A computer tool to support in design of industrial Ethernet

This paper presents a computer tool to support in the project and development of an industrial Ethernet network, verifying the physical layer (cables-resistance and capacitance, scan time, network power supply-POE’s concept ”Power Over Ethernet” and wireless), and occupation rate (amount of information transmitted to the network versus the controller network scan time). These functions are accomplished without a single physical element installed in the network, using only simulation. The computer tool has a software that presents a detailed vision of the network to the user, besides showing some possible problems in the network, and having an extremely friendly environment.     

The costs and benefits of undoing egocentric responsibility assessments in groups.

Individuals working in groups often egocentrically believe they have contributed more of the total work than is logically possible. Actively considering others' contributions effectively reduces these egocentric assessments, but this research suggests that undoing egocentric biases in groups may have some unexpected costs. Four experiments demonstrate that members who contributed much to the group outcome are actually less satisfied and less interested in future collaborations after considering others' contributions compared with those who contributed little. This was especially true in cooperative groups. Egocentric biases in responsibility allocation can create conflict, but this research suggests that undoing these biases can have some unfortunate consequences. Some members who look beyond their own perspective may not like what they see. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-fulfilling prophecy effects of mothers' beliefs on children's alcohol use: Accumulation, dissipation, and stability over time.

This research examined whether self-fulfilling prophecy effects accumulated, dissipated, or remained stable over time in terms of 2 complementary conceptual models. Analyses of longitudinal data from 2 samples of mother-child dyads (N?=487; N?=288) yielded 3 main findings. First, the degree to which mothers' inaccurate beliefs assessed at a single point in time predicted children's distal alcohol use did not differ from the degree to which they predicted children's proximal alcohol use, thereby supporting a pattern of stability for the samples on average. Second, mothers' inaccurate beliefs repeatedly assessed across time had additive self-fulfilling effects on their children's subsequent alcohol use assessed at a single later point in time. Third, these additive self-fulfilling effects served to exacerbate differences in the alcohol use of children who had been consistently exposed to unfavorable versus favorable beliefs year after year. The authors discuss these findings in terms of the link between self-fulfilling prophecies and social problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developing a More Rapid Test to Assess Sulfate Resistance of Hydraulic Cements

External sulfate attack of concrete is a major problem that can appear in regions where concrete is exposed to soil or water containing sulfates, leading to softening and cracking of the concrete. Therefore, it is important that materials selection and proportioning of concrete in susceptible regions be carefully considered to resist sulfate attack. American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM) limits the tricalcium aluminate phase in cements when sulfate exposure is of concern. The hydration products of tricalcium aluminate react with the sulfates resulting in expansion and cracking. While ASTM standard tests are available to determine the susceptibility of cements to sulfate attack, these tests require at least 6 months and often up to a year to perform; a delay that hinders development of new cements. This paper presents a new method for testing cement resistance to sulfate attack that is three to five times faster than the current ASTM tests. Development of the procedure was based upon insights on the degradation process by petrographic examination of sulfate-exposed specimens over time. Also key to the development was the use of smaller samples and tighter environmental control.     

A segmentation-based regularization term for image deconvolution.

This paper proposes a new and original inhomogeneous restoration (deconvolution) model under the Bayesian framework for observed images degraded by space-invariant blur and additive Gaussian noise. In this model, regularization is achieved during the iterative restoration process with a segmentation-based a priori term. This adaptive edge-preserving regularization term applies a local smoothness constraint to pre-estimated constant-valued regions of the target image. These constant-valued regions (the segmentation map) of the target image are obtained from a preliminary Wiener deconvolution estimate. In order to estimate reliable segmentation maps, we have also adopted a Bayesian Markovian framework in which the regularized segmentations are estimated in the maximum a posteriori (MAP) sense with the joint use of local Potts prior and appropriate Gaussian conditional luminance distributions. In order to make these segmentations unsupervised, these likelihood distributions are estimated in the maximum likelihood sense. To compute the MAP estimate associated to the restoration, we use a simple steepest descent procedure resulting in an efficient iterative process converging to a globally optimal restoration. The experiments reported in this paper demonstrate that the discussed method performs competitively and sometimes better than the best existing state-of-the-art methods in benchmark tests.     

Shell elements for sequentially linear analysis: Lateral failure of masonry structures

Shell elements are incorporated into the sequentially linear analysis method allowing the modeling of three-dimensional structures under non-proportional loading. The shell element implementation is first presented and then applied to simulate two previous experimental tests on full-scale unreinforced masonry structures under cyclic loading. Experimental cyclic envelopes and three-dimensional failure mechanisms are effectively predicted, providing further evidence to support sequentially linear analysis as an alternative to non-linear analysis in the finite element framework.     

Cognitions and behavior in asymmetric social dilemmas: A comparison of two cultures.

This study investigated whether cognitions and behavior in an asymmetric social dilemma can be predicted by national culture. Results indicated that, as predicted, groups of decision makers from Japan--a collectivist, hierarchical culture--were more cooperative, expected others to be more cooperative, and were more likely to adopt an equal allocation distribution rule to resolve the dilemma than were groups of decision makers from the US--an individualist, egalitarian culture. An opportunity for communication had a greater impact on expectations of others' behavior in groups of U.S. decision makers than in groups of Japanese decision makers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Global optimization using interval arithmetic

Interval arithmetic provides an efficient method of global optimization. With less efficiency all stationary points of a function can be found. A minimization method is described and applied to an econometric function. The results are compared with the method of simulated annealing on the same function.     

Dynamic fatigue experiments on optical fibers

Optical fibers should have a minimum life of 25 years. Proof testing is usually done in order to have only high-strength fibers and to evaluate their lifetimes. The behavior of the fibers is studied in terms of the mechanism of slow growth of microcracks. A maximum stress that will be allowed in the subsequent usage of the fiber is then calculated, performing extrapolations from measurements which last a few months to times which last more than 25 years. As might be expected, papers have been published that indicate this procedure leads to inaccurate predictions. Work reported here involves fibers with a broad distribution of strengths. These were used for the purpose of reducing test times. Dynamic fatigue tests were done under atmospheric and inert environments. Results were used to obtain portions of the universal fatigue curve in order to assess the potential accuracy of long-term extrapolation from high-strength fiber tests.