Model Misspecification of Generalized Gamma Distribution for Accelerated Lifetime-Censored Data

Abstract

The performance of reliability inference strongly depends on the modeling of the product’s lifetime distribution. Many products have complex lifetime distributions whose optimal settings are not easily found. Practitioners prefer to use simpler lifetime distribution to facilitate the data modeling process while knowing the true distribution. Therefore, the effects of model mis-specification on the product’s lifetime prediction is an interesting research area. This article presents some results on the behavior of the relative bias (RB) and relative variability (RV) of pth quantile of the accelerated lifetime (ALT) experiment when the generalized Gamma (GG₃) distribution is incorrectly specified as Lognormal or Weibull distribution. Both complete and censored ALT models are analyzed. At first, the analytical expressions for the expected log-likelihood function of the misspecified model with respect to the true model is derived. Consequently, the best parameter for the incorrect model is obtained directly via a numerical optimization to achieve a higher accuracy model than the wrong one for the end-goal task. The results demonstrate that the tail quantiles are significantly overestimated (underestimated) when data are wrongly fitted by Lognormal (Weibull) distribution. Moreover, the variability of the tail quantiles is significantly enlarged when the model is incorrectly specified as Lognormal or Weibull distribution. Precisely, the effect on the tail quantiles is more significant when the sample size and censoring ratio are not large enough. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

Simultaneous Determination of Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate and 2,4,6‐Trinitrotoluene by High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography and Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) Method

High performance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) has been used for the simultaneous determination of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene (TNT). With this aim, the spots were developed on silica gel 60 F₂₅₄ layers with petroleum ether–acetone (2 : 1 v/v). Both PETN and TNT compounds were separated from other constituent materials, and were developed at the same speed, by this solvent system. Then ultraviolet (UV) spectra of these materials were recorded with TLC‐scanner3 of CAMAG Company, and partial least squares regression‐2 (PLSR‐2) method was applied for the calibration and quantitative determination of these materials. The figure of merit (FOM) of this method was determined, and the method was applied for the analysis of an artificial sample.     

On selection of forwarding nodes for long opportunistic routes

Opportunistic routing is a promising routing paradigm which increases the network throughput. It forces the sender’s neighbors, who successfully overheard the transmitted packet, to participate in the packet forwarding process as intermediate forwarding nodes. As a seminal opportunistic routing protocol, MORE combines network coding idea with opportunistic routing to eliminate the need for strict coordination among active forwarding nodes. In this paper, we show that MORE performance does not scale well with the route length, especially when the route length goes beyond two hops. Also, we found that MORE fails to establish a working opportunistic route in sparse networks. Clearly, the network throughput is directly influenced by both the quantity and quality of forwarding nodes, and their cooperation order. In this paper, we propose a new forwarder selection mechanism which considers the route length, link qualities, the distance from the source, and nodes density. It eliminates the occasional route disconnectivity happening in MORE and improves the quality of the established opportunistic routes. The simulation result indicates that our proposal always outperforms MORE when dealing with long opportunistic routes.

     

Effects of various barium precursors and promoters on catalytic activity of Ba-Ti perovskite catalysts for oxidative coupling of methane

The influences of barium precursor and promoter type on the catalytic performance of perovskite catalysts in OCM reaction were studied. Catalysts (BaTiPO₃, P: promoter) were prepared by carbonate, hydroxide and propionate precursors of barium and SnCl₂ and CeO₂ as promoters by sol-gel method, tested in a fixed-bed microreactor and characterized by XRD, BET, CO₂-TPD, FT-IR and UV-Visible analysis. The experiment results showed that based on the extent of effect upon catalyst efficiency, the barium anions can be ranked as; propionate > carbonate > hydroxide, and the CeO₂ promoted catalysts were more active than the SnCl₂ promoted ones. The characterization results showed that the substitution of metal precursors caused formation of different phases with different particle sizes, influenced the basicity of the catalysts, resulted in the appearance of the peaks corresponding to different groups in IR spectroscopy, and shifted the absorption peaks in UV-Visible spectra. These results suggested that OCM reaction over perovskite catalysts is structure sensitive and depended on the type of used precursor and promoter.     

Highly efficient synthesis of benzopyranopyridines via ZrP2O7 nanoparticles catalyzed multicomponent reactions of salicylaldehydes with malononitrile and thiols

ZrP₂O₇ nanoparticles as an efficient catalyst have been used for the preparation of benzopyrano[2,3-b]pyridines from the four-component condensation reaction of salicylalde-hydes, thiols, and 2 equiv. of malononitrile under reflux conditions in ethanol in excellent yields and short reaction times.     

Effect of ionic strength on the reactivity ratios of acrylamide/acrylic acid (sodium acrylate) copolymerization

The ionic strength (IS) of polyelectrolyte solutions plays an important role in influencing reaction kinetics. The largely unstudied effect of IS on monomer reactivity ratios and copolymerization rates of acrylamide (AAm) and acrylic acid (AAc), in the form of sodium acrylate (NaAc), is investigated. Salt addition affects the nature of overall charges of the polyelectrolyte solution and diminishes the electrostatic repulsions between reacting chains. Therefore, changing the IS of the solution by incorporating salts affect not only the point estimates of the monomer reactivity ratios but also the overall behavior of the copolymerization (with a transition to azeotropic behavior). Experimental results on copolymerization rates confirm the observed trends in reactivity ratio behavior. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40949.     

Perfect state transfer on spin-1 chains

We show that networks of spin-1 particles connected in a special geometry and subject to Affleck–Kennedy–Lieb–Tasaki (AKLT) interaction are capable of perfectly transferring states of particles (qubits and qutrits) if we also allow a global control of the network in predetermined time intervals. The geometry can be one, two, and three dimensional. The strengths of the couplings have the same modulus, and only their signs differ on various bonds. Any particle which is routed in the network acquires relative phase shifts which can be corrected after it is extracted from the network. An advantage of this protocol is that one can route more than one particle through the network simultaneously. We show that a uniform magnetic fields do not deteriorate the fidelity and only change the relative phases in a controllable way.     

Determination of picomolar silver concentrations by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry at a carbon paste electrode modified with phenylthiourea-functionalized high ordered nanoporous silica gel

This study introduces the design of an anodic stripping voltammetric (ASV) method for the silver ion determination at a carbon paste electrode (CPE), chemically modified with phenylthiourea-nanoporous silica gel (Tu-SBA-15-CPE). The electroanalytical pro includes two steps: preconcentration of metal ions at an electrode surface, followed by quantification of the accumulated species by differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetric methods. Factors affecting the performance of the anodic stripping were investigated, including the modifier quantity in the paste, the electrolyte concentrations, the solution pH and the accumulation potential or time. The most sensitive and reliable electrode contained 10% Tu-SBA-15 and 90% carbon paste. The accumulation potential and time were set at, −200 mV and 300 s, respectively, and the scan rate at 50 mV s⁻¹ in the scan range of −200 to 700 mV. The resulting electrode demonstrated a linear response over range of silver ion concentration of 8.0-80 pmol/L with detection limit (S/N = 3) of 5 pmol/L. The prepared electrodes were used for the silver determination in sea and tap water samples and very good recovery results were obtained. The accuracy was assessed through recovery experiments and independent analysis by graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry.