Residual stress in polyethylene pipes

This paper deals with residual stress in polyethylene (PE) pipes as an important factor that influences their lifetime. Residual hoop stress distribution in a PE pipe was determined using a methodology previously carried out by the authors on polypropylene pipes. Axial residual stress magnitude was determined by comparison of experimental data and finite element modelling. Based on the obtained results, a new simplified methodology for determining the residual hoop stress is proposed. The method needs only one circular specimen made of pipe, but, unlike older methods, provides a more precise estimation of residual hoop stress distribution taking into account its exponential shape. Some older results from literature are recalculated using this method and residual hoop stress of various PE pipe grades and dimensions are then compared. To provide an idea of residual hoop stress influence on lifetime of a pipe, a lifetime estimation is carried out for the examined pipe.     

Wettability and surface energy of parylene F deposited on PDMS

For the first time, the wettability and surface energy of parylene F were investigated. The results showed that parylene F had a hydrophobic surface with an eigen water contact angle of 104.7 ± 0.6°. We found that 3.5 μl probe liquid was an optimal value for the contact angle measurement of parylene F. Moreover, we found that the Lifshitz–van der Waals/acid–base approach was unsuitable for determining the surface energy of parylene F, whereas the Owens–Wendt–Kaelble approach and the limitless liquid–solid interface wetting system were compatible. The surface energy of parylene F was estimated to be 27.06 mJ/m² (Owens–Wendt–Kaelble) and 40.41 mJ/m² (Limitless liquid-solid interface wetting system). Furthermore, this investigation also provided a reference for the applications of empirical and physics-based semi-empirical approaches for the estimation of surface energy.     

On coloring numbers of graph powers

The weak $r$-coloring numbers ${\mathrm{wcol}}_r\left(G\right)$ of a graph $G$ were introduced by the first two authors as a generalization of the usual coloring number $\mathrm{col}\left(G\right)$, and have since found interesting theoretical and algorithmic applications. This has motivated researchers to establish strong bounds on these parameters for various classes of graphs.Let $G^p$ denote the $p$th power of $G$. We show that, all integers $p>0$ and $\Delta \ge 3$ and graphs $G$ with $\Delta \left(G\right)\le \Delta$ satisfy $\mathrm{col}\left(G^p\right)\in O\left(p\cdot {\mathrm{wcol}}_{\lceil p∕2\rceil }\left(G\right){(\Delta -1)}^{\lfloor p∕2\rfloor }\right)$; for fixed tree width or fixed genus the ratio between this upper bound and worst case lower bounds is polynomial in $p$. For the square of graphs $G$, we also show that, if the maximum average degree $2k-2<\mathrm{mad}\left(G\right)\le 2k$, then $\mathrm{col}\left(G^2\right)\le (2k-1)\Delta \left(G\right)+2k+1$.     

一种基于序贯估计的直达声区水面舰船 被动测距方法 *

该文利用基于射线的盲解卷积方法，从直达声区的水面舰船噪声中提取出船和锚系于海底的垂直接收阵之间的时域信道响应，并利用直达波在不同阵元相对于参考阵元的到达时间差，通过序贯方法，利用射线模型和声速剖面信息，对水面舰船距接收阵的距离进行了估计。通过处理海深约为580 m的2016年美国圣巴巴拉海峡的实验数据，对1.6~3.5 km直达声区范围内Anna Maersk商船与垂直阵之间的距离进行了估计，验证了测距方法的有效性，并将结果与系统测量值和几何方法的估计值进行了比较。由于该方法不需要对海底参数进行估计，所以在海底参数未知时要优于传统匹配场方法；在声速剖面存在跃层且海底为多层分布的复杂信道条件下，该方法仍能对距离进行有效估计，且与测量值的相对误差在6%以内，小于几何方法的估计误差，测距结果精度较高。     

The Application of Fractal Transform and Entropy for Improving Fault Tolerance and Load Balancing in Grid Computing Environments

This paper applies the entropy-based fractal indexing scheme that enables the grid environment for fast indexing and querying. It addresses the issue of fault tolerance and load balancing-based fractal management to make computational grids more effective and reliable. A fractal dimension of a cloud of points gives an estimate of the intrinsic dimensionality of the data in that space. The main drawback of this technique is the long computing time. The main contribution of the suggested work is to investigate the effect of fractal transform by adding R-tree index structure-based entropy to existing grid computing models to obtain a balanced infrastructure with minimal fault. In this regard, the presented work is going to extend the commonly scheduling algorithms that are built based on the physical grid structure to a reduced logical network. The objective of this logical network is to reduce the searching in the grid paths according to arrival time rate and path’s bandwidth with respect to load balance and fault tolerance, respectively. Furthermore, an optimization searching technique is utilized to enhance the grid performance by investigating the optimum number of nodes extracted from the logical grid. The experimental results indicated that the proposed model has better execution time, throughput, makespan, latency, load balancing, and success rate.     

On Default Priors for Robust Bayesian Estimation with Divergences

This paper presents objective priors for robust Bayesian estimation against outliers based on divergences. The minimum γ-divergence estimator is well-known to work well in estimation against heavy contamination. The robust Bayesian methods by using quasi-posterior distributions based on divergences have been also proposed in recent years. In the objective Bayesian framework, the selection of default prior distributions under such quasi-posterior distributions is an important problem. In this study, we provide some properties of reference and moment matching priors under the quasi-posterior distribution based on the γ-divergence. In particular, we show that the proposed priors are approximately robust under the condition on the contamination distribution without assuming any conditions on the contamination ratio. Some simulation studies are also presented.     

MPKin-YSTR: Interpretation of Y chromosome STR haplotypes for missing persons cases

Y chromosome Short Tandem Repeat (STR) haplotypes have been used in assisting forensic investigations primarily for identification and male lineage determination. The current SWGDAM interpretation guidelines for Y-STR typing provide helpful guidance on those purposes but do not address the issue of kinship analysis with Y-STR haplotypes. Because of the high mutation rate of Y-STRs, there are complex missing person cases in which inconsistent Y-STR haplotypes between true paternal lineage relatives will arise and cases with two or more male references in the same lineage and yet differ in their haplotypes. Therefore, more useful methods are needed for interpreting the Y-STR haplotype data. Computational methods and interpretation guidelines have been developed specifically addressing this issue, either using a mismatch-based counting method or a pedigree likelihood ratio method. In this study, a software program, MPKin-YSTR, was developed by implementing those more sophisticated methods. This software should be able to improve the interpretation of complex cases with Y-STR haplotype evidence. Thus, more biological evidence will be interpreted, which in turn will result in more investigation leads to help solve crimes.     

Monomer relative affinity in a copolymer

This paper analyzes data from experiments on simple polymer chains. It measures the extent to which a particular monomer prefers to link with another of the same type. To analyze the data, it derives the likelihood function for a two‐state Markov model in which only the number in each state, but not the order, is observed. This technology is applied to a data set on which experimenters mixed lactic‐glycolic monomers with a known proportion of a contaminant consisting of an extra lactic acid. The resulting copolymers were subjected to matrix‐assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry. This records the number of copolymers at each atomic weight, which can be associated with a given length of copolymer and number of contaminant monomers. Analysis of the data shows that the proportion of contaminant monomers exceeded the proportion of experimentally induced contaminant. Maximum likelihood estimates using the data show that lactic‐glycolic monomers show a positive affinity for the contaminant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.