Residual stresses and transformation toughening in MoSi2 composites reinforced with partially stabilized zirconia

The results of study of the effects of yttria stabilization (0–6 mol.%) on the room-temperature fracture behavior and toughening mechanisms in zirconia-reinforced MoSi₂ are presented in this paper. Transformation toughening is shown to occur only in composites reinforced with zirconia particles stabilized with 2 mol.% yttria. However, the fracture toughness levels are comparable in the other composites with yttria levels between 0 and 6 mol.%. Toughening in the other composites is attributed to the combined effects of residual stress, microcrack shielding/anti-shielding and/or crack deflection. A rigorous micromechanics-based model is presented for the estimation of residual stress levels in brittle materials reinforced with phases that can transform during cooling or under stress. The model is applied successfully to the rationalization of the observed fracture and toughening phenomena.     

Marmaray project: Tunnels and stations in BC contract

Istanbul is one of the most famous historical cities in the world. However, the project alignment selected as the best of a range of alignments cannot avoid passing beneath the historical and cultural heritages of Istanbul as well as under ancient and densely inhabited areas of the city. This paper will explain some of the challenges related to the bored tunnels.

Historical buildings are vulnerable. Yet many existing residential and office buildings are old and constructed on minimal foundations. As a consequence, it is vital that any drawdown of groundwater and any ground settlements have to be minimized.

In addition, the connection between the immersed and bored tunnels will be made directly and totally underground, without the usual intermediate shafts and beneath the deep waters of the Bosphorus Strait. This operation needs the utmost control of the tunnel excavation face to ensure its stability and to minimize water ingress. Based on such considerations, tunnel excavation by tunnel boring machine (TBM) using a slurry shield and having the ability to operate under high pore pressures was recommended as the method of excavation for the main running tunnels.

The paper will explain how the design team from Avrasyaconsult – the Employer’s Representative – arrived at the final minimum, specific and functional requirements of the bored tunneling works which are to be carried out using the ‘FIDIC EPC/Turnkey Project’ conditions.     

Vegetation Change in Great Lakes Coastal Wetlands: Deviation from the Historical Cycle

Water-level change is integral to the structure and function of Great Lakes coastal wetlands, and many studies document predictable relationships between vegetation and water level. However, anthropogenic stressors, such as invasive species, land-use change, and water-level stabilization, interact to shift the historical cycle (of native vegetation migration up- and down-slope) toward dominance by invasive Typha species. Knowing from earlier studies that water-level stabilization alters the historical vegetation cycle, we asked if similar shifts can occur where water levels are not stabilized. Using historical aerial photographs of three coastal wetlands (in Lake Michigan's Green Bay, Wisconsin), we determined that habitat dominated by Typha species has expanded to eliminate wet meadow habitat. Between 1974 and 1992, linear regressions showed strong, significant relationships of both meadow area (R² ≥ 0.894; p < 0.02) and marsh area (R² ≥ 0.784; p < 0.05) to water level in all three wetlands. In 2000, meadow area was below that predicted by the historical pattern due to the landward advance of marsh habitat during a year of decreasing water levels. In the same period, land use in the wetland watersheds converted from agriculture to urban. Urbanization and the replacement of native Typha latifolia by the invasive hybrid Typha xglauca may have overwhelmed the beneficial impact of water-level fluctuation. The documentation of vegetation shifts, as herein, is an essential step in the process of preserving and restoring ecological integrity.     

临川区土地生态环境安全评价研究

通过对临川区土地生态环境的研究,采用德尔菲法、等距划分法、加权指数法,确定该区域生态环境评价指标、权重、以及安全等级,得出临川区各乡镇的生态环境安全指数,为临川区土地生态环境安全建设提出建议。     

张家港市现代服务业发展思考

分析了张家港市现代服务业发展面临的机遇和存在的主要问题,指出迅速发展以物流、现代商贸流通等为代表的现代服务业,发展现代服务业集聚区,实现现代服务业与先进制造业的融合,推进现代服务业特色化是张家港市现代服务业发展的主要方向。     

水生态保护与建设的理论问题探讨——以武汉城市圈为视角

自武汉城市圈被评为两型社会综合配套改革实验区以来,面对水环境呈现多样性和复杂性的现状,将武汉城市圈建设成为富有滨水特色的现代化生态城市圈是两型社会建设主题中应有之义,也是推动城市圈生态化发展的必由之路。针对武汉城市圈水生态保护与建设的问题,在阐述了其必然性的基础上,对理论支撑及基本原则作了细致具体的分析,希望能对武汉城市圈水生态保护与建设的实践问题等相关研究有所帮助。     

Using anatomical knowledge expressed as fuzzy constraints to segment the heart in CT images

Segmenting the heart in medical images is a challenging and important task for many applications. In particular, segmenting the heart in CT images is very useful for cardiology and oncological applications such as radiotherapy. Although the majority of methods in the literature are designed for ventricle segmentation, there is a real interest in segmenting the heart as a whole in this modality. In this paper, we address this problem and propose an automatic and robust method, based on anatomical knowledge about the heart, in particular its position with respect to the lungs. This knowledge is represented in a fuzzy formalism and it is used both to define a region of interest and to drive the evolution of a deformable model in order to segment the heart inside this region. The proposed method has been applied on non-contrast CT images and the obtained results have been compared to manual segmentations of the heart, showing the good accuracy and high robustness of our approach.     

Efficient processing of spatial joins with DOT-based indexing

A spatial join is a query that searches for a set of object pairs satisfying a given spatial relationship from a database. It is one of the most costly queries, and thus requires an efficient processing algorithm that fully exploits the features of the underlying spatial indexes. In our earlier work, we devised a fairly effective algorithm for processing spatial joins with double transformation (DOT) indexing, which is one of several spatial indexing schemes. However, the algorithm is restricted to only the one-dimensional cases. In this paper, we extend the algorithm for the two-dimensional cases, which are general in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications. We first extend DOT to two-dimensional original space. Next, we propose an efficient algorithm for processing range queries using extended DOT. This algorithm employs the quarter division technique and the tri-quarter division technique devised by analyzing the regularity of the space-filling curve used in DOT. This greatly reduces the number of space transformation operations. We then propose a novel spatial join algorithm based on this range query processing algorithm. In processing a spatial join, we determine the access order of disk pages so that we can minimize the number of disk accesses. We show the superiority of the proposed method by extensive experiments using data sets of various distributions and sizes. The experimental results reveal that the proposed method improves the performance of spatial join processing up to three times in comparison with the widely-used R-tree-based spatial join method.     

Some notes on Zadeh’s extensions

This paper shows that the Zadeh’s extensions of sendograph-metric-continuous fuzzy-valued functions are sendograph-metric-continuous fuzzy functions.     

Effect of axial and radial velocities on solids mass flow rate measurement

In coal powder flow transportation and combustion, powder mass flow rate is a key parameter to be monitored and controlled. Electrostatics is one of the techniques used for such task with its non-intrusive, robust, and low cost natures. The passive electrostatic meters measure charge induced on the detecting electrodes. As it is known that the induced signal is not only dependent on the solids mass flow rate, but also affected by solids velocity. However, the velocity of particles usually referred to is the axial velocity. In reality, the solids velocity is a vector, its projections in both the radial and tangential directions also need to be investigated. This paper analyses the dynamic sensitivity of ring-shaped electrostatic sensors using the finite element method (FEM), and investigates the influence of the axial and radial velocities on the induced signal on the electrodes.