A Step Forward toward Effectively Using Hyperspectral IR Sounding Information in NWP

Satellite-based atmospheric sounding measurements with high spectral resolution or from hyperspectral infrared （IR） sounders are important global observations for improving weather forecasts through assimilating them into operational numerical weather prediction （NWP） systems.

Seeking Health Information Online:The Moderating Effects of Problematic Situations on User Intention

Purpose： This study investigates how online user intention in searching health information is affected by problematic situations.Design/methodology/approach： Based on the Theory of Reasoned Action, the Technology Acceptance Model, and Sense-making theory, we propose two dimensions of problematic situations： urgency and severity of health issues being searched online. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey among 214 Wuhan University students and analyzed using hierarchical regression analysis.Findings： Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and subjective norm can influence user intention to seek health information online. The urgency of problematic situations has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between perceived ease of use and user intention and the relationship between subjective norm and user intention. The severity of problematic situations has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between subjective norm and user intention.Research limitations： The respondents of the survey are limited to students in one Chinese university, so whether this study＇s results can be applied to another population or not remains to be verified. In addition, only two dimensions of problematic situations are considered in this study. Practical implications： The paper puts forward the moderating effect of problematic situations and verifies it, which is the compensation for online health information-seeking behavior research. Besides, our analyses have implications for professional design of health care systems and related consumer information searches, and improve their performance. Originality/value： Previous work has reported the effects of problematic situation on user intention to seek health information online, ignoring its influence on other factors. This empirical study extends that work to identify the influence of problematic situation when seeking intention-behavior data in two dimensions, urgency and severity.

Temperature Effects on Information Capacity and Energy Efficiency of Hodgkin-Huxley Neuron

Recent experimental and theoretical studies show that energy efficiency, which measures the amount of infor- mation processed by a neuron with per unit of energy consumption, plays an important role in the evolution of neural systems. Here we calculate the information rates and energy efficieneies of the Hodgkin-Huxley （HH） neuron model at different temperatures in a noisy environment. It is found that both the information rate and energy efficiency are maximized by certain temperatures. Though the information rate and energy efficiency cannot be maximized simultaneously, the neuron holds a high information processing capacity at the tempera- ture corresponding to the maximal energy efficiency. Our results support the idea that the energy efficiency is a selective pressure that influences the evolution of nervous systems.

The Collaborative Study in the Form of Group Works

Over the past decades, the rapid development has taken place in the teaching and research of English writing throughout the nation. However, due to the drawbacks in traditional teaching of English writing, especially the lack of effective information input （EII）, it is not an easy task for students to improve their writing level in conventional classes. This paper focuses on the study on group work from the perspective of information input. Unlike previous research, this paper intends to demonstrate the role of group work in obtaining effective information input. It starts with a brief introduction to problems in traditional teaching of English. Then it states the definition of group work and the ZPD theory applied in the paper. In the third part, it proposes a case study to testify how group work may improve the effective information input and terminate the study with the conclusion that group work can help to enhance students＇ effective information input. Based on the results of the study, we may suggest that applying group work in an English writing class will finally help students to elevate their writing level.

Applying IT to Avoid Bullwhip Effect of Supply Chain

Bullwhip effect is the most important factor considered in the supply chain management. It gets many scholars＇ attention that bullwhip effect has been restricting the development of the supply chain all the time. Information Technology （IT） can reduce bullwhip effect by sharing the information among the enterprises in the supply chain.

Activity Information Decomposition Based on ProA

For managing product development process of industrial enterprise in effect, an ProA model was brought out on the basis of discussing relationship between activity and process. Product development activity decomposition scheme exist plenty of constraint. Activity information decomposition based on ProA can quantitative decompose activity information, eliminate useless, unnecessary, redundancy information, guarantee information decomposition balance and information quality.

Joint model of user check-in activities for point-of-interest recommendation

With the rapid development of location-based networks, point-of-interest（POI） recommendation has become an important means to help people discover interesting and attractive locations, especially when users travel out of town. However, because users only check-in interaction is highly sparse, which creates a big challenge for POI recommendation. To tackle this challenge, we propose a joint probabilistic generative model called geographical temporal social content popularity（GTSCP） to imitate user check-in activities in a process of decision making, which effectively integrates the geographical influence, temporal effect, social correlation, content information and popularity impact factors to overcome the data sparsity, especially for out-of-town users. Our proposed the GTSCP supports two recommendation scenarios in a joint model, i.e., home-town recommendation and out-of-town recommendation. Experimental results show that GTSCP achieves significantly superior recommendation quality compared to other state-of-the-art POI recommendation techniques.

Time-varying latent model for longitudinal data with informative observation and terminal event times

Longitudinal data often occur in follow-up studies, and in many situations, there may exist informative observation times and a dependent terminal event such as death that stops the follow-up. We propose a semiparametric mixed effect model with time-varying latent effects in the analysis of longitudinal data with informative observation times and a dependent terminal event. Estimating equation approaches are developed for parameter estimation, and asymptotic properties of the resulting estimators are established. The finite sample behavior of the proposed estimators is evaluated through simulation studies, and an application to a bladder cancer study is provided.