Numerical evaluation of three-dimensional water impact by the displacement potential formulation

The numerical accuracy of the displacement potential approach for a three-dimensional water-impact problem is investigated. An examination of the elliptic paraboloid shows that the boundary-value problem for the displacement potential, as well as the velocity potential, can be solved accurately, even if the panel size of the numerical scheme is no small enough. The numerical accuracy of the position of the contact line is poor. However, the accuracy of the virtual mass is good because of the averaging effect along the contact line. A comparison with Scolan and Korobkin's designed body confirms the accuracy of the drop speed and the penetration displacement. The displacement potential approach is extended to the case of water impact with trapped air. The numerical accuracy of the calculated air pressure in the cavity is confirmed by comparison with an experimental result. With these results, the suitability of the displacement potential approach to the ship-slamming problem is demonstrated.     

A Bayesian propensity score adjustment for latent variable modeling and MCMC algorithm

The estimation of the differences among groups in observational studies is frequently inaccurate owing to a bias caused by differences in the distributions of covariates. In order to estimate the average treatment effects when the treatment variable is binary, Rosenbaum and Rubin [1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika 70, 41-55] proposed an adjustment method for pre-treatment variables using propensity scores. Imbens [2000. The role of the propensity score in estimating dose-response functions. Biometrika 87, 706-710] extended the propensity score methodology for estimation of average treatment effects with multivalued treatments.However, these studies focused only on estimating the marginal mean structure. In many substantive sciences such as the biological and social sciences, a general estimation method is required to deal with more complex analyses other than regression, such as testing group differences on latent variables. For latent variable models, the EM algorithm or the traditional Monte Carlo methods are necessary. However, in propensity score adjustment, these methods cannot be used because the full distribution is not specified.In this paper, we propose a quasi-Bayesian estimation method for general parametric models that integrate out the distributions of covariates using propensity scores. Although the proposed Bayes estimates are shown to be consistent, they can be calculated by existing Markov chain Monte Carlo methods such as Gibbs sampler. The proposed method is useful to estimate parameters in latent variable models, while the previous methods were unable to provide valid estimates for complex models such as latent variable models.We also illustrated the procedure using the data obtained from the US National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSY1979-2002) for estimating the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on the development of the child's cognitive functioning.     

Breakdown of oil films and formation of residual films

The breakdown processes of oil films under quasi-static loading have been investigated by using a newly developed steel-oil-mercury system. The relationship between the thickness and breakdown ratio of a hexadecane film is represented by a single master curve independently of the indentation speed, indentation load, and temperature. The master curve shows that the breakdown process of hexadecane includes two stages; one is the decrement of the thickness without breakdown and the other is the decrement of the thickness with a drastic progress of breakdown. By solving a small amount of fatty acid in hexadecane, the thickness increases and the breakdown ratio decreases noticeably; a multilayer residual film supporting normal load is formed between two metal surfaces. Experiments at different temperatures reveal a negative relationship between the temperature and thickness of residual film, which indicates that the residual film is organized by physical interaction rather than chemical interaction. At least under a lower concentration, the residual film appears to consist of not only fatty acid molecules but also hexadecane molecules.     

Case performed: simultaneous surgery for left coronary ostial stenosis and gastric cancer

This report describes a case in which a 68-year-old male underwent two operations simultaneously for left coronary ostial stenosis and gastric cancer. Successfully performed procedures were a single coronary artery grafting with the saphenous vein to the left anterior descending artery, and a subtotal gastrectomy using the Billroth II method. The postoperative course was uneventful and the patient was discharged from the hospital in good condition after 42 days. At present, one-year postoperative, the patient has been visiting the outpatient clinic in healthy condition.