Microstructural studies of aluminium-silicon alloy reinforced with alumina fibres

The microstructure of an alumina fibre reinforced Al-7wt% Si alloy has been investigated. It was shown that the Al-Si eutectic structure which characterized this alloy was markedly changed by the presence of the fibres, with coarsening of silicon particles and a reduction in primary aluminium grain size. The coarse silicon particles exhibited twinning but no orientation relationship with the aluminium. Fine silicon precipitates were also present and these had a cube-cube orientation relationship with the aluminium lattice. Lath-like intermetallics, FeSiAl₅ and FeSi₂Al₄ with monoclinic and tetragonal structures, were identified which existed in equilibrium and had the epitaxial relationship (001)_mono//(001)_tet and [100]_mono//[100]_tet. The iron was a contaminant introduced in the course of composite fabrication.Dislocations were a common feature of the aluminium matrix, with a typical density of 4×10⁷mm^–2. Nevertheless, dislocation hardening of the metal matrix was not detected. No evidence of Mg₂Si precipitates in the metal matrix was found, but the small addition (0.2wt%) of magnesium to the alloy was discovered to segregate at the fibre-aluminium interface. This segregation was believed to result in improved wettability of the two constituents, encouraging the formation of a strong fibre-matrix bond, and producing desirable properties of the composite in the transverse direction.     

Microstructure property relationship in Pyrex glass composites reinforced with Nicalon fibres

Detailed microstructural studies have been carried out on a series of composites consisting of Pyrex glass reinforced with Nicalon fibres. A variety of techniques has been employed, including X-ray and electron diffraction, electron-probe microanalysis and thin foil analytical electron microscopy. In parallel, mechanical tests have been performed on the composites and measurements have been made of the fibre-matrix bond.Substantial amounts of cristobalite have been identified in the matrix, up to 48% by volume in some cases. At such levels, microcracking is a common occurrence due to the high differential contraction between the matrix constituents upon cooling, which leads to matrix disintegration upon mechanical testing. A second microstructural feature which affects the mechanical behaviour of the composite concerns the fibre-matrix interface and, in particular, the chemistry of the outermost (200 nm) surface regions of the fibre. The amount of graphite here is shown to affect directly the strength of the fibre-matrix bond and, in turn, the degree of fibre pull out and the mechanical properties of the composite.     

Knowledge and Belief: Some Clarifications

The notions of knowledge and belief play an important role in philosophy. Unfortunately, the literature is not very consistent about defining these notions. Is belief more fundamental than knowledge or is it the other way around? Many accounts rely on the widely accepted strategy of appealing to the intuition of the reader. Such an argumentative methodology is fundamentally flawed because it lets the problems of common sense reasoning in through the front door. Instead, I suggest that philosophical arguments should be based on formal-computational models to (a) reduce the ambiguities and uncertainties that come with intuitive arguments and reasoning, and (b) capture the dynamic nature of many philosophical concepts. I present a model of knowledge and belief that lends itself to being implemented on computers. Its purpose is to resolve terminological confusion in favor of a more transparent account. The position I defend is an antirealist naturalized one: knowledge is best conceived as arising from experience, and is fundamental to belief.     

Archival Appraisal and the Digital Record: Applying Past Tradition for Future Practice

The digital revolution has changed the daily work of archivists. As a result, archivists have refined their analog practices and initiated new ones to accommodate the unique information creation and access needs of users. While limitless storage and technological obsolescence may be surmountable challenges, appraisal continues to be a necessary component of this preservation enterprise. Macro-appraisal—a top-down functional assessment of an organization’s high-level decision making that defines the enduring value of specific bodies of documentary evidence of these creative or administrative processes—is used to facilitate the management of diverse bodies of born-digital records in archives and special collections.     

Calibration of imprecise and inaccurate numerical models considering fidelity and robustness: a multi-objective optimization-based approach

Traditionally, model calibration is formulated as a single objective problem, where fidelity to measurements is maximized by adjusting model parameters. In such a formulation however, the model with best fidelity merely represents an optimum compromise between various forms of errors and uncertainties and thus, multiple calibrated models can be found to demonstrate comparable fidelity producing non-unique solutions. To alleviate this problem, the authors formulate model calibration as a multi-objective problem with two distinct objectives: fidelity and robustness. Herein, robustness is defined as the maximum allowable uncertainty in calibrating model parameters with which the model continues to yield acceptable agreement with measurements. The proposed approach is demonstrated through the calibration of a finite element model of a steel moment resisting frame.     

DB2 Universal Database: A Case Study of a Successful User-Centered Design Program

This case study describes the application of user-centered design (UCD) principles to the development of a complex middleware software product-IBM's DB2(r) Universal Database. Motivated by trade press reviews highlighting ease-of-use problems, a multisite development team utilized IBM UCD to transform ease of use into a featured product attribute. This case study describes the initial application of UCD to DB21 and the positive business results that followed: critical acclaim, increased marketshare and user satisfaction, and increased support and adoption of UCD across the IBM database product family. Although ease-of-use objectives, target markets, and human factors practitioners' roles have evolved over 6 years and multiple versions of the product, DB2 continues to achieve positive results with UCD. In addition to the flexibility of the UCD methodology, other factors that influenced DB2's success included management support, resource commitment, cross-site communication and collaboration, detailed product specifications, and a focus on supporting user tasks.     

Delineating Boundaries for Imprecise Regions

In geographic information retrieval, queries often name geographic regions that do not have a well-defined boundary, such as “Southern France.” We provide two algorithmic approaches to the problem of computing reasonable boundaries of such regions based on data points that have evidence indicating that they lie either inside or outside the region. Our problem formulation leads to a number of subproblems related to red-blue point separation and minimum-perimeter polygons, many of which we solve algorithmically. We give experimental results from our implementation and a comparison of the two approaches. This research is supported by the EU-IST Project No. IST-2001-35047 (SPIRIT) and by grant WO 758/4-2 of the German Research Foundation (DFG).     

Patienten — Daten — Schutz

Patientinnen und Patienten vertrauen sich heutzutage nicht mehr nur ihrem Haus- oder Facharzt, sondern immer h?ufiger auch einer Gro?klinik („Krankenhausmaschine“) an. Schon dort entsteht die Frage, wie die ?rztliche Schweigepflicht oder besser: das Patientengeheimnis, noch aufrechterhalten werden kann. Weitere Risiken drohen dem Patientengeheimnis in der zunehmend vernetzten Verarbeitung von medizinischen Befunden z.B. in Praxisnetzen und auch in der Online-Welt, die zweifellos gro?e Vorteile für die behandlungsbedürftigen Menschen bringen. Sie werfen aber auch die Frage nach der Verantwortung für die Sicherheit, Richtigkeit und Verfügbarkeit dieser Daten auf, die nicht selten lebenswichtig sein k?nnen.     

Smooth velocity approximation for constrained systems in real-time simulation

The rapidly increasing complexity of multi-body system models in applications like vehicle dynamics, robotics and bio-mechanics requires qualitative new solution methods to slash computing times for the dynamical simulation.