The hawk/goose story: The classical ethological experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergen, revisited.

We present a historical account of the story behind the famous hawk/goose experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergen in a wider context of cognitive ethology. We discuss their significance, for ethological experimentation in general, and specifically for understanding innate constraints on cognition. As examples of the continuing significance of the hawk/goose paradigm of selective habituation, we discuss its relation to “exposure therapy” of human phobias and the use of hawk silhouettes as deterrents for songbirds. Finally we rephrase Uexküll's thesis of taxon-specific worlds (“Umwelten”) as a “Theory of World.” (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Study of silicon photomultipliers fast amplifier and thermoregulation

The silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) are adopted in various physical applications, from medical physics to astrophysics, for their advantages in terms of cost and weight with respect to traditional photo detectors. Their low bias voltage supply (about 30 V), hardiness and resistance to magnetic field are ideal characteristics for space application. In the frame of INFN-Irst collaboration, some of them have been developed and produced at FBK (Trento-Italy), and have been characterized in the INFN laboratories of Bologna (DaSiPM2 collaboration).The SiPM can be used in conjunction with fibres and counters in high energy physics experiments. To exploit the SiPM time resolution, a fast amplifier has been studied. The SiPM gain depends critically on temperature and a thermal stabilization is also necessary. The use of a thermoelectric cooler module based on a Peltier cell has been investigated, and the results are shown.     

Optimized butterfly specimen for the fracture testing of sheet materials under combined normal and shear loading

The present paper is concerned with multi-axial ductile fracture experiments on sheet metals. Different stress-states are achieved within a flat specimen by applying different combinations of normal and transverse loads to the specimen boundaries. The specimen geometry is optimized such that fracture initiates remote from the free specimen boundaries. Fracture experiments are carried out on TRIP780 steel for four different loading conditions, varying from pure shear to transverse plane strain tension. Hybrid experimental–numerical analyses are performed to determine the stress and strain fields within the specimen gage section. The results show that strain localization cannot be avoided prior to the onset of fracture. Through-thickness necking prevails under tension-dominated loading while the deformation localizes along a band crossing the entire gage section under shear-dominated loading. Both experimental and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed fracture testing method is very sensitive to imperfections in the specimen machining. The loading paths to fracture are determined in terms of stress triaxiality, Lode angle parameter and equivalent plastic strain. The experimental data indicates that the relationship between the stress triaxiality and the equivalent plastic strain at the onset of ductile fracture is not unique.     

饲喂仿刺参性腺对小鼠免疫功能的调节作用

以仿刺参雌、雄性腺冻干粉为原料,对其基本营养组分和主要功效成分进行测定,采用小鼠饲喂实验,考察仿刺参性腺在小鼠免疫功能调节方面的作用。结果表明:仿刺参雌、雄性腺富含营养和功效成分,其中雄性性腺蛋白质含量高达74.54 g/100 g,显著高于仿刺参体壁(P<0.05),雌性性腺中海参多糖含量与体壁相当,而海参皂苷含量高达4.77 g/100 g,是体壁的10倍以上;与对照组相比,饲喂仿刺参性腺可显著增加小鼠的胸腺指数和脾脏指数,提高自然杀伤细胞活性,尤其是饲喂雄性性腺的小鼠,自然杀伤细胞活性率升高到(47.19±4.99)%,血清中白细胞介素-6含量为(209.75±24.82) pg/mL,血清和肝脏中乳酸脱氢酶、超氧化物歧化酶活力均有所提升,肝脏中丙二醛含量降低至(1.98±0.25) nmol/mg。由此可知,饲喂仿刺参性腺可提高小鼠的免疫机能,且饲喂雄性性腺的作用更加明显。     

研发硬质合金的集成计算材料工程

用于研发硬质合金的集成计算材料工程是将微观(10~(-10)10~(-8)m)、细观(10~(-8)10~(-4)m)、介观(10~(-4)10~(-2)m)和宏观(10~(-2)10 m)等多尺度计算模拟和关键实验集成到硬质合金设计开发的全过程中,通过成分-工艺-结构-性能的集成化分析,把硬质合金的研发由传统经验式提升到科学设计,从而大大加快硬质合金材料的研发速度,降低研发成本.本文详细阐述了第一性原理计算、CALPHAD方法、相场模拟和有限元模拟等计算模拟方法及各种微结构表征和性能测定的实验方法,论述了其在硬质合金研发中所发挥的具体作用.基于集成计算材料工程,提出了从用户需要、设计制备和工业生产的3个层面研发硬质合金的具体框架.通过应用实例,展示了集成计算材料工程在新型硬质合金研发中的强大功能,为新型硬质合金的设计和开发提供了新模式.     

A robust design to reduce variability in glass container inspection

This article presents research efforts made to assist a Fortune 500 glassmaker in reducing the variability of its automated visual inspection systems in assessing product quality. Through interviewing line workers, engineers and managers, and direct observations of the inspection process possible causes leading to large variability observed in the inspection process were identified. Responding to these findings, solutions related to equipment setup, job changes, and operational procedures were suggested in order to minimize the inspection process variations as well as to improve the replicability of the inspection stations. Additionally, a unique statistical experiment was conducted to analyze how three factors (namely, operator, defect size, and threshold value used) would affect the mean of the defective ratio. A robust design aiming at controlling these variations was then given to optimize the system's performance.     

颗粒铁除铬试验研究

采用批实验方法,研究颗粒铁（铁屑）加入量、Cr（Ⅵ）初始浓度及阴离子组分对颗粒铁去除铬动力学影响。结果表明,在室温条件下（24℃±2℃）,不调节溶液的pH值,铁能很快去除水中的铬;随颗粒铁加入量的增加、初始Cr（Ⅵ）浓度的减少,颗粒铁对铬去除增强,较高浓度时,氯离子、硫酸根离子和重碳酸根离子对颗粒铁除铬有适度的增强;低浓度时,HCO3^-轻微减弱颗粒铁对Cr（Ⅵ）的去除。探讨了各因素对铬去除的影响机理。     

Visualization Approaches for Evaluating Ridge Regression Estimators in Mixture and Mixture‐Process Experiments

When the component proportions in mixture experiments are restricted by lower and upper bounds, the input space of a designed experiment space can become an irregular region that can induce multicollinearity problems when estimating the component proportion parameters. Thus, ridge regression provides a beneficial means of stabilizing the coefficient estimates in the fitted model. Previous research has focused on using prediction variance as a metric for determining an appropriate value of the ridge constant, k. We use visualization techniques to illustrate and evaluate ridge regression estimators and the robustness of estimation with respect to the variance and the bias. The addition of bias allows better balancing between the stability of the estimators and minimally changing the estimates. We illustrate the graphical methods with mixture and mixture‐process examples from the literature. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thermal diffusivity and porosity of solid materials by the electromagnetic ultrasonic technique. Part 3—simultaneous measurement of ultrasonic velocity and thermal diffusivity

The objective of this study is to evaluate simultaneously the time dependence of the thermal diffusivity of carbon-carbon composites (C/C composites) and their porosity during heat treatment using the electromagnetic ultrasonic technique. This paper describes two kinds of experiments conducted to confirm the principle for simultaneous measurement of both the ultrasonic velocity (used to evaluate the porosity) and the thermal diffusivity at room temperature. For each material, the samples used in both experiments were identical. The ultrasonic velocity of type 304 stainless steel and its thermal diffusivity were 5.85 km/s and 3.8 mm²/s with precisions of ±1.6 and ±8 percent, respectively. The ultrasonic velocity of a two-dimensional woven C/C composite and its thermal diffusivity were 2.86 km/s and 4.8 mm²/s with precisions of ±5.0 and ±8 percent, respectively. The results appear to indicate that the electromagnetic ultrasonic technique can measure the ultrasonic velocity and the thermal diffusivity simultaneously and that it is also applicable to C/C composites. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Heat Trans Jpn Res, 25(5): 308–322, 1996     

核主成分回归方法在电力负荷中期预测中的应用

在分析核主成分回归原理及其与最小二乘方法关系的基础上,针对电力负荷中期预测的影响变量间存在着的非线性关系信息,提出使用主成分网归方法进行电力负荷中期预测,一定程度上解决了误差传播的问题,系统的预测精度得到了提高。使用核主成分同归进行了模型实验,探讨了模型训练样本选取、数据处理、参数选择和训练方法等方面的问题,井对实验结果进行了分析讨论。实验表明,在模型不很复杂的情况下,可以使用直接搜索的方法有效地设置应提取的非线性主成分个数p的值。