Data mining of resilience indicators

In recent years, the Asia-Pacific region has experienced several financial setbacks, including speculative attacks in 1998 and the SARS outbreak in 2003. Financial stresses of this nature are unanticipated, and not all of the dangers can be predicted by the examination of market information and macroeconomic indicators. The Early Warning System (EWS) that has been adopted by the International Monetary Fund may not be able to predict future financial crises for all possible scenarios, because shocks come in many different forms. To supplement the EWS, this paper proposes a data mining framework to measure the resilience of an economy. The resilience framework does not predict a crisis, but rather assesses the current state of health of an economy and its ability to withstand a financial shock should one occur. The framework is based on a feedback system consisting of two stages. The first stage assigns a resilience score to each economy based on a fuzzy logic scoring scheme that is built on the ambiguous reasoning of experts. The second stage uses the classification tree approach to estimate thresholds for each economic indicator, and examines the quality of the fuzzy score. The result from the second stage is then passed back to the first stage as feedback. The final result is obtained when the feedback system reaches its equilibrium state. The proposed resilience framework is applied to the external-sector and the public-sector economies of several countries to illustrate its applicability.     

Predicting and controlling risks from human exposures to vibration and mechanical shock: flag waving and flag weaving

At work or in leisure activities, many people are exposed to vibration or mechanical shocks associated with risks of injury or disease. This paper identifies information that can be used to decide whether there may be a risk from exposure to hand-transmitted vibration or whole-body vibration and shock, and suggests actions that can control the risks. The complex and time-varying nature of human exposures to vibration and shock, the complexity of the different disorders and uncertainty as to the mechanisms of injury and the factors influencing injury have prevented the definition of dose–response relationships well proven by scientific study. It is necessary to wave a flag indicating when there is a need to control risks from exposure to vibration and shock while scientific enquiry provides understanding needed to weave a better flag. It is concluded that quantifying exposure severity is often neither necessary nor sufficient to either identify risks or implement measures that control the risks.Practitioner Summary: The identification of risks associated with exposure to vibration and mechanical shock cannot, and need not, rely solely on the quantification of exposure severity. Qualitative methods can provide a sufficient indication of the need for control measures, which should not be restricted to reducing standardised measures of exposure severity.     

(Abstracts)Changing Industrial Demands

Abstract

The frequency dependence of discomfort caused by vertical mechanical shocks has been investigated with 20 seated males exposed to upward and downward shocks at 13 fundamental frequencies (1–16 Hz) and 18 magnitudes (±0.12 to ±8.3 ms^?2). The rate of growth of discomfort with increasing shock magnitude depended on the fundamental frequency of the shocks, so the frequency dependence of equivalent comfort contours (for both vertical acceleration and vertical force measured at the seat) varied with shock magnitude. The rate of growth of discomfort was similar for acceleration and force, upward and downward shocks, and lower and higher magnitude shocks. The frequency dependence of discomfort from shocks differs from that of sinusoidal vibrations having the same fundamental frequencies. This arises in part from the frequency content of the shock. Frequency weighting W_b in BS 6841:1987 and ISO 2631-1:1997 provided reasonable estimates of the discomfort caused by the shocks investigated in this study.

Practitioner Summary: No single frequency weighting can accurately predict the discomfort caused by mechanical shocks over wide ranges of shock magnitude, but vibration dose values with frequency weighting W_b provide reasonable estimates of discomfort caused by shocks similar to those investigated in this study with peak accelerations well below 1 g.     

Aggregate effects and measuring regional dynamics

Empirical models of regional adjustment often control for aggregate effects when estimating the impact of region-specific shocks on local economies. It is, however, difficult to filter out the effects of aggregate shocks—such as oil shocks, uncertainty shocks, or national recessions—because the incidence of these shocks varies across space and time. We propose an improved econometric method to control for this form of spatiotemporal heterogeneity, thereby yielding more accurate estimation of the effects of local shocks on regional economies. Applying the method to US states, we find that labour demand shocks are mostly absorbed through changes in participation; the migration response to these shocks is limited; and recoveries are highly protracted     

用第Ⅴ类连杆曲线逼近双曲线综合槽轮连杆机构

本文提出了一种新的综合内槽轮机构的方法,利用双曲线的特性,把双曲线的一支作为给定轨迹,滚子作为一个连杆点,使滚子的轨迹按给定条件成为第Ⅴ类对称连杆曲线来逼近给定双曲线的近似直线部分。用优化设计方法,综合槽轮连杆机构,达到在槽轮机构分度转位时无冲击的目的。     

抗冲击磁流变缓冲器原理及分析

目的　根据磁流变液体的粘度可在外加磁场的作用下变化的特性 ,探讨阻尼特性可控的抗冲击缓冲器的原理及工程可应用性 .方法　通过设计磁流变液体缓冲器结构、控制方法和理论分析 ,论述了磁流变缓冲器的有关理论和技术 .结果　磁流变缓冲器可获得良好的缓冲特性 .结论　利用磁流变液体的表观粘度随外加磁场可变的特性 ,可用主动控制的方法来控制缓冲器的抗冲击性能 .     

预压缩多层钙塑瓦楞纸板准静态压缩与动态缓冲性能研究

对不同预压程度下多层钙塑瓦楞纸板缓冲衬垫的力学性能以及缓冲特性进行了研究。通过静态压缩试验对比了缓冲衬垫在不同预压缩程度下的力学性能以及缓冲特性。将材料的应力-应变曲线转化为缓冲系数-最大应力曲线,从而获得最小缓冲系数,研究发现压缩率为5%到25%的缓冲材料可以有效地扩大缓冲保护范围。通过连续冲击试验得到了多层钙塑瓦楞纸板缓冲衬垫在连续冲击载荷条件下的冲击响应,利用加速度-时间曲线和冲击放大系数曲线分析了缓冲衬垫的缓冲特性。研究结果将对多层钙塑瓦楞纸板在缓冲包装设计中的应用起到一定的参考价值。     

Al2O3—Si3N4—ZrO2多相复合材料在燃煤MHD发电中的应用

采用Ａｌ２Ｏ３基料，添加第二相（ＺｒＯ２，Ｓｉ３Ｎ４）和纤维相（ＺｒＯ２，（ｆ），以热压法制成Ａｌ２Ｏ３－Ｓｉ３Ｎ４－ＺｒＯ２多相复合材料。研究表明，新材料在青静态和动态试验中表现出良好的综合性能：１０７３Ｋ时的高温电阴率ｐ＝１．２４×１７＾７Ω．ｃｍ；静态熔渣最大腐蚀速率Ｖｓ＝０．１６μｍ／ｈ；动态最大腐蚀速率Ｖｄ＝０．４４９μｍ／ｈ。与Ａｌ２Ｏ３陶瓷相比，室温抗弯强度提高９３％，抗热震临界...     

Relationships between oil price shocks and stock market: An empirical analysis from China

This paper investigates the interactive relationships between oil price shocks and Chinese stock market using multivariate vector auto-regression. Oil price shocks do not show statistically significant impact on the real stock returns of most Chinese stock market indices, except for manufacturing index and some oil companies. Some “important” oil price shocks depress oil company stock prices. Increase in oil volatility may increase the speculations in mining index and petrochemicals index, which raise their stock returns. Both the world oil price shocks and China oil price shocks can explain much more than interest rates for manufacturing index.     

Control charts for processes subject to random shocks

In this paper, a charting technique for controlling processes subject to random shocks is presented. This type of process is common in a high-yield production environment and the conventional Shewhart control charts are not efficient for its monitoring and control. This technique is able to detect process improvement, easy for decision making, and more concise and informative than other methods used for this type of process. In addition, it could provide diagnostic information which is highly useful in practice.