Analysis of Bolted Flanged Panel Joint for GRP Sectional Tanks

The performance of flanged panel bolted joints used in Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) sectional tanks is investigated using a combination of experimental and computational methods. A four-panel bolted assembly is subjected to varying pressure in a rupture test rig to study damage development at the intersection of the four panels. It is found that cracking initiates at a panel corner at the four panel intersection at a pressure of 35 kPa and propagates to other panel corners with increasing pressure. This is attributed to the excessive deformation at the four panel intersection. The effect of bolt spacing, varying end distances and bolt pre-tension in decreasing the localized deformation and maximum induced stresses are investigated using finite element analysis. It is found that varying the amount of bolt spacing and end distances had a considerable influence on the joint performance whereas varying bolt pretension had very negligible effect. Consequently, this study establishes the maximum pressure which the GRP panel joint can withstand without failure and the corresponding optimum joint parameters.     

Unidimensional model of polarisation changes in piezoelectric ceramics based on the principle of maximum entropy production

This paper presents a one-dimensional model for piezoelectric ceramics developed using the principle of maximum entropy production. Changes in polarisation are assumed to occur only as a consequence of domain wall movement. Such movement, it is assumed, can occur as a consequence of applied load or applied electric field. Simulations of experiments conducted by Fang and Li (J Mater Sci, 34:4001–4010, 1999) are presented and show good agreement with the experimental results. This suggests that abrupt domain switching (known to occur in piezoelectric ceramics at very high applied stresses and fields) may have less influence on the dissipative behaviour of piezoelectric sensors and actuators than previously thought.     

Pregnant women with impaired tolerance to an oral glucose load in the afternoon: evidence suggesting that they behave metabolically as patients with gestational diabetes

OBJECTIVE: In previous studies we observed the existence of a circadian variation of the blood glucose response to oral glucose in pregnant women with higher values at 4 PM. Some women with increased risk of diabetes with normal oral glucose tolerance tests at 8 AM also had values above maximum normal levels at 4 PM. The aim of this trial was to determine the clinical significance of this impaired tolerance in the afternoon. STUDY DESIGN: Seventy-seven pregnant women with normal risk of diabetes (65 of normal weight and 12 overweight), 75 with increased risk of diabetes (26 overweight), and 12 patients with gestational diabetes were incorporated in the study. All women underwent two oral glucose tolerance tests (1.5 gm/kg) at 31 to 32 weeks' gestation at 8 AM and 4 PM with a 1-week interval. At 33 weeks' gestation a whole-day blood glucose profile was performed with usual food intake; samples were withdrawn before each meal and at 30, 60, and 120 minutes after each meal. The weight of the newborns was recorded. RESULTS: (1) Results of oral glucose tolerance tests confirmed a circadian variation of the response in all groups; (2) 37 women with increased risk of diabetes had higher values after oral glucose tolerance testing than the normal threshold at 4 PM but not at 8 AM; (3) among women with normal risk of diabetes all values were within the normal range despite the circadian variation; (4) blood glucose levels during whole-day profiles were normal in women with normal risk of diabetes and with increased risk of diabetes with normal oral glucose tolerance testing at 4 PM, whereas all women with increased risk of diabetes and impaired tolerance in the afternoon showed hyperglycemic episodes; (5) the percentage of newborns with high weight (>90th percentile) among women with increased risk of diabetes and abnormal oral glucose tolerance tests at 4 PM was similar to the percentage found in women with gestational diabetes and much higher than the one observed in women with normal oral glucose tolerance tests in the afternoon. CONCLUSIONS: The impairment of the response to oral glucose tolerance testing seen in some patients with increased risk of diabetes at 4 PM but not at 8 AM seems of clinical significance in view of the abnormal whole-day blood glucose profile these women had and the weights of the newborns.     

Cascaded model adaptation for dialog act segmentation and tagging

There are many speech and language processing problems which require cascaded classification tasks. While model adaptation has been shown to be useful in isolated speech and language processing tasks, it is not clear what constitutes system adaptation for such complex systems. This paper studies the following questions: In cases where a sequence of classification tasks is employed, how important is to adapt the earlier or latter systems? Is the performance improvement obtained in the earlier stages via adaptation carried on to later stages in cases where the later stages perform adaptation using similar data and/or methods? In this study, as part of a larger scale multiparty meeting understanding system, we analyze various methods for adapting dialog act segmentation and tagging models trained on conversational telephone speech (CTS) to meeting style conversations. We investigate the effect of using adapted and unadapted models for dialog act segmentation with those of tagging, showing the effect of model adaptation for cascaded classification tasks. Our results indicate that we can achieve significantly better dialog act segmentation and tagging by adapting the out-of-domain models, especially when the amount of in-domain data is limited. Experimental results show that it is more effective to adapt the models in the latter classification tasks, in our case dialog act tagging, when dealing with a sequence of cascaded classification tasks.     

Application of Freezing and Thawing in Apple (Malus domestica) Juice Extraction

The paper presents the results of the research on the impact of enzymatic liquefaction, freezing and thawing on the efficiency of juice pressure extraction from apple pulp and quality of the obtained juices. The research was conducted using three types of pretreatment prior the pressing: crushing and enzymatic liquefaction in temperature of 25 °C, crushing and enzymatic liquefaction in temperature of 45 °C and crushing followed by freezing and thawing of the pulp. The study included three varieties of apples. The juice was obtained using a laboratory basket press. It was determined that the pretreatment of the pulp as well as the varietal characteristics of the fruits have a significant impact on the efficiency of the pressure extraction process. The enzymatic treatment of the pulp, irrespective of the temperature at which it was conducted, significantly increased the efficiency of the process. No effect of the temperature (25 or 45 °C) of enzymatic treatment on the efficiency of the pressure extraction process was found. Pretreatment of the pulp based on freezing and thawing contributes to the increase of efficiency of pressing in the case of two apple cultivars, that is, Idared and Red Delicious. It was showed that total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, the soluble solids content and juice acidity (pH) depend on the pretreatment of the pulp and the varietal characteristics of apples. Following the application of pretreatment of the pulp, an increase was observed in the content of polyphenols and in the antioxidant activity of the juices obtained.