Evaluation on Urban Land Ecological Security Based on the PSR Model and Matter-Element Analysis: A Case Study of Zhuhai, Guangdong, China

As one of the Special Economic Zones since the reform and opening up, Zhuhai has developed during the past 30 years. Its economic development, industrial structure and ecological environment have undergone great changes. Research on changes in Zhuhai’s land ecological security is of great significance. Using relevant data from 2007-2012, this study established a land ecological security assessment system based on the PSR conceptual framework model. The system contained 18 indicators from 3 aspects according to the concrete features of Zhuhai. Then we used the matterelement analysis and the improved entropy weight to analyze and evaluate the land ecological security of Zhuhai. The results showed that: from 2007 to 2012, the levels of the land ecological security of Zhuhai were “secure”, and the value increased year by year;as the land ecological security response value increased, Zhuhai was capable of solving land ecosystem problems. However, it should be noted that the structure of land ecosystem in Zhuhai has not formed and that rapid expansion of construction land has caused the shortage of cultivated land and other issues. Measures should be taken to control the construction area, improve land intensive utilization and improve the land ecological security.

Application of Matter-element Model in Soil Nutrient Evaluation of Ecological Fragile Region

On the basis of the soil environment investigation in Da＇an City, Jilin Province, China, 40 soil samples from main land use types were obtained and tested by standard method. Soil organic matter （SOM）, total N （TN）, total P （TP）, total K （TK）, available N （AN）, available P （AP） and available K （AK） were chosen as the evaluation factors. A regional soil nutrient evaluation model was developed based on the matter-element model. The results show that the soil samples with nutrient grade Ⅱ-Ⅴ respectively account for 10%, 30%, 32.5% and 27.5%, and those with grade Ⅳ and Ⅴ account for 60% in all samples. The relationship between soil nutrients and land types indicates that the nutrients of farmland are relatively good, with 41.7% of soil samples with the nutrient grade Ⅳ and Ⅴ. The nutrients of saline-alkali land and sandy land are the worst, with 100% of soil samples with the nutrient grade IV and V. And the ratios of soil samples grade IV and V in grassland and wasteland are respectively 62.5 % and 54.55%. Generally speaking, the soil nutrients status in Da＇an City is poor, 60% of soil samples are in poor and extremely poor conditions, indicating that the soil has been severely eroded. Being a relatively superior evaluation method with more accurate resuits and spatial distribution consistency, matter-element analysis is more suitable for regional soil nutrient evaluation than previous models.

Carrying capacity of water environment in public tourism resources based on matter-element model

When water environmental carrying capacity of public resource tourist attraction is studied, the two action subjects of tourists and local residents should be discussed, and comprehensive consideration must be given to the influence of these two on water environment. On the basis of water resource carrying capacity and water quality carrying capacity, water environmental carrying capacity index of public resource tourist attraction was constructed, the model for the water environmental carrying capacity of public resource tourist attraction was established on the basis of matter-element model and analytical hierarchy process. By applying this method, water environmental carrying capacity situation of a certain public resource tourist attraction can be gained, moreover, situations about several aspects of water environmental carrying capacity can be evaluated.

Matter-elements model and application for prediction of ccoal and gas outburst

The theory and method of extenics were applied to establish classical field matterelements and segment field matter elements for coal and gas outburst.A matter-element model for prediction was established based on five matter-elements,which includedgas pressure,types of coal damage,coal rigidity,initial speed of methane diffusionand in-situ stress.Each index weight was given fairly and quickly through the improvedanalytic hierarchy process,which need not carry on consistency checks,so accuracy ofassessment can be improved.

Expert Anti-Evaluation Model Based on Matter-Element Analysis in Fund Project Peer-Review System

The article analyses several key issues which restrict the effectiveness of fund project peer review work. It analyses the evaluating theory and matter-element theory to access the expert anti-evaluation model, and also studies the expert anti-evaluation index system to support the anti-evaluation method. The practical basis is the true score data of the experts which is collected from the actual anti-evaluation in Liaoning province science and technology fund project peer review system. With the practical experience of the actual project, we prove that the expert index system anti-evaluation model and expert anti-evaluation method can improve the fund project peer review work and play a positive role for the peer review work and also make the review work more scientific and more rational.

Human induced dryland degradation in Ordos Plateau,China,revealed by multilevel statistical modeling of normalized difference vegetation index and rainfall time-series

Land degradation causes serious environmental problems in many regions of the world, and although it can be effectively assessed and monitored using a time series of rainfall and a normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI） from remotely-sensed imagery, dividing human-induced land degradation from vegetation dynamics due to climate change is not a trivial task. This paper presented a multilevel statistical modeling of the NDVI-rainfall relationship to detect human-induced land degradation at local and landscape scales in the Ordos Plateau of Inner Mongolia, China, and recognized that anthropogenic activities result in either positive （land restoration and re-vegetation） or negative （degradation） trends. Linear regressions were used to assess the accuracy of the multi- level statistical model. The results show that： （1） land restoration was the dominant process in the Ordos Plateau between 1998 and 2012; （2） the effect of the statistical removal of precipitation revealed areas of human-induced land degradation and improvement, the latter reflecting successful restoration projects and changes in land man- agement in many parts of the Ordos; （3） compared to a simple linear regression, multilevel statistical modeling could be used to analyze the relationship between the NDVI and rainfall and improve the accuracy of detecting the effect of human activities. Additional factors should be included when analyzing the NDVI-rainfall relationship and detecting human-induced loss of vegetation cover in drylands to improve the accuracy of the approach and elimi- nate some observed non-significant residual trends.

Automatic Delineation of Lung Parenchyma Based on Multilevel Thresholding and Gaussian Mixture Modelling

Delineation of the lung parenchyma in the thoracic Computed Tomography(CT)is an important processing step for most of the pulmonary image analysis such as lung volume extraction,lung nodule detection and pulmonary vessel segmentation.An automatic method for accurate delineation of lung parenchyma in thoracic Computed Tomography images is presented in this paper.The proposed method involves a segmentation phase followed by a lung boundary correction technique.The tissues in the thoracic Computed Tomography can be represented by a number of Gaussians.We propose a histogram utilized Adaptive Multilevel Thresholding(AMT)for estimating the total number of Gaussians and their initial parameters.The parameters of Gaussian components are updated by Expectation Maximization(EM)algorithm.The segmented lung parenchyma from the Gaussian Mixture model(GMM)undergoes an Adaptive Morphological Filtering(AMF)to reduce the boundary errors.The proposed method has been tested on 70 diseased and 119 normal lung images from 28 cases obtained from Lung Image Database Consortium(LIDC).The performance of the proposed system has been validated.

Multilevel security model for ad hoc networks

Modern battlefield doctrine is based on mobility, flexibility, and rapid response to changing situations. As is well known, mobile ad hoc network systems are among the best utilities for battlefield activity. Although much research has been done on secure routing, security issues have largely been ignored in applying mobile ad hoc network theory to computer technology. An ad hoc network is usually assumed to be homogeneous, which is an irrational assumption for armies. It is clear that soldiers, commanders, and commanders-in-chief should have different security levels and computation powers as they have access to asymmetric resources. Imitating basic military rank levels in battlefield situations, how multilevel security can be introduced into ad hoc networks is indicated, thereby controlling restricted classified information flows among nodes that have different security levels.

A New Perspective to Evaluate Doppler Vascular Impedance in Hypertensive Disorders Complicating Pregnancy: Multilevel Modeling Established in a Case Control Study

Background: There have been researches on the evaluation of Doppler vascular impedance in hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy (HDCP). With respect to the method of analysis used and the conclusions drawn in previous studies, different vessels were usually viewed separately and independently. This study was designed to evaluate Doppler vascular impedance changes in HDCP from a new perspective, with original thought and insight into an ordinary issue. Methods: 273 pregnant women (110 hypertensive pregnancies and 163 normotensive pregnancies) were randomly included in a grouping case-control study conducted from February 10, 2011 to April 30, 2013. All women in the study underwent Doppler measurements of six different vessels including the umbilical artery, the uterine arteries, the placental bed spiral artery, the fetal middle cerebral artery and the fetal renal artery. Doppler vascular impedance was presented as pulsatility index (PI), resistance index (RI), and systolic and diastolic ratio (S/D). Doppler changes in the hypertensive and normotensive groups were assessed by the multilevel modeling approach with univariate and multivariate-adjusted analyses. Results: According to multilevel modeling approach with multivariate-adjusted analysis, a relatively average evaluation on Doppler vascular impedance was provided. Hypertension was significantly associated with positive effects on PI, RI and S/D values (coefficients were 0.10, 0.03 and 0.08, respectively;95% CIs were 0.06 - 0.14, 0.02 - 0.04 and 0.04 - 0.11, respectively;P values were all less than 0.001) in comparison with normotensive group. Conclusion: According to an overall evaluation, Doppler vascular impedance in hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy was higher than in normotensive pregnancy. The novel thought and approach applied in this research may bring about inspirations for better understanding and assessment of the disease.

Application of matter-element analysis based on entropy right to evaluate the pavement condition in permafrost region

Evaluation of pavement performance is one of the most important issues in a pavement-management system.By employing the concept of entropy,the matter-element model for evaluating pavement is established,and the weights of the evaluation indices are obtained from sur-veying data.By calculating the degree of dependence of the matter-element model,the pavement performance evaluation can be obtained by this method.The results show that the matter-element model based on entropy right has good performance for evaluating the pavement condition in permafrost region.

Modeling and Control of the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) based Solid State Transformer (SST) with Magnetic Integration

Solid state transformer(SST)can provide more advanced functionalities compared with conventional transformer,and has great potential in smart grid application.Recently,the SST with medium frequency(MF)isolation link and magnetic integration feature has been proposed,which can reduce the system volume and thus increase the power density.However,the magnetic integration also introduces strong coupling between the line frequency(LF)and MF variables,which poses a great challenge on modeling and control issues.This paper proposes a modeling and control method for an SST with magnetic integration and mixed-frequency modulation.A mathematical model based on dual d-q references is deduced,and then a cascaded control system is designed according to the model.Parameters of the controller for the variables at one frequency are properly designed to avoid disturbance from the variables at the other frequency.The simulation and experimental results show good decoupling effect and satisfactory dynamics performance of the proposed control system.

Study of visualized simulation and analysis of nuclear fuel cycle system based on multilevel flow model

Complex energy and environment system, especially nuclear fuel cycle system recently raised socialconcerns about the issues of economic competitiveness, environmental effect and nuclear proliferation. Only underthe condition that those conflicting issues are gotten a consensus between stakeholders with different knowledgebackground, can nuclear power industry be continuingly developed. In this paper, a new analysis platform has beendeveloped to help stakeholders to recognize and analyze various socio-technical issues in the nuclear fuel cycle systembased on the functional modeling method named Multilevel Flow Models (MFM) according to the cognition theoryof human being. Its character is that MFM models define a set of mass, energy and information flow structures onmultiple levels of abstraction to describe the functional structure of a process system and its graphical symbol representationand the means-end and part-whole hierarchical flow structure to make the represented process easy to beunderstood. Based upon this methodology, a micro-process and a macro-process of nuclear fuel cycle system wereselected to be simulated and some analysis processes such as economics analysis, environmental analysis and energybalance analysis related to those flows were also integrated to help stakeholders to understand the process of decision-making with the introduction of some new functions for the improved Multilevel Flow Models Studio, and finallythe simple simulation such as spent fuel management process simulation and money flow of nuclear fuel cycleand its levelised cost analysis will be represented as feasible examples.

SPICE modeling of memristors with multilevel resistance states

With CMOS technologies approaching the scaling ceiling, novel memory technologies have thrived in recent years, among which the memristor is a rather promising candidate for future resistive memory （RRAM）. Memristor＇s potential to store multiple bits of information as different resistance levels allows its application in multilevel cell （MCL） tech- nology, which can significantly increase the memory capacity. However, most existing memristor models are built for binary or continuous memristance switching. In this paper, we propose the simulation program with integrated circuits emphasis （SPICE） modeling of charge-controlled and flux-controlled memristors with multilevel resistance states based on the memristance versus state map. In our model, the memristance switches abruptly between neighboring resistance states. The proposed model allows users to easily set the number of the resistance levels as parameters, and provides the predictability of resistance switching time if the input current/voltage waveform is given. The functionality of our models has been validated in HSPICE. The models can be used in multilevel RRAM modeling as well as in artificial neural network simulations.

Multiple-Attribute and Multilevel Synthetic Evaluation Model and Its Application

On the basis of analyzing the flaws of present multiple-attribute and multilevel evaluation methods, concerning the problem of characteristics of the multiple-attribute and multilevel system s appraisal and the particular emphasis on the respective attributes in the evaluation process, as well as its relevance to the environment, an optimal attribute system is proposed, and the multiplicative analytic hierarchy process (MAHP) is used to obtain subjective weight coefficients and the objective weight coefficient evaluating method is given. The deviation between the index value of each level and the values of the same index of other levels are formulated, and an optimal model is gained, thus establishing the weight coefficients of the whole optimal attribute system. Furthermore, the detailed implementation procedure of this method is introduced. Besides, favorable results have been gained by applying the model to the practical problems of economic evaluation.

Effect of socio-demographic status on dental caries in pupils by using a multilevel hurdle model

Introduction: Dental caries is the most prevalent chronic disease among schoolchildren. We aimed to investigate the association between dental caries index and socio-demographic status in schoolchildren by using a multilevel hurdle model. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional epidemiological study was carried out on 906 primary school pupils in Kerman, Iran in 2012. The subjects were selected through a stratified cluster random sampling. At first, the whole target area was stratified according to two geographic areas, the north and south area. Then each area was stratified according to gender. In the next step, several schools were considered as clusters, which were selected randomly in each geographic area and gender strata. All the schoolchildren in these schools were included in this study as samples. Twelve-year-old pupils were examined for dental caries. The dependent variable in this study was the dmft/DMFT index. Eight variables, including socio-demographic information, were collected. Multilevel negative binomial hurdle model was employed for data analysis. Results: The prevalence of caries-free pupils was 30.1% and the mean dmft/DMFT was 3.6 ± 2.2. Negative binomial part of the adjusted model showed that the dmft/DMFT adjusted rate for females was 1.36 (95% CI: 1.10-1.79) times higher than males. Also, the dmft/DMFT adjusted rate for overweight pupils was 0.86 (95% CI: 0.74-0.98) times lower than those with normal weight. Logistic part of the adjusted model showed that the posibility of caries-free state in overweight pupils was 1.95 (95% CI: 1.22-3.11) times higher than those with normal weight. In addition, pupils whose fathers and mothers were workers and housewives, respectively, and those with a high maternal age were at a greater risk for caries experience than others (p < 0.05). Conclusion: BMI, gender, parent’s job and mother’s age at delivery were factors effecting on dental caries in schoolchildren. These pupils need more attention to dental care.

Applying Multivariate Multilevel Models to Explore Arable Land Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study in Kenya

Controversy exists on the magnitude and variability of farm nutrient balances and quality of arable land in sub-Saharan Africa with Kenya among those affected negatively. This study investigates quality of arable land by fitting multivariate multilevel model to farm nutrient balance data collected from five agro-climatic zones of Kenya (arable lands). Objectives of the study were to investigate the magnitude and variability of Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium (NPK) farm nutrient balances in arable lands of Kenya, study effects of agro-climatic zones on nutrient balances and to determine effects of household resource endowments on NPK nutrient balances. The study concludes that agro-climatic zones differ with respect to farm nutrient balances;that livestock resource endowments and hired labour have positive effects on the magnitude and direction of farm nutrient balances;and that household ownership of large capital resources do not guarantee a positive effect on farm nutrient balances. The study recommends integration of sound livestock practices and application of agro-climatic zone differentiated interventions in future strategies for addressing farm nutrient balances and arable land quality, and the use of large sample sizes and relevant factors/covariates in future analysis to shed additional insights on farm nutrient balances and on how arable land quality can be improved.

Effects of Differential Item Discriminations between Individual-Level and Cluster-Level under the Multilevel Item Response Theory Model

This study attempted to interpret differential item discriminations between individual and cluster levels by focusing on patterns and magnitudes of item discriminations under 2PL multilevel IRT model through a set of variety simulation conditions. The consistency between the mean of individual-level ability estimates and cluster-level ability estimates was evaluated by the correlations between them. As a result, it was found that they were highly correlated if the patterns of item discriminations were the same for both individual and cluster levels. The magnitudes of item discriminations themselves did not affect much on correlations, as far as the patterns were the same at the two levels. However, it was found that the correlation became lower when the patterns of item discriminations were different between the individual and cluster levels. Also, it was revealed that the mean of the estimated individual-level abilities would not be necessarily a good representation of the cluster-level ability, if the patterns were different at the two levels.

Peer Pressure and Family Smoking Habits Influence Smoking Uptake in Teenage Boys Attending School: Multilevel Modeling of Survey Data

Introduction: Among young teens, about one in five smokes worldwide. Adolescents spend a considerable amount of their time in school, and the school environment is therefore important for child health practices and outcomes. Objectives: We aimed to investigate the impact on smoking behavior of the school environment and the personal characteristics of male teenage students attending schools in Pakistan, taking into account the survey sampling structure. Methods: A two-stage cluster sampling with stratification was employed, and we interviewed 772 male secondary school students. We adopted random effect and generalizing estimating equation models. Results: Peer pressure in particular had a strong influence on adolescents smoking;those whose friends smoked were up to 6 times more likely to smoke. Family smoking was also significantly associated with adolescents smoking, but those students whose mother was educated were 50% less likely to smoke. The fitted random effect model indicated that the between school variability was significant (p-value < 0.01), indicating differences in smoking habits between schools. A random coefficient model showed that variability among schools was not significantly different for public and private schools. Conclusion: Public health campaigns for smoking cessation should target not only the individual but also the families of adolescents attending schools.

Correlates of Parental Choice of Child Discipline Methods in Ghana: A Multilevel Modeling Approach

This study applied multilevel modeling to investigate the impact of observed predictors and different levels or groups that households belong, on parents’ choice of discipline methods using data from 8156 households derived from a nationwide survey by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) in 2011. The aim of the study is to provide in-depth information on why parents choose particular discipline methods as corrective measures to reduce unwanted child behaviour in the present and to increase desirable ones in the future. The results of the study show that, religion and age-group of household heads have significant effect on household’s likelihood to choose physical discipline methods whereas the wealth index of a household and ethnicity of the household head, have significant effect on households’ likelihood to choose non-physical and psychological aggression methods. The results further show significant contextual effect on the differences in choices of parents at the household and regional levels. The choice of physical discipline methods by parents was consistent across households and regional levels unlike non-physical and psychological aggression methods whose application varied across the regions. Households in the Northern, Eastern and Volta regions mostly chose to apply physical discipline methods whereas in the Upper West, Western and Northern regions the most chosen discipline methods were non-physical discipline methods. Psychological aggression discipline methods were predominantly applied in the Upper East, Central and Northern regions of the country.

A Regional Spectral Nested Multilevel Primitive Equation Model

By means of vertical normal modes a regional nested multilevel primitive equation model can be reduced to several sets of shallow water equations characterized by various equivalent depths. Therefore, time integration of the model in spectral form can be performed in the manner similar to those used in the spectral nested shallow water equation model case.