EVOKE: A Value-Driven Concept Selection Method for Early System Design

The development of new technologically advanced products requires the contribution from a range of skills and disciplines, which are often difficult to find within a single company or organization. Requirements establishment practices in Systems Engineering (SE), while ensuring coordination of activities and tasks across the supply network, fall short when it comes to facilitate knowledge sharing and negotiation during early system design. Empirical observations show that when system-level requirements are not available or not mature enough, engineers dealing with the development of long lead-time sub-systems tend to target local optima, rather than opening up the design space. This phenomenon causes design teams to generate solutions that do not embody the best possible configuration for the overall system. The aim of this paper is to show how methodologies for value-driven design may address this issue, facilitating early stage design iterations and the resolution of early stage design trade-offs. The paper describes how such methodologies may help gathering and dispatching relevant knowledge about the ‘design intent’ of a system to the cross-functional engineering teams, so to facilitate a more concurrent process for requirement elicitation in SE. The paper also describes EVOKE (Early Value Oriented design exploration with KnowledgE maturity), a concept selection method that allows benchmarking design options at sub-system level on the base of value-related information communicated by the system integrators. The use of EVOKE is exemplified in an industrial case study related to the design of an aero-engine component. EVOKE’s ability to raise awareness on the value contribution of early stage design concepts in the SE process has been further verified with industrial practitioners in ad-hoc design episodes.     

The expansion of GPCR transactivation-dependent signalling to include serine/threonine kinase receptors represents a new cell signalling frontier

G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signalling is mediated through transactivation-independent signalling pathways or the transactivation of protein tyrosine kinase receptors and the recently reported activation of the serine/threonine kinase receptors, most notably the transforming growth factor-β receptor family. Since the original observation of GPCR transactivation of protein tyrosine kinase receptors, there has been considerable work on the mechanism of transactivation and several pathways are prominent. These pathways include the “triple membrane bypass” pathway and the generation of reactive oxygen species. The recent recognition of GPCR transactivation of serine/threonine kinase receptors enormously broadens the GPCR signalling paradigm. It may be predicted that the transactivation of serine/threonine kinase receptors would have mechanistic similarities with transactivation of tyrosine kinase pathways; however, initial studies suggest that these two transactivation pathways are mechanistically distinct. Important questions are the relative importance of tyrosine and serine/threonine transactivation pathways, the contribution of transactivation to overall GPCR signalling, mechanisms of transactivation and the range of cell types in which this phenomenon occurs. The ultimate significance of transactivation-dependent signalling remains to be defined but it appears to be prominent and if so will represent a new cell signalling frontier.     

Reconsideration on Homogeneous Quadratic Riemann Boundary Value Problem

The homogeneous quadratic Riemann boundary value problem (1) with Hoelder continuous coefficients for the normal case was considered by the author in 1997. But the solutions obtained there are incomplete. Here its general method of solution is obtained.     

具有sn-网的空间

证明了具有σ—点有限sn—网及σ—局部可数sn—网的空间可刻划为度量空间在某些确定映射下的象.     

Abrupt climate change：Debate or action

Global abrupt climate changes have been documented by various climate records, including ice cores, ocean sediment cores, lake sediment cores, cave deposits, loess deposits and pollen records. The climate system prefers to be in one of two stable states, i.e. interstadial or stadial conditions, but not in between. The transition between two states has an abrupt character. Abrupt climate changes are, in general, synchronous in the northern hemisphere and tropical regions. The timescale for abrupt climate changes can be as short as a decade. As the impacts may be potentially serious, we need to take actions such as reducing CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.     

The Optimal Solution of the Model with Physical and Human Capital Adjustment Costs

We prove that the model with physical and human capital adjustment costs has optimal solution when the production function is increasing return and the structure of vetor fields of the model changes substantially when the prodution function from decreasing return turns to increasing return. And it is shown that the economy is improved when the coefficients of adjustment costs become small.     

Decoration of disclinations by solidification-induced band texture and focal-conic texture for a low-molar-mass liquid crystal

Two decoration techniques, solidification-induced band texture decora tion and focal-conictexture decoration, have been established to exhibit the director field of disclinations in a low-molar-mass methacrylate liquid crystal. The disclinations with strength s = 1/2 and s = ±1 are observed by the two decor ation methods. For the solidification-induced band texture decoration, the molecular orientation is perpendicular to the direction of the band. While for focal- conictexture decoration, it has been proved by the results of IR dichroism that the direction of the director is parallel to the direction of the focal-conic. Therefore, the sketch map of the molecular director filed can be mapped according to the morphological pattern of the solidification-induced band textureor focal-conic texture.     

林肯羊与陕北地方绵羊杂交后代产肉性能研究

林肯羊和陕北地方土种绵羊杂交后代,不但能提高当地绵羊的产毛量和羊毛品质,而且能显著地提高产肉量和肉品质,经济效益十分显著。     

钛酸铋的热力学理论

利用点群４／ｍｍｍ的对称性给出了应力作用下的钛酸铋的弹性吉布斯自由能的表达式，并导出了自发应变，介电性质和压电性质。     

Static extracting method of software intended behavior based on API functions invoking

The method of extracting and describing the intended behavior of software precisely has become one of the key points in the fields of software behavior＇s dynamic and trusted authentication. In this paper, the author proposes a specified measure of extracting SIBDS （software intended behaviors describing sets） statically from the binary executable using the software＇s API functions invoking, and also introduces the definition of the structure used to store the SIBDS in detail. Experimental results demonstrate that the extracting method and the storage structure definition offers three strong properties： （i） it can describe the software＇s intended behavior accurately; （ii） it demands a small storage expense; （iii） it provides strong capability to defend against mimicry attack.