Information processing along the course of a visual interneuron.

Locust ocellar retinal cells are innervated by giant second order cells, 2 mm long, which show discrete zones of integration along their course, including a major zone in the axonal length of the neuron. The complex synaptic arrangements which exist between higher-order afferent and efferent cells and these second order cells along their course suggests that transmission takes place by the electrotonic spread of slow potentials. The size and accessibility of these visual interneurons offers a unique preparation for examining mechanisms of graded synaptic transmission.     

θ环填料塔中单乙醇胺吸收CO2传质性能研究

在乱堆θ环不锈钢填料的自制填料塔中,使用单乙醇胺(MEA)作为吸收剂,研究MEA脱除CO2的去除率和总体积传质系数KGav,考察了贫液中CO2负载量、吸收剂浓度、液体流量、吸收温度等不同参数对总体积传质系数的影响.实验结果表明,KGav随贫液中CO2负载量的增大而减小,随吸收剂浓度、液体流量的增大而增大;且进料温度在3...     

Optimal maintenance and replacement of extraction machinery

This paper considers a problem of optimal preventive maintenance and replacement schedule of equipment devoted to extracting resources from known deposits. Typical examples are oil drills, mine shovels, etc. At most one replacement of the existing machinery by a new one is allowed. The problem is formulated as an optimal control problem subject to the state constraint that the remaining deposit at any given time is nonnegative. We show that the optimal preventive maintenance, production rates, and the replacement and salvage times of the existing machinery and the new one, if required, can be obtained by solving sequentially a series of free-end-point optimal control problems. Moreover, an algorithm based on this result is developed and used to solve two illustrative examples.     

A survey of stackelberg differential game models in supply and marketing channels

Erratum to: J Syst Sci Syst EngDOI: 10.1007/s11518-007-5058-2The presentation of Table 2 in the original version of this article contained a few typos. The corrected Table 2 is given below.     

Leadership and Power in Fostering a Collaborative Community in a Non-Profit Professional Organization

This article provides an account of first-person action research used for organization development in an all-volunteer professional organization. During a 12-month period, members sought to build a collaborative community out of a formerly defunct group. As part of this project, the group’s leader conducted a self-study by examining his role in exercising power while leading the group in building a collaborative community. Although the goals to collaborate and explore power relations originate in different philosophical perspectives, they were combined with moderate success in this project. An ongoing theoretical analysis of the challenges in using this approach illustrates the complications of combining collaborative approaches with the exploration of power.     

Insights on Social Responsibility of NGOS

Systemic Practice and Action Research - The social responsibility of nongovernmental organizations starts from the values this sector defends. Despite the social vocation, a question arises as to...     

Learning-based force servoing control of a robot with vision in an unknown environment

A learning-based control approach is presented for force servoing of a robot with vision in an unknown environment. Firstly, mapping relationships between image features of the servoing object and the joint angles of the robot are derived and learned by a neural network. Secondly, a learning controller based on the neural network is designed for the robot to trace the object. Thirdly, a discrete time impedance control law is obtained for the force servoing of the robot, the on-line learning algorithms for three neural networks are developed to adjust the impedance parameters of the robot in the unknown environment. Lastly, wiping experiments are carried out by using a 6 DOF industrial robot with a CCD camera and a force/torque sensor in its end effector, and the experimental results confirm the effecti veness of the approach.     

Robust stability test for 2-D continuous-discrete systems with interval parameters

It is revealed that the dynamic stability of 2-D recursive continuous-discrete systems with interval parameters involves the problem of robust Hurwitz-Schur stability of bivariate polynomials family. It is proved that the Hurwitz-Schur stability of the denominator polynomials of the systems is necessary and sufficient for the asymptotic stability of the 2-D hybrid systems. The 2-D hybrid transformation, i. e. 2-D Laplace-Z transformation, has been proposed to solve the stability analysis of the 2-D continuous-discrete systems, to get the 2-D hybrid transfer functions of the systems. The edge test for the Hurwitz-Schur stability of interval bivariate polynomials is introduced. The Hurwitz-Schur stability of the interval family of 2-D polynomials can be guaranteed by the stability of its finite edge polynomials of the family. An algorithm about the stability test of edge polynomials is given.     

Atomic and efficient e-cash transaction protocol

Atomicity is necessary for reliable and secure electronic commerce transaction and to guarantee the participants' interests. An atomic and efficient e-cash (electronic cash) transaction protocol based on the classical e-cash scheme is presented. The delivery of digital goods is incorporated into the process of payment in the protocol. Apart from ensuring all three levels of atomicity, the novel protocol features high efficiency and practicability with unfavorable strong assumption removed. Furthermore, the proposed protocol provides non-repudiation proofs for any future disputes. At last, analysis of the atomicity and efficiency is illustrated.