Fracture toughness of thermoset composites reinforced by perfectly bonded impenetrable short fibers

The fracture toughness of brittle thermoset resins could be improved significantly by perfectly bonded tough, short fibers through both crack trapping and bridging effects. In this paper, the crack trapping effect was studied through the analysis of the change of strain energy associated with the crack propagation across a regular array of fibers, and the bridging effect was discussed based on the Andersson–Bergkvist model. The fracture resistance increases with the fiber volume fraction, and is independent of the elastic properties of the matrix, the crack length, and the cross-sectional diameter of the fibers.     

Off-Site Exposure to Respirable Aerosols Produced during the Disk-Incorporation of Class B Biosolids

Field experiments were conducted at a Class B biosolids land application site in central Arizona to measure, model, and source-track the off-site transport of aerosols emitted when biosolids were disk-incorporated into soils. Real-time PM10 monitoring provided time-resolved aerosol information sufficient for verifying both off-site concentration and off-site exposure time model results. Under the conditions considered and at a distance of 165?m from the aerosol source, biosolids disk-incorporation resulted in an intermittent exposure to biosolids-derived aerosol concentration between 15 and 40?μg/m3 and an inhalable biosolids dose between 2 and 8?μg. Transport modeling predicted that these doses will decrease with increasing wind speed. In addition, three DNA sequence-based biosolids source tracking methods were applied to aerosol samples and confirmed the presence of biosolids in aerosols at 5, 65, and 165?m from the aerosol source. Field measurements and modeling indicate that the nature of biosolids-derived aerosol exposure is a series of intermittent high concentration puffs, rather than a continuous low concentration.     

Efficient Spreadsheet Algorithm for First-Order Reliability Method

A new spreadsheet-cell-object-oriented algorithm for the first-order reliability method is proposed and illustrated for cases with correlated nonnormals and explicit and implicit performance functions. The new approach differs from the writers earlier algorithm by obviating the need for computations of equivalent normal means and equivalent normal standard deviations. It obtains the solution faster and is more efficient, robust, and succinct. Other advantages include ease of initialization prior to constrained optimization, ease of randomization of initial values for checking robustness, and fewer required optimization constraints during spreadsheet-automated search for the design point. Two cases with implicit performance functions, namely an asymmetrically loaded beam on Winkler medium and a strut with complex supports are analyzed using the new approach and discussed. Comparisons are also made between the proposed approach and that based on Rosenblatt transformation.     

Robust State Feedback Control Through Actuators With Generalized Sector Nonlinearities And Saturation

In control systems, actuators often have nonlinear characteristics that can not be neglected. For linear systems driven by actuators satisfying the generalized sector condition, a robust state feedback controller synthesis method is proposed to achieve the ultimate boundedness control. The method is based on the linear matrix inequality approach and is easy to apply. As an important special case of the generalized sector condition, the saturation characteristic of actuators is discussed separately, and non‐conservative results are obtained.     

An efficient algorithm for the minimum cost min-max load terminal assignment problem

One of the main issues to be addressed in topological design of centralized networks is that of assigning terminals to concentrators in such a way that each terminal is assigned to one (and only one) concentrator and the total number of terminals assigned to any concentrator (which is referred to as load in this paper) does not overload that concentrator, i.e. is within the concentrator's capacity. Under these constraints, an assignment with the lowest possible cost is sought. An assignment of terminals to concentrators which minimizes the maximum load among the concentrators (which qualitatively represents congestion at some hot spots in a network service area) is referred to as a min-max load assignment. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a min-max load assignment with the-lowest cost. We call this problem the Minimum Cost Min-Max Load Terminal Assignment Problem (MCMLTAP). We present an algorithm for MCMLTAP and prove that the problem is optimally solvable in polynomial time using our proposed algorithm.     

金属镱低压吸氘研究

在真空系统中的氘压低于0.1 MPa条件下研究了金属镱的吸氘性能,并对不同原子比的氘化物的物相进行了分析.在常压、300 ℃下,金属镱吸氘不明显;400 ℃时,金属镱经较长时间活化后吸附一定量的氘;500 ℃时,镱升华.400 ℃时的吸氘实验结果表明:从活化至开始吸氘直至吸附平衡需很长时间;氘/镱原子比的高低与吸氘时间有关,饱和吸氘时的原子比最大为2.00;金属镱为面心立方(fcc)结构,a0=0.549 2 nm.具有不同原子比的氘化镱的X射线衍射(XRD)分析结果显示:氘化镱有2种结构,即面心立方结构(a0=0.524 nm)和正交结构(a0=0.588 nm、b0=0.358 nm、c0=0.678 nm);金属镱吸氘后,立方结构氘化镱晶格常数及晶胞体积均发生收缩现象,收缩率分别约为4%和11%.正交结构氘化镱晶胞体积收缩约14%.     

产量递减规律的诊断方法

传统的Arps产量递减分析方法要求事先选定递减规律的初始时间、初始产量及初始递减率,事实上这些参数是很难确定的。实际应用时不得不人为地加以臆断而使得此方法带有不确定性.为此提出了产量递减规律的诊断方法。应用诊断曲线很容易确定递减规律的模型参数,克服常规方法的不足。通过选用参考时间、参考产量和参考递减率,使得递减分析方法具有一定的灵活性和优越性、该方法简便、实用。     

Diurnal thermal cycling effects on microwave signatures of thin seaice

To investigate effects of diurnal thermal cycles on C-band polarimetric backscatter and millimeter-wave emission from sea ice, the authors carried out a winter experiment at the outdoor geophysical research facility (GRF) in the cold regions research and engineering laboratory (CRREL), the ice sheet grew from open sea water to a thickness of 10 cm in 2.5 days, during which they took polarimetric backscatter data with a C-band scatterometer, interlaced with brightness temperature measurements at 90 GHz in conjunction with meteorological and sea ice characterizations. The initial ice growth in the late morning was slow due to high insolation. As the air temperature dropped during the night, the growth rate increased significantly. Air temperature changed drastically from about -12 to -36°C between day and night, the diurnal thermal cycle repeated itself the next day and the growth rate varied in the same manner. Ice temperature profiles clearly show the diurnal response in the ice sheet with a lag of 2.5 h behind the time of the maximum short-wave incident solar radiation. The diurnal cycles are also evident in the millimeter-wave brightness temperature data, measured sea ice backscatter revealed substantial diurnal variations up to 6 dB with repeatable cycles in synchronization with the temperature cycles and the brightness temperature modulations, the diurnal cycles in backscatter indicate that the dominant scattering mechanism related to thermodynamic processes in sea ice is reversible, a diurnal backscatter model based on sea ice electrodynamics and thermodynamics explains the observed diurnal signature. This work shows that diurnal effects are important for inversion algorithms to retrieve sea ice geophysical parameters from remote sensing data acquired with a satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) or scatterometer on Sun-synchronous orbits     

基于空间矩的灰度边缘亚像元度量精度分析

灰度图像中边缘定位受采样密度限制，亚像元精度度量方法在需要高精度的应用中受到重视，要想知识到底需要多高的分辨率才能达到定精度指标，就有必要分析特征定位方法的最坏情况的精度，文中用分析和实验的方法给出了基于空间矩的边缘定位方法，对于边缘点，边缘直线以及直边缘区域的最坏情况定位精度分析。分析和讨论的结果不但可以用来确定已知形状位置估计的最大误差，而且还可用于对准的形状几何参数，以获得较高的精度。     

Parents and procedures: a randomized controlled trial

INTRODUCTION: Previous work has shown that parents prefer to be present when their children undergo common invasive procedures, although physicians are ambivalent about parental presence. PURPOSE: To determine the effect of a parent-focused intervention on the pain and performance of the procedure, anxiety of parents and clinicians, and parental satisfaction with care. POPULATION: Children younger than 3 years old undergoing venipuncture, intravenous cannulation, or uretheral catheterization. SETTING: Pediatric emergency department of Boston City Hospital. DESIGN: Randomized controlled trial with three groups; parents present and given instructions on how to help their children; parents present, but no instructions given; and parents not present. INTERVENTION: The parents were instructed to touch, talk to, and maintain eye contact during the procedure. RESULTS: A total of 431 parents was randomized to the intervention (N = 153), present (N = 147), and not present (N = 131) groups. The groups were equivalent with respect to measured sociodemographic variables and parents' previous experience in the pediatric emergency department. No differences emerged with respect to pain (3-point scale measured by parent and clinician, and analysis of cry); performance of the procedure (number of attempts, completion of procedure by first clinician, time); clinician anxiety; or parental satisfaction with care. Parents who were present were more likely to rate the pain of the children as extreme/severe (52%) in comparison to clinicians (15%, kappa .07, poor agreement) and were significantly less anxious than parents who were not present. CONCLUSION: Overall, the intervention was not effective in reducing the pain of routine procedures. Parental presence did not negatively affect performance of the procedure or increase clinician anxiety. Parents who were present were less anxious than those who were not present. CLINICAL IMPLICATION: In general, parents have indicated that they want to be present when their children undergo procedures. The results of this study challenge the traditional belief that parental presence negatively affects our ability to successfully complete procedures. We should encourage parents who want to be present to stay during procedures.