We have been taught the holy doctrine that democracy lies in the rule of law, that the general interest "sublimates" particular interests, that the constitutional functions of the State are responsible before the generality, and so many other similar absurdities. Spinoza, in the seventeenth century, does not put up with this drivel. Freedom, the true one, the whole one, which we love and which we live and die for, constitutes the world directly, immediately ... And the constitution of freedom is always revolutionary. --Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly (p. xxi) Philosophers look upon the passions by which we are assailed as vices, into which men fall through their own fault. So it is their custom to deride, bewail, berate them, or, if their purpose is to appear more zealous than others, to execrate them. They have learnt to shower praise on a human nature that nowhere exists and to revile that which exists in actuality. As a result they have never worked out a political theory that can have practical application, only one that can be put into effect in Utopia ... --Baruch Spinoza, Political Treatise (p. 33) Project Freedom and Utopianism Freedom--that word rings throughout the political arena today forming the spearhead of contemporary politics. Self-described leaders of the "free world" sell aggressive political agendas to the public under the banner of freedom. We hear freedom is "on the march." An eerie utopianism has crept into the discourse that sweepingly describes certain societies as free as opposed to others that are not free. I say utopianism because all heterogeneous and conflicting forces inherent in any situation are swept aside in the vision and service of this pure dialectic. Increasingly, this utopian rhetoric also provides the cover for an unprecedented consolidation of state power that is justified as necessary for the project of freedom. Studying the politics of freedom genealogically, Nicholas Rose (1999) remarks that it is "precisely because of the potency of the politics and ethics of freedom that it calls for diagnosis" (p. 61). Taking a Foucauldian stance Rose poignantly asks if "the birth of freedom" could not be regarded as an "achievement of government" (p. 62). Utopian and patriarchal notion of freedom certainly needs careful diagnosis, but even more, it requires praxeological confrontation. For, as Marla Morris (2001) warns, it is precisely out of the dream of carrying out utopian missions that pogroms are unleashed, and such "wish phantasy" may conceal dangerous delusions (p. 197). Utopian visions must be particularly suspect when they are championed by the prelates of power, for history stands testimony that these have the effect, intended or not, of exterminating what cannot and will not fit those dreams. Consequently it is our paramount responsibility today to interrogate slogans and rhetoric whose stock-in-trade are terms like freedom, liberty etc., terms that are able to muster illimitable historical, political, and social weight, and scrutinize the mediations and the structures that are put in place under those signs. Even more, we have the task of rediscovering in our daily midst what active freedom means. The task of rethinking once again the notion of freedom, to cleave it from the pervasive utopianism, is political as well as metaphysical. The politics of freedom must be scrutinized by pinning it down against the ontological horizon where it arises. To do the work of rethinking scrupulously we need more than ever to make philosophy go to work for us; we must activate philosophy in the manner in which Deleuze and before him Spinoza and Nietzsche taught us, allowing it to help us reconstitute the metaphysical horizon from which to consider freedom afresh. Specifically, I turn to Spinoza here, the master political thinker, in whom politics and ontology are inseparable and for whom freedom is what constitutes us and the world directly, without mediation. …


Objective To study the detection ignificance of the serum soluble interleukin 2 receptors(SIL-2R),C-reactive Protein(CRP),myocardial enzyme in neonatal pneumonia,in order to provide evidence for the diagnosis and treatment.Methods 37 patients with neonatal pneumonia in our hospital from March 2009 to October 2011 were selected as observation group,and the serum SIL-2R,CRP and myocardial enzyme of patients were detected.The levels of were compared to those of 37 healthy newborn infants at the same time.Results The serum SIL-2R,CRP and LDH,CK,CK-MB,AST were all higher than those of control group,levels of patients at acute stage,and viral pneumonia were higher than those of other patients(all P 0.05),there were all significant differences,but the levels of infectious pneumonia and aspiration pneumonia had no significant differences(P 0.05).Conclusion There are obvious correction between the serum SIL-2R,CRP,myocardial enzyme and neonatal pneumonia,and it can provide evidence for the diagnosis and treatment.


High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) provides a noninvasive method for thermal tissue destruction. Local changes in acoustic properties occurring in tissue during the heating procedure, referred to in the literature as "thermal lens effect", lead to ultrasound beam distortion and lesion displacement. In this study we experimentally analyse the impact of fat layers and of prefocal heating in fat tissue on lesion development. For this purpose we used a two layered fat‐gel phantom. The optical transparent polyacrylamide gel phantom containing egg white offered the possibility for a precise visualisation and measurement of a lesion displacement. Fat layers with a large prefocal heating act as a converging lens for the incoming ultrasound beam. Both the lesion position and the lesion shape were affected by thermal lensing in fat layers.


InGaAsP cw constricted mesa lasers at 1.3 μm are described which have a small‐signal 3‐dB bandwidth of 20 GHz at −70 °C. Large‐signal pseudorandom modulation at 8 Gb/s resulted in 100% optical modulation. The lasers were gain switched at 12 GHz with 100% optical modulation.


p-Hydroxybenzoate ester (paraben) preservatives are used in numerous orally administered products. The recognized route of metabolism for parabens is hydrolysis to p-hydroxybenzoic acid followed by conjugation and excretion. However, in the presence of alcohols, a presystemic transesterification pathway not previously reported for the human intestine can occur. Using human intestinal (Caco-2) cells, it was observed that hydrolysis of parabens to p-hydroxybenzoic acid is reduced markedly by ethanol concentrations that can occur in the human intestine, 0.25–0.5% (v/v). Ethanol concentrations of 1.0–2.5% (v/v) were optimal for transesterification to ethylparaben in Caco-2 cell homogenates. The kinetics of the transesterification reaction with regard to ethanol concentration (0–20%), time, pH (3–9), protein concentration (1–5 mg ml−1) and substrate concentration (6.25–200 µM) as well as the effects of different alcohols were studied. The Km and Vmax values for transesterification with ethanol for methyl, propyl, butyl, heptyl and octyl parabens were 449.7, 165.7, 86.1, 24.2 and 45.9 µM and 114.4, 37.5, 19.5, 7.5 and 7.6 µmol h−1 mg−1 Caco-2 cell protein, respectively. The Vmax values for transesterification of methylparaben with ethanol, propan-1-ol, butan-1-ol were 114.4, 5.1 and 4.9 µmol h−1 mg−1, respectively. Collectively, the kinetic data demonstrate that the enzyme responsible for the transesterification reaction has a preference for short-chain esters and represents the first report of transesterification in human intestinal cells. An implication of this mechanism is that alcohol-containing in vitro biosystems or protocols for the study of parabens disposition could generate transesterified artefacts. The clinical or toxicological implication is that, following co-ingestion of ester compounds with ethanol, transesterification could provide the basis for a previously unrecognized drug-alcohol interaction.


Abstract— All solid solar system bodies have been affected by impact to varying degrees, and, thus, magnetic records in these bodies may have been modified by shock events. Shock events may have overprinted all primordial magnetic records in meteorites. Shock metamorphism stages ranging from very little to extreme, when melting takes place, have been identified in meteorites. We are examining the creation and destruction of magnetic remanence associated with shock. In this paper, we develop a preliminary framework for understanding the magnetic properties of fine‐grained Fe particles (20–110 nm), which carry most of the remanent magnetization in lunar samples and, by extension, the kamacite phase in meteorite samples. Initial experiments on shock effects due to a first‐order shock‐induced crystallographic transformation are described. The first characterization of pre‐ and postshock magnetic properties for sized Fe particles and the first characterization of the transformation remanent magnetization (TMRM) associated with the face‐centered‐cubic (fcc) to body‐centered‐cubic (bcc) transformation in fine particle Fe spheres are described. This is equivalent to the 13 GPa transitions in bcc Fe. We show that the TMRM is in the same direction as the ambient magnetic field present during the shock, but is deflected from the field direction by 30–45° and that the remanence intensity is 1–2 orders of magnitude less than expected for thermoremanent magnetization (TRM) acquired during cooling through the Curie temperature. Isothermal remanence acquisition curves (RA) reveal the increasing magnetic hardness due to shock. Magnetic hysteresis loops are used to characterize the particle size and the shock‐induced magnetic anisotropy. Thermal demagnetization experiments describe the probable presence of particle size effects and the effects associated with recovery‐recrystallization due to the annealing that takes place during the thermomagnetic experiment. These observations have implications for paleofield determinations and the recognition of thermal unblocking. A TMRM mechanism could produce a shock overprint in a meteorite and might impart a significant directional feature in an asteroid magnetic signature.


To allocate the excess earning of customer collaborative product innovation relative to enterprise independent innovation fairly,the mechanism research for collaborative customer profit allocation oriented to product innovation tasks was proposed.According to the characteristics of product innovation tasks and customer collaboration,the principles of collaborative customer profit allocation were proposed,and the concept of task value and customers'contribution was put forward.The task value determined the total profit that could be allocated,and the customer contribution determined the proportion of profit that could be allocated.On this basis,the evaluation criteria system for each task and customer's contribution was built.The model of profit allocation was established based on Game Quadratic Programming,and the initial benefit allocation plan was revised according to customer's contribution.A case was used to verify the feasibility and rationality of the proposed methods and contents.


A necklace graph is a Feynman graph obtained from a single loop graph by replacing each internal line by a multiplet (i.e. a set of one or more internal lines joining the same two vertices). In this paper the monodromy rings of the necklace graphs are determined.


The study of language as a 'site of struggle' has generated a burgeoning body of feminist research. Over the past decade the two concepts central to the feminist debate on language— language and woman—have come under scrutiny from a variety of theoretical fronts. Recognising the inherent instability of both these categories, this paper adopts a poststruc‐turalist approach to the discussion on gender and language in an examination of one area of gender contestation—religious proclamation. An analysis of the discursive construction of four preaching events shows the 'gendering' of the whole communicative process to be more complex and ambiguous than previous studies on gender and preaching have suggested.


The rational use of expensive high-tech enterprise resources (financial, staff, technology) required formation of the appropriated project portfolio. In this article the mathematical model of the prior formation of a project portfolio of a high-tech enterprise with the available nomenclature of products and potential customers is proposed. The mathematical model of the optimal portfolio formation of high-tech enterprise "Zorya-Mashproekt" within available products (gas turbines),  customers, and the cost of supplies in NEOS Server is calculated. NEOS Server provides the interaction between users and systems to solve many different types of optimization problems. Users download model file and data file in the language AMPL to the server which are then processed in different systems (KNITRO, MINTO, BARON, ASA, etc.). In the article the mathematical model and the input data are described in the language AMPL. The problem using MINTO NEOS-interface is solved.


Concerning the paper in the title by K. Hila and E. Pisha in Commun. Korean Math. Soc. Volume 26, Issue 3 (2011), 373--384, we give our results and make the main corrections.


In the first half of the nineteenth century the Cape Colony became not merely a colony of European settlement based on coerced black labor but one capable of expelling the agricultural amaXhosa from their land, annexing it, and driving them into the colony for work. In 1795 the colony, characterized by slavery and near slavery (of the indigenous pastoral Khoekhoen), as well as racial hierarchy, was ruled by the senescent mercantilist VOC, its furthest frontier of cattle, and sheep farmers recently having encountered resistance from San and amaXhosa in the East. VOC rule was replaced by the rising industrial power of Britain. Britain initially occupied the Cape in 1795 as a strategic wartime naval base in the Napoleonic wars. In 1803 the Cape reverted temporarily to the Batavian Republic but was retaken by the British in 1806 and permanently ceded in 1814. In global terms, these shifts in the position of the Cape derived from the Napoleonic wars, themselves the consequence of political revolutions in France and America – which also triggered off a successful slave revolt in Haiti. This "age of democratic revolution" gave rise to new universalist ideas about freedom. The same era saw industrial capitalism emerge from a new factory system, chiefly in Britain. The new, "autocratically ruled yet uncentralised" British Empire had as its premise the central role of overseas markets in sustaining industrial development. India was the central market, and China the huge, untapped market to be aspired to. "Free trade" was projected as the way for the British to dominate the world. Within this, the Cape was taken over above all as a way station on the route to the east.


The invention discloses a method for deacidification of paper by using an ultrasound-assisted deacidification agent. The method comprises the following steps of: putting paper, especially aged and acidulated paper into an ultrasonic treatment device, and treating the paper by using an aqueous solution of a deacidification agent (such as calcium hydroxide, borax or magnesium acetate and the like), a fatty alcohol solution or a mixed solution of fatty alcohol and water. By adopting the method, the pH value of the paper is controlled in the optimum range of 7.0-8.5; compared with soaking deacidification, the deacidification time is obviously shortened, and the deacidification is uniform; and meanwhile, the strength of the paper is obviously improved, and the mechanical strength of each item is greatly improved, so that the storage life of the paper is favorably prolonged.


The WCF of intermediate certification of students by discipline (module) is intended to assess the degree of compliance of the formed competencies among students with the requirements of the GEF WO. Intermediate certification is carried out in the form established by the curriculum of the program: offset, differentiated offset, exam, coursework, report.


The object of the analysis here is to understand how to simultaneously maximize the value to customer and the economy of scale, for enterprises that rely on knowledge workers and digital production factors. Cyber-infrastructure, in this study, is defined to be the fusion of information technology and information resources, including the elements that integrate persons and the environment with the enterprises. Computerized manufacturing, e-commerce/e-business, and on-demand business/services all represent the evolution of cyberinfrastructure-based/assisted enterprises. The evolution is analyzed to be driven by a new mode of micro-economical production function: the OutputInput Fusing paradigm. In this context, the value to client/customer is acquired with on-demand co-production, and the economy of scale is achieved through concurrent co-productions with the assistance of the cyber-infrastructure. Basic principles for planning such enterprises are derived from previous results. A "thought model" for the design, administration, and processing of the new cyber-infrastructure is presented. Particular new results, including a specific design for person-environment-enterprise interaction, are proposed.


Based on finite element analysis of the model for high pressure centrifugal water pump system,the difference between innate and running frequencies in the system is determined.The dynamics property has a little influence on the aseismatic capability of the system.Thus,the static strength analysis method can be used to analyze the aseismatic capability of the system.The results show that under the collective effects of the system weight,the linking canal load,the pre-claping force by bolts and the concuss load on the pump system,the integrality of the carrying pressure unit and the running property of the rotor system can be ensured,and that the stress of the linking bolts between pump and baseboard,motor and baseboard,and the land bolts satisfy the demand on third-grade equipment according to ASME-Ⅲ-NF standard.


This paper describes the computer-controlled machines and deterministic processes developed by the Center for Optics Manufacturing (COM) at the University of Rochester to produce conformal windows and domes that have non-traditional optical surface geometry and unusual shapes. COM's DMG (deterministic microgrinding) technology produces aspheric and conformal (freeform) surfaces in minutes, versus the weeks that are required to produce the surfaces conventionally. The demonstrated techniques and equipment provide a predictable and repeatable optical production process for just about any IR, visible, or UV material. The DMG process, in concert with newly developed CNC machining equipment, typically yields 1.0 wave peak-to-valley form accuracy, 150 Angstroms rms surface finish, and subsurface damage levels low enough that some of the infrared materials do not require additional polishing.


Background : E‐cadherin is a cell adhesion molecule that is expressed in normal breast tissue and is often considered useful as a phenotypic marker in breast cancer diagnosis, with absence of its expression frequently observed in tumours of lobular subtype. However, the clinicopathological and prognostic value of E‐cadherin in the more frequent non‐lobular types of breast carcinoma is unclear.


An empirical equation for the grid-current grid-voltage curve of the C-327 tube is developed. By obtaining the derivatives of this equation rather than determining them from the ig-eg, curve by graphical means the inaccuracy of the graphical methods is avoided. The equation holds accurately in the range of eGencountered in practice.


One-bit radar imaging has received much attention due to the low cost of the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and the low storage and transmission burden. The one-bit radar imaging results using conventional one-bit compressive sensing (CS) algorithms, such as the binary iterative hard thresholding (BIHT) algorithm, are always contaminated by artifacts, especially under noisy conditions. In this paper, we present an adaptive-BIHT (A-BIHT) algorithm to mitigate artifacts and improve the one-bit radar imaging performance. In the proposed A-BIHT algorithm, we devise a quantization level parameter, and update the quantization level parameter and the imaging result in an iterative fashion by employing a relaxed quantization consistency condition. The relaxed quantization consistency condition is designed to allow some noisy one-bit measurements to be inconsistent. In this way, the proposed algorithm mitigates the effect of noise on consistent reconstruction, and thus, alleviates artifacts and improves the imaging quality. Simulations and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed A-BIHT method can provide superior imaging performance with suppressed artifacts compared with the conventional BIHT method.


A new, the torque and speed sensorless induction motor control is proposed, analyzed and experimentally verified in this paper. The control is based on stator and rotor flux as state variables. This choice of state variables allows a graphical representation which is transparent and insightful. A speed sensorless implementation of the control is demonstrated experimentally for low speed operation. Proposed control scheme is implemented on DSP system extended with FPGA circuit. Experimental results demonstrated high efficiency of the proposed estimation and control approach.


The hydraulic jump has been extensively studied using physical models; however, very little data are available for the internal flow in prototype hydraulic jump stilling basins. A mathematical model has been developed to help in the prediction of prototype performance from physical models. The technique used here is an extension of the strip integral method of R. Narayanan. The strip integral method uses velocity shape functions to permit the partial integration of the equations of motion. A Gaussian velocity distribution is used in the mixing zone and the power law is used in the inner layer. The mathematical model includes the bed shear, turbulent shear, the potential core, entrained air, centrifugal force and turbulence pressure. The model gives a fairly good prediction of the jump length, roller length, velocity distribution, water surface and pressure at the bed. The prediction of the growth of the boundary layer was not very good. The model indicated that the main effect of entrained air is the bulking of flow. The effects of centrifugal forces and turbulence pressures increase as F\d1² and start to become significant for F\d1 > 5.


Absence of Deletion in Azoospermia (DAZ) Genes in Spermatozoa of Infertile Men with Somatic DAZ Deletions

de Vries JW, Repping S, Oates R, et al.

Fert Steril 2001;75:476–479 [PubMed]

Men with severe oligospermia and/or nonobstructive azoospermia (NOA) require intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and in vitro fertilization if they are going to achieve paternity. However, one of the questions that remains unanswered is whether the "genetic" defect that supposedly caused the oligospermia and/or NOA is going to be passed on to the sons of these couples. There is evidence to suggest that deletions in the Y chromosome, which are de novo occurrences, are one of the major factors responsible for this spermatogenic defect. Recent data suggest that this deletion may be passed from father to son, but there has been no information regarding the probability of this event occurring. To help determine the likelihood that such a genetic abnormality may be passed from father to son with ICSI, de Vries et al collected sperm from seven men with either oligospermia or NOA and a deletion in the Y chromosome as seen in their peripheral cells and examined the sperm for this deletion. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, it was found that all the sperm from these seven men carried the same deletion. This suggests that Y deletions are expressed in the Y sperm of men with this abnormality and that the probability of passing this from father to son is extremely high. These data suggest that all men undergoing ICSI as a result of oligospermia and/or NOA should be tested for the Y deletion and that genetic counseling should be part of the work-up of the couple with this finding.


In this paper,using of MSC/PATRAN、MSC/NASTRAN and MSC/FATIGUE softwares,a bump auto which pipes concrete is analyzed on structure fatigue strength under different fatigue probability of50%and95%.With these comprehensive study,the fragile region of fatigue strength and corresponding fatigue life are obtained.Analyzing the reason of less fatigue life,it gives measures to improve structure dynamic strengthen.So it is very important to calculate its dynamic strengthen when a cement concrete pump truck is assessed.


To Boussingault 1 belongs the credit for the important discovery that diabetic urines usually contain extraordinarily large amounts of ammonia. Naunyn and Magnus Levy, and with them all modern writers on acidosis, ascribe this discovery to Hallerworden, though Hallerworden himself wrote of his results as confirming the much earlier findings of Boussingault. The reason why Boussingault's excellent work has been allowed to be forgotten is evidently the highly unfavorable criticisms passed on his analytical technic by his German contemporaries, yet it has turned out, as was definitely shown four years ago by Shaffer, 2 that Boussingault's technic was distinctly superior to that of his critics. The discovery of oxybutyric acid in diabetic urines was the logical outcome of Stadelmann's endeavor to account for their high ammonia contents. 3 It is perhaps worth noting that this discovery came at a time when French autointoxication hypotheses were attracting much attention, and Stadelmann


Reservoir Computing is one of the most recent Machine Learning (ML) algorithm used for time-series prediction. Its main advantage is that it uses a fixed set of weights for the internal network. This paper was focused on Deep Reservoir Computing architectures, starting from simple Echo State Networks (ESN) and Liquid State Machine (LSM) models. The performance of such hybrid architectures was then compared with simple ESN. The final goal was to find the optimal configuration which obtains the best results in terms of training time, prediction time and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE).


In the paper we present an analysis of AC losses in windings of a 14 kVA superconducting transformer with Bi-2223/Ag winding. AC losses of individual pancake coils of the secondary winding were measured. Discussion of the meaning of AC loss measurements in individual pancakes is presented. Measurement of loss in short samples (critical current in external magnetic field, transport current losses) was done and the results were compared with losses in the winding under operating conditions using available published data. An effect of temperature on winding losses was also studied.


N-type, top gate, single-crystal Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) using evaporated silicon monoxide (SiO) as the gate dielectric layer are fabricated on flexible plastic substrate. The threshold voltage (VT) instability of the device is studied by applying high gate voltages. VT shift to higher values under positive gate bias stress is observed. The logarithmic dependence of VT shift on time indicates that electrons are injected and trapped in the SiO layer from Si channel. The subthreshold swing degradation is also found after the stress, suggesting the generation of interface states at Si/SiO surface. However, under negative gate stress, VT firstly decreases and then increases after longer stress time. This is believed to be the combined effects of both holes injection from Si substrate and electrons emission from metal gate, for which the latter become dominant under a long- term stress.


Cluster computing has emerged as a key parallel processing platform for large scale data. All major internet companies use it as their major central processing platform. One of cluster computing's most popular examples is MapReduce and its open source implementation Hadoop. These systems were originally designed for batch and massive-scale computations. Interestingly, over time their production workloads have evolved into a mix of a small fraction of large and long-running jobs and a much bigger fraction of short jobs. This came about because these systems end up being used as data warehouses, which store most of the data sets and attract ad hoc, short, data-mining queries. Moreover, the availability of higher level query languages that operate on top of these cluster systems proliferated these ad hoc queries. Since existing systems were not designed for short, latency-sensistive jobs, short interactive jobs suffer from poor response times.

In this paper, we present Piranha--a system for optimizing short jobs on Hadoop without affecting the larger jobs. It runs on existing unmodified Hadoop clusters facilitating its adoption. Piranha exploits characteristics of short jobs learned from production workloads at Yahoo! clusters to reduce the latency of such jobs. To demonstrate Piranha's effectiveness, we evaluated its performance using three realistic short queries. Piranha was able to reduce the queries' response times by up to 71%.


Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been in trend in the corporate arena for considerable time. Companies are thinking beyond the sole objective of profit-maximization and becoming increasingly aware of the social aspects of the business. Much of this transformation in the business mindset is also an outcome of the economic benefits of CSR in the form of improved goodwill and long-lasting customer relations. (D.Crowther, 2008).However, (Henriques, 2003) give credence to CSR, as it is proving to be more essential for preserving success in business, not only by rendering a corporate theme around which the company can unite but also by adding meaning and direction to their day-today routine operations. The need for sustainable planning and management is an important aspect of corporate social responsibility. Be it the cleanliness drive, sanitation drive or the plantation drive the awareness about the environment among the people have increased to reduce the carbon footprint. After all, in India the democracy is led by the people for the people.


Data for the TOMS aerosol index and SeaWiFS chlorophyll a clearly indicate that an early spring bloom in the northern East/Japan Sea can be initiated during the Asian dust event in association with precipitation. Spring bloom is normally initiated in this area as the surface mixed layer becomes shallower than critical depth, in accordance with Sverdrup's critical depth hypothesis. However, after the passage of Asian dust accompanied by precipitation, spring bloom was initiated about one month earlier than the bloom during non‐dust event years. We found that deepening of critical depth coincided with the early spring bloom observed during wet‐dust events. This early initiation of spring bloom indicates that the supply of bio‐available nutrients such as iron through wet deposition induces deepening of the critical depth, which results in such an early initiation of the bloom in the area.


The increase in the penetration rate of distributed renewable energy sources has brought unprecedented challenges to the economic and stable operation of the active distribution network (ADN). To improve the operating efficiency and total benefits of the ADN, it is necessary to establish an optimization model considering the stakeholders' market behavior and the game relationship among them under the market environment. In this paper, a multi-stakeholder potential game model in the ADN considering the bounded rationality of small users is proposed. The game relationships among five stakeholders, including the distributed photovoltaic generation aggregators, the distributed wind power aggregators, the energy storage operators, the large users and the load aggregators, are modeled on an hourly time scale. Existing research has proved that the game equilibrium of the potential game model must exist. Based on the information transfer and the strategy update mode on the social network, a demand response evolutionary game model for small users is established. Moreover, a distributed algorithm is designed to obtain the pure strategy equilibrium. Finally, a case with five stakeholders and 160 small users is used to verify the rationality and feasibility of the proposed model.


This paper describes the design and construction of an improved PID controller for a DC-DC buck converter working in Continuous Conduction Mode (CCM). The converter operates at a switching frequency of 1MHz. The lead-lag controller is first designed on the basis of classical theory of control systems using root-locus technique. The controller is then equivalently converted into a PID controller. The application of the derivative part of the PID controller on the output voltage signal rather than on the output voltage error signal reduces both the maximum percent overshoot and the settling time. The modified but improved form of PID controller is known as PID controller with Derivative on Output Only (PID-DOO). The analog PID controller is converted into a digital controller for the easier implementation. MATLAB/Simulink based simulation results are presented to validate the design procedure.


Cognitive Psychology (CP) in the last 50 years has shown impressive development, producing a large body of data mainly concerned with specific elements of the complex cognitive architecture of the mind. The focus on single processes, in large part necessarily narrow and detailed, has not prevented the development of general concepts, paradigms, and models that can be useful to all areas of psychology.


PurposeMicrolearning has been considered as a promising topic in work-based learning. This paper aims to review the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. Hopefully, the findings can serve as a reference for the education sector, government, business and academia to promote, design and use microlearning.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, two sets of analysis were conducted. Firstly, the authors analysed the publication trend of microlearning. Second, the authors analysed the trend of Internet searches related to microlearning. More specifically, the authors analysed real-world data of 14 years obtained from Scopus and Google Trends for the purpose. These data include the first relevant publication found in the database.FindingsIn total, 476 relevant publications have been identified during 2006–2019. According to the findings from the analysis of the identified publications, microlearning is a relevantly new and emerging global topic involving authors, affiliations and funding sponsors from different countries. Moreover, many microlearning-related publications were conducted from perspectives of e-learning or mobile learning. Furthermore, the authors notice higher education was the most frequently mentioned education level in the identified publications. On the other hand, language learning (i.e. second language, vocabulary learning, etc.) had been mentioned more times in the titles and abstracts than other subject areas. Overall, the increasing trend of publications on "microlearning" (as a knowledge supply) is in line with the established increasing Internet searches of "microlearning" (as a practical demand) in recent years.Practical implicationsFrom the work-based learning perspective, microlearning has been considered as one of the key topics in talent development topics. Policymakers, educators, researchers and participators have the responsibility to explore how to promote, design and use microlearning to help people to learn in the right direction through valid knowledge with ethical consideration.Originality/valueAlthough many works had been done on microlearning, there is a lack of comprehensive studies reviewing the trends of microlearning in terms of related publications and Internet searches. This study aims to fill this gap by analysing real-world data obtained from Scopus and Google Trends – these data include the first relevant publication found in the database. The authors believe this is the first time that a study has been conducted to comprehensively review the development trends of microlearning. Hopefully, this study can shed some light on related research.


Although explicitly prohibited by the WTO Subsidy Code, official export insurance agencies in most industrialised countries operate with long term budgetary losses. This practice is labelled as export insurance subsidisation. Official export insurance schemes are often used for several purposes. While their prime objective is the provision of insurance coverage against the risk of default faced by domestic exporters, these insurance programs are not seldom embedded in more global policy objectives of the domestic government. This paper investigates how more general government objectives like strategic export promotion and official development assistance can be comprised in official export insurance. JEL Classification: D82, F13, O19. Address Correspondence: Gerda Dewit, University of Glasgow, Department of Political Economy, Adam Smith Building, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK; tel.: 44-(0)141-330 4659; fax: 44-(0)141-330 4940; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com