Surfacing methods for increasing the service life of rapidly wearing working tools of agricultural machines

The rapid wear of working tools of agricultural machines and equipment lowers the productivity of labour and the quality of operations. The most important and, correspondingly, most ‘problematic’ loaded components of agricultural machines are soil cultivating working tools. The principal methods of increasing the service life of these components are to use new materials and hardening surfacing technologies.     

Effect of the secondary current lead resistances on the properties of an arc steel-melting furnace as a receiver and transformer of electric power

The effect of the resistances of secondary current leads on the electrotechnical characteristics of an arc steel-melting furnace and heat regimes is considered.     

Moving toward more perfect unions: Daily and long-term consequences of approach and avoidance goals in romantic relationships.

In 2 daily experience studies and a laboratory study, the authors test predictions from approach-avoidance motivational theory to understand how dating couples can maintain feelings of relationship satisfaction in their daily lives and over the course of time. Approach goals were associated with increased relationship satisfaction on a daily basis and over time, particularly when both partners were high in approach goals. Avoidance goals were associated with decreases in relationship satisfaction over time, and people were particularly dissatisfied when they were involved with a partner with high avoidance goals. People high in approach goals and their partners were rated as relatively more satisfied and responsive to a partner's needs by outside observers in the lab, whereas people with high avoidance goals and their partners were rated as less satisfied and responsive. Positive emotions mediated the link between approach goals and daily satisfaction in both studies, and responsiveness to the partner's needs was an additional behavioral mechanism in Study 2. Implications of these findings for approach-avoidance motivational theory and for the maintenance of satisfying relationships over time are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control of the magnetic state of arrays of ferromagnetic nanoparticles with the aid of the inhomogeneous field of a magnetic-force-microscope probe

The work presents a survey of the results of studies of the processes of magnetization reversal of ferromagnetic nanoparticles under the action of the field of a magnetic force microscope probe.     

Problems of measurement of the Newtonian gravitational constant

Due to weakness of gravity, the accuracy of the Newtonian gravitational constant G is essentially below the accuracy of other fundamental constants. The current value of G, recommended by CODATA in 2006, based on all results available at the end of 2006, is G = (6.67428 ± 0.00067) × 10⁻¹¹ m³ kg⁻¹ s⁻² with a relative error of 100 ppm. New experiments at a level of accuracy of 10 to 30 ppm are now in progress in some world gravitational laboratories. One of the problems of improving the accuracy of G is a precision measurement of the period of eigen oscillations of the torsion balance. In this work, numerical modelling of torsion and swing oscillations is under the condition that the torsion system is subject to randomnoise. A newmethod of high-precision estimation of the period of torsion oscillations has been developed. The dependence of the torsion period value and the error of its estimation on the level of the acting seismic noise has been studied. To measure the Newtonian gravitational constant at the accuracy level of 10 ppm, the environmental seismic noise must be below 10⁻² mGal. Talk given at the International Conference RUSGRAV-13, June 23–28, 2008, PFUR, Moscow.     

Ellipsometry of chemically deposited PbS-ZnS films

The optical and dielectric characteristics of hydrochemically deposited films of lead sulfide (PbS) and supersaturated substitutional solid solutions of the PbS-ZnS system have been studied by the ellipsometry techniques. It is established that the formation of solid solutions leads to an increase in the refractive index and a decrease in the imaginary part of the complex dielectric constant as compared to those of pure PbS films. An increase in the content of ZnS in the solid solution us accompanied by a significant decrease in the dielectric loss tangent.     

Estimation of water balance over catchment areas taking into account the heterogeneity of their landscape conditions

The landscape conditions for forming the water balance and runoff from catchment areas can change considerably under the pressure of natural and anthropogenic factors. The role of hydromorphic transformation of landscapes is important for most of the Ob basin; it results in the paludification of the area. The specific parameter n is used in calculating water balance according to Mezentsev’s method of hydro-climatic calculations to take account of landscape conditions. We suggest determining this parameter’s value by geomorphological features of the landscapes using GIS tools.     

Monitoring Interfaces for Faults

We consider the problem of a module interacting with an external interface (environment) where the interaction is expected to satisfy some system specification Φ. While we have the full implementation details of the module, we are only given a partial external specification for the interface. The interface specification being partial (incomplete) means that the interface displays only a strict subset of the behaviors allowed by the interface specification.Based on the assumption that interface specifications are typically incomplete, we address the question of whether we can tighten the interface specification into a strategy, consistent with the given partial specification, that will guarantee that all possible interactions resulting from possible behaviors of the module will satisfy the system specification Φ. We refer to such a tighter specification as Φ-guaranteeing specification. Rather than verifying whether the interface, which is often an off-the-shelf component, satisfies the tighter specification, the paper proposes a construction of a run-time monitor which continuously checks the existence of a Φ-guaranteeing interface.We view the module and the external interface as players in a 2-player game. The interface has a winning strategy if it can guarantee that no matter what the module does, the overall specification Φ is met. The problem of incomplete specifications is resolved by allowing the interface to follow any strategy consistent with the interface specification. Our approach essentially combines traditional run-time monitoring and static analysis. This allows going beyond the focus of traditional run-time monitoring tools – error detection in the execution trace, towards the focus of the static analysis – bug detection in the programs.     

On the application of flows after strong discontinuities for treating dispersed-phase material. I. Shock-wave (and rarefaction-wave) action on particles

On the basis of mathematical modeling and numerical experiments, the action of the gas flow after strong discontinuities on particles has been investigated. __________ Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 116–125, March–April, 2006.