System Dynamics-and its Use in Understanding Urban and Regional Development

System dynamics shows how the structure and policies in a system produce change through time. System dynamics deals with the internal processes that produce good and bad behavior in social, economic, and environmental systems. In a system dynamics study, one builds a computer model that acts out the behavior of the real system being represented. The computer model is then used to

The Use of Prunus mume in the Development of Low Chill Apricot Varieties:the Status of Work in the United States

Several groups in the USA have been working to de-velop a low chill apricot that would ripen its fruits veryearly in the season. Unfortunately, the cultivatcd apricothas been developed mainly from the high chilling Euro-pean group within the species Prunus armeniaca. Amongthe five groups within the apricot species, this is the mostrecently evolved and least variable (Bailey and

Land-use development in Liaocheng prefecture of China after 1949

s—This paper generalizes land use development in Liaocheng Prefecture, Shandong Province, China; describes land use changes during different period of time; and analyzes the driving forces of land use change.

DEVELOPMENT OF TESTER USED IN EVALUATING UNDERWATER BREATHING APPARATUS

A test set-up called hyperbaric unmanned tester has been developed to assess the safety andreliability of deep sea respirator before manned testing. The tester possesses three basic capabili-ties: First, it is to simulate the operational conditions of underwater breathing apparatus. Thatis, it can reproduce ambient pressure as great as that of 300 meters deep sea water and ambienttemperature ranging between 4℃ and 40℃. It is also capable of reproducing the diver’s posture

Current Situations of Development and Use of Wild Vegetables in Yichun Area and Recommendations

Based on the survey on wild plants in 21 counties( cities) in Yichun Area,89 species of 32 families of wild vegetables were collected. The species,parts,edible parts,distribution and current development and use of wild vegetables in Yichun Area were expounded. Then,existing problems of wild vegetables in Yichun Area were discussed. Finally,pertinent recommendations were put forward.

Progress in Study on Shen-invigorating Herbs Used in Promoting Follicular Development

The practice of stimulating follicular develop-ment by Shen-invigorating herbs is directed by tra-ditional Chinese medical theories of“the Shenstores essence of life and governs reproduction”

Commercial Use and Development Trends of Mobile TV Terminal Chips

Mobile TV is growing popular worldwide. It puts new hardware requirements on the handset, requiring a tuner, a demodulator and a decoder to receive and process signals that challenge the power consumption and size of handsets. These special terminal chips can solve these problems and stand as a prerequisite for broadcasting TV to mobile phones. The commercial mobile TV handsets have been brought to the market, which use the integrated single-chip, the dual/multi mode chip, or the TV receiver integrated in an SD card. These small chips with low power consumption will help popularize mobile TV services.

Use of Data Mining to Support the Development of Knowledge Intensive CAD

In order to compete in the global manufacturing mar ke t, agility is the only possible solution to response to the fragmented market se gments and frequently changed customer requirements. However, manufacturing agil ity can only be attained through the deployment of knowledge. To embed knowledge into a CAD system to form a knowledge intensive CAD (KIC) system is one of way to enhance the design compatibility of a manufacturing company. The most difficu lt phase to develop a KIC system is to capitalize a huge amount of legacy data t o form a knowledge database. In the past, such capitalization process could only be done solely manually or semi-automatic. In this paper, a five step model fo r automatic design knowledge capitalization through the use of data mining is pr oposed whilst details of how to select, verify and performance benchmarking an a ppropriate data mining algorithm for a specific design task will also be discuss ed. A case study concerning the design of a plastic toaster casing was used as an illustration for the proposed methodology and it was found that the avera ge absolute error of the predictions for the most appropriate algorithm is withi n 17%.

Using of Key Stratum Theory to Study the Structural Development of Roof Aquifer

During the underground mining of coal resources,overlying rocks on the roof of excavated tunnels will be destroyed due to ground pressure,and as a result,part of them will break and fall into the tunnels.How to determine the distribution of fractured areas and fissures presents a major problem for preserving the overlying aquifer.

Influence of land use change on the waterbird community of Sihwa Lake,Republic of Korea

Background:Land use and development alter mudflat and wetland habitat availability,although mudflats and wetlands provide important stopover habitats for shorebirds during the spring and autumn migrations and support communities of ducks and geese during the winter months in the Republic of Korea.This study investigated land use changes around Sihwa Lake(Republic of Korea)and evaluated the effect of these changes on waterbird community characteristics.Methods:We conducted a land-use-change analysis at the medium-resolution level using land cover maps for 2001,2007,2009,and 2014.Also,a tidal stream survey was conducted in Sihwa Lake and the surrounding reclaimed mudflats every season for 10 years(2003-2012)to identify the seasonal and interannual variations in waterbird species composition.To determine the total annual waterbird species and population counts,species diversity index,and interspecies variations,a TRIM(trends and indices for monitoring data)analysis was used.Results:Wetland area decreased more than 10%while agricultural land,barren land,and grassland area increased more than 10%due to continuous reclamation activities around Sihwa Lake.Barren land later turned into agricultural land or other land use.Sixty-three species and 566,623 individuals were recorded.The number of species,population size,and species diversity index by year and by species showed decreasing trends that were more marked in spring and summer.Furthermore,seasonal and annual variations in waterbird species composition showed decreasing trends in dabbling ducks,herons,grebes,and shorebirds but diving ducks displayed increasing trends.In particular,shorebirds were reduced to a greater extent than other waterbird species because of the reduction and simplification of the intertidal zone,and shallow waters caused by reclamation and road construction.Conclusions:Increased development and construction around Sihwa Lake has altered migratory shorebird populations with a general decline in species diversity and population size.The greatest decline was observed in wading birds,while diving duck populations showed increasing trends.

Hemoptysis developing soon after use of sildenafil:an observation on two cases

Dear Sir, Our group from Pamukkale University Hospital would like to present an observation on hemoptysis that was probably associated with sildenafil usage in two patients. Since hemoptysis occurred immediately the drug was taken and has not recurred following the discontinuation of the drug. We think that after eliminating other risk factors, sildenafil might be a probable cause of transient hemoptysis.

The Development of Hi-Speed Punching System Using A Couple of Rotating Bodies

Punched steel sheets (metal sheets or foils) as thi n as 0.1mm are quite useful in the field of filters and various precision instrume nts. Thus, we have to develop more accurate and speedy techniques for punching t hin sheets. The traditional punching method uses an up-down pressing motion of a punch or a die on a strip of metal. The efficiency of this method is determine d by the speed of the motion. In the case of punching a sequence of tiny holes w ith a few millimeters’ interval, the speed of feeding a strip of metal to the p unching machine cannot exceed only a couple of meters per minute. We have de veloped a new technique for punching tiny holes with a pair of rotating bodies i n order to increase the feeding speed up to 100 meters per minute. Our proposed technique is shown in Fig.1 where the female tool has a round blade and the male tool has an M-shape boss. In addition, the setting of two tools i s alternating. The interference between them cannot occur because the clearance between the front and the back edge of the male tool and the female tool in the rotating direction becomes infinite in this configuration. An appropriate cleara nce is given for the thickness of the sheet between the side edge of the male to ol and the female tool. The punching itself is done by shearing. The side edge o f the male tool does contact with the female tool, but they cannot be interferin g. Our technique has another advantage to the traditional up-down pressing mach ine where the stamped out chips are hard to be discharged. It is quite easy in o ur proposed technique. Fig.2, 3 show a sample of punched material [TPP116A,+39mm88mm,Y,PZ#]Fig.1 The configuration of the punching parts using the sequential punching system.[TPP116B,+43mm155mm,X,BP#]Fig.2 A sample of punched material using the continuous punch ing lineFig.3 A exterior picture of a piece of punched steel foil(coi l) using the continuous punching For our developed high speed punching system, it is shown for (1) the configurat ion of punching tool and the punching mechanism, (2) the influence of male shape on punched hole quality, (3) the outline of continuous punching system, (4) the relation between punching speed and accuracy of hole pitch and hole dimensi on, (5) the mechanical property of punched metal sheet and (6) capability of hig her punching.

Development of A Reference Dose for BDE-47,99,and 209 Using Benchmark Dose Methods

Eleven recently completed toxicological studies were critically reviewed to identify toxicologically significant endpoints and dose-response information. Dose-response data were compiled and entered into the USEPA＇s benchmark dose software （BMDS） for calculation of a benchmark dose （BMD） and a benchmark dose low （BMDL）. After assessing 91 endpoints across the nine studies, a total of 23 of these endpoints were identified for BMD modeling, and BMDL estimates corresponding to various dose-response models were compiled for these separate endpoints. Thyroid, neurobehavior and reproductive endpoints for BDE-47, -99, -209 were quantitatively evaluated. According to methods and feature of each study, different uncertainty factor （UF） value was decided and subsequently reference doses （RfDs） were proposed. Consistent with USEPA, the lowest BMDLs of 2.10, 81.77, and 1698 I^g/kg were used to develop RfDs for BDE-47, -99, and -209, respectively. RfDs for BDE-99 and BDE-209 were comparable to EPA results, and however, RfD of BDE-47 was much lower than that of EPA, which may result from that reproductive/developmental proves to be more sensitive than neurobehavior for BDE-47 and the principal study uses very-low-dose exposure.

A Single-Frequency Linearly Polarized Fiber Laser Using a Newly Developed Heavily Tm3+-Doped Germanate Glass Fiber at 1.95 μm

A compact linearly polarized, low-noise, narrow-linewidth, single-frequency fiber laser at 1950nm is demonstrated. This compact fiber laser is based on a 21-mm-long homemade Tm3＋-doped germanate glass fiber. Over 100-mW stable continuous-wave single transverse and longitudinal mode lasing at 195Ohm are achieved. The measured relative intensity noise is less than -135dB/Hz at frequencies over 5 MHz. The signal-to-noise ratio of the laser is larger than 72dB, and the laser linewidth is less than 6kHz, while the obtained linear polarization extinction ratio is higher than 22 dB.

Developing biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases using genetically-modified common marmoset models

Mouse and non-human primate models of neurodegenerative disease：The prevalence of age-related neurodegenerative diseases continues to increase with ever increasing aging population over the age of 60.Although the difficulties associated with neurodegenerative diseases present an urgent global issue,there is no effective treatment for these conditions.

Development on astable multivibrators using the combination of linear and non-linear materials as switching elements based on all optial method

In this communication we propose a method to implement an all-optical astable multivibrator using the non-linear material based switches and logic gates. The scheme can operate in real time. The delay time can achieve ps(pico-second). The pulse duration can be made very low and may cross the THz easily by selecting proper material and laser source.

Application for developing countries:Estimating trip attraction in urban zones based on centrality

This paper introduced a network centrality-based method to estimate the volume of trip attraction in traffic analysis zones. Usually trip attraction volumes are estimated based on land use characteristics. However, executing of land use-based trip attraction models are severely constrained by the lack of updated land use data in developing countries. The proposed method used network centrality-based explanatory variables as ＂connectivity＂, ＂local integration＂ and ＂global integration＂. Space syntax tools were used to compute the centrality of road segments. GIS-based kernel density estimation method was used to transform computed road segrnent-based centrality values into traffic analysis zone. Trip attraction values exhibited significant high correlation with connectivity, global and local integration values. The study developed and validated model to estimate trip attraction by using connectivity, local integration and global integration values as endogenous variables with an accepted level of accuracy （R2 〉 0.75）. The proposed approach required minimal data, and it was easily executed using a geographic information system. The study rec- ommended the proposed method as a practical tool for transport planners and engineers, especially who work in developing countries and where updated land use data is unavailable.

USING LEARNING STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP LISTENING COMPREHENSION—A CASE STUDY

By adopting the research method of case study, this article studies the learning strategies of an adult learner of English in listening comprehension. It is found that the learner can use some learning strategies but only at very elementary level. After an eight-week training course in learning strategies, the learner made noticeable progress in listening, which proves that learning strategies can be trained and contribute positively to language proficiency.

Efficient genetic manipulation in the developing brain of tree shrew using in utero electroporation and virus infection

Tree shrews（also named banxrings）,the small mammals native to Southeast Asia,are featured by moderate size,easy breeding,high reproductivity and close genetic background to primates（Xu et al.,2012;Xiao et al.,2017）.Tiee shrews possess both conserved and unique features compared to primates,and thus will become a suitable animal model with modest cost-effciency（Yao,2017）.

1Chinese human geography and its contributions

The aim of this paper is to sift through examples of outstanding contributions made by Chinese human geography in terms of social applications and explain the basic concepts and theoretical methods explored by human geography that are behind the applications of results with major social influence, so as to be able to summarize the main school that represents developments in contemporary Chinese human geography. Chinese human geography upholds the subject＇s designation as being integrated and interdisciplinary. Research focuses on interactions between the natural and human spheres of the Earth＇s surface, and it is guided by the understanding and effects of the processes of regional sustainable development at different spatial scales. Chinese human geography has innovatively established the following development paradigm： ＂To be guided by application requirements, refine key issues of the discipline in the course of solving major issues of human geography in national and regional development, and by solving those key issues, to enhance its ability to provide scientific and technological support to serve national and local needs while promoting its own development.＂ Results from early Chinese human geography studies on land use and agricultural zoning, recent research results on point-axis system models and T-shaped national spatial development patterns, and current research results on territorial function theory and major function oriented zones have all continued and strengthened the mainstream school of Chinese human geography and have avoided the global tendency for human geography to become rapidly human-oriented, while results have been applied at the highest level of decision-making management. Chinese human geography can provide lessons for developing countries and may play a leading role in the future development of global human geography.