The endowment effect is a well-documented decision phenomenon, referring to a tendency that people price a commodity higher when selling it than when buying it. This phenomenon can be interpreted as a sort of inertia, an unwillingness to make a change, or in other words an attachment to the status-quo. People with autism dislike social interaction, and are thus probably less willing to buy and sell items and more attached to the status quo. Previous research revealed that T-carriers of a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of the dopamine beta-hydroxylase (DBH) gene, rs1611115 (C-1021T), are associated with autism and difficulty in social interaction. Therefore, rs1611115 may modulate the endowment effect. In the current study, the subjects sold and bought lotteries with various probabilities of winning money and provided saliva for genotyping. We found that T-carriers (people of CT genotype in this study) exhibited greater endowment effects compared to people of CC genotype. We discuss another two possible explanations of our results: empathy and loss aversion. This is the first attempt to research the endowment effect from the perspective of genes. The result indicates that an SNP of genes (an innate factor) can exert an observable effect on human market activities.

Robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has shown tremendous advances over the traditional technique. A crucial challenge for developing a MIS robot is the kinematic design of the remote center-of-motion (RCM) mechanism. In this paper, a class of spatial RCM mechanism is analyzed. They are obtained by generating virtual parallelograms. The main process is to construct a line that passes through a fixed point under the mechanical constraint. The axis of the surgical tool is then constrained to parallel with that line. Hence, due to the geometrical feature of the parallel lines, the axis of the surgical tool will always pass through a fixed point, i.e., the RCM point. Due to the specially designed structure, the fixed point does not need to be physically belonging to the mechanism. The geometrical analysis method is employed to obtain the closed-form solution of the forward kinematics of the proposed mechanisms. Due to the high load capacity of parallel mechanism, the robots based on the proposed RCM mechanisms have promising applications as an external positioner to be used in robotic single-port surgeries.

Underground Nuclear Astrophysics in China (JUNA) will take the advantage of the ultra-low background in Jinping underground lab. High current accelerator with an ECR source and detectors were commissioned. JUNA plans to study directly a number of nuclear reactions important to hydrostatic stellar evolution at their relevant stellar energies. At the first period, JUNA aims at the direct measurements of 25Mg(p,γ)26 Al, 19F(p,α) 16 O, 13C(α, n) 16O and 12C(α,γ) 16O near the Gamow window. The current progress of JUNA will be given.

Indexed powder diffraction patterns and related crystallographic data are reported for ErNiSb, which is not represented in the X-ray Powder Diffraction File. The compound ErNiSb is cubic [space group F43m, Z=4, a=6.2693(1) Å]. The R=0.067 indicates that experimental intensities agree well with the calculated patterns.

We found evidence for the super–orbital modulation in the X-ray emission of LS I + 61°303 from the longest monitoring date by the RXTE. The time evolution of the modulated fraction in the orbital light curves can be well fitted with a sinusoidal function having a super-orbital period of 1667 days. However, we have found a 281.8±44.6 day shift between the super-orbital variability found at radio frequencies and our X-ray data. We also find a super-orbital modulation in the maximum count rate of the orbital light curves, compatible with the former results, including the shift.

Non-destructive Raman spectroscopy was applied to three kinds of porcelain glaze samples: (i) Guan wares of Song Dynasty; (ii) Imitated Guan wares; (Both (i) and (ii) are from the Palace Museum (Beijing, China) collections); (iii) Porcelain shards are collected from the Xiuneisi kiln site which is one of two excavated Guan ware imperial kilns in Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. Raman spectra of the glassy phase network were used to discuss the composition and firing temperature of the glaze. The index of polymerization (Ip) is strongly correlated with the firing temperature and the composition of the glaze. According to the Ip values of the glaze, those Guan wares (i) can be classified into three groups. The provenance of Guan wares (i) was discussed by comparing the Ip values to imitations (ii) and shards(iii). The study of classification and provenance are also supported by the X-ray fluorescence data. The Ip values of several recently prepared glazed samples of known firing temperature were measured to build empirical relationship between the Ip value and the firing temperature. Based on the relationship, the firing temperature of the Guan ware glazes was at 1170-1300°C.

A facile hydrothermal route assisted by polyethylene glycol (PEG) 400 was utilized to synthesize single-phase Bi2Fe4O9 crystallites. X-ray diffraction results showed the products with PEG 400 of 30 g/L exhibited a preferred growth along the (001) plane. Transmission electron microscopy indicated that the morphology of the as-prepared Bi2Fe4O9 crystallites with PEG 400 were plake-like and rod-like. Strong absorption in visible-light region of the products was characterized by UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectrum (UV-DRS). The photocatalytic activity of Bi2Fe4O9 crystallites was evaluated on degradation of methyl orange (MO) under visible light irradiation. For 3 h irradiation, the degradation ratio was increased to 93% with the aid of a small amount of H2O2. The analysis of FT-IR spectra proved that the Bi2Fe4O9 catalysts were remained stable after the photocalytic reactions.

Sillenite Bi25FeO40 crystallites have been fabricated via a sol-gel approach. X-ray diffraction results show that single-phase Bi25FeO40 can be synthesized at the annealing temperature of 600 oC with the help of PEG additive. The amount of additives and the annealing temperature has great effects on the formation of phase pure Bi25FeO40 crystallites. The morphologies of Bi25FeO40 crystallites were observed by SEM techniques. UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy indicated the good visible light absorption of Bi25FeO40 crystallites. The photo-catalytic activity of Bi25FeO40 powders was evaluated by the degradation of methyl orange solution assisted by H2O2 under UV-Vis light and Vis-only light irradiation, which suggested that Bi25FeO40 crystallites are potential photocatalytic materials.

A PVA-assisted hydrothermal synthesis route was utilized to fabricate single-phase Bi25FeO40 crystallites.X-ray diffraction results indicated that sillenite Bi25FeO40 have been synthesized at the temperature of 200 ℃ using the KOH concentration of 7 M. Scanning electron microscopy showed the morphology of the as-prepared products were cubic shape with side length of 26μm. The band gap of Bi25FeO40 was determined to be 1.8 eV (688 nm) by using UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. It was found that Bi25FeO40 exhibited a high photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methyl orange under UV-Vis irradiation, being a potential material for photocatalytic decomposition of organic contaminants.

Traditional failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) methods lack sufficient semantics and structure to provide full traceability between the failure modes and the effects of the complex system. To overcome this limitation, this paper proposes a formal failure knowledge representation model combined with the structural decomposition of the complex system. The model defines the failure modes as the inherent properties of the physical entities at different hierarchical levels, and employs the individual color, unified color, and Boolean matrix of the polychromatic sets to represent the failure modes in terms of their interrelationships and their relations to the physical system. This method is a structure-based modeling technique that provides a simple, yet comprehensive framework to organize the failure modes and their causes and effects more systematically and completely. Using the iterative search process operated on the reasoning matrices, the end effects on the entire system can be achieved automatically, which allows for the consideration of both the single and multiple failures. An example is embedded in the description of the methodology for better understanding. Because of the powerful mathematical modeling capability of the polychromatic sets, the approach presented in this paper makes significant progress in FMEA formalization.

Mesostructured lamellar lead sulfide has been synthesized for the first time at room temperature in acidic media, employing sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDS) as template and soluble lead salts, and hydrated sodium sulfide as the inorganic sources. The material was chiefly characterized by x-ray powder diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis. In the material, the Pb:S molar ratio for the inorganic phase is about 1:1.2, with a distance of about 2.7 nm between the inorganic layers.