Autonomous dynamic displacement estimation from data fusion of acceleration and intermittent displacement measurements

Addressing the importance of displacement measurement of structural responses in the field of structural health monitoring, this paper presents an autonomous algorithm for dynamic displacement estimation from acceleration integration fused with displacement data intermittently measured. The presented acceleration integration algorithm of multi-rate Kalman filtering distinguishes itself from the past study in the literature by explicitly considering acceleration measurement bias. Furthermore, the algorithm is formulated by unique state definition of integration errors and error dynamics system modeling. To showcase performance of the algorithm, a series of laboratory dynamic experiments for measuring structural responses of acceleration and displacement are conducted. Improved results are demonstrated through comparison between the proposed and past study.     

Semiparametric analysis of clustered interval-censored survival data with a cure fraction

A generalization of the semiparametric Cox’s proportional hazards model by means of a random effect or frailty approach to accommodate clustered survival data with a cure fraction is considered. The frailty serves as a quantification of the health condition of the subjects under study and may depend on some observed covariates like age. One single individual-specific frailty that acts on the hazard function is adopted to determine the cure status of an individual and the heterogeneity on the time to event if the individual is not cured. Under this formulation, an individual who has a high propensity to be cured would tend to have a longer time to event if he is not cured. Within a cluster, both the cure statuses and the times to event of the individuals would be correlated. In contrast to some models proposed in the literature, the model accommodates the correlations among the observations in a more natural way. A multiple imputation estimation method is proposed for both right-censored and interval-censored data. Simulation studies show that the performance of the proposed estimation method is highly satisfactory. The proposed model and method are applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s hypobaric decompression sickness data to investigate the factors associated with the occurrence and the time to onset of grade IV venous gas emboli under hypobaric environments.     

GPU-based optimal control for RWM feedback in tokamaks

The design and implementation of a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) based Resistive Wall Mode (RWM) controller to perform feedback control on the RWM using Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control is reported herein. The control algorithm is based on a simplified DIII-D VALEN model. By using NVIDIA’s GPUDirect RDMA framework, the digitizer and output module are able to write and read directly to and from GPU memory, eliminating memory transfers between host and GPU. The system and algorithm was able to reduce plasma response excited by externally applied fields by 32% during development experiments.     

Numerical analyses on liquid-metal magnetohydrodynamic flow in sudden channel expansion

Three-dimensional numerical calculations have been performed on the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flows through a rectangular channel with sudden expansion, particularly in order to estimate the pressure drop through the sudden expansion. The sudden expansion is in the directions both perpendicular and parallel to the applied magnetic field. The Hartmann number, the Reynolds number and the magnetic Reynolds number are set to ～100, ～1000 and ～0.001, respectively, in simulating laboratory conditions. The continuity equation, the momentum equation and the induction equation were solved numerically by the finite difference method as discretization following the MAC method as solution procedure. On the whole, in the sudden expansion in the direction perpendicular to applied magnetic field, the loss coefficient is estimated to be nearly zero or small. In particular, the loss coefficient becomes negative for small aspect ratios. The reason of negative loss coefficient is attributable to decrease in the induced current just upstream of the expansion. On the other hand, in the sudden expansion in the direction of applied magnetic field, all the cases give positive and large loss coefficients, meaning that the pressure drop through the expansion becomes large. In particular, the loss coefficient becomes considerably large when the Hartmann number increases.     

The role of big data and cognitive computing in the learning process

In this paper, we investigate how the raise of big data and cognitive computing systems is going to redesign the labor market, also impacting on the learning processes. In this respect, we make reference to higher education and we depict a model of a smart university, which relies on the concepts that are at the basis of the novel smart-cities’ development trends. Thus, we regard education as a process so that we can find specific issues to solve to overcome existing criticisms, and provide some suggestions on how to enhance universities’ performances. We highlight inputs, outputs, and dependencies in a block diagram, and we propose a solution built on a new paradigm called smarter-university, in which knowledge grows rapidly, is easy to share, and is regarded as a common heritage of both teachers and students. Among the others, a paramount consequence is that there is a growing demand for competences and skills that recall the so called T-shape model and we observe that this is pushing the education system to include a blend of disciplines in the curriculums of their courses. In this overview, among the wide variety of recent innovations, we focus our attention on cognitive computing systems and on the exploitation of big data, that we expect to further accelerate the refurbishment process of the key components of the knowledge society and universities as well.     

Theoretical Hypothesis of a Double Barrier Regarding the D-D Interaction in a Pd Lattice： A Possible Explanation of Cold Fusion Experiment Failures

During the past 15 years, disputable experimental evidence has built up for LERN （low energy nuclear reaction） phenomena in specialized heavy hydrogen systems. Actually, it can not be said that a new branch of science is beginning. In spite of experimental contributions, the real problem is that the theoretical statements of LERN are unknown. In this work, the authors analyze the deuteron-deuteron reactions within palladium lattice by means of the coherence theory of nuclear and condensed matter and, using this general theoretical framework accepted from ＂cold fusion scientists＂, it will be shown the low occurrence probability of fusion phenomena. In fact, in the coherence approach, the D-D potential exhibits double barrier features and, in this way, the D-D fusion is hampered.     

A variable fidelity information fusion method based on radial basis function

Radial basis function (RBF) model has been widely used in complex engineering design process to replace the computational-intensive simulation models. This paper proposes a variable-fidelity metamodeling (VFM) approach based on RBF, in which different levels fidelity information can be integrated and fully exploited. In the proposed VFM approach, a RBF metamodel is constructed for the low-fidelity (LF) model as a start. Then by taking the constructed LF metamodel as a prior-knowledge and mapping the output space of the LF metamodel to that of the studied high-fidelity (HF) model, a variable fidelity (VF) metamodel is created to approximate the relationships between the design variables and corresponding output responses. A numerical illustrative example is adopted to make a detailed comparison between the VFM approach developed in this research and three existing scaling function based VFM approaches, considering different sample sizes and sample noises. Results illustrate that the proposed VFM approach outperforms the scaling function based VFM approaches both in global and local accuracy. Then the proposed VFM approach is applied to two engineering problems, modeling aerodynamic data for a three-dimensional aircraft and the prediction of weld bead profile in laser welding, to illustrate its ability in support of complex engineering design.     

240Pu自发裂变气体产物产额的唯像模型研究

基于裂变多模式无规颈断裂物理思想，建立了中子诱发²³⁹Pu裂变、²⁴⁰Pu自发裂变系统裂变产额计算的唯像模型。以实验数据为基础，利用最小二乘法确定了唯像模型参数。基于唯像模型计算的产额，结合实验数据系统规律进行分析和再评价，给出²⁴⁰Pu自发裂变气体产物^87,88Kr和^133,135Xe的累积产额推荐值。     

Calculation of neutron cross-sections on copper-63 and -65

Toward the development of the next version of Japanese Evaluated Nuclear Data Library (JENDL) general-purpose file, we calculate neutron cross-sections on ^{63, 65}Cu from 50 keV to 20 MeV, which is the incident energy range above the resolved resonance region in JENDL-4.0. A dispersive optical model potential is adopted with a coupled-channel method for interaction between neutron and ^{63, 65}Cu. Direct, pre-equilibrium, and compound processes are taken into account in the calculation. All cross-sections, differential and double-differential cross-sections are consistently calculated with a single set of model parameters. The calculation results reproduce the measured data very well. In addition, disagreement between the calculated and experimental values seen in an integral test for the ⁶³Cu(n, α)⁶⁰Co reaction is improved by using the cross-section data obtained from the present work.