Disharmonious Ventricular Relationship and Topology for the Given Atrioventricular Connections.Contemporary Diagnostic Approach Using 3D Modeling and Printing

In the last issue,two case reports separately present examples of the extremely rare and complex congenital heart diseases that show concordant atrioventricular connections to the L-looped ventricles in the presence of situs solitus.Both cases highlight that the relationship between the two ventricles within the ventricular mass is not always harmonious with the given atrioventricular connection.Such disharmony between the connections and relationships requires careful assessment of the three basic facets of cardiac building blocks,namely their morphology,the relationship of their component parts,and their connections with the adjacent segments.3D imaging and printing can now facilitate an otherwise difficult diagnosis in such complex situations.Rotation of either the 3D images or the models permit accurate assessment of the ventricular topologic pattern by creating the right ventricular en-face septal view,thus facilitating placement of the observer’s hands.As we now emphasize,an alternative approach,which might prove more attractive to imagers,is to rotate the ventricular mass to provide the ventricular apical view,thus permitting determination of the ventricular relationship without using the hands.

Exploring switch tendency between cyclists and non-cyclists using market segmentation approach

This work aimed to explore the switch tendency of bicycle use between cyclists and non-cyclists.The attitude based market segmentation approach was proposed to achieve the research objective.The filed investigations were conducted in Nanjing,China,to obtain travelers' actions and attitudes towards bicycle uses.The structural equation modeling(SEM) was used to identify the attitudinal factors indicating variables and to explore the interrelationships among them.The SEMs were developed separately for the cyclist group and the non-cyclist group.All respondents were clustered into eight distinct segments by six selected attitudinal factors.The mode switch tendency and attitude in each segment is different from others,indicating that different segments have particular policies or strategies to encourage cycling.Policy implications that best serve the potential bicycle users were discussed to reduce the number of cyclists who have high tendency to use other modes,and increase the possibility of using bicycle in the non-cyclists group with the moderate and high switch tendency.

Developing nutrient criteria for the Jiulong River Estuary,Southeast China

One of the key concerns in estuarine and coastal environments is eutrophication, which is known to be closely connected to nutrient enrichment. To control and improve surface water quality, nutrient criteria are recommended in order to provide reference conditions for the environment. However, the current datasets of nutrient criteria in China are either designed for surface water or sea water, and as such these are not suitable for assessing estuarine water quality, especially given the unique ecosystem and dynamic properties of estuaries. To address this issue in current estuarine water management, nutrient criteria have been developed for a local estuary in the southeast of China. Segmentation of the Jiulong River Estuary, China was firstly analysed through field investigations carried out during 2013–2014, which resulted in the delineation of three segments characterized by their distinct properties in relation to salinity, hydrology, ecosystems, etc. Historical records from 1997 to 2014 were then analysed using statistical modelling to develop candidate nutrient criteria for the estuary.This stage of the analysis was undertaken in combination with the study of nutrient status records from the 1980s,which were used to establish a baseline reference condition. The recommended criteria values of dissolved inorganic nitrogen（DIN） in Segments Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ of the Jiulong River Estuary are 64, 21 and 14 μmol/L,respectively, and the corresponding values for soluble reactive phosphorus（SRP） are 0.89, 0.76 and 0.89 μmol/L,respectively. It should be emphasised that these values are site-dependent, and that different results may be achieved at other locations depending on the physical and biogeochemical characteristics of an estuary, or even a single site within a catchment. It is hoped that by demonstrating a possible methodological approach and methods of nutrient criteria derivation in the Jiulong River Estuary, the current study will offer researchers some fundamental basis from which to begin to develop more complete nutrient criteria indices for the study of nutrient conditions in other estuaries throughout China.

The U.S. Men＇s Shaving Cream Market： A Competitive Profile

Porter identifies high market share with cost leadership strategy which is based on the idea of competing on a price lower than that of the competition. However, in most consumer markets a business should serve the middle class by competing in the mid-price segment, offering quality better than that of the competition at a somewhat higher price. It is this path that can lead to market share leadership： a strategy that can be both profitable and sustainable. The U.S. men＇s shaving cream market consists of two major product-market segments： gel and foam. We test the hypothesis that the best-selling brand is very likely to be a member of the mid-price segment with a price tag that is higher than that of the nearest competition. This study is based on annual U.S. sales data for 2008 and 2007 from discount retail stores, food stores, and drug stores. We performed two separate analyses for 2008 and 2007, using cluster analysis as the main analytic tool. The results were remarkably consistent between the two years. In the gel segment--by far the most important--the price-quality segmentation analysis supported our hypothesis. An interesting finding is that, for both the gel and foam segments, we found the rank order correlation of brand unit price between 2007 and 2008 as highly significant. This means that in this market management considers the price of a brand as a strategic rather than a tactical variable. Although, technically the results for the foam segment were negative, this does not necessarily contradict our hypothesis. Finally, we discovered six strategic groups in the industry and have tried to articulate what their competitive strategy is.

Optimization of a Segmented Filter with a New Error Diffusion Approach

The segmented filters, based on spectral cutting, proved their efficiency for the multi-correlation. In this article we propose an optimisation of this cutting according to a new error diffusion method.