A novel methanol-tolerant Ir-Se chalcogenide electrocatalyst for oyxgen reduction

A novel methanol-tolerant oxygen-reduction catalyst, Iridium-selenium (Ir-Se) chalcogenide, was synthesized by chemical precipitation in an organic solvent. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) analysis confirmed that the synthesized Ir-Se chalcogenide had a chemical formula of Ir₄Se. This chalcogenide showed strong catalytic activity towards the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and a high methanol tolerance. It was found that most of the oxygen could be directly reduced to water through a four-electron pathway with less than 10% hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) being produced during the ORR. The improvement in catalytic activity of the Ir-Se chalcogenide in comparison with that of pure Ir might be attributed to the effect of a bimetallic interaction.     

T型薄壁管节点应力集中系数有限元分析

通过有限元的方法,分析了T型薄壁管节点受平面内弯矩作用下的疲劳行为,得到了应力最大值的位置和拟合出用于预测T型薄壁管节点受平面内弯矩作用下的应力集中系数的参数公式。     

动载荷下应力强度因子的边界元计算

用Ｎａｒｄｉｎｉ－Ｂｒｅｂｂｉａ边界元法计算了动载荷下的应力强度因子，与解析解及有限元解相比较，效果较好。最后对计算结果进行了分析讨论。     

基于异常检测的NVP表决器

一般的表决器多是针对一维输出进行表决,构建表决器相对应的决策树,预先给出阈值来制定表决策略。但是对于多维输出的表决器研究相对较少,尤其是输出各个变量之间非独立的情况下,不能将多维输出的每个变量进行单独表决,否则会引入异常点,影响表决结果。实验表明,将异常检测技术引入到表决器中,净化需要表决的数据,可以提高表决结果的准确率。     

膨胀弯管在管道柔性设计中的定性分析

为防止管道因热胀冷缩、管道支撑或端点附加位移造成的应力问题,对管线中设置的膨胀弯管进行定性分析.通过2个参数的变化对膨胀弯管进行编号得到多种设计方案,用ANSYS建立管道的有限元模型,并分析各方案中膨胀管道的变形、应力和弯矩等;根据分析结果对膨胀弯管设计半径、设置位置和形状进行定性分析.该定性分析结果可为膨胀弯管概念设计和管道柔性设计提供参考.     

水电水利工程压力钢管灌浆孔应力集中敏感性因素研究

水电水利工程压力钢管开孔灌浆后,需对灌浆孔严密封堵,处理不好会对工程安全运行留下隐患。在总结国内外灌浆孔常用封堵方案基础上,以某水电站地下埋管为例,建立平面有限元模型,分析其灌浆开孔后管壁应力集中现象,研究了补强板厚度及堵头坡口深度对压力钢管灌浆孔应力集中的敏感性。结果表明,应力集中程度随补强板厚度及堵头坡口深度增加递减,堵头坡口深度对其影响更加敏感。对于地下埋管管壁上开灌浆孔的非高强钢,建议灌浆后孔口进行封堵,补强板厚度宜与钢管壁厚相同,并适当增加坡口深度。当钢管壁厚较大时,堵头坡口深度宜不小于钢管壁厚的1/4~1/3。     

关于饱和软土地基堤坝边坡稳定分析总应力法的讨论

在饱和的软土地基上修筑堤坝,由于孔隙水压力不易准确测定,需采用“φ=0”的总应力法进行稳定分析。这一做法在国外已明确纳入设计规范,在国内工程界较少受到重视,导致过高地估计了安全系数。本文首先系统地回顾了临界状态土力学中的伏斯列夫强度理论,在理论上阐述了饱和软土地基快速填筑时采用总应力法的原因,同时引用了Bishop和Bjerrum、美国联邦公路局、美国陆军工程师团与我国水电水利工程边坡设计规范的相关条文,确认在饱和软土地基采用总应力法进行稳定分析的合理性。以花敖泡土石坝和拉哇水电站围堰为工程实例,分别采用对土的固结不排水剪的两种做法开展稳定性分析,结果表明,直接将土的固结不排水剪强度指标ccu与φcu作为填筑后的强度参数,将严重高估其安全系数。因此建议正在修订的碾压式土石坝与边坡设计规范增加相应条文,并期望引起工程界对这一问题的重视。     

The impact of risk and protective factors on online teaching experience in high school Italian teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic

The lockdown due to COVID-19 in Italy resulted in the sudden closure of schools, with a shift from traditional teaching to the online one. Through an online questionnaire, this survey explores teachers' experience of online teaching, the level of risk factors (e.g., stress) and protective factors (e.g., locus of control) and their impact on satisfaction levels during the social distancing. One hundred seven high school teachers from Lombardy, an Italian region very affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, participated. Results show that depression and stress are the main predictors of satisfaction levels for online teaching. In addition, coping, locus of control and self-efficacy emerge as important protective factors. Finally, although there is great satisfaction with the online teaching experience, critical elements emerged. This study is relevant because it describes the critical elements of the online teaching experience, and identifies some protective factors and the main risk factors in teachers operating in an area strongly marked by social restrictions imposed by the pandemic. High school teachers emerge as a sub-group of the general population with specific psychological reactions. Considering the results, it is possible to suggest providing high-quality educational support and crisis-psychological oriented services to teachers, and help to maintain the psychological well-being.     

Effective vehicle width in self-paced tracking

In self-paced tracking tasks, such as driving, the speed is related to the lateral tolerance. This lateral tolerance has been varied in two ways in previous studies by changing the track width for constant vehicle width and vice versa. The current study used both an automobile driving task and a computer/mouse task to show that these two ways of varying lateral tolerance did not produce equivalent results. Subjects behaved as if vehicle width were less important than track width. Speeds and errors both increased as vehicle width increased for a constant lateral tolerance. This could have safety consequences when driving in confined spaces.     

A self-adjusting algorithm for byzantine agreement

Summary Byzantine Agreement is important both in the theory and practice of distributed computing. However, protocols to reach Byzantine Agreement are usually expensive both in the time required as well as in the number of messages exchanged. In this paper, we present a self-adjusting approach to the problem. The Mostly Byzantine Agreement is proposed as a more restrictive agreement problem that requires that in the consecutive attempts to reach agreement, the number of disagreements (i.e., failures to reach Byzantine Agreement) is finite. Fort faulty processes, we give an algorithm that has at mostt disagreements for 4t or more processes. Another algorithm is given forn3t+1 processes with the number of disagreements belowt ²/2. Both algorithms useO(n ³) message bits for binary value agreement. Yi Zhao is currently working on his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at University of Houston. His research interests include fault tolerance, distributed computing, parallel computation and neural networks. He obtained his M.S. from University of Houston in 1988 and B.S. from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1984, both in computer science. Farokh B. Bastani received the B. Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. He joined the University of Houston in 1980, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science. His research interests include software design and validation techniques, distributed systems, and fault-tolerant systems. He is a member of the ACM and the IEEE and is on the editorial board of theIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.