Banding formation and eutectic lamellar growth in directional solidified Ni50Al20Fe30 alloy

Banding formation and eutectic lamellar growth in a directionally solidified Ni₅₀Al₂₀Fe₃₀ alloy were investigated. It was found that the banding area consists of two layers. The first layer is a γ layer, while the subsequent one is a γ layer. The composition of various phases around the banding area changes with the solidification process. The banding is formed by two steps process and caused by factors such as the fractions during the sample growth process. It was found that the band was found at relatively low growth rate. Therefore. this study indicates that increasing the growth rate is an effective method to eliminate the band formation. Eutectic lamellae nucleate and grow again after the banding formation. During the initial transition lamellar growth, the relationship between the square lamellar spacing, γ₂, and the distance from, the banding, d, can be described by the following equation: γ₂ = K [1-exp(A.d)] where K and A are constant.     

Using Semantic Classification Trees for WSD

This paper describes the evaluation of a WSD method withinSENSEVAL. This method is based on Semantic Classification Trees (SCTs)and short context dependencies between nouns and verbs. The trainingprocedure creates a binary tree for each word to be disambiguated. SCTsare easy to implement and yield some promising results. The integrationof linguistic knowledge could lead to substantial improvement.     

Evaluation of Linguistic Features for Word Sense Disambiguation with Self-Organized Document Maps

Word sense disambiguation automatically determines the appropriate senses of a word in context. We have previously shown that self-organized document maps have properties similar to a large-scale semantic structure that is useful for word sense disambiguation. This work evaluates the impact of different linguistic features on self-organized document maps for word sense disambiguation. The features evaluated are various qualitative features, e.g. part-of-speech and syntactic labels, and quantitative features, e.g. cut-off levels for word frequency. It is shown that linguistic features help make contextual information explicit. If the training corpus is large even contextually weak features, such as base forms, will act in concert to produce sense distinctions in a statistically significant way. However, the most important features are syntactic dependency relations and base forms annotated with part of speech or syntactic labels. We achieve 62.9% ± 0.73% correct results on the fine grained lexical task of the English SENSEVAL-2 data. On the 96.7% of the test cases which need no back-off to the most frequent sense we achieve 65.7% correct results.     

Tuning in to psychological change: Linguistic markers of psychological traits and emotions over time in popular U.S. song lyrics.

American culture is filled with cultural products. Yet few studies have investigated how changes in cultural products correspond to changes in psychological traits and emotions. The current research fills this gap by testing the hypothesis that one cultural product—word use in popular song lyrics—changes over time in harmony with cultural changes in individualistic traits. Linguistic analyses of the most popular songs from 1980–2007 demonstrated changes in word use that mirror psychological change. Over time, use of words related to self-focus and antisocial behavior increased, whereas words related to other-focus, social interactions, and positive emotion decreased. These findings offer novel evidence regarding the need to investigate how changes in the tangible artifacts of the sociocultural environment can provide a window into understanding cultural changes in psychological processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

基于汉语分词的信息抽取技术

随着信息时代的到来，如何将大量无序的信息及时准确地提取、整理、组织成便于查询检索的形式，巳成为研究开发的焦点。尤其是随着互联网技术的高速发展，为用户提供了更加丰富的信息。将基于汉语自动分词的综合信息抽取技术应用于信息检索，具有实际应用意义和价值。     

A study of the thermal performance of reflective coatings for the urban environment

This paper presents the results of a comparative study aiming to investigate the effect of reflective coatings on lowering surface temperatures of buildings and other surfaces of the urban environment, and thus test their suitability to lower ambient temperatures and fight the heat island effect. In total, 14 types of reflective coatings, selected from the international market were studied, from August to October 2004, on a 24 h basis. These coatings are used in buildings and some of them are used or could be used in the future in other surfaces of the urban environment (sidewalks, parking lots, etc.). In order to investigate the thermal performance of the reflective coatings, surface temperature sensors and a data logging system as well as infrared thermography procedures were used. The spectral reflectance and the infrared emittance of the samples were also measured. The collected data have been extensively analyzed. It was demonstrated that the use of reflective coatings can reduce a white concrete tile’s surface temperature under hot summer conditions by 4 °C and during the night by 2 °C. It can be warmer, than the ambient air by only 2 °C during the day and cooler than the ambient air by 5.9 °C during the night. “Cool” coatings present superior thermal performance even compared to other “cool” materials. This study can assist in choosing more appropriate coatings for building envelopes and other surfaces of the urban environment, and thus contribute to the mitigation of the heat island effect as well as the reduction of cooling loads and electricity consumption of buildings.     

Fast-response storage-type solar cooker

All the solar powered cookers presently available in the world market are of the so-called “Reflector Box” type. Despite the fact that they have been presented, for a good few years, to the market and are very simple and low cost they have not managed to establish any meaningful and noticeable presence in a viable commercial sense. This fact is even more in evidence in those markets they are primarily designed for. The reasons to the lack of commercial success for the reflector box type cookers are analysed in some details. The assessment of general features and performance of the reflector box type cooker led to the design of the Fast Response Storage Type Cooker presented in this paper.The new cooker is the result of combination of non-tracking compound parabolic reflector, fast response heat pipes, high-quality and low-cost thermal insulator, low-loss thermal storage battery, glass to metal seals, vacuum technology and bimetal automatic switches. It is capable of storing the solar energy during the day to facilitate cooking during the evenings and nights. A prototype is made and the performance of the elements of the system are presented. It shows how the “waste-energy” of the cooker can be used for other applications.     

New approach to stability of 2-D discrete systems with state saturation

A new criterion for the global asymptotic stability of 2-D discrete systems described by the Roesser model using saturation arithmetic is presented. The criterion is a generalization over an earlier criterion due to Liu and Michel. The generalized criterion has the feature that Lyapunov matrix P is not restricted to be symmetric, i.e., P can be even unsymmetric. A modified form of the criterion is also presented. Two examples showing the effectiveness of the generalized approach to yield new 2-D stability results are provided. To the best of author's knowledge, the use of unsymmetric P to obtain new 2-D stability conditions (i.e., conditions which are outside the scope of symmetric P) is demonstrated, for first time, in this paper.