Analysis of viscoelastic laminated composite plates

A micromechanics analysis is performed for the determination of the five independent elastic moduli of unidirectional fiber composites. By considering viscoelastic phases and by using the correspondence principle and the inversion of the Laplace transform, the five time-dependent functions which characterize the effective behavior of viscoelastic composites are established. The predicted time-dependent behavior is applied for the analysis of viscoelastic laminated plates. The resulting viscoelastic effects are shown, and comparison between the results obtained within the classical laminated plate theory and the first-order shear deformation theory is discussed.     

Subjective well-being among Holocaust survivors: An examination of overlooked differentiations.

This study addressed the issue of adjustment among Holocaust survivors by multidimensional assessment of subjective well-being (SWB). Participants were Israeli Holocaust survivors incidentally included in a life-span study (Group 1; n?=?466) or purposely approached for studying Holocaust survivors (Group 2; n?=?178). Comparison participants had immigrated to Israel before World War II, with their parents either undergoing (Group 3; n?=?270) or not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 4; n?=?388); other comparison participants had immigrated after the war with parents not undergoing the Holocaust (Group 5; n?=?166). Results showed that Group 1 scored lower than Group 2, mainly in positive affect. Group 1 scored lower than Group 4, and to a lesser extent also lower than Groups 3 and 5, mainly in aging-related themes of SWB. The study suggests that long-term effects of the Holocaust on the survivors' SWB are traceable but require a differential approach to the study groups and to the facets of SWB. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Photonic access concentrator for ATM gigabit switching fabrics

In future broadband communication networks the interest for purely photonic switches is due to the bandwidth mismatch between optical transmission networks and electronic switching nodes. Photonic ATM switching fabrics mainly based on wavelength-switching stages are therefore being studied, to implement high capacity switches with also concentration, multiplexing and demultiplexing functions, using state-of-the-art photonic technology. The architecture of an ATM photonic access concentrator is described in this paper, illustrating the design and implementation of its basic subsystems, the traffic concentrator and the cell multiplexer. The design guidelines are outlined in detail referring to an example, where 128 user lines at 622 Mb/s are given access to 4 outlets at 2.488 Gb/s. The corresponding implementation, based on the systematic use of cell wavelength encoding, makes use either of well-known photonic components, such as Fabry-Perot filters, fiber delay lines, splitters and combiners, either of recently developed devices, like high-speed optical gates and tunable filters and lasers. Finally, the system feasibility is demonstrated presenting the results obtained on a reduced size and speed experimental setup of the cell multiplexer     

Health insurance status and the use of emergency and other outpatient services by adults with sickle cell disease

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To evaluate insurance status and frequency of use of emergency services in adults with sickle cell disease. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of visits. SETTING: Emergency department and outpatient clinics of an urban university hospital. PARTICIPANTS: One hundred seventy-two subjects, who made 771 visits to the ED during 1990. RESULTS: Of the 172 subjects, 31 were covered by commercial insurance, 32 were covered by Medicare, and 109 were covered by Medicaid or were uninsured. Insurance status and frequency of use of emergency services were independent (P > .05). On discriminant analysis, Medicaid-covered and uninsured subjects were correctly classified, but commercially insured and Medicare subjects were not. Medicaid and uninsured subjects were more likely to be younger and to live closer to the hospital (P < .00005). High-frequency users of emergency services were discriminated from low-frequency users. High-frequency users were more likely to be younger, to be users of primary-care services, and to live closer to the hospital (P = .0004). CONCLUSION: Provision of primary-care services or stable insurance in the form of commercial insurance or Medicare did not decrease use of emergency services in subjects with sickle cell disease in a group of patients selected from one urban academic ED.     

Debugging programs that use macro-oriented data abstractions

Enhanced C (EC) is a set-oriented, extensible, C-like language. EC uses data abstractions to define new types. These data abstractions, called clusters, are macro-like devices that perform substitution on the typed syntax tree. Debugging programs that use clusters raise problems that are not encountered in ordinary programming languages. At compile time there is a need to determine and report whether the macro expansion will result in a legal program before this expansion actually takes place. At run-time the problems are how to account for replaced statements and how to handle variables whose types have been established by the clusters, variables that disappear, or variables whose names have been changed. This article presents these problems and their solutions as implemented by the EC compiler and the EC symbolic debugger. Similar debugging problems appear in other languages: The need to handle variables at run time is common to all languages that support data abstraction even if the abstractions are procedure oriented; also, a mild form of the problem of the replaced statement appears in inline procedure substitution of Ada. The solutions developed for the EC debugger apply to these cases as well.     

Evaluation of the reactivity of titanium with mould materials during casting

A methodology for evaluating the reactivity of titanium with mould materials during casting has been developed. Microhardness profiles and analysis of oxygen contamination have provided an index for evaluation of the reactivity of titanium. Microhardness profile delineates two distinct regions, one of which is characterised by a low value of hardness which is invariant with distance. The reaction products are uniformly distributed in the metal in this region. The second is characterised by a sharp decrease in microhardness with distance from the metal-mould interface. It represents a diffusion zone for solutes that dissolve into titanium from the mould. The qualitative profiles for contaminants determined by scanning electron probe microanalyser and secondary ion mass spectroscopy in the as-cast titanium were found to be similar to that of microhardness, implying that microhardness can be considered as an index of the contamination resulting from metal-mould reaction.     

The roles of computerized support systems: a decision subprocess-based analysis

This paper analyses the potential roles of computerized systems in supporting the decision-making process. Toward this end, we propose an expository process model of decision-making and develop a framework that provides the infrastructure for the analysis. The proposed process model draws on two well-known models in the literature and enumerates eight distinct phases in decision-making. The framework developed is based on an integration of this process model with Simon's notion of 'decision-structuredness'. Unlike any of the existing frameworks, the suggested framework permits a micro-level analysis of support system roles. The analysis is intended as a pre-design guide, to help systems developers and users to identify support potential and possibilities, and to target their activities accordingly.