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When transporting hazardous materials by rail, train types (unit train or manifest train) can influence derailment and release risks in several ways. Unit trains only experience risks on mainlines and when arriving at or departing from terminals, while manifest trains experience additional switching risks in yards. A comprehensive risk assessment methodology is needed to quantitively compare shipments with unit trains and manifest trains, considering both mainline and yard operations. To fulfill this research gap, this paper constructs event chains for line-haul risks, arrival/departure risks, and yard switching risks using various probabilistic models and finally determines expected casualties as the consequences of a potential train derailment and release incident. Five illustrative scenarios are designed to analyze the best and worst cases and compare the transportation risk differences between service options using unit trains and manifest trains. The comparison results indicate that placing all tank cars at the positions with the lowest probability of derailing and switching tank cars alone in classification yards could provide the lowest risk estimate given the same transportation demand.

This study implemented an integrated system of Note Summarization (NoteSum) that merged with multi-users’ notes and searched for relevant information on the Internet and, slides, and textbooks to create a summary for students to learn effectively. The integrated system's framework consists of four different modules: Topic Identification Module, Supporting Material Finding Module, Content Mapping Module and Learning Material Integrating Module. Five experiments were conducted; these resulted in the following findings. First, translating notes with the assistance of topic terms could enhance translation quality. Second, when mapping contents, NoteSum performed better in a discussion-based course rather than in a technical course. Third, the Jensen-Shannon (JS) Divergence was used to assess the generated summary that performed better for the discussion-based course. Fourth, the three attributes—presence of topic terms, number of non-topic words, and ratio of the words with important parts of speech—had different effects on different subjects. Finally, we compared NoteSum with other existing summarization systems. The results indicated that the NoteSum-generated summary was closer to students’ original notes and thus resulted in better performance in readability , informativeness , and completeness. All the results confirm that our proposed NoteSum is an effective note summarization system for student learning.

Solar energetic particle events often associate with solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). Because that the interaction of twin-CME is the key factor of solar energetic particle (SEP) events, the relationship between the intensity of SEP event and the associated twin-CME has been investigated for the two SEP events occurred respectively on 15 April 2001 and 20 January 2005, by using the energetic particle strength, flare intensity, and the relative height and time of CMEs observed by the SOHO satellite, as well as the CME speed obtained by fitting the height variation with the time. The results show that the intensities of the two SEP events have no relationship with the associated twin-CME. Hence, in the earlier stage of these two SEP events, the protons of E≥10 MeV are only associated with relevant solar flares and CMEs.

Concerns regarding the development of renewable energy have increased because of dwindling conventional energy resources and increasing cost of pollution prevention. Despite mounting evidence supporting the advantages of using renewable energy, knowledge of how consumers in a developing country, such as Kazakhstan, perceive this environmental but considerably expensive energy source remains insufficient. This study explores this issue and applies the Bang's model, which is based on theory of reason action, to investigate the consumer knowledge mechanism on the intention to pay more for renewable energy. A partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique is employed for data analysis. Consistent PLS results show that consumers' concerns regarding renewable energy have a positive effect on their attitudes, thereby enhancing their environmental beliefs and increasing their willingness to pay more for renewable energy. Moreover, demographics determine the levels of concern for the environment and willingness to pay more for renewable energy. Implications for public policymakers and electric power company managers are provided in this study.

Myeloid leukemia cells maintain a high intracellular ROS level and use redox signals for survival. The metabolism of ROS also affects cell fate, including cell death and differentiation. Superoxide dismutases (SODs) are major antioxidant enzymes that have high levels of expression in myeloid leukemia cells. However, the role of SODs in the regulation of myeloid leukemia cells' biological function is still unclear. To investigate the function of SODs in myeloid leukemia cell death and differentiation, we used myeloid leukemia cell lines K562, MEG-01, TF-1, and HEL cells for this study. We found that PMA-induced megakaryocytic differentiation in myeloid leukemia cells is accompanied by cell death and SOD1 down-regulation, while SOD2 expression is not affected. The role of SOD1 is verified when ATN-224, a SOD1 specific inhibitor, inhibits cell proliferation and promotes cell death in myeloid leukemia cells without PMA treatment. Moreover, inhibition or silencing of SODs further increases cell death and decreases polyploidization induced by PMA while they were partially reversed by SOD1 overexpression. Thus, SOD1 expression is required for myeloid leukemia cell fate determination. In addition, the knockdown of PKD2 reduces cell death and promotes polyploidization induced by PMA. PMA/PKD2-mediated necrosis via PARP cleavage involves both SOD1-dependent and -independent pathways. Finally, ATN-224 enhanced the inhibition of cell proliferation by Ara-C. Taken together, the results demonstrate that SOD1 regulates cell death and differentiation in myeloid leukemia cells. ATN-224 may be beneficial for myeloid leukemia therapy.

This study aims to develop a reliable and valid measure of perceived retailer innovativeness (PRI) in Taiwan. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were employed. A qualitative content analysis from six focus group interviews concludes a specific form of PRI. The quantitative study, which contains 486 7-Eleven and 489 Carrefour consumers, provides an exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis in examining the validity of PRI scale. Consumer perceptions of retailer innovativeness can be conceptualized as emotions, cognitions, and behavior responses evoked by store-related stimuli that are part of the offerings, services, design, and activities of a store. Four dimensions have been identified, namely, perceived product-related, service-related, promotion-related, and experience-related innovation capabilities. The PRI scale might be valued by academic scholars for its application for future studies, particularly in an era of intense competition in which innovation is considered as a critical strategic tool for differentiation.

Based on the observational data of sunspots, the relation between the amplitude of solar cycle and the total area of all active regions occurred in a solar cycle has been investigated. The result shows that the amplitude of solar cycle has a good correlation with the total area of all active regions occurred in the solar cycle. The relation between the amplitude of solar cycle and the area of the largest active region during a solar cycle has also been investigated. The result shows that the amplitude of solar cycle has a poor correlation with the area of the largest active region during a solar cycle, and there is no fixed relation between the peak time of a solar cycle and the time when the largest active region occurred in the solar cycle.

The essentials of the Kerr effect of the polymer-stabilized blue phase liquid crystal (PS-BPLC) are examined using the director model. The Kerr effect describes that the induced birefringence is proportional to the square of the magnitude of the electric field E . The formula should be corrected when E is large. In contrast, the director model can describe the induced birefringence for any magnitude of E . From the director model, it can be found that the birefringence value essentially has a linear relationship with the averaged direction cosine of the directors with respect to the direction of the electric field.

We propose a backlight system for a vertical-field-switching blue phase liquid crystal display. Because the blue phase liquid crystal display needs an oblique incident light source of a backlight system, we designed the backlight system that consisted of a light guide plate and a specially designed prism film. We simulated the backlight system by optical software (TraceProTM) and the performance of the blue phase liquid crystal display by liquid crystal software (TechWiz). The result showed that the contrast ratio of the blue phase liquid crystal display can be over 2000 and the uniformity was 86%. The designed applicable backlight system will be illustrated in the vertical field switching blue phase liquid crystal display.

A combined leaf and pod transcriptome of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench) has been produced by RNA sequencing and short read assembly. More than 150,000 unigenes were obtained, comprising some 46 million base pairs of sequence information. More than 55% of the unigenes were annotated through sequence comparison with databases. The okra transcriptome sequences were mined for simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. From 935 non-redundant SSR motifs identified in the unigene set, 199 were chosen for testing in a germplasm set, resulting in 161 polymorphic SSR markers. From this set, 19 markers were selected for a diversity analysis on 65 okra accessions comprising three different species, revealing 58 different genotypes and resulted in clustering of the accessions according to species and geographic origin. The okra gene sequence information and the marker resource are made available to the research community for functional genomics and breeding research.

Because a conventional seismic isolation system is usually a long-period dynamic system, it may easily incur an excessive seismic response when subjected to near-fault earthquakes, which usually contain strong long-period wave components. In order to alleviate this near-fault isolation problem, this paper investigates the possible use of a fuzzy-controlled semi-active isolation system, called a piezoelectric seismic isolation system (PSIS), whose seismic response is attenuated by a variable friction damper driven by an embedded piezoelectric actuator. The studied PSIS adopts a fuzzy controller whose control logic is similar to that of the anti-lock braking systems (ABS) widely used in the automobile industry. This ABS-type fuzzy controller has the advantages of being simple and easily implemented, because it only requires the measurement of the PSIS sliding velocity. In order to investigate its feasibility and isolation effectiveness, in this work both theoretical and experimental studies were carried out on a prototype PSIS. It is observed that the experimental responses of the PSIS can be well predicted by the theoretical responses simulated by the mathematical model and numerical procedure. Furthermore, both theoretical and experimental results have demonstrated that in either a near-fault or a far-field earthquake, the PSIS with the ABS-type fuzzy controller is very effective in suppressing simultaneously the isolator displacement and the acceleration response of the isolated object.