Damage localization for beams based on the wavelet correlation operator

The continuous wavelet transform (CWT) is one of the crucial damage identification tools in the vibration-based damage assessment. Because of the vanishing moment property, the CWT method is capable of featuring damage singularity in the higher scales, and separating the global trends and noise progressively. In the classical investigations about this issue, the localization property of the CWT is usually deemed as the most critical point. The abundant information provided by the scale-domain information and the corresponding effectiveness are, however, neglected to some extent. Ultimately, this neglect restricts the sufficient application of the CWT method in damage localization, especially in noisy conditions. In order to address this problem, the wavelet correlation operator is introduced into the CWT damage detection method as a post-processing. By means of the correlations among different scales, the proposed operator suppresses noise, cancels global trends, and intensifies the damage features for various mode shapes. The proposed method is demonstrated numerically with emphasis on characterizing damage in noisy environments, where the wavelet scale Teager-Kaiser energy operator is taken as the benchmark method for comparison. Experimental validations are conducted based on the benchmark data from composite beam specimens measured by a scanning laser vibrometer. Numerical and experimental validations/comparisons present that the introduction of wavelet correlation operator is effective for damage localization in noisy conditions.     

Studies of the Influence of Temperature and the Energy State of the Surface Layer of Adsorbents on Wall Effects in Soap-Based Greases

This paper presents the results of studies of wall effects in commercial soap-based greases LT4-S2 and HUTPLEX EP-2, thickened with, respectively, lithium 12-hydroxystearate and overbased calcium sulfonate. The studies were conducted in the presence of five different materials: copper alloy C11000, bronze B476, EPDM rubber and PTFE and PU thermoplastics. The influence of the energy state of the surface layer of the adsorbents and temperature (ranging from ?20 to 60 °C) on the intensity of wall effects was investigated. Changes in the structural viscosity and shear stress in the boundary layer area in the greases and the soap-based thickener’s ability to adsorb on the surfaces of the adsorbents were determined by evaluating the rheological parameter plateau modulus.     

Time and Energy Performance of Parallel Systems with Hierarchical Memory

In this paper we analyze the impact of memory hierarchies on time-energy trade-off in parallel computations. Contemporary computing systems have deep memory hierarchies with significantly different speeds and power consumptions. This results in nonlinear phenomena in the processing time and energy usage emerging when the size of the computation is growing. In this paper the nonlinear dependence of the time and energy on the size of the solved problem is formalized and verified using measurements in practical computer systems. Then it is applied to formulate a problem of minimum time and minimum energy scheduling parallel processing of divisible loads. Divisible load theory is a scheduling and performance model of data-parallel applications. Mathematical programming is exploited to solve the scheduling problem. A trade-off between energy and schedule length is analyzed and again nonlinear relationships between these two criteria are observed. Further performance analysis reveals that energy consumption and schedule length are ruled by a complex interplay between the costs and speeds of on-core and out-of-core computations, communication delays, and activating new machines.     

A compositional Petri net translation of general π-calculus terms

We propose a finite structural translation of possibly recursive π-calculus terms into Petri nets. This is achieved by using high-level nets together with an equivalence on markings in order to model entering into recursive calls, which do not need to be guarded. We view a computing system as consisting of a main program (π-calculus term) together with procedure declarations (recursive definitions of π-calculus identifiers). The control structure of these components is represented using disjoint high-level Petri nets, one for the main program and one for each of the procedure declarations. The program is executed once, while each procedure can be invoked several times (even concurrently), each such invocation being uniquely identified by structured tokens which correspond to the sequence of recursive calls along the execution path leading to that invocation.     

Towards measurable bounds on entanglement measures

While the experimental detection of entanglement provides already quite a difficult task, experimental quantification of entanglement is even more challenging, and has not yet been studied thoroughly. In this paper we discuss several issues concerning bounds on concurrence measurable collectively on copies of a given quantum state. Firstly, we concentrate on the recent bound on concurrence by (Mintert and Buchleitner in Phys Rev Lett 98:140505/1–140505/4, 2007). Relating it to the reduction criterion for separability we provide yet another proof of the bound and point out some possibilities following from the proof which could lead to improvement of the bound. Then, relating concurrence to the generalized robustness of entanglement, we provide a method allowing for construction of lower bounds on concurrence from any positive map (not only the reduction one). All these quantities can be measured as mean values of some two-copy observables. In this sense the method generalizes the Mintert–Buchleitner bound and recovers it when the reduction map is used. As a particular case we investigate the bound obtained from the transposition map. Interestingly, comparison with MB bound performed on the class of ${4\otimes 4}While the experimental detection of entanglement provides already quite a difficult task, experimental quantification of entanglement is even more challenging, and has not yet been studied thoroughly. In this paper we discuss several issues concerning bounds on concurrence measurable collectively on copies of a given quantum state. Firstly, we concentrate on the recent bound on concurrence by (Mintert and Buchleitner in Phys Rev Lett 98:140505/1–140505/4, 2007). Relating it to the reduction criterion for separability we provide yet another proof of the bound and point out some possibilities following from the proof which could lead to improvement of the bound. Then, relating concurrence to the generalized robustness of entanglement, we provide a method allowing for construction of lower bounds on concurrence from any positive map (not only the reduction one). All these quantities can be measured as mean values of some two-copy observables. In this sense the method generalizes the Mintert–Buchleitner bound and recovers it when the reduction map is used. As a particular case we investigate the bound obtained from the transposition map. Interestingly, comparison with MB bound performed on the class of 4?4{4\otimes 4} rotationally invariant states shows that the new bound is positive in regions in which the MB bound gives zero. Finally, we provide measurable upper bounds on the whole class of concurrences.     

A parallel direct solver for the self-adaptive hp Finite Element Method

In this paper we present a new parallel multi-frontal direct solver, dedicated for the hp Finite Element Method (hp-FEM). The self-adaptive hp-FEM generates in a fully automatic mode, a sequence of hp-meshes delivering exponential convergence of the error with respect to the number of degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) as well as the CPU time, by performing a sequence of hp refinements starting from an arbitrary initial mesh. The solver constructs an initial elimination tree for an arbitrary initial mesh, and expands the elimination tree each time the mesh is refined. This allows us to keep track of the order of elimination for the solver. The solver also minimizes the memory usage, by de-allocating partial LU factorizations computed during the elimination stage of the solver, and recomputes them for the backward substitution stage, by utilizing only about 10% of the computational time necessary for the original computations. The solver has been tested on 3D Direct Current (DC) borehole resistivity measurement simulations problems. We measure the execution time and memory usage of the solver over a large regular mesh with 1.5 million degrees of freedom as well as on the highly non-regular mesh, generated by the self-adaptive hp$hp$-FEM, with finite elements of various sizes and polynomial orders of approximation varying from p=1$p=1$ to p=9$p=9$. From the presented experiments it follows that the parallel solver scales well up to the maximum number of utilized processors. The limit for the solver scalability is the maximum sequential part of the algorithm: the computations of the partial LU factorizations over the longest path, coming from the root of the elimination tree down to the deepest leaf.     

Biological cardio-micro-pumps for microbioreactors and analytical micro-systems

Bio-hybrid microsystems actuated by living cells, as micro-bio-actuators and micro-bio-pumps have been developed recently. In these devices biological cells may be powered without external energy sources and the movement or the contraction of muscle cells trigger off the flow of fluid (i.e. culture medium or blood) through microchannels in micro-multi-bioreactor systems. Isolated and in vitro cultured cardiomyocytes (cardiac cells) are the most promising bio-material, which can be used to design a micro-bio-pump/actuator. These spontaneously contracting cells are autonomously powered with glucose as an energy source without any external power supply or stimulus, unlike conventional micro-actuators/micro-pumps. Cardio-micro-bio-pumps/actuators are using collective, synchronous contracting forces of cardiac cells or cardiac cell sheets to drive the flow of fluid. The feasibility of building such actuators was demonstrated in a few examples of bio-hybrid microsystems actuated by single or sheeted cardiomyocytes.     

Self-optimizing generalized adaptive notch filters — comparison of three optimization strategies

The paper provides comparison of three different approaches to on-line tuning of generalized adaptive notch filters (GANFs) — the algorithms used for identification/tracking of quasi-periodically varying dynamic systems. Tuning is needed to adjust adaptation gains, which control tracking performance of GANF algorithms, to the unknown and/or time time-varying rate of system nonstationarity. Two out of three compared approaches are classical solutions — the first one incorporates sequential optimization of adaptation gains while the second one is based on the concept of parallel estimation. The main contribution of the paper is that it suggests the third way — it shows that the best results can be achieved when both approaches mentioned above are combined in a judicious way. Such joint sequential/parallel optimization preserves advantages of both treatments: adaptiveness (sequential approach) and robustness to abrupt changes (parallel approach). Additionally the paper shows how, using the concept of surrogate outputs, one can extend the proposed single-frequency algorithm to the multiple frequencies case, without falling into the complexity trap known as the “curse of dimensionality”.     

The Semantic Web: Collective Intelligence on the Web

The World Wide Web has turned hypertext into a success story by enabling world-wide sharing of unstructured information and informal knowledge. The Semantic Web targets the sharing of structured information and formal knowledge pursuing objectives of achieving collective intelligence on the Web. Germane to the structure of the Semantic Web is a layering and standardization of concerns. These concerns are reflected by an architecture of the Semantic Web that we present through a common use case. Semantic Web data for the use case is now found on the Web and is part of a quickly growing set of Semantic Web resources available for formal processing.