981 research outputs found
Sea transport documents in banks’ hands: bridging the UCP with commercial shipping law
No full textThis chapter bridges the most widely used international standard banking practice with the codification of commercial shipping law. It starts from observing the close interactions among commercial entities, banks and shipping industries, highlighting that an integral view needs to be taken in the process of codification. It then goes on to excavate the successful story behind the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP), as a set of codified rules adopted by every single bank in the world for the operation of documentary credits, analysing what experience can be learnt for shipping unification. Lastly but most importantly, the author examines the deficiencies of the UCP in terms of their shipping provisions and further highlight the avoidable and unavoidable problems in the process of codification and unificatio
Flexibility versus certainty: on classical contract formation and modern methods of trading
No full textThis chapter considers the approach of Chinese law to modern forms of contract making, exploring what systemic risks might arise from the current system of law. Our chosen example is the spot markets – contracts not least for the sale of commodities made between parties who are likely to be doing business with each other for the first time and who operate in a well-established and fast-trading market. Once the contract is made, the parties must take such risky actions as to charter a ship for thousands of dollars in daily rates, deliver the goods onto an unknown ship or arrange for on-sale of the goods. If there is uncertainty as to the status of the contract, or as to the complete, legally enforceable terms thereof, the parties incur risks arising from the law, rather from the transaction itself. Such risks may be capable of mitigation or dilution, not least by onward sales, and may therefore lie dormant. The risks will materialise where there is a precipitous drop in the market or an export ban, causing one of the parties to find that it would have been better off by not concluding the contract, and to look for ways to escape enforcement thereof. While the vast majority of trades are resolved by resorting to insurance cover, dilution of losses by spreading, writing off or even insolvency, others will end up in dispute resolution or court with one party defending the claim on the basis that the bargain that both parties thought themselves bound by never existed in the first place. This chapter seeks to define those risks in relation to Chinese law and identify the potential pitfalls inherent in the current positio
Monolayer semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenide alloys: Stability and band bowing
No full text
GRAPE: Parallel Graph Query Engine
Get PDFThe need for graph computations is evident in a multitude of use cases. To support
computations on large-scale graphs, several parallel systems have been developed.
However, existing graph systems require users to recast algorithms into new models,
which makes parallel graph computations as a privilege to experienced users only.
Moreover, real world applications often require much more complex graph processing
workflows than previously evaluated. In response to these challenges, the thesis
presents GRAPE, a distributed graph computation system, shipped with various applications
for social network analysis, social media marketing and functional dependencies
on graphs.
Firstly, the thesis presents the foundation of GRAPE. The principled approach of
GRAPE is based on partial evaluation and incremental computation. Sequential graph
algorithms can be plugged into GRAPE with minor changes, and get parallelized as a
whole. The termination and correctness are guaranteed under a monotonic condition.
Secondly, as an application on GRAPE, the thesis proposes graph-pattern association
rules (GPARs) for social media marketing. GPARs help users discover regularities
between entities in social graphs and identify potential customers by exploring social
influence. The thesis studies the problem of discovering top-k diversified GPARs and
the problem of identifying potential customers with GPARs. Although both are NP-
hard, parallel scalable algorithms on GRAPE are developed, which guarantee a polynomial
speedup over sequential algorithms with the increase of processors.
Thirdly, the thesis proposes quantified graph patterns (QGPs), an extension of
graph patterns by supporting simple counting quantifiers on edges. QGPs naturally express
universal and existential quantification, numeric and ratio aggregates, as well as
negation. The thesis proves that the matching problem of QGPs remains NP-complete
in the absence of negation, and is DP-complete for general QGPs. In addition, the
thesis introduces quantified graph association rules defined with QGPs, to identify potential
customers in social media marketing.
Finally, to address the issue of data consistency, the thesis proposes a class of functional
dependencies for graphs, referred to as GFDs. GFDs capture both attribute-value
dependencies and topological structures of entities. The satisfiability and implication
problems for GFDs are studied and proved to be coNP-complete and NP-complete,
respectively. The thesis also proves that the validation problem for GFDs is coNP-
complete. The parallel algorithms developed on GRAPE verify that GFDs provide an
effective approach to detecting inconsistencies in knowledge and social graphs
Synthesis and Characterization of a Novel Fluorinated Bismaleimide via a Nucleophilic Addition-Elimination Reaction and its Polymeric Networks
No full textIncludes supplementary material.The commercially available octafluorocyclopentene (OFCP) as both a fluorinated building block and a linker has been successfully utilized to prepare a new fluorinated bismaleimide monomer OFCP-BMIvia a nucleophilic addition-elimination reaction. The resulting OFCP-BMI is characterized by 1H, 13C, 19F nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and high resolution mass spectrometry. The monomer OFCP-BMI reacts with a free radical initiator or self-cures to prepare its resins. No obvious glass transition temperature (Tg) below 260°C was observed for the self-curing resin suggesting that a highly cross-linked polymeric network was formed. The self-curing resin exhibits excellent thermal stability with the on-set weight loss temperature (Ton-setd) of 445°C and a 50% char yield at 800°C under a nitrogen atmosphere. The resin obtained by a free radical polymerization process exhibits less thermal stability and a lower char yield than the self-curing resin due to its lower cross-linking density. The self-curing resin exhibits a low dielectric constant (Dk = 2.5)
Cluster expansion approach and fluctuation results in mean field spin glass theory
Get PDFSubmission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2025-08-01The student, Qiang Wu, accepted the attached license on 2023-07-05 at 16:56.The student, Qiang Wu, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2023-07-05 at 17:06.This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2023-07-13 at 15:55.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #19265 on 2023-12-04 at 17:17:43Mean field spin glass theory has undergone tremendous development in the last twenty years, particularly with the proof of the Parisi formula for evaluating limiting free energy at any temperature. However, as a variational formula, it is less effective for dealing with higher-order asymptotics, such as related fluctuation problems. This thesis, composed of several papers, is devoted to establishing fluctuation results for a broad range of mean field spin glass models by developing several different techniques
Structural anisotropy results in strain-tunable electronic and optical properties in monolayer GeX and SnX (X = S, Se, Te)
No full textThe Association of Waist Circumference With Functional Mobility Among Adults With Obesity and Knee Osteoarthritis
No full textAbstract
Date Presented 3/30/2017
We examined to what extent high waist circumference was linked with decreased functional mobility over 4 yr in adults with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Measuring waist circumference may better stratify the risk of decreased functional mobility among adults with obesity and knee OA.
Primary Author and Speaker: Simone Gill
Contributing Authors: Gregory E. Hicks, Yuqing Zhang, Jingbo Niu, Caroline M. Apovian, Daniel K. White</jats:p
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