Thin-walled pressure vessels of minimum mass or maximum volume

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - This paper deals with two optimisation problems related to axisymmetric membrane shells made of homogeneous, linear and isotropic materials and...     

Endometrial thickness: individual and mean growth profiles for different hormone replacement regimens

Currently, there is a paucity of data describing endometrial growth, with most studies concentrating on endometrial thickness immediately prior to implantation or embryo transfer. This study looked at the individual and combined growth profiles of 67 volunteers receiving three different hormone replacement regimens. Each treatment regimen was in excess of that considered necessary for optimal growth, and all promoted an endometrial thickness that would be considered satisfactory for embryo transfer. Three patterns of growth were identified, but overall there was a decrease in the rate of endometrial growth with duration of treatment. As expected, analysis of variance did not show a significant difference between the mean growth profiles for the three hormone replacement regimens. The correlation (r = 0.45, P < 0.0001) between rank order on day 3 and day 10 of treatment indicates that interim analysis during early treatment cannot accurately predict later thickness, but a doubling of endometrial thickness can be expected in most cases. A relationship between endometrial thickness and either the treatment dose or serum concentrations of oestradiol was not found. These findings suggest that manipulation of endometrial growth is not possible by adjustment of either the treatment dose or serum concentration. The findings indicate that treatment beyond 12 days does not promote either a clinically significant increase in endometrial thickness of an excessive thickness, suggesting that maintenance of an oocyte recipient in a pseudo-follicular phase is unlikely to be disadvantageous to implantation.     

Optimization of Recursive Least Square-Based Adaptive Linear Equalizer for ZigBee Transceiver

An efficient technique to compensate for the channel detrimental effects in ZigBee systems is introduced in this paper. The proposed methodology relies on adding a recursive least square (RLS) based adaptive linear equalizer (ALE) to the physical layer of the receiver side. The performance of the RLS based ALE is investigated inside the ZigBee system under different multipath fading situations: Rician and Rayleigh. Moreover, the paper proposes a methodology for deciding the RLS based ALE’s design parameters. The design procedure depends on solving multiple objectives optimizing function based on genetic algorithms (GAs). The ALE’s parameters are chosen, such that the system experiences minimum bit error rate (BER) with fast convergence response. For design verification purposes, the ZigBee transceiver is modeled in MATLAB Simulink and tested under different fading and signal to noise ratios. In addition, the performance of the RLS adaptation algorithm is compared with the least mean square (LMS) one. The results show that the RLS based ALE provides better ZigBee performance with less BER and fast adaptation response.     

Quantum information approach to the azurite mineral frustrated quantum magnet

Quantum correlations are almost impossible to address in bulk systems. Quantum measures extended only to a few number of parties can be discussed in practice. In the present work, we study nonlocality for a cluster of spins belonging to a mineral whose structure is that of a quantum magnet. We reproduce at a much smaller scale the experimental outcomes, and then, we study the role of quantum correlations there. A macroscopic entanglement witness has been introduced in order to reveal nonlocal quantum correlations between individual constituents of the azurite mineral at nonzero temperatures. The critical point beyond which entanglement is zero is found at \(T_c < 1\,\mathrm{K}\).     

Do multipartite correlations speed up adiabatic quantum computation or quantum annealing?

Quantum correlations are thought to be the reason why certain quantum algorithms overcome their classical counterparts. Since the nature of this resource is still not fully understood, we shall investigate how multipartite entanglement and non-locality among qubits vary as the quantum computation runs. We shall encounter that quantum measures on the whole system cannot account for their corresponding speedup.     

Functionality Aware Dynamic Composition of Web Services

The composition of the web service is a common technique to attain the best results of complex web tasks. The selection of appropriate web services, linking those services in the action flow and attaining the actual functionality of the task are the important factors to be considered. Even though different frameworks and methods have been proposed to dynamically compose web services, each method has its advantage and disadvantage over the other. Most of the methods give much importance to the Quality of Service (QoS) but fail to achieve the actual functionality after composition. This paper proposes a functionality-oriented composition technique for composing web services. Moreover, this method helps reach the extreme functionality of each web service in the composition towards customer satisfaction. Apart from considering the overall QoS of every single service, the non-functional parameters associated with these services are also considered for achieving the expected functionality. Each of these non-functional parameters has a vital role in the functional performance of the web service. The web services that satisfy the non-functional requirements are chosen to form the composition to attain the best performance. The list of services in the proposed composition method is different from the conventional one, which is composed based on the overall QoS. The non-functional parametric values, the QoS of each web service and the overall QoS after composition are evaluated for the proposed method and experimentally analyzed to prove their advantage over the others.     

Heterogeneous polymerization of some methacrylate monomers

It has been found that sodium metabisulphite failed to initiate the polymerization of methyl and butyl acrylates but succeeded in polymerizing methyl, ethyl, and hydroxy propyl methacrylates. All the samples of the poly(hydroxypropyl methacrylates) were crosslinked, even those prepared at low conversions. Gel permeation chromatographic analysis indicated a multinodal molecular weight distribution, suggesting the existence of more than one mechanism occurring in such a heterogeneous system. It has also been proved by electron spin resonance that the polymerization process, using sodium bisulphite as the initiator in such a system, is a radical mechanism. The use of substances such as quartz, glass powder, and kaoline powder enabled the detection of the bisulphite radicals by trapping them. Using ¹³C NMR spectroscopy, the estimated triad fractions from α-methyl peaks and from quaternary carbon peaks of the poly(methyl methacrylates) and poly(ethyl methacrylates) showed that the polymers obtained were all predominantly syndiotactic in structure, as expected. The poly(ethyl methacrylate) samples were found to have a slightly higher syndiotacticity than the poly(methyl methacrylates), also as expected. The greater bulk of the ethyl ester group relative to that of the methyl ester group probably leads to greater steric hindrance in the isotactic and heterotactic triad (i.e., in a mesodyad).     

Serum Unsaponifiables Changes as an Indication of Different Pregnancy Periods and Abnormal Cases in Women

Gas chromatographic profiles of serum unsaponifiables were analysed for 70 specimens representing non-pregnant, pregnant at first, second and third trimesters, abortion and pre-eclamptic patients. The analysis showed that the unsaponifiable matter of women's serum consisted of 8 different hydrocarbons and sterols with β-sitosterol the most abundant substance. Quantitative differences in the unsaponifiable constituents of women's serum from nonpregnant, pregnant and abnormal cases were found. Therefore, an examination of unsaponifiable matter appears to provide a rapid and simple laboratory method for the prediction of gestation periods and to define the abnormal cases in women.