The family Alaudidae,larks,comprises 93-100 species(depending on taxonomy)that are widely distributed across Africa and Eurasia,with single species extending their ranges to North and northernmost South America and Au...The family Alaudidae,larks,comprises 93-100 species(depending on taxonomy)that are widely distributed across Africa and Eurasia,with single species extending their ranges to North and northernmost South America and Australia.A decade-old molecular phylogeny,comprising~80%of the species,revealed multiple cases of parallel evolution and large variation in rates of morphological evolution,which had misled taxonomists into creating many non-monophyletic genera.Here,we reconstruct the phylogeny of the larks,using a dataset covering one mitochondrial and 16 nuclear loci and comprising all except one of the currently recognised species as well as several recently proposed new species(in total 133 taxa;not all loci available for all species).We provide additional support using genome-wide markers to infer a genus-level phylogeny based on near-complete generic sampling(in total 51 samples of 44 taxa across 40 species).Our results confirm the previous findings of rampant morphological convergence and divergence,and reveal new cases of paraphyletic genera.We propose a new subfamily classification,and also that the genus Mirafra is divided into four genera to produce a more balanced generic classification of the Alaudidae.Our study supports recently proposed species splits as well as some recent lumps,while also questioning some of the latter.This comprehensive phylogeny will form an important basis for future studies,such as comparative studies of lark natural history,ecology,evolution and conservation.展开更多
In RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification)system,when multiple tags are in the operating range of one reader and send their information to the reader simultaneously,the signals of these tags are superimposed in the air,w...In RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification)system,when multiple tags are in the operating range of one reader and send their information to the reader simultaneously,the signals of these tags are superimposed in the air,which results in a collision and leads to the degrading of tags identifying efficiency.To improve the multiple tags’identifying efficiency due to collision,a physical layer network coding based binary search tree algorithm(PNBA)is proposed in this paper.PNBA pushes the conflicting signal information of multiple tags into a stack,which is discarded by the traditional anti-collision algorithm.In addition,physical layer network coding is exploited by PNBA to obtain unread tag information through the decoding operation of physical layer network coding using the conflicting information in the stack.Therefore,PNBA reduces the number of interactions between reader and tags,and improves the tags identification efficiency.Theoretical analysis and simulation results using MATLAB demonstrate that PNBA reduces the number of readings,and improve RFID identification efficiency.Especially,when the number of tags to be identified is 100,the average needed reading number of PNBA is 83%lower than the basic binary search tree algorithm,43%lower than reverse binary search tree algorithm,and its reading efficiency reaches 0.93.展开更多
To elucidate the mechanism of brominated natural rubber(BNR), eight BNR samples with different bromine content were prepared from latex in different bromination time, and the microstructures were characterized by Four...To elucidate the mechanism of brominated natural rubber(BNR), eight BNR samples with different bromine content were prepared from latex in different bromination time, and the microstructures were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR) and ~1H-NMR spectroscopy, respectively. The hardness of BNR increased and its nature transformed from elastomer to resin with the increase of bromine content. Unlike chlorinated natural rubber(CNR), FTIR showed that there were no carbonyl groups on the molecular chains of BNR. ~1H-NMR spectroscopy revealed that the reaction activity of bromine and the secondary hydrogen atom of BNR were much higher than those of the primary one. The brominated substitution took place in the hydrogen atom of CH_3 and CH_2 groups firstly, then in the late period of bromination the bond of C=C was transferred to the saturated bond of C-C due to the Markovnikov addition of hydrogen bromide. Based on these findings, the mechanism of BNR from latex could be deduced as a free radical reaction and the detailed bromination process was presented.展开更多
The morphology, nanomechanical properties and interfacial regions of natural rubber(NR) and FeCo nanoparticles composite were determined by AFM nanomechanical mapping. The results showed that the size of FeCo partic...The morphology, nanomechanical properties and interfacial regions of natural rubber(NR) and FeCo nanoparticles composite were determined by AFM nanomechanical mapping. The results showed that the size of FeCo particles was mostly from 40 to 100 nm and the FeCo nanoparticles were homogeneously dispersed in the NR bulk. The strength of NR composite increased with the FeCo nanoparticles loading. Young's modulus of NR region, FeCo region and interfacial region was measured by AFM nanomechanical tapping as 1.6 ± 0.6, 16.7 ±4.2 and 5.8 ± 1.5 MPa, respectively. The width of the interface for NR5, NR10 and NR15 was determined to be 15±8.1, 26±14.3 and 32±16.4 nm, respectively.展开更多
Traditionally, organizations assume that compensation/pay and monetary benefits are what all employees need to work harder, be productive, or remain with the company. According to Abraham Maslow, within every person i...Traditionally, organizations assume that compensation/pay and monetary benefits are what all employees need to work harder, be productive, or remain with the company. According to Abraham Maslow, within every person is a hierarchy of five needs: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs Organizations must be able to identify what employees desire to secure optimum performance and to meet the needs of both employees and employers. This research focuses on the generational gap and the significance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in the workforce. The purpose and objective of this research are to test the significance of monetary versus non-monetary rewards among the different generations in the organization. A self-designed questionnaire distributed to a multi-generational group of employees of selected organizations was used to collect the analyzed data. Sixty-five (65%) responses were obtained. Secondary data were used to elucidate the needs in this area of study. Because the workforce is predicted to become more diverse in terms of age, organizations will be unlikely to implement one set of rewards for the multiple generations. This is due to the differing expectations and requirements among the generations. However, the results indicate no significant difference in monetary versus non-monetary rewards among the different generations in the workforce.展开更多
This paper is an adaptation of a presentation given on March 20, 2015, at the Conference on International Development hosted by Virginia International University. The paper reviews the December 2013 outbreak of civil ...This paper is an adaptation of a presentation given on March 20, 2015, at the Conference on International Development hosted by Virginia International University. The paper reviews the December 2013 outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, and attempts to untangle the country's pre-existing development problems from those more directly related to the war. Finally, the paper discusses international involvement both in South Sudan's development and conflict resolution. It focuses in particular on the international debate over methods to end the conflict, the importance of state capacity, and the international understanding of development's relationship with the conflict.展开更多
The design of space-efficient support hardware for built-in self-testing is of great significance in very large scale integration circuits and systems, particularly in view of the paradigm shift in recent times from s...The design of space-efficient support hardware for built-in self-testing is of great significance in very large scale integration circuits and systems, particularly in view of the paradigm shift in recent times from system-on-board to system-on-chip technology. The subject paper proposes a new approach to designing aliasing-free or zero-aliasing space compaction hardware targeting specifically embedded cores-based system-on-chips for single stuck-line faults extending well-known concept from conventional switching theory, viz. that of compatibility relation as used in the minimization of incomplete sequential machines. For a pair of response outputs of the circuit under test, the method introduces the notion of fault detection compatibility and conditional fault detection compatibility (conditional upon some other response output pair being simultaneously fault detection compatible) with respect to two-input XOR/XNOR logic. The process is illustrated with design details of space compressors for the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems or ISCAS 85 combinational and ISCAS 89 full-scan sequential benchmark circuits using simulation programs ATALANTA and FSIM, attesting to the usefulness of the technique for its relative simplicity, resultant low area overhead and full fault coverage for single stuck-line faults, thus making it suitable in commercial design environments.展开更多
Carbon capture and storage(CCS)is a feasible strategy to mitigate the increasing carbon dioxide(CO2)emission,which is believed to be responsible for ocean acidification and global warming.Simultaneously,the separation...Carbon capture and storage(CCS)is a feasible strategy to mitigate the increasing carbon dioxide(CO2)emission,which is believed to be responsible for ocean acidification and global warming.Simultaneously,the separation of CO2 from natural gas is also of critical importance in industry,because CO2 as the major impurity significantly reduces the conversion rate and energy content of natural gas[1].Currently,the main-stream technology for largescale capture and sorption of CO2 from industrial streams is amine-based wet scrubbing because the amine-based solutions have large CO2 capacity and high selectivity for acidic gases.However,a major drawback of their high heat capacity makes the regeneration very energy intensive and costly.To address the issue,solid porous adsorbents have emerged as the promising alternative owing to their much lower heat capacity.展开更多
Area query processing is significant for various applications of wireless sensor networks since it can request information of particular areas in the monitored environment. Existing query processing techniques cannot ...Area query processing is significant for various applications of wireless sensor networks since it can request information of particular areas in the monitored environment. Existing query processing techniques cannot solve area queries. Intuitively, centralized processing on Base Station can accomplish area queries via collecting information from all sensor nodes. However, this method is not suitable for wireless sensor networks with limited energy since a large amount of energy is wasted for reporting useless data. This motivates us to propose an energy-efficient in-network area query processing scheme. In our scheme, the monitored area is partitioned into grids, and a unique gray code number is used to represent a Grid ID (GID), which is also an effective way to describe an area. Furthermore, a reporting tree is constructed to process area merging and data aggregations. Based on the properties of GIDs, subareas can be merged easily and useless data can be discarded as early as possible to reduce energy consumption. For energy-efficiently answering continuous queries, we also design an incremental update method to continuously generate query results. In essence, all of these strategies are pivots to conserve energy consumption. With a thorough simulation study, it is shown that our scheme is effective and energy-efficient展开更多
基金the National Swedish Research Council(grants No.2015-04402,2019-04486)the Carl Trygger Foundation(CTS 20:6)+3 种基金the Jornvall FoundationJulian Francis for financial supportthe National Genomics Infrastructure in Stockholm funded by Science for Life Laboratory,the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundationthe Research/Scientific Computing teams at The James Hutton Institute and NIAB for providing computational resources and technical support for the"UK's Crop Diversity Bioinformatics HPC"(BBSRC grant BB/S019669/1)。
文摘The family Alaudidae,larks,comprises 93-100 species(depending on taxonomy)that are widely distributed across Africa and Eurasia,with single species extending their ranges to North and northernmost South America and Australia.A decade-old molecular phylogeny,comprising~80%of the species,revealed multiple cases of parallel evolution and large variation in rates of morphological evolution,which had misled taxonomists into creating many non-monophyletic genera.Here,we reconstruct the phylogeny of the larks,using a dataset covering one mitochondrial and 16 nuclear loci and comprising all except one of the currently recognised species as well as several recently proposed new species(in total 133 taxa;not all loci available for all species).We provide additional support using genome-wide markers to infer a genus-level phylogeny based on near-complete generic sampling(in total 51 samples of 44 taxa across 40 species).Our results confirm the previous findings of rampant morphological convergence and divergence,and reveal new cases of paraphyletic genera.We propose a new subfamily classification,and also that the genus Mirafra is divided into four genera to produce a more balanced generic classification of the Alaudidae.Our study supports recently proposed species splits as well as some recent lumps,while also questioning some of the latter.This comprehensive phylogeny will form an important basis for future studies,such as comparative studies of lark natural history,ecology,evolution and conservation.
基金the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61502411Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province under Grant BK20150432 and BK20151299+7 种基金Natural Science Research Project for Universities of Jiangsu Province under Grant 15KJB520034China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant 2015M581843Jiangsu Provincial Qinglan ProjectTeachers Overseas Study Program of Yancheng Institute of TechnologyJiangsu Provincial Government Scholarship for Overseas StudiesTalents Project of Yancheng Institute of Technology under Grant KJC2014038“2311”Talent Project of Yancheng Institute of TechnologyOpen Fund of Modern Agricultural Resources Intelligent Management and Application Laboratory of Huzhou Normal University.
文摘In RFID(Radio Frequency IDentification)system,when multiple tags are in the operating range of one reader and send their information to the reader simultaneously,the signals of these tags are superimposed in the air,which results in a collision and leads to the degrading of tags identifying efficiency.To improve the multiple tags’identifying efficiency due to collision,a physical layer network coding based binary search tree algorithm(PNBA)is proposed in this paper.PNBA pushes the conflicting signal information of multiple tags into a stack,which is discarded by the traditional anti-collision algorithm.In addition,physical layer network coding is exploited by PNBA to obtain unread tag information through the decoding operation of physical layer network coding using the conflicting information in the stack.Therefore,PNBA reduces the number of interactions between reader and tags,and improves the tags identification efficiency.Theoretical analysis and simulation results using MATLAB demonstrate that PNBA reduces the number of readings,and improve RFID identification efficiency.Especially,when the number of tags to be identified is 100,the average needed reading number of PNBA is 83%lower than the basic binary search tree algorithm,43%lower than reverse binary search tree algorithm,and its reading efficiency reaches 0.93.
基金Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.21264006)National Scholarship Fund of China(No.201308460040)
文摘To elucidate the mechanism of brominated natural rubber(BNR), eight BNR samples with different bromine content were prepared from latex in different bromination time, and the microstructures were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR) and ~1H-NMR spectroscopy, respectively. The hardness of BNR increased and its nature transformed from elastomer to resin with the increase of bromine content. Unlike chlorinated natural rubber(CNR), FTIR showed that there were no carbonyl groups on the molecular chains of BNR. ~1H-NMR spectroscopy revealed that the reaction activity of bromine and the secondary hydrogen atom of BNR were much higher than those of the primary one. The brominated substitution took place in the hydrogen atom of CH_3 and CH_2 groups firstly, then in the late period of bromination the bond of C=C was transferred to the saturated bond of C-C due to the Markovnikov addition of hydrogen bromide. Based on these findings, the mechanism of BNR from latex could be deduced as a free radical reaction and the detailed bromination process was presented.
基金Funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.21264006)
文摘The morphology, nanomechanical properties and interfacial regions of natural rubber(NR) and FeCo nanoparticles composite were determined by AFM nanomechanical mapping. The results showed that the size of FeCo particles was mostly from 40 to 100 nm and the FeCo nanoparticles were homogeneously dispersed in the NR bulk. The strength of NR composite increased with the FeCo nanoparticles loading. Young's modulus of NR region, FeCo region and interfacial region was measured by AFM nanomechanical tapping as 1.6 ± 0.6, 16.7 ±4.2 and 5.8 ± 1.5 MPa, respectively. The width of the interface for NR5, NR10 and NR15 was determined to be 15±8.1, 26±14.3 and 32±16.4 nm, respectively.
文摘Traditionally, organizations assume that compensation/pay and monetary benefits are what all employees need to work harder, be productive, or remain with the company. According to Abraham Maslow, within every person is a hierarchy of five needs: physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs Organizations must be able to identify what employees desire to secure optimum performance and to meet the needs of both employees and employers. This research focuses on the generational gap and the significance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards in the workforce. The purpose and objective of this research are to test the significance of monetary versus non-monetary rewards among the different generations in the organization. A self-designed questionnaire distributed to a multi-generational group of employees of selected organizations was used to collect the analyzed data. Sixty-five (65%) responses were obtained. Secondary data were used to elucidate the needs in this area of study. Because the workforce is predicted to become more diverse in terms of age, organizations will be unlikely to implement one set of rewards for the multiple generations. This is due to the differing expectations and requirements among the generations. However, the results indicate no significant difference in monetary versus non-monetary rewards among the different generations in the workforce.
文摘This paper is an adaptation of a presentation given on March 20, 2015, at the Conference on International Development hosted by Virginia International University. The paper reviews the December 2013 outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, and attempts to untangle the country's pre-existing development problems from those more directly related to the war. Finally, the paper discusses international involvement both in South Sudan's development and conflict resolution. It focuses in particular on the international debate over methods to end the conflict, the importance of state capacity, and the international understanding of development's relationship with the conflict.
文摘The design of space-efficient support hardware for built-in self-testing is of great significance in very large scale integration circuits and systems, particularly in view of the paradigm shift in recent times from system-on-board to system-on-chip technology. The subject paper proposes a new approach to designing aliasing-free or zero-aliasing space compaction hardware targeting specifically embedded cores-based system-on-chips for single stuck-line faults extending well-known concept from conventional switching theory, viz. that of compatibility relation as used in the minimization of incomplete sequential machines. For a pair of response outputs of the circuit under test, the method introduces the notion of fault detection compatibility and conditional fault detection compatibility (conditional upon some other response output pair being simultaneously fault detection compatible) with respect to two-input XOR/XNOR logic. The process is illustrated with design details of space compressors for the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems or ISCAS 85 combinational and ISCAS 89 full-scan sequential benchmark circuits using simulation programs ATALANTA and FSIM, attesting to the usefulness of the technique for its relative simplicity, resultant low area overhead and full fault coverage for single stuck-line faults, thus making it suitable in commercial design environments.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51672289, 21725101, 21673213 and 21521001)the Aided Program for Science and Technology Innovative Research Team of Ningbo Municipality (2014B81004)+2 种基金Natural Science Funding of Zhejiang Province (LY15E020008)the National Program on Key Basic Research Project of China (973 Program) (2014CB931803)Youth Innovation Promotion of CAS (2016272)
文摘Carbon capture and storage(CCS)is a feasible strategy to mitigate the increasing carbon dioxide(CO2)emission,which is believed to be responsible for ocean acidification and global warming.Simultaneously,the separation of CO2 from natural gas is also of critical importance in industry,because CO2 as the major impurity significantly reduces the conversion rate and energy content of natural gas[1].Currently,the main-stream technology for largescale capture and sorption of CO2 from industrial streams is amine-based wet scrubbing because the amine-based solutions have large CO2 capacity and high selectivity for acidic gases.However,a major drawback of their high heat capacity makes the regeneration very energy intensive and costly.To address the issue,solid porous adsorbents have emerged as the promising alternative owing to their much lower heat capacity.
文摘Area query processing is significant for various applications of wireless sensor networks since it can request information of particular areas in the monitored environment. Existing query processing techniques cannot solve area queries. Intuitively, centralized processing on Base Station can accomplish area queries via collecting information from all sensor nodes. However, this method is not suitable for wireless sensor networks with limited energy since a large amount of energy is wasted for reporting useless data. This motivates us to propose an energy-efficient in-network area query processing scheme. In our scheme, the monitored area is partitioned into grids, and a unique gray code number is used to represent a Grid ID (GID), which is also an effective way to describe an area. Furthermore, a reporting tree is constructed to process area merging and data aggregations. Based on the properties of GIDs, subareas can be merged easily and useless data can be discarded as early as possible to reduce energy consumption. For energy-efficiently answering continuous queries, we also design an incremental update method to continuously generate query results. In essence, all of these strategies are pivots to conserve energy consumption. With a thorough simulation study, it is shown that our scheme is effective and energy-efficient