Robust weighted likelihood estimation of exponential parameters

The problem of estimating the parameter of an exponential distribution when a proportion of the observations are outliers is quite important to reliability applications. The method of weighted likelihood is applied to this problem, and a robust estimator of the exponential parameter is proposed. Interestingly, the proposed estimator is an /spl alpha/-trimmed mean type estimator. The large-sample robustness properties of the new estimator are examined. Further, a Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted showing that the proposed estimator is, under a wide range of contaminated exponential models, more efficient than the usual maximum likelihood estimator in the sense of having a smaller risk, a measure combining bias & variability. An application of the method to a data set on the failure times of throttles is presented.     

Manganese Distribution between FeO‐MnO‐SiO2–CaO–MgO‐Al2O3 Slags and Molten Iron

Pretreatment of high manganese hot metal is suggested to produce hot metal suitable for further processing to steel in conventional LD converter and rich manganese slags satisfy the requirements for the production of silicomanganese alloys. Manganese distribution between slag and iron represents the efficiency of manganese oxidation from hot metal. The present study has been done to investigate the effect of temperature, slag basicity and composition of oxidizer mixture on the distribution coefficient of manganese between slag and iron. Ferrous oxide activity was determined in molten synthetic slag mixtures of FeO‐MnO‐SiO₂–CaO–MgO‐Al₂O₃. The investigated slags had chemical compositions similar to either oxidizer mixture or slags expected to result from the treatment of high manganese hot metal. The technique used to measure the ferrous oxide activity in the investigated slag systems was the well established one of gas‐slag‐metal equilibration in which molten slags contained in armco iron crucibles are exposed to a flowing gas mixture with a known oxygen potential until equilibrium has been attained. After equilibration, the final chemical analysis of the slags gave compositions having a particular ferrous oxide activity corresponding to the oxygen potential of the gas mixture. The determined values of ferrous oxide activity were used to calculate the equilibrium distribution of manganese between slag and iron. Higher manganese distribution between slag and iron was found to be obtained by using oxidizer containing high active iron oxide under acidic slag and relatively low temperature of about 1350°C.     

New nanocomposite materials based on polymerization of [oligo(oxyethylene) methacrylates] in the presence of montmorillonite clay

Intercalation of poly[oligo(oxyethylene) methacrylates] onto sodium montmorillonite (MMT) clay has been investigated. A polymer–clay hybrid has been synthesized through intercalation of the monomer followed by its solution free‐radical polymerization. Eight polymer–clay hybrids were prepared using different weight ratios of clay, different oligo(oxyethylene) lengths and different proportions of crosslinker. Evidence of the development of nanostructures is obtained from scanning electron microscopy, and wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction studies support these results which show disappearance of the peak characteristic to d₀₀₁ spacing. In this hybrid MMT is dispersed homogeneously in the polymer matrix. © 2003 Society of Chemical Industry     

Vibration and damping analysis of beams with composite coats

Numerical and experimental investigations of the dynamic behavior for coated laminate composite beams has been presented and discussed in the present work. A numerical technique is utilized to compute the eigen parameters of coated laminated composite beams. An attempt to study the variations in the natural frequencies and damping properties of laminated composite coated beams taking into account different lamina orientation of coat and various kinds of core isotropic material (steel and aluminium) is introduced. The variations of the eigen parameters vs. the code number of the coated layer with the use of various types of isotropic material are measured by utilizing (the frequency response displayed on) an (FFT) analyzer. The experimental and numerical work is carried out on four different fiber orientations, aligned longitudinally, transversely, making 45 ° with the fibers direction and randomly oriented. Comparison between experimental and numerical results shows a tight connection between them.     

Preface

Multibody System Dynamics -     

Radiation polymerization of acrylonitrile in a viscous system with styrene

Radiation polymerization of acrylonitrile in a viscous system with styrene was performed at ambient temperature by using γ‐rays. It is found that the overall rate of polymerization was accelerated after critical conversion due to the gel effect. As the molar fraction of styrene in monomer feed (f_St) is increased, both the total polymer conversion and molar fraction of acrylonitrile in the copolymer feed (F_AN) were decreased. The monomer reactivity ratios for acrylonitrile and styerne were determined to be r₁ (AN) = 0.25 and r₂ (St) = 2.0, respectively. The copolymers obtained were characterized by Fourier transformed infrared spectra (FTIR), X‐ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ¹H‐NMR, and pyrolysis mass spectrometry (PMS). It was found that the slight addition of styrene to acrylonitrile strongly changes crystallinity, morphology, and thermal decomposition of the resulting polymer. ¹H‐NMR measurment of AN/St copolymer showed the appearance of aromatic proton signals and shifted the resonance of the methylene proton to lower chemical shifts. The mass spectra of AN/St copolymers showed fragments of pyrolysates corresponding to oligonitriles with styrene end groups. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 268–275, 2002; DOI 10.1002/app.10324     

Low-temperature unit-cell parameters of La1−x Pr x CaBaCu3O7 compounds

The suppression of the superconductivity by praseodymium in La_1−x Pr _x CaBaCu₃O₇ may be explained in terms of the difference in the electronic or crystal structure between these compounds. Three compositions with x=0.0, 0.5, 1.0 were, therefore, investigated by X-ray diffraction in order to determine the unit-cell dimensions at room temperature as well as at lower temperatures down to 5 K. The results showed no considerable changes in the orthorhombic unit-cell dimensions on decreasing the temperature to 5 K. Unit-cell volumes at low temperatures were 0.99 of the room temperature values. The intensity sequence of reflections in the diffraction pattern was the same for all samples throughout the range of temperature studied.     

New mechanisms in photo-assisted MOVPE of II-VI semiconductors

The first detailed comparison has been made of the metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy growth rates of CdTe, ZnTe, and ZnSe, measured in situ with laser reflectometry. The comparison also includes the photo-assisted growth with visible radiation from an argon ion laser. Using a standard Group II precursor (DMCd or DMZn.TEN) partial pressure of 1.5 × 10⁻⁴ atm, VI/II ratio of 1 and DIPM (M = Te, Se) the maximum growth rates are in the region of 10 to 15 AU/ s. Decrease in growth rates of ZnTe at higher temperatures or higher laser powers have been attributed to the desorption from the substrate of unreacted Te precursor. The behavior of DTBSe is quite different from DIPSe for both pyrolytic and photo-assisted growth. The maximum growth rate is around 1 AU/ s with very little photo-enhancement, except at 300°C. Secondary ion mass spectroscopy analysis of hydrogen concentration in the ZnSe layers shows high concentrations, up to 5.9 × 10¹⁹ atoms cm⁻³ for DTBSe grown ZnSe under pyrolytic conditions. These results show that the growth kinetics play an important part in the incorporation of hydrogen and passivation of acceptor doped material.     

The electrical properties of post-deposition annealed and as-deposited In-doped CdTe thin films

The electrical properties of CdTe thin film have been studied and discussed, including, the conduction mechanism, and the effect of temperature and indium doping on the current passing through the CdTe film and hence on the film conductivity. It is observed that the CdTe film is of the modified Poole–Frenkel conduction mechanism and the resistivity of the film can be lowered by more than one order of magnitude due to indium doping.     

A General Reliable Quadratic Form: An Extension of Affine Arithmetic

In this article, a new extension of affine arithmetic is introduced. This technique is based on a quadratic form named general quadratic form. We focus here on the computation of reliable bounds of a function over a hypercube by using this new tool. Some properties of first quadratic functions and then polynomial ones are reported. In order to show the efficiency of such a method, ten polynomial global optimization problems are presented and solved by using an interval branch-and-bound based algorithm. The work of the first author was also supported by the Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées CNRS–FRE 2570, Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour, France, and by the Laboratoire d'Electrotechnique et d'Electronique Industrielle CNRS–UMR5828, Group EM³, INPT–ENSEEIHT.