A new monitoring system for piping systems in fossil fired power plants

A CEC-funded project has been performed to tackle the problem of producing an advanced Life Monitoring System (LMS) which would calculate the creep and fatigue damage experienced by high temperature pipework components. Four areas were identified where existing Life Monitoring System technology could be improved:

1. 1. the inclusion of creep relaxation

2. 2. the inclusion of external loads on components

3. 3. a more accurate method of calculating thermal stresses due to temperature transients

4. 4. the inclusion of high cycle fatigue terms.

The creep relaxation problem was solved using stress reduction factors in an analytical in-elastic stress calculation. The stress reduction factors were produced for a number of common geometries and materials by means of non-linear finite element analysis. External loads were catered for by producing influence coefficients from in-elastic analysis of the particular piping system and using them to calculate bending moments at critical positions on the pipework from load and displacement measurements made at the convenient points at the pipework. The thermal stress problem was solved by producing a completely new solution based on Green's Function and Fast Fourier transforms. This allowed the thermal stress in a complex component to be calculated from simple non-intrusive thermocouple measurements made on the outside of the component. The high-cycle fatigue problem was dealt with precalculating the fatigue damage associated with standard transients and adding this damage to cumulative total when a transient occurred.

The site testing provided good practical experience and showed up problems which would not otherwise have been detected.     

Public Attitudes to In-House Water Recycling in England and Wales

This study, which is based on responses from over 300 individuals in England and Wales, explores how a willingness to use a water-recycling system of specific configuration varies against a number of factors which are linked to system design, system scale, system context, and water-conservation behaviour. Findings show that there is broad willingness to accept in-house water recycling provided that public health is not compromised.     

The five elements and chinese-american mortality.

D. P. Phillips, T. E. Ruth, and L. M. Wagner (1993) reported that 1969-1990 California mortality data show that Chinese Americans are particularly vulnerable to diseases that Chinese astrology and traditional Chinese medicine associate with their birth years. For example, because fire is associated with the heart, a Chinese person born in a fire year (such as 1937) is more likely to die of heart disease than is a Chinese person born in a nonfire year. However, many diseases were excluded from this study, some diseases that were included have ambiguous links to birth years, and the statistical tests were indirect. A more complete statistical analysis and independent California mortality data for the years 1960-1968 and 1991-2002 did not replicate the original results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of sampling density on the measurement of stream condition indicators in two lowland Australian streams

There is widespread application of indicators to the assessment of environmental condition of streams. These indicators are intended for use by managers in making various comparative and absolute assessments and often have a role in resource allocation and performance assessment. Therefore, the problem of formally defining confidence in the results is important but difficult because the sampling strategies used are commonly based on a compromise between the requirements of statistical rigour and the pragmatic issues of access and resources. It is rare to see this compromise explicitly considered and consequently there is seldom quantification of the uncertainty that could affect the confidence a manager has in an indicator. In this paper, we present a method for quantitatively assessing the tradeoffs between sampling density and uncertainty in meeting various monitoring objectives. Assessments using judgement‐based representative reaches are shown to be unreliable; instead a sampling approach is recommended based on the random selection of measuring sites. A detailed dataset was collected along two streams in Victoria, Australia, and the effect of sampling density was assessed by subsampling from this dataset with precision related to the number of sites assessed per reach length and the intensity of the sampling at each site. The sampling scheme to achieve a given precision is shown to depend on the monitoring objective. In particular, three objectives were considered: (1) making a baseline assessment of current condition; (2) change detection; and (3) detection of a critical threshold in condition. Change detection is shown to be more demanding than assessing baseline condition with additional sampling effort required to achieve the same precision. Sampling to detect a critical threshold depends on nominating acceptable values of Type I and II error and the size of the effect to be detected. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A framework to integrate software behavior into dynamic probabilistic risk assessment

Software plays an increasingly important role in modern safety-critical systems. Although, research has been done to integrate software into the classical probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) framework, current PRA practice overwhelmingly neglects the contribution of software to system risk. Dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (DPRA) is considered to be the next generation of PRA techniques. DPRA is a set of methods and techniques in which simulation models that represent the behavior of the elements of a system are exercised in order to identify risks and vulnerabilities of the system. The fact remains, however, that modeling software for use in the DPRA framework is also quite complex and very little has been done to address the question directly and comprehensively. This paper develops a methodology to integrate software contributions in the DPRA environment. The framework includes a software representation, and an approach to incorporate the software representation into the DPRA environment SimPRA. The software representation is based on multi-level objects and the paper also proposes a framework to simulate the multi-level objects in the simulation-based DPRA environment. This is a new methodology to address the state explosion problem in the DPRA environment. This study is the first systematic effort to integrate software risk contributions into DPRA environments.     

炼铁生产环境负荷分析和预测研究

利用寿命周期评价的思想，计算了炼铁生产过程中的环境负荷，并分析了各因素对环境负荷的影响，运用神经网络对炼铁生产过程环境负荷进行了预测。     

Mixed anaclitic-introjective psychopathology in treatment-resistant inpatients undergoing psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Utilizing data from the Riggs-Yale Project, 45 male and 45 female 18-29-year-old treatment-resistant inpatients undergoing intensive psychoanalytically oriented treatment were studied. Twenty-seven mixed-type anaclitic-introjective inpatients were compared with 29 "pure" anaclitic and 34 "pure" introjective inpatients. At intake, mixed-type inpatients were more clinically impaired (i.e., were more symptomatic, cognitively impaired, and thought disordered) and more vulnerable (i.e., less accurate object representations and more frequently used maladaptive defense mechanisms) in comparison with clearly defined anaclitic and introjective patients. Mixed-type patients, however, improved significantly more in the course of psychoanalytically oriented treatment, in terms of clinical functioning (i.e., symptoms, cognitive functioning) and psychological vulnerability (i.e., utilization of more adaptive defense mechanisms). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Douglas W. Bray (1918-2006).

Presents an obituary for Douglas W. Bray, the inventor of the modern-day assessment center, a method used by thousands of organizations around the world to identify the best people for critical roles and to guide individuals in optimizing their talents. Bray's death in Englewood, New Jersey, on May 9, 2006, ended the extraordinary career of a pioneer in industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology who optimized the interplay of research and application. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

DSS research and practice in perspective

The aim of this paper is to assess the state-of-the-art in the Decision Support Systems (DSS) field from both a research and a practice perspective. Three main dimensions of DSS research and practice are addressed: 1) supporting human decision-making processes, 2) integrating DSS into the organizational context, and 3) identifying new application domains. The related analysis and discussion provides a better understanding of past developments in the DSS field and insights into future evolution patterns.     

球罐活性缺陷的模糊评定方法

根据国内外有关标准和文献,利用模糊数学中的模糊描述和隶属度等概念,首次采用多级模糊综合评定理论,分层次地把活性缺陷的主要监测信息(即声发射源信息)和专家们的经验考虑在内,建立在用球形贮罐声发射源严重度多级模糊综合评定模型和方法,并编制计算机数据分析和处理程序,使评定结果趋于更合理和可靠.并给出在用球形贮罐声发射源严重度多级模糊综合评定算例,结果表明,该评定方法可以达到定量化的程度,与局部无损复验结果有良好的一致性.