Numerical Study of Finite Element Method Based Solutions for Propagation of Wetting Fronts in Unsaturated Soil

The accurate prediction of the propagation of a wetting front in an unsaturated soil subjected to surficial infiltration is of practical importance to many geotechnical and geoenvironmental problems. The finite element method is the most common solution technique as the hydraulic soil properties are highly nonlinear. Two important issues are often found to create difficulties in such analyses. First, numerical oscillations are usually observed in the calculated pore pressures at the wetting front. Second, when a reasonable mesh size and time step are used, the elevation of the wetting front may be seriously overpredicted. This paper is focused on the second issue. The under-relaxation (UR) technique used in the iterative process within each time step is found to have a serious impact on rate of convergence with refinement in mesh size and time step. Two different techniques are typically used; the first evaluates the hydraulic conductivity using an average of heads calculated from the preceding time node and the most recent iteration of the current time node (UR1), and the second evaluates the hydraulic conductivity using the average of heads calculated from the two most recent iterations of the current time nodes (UR2). The study shows that UR1, which is adopted in programs such as SEEP/W, ensures that the solution converges rapidly to a stable solution within a time step, but may converge to the wrong wetting front at a given elapsed time unless a sufficiently refined mesh is used. UR2 converges much more slowly within a time step, but the error in the wetting front is smaller than that generated by UR1.     

Delay-dependent state estimation for delayed neural networks

In this letter, the delay-dependent state estimation problem for neural networks with time-varying delay is investigated. A delay-dependent criterion is established to estimate the neuron states through available output measurements such that the dynamics of the estimation error is globally exponentially stable. The proposed method is based on the free-weighting matrix approach and is applicable to the case that the derivative of a time-varying delay takes any value. An algorithm is presented to compute the state estimator. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach and the improvement over existing ones.     

Gastrointestinal autonomic nerve tumour presenting as small bowel volvulus: a rare disease with a rare presentation

A 78-year-old Chinese woman presented with recurrent postprandial abdominal pain. Computerised tomography revealed a small bowel tumour causing volvulus of a segment of the small bowel. Laparotomy confirmed an extraluminal ileal tumour with partial volvulus of the involved small bowel segment. Small bowel resection was done. Histological and ultrastructural studies confirmed a gastrointestinal autonomic nerve tumour. We review the medical literature on this rare tumour.     

An accurate and practical buffer allocation model for the buffer cache based on marginal gains

A new dynamic buffer allocation strategy based on the notion of marginal gains is presented for the buffer cache that is used by the operating system to store frequently accessed disk blocks in main memory, and the performance of the proposed strategy is compared with those of previous allocation strategies. In the proposed strategy, marginal gain values are predicted by exploiting functions that approximate the expected number of buffer hits per unit time. Experimental results from both trace-driven simulation and an actual implementation in the FreeBSD operating system show that the proposed strategy accurately predicts the marginal gain values for various workloads resulting in significantly improved buffer hit ratios.     

Myeloma stem cells in autografting in multiple myeloma

Autologous transplantation has been used increasingly over the last 10 years for the treatment of multiple myeloma. As is the case in other cancers treated by high-dose therapy and stem cell rescue, the contribution of occult tumor cells in the graft to relapse posttransplant remains to be resolved. In this report, we review the biology and differentiation of plasma cells in the context of their significance as an origin of relapse in multiple myeloma.     

Ductile Phase Toughened Brittle Materials

Toughening of brittle materials by the inclusion of ductile phases is governed by several important factors which include ceramic-ductile phase interfacial bond strength, physical and chemical compatibility between ceramic and ductile phase, geometry and mechanical properties of ductile phase. The present understanding of the effect of these factors on toughening is reviewed and clarified. Continuous ductile phases (network, fibre or plate) are found to be more efficient for the toughening of brittle materials than discrete ductile particles. However, ductile particle toughened brittle materials have the advantages of material homogeneity isotropy and particularly better high temperature properties. It has been demonstrated that the influence of interfacial bond strength is determined by the geometry of the ductile phase in the composites. For the comparatively continuous ductile phase, such as ductile network, fibre or plate, comparatively weak inteffocial bond strength can promote partial debonding of the brittle matrix-ductile phase intedece during crack propagation and is beneficial for toughening. For discrete particulate ductile phase toughened brittle materials, the small gauge length of the ductile phase often results in the ductile phase pull-out during crack propagation which is the main limitation to toughening.Thus strong bond strength is required to ensure the bridging of the crack by the ductile phase.The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatch between matrix and ductile phase has also been correlated with the geometry of the ductile phase. In most of the ceramic/metal systems,the CTE of the ductile metal phase is greater than that of the ceramic matrix. In the case of ductile network, fibre or plate, the residual stress created by the CTE mismatch can contribute to toughening through its influence on the initial crack opening stress while the bridging of the crack by the ductile phase is still ensured. However, for discrete ductile particles, the residual stress created by CTE mismatch is liable to cause cracks to by-pass the spherical particles, limiting the efficient use of the inherent toughness of the ductile phase. Low-modulus ductile inclusions are beneficial for the bridging of cracks by the ductile phase. Softer, more ductile inclusions are more effective for the toughening of brittle materials by particulate ductile phase     

宝山水电站坝区配电的选型及应用

本文通过ZWB组合式变电站在黑龙江省宝山水电站工程中的应用,论述了在坝区配电中选用组合式变电站的作用和必要性,并简要介绍了宝山电站组合式变电站的选型要点。