screw extruder as well as proper mold and also executed their measurement of physical properties. In addition, their feasible evaluation for 3D printing applications has also been made. Experimental results reveal that physical properties of lab-made white and black filaments (i.e. mechanical properties, thermal resistance, flowability, and emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) are superior to those of commercial ABS filaments and the shaping samples for 3D printing have also been successfully fabricated, preliminarily demonstrating that they are potential biomass polymeric materials with excellent physical performances and high processibility for 3D printing utilizations.

The accurate clock skew measurement of remote devices over network connections is crucial to device fingerprinting and other related applications. Current approaches use the lower bound of offsets between the target device and the measurer to estimate clock skew; however, the accuracy of estimation is severely affected when even a few offsets appear below the crowd of offsets. This paper adopted the Hough transform to develop a new method, which searches for the densest part of the whole distribution. This method is effective in filtering out the upper and lower outliers such that the skew values derived from the remaining offsets are stable, even when lower outliers occur, or when the measuring time is not long enough for current approaches to achieve stable results. The experimental evaluation of the proposed method has been conducted in order to compare its performance with that of linear programming algorithm (LPA) and two other approaches. During the five consecutive measurements of 1000 offsets each, skews of the proposed method varied within the range of 0.59 ppm, whereas LPA resulted in the range of 0.89 ppm. Both ranges increased to 1.34 and 63.93 ppm, respectively, when the lower bounds encountered interference from lower outliers.

In this research, a series of amorphous nylons 6 were prepared by introducing adipic acid and different structure amines into the copolymerization with caprolactam. The effects including thermal properties, crystallinity, dynamic mechanical properties, optical properties, and water absorption of different copolymerization structure and copolymerization ratio on the properties of nylon 6 were investigated. The results show the melting point and thermal cracking temperature Td 5 of nylon 6 are, respectively, between 179[Formula: see text]C and 217[Formula: see text]C and 278[Formula: see text]C to 336[Formula: see text]C. Nylon 6 structure introducing a methyl side chain is more effective than a meta-benzene ring, a meta-cycloalkyl, and bicycloalkyl groups, so CAMM and CAI have the lowest crystallinity.

Drug-induced respiratory depression is a major cause of serious adverse events. Adequate oxygenation is very important during sedated esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). Nasal breathing often shifts to oral breathing during open mouth EGD. A mandibular advancement bite block was developed for EGD using computer-assisted design and three-dimensional printing techniques. The mandible is advanced when using this bite block to facilitate airway opening. The device is composed of an oxygen inlet with one opening directed towards the nostril and another opening directed towards the oral cavity. The aim of this bench study was to compare the inspired oxygen concentration (FiO2) provided by the different nasal cannulas, masks, and bite blocks commonly used in sedated EGD. A manikin head was connected to one side of a two-compartment lung model by a 7.0 mm endotracheal tube with its opening in the nasopharyngeal position. The other compartment was driven by a ventilator to mimic “patient” inspiratory effort. Using this spontaneously breathing lung model, we evaluated five nasal cannulas, two face masks, and four new oral bite blocks at different oxygen flow rates and different mouth opening sizes. The respiratory rate was set at 12/min with a tidal volume of 500 mL and 8/min with a tidal volume of 300 mL. Several Pneuflo resistors of different sizes were used in the mouth of the manikin head to generate different degrees of mouth opening. FiO2 was evaluated continuously via the endotracheal tube. All parameters were evaluated using a Datex anesthesia monitoring system. The mandibular advancement bite block provided the highest FiO2 under the same supplemental oxygen flow. The FiO2 was higher for devices with oxygen flow provided via an oral bite block than that provided via the nasal route. Under the same supplemental oxygen flow, the tidal volume and respiratory rate also played an important role in the FiO2. A low respiratory rate with a smaller tidal volume has a relative high FiO2. The ratio of nasal to oral breathing played an important role in the FiO2 under hypoventilation but less role under normal ventilation. Bite blocks deliver a higher FiO2 during EGD. The ratio of nasal to oral breathing, supplemental oxygen flow, tidal volume, and respiratory rate influenced the FiO2 in most of the supplemental oxygen devices tested, which are often used for conscious sedation in patients undergoing EGD and colonoscopy.

In this paper, a study on the characteristics of synchronized traffic flow in a two-lane case with partial reduced lane based on the Kerner–Klenov–Wolf (KKW) cellular automaton model in the framework of Kerner’ three-phase theory is reported by using the rescaled range analysis. The local fundamental diagram and the cross correlation near the entry of the reduced lane have been analyzed. The typical two-dimensional scatter diagram in the local fundamental diagram and the non-correlation of the cross correlation between the local density and the flow reveal the characteristics of synchronized traffic flow near the entry of the reduced lane. By using the rescaled range analysis (R/S) method to calculate the Hurst exponent, we can obtain the long-range correlated characteristics of the synchronized flow at a traffic bottleneck. We have found that the larger the length of bottleneck, the higher the Hurst’s exponent does as well as the stronger the correlations of the system. Applying our correlation analysis to traffic flow simulations with the NaSch model, which cannot reproduce synchronized flow of the three-phase theory, we have indeed found that the NaSch model does not exhibit long-range correlation characteristics found for synchronized flow.

Certain nasal neoplasms, such as ectopic menigioma, present as nasal polyps, together with similar symptoms. The present study reports the diagnosis and treatment of ectopic meningioma in the bilateral nasal olfactory cleft in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment of ectopic meningioma in the nasal cavity. By retrospectively analyzing the clinical data and reviewing the associated literature, a detailed introduction to the clinical manifestation, diagnosis and treatment of ectopic meningioma of the nasal cavity was ascertained. The tumor was removed from the sinus by functional endoscopy surgery. Regular follow-up appointments were scheduled every three months, with no evidence of recurrence to date. The olfactory recovery and nasal ventilation were normal subsequent to surgery. Meningiomas are infrequently occurring tumors with unpredictable clinical behavior. A clear understanding of the etiology and appropriate diagnostic and management principles may aid in overcoming the challenges of treating primary extracranial meningiomas.

With the rise in the water level of the Three Gorges Project, accurately measuring the shear strength parameters of the Three Gorges Project shore landslide has important implications for the safety of the Three Gorges Project’s surrounding area. Due to the material of reservoir area slope is complex, are mostly loose accumulation, these loose accumulation are mainly composed by landslide deposits, eluvia material, alluvial matter, landslides, strong weathered, and material composition is soil with gravel or fragments stone, the conventional small specimens test has been impossible. Badong County has long rainy season, abundant rainfall, mudslides, landslides and other geological disasters are frequent, so measuring reservoir landslide shear strength of Badong County is particularly important. Therefore, this paper takes the gravel soil of piled crushed landslide of the third senior middle school in Badong County as the research object, through lab large-scale direct shear test to research the gravel soil strength parameters’ variation of the soil samples with different coarse soil content under different moisture conditions.

Iodine deficiency (ID) during early pregnancy has an adverse effect on children's psychomotor and motor function but the mechanism has not been clarified. Therefore, our aim was to study the effect of maternal marginal ID on cerebellar neurodevelopment and the underlying mechanism. After obtaining marginal ID rats, we examined interactions between Bergmann glia cells (BGs) and Purkinje cells (PCs) using immunofluorescence and expression of the glutamate transporter and receptor by western blot. Our results showed that marginal ID reduced the number of contacted points between BGs and PCs, and disturbed expression of the glutamate transporter and receptor. Our results support the hypothesis that marginal ID inhibits interactions of BGs-PCs, which may be involved in abnormal regulation of the glutamate transporter and receptor.

This paper presents a novel video stitching system for stitching multiple images with 4K and displaying them simultaneously. The key insight of the proposed system can be divided into two stages First, a image of super resolution, such as 16K/32K, and it can be divided evenly into 2×2 or 3×3…etc. Due to the parallelized GPU, we could decode these image simultaneously based on the DXT and JPEG compression. However, the next key point is how to synchronize the split image of vide for display. After image decoding, the synchronized queue buffer are implemented to store the decompressed 4K images for stitching synchronized video frames. The experimental results demonstrate the stitched seamless videos with four/eight times the 4K resolution can be displayed on the physical electronic display wall in real time, and the frame rate of the resultant videos achieves 30–60 frames per second (FPS). Consequently, the proposed novel video stitching system provide satisfied performance of video watch for the future generation of 8K/16K video processing systems.

Various forms of immunotherapy, such as checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, are proving to be effective at restoring T cell-mediated immune responses that can lead to marked and sustained clinical responses, but only in some patients and cancer types

In ultra dense WiFi networks, access points are deployed with high density in order to support Internet access for large amount of mobile users at the same time. Since the mobile users may not be uniformly distributed in the network, the heavy loaded access points and the interference among different access points would cause the network throughput degradation. Further, although increasing transmission power levels of access points could enhance network throughput, the energy efficiency would be low. Energy consumption is an increasingly important issue today so that the network performance needs to be improved in an energy efficient manner. Under this condition, we propose a distributed power adjustment scheme to intelligently maximize the throughput of the entire network without increasing transmission power in the presence of dynamic distributed mobile users. To validate the performance of our proposed scheme, we simulate various network conditions and the results show that our proposed scheme can sustain throughput with less energy consumption with less than 200 iterations.

Neutrophils are specialized innate cells that require constant replenishment from proliferative bone marrow (BM) precursors as a result of their short half-life. Although it is established that neutrophils are derived from the granulocyte-macrophage progenitor (GMP), the differentiation pathways from GMP to functional mature neutrophils are poorly defined. Using mass cytometry (CyTOF) and cell-cycle-based analysis, we identified three neutrophil subsets within the BM: a committed proliferative neutrophil precursor (preNeu) which differentiates into non-proliferating immature neutrophils and mature neutrophils. Transcriptomic profiling and functional analysis revealed that preNeu require the C/EBPε transcription factor for their generation from the GMP, and their proliferative program is substituted by a gain of migratory and effector function as they mature. preNeus expand under microbial and tumoral stress, and immature neutrophils are recruited to the periphery of tumor-bearing mice. In summary, our study identifies specialized BM granulocytic populations that ensure supply under homeostasis and stress responses. We thank all members of L.G.N laboratory, the SIgN (Singapore Immunology Network) flow-cytometry team, the SIgN functional genomics team for their assistance with transcriptomics, and the SIgN mouse core facility for their technical help and support. This research was funded by SIgN core funding, A*STAR (Agency for Science, Technology and Research), Singapore. Sí

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) executes a plethora of immune-evasive mechanisms, which contribute to its pathogenesis, limited efficacy of current therapy, and the emergence of drug-resistant strains. This has led to resurgence in attempts to develop new therapeutic strategies/targets against tuberculosis (TB). We show that Mtb down-regulates sirtuin 1 (SIRT1), a nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+)–dependent deacetylase, in monocytes/macrophages, TB animal models, and TB patients with active disease. Activation of SIRT1 reduced intracellular growth of drug-susceptible and drug-resistant strains of Mtb and induced phagosome-lysosome fusion and autophagy in a SIRT1-dependent manner. SIRT1 activation dampened Mtb-mediated persistent inflammatory responses via deacetylation of RelA/p65, leading to impaired binding of RelA/p65 on the promoter of inflammatory genes. In Mtb-infected mice, the use of SIRT1 activators ameliorated lung pathology, reduced chronic inflammation, and enhanced efficacy of anti-TB drug. Mass cytometry–based high-dimensional analysis revealed that SIRT1 activation mediated modulation of lung myeloid cells in Mtb-infected mice. Myeloid cell–specific SIRT1 knockout mice display increased inflammatory responses and susceptibility to Mtb infection. Collectively, these results provide a link between SIRT1 activation and TB pathogenesis and indicate a potential of SIRT1 activators in designing an effective and clinically relevant host-directed therapies for TB.

Prolonged-sitting computer use has contributed to certain unhealthy symptoms such as visual impairment and musculoskeletal disorders. To help reduce the health risk and promote healthier computer use, researchers have devoted a lot of time and effort developing user-friendly computer stretch/massage programs for prolonged-sitting computer users. However, computer users also expressed their concern on long-term adoption of the programs. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and bring a proposed 3D character from the virtual world (in computer break software) to the real world. This study designed, developed and actually produced a “tangible” 3D character with 3D printing technology, which could be touched, held, and interacted with real time. A microcontroller, consisting a central processing unit (CPU), was pre-programmed to adjust for the ON duration of red, yellow and green LEDs light color to sense computer users’ working status via ultrasonic sensor. A quantitative questionnaire survey was used to collect users’ evaluation along with a face-to-face interview to solicit in-depth feedback of user experience. The prototypes were tested with 10 volunteer undergraduate students followed by a series of modifications. The overall satisfaction reached a high score of 4.68 (based on a 5-point Likert scale). Generally they thought the Daniel was useful to alert user’s sitting duration in front of computer and they would be willing to recommend it to friends. Currently a more robust evaluation with more participants is under way. The next issue will be the impact of the created interactive device on users’ working efficiency and task performance.

Glutaric aciduria type 1 (GA1) is a rare, inherited mitochondrial disorder that results from deficiency of mitochondrial glutaryl-CoA dehydrogenase. Most patients develop neurological dysfunction early in life, which leads to severe disabilities. We present a 37-month-old girl with GA1 manifested as macrocephaly and hypotonia who received comprehensive dental restoration surgery under general anesthesia with sevoflurane. She was placed on specialized fluid management during a preoperative fasting period and anesthesia was administered without complications. All the physiological parameters, including glucose and lactate blood levels and arterial blood gas were carefully monitored and maintained within normal range perioperatively. Strategies for anesthetic management should include prevention of pulmonary aspiration, dehydration, hyperthermia and catabolic state, adequate analgesia to minimize surgical stress, and avoidance of prolonged neuromuscular blockade. We administered general anesthesia with sevoflurane uneventfully, which was well tolerated by our patient with GA1. Additionally, communication with a pediatric geneticist and surgeons should be undertaken to formulate a comprehensive anesthetic strategy in these patients.

This study collected and analyzed Light -Emitting Diode (LED) parameters (forward conduction voltage VF, reversed breakdown voltage , and reversed linkage current) and output information in testing LED back-end process and packaging. Moreover, it developed a remote control operation platform using LabVIEW of national instruments (NI), and providedan interface for user operation, data storage analysis , and specification evaluation. Accordingly, a remote real -time process monitoring and automatic production specification checking mechanism can be developed to replace traditional manual quality control operation, which directly deliver light-emitting diodes, while reducing high labor and production costs. Through evaluation of the proposed real-time process capability, the collected light -emitting diode parameters are automatically adjusted tothe production specifications, which meet the process capability and are returned to the testing instrument in real time . The products can thus meet the process capability of the batch, the rework rate can be effectively reduced, andthe passing rate of delivery quality control can be improved. The proposed remote real-time process monitoring and automatic production specification checking mechanism can analyze and evaluate production specification data, and monitor and store historical data for the long term in conjunction with the database system . Moreover, the light-emitting diode can be automatically checked bythe evaluation process capability in order to improve production technology and process parameters. Thus, a solution forthe optimization of light-emitting diode parameter specifications can be established to promote effective management of production equipment, improve production efficiency, and integrate production flow.

Due to the special hydrographic and physiographic conditions in Taiwan, flooding is likely to occur in the middle and lower reaches of a plain whenever serious rainstorm events occurred. Note worthily, the loss of lives and property caused by flooding are always most considerable in a metropolitan area, and the densely distributed buildings would, not only increase the impervious area, but also decrease the water storage area. Furthermore, a large number of intensive buildings have changed the original land flow conditions, resulting in a beam shrinking flow and the additional form drag phenomenon, which makes the flooding phenomenon more serious. The main purpose of this research is to find the correlation between building coverage and the Manning’s coefficient n through a water flume model experiment. To probe into this issue, the Manning’s roughness adjustment is further divided into a part caused by the surface impedance and a part caused by the building impedance. Thus, building coverage can be added to the general computing grid to reflect the flooding situation with buildings. The two-dimensional inundation model, based on this research, was applied to Taichung City for an actual case simulation. The simulation result of Typhoon Kalmaegi showed that the presented model can obtain a more accurate flooding situation in urban area by considering the blockage effects of buildings and adjusting the surface roughness.

In this paper, we study the correlation characteristics of synchronization flow in a two-lane model with the partial reduced lane based on the Kerner–Klenov–Wolf cellular automation model using the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The local fundamental diagram and cross-correlation near the entry of the partial reduced lane have been analyzed in the periodic boundary condition. The typical two-dimensional scatter diagram in the local fundamental diagram and the noncorrelation of the cross-correlation between the local density and flow reveal characteristics of synchronization flow near the entry of the reduced lane. By the DFA, the synchronized flow at a traffic bottleneck exhibits the characteristics of long-range correlation. The results of investigation indicate that the injection rate, removal rate, and the location of the partial reduced lane have an obvious influence on the change of the scale exponent in the open boundary condition. Moreover, the length of the partial reduced lane has impact on the change of the scale exponent in the periodic boundary condition.

With the use of previously published data, new sevoflurane-remifentanil interaction models of various degrees of sedation were created and adapted to desflurane-fentanyl by using minimal alveolar concentration and opioid equivalencies. These models were used to predict return of responsiveness in patients undergoing scoliosis surgery during a wake-up test. Our hypothesis was that one of the interaction models would accurately predict return of responsiveness during a wake-up test.Three new sevoflurane-remifentanil interaction models were constructed from previous observations in volunteers by using the Observer's Assessment of Alertness/Sedation (OAA/S) scores. These models included predictions of OAA/S2 (unresponsive), OAA/S3, and OAA/S4 (sedation). Twenty-three patients scheduled for scoliosis surgery received a fentanyl-desflurane anesthetic. With the use of published pharmacokinetic models, predictions of fentanyl and desflurane effect-site concentrations were recorded throughout surgery and converted to equivalent remifentanil and sevoflurane effect-site concentrations. Data were recorded every 10 seconds from the time when desflurane was turned off until 10 minutes after the patients responded by moving their hands and toes. Model predictions were compared with observations with graphical and temporal analyses.The average difference between the time when a patient first responded and the time when the model predicted that there was a 50% probability that the patient would respond were -2.6 ± 3.6 minutes (mean ± SD) for the OAA/S2 model, 2.8 ± 5.6 minutes for the OAA/S3 model and 52.6 ± 32.3 minutes for the OAA/S4 model.The results confirmed our study hypothesis; a sevoflurane-remifentanil interaction model built from observations in volunteers and adapted to desflurane and fentanyl accurately predicted patient response during a wake-up test. These results were similar to our previous study comparing model predictions and patient observations after a sevoflurane-remifentanil/fentanyl anesthetic. The OAA/S2 model most accurately predicted the time patients would respond by moving their fingers and toes. This model may help anesthesiologists better predict return of responsiveness during a wake-up test in patients undergoing spine surgery.

Dynamic programming has been used to solve numerous complex problems in business and engineering. This study applies dynamic programming to a retail decision-making problem related to trade credit. A price, shelf-space, and time-dependent demand function is introduced to model the finite time horizon inventory. Trade credit was considered in the model because suppliers commonly provide retailers with credit periods. Consequently, the retailer is not required to pay for goods immediately upon receipt, and can instead earn interest on the retail price of the goods between the time the goods are sold and the end of the credit period. The objective of this paper is to determine the periodic retail price, shelf-space quantity, and ordering quantity that maximize total profit. The numerical examples explain the procedures of the solution approach and show that dynamic decision making is superior to fixed decision making regarding profit maximization.

With the recent paradigm shift of cloud computing, deployment of operating systems (OSs) onto a large-scale computer network is becoming necessary. Note that there are usually numerous nodes with various functions in a cloud computing system. Thus, it is usually required to deploy different operating systems onto different nodes. In such a customized setting, conventional techniques of using unicast deployment to distribute a massive cloud OS onto thousands of nodes is time consuming and bandwidth-intensive. In this work, we thus propose a multicast deployment approach so as to significantly improve deployment efficiency. Furthermore, our multicast deployment approach can leverage existing configurations of the unicast counterpart. Specifically, the advantageous features of the proposed approach include the support of a reliable multicast protocol, a heterogeneous infrastructure, and cloud hypervisor environments. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed approach in practical applications, CentOS and Ubuntu are used when implementing our deployment approach on several tens of nodes. Empirical studies show that both the required time for the entire distribution process, i.e., from starting delivery until the OS is ready, and the network bandwidth consumption are significantly reduced as compared with conventional unicast approaches. Consequently, less effort is required on monitoring and maintenance for system administrators.

With more and more universities expanding and redesigning their landscape spaces, therefore their outdoor furnitures shape, dimension, quality and usage are also changing and redesigning. One of the significant changes in the design process is the taking of users needs/concerns into account. This change is influenced by a community-based design concept found in public spaces design. In this paper, we propose a Design for Assembly Study (DFA) which is focus on examining the past practice of outdoor wooden Materual furniture design in campus spaces by using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to fill in this missing link. The employment of different matrices to capture the relationship between the voice of customer (VOC) and subsequent design and quality characteristics compose an evaluation framework suitable to fill the gap in the assembly procedure of outdoor wooden frame furniture. The study also produces several insights applies on outdoor wooden furniture design in campus space. Keywords: Wooden Material, Outdoor furniture, Outdoor space, Design Evaluation Procedure

SUMMARY This work aims to address the security vulnerability of the Flooding Time Synchronization Protocol (FTSP), which is currently one of the most popular approaches for time synchronization in wireless sensor networks. FTSP has advanced features, such as implicitly dynamic topology and high time accuracy, but still has unresolved security issues. In order to defend against attacks from malicious nodes, we propose several technologies to reinforce the structure of FTSP. First, a reference node selecting mechanism is proposed to reduce the effect of multiple reference nodes, and four filters are proposed to defend against seqNum attack, global time attack and node replication attack. Experiment results show that the proposed sequence number blacklist filter and the global time blacklist filter are effective in defending against the aforementioned attacks. Second, a new root selection mechanism is proposed to secure the process of updating the root node. Combining the root selection mechanism with the global time black list filter, the proposed mechanisms successfully defend against traitor attacks on FTSP in our experiment. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.