Salient Effects Research Articles

Acoustic Emission from Organic Martensites

AbstractIn salient effects, still crystals of solids that switch between phases acquire a momentum and are autonomously propelled because of rapid release of elastic energy accrued during a latent structural transition induced by heat, light, or mechanical stimulation. When mechanical reconfiguration is induced by change of temperature in thermosalient crystals, bursts of detectable acoustic waves are generated prior to self‐actuation. These observations provide compelling evidence that the thermosalient transitions in organic and organic‐containing crystals are molecular analogues of the martensitic transitions in some metals, and metal alloys such as steel and shape‐memory alloys. Within a broader context, these results reveal that, akin to metallic bonding, the intermolecular interactions in molecular solids are capable of gradual accrual and sudden release of a substantial amount of strain during anisotropic thermal expansion, followed by a rapid transformation of the crystal packing in a diffusionless, non‐displacive transition.

The realization of the virtual synchronous generator based on the park model

In this paper, a kind of virtual synchronous generator control algorithm is proposed that can accurately simulate the external characteristic of a synchronous generator. This algorithm based on the synchronous generator park mathematical model considers the motor salient pole effect and the influence of damper windings. Using two-step Adams method to solve the mathematical model of the synchronous motor for current of the motor’s port, the converter is controlled to track the current so that the output status values have the same port characteristics with the actual motor. Simulation results verify that in many typical working conditions such as the synchronous motor starting, the output voltage mutating or the frequency changing, the converter controlled in the above algorithm can mimic a real synchronous generator.

A salient effect of density on the dynamics of nonaqueous electrolytes

The mobility and solvation of lithium ions in electrolytes are crucial for the performance and safety of lithium ion batteries. It has been known that a single type of solvent cannot satisfy the requirements of both mobility and solvation simultaneously for electrolytes. Therefore, complex solvent mixtures have been used to optimize both properties. Here we present the effects of density on the dynamics and solvation of organic liquid electrolytes via extensive molecular dynamics simulations. Our study finds that a small variation in density can induce a significant effect on the mobility of electrolytes but does not influence the solvation structure of a lithium ion. It turns out that an adjustment of the density of electrolytes could provide a more effective way to enhance mobility than a control of the solvent mixture ratio of electrolytes. Our study reveals that the density change of electrolytes mainly affects the residence time of solvents in the first solvation shell of a lithium ion rather than the structural change of the solvation sheath. Finally, our results suggest an intriguing point for understanding and designing electrolytes of lithium ion batteries for better performance and safety.

Usage of semantic representations in recognition memory

ABSTRACTMeanings of words facilitate false acceptance as well as correct rejection of lures in recognition memory tests, depending on the experimental context. This suggests that semantic representations are both directly and indirectly (i.e., mediated by perceptual representations) used in remembering. Studies using memory conjunction errors (MCEs) paradigms, in which the lures consist of component parts of studied words, have reported semantic facilitation of rejection of the lures. However, attending to components of the lures could potentially cause this. Therefore, we investigated whether semantic overlap of lures facilitates MCEs using Japanese Kanji words in which a whole-word image is more concerned in reading. Experiments demonstrated semantic facilitation of MCEs in a delayed recognition test (Experiment 1), and in immediate recognition tests in which participants were prevented from using phonological or orthographic representations (Experiment 2), and the salient effect on individuals with high semantic memory capacities (Experiment 3). Additionally, analysis of the receiver operating characteristic suggested that this effect is attributed to familiarity-based memory judgement and phantom recollection. These findings indicate that semantic representations can be directly used in remembering, even when perceptual representations of studied words are available.

Facile hydrothermal synthesis of dendritic Cu2S nanostructures using novel starting reagents and investigation of their behavior in solar cells

In the present study, dendritic Cu2S nanostructures were successfully synthesized via a simple hydrothermal route using cysteine as a capping agent, sulfide source, and reducing agent for converting Cu2+ to Cu+ and [Cu(en)2(H2O)2]Cl2 complex as a new copper precursor. The effect of temperature, reaction time, and cysteine concentration on the morphology and particle size was also investigated. Moreover, efficiency of as-synthesized Cu2S nanostructures in thin-film solar cells was evaluated. The results showed that particle size and morphology have salient effect on solar cells efficiency and dendritic Cu2S nanostructures have higher efficiency compared to spherical and rod-like Cu2S nanostructures. In addition, depositing of dendritic Cu2S on Cu2S nanoparticles led to obtaining 3.02% cell efficiency that in comparison with sole dendritic nanostructures (2.15%) and sole nanoparticles (1.62%), efficiency improvements of 40 and 86% were, respectively, achieved.

Social media review rating versus traditional customer satisfaction

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effects of traditional customer satisfaction (CS) relative magnitude and social media review ratings on hotel performance and to explore which online travel intermediaries’ review ratings serve as the most reliable and valid predictor for hotel performance.Design/methodology/approachIn 2014, CS and hotel performance data were collected from the internal database of full-service hotels operated and managed by a large hotel chain in the USA. Each property’s social media review ratings data were hand-collected from major online travel intermediaries and social media websites.FindingsThe results of this study indicate that social media review rating is a more significant predictor than traditional CS for explaining hotel performance metrics. Additionally, the social media review rating of TripAdvisor is the best predictor for hotel performance out of the other intermediaries.Research limitations/implicationsThis research contributes to the hospitality literature because it examines the incremental explanatory power of social media review rating and traditional CS on hotel performance. Among the leading online travel intermediaries, the findings show that TripAdvisor’s social media review rating has the most salient effect on hotel performance.Practical implicationsThe result of this study provides useful practical implications for hotel marketers and revenue managers. This study assists hotel marketers and revenue managers in better allocating their budget for marketing and suggests ways for channel optimization.Originality/valueThe finding of this study will help revenue managers, marketing managers, and hotel owners make decisions regarding their marketing budget allocation to their social media marketing campaign and select the optimal online travel intermediaries as part of their channel management strategies.

Biological signaling by carbon monoxide and carbon monoxide-releasing molecules.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is continuously produced in mammalian cells during the degradation of heme. It is a stable gaseous molecule that reacts selectively with transition metals in a specific redox state, and these characteristics restrict the interaction of CO with defined biological targets that transduce its signaling activity. Because of the high affinity of CO for ferrous heme, these targets can be grouped into heme-containing proteins, representing a large variety of sensors and enzymes with a series of diverse function in the cell and the organism. Despite this notion, progress in identifying which of these targets are selective for CO has been slow and even the significance of elevated carbonmonoxy hemoglobin, a classical marker used to diagnose CO poisoning, is not well understood. This is also due to the lack of technologies capable of assessing in a comprehensive fashion the distribution and local levels of CO between the blood circulation, the tissue, and the mitochondria, one of the cellular compartments where CO exerts its signaling or detrimental effects. Nevertheless, the use of CO gas and CO-releasing molecules as pharmacological approaches in models of disease has provided new important information about the signaling properties of CO. In this review we will analyze the most salient effects of CO in biology and discuss how the binding of CO with key ferrous hemoproteins serves as a posttranslational modification that regulates important processes as diverse as aerobic metabolism, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial bioenergetics.

The Extraregulatory Effect of Nurse Practitioner Scope-of-Practice Laws on Physician Malpractice Rates.

Patients can hold physicians directly or vicariously liable for the malpractice of nurse practitioners under their supervision. Restrictive scope-of-practice laws governing nurse practitioners can ease patients' legal burdens in establishing physician liability. We analyze the effect of restrictive scope-of-practice laws on the number of malpractice payments made on behalf of physicians between 1999 and 2012. Enacting less restrictive scope-of-practice laws decreases the number of payments made by physicians by as much as 31%, suggesting that restrictive scope-of-practice laws have a salient extraregulatory effect on physician malpractice rates. The effect of enacting less restrictive laws varies depending on the medical malpractice reforms that are in place, with the largest decrease in physician malpractice rates occurring in states that have enacted fewer malpractice reforms. Relaxing scope-of-practice laws could mitigate the adverse extraregulatory effect on physicians identified in this study and could also lead to improvements in access to care.

The Impact of Packaging Designs on Consumer Buying Behaviour of FMCG during the Hyperinflationary and After the Dollarisation Era in Zimbabwe

Purpose – The main thrust of this research paper is to investigate the effect of designs that come with a package and how they influence consumer purchasing habit of FMCG products in Zimbabwe during and after the multi-currency period. The objectives of the research was to ascertain the major effect of packaging designs on consumer purchasing pattern of FMCG goods in Zimbabwe, to establish the major function of packaging on FMCG products and to examine the salient effect of other factors that can be controlled and that cannot be controlled (such as price, quality, promotion, socio cultural environment, social class, personality and self concept, attitudes and learning) on the purchasing pattern of consumer on FMCG goods during and after the multi-currency period in Zimbabwe. Design/ methodology/ approach –The researcher adopted the descriptive survey and exploratory research designs to gather data from the retail sector. The research was conducted in Harare Zimbabwe where most of the retail outlets are mainly concentrated. A study sample of 47 respondents from the retail sector was used targeting firms in the FMCG sector. Data to answer research problem was obtained through an in-depth interviews and questionnaires. 5 policy makers were interviewed while 42 questionnaires were sent to retail managers and of which 32 were then returned. The target samples were guided with a questionnaire with closed and open ended questions. Respondents were Stratified and conveniently selected. Findings – The findings revealed that, the element with the most influential factor on purchasing habit of FMCG products is printed information as indicated by more respondents. Thus the correct message will sell a product hence designers and product strategists must think first on all messages they are sending to consumers. Printed information has more bearing on the buying pattern of consumers, followed by size. Background image, colour and font styles were also pointed out as having an effect on the buying behaviour of FMCG products. Font styles however have the least effect the purchasing behaviour of consumers. This corresponds with Deliya and Parmar (2012)study which concluded that font style has the least effect as compared to all the packaging elements. It should be concluded that size and material are the visual elements mainly considered by customers when buying products while product information is also the main verbal elements having an effect on consumer decision making. Conclusively packaging elements are perceived to be an element of the product. The research also revealed that, during and after the multi-currency period, consumers in Zimbabwe preferred to purchase more of foreign packaged products than local packed products.

Indonesian Islamic Studies: Selected Dissertation Bibliography 2000-2016

The shifting of religious authority has been a primary issue of (un)published dissertations on Indonesian Islam. The collapse of Soeharto regime, more or less, takes salient effect on the rise of new religious authorities; while on the same time it provokes social change in the society. New religious mass organizations, such as Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, Front Pembela Islam and Front Umat Islam, seem to be main critical discussion in certain dissertation in line with some topics which problematizes prominent Islamic organizations, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama, under new framework of analysis. New media and Islamic banking have to be other domain authorities that carefully discussed in some dissertation. Put it in another topics, gender issue take a untrivial position. In short, these dissertations topics tend to discuss more on Islam in popular authorities.Keywords:Islamic Studies, Bibliography, Dissertation, Indonesia

Juror Decision-making in Death Penalty Sentencing when Presented with Defendant's History of Child Abuse or Neglect.

Previous studies have found aggravating, mitigating, and null effects of defendant histories of abuse and neglect on punishment preferences in capital sentencing. Perceiving these defendants as more dangerous, jurors may be more likely to favor the death penalty when such evidence is presented. This is counter to the intuition that abuse or neglect reduces culpability, and therefore mitigates the severity of punishment. We investigated the effect of defendant childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect on the probability of a prospective juror preferring the death penalty in an between-subject experimental design. Using vignettes and two large samples (students and jurors), defendant histories were found to mitigate the probability that the hypothetical defendant received the death penalty, with sexual abuse having the most salient effect. Further, the effects were conditioned by preference for the death penalty - larger mitigating effects were observed among individuals who favor the death penalty. These findings suggest that initial judgments of abuse and neglect are related to juror leniency, and further research on the interaction of jury instructions and defendant histories is needed. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comfort Evaluation of 3D Movies Based on Parallax and Motion

The intensity of feeling and comfort are two contrasting aspects of 3D movies. This paper studies 3D comfort according to crosstalk, basic parallax, space motion, and depth of field based on pixels. A method for calculating 3D motion based on the XYZ axes is presented, and a pixel-based evaluation model of 3D comfort is established with parallax, motion, and other indexes. In order to support the production and evaluation process of 3D films, a 3D comfort evaluation tool is designed according to time series. As demonstrated experimentally, basic parallax, depth of field, and average crosstalk have certain impact on the entire 3D comfort, while space motion has a relatively salient effect. When applying our method, a steady control on 3D comfort is found in high-quality 3D films: About 92% of comfort is within the range of 1–3.5 points for Transformers: Age of Extinction (USA), whereas about 74% of comfort is within the range of 1–3.5 points for The Monkey King (China). Large depth of field for slow moving lens and small depth of field for fast moving lens were used in Avatar and Transformers, and these 3D art rules are not followed closely in The Monkey King. As a basic tool for 3D film production, our proposed method can be applied in creating, shooting, producing, and monitoring for a 3D film.

Controllable Synthesis of NiSe2 Nanostructures via Hydrothermal Process for Photocatalytic and Solar Cell Applications

This paper reports on the synthesis of rice-like NiSe2 nanoparticles via a simple hydrothermal method by employing [bis(2-hydoxyacetophenato)nickle(II)], [Ni(HAP)2], as a novel nickel precursor. Effect of nickel source on morphology and size of nanostructures was also investigated. Moreover, the as-synthesized NiSe2 nanostructures were utilized as the photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and as the counter electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells. The results showed that structures size and morphology have salient effect on solar cells and using rice-like NiSe2 nanoparticles leads to an increase in DSSCs efficiency compared to agglomerated sphere-like particles from 6.04 to 8.99 % (~49 % improvement).

Three-dimensional VIV prediction model for a long flexible cylinder with axial dynamics and mean drag magnifications

This study presents a three-dimensional phenomenological model for the analysis and prediction of vortex-induced vibration (VIV) of a long flexible circular cylinder in uniform flows, by taking into consideration the two salient effects of cylinder axial dynamics and mean drag magnifications. A semi-empirical theoretical model consists of structural nonlinear equations of coupled cross-flow, in-line and axial motions excited by vortex-induced hydrodynamic lift and drag forces. These forces are governed by two distributed and coupled wake oscillators describing the variations of lift and drag coefficients. This reduced-order model contains cubic and quadratic nonlinearities associated with geometric displacement couplings and fluid-structure interactions. A numerical finite difference approach combined with a frequency domain and modal analysis is used for analyzing the highly nonlinear three-dimensional VIV responses. Several key features of flexible cylinder VIV are captured in the case of varying flow velocities. In particular, the dynamic responses exhibit a transition from standing to travelling wave characteristics, spatial dual 2:1 resonances with multi modal contributions, variable figure-of-eight trajectories, higher harmonic components, mean in-line/axial displacements and mean stresses as a result of VIV-amplified mean drag forces. Model validations are also performed through comparisons with published experimental results. Parametric studies highlight the individual and combined effects of geometric and hydrodynamic nonlinearities together with the axial dynamics which contribute to the space-time varying responses, frequencies, dominant modes and modal contributions, transverse bending and longitudinal stresses. Both quantitative and qualitative discrepancies are noticeable when the prediction model disregards these effects.

The gust-mitigating potential of flapping wings

Nature’s flapping-wing flyers are adept at negotiating highly turbulent flows across a wide range of scales. This is in part due to their ability to quickly detect and counterract disturbances to their flight path, but may also be assisted by an inherent aerodynamic property of flapping wings. In this study, we subject a mechanical flapping wing to replicated atmospheric turbulence across a range of flapping frequencies and turbulence intensities. By means of flow visualization and surface pressure measurements, we determine the salient effects of large-scale freestream turbulence on the flow field, and on the phase-average and fluctuating components of pressure and lift. It is shown that at lower flapping frequencies, turbulence dominates the instantaneous flow field, and the random fluctuating component of lift contributes significantly to the total lift. At higher flapping frequencies, kinematic forcing begins to dominate and the flow field becomes more consistent from cycle to cycle. Turbulence still modulates the flapping-induced flow field, as evidenced in particular by a variation in the timing and extent of leading edge vortex formation during the early downstroke. The random fluctuating component of lift contributes less to the total lift at these frequencies, providing evidence that flapping wings do indeed provide some inherent gust mitigation.

Influence of Diaphragm Flexibility on Seismic Response of Unreinforced Masonry Buildings

The effects of diaphragm flexibility on the seismic response of low-rise unreinforced masonry buildings are examined using one-way stiffness- and strength-eccentric single-story systems subjected to unidirectional ground excitation. A wide range of diaphragm stiffnesses are considered. Results show that diaphragm flexibility can induce different effects depending on the configuration of the system and the level of diaphragm flexibility. When diaphragm is relatively stiff, amplified displacement demands can be imposed on the flexible side of the structure. When diaphragm is relatively flexible, peak displacements of in-plane loaded walls generally reduce. A diaphragm classification is developed to capture these salient effects.

Node Detection and Internode Length Estimation of Tomato Seedlings Based on Image Analysis and Machine Learning.

Seedling vigor in tomatoes determines the quality and growth of fruits and total plant productivity. It is well known that the salient effects of environmental stresses appear on the internode length; the length between adjoining main stem node (henceforth called node). In this study, we develop a method for internode length estimation using image processing technology. The proposed method consists of three steps: node detection, node order estimation, and internode length estimation. This method has two main advantages: (i) as it uses machine learning approaches for node detection, it does not require adjustment of threshold values even though seedlings are imaged under varying timings and lighting conditions with complex backgrounds; and (ii) as it uses affinity propagation for node order estimation, it can be applied to seedlings with different numbers of nodes without prior provision of the node number as a parameter. Our node detection results show that the proposed method can detect 72% of the 358 nodes in time-series imaging of three seedlings (recall = 0.72, precision = 0.78). In particular, the application of a general object recognition approach, Bag of Visual Words (BoVWs), enabled the elimination of many false positives on leaves occurring in the image segmentation based on pixel color, significantly improving the precision. The internode length estimation results had a relative error of below 15.4%. These results demonstrate that our method has the ability to evaluate the vigor of tomato seedlings quickly and accurately.

Abstracts from The 34(th) Annual National Neurotrauma Symposium June 26-29, 2016 Lexington, Kentucky.

Abstracts from The 34(th) Annual National Neurotrauma Symposium June 26-29, 2016 Lexington, Kentucky.

Social mobility, social network and subjective well-being in the UK

This paper examines the intergenerational mobility trajectory (class) effects on social connection and, through this, on subjective well-being in contemporary UK society. Drawing on data from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, we measured four types of formal and informal social network (civic engagement, neighbourhood cohesion, diversity and size of social networks) and used three indictors for well-being. We find that social network does play a significant role on well-being but the impact is much smaller than that of class. We also find that class is more closely related to the formal than the informal domains of social network. Demographic attributes show some influences but social network, employment, and prior levels of well-being in particular, have more salient effects on well-being. Over and above all this, class as an indicator of cumulative advantages and disadvantages has a persistent and systematic influence. Overall, the analysis shows that while enriching social connection would contribute to well-being, reducing class-based inequality is of greater importance.

Bridging the Academia/Industry Chasm: Proposed Solutions.

Bridging the Academia/Industry Chasm: Proposed Solutions.