Woven fabric composites—part II: Characterization of macro‐crack initiation loads for global damage analysis

In Part 2, finite element techniques are developed to additionally investigate the global damage of woven fabric composites, focusing on plain weaves. The homogenized elastic properties of the original undamaged and the damaged woven fabric composites from the micromechanical homogenization and the micromechanical progressive damage analysis investigated earlier in Part 1 are subsequently employed in the present global damage analysis. The theory of continuum damage mechanics is utilized in the global damage analysis. The damage variables, the most important material properties of the continuum damage mechanics, are measures of average material degradation at a macro‐mechanics scale. In the present study, these damage variables are calculated numerically using the results from the micromechanical damage analysis in Part 1, instead of being obtained experimentally. Subsequently, a finite element formulation for the global damage analysis of woven fabric composites is developed to predict the initiation loads of macro‐cracks. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gait recognition using active shape model and motion prediction

This study presents a novel, robust gait recognition algorithm for human identification from a sequence of segmented noisy silhouettes in a low-resolution video. The proposed recognition algorithm enables automatic human recognition from model-based gait cycle extraction based on the prediction-based hierarchical active shape model (ASM). The proposed algorithm overcomes drawbacks of existing works by extracting a set of relative model parameters instead of directly analysing the gait pattern. The feature extraction function in the proposed algorithm consists of motion detection, object region detection and ASM, which alleviate problems in the baseline algorithm such as background generation, shadow removal and higher recognition rate. Performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated by using the HumanID Gait Challenge data set, which is the largest gait benchmarking data set with 122 objects with different realistic parameters including viewpoint, shoe, surface, carrying condition and time.     

Biomimetic micropatterning of silica by surface-initiated polymerization and microcontact printing

Micropatterns of silica on a gold substrate were generated by a biomimetic approach, namely, the biosilicification of silicic acids. The procedure consists of three simple steps: pattern generation of a polymerization initiator, (BrC(CH(3))(2)COO(CH(2))(11)S)(2), by microcontact printing; surface-initiated, atom-transfer radical polymerization of 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) from the patterned area; and polycondensation of silicic acids. The tertiary amine-containing polymer, pDMAEMA, aided in the spatially controlled polycondensation of silicic acids on surfaces in the presence of phosphate ions, and micropatterns of silica on a gold substrate were successfully generated in combination with the technique of microcontact printing. The procedure could be extended to the controlled fabrication of silica patterns with any size, shape, or thickness.     

Bacillus strains as human probiotics: characterization,safety, microbiome,and probiotic carrier

Food Science and Biotechnology - Both spore and vegetative forms of Bacillus species have been used as probiotics, and they have high stability to the surrounding atmospheric conditions such as...     

Multiple imputation for the Cox proportional hazards model with missing covariates

STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine equity in the health care system with regard to cancer patient care by estimating the level of systematic regional variation in cancer survival in the Nordic countries. Specifically, those cancer sites which exhibit high levels of systematic regional variation in survival and hence inequity were identified. Estimating the reduction in cancer deaths which could be achieved by eliminating this variation so that everyone receives effective care will provide a readily interpretable measure of the amount of systematic regional variation. A comprehensive analysis of regional variation in survival has not previously been conducted so appropriate statistical methodology must be developed. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: All those aged 0-90 years who had been diagnosed with at least one of 12 common malignant neoplasms between 1977 and 1992 in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. DESIGN: A separate analysis was conducted for each country. Regression models for the relative survival ratio were used to estimate the relative risk of excess mortality attributable to cancer in each region after correcting for age and sex. An estimate of the amount of systematic regional variation in survival was obtained by subtracting the estimated expected random variation from the observed regional variation. An estimate was then made of the potential reduction in the number of cancer deaths for 2008-12 if regional variation in survival were eliminated so that everyone received the same level of effective care. MAIN RESULTS: Between 2008 and 2012, an estimated 2.5% of deaths from cancers in the 12 sites studied could be prevented by eliminating regional variation in survival. The percentage of potentially avoidable deaths did not depend on country or sex but it did depend on cancer site. There was no relationship between the level of regional variation in a given country and the level of survival. The cancer sites for which the greatest percentage savings could be achieved were melanoma (11%) and cervix uteri (6%). The sites for which the highest number of deaths could be prevented were prostate, colon, melanoma, and breast. CONCLUSIONS: This methodology showed a small amount of systematic regional variation in cancer survival in the Nordic countries. The cancer sites with high levels of regional variation identified are potential targets for cancer control programmes.     

BER performance of multiple-antenna OFCDM with imperfections

This letter investigates the performance degradation due to the imperfect parameters in orthogonal frequency- and code-division multiplexing (OFCDM) systems with multiple antennas. For the performance evaluation, the average bit error rate (BER) expression is generalized to the multiple-antenna case in the presence of the channel estimation error and frequency offset. Derived results show that the multiple-antenna OFCDM systems experience a severe BER degradation regardless of the number of users.     

Geodesy and Gravity Experiment in Earth Orbit Using a Superconducting Gravity Gradiometer

A superconducting gravity gradiometer is under development with NASA support for space application. It is planned that a sensitive three-axis gravity gradiometer will be flown in a low-altitude (~ 160-km) polar orbit in the 1990's for the purpose of obtaining a highresolution gravity map of the Earth. The large twice-an-orbit term in the harmonic expansion of gravity coming from the oblateness of the Earth can be analyzed to obtain a precision test of the inverse square law at a 100 ~ 1000-km distance. In this paper, we describe the design, operating principle, and performance of the superconducting gravity gradiometer. We discuss the concept of a gravity-gradiometer mission (GGM), which is in an initial stage of development. In particular, requirements that such a mission imposes on the design of the cryogenic spacecraft will be addressed.