Alexander Duality and Moments in Reliability Modelling

There are strong connections between coherent systems in reliability for systems which have components with a finite number of states and certain algebraic structures. A special case is binary systems where there are two states: fail and not fail. The connection relies on an order property in the system and a way of coding states with monomials . The algebraic entities are the Scarf complex and the associated Alexander duality. The failure event can be studied using these ideas and identities and bounds derived when the algebra is combined with probability distributions on the states. The x coding aids the use of moments =E(X ) with respect to the underlying distribution. Keywords:Reliability, Monomial ideals, Scarf complex, Alexander dual, Hilbert series, Moments     

Body expressions influence recognition of emotions in the face and voice.

The most familiar emotional signals consist of faces, voices, and whole-body expressions, but so far research on emotions expressed by the whole body is sparse. The authors investigated recognition of whole-body expressions of emotion in three experiments. In the first experiment, participants performed a body expression-matching task. Results indicate good recognition of all emotions, with fear being the hardest to recognize. In the second experiment, two alternative forced choice categorizations of the facial expression of a compound face-body stimulus were strongly influenced by the bodily expression. This effect was a function of the ambiguity of the facial expression. In the third experiment, recognition of emotional tone of voice was similarly influenced by task irrelevant emotional body expressions. Taken together, the findings illustrate the importance of emotional whole-body expressions in communication either when viewed on their own or, as is often the case in realistic circumstances, in combination with facial expressions and emotional voices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Glycerol Ethers Production and Engine Performance with Diesel/Ethers Blend

Spherical silica supported Hyflon^® catalysts (SSHC) were developed to produce ethers from glycerol by etherification reaction with isobutene. SSHC allowed to obtain yields to di- and tri-ethers, suitable as additives or components for diesel fuels, higher than that obtained with A-15 commercial catalyst, and a concentration of undesired mono-ether (not soluble in diesel) lower than 3 wt%. The novel catalysts investigated were found stable and easily reusable; their low acid site density prevented the occurrence of oligomerization reaction accounting for di-isobutene formation. Engine tests performed using a blend containing 10 vol% of glycerol ethers mixture confirmed the positive role of additives in reducing emissions of particulates and unburned hydrocarbons with significant improvement of diesel combustion efficiency.     

Learning concurrently data and rule bases of Mamdani fuzzy rule-based systems by exploiting a novel interpretability index

Interpretability of Mamdani fuzzy rule-based systems (MFRBSs) has been widely discussed in the last years, especially in the framework of multi-objective evolutionary fuzzy systems (MOEFSs). Here, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) are applied to generate a set of MFRBSs with different trade-offs between interpretability and accuracy. In MOEFSs interpretability has often been measured in terms of complexity of the rule base and only recently partition integrity has also been considered. In this paper, we introduce a novel index for evaluating the interpretability of MFRBSs, which takes both the rule base complexity and the data base integrity into account. We discuss the use of this index in MOEFSs, which generate MFRBSs by concurrently learning the rule base, the linguistic partition granularities and the membership function parameters during the evolutionary process. The proposed approach has been experimented on six real world regression problems and the results have been compared with those obtained by applying the same MOEA, with only accuracy and complexity of the rule base as objectives. We show that our approach achieves the best trade-offs between interpretability and accuracy.     

Stereoselective Monoamine Oxidase‐Catalyzed Oxidative Aza‐Friedel–Crafts Reactions of meso‐Pyrrolidines in Aqueous Buffer

We disclose the highly diastereoselective combination of monoamine oxidase‐catalyzed oxidation of meso‐pyrrolidines and aza‐Friedel–Crafts reactions in aqueous buffer to give valuable enantioenriched 2‐substituted pyrrolidines in a formal double C H activation process. A range of secondary as well as tertiary amines were shown to be suitable substrates for the biocatalytic oxidation and subsequent addition of a variety of C‐nucleophiles.

     

Indications for the applicability of element signature analysis for the determination of the geographic origin of dried beef and poultry meat

In order to determine the geographic origin of poultry and dried beef, concentrations of a total of 72 different elements (occasionally represented with several isotopes) were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma high resolution mass spectrometry (ICP-HRMS). Additionally, gross chemical composition (GCC) was analyzed. The 25 poultry breast filets samples originated from Switzerland, France, Germany, Hungary, Brazil, and Thailand, and the 23 dried beef samples, made from M. biceps femoris and M. semitendinosus, were produced in Switzerland, Austria, Australia, United States, and Canada out of raw meat originating either from these or from other countries. A total of 66 and 46 of the elements and isotopes followed were detected in beef and poultry, respectively. For statistical analyses, only the most abundant isotopes per element were used. For both poultry meat and dried beef, a differentiation of the origins was possible using those elements, which were significantly different across countries (As, Na, Rb, and Tl in poultry; B, Ca, Cd, Cu, Dy, Eu, Ga, Li, Ni, Pd, Rb, Sr, Te, Tl, Tm, V, Yb, and Zn in beef). No sufficient differentiation between origins was possible with GCC. Further studies have to confirm the suitability of this approach for meat authentication with more samples.