Pull-out and fragmentation in model fibre composites

An experimental study has been carried out of debonding and fibre rupture in model composites. A single glass rod or fibre was embedded in the centre of a long transparent silicone rubber block. Strains in the rubber in close proximity to the rod or fibre were measured as the specimen was slowly stretched. Pull-out forces, strain distributions, and debonded lengths are compared with the predictions of a simple theory based on a fracture energy criterion for debonding, and taking into account friction at the debonded interface. Experiments were carried out with rods of different diameter, rubber blocks of varied cross-section, and with two levels of adhesion. By extrapolating the debonded length to zero, values of the debonding force in the absence of friction were obtained. They were in accord with fracture energies of about 50 J/m² for weak bonding and about 200 J/m² for strong bonding. Fibre fragmentation lengths were measured also. They were in reasonable agreement with the inferred fracture energies and the measured frictional properties of silicone rubber sliding on glass. In a separate study, it was found that the frictional stress between cast silicone rubber and glass was approximately constant, about 0.1 MPa, rather than proportional to pressure, for pressures exceeding about 0.02 MPa. This feature is attributed to a particularly smooth interface between the two materials.     

The seismic kernel system — a large-scale exercise in fortran 77 portability

The portability of software has become a major commercial issue in recent times. Such portability does not come easily, as few if any computer languages are really portable in practice. An additional complicating factor, especially in the commercial environment, is that the resulting software must be efficient. This paper describes the design and successful implementation of a 500,000+ line portable FORTRAN 77 package for the processing of seismic data. The package exhibits demonstrably high efficiency on a wide variety of machines from minicomputers to the largest supercomputers. Experiences gained during this exercise throw much light on the integration of the various thought processes which occur during the software engineering cycle, especially the notion of locality.     

New and Improved Tests for Adhesion

Three new methods are discussed for measuring the work G_a, required to detach unit area of an adhering material from a substrate. The first is a simple modification of the Outwater double-torsion test for long rectangular plates, bonded together. This method is suitable for evaluating aluminum-epoxy bonds, for example, or the transverse strength of fibrous composites. The second is a pull-off test for long strips adhering to a rigid surface. It seems suitable for adhesive tapes and laminates. The third is a reconsideration of the “blister” test for films and coatings, in which a circular debond at the interface is made to grow by internal pressure. The relation obtained between pull-off force F for a strip, or blow-off pressure P for a layer, takes the unusual form:

F⁴ (or P⁴) ∞ KG³_a

where K is the tensile stiffness of the detaching layer. This dependence arises from the non-linear (cubic) relation between load or pressure and deflection in these configurations. Nevertheless, the product Fθ, where θ is the angle of detachment of a strip, or Py, where y is the height of a “blister”, give direct measures of the strength of adhesion G_a, independent of the stiffness of the adhering material and of the extent of detachment.     

Preclinical Assessment of the Combination of PSMA-Targeting Radionuclide Therapy with PARP Inhibitors for Prostate Cancer Treatment

Prostate specific membrane antigen targeted radionuclide therapy (PSMA-TRT) is a promising novel treatment for prostate cancer (PCa) patients. However, PSMA-TRT cannot be used for curative intent yet, thus additional research on how to improve the therapeutic efficacy is warranted. A potential way of achieving this, is combining TRT with poly ADP-ribosylation inhibitors (PARPi), which has shown promising results for TRT of neuroendocrine tumor cells. Currently, several clinical trials have been initiated for this combination for PCa, however so far, no evidence of synergism is available for PCa. Therefore, we evaluated the combination of PSMA-TRT with three classes of PARPi in preclinical PCa models. In vitro viability and survival assays were performed using PSMA-expressing PCa cell lines PC3-PIP and LNCaP to assess the effect of increasing concentrations of PARPi veliparib, olaparib or talazoparib in combination with PSMA-TRT compared to single PARPi treatment. Next, DNA damage analyses were performed by quantifying the number of DNA breaks by immunofluorescent stainings. Lastly, the potential of the combination treatments was studied in vivo in mice bearing PC3-PIP xenografts. Our results show that combining PSMA-TRT with PARPi did not synergistically affect the in vitro clonogenic survival or cell viability. DNA-damage analysis revealed only a significant increase in DNA breaks when combining PSMA-TRT with veliparib and not in the other combination treatments. Moreover, PSMA-TRT with PARPi treatment did not improve tumor control compared to PSMA-TRT monotherapy. Overall, the data presented do not support the assumption that combining PSMA-TRT with PARPi leads to a synergistic antitumor effect in PCa. These results underline that extensive preclinical research using various PCa models is imperative to validate the applicability of the combination strategy for PCa, as it is for other cancer types.     

Why are Tailored Messages More Effective? A Multiple Mediation Analysis of a Breast Cancer Screening Intervention

Past research has found that tailoring increases the persuasive effectiveness of a message. However, the observed effect has been small and the explanatory mechanism remains unknown. To address these shortcomings, a tailoring software program was created that personalized breast cancer screening pamphlets according to risk, health belief model constructs, and visual preference. Women aged 40 and older (N = 119) participated in a 2 (Tailored vs. Stock Message) × 2 (Charts/Graphs vs. Illustrated Visuals) × 3 (Nested Replications of the Visuals) experiment. Participants provided with tailored illustrated pamphlets expressed greater breast cancer screening intentions than those provided with other pamphlets. In a test of 10 different mediators, perceived message relevance was found to fully mediate the Tailoring × Visual interaction.     

An efficient algorithm for superresolution in medium field imaging

In this paper, we study the problem of reconstruction of a high-resolution (HR) image from several blurred low-resolution (LR) image frames in medium field. The image frames consist of blurred, decimated, and noisy versions of a HR image. The HR image is modeled as a Markov random field (MRF), and a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation technique is used for the restoration. We show that with the periodic boundary condition, a HR image can be restored efficiently by using fast Fourier transforms. We also apply the preconditioned conjugate gradient method to restore HR images in the aperiodic boundary condition. Computer simulations are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. This research was conducted with support from the Army Research Office Grant DAAD 19-03-1-0261 and the National Science Foundation Grant CCF-0429481. Research supported in part by RGC Grant Nos. 7130/02P, 7046/03P, 7035/04P and 7035/04P and FRG/04-05/II-51.     

Improving Quality of Crane-Lorry Assignments With Constraint Programming

The ability to maximize service quality while minimizing cost is very important to service-oriented businesses, such as lorry leasing. Very often, the ability to consistently offer higher quality service is the main differentiating factor between a business and its competitors. For lorry leasing businesses, service quality and cost are directly related to how resources-vehicles, cranes, and drivers-are allocated to jobs. The ability to assign the right combination of resources is crucial to daily operations. This paper presents how we modeled this assignment problem as a constraint-satisfaction problem (CSP) and implemented using constraint programming (CP) with an algorithm that we call the crane-lorry optimizing engine (CLOE). CLOE was implemented for the largest crane-lorry company in Hong Kong. Furthermore, plans are generated within seconds compared to close to an hour if done manually. All necessary constraints and criteria are considered systematically. We have experimented with many different types of search heuristics and have analyzed their effects on plan quality. We have found that by considering both the experience of the crane-lorry-driver combination and maximizing on the order assignment, we were able to generate plans that were significantly better than those produced by human planners, and within a substantially shorter time. Although the use of constraint-based assignment techniques is still limited in the vehicle leasing industry, we hope our combination of automated assignment with Internet portal technology that streamlines business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and business-to-employee communications can excite interest in this area     

High performance GaAs MESFETs with molecular implanted and optimized lowly-doped drain structure for maximized speed, gain and breakdown performance

GaAs MESFETs with novel lowly-doped drain structures have been developed utilizing molecular implants of silicon trifluoride. Short-channel effects in the 1/4 μm enhancement- and depletion-mode transistors have been suppressed with drain-induced barrier height lowering of less than 70 mV/V and pinch-off voltage shifts of less than 220 mV as the gate length was scaled from 1.0 to 1/4 μm. The 3-terminal breakdown, the transconductance to output conductance ratio, and the unity current gain, cut-off frequency were simultaneously optimized. The E-mode device possessed breakdown of >10 V, G_m · R_ds > 9.5, F_t > 55 GHz, and nominal on-resistance of 2.1 Ω mm while the D-mode device had breakdown >10 V, G_m · R_ds > 6.0, F_t > 45 GHz, and nominal on-resistance of 1.9 Ω mm. These optimized transistors enabled the realization of a variety of low-power digital and high-power mixed signal circuits, using 3-level source-coupled transistor and common-mode logic, such as laser and electro-optic drivers, highly integrated transceivers, multiplexers, demultiplexers, and clock data recover circuits.