Decay rate for viscoelastic wave equation of variable coefficients with delay and dynamic boundary conditions

In this paper, we consider a viscoelastic wave equation of variable coefficients in the presence of past history with nonlinear damping and delay in the internal feedback and dynamic boundary conditions. Under suitable assumptions, we establish an explicit and general decay rate result without imposing restrictive assumption on the behavior of the relaxation function at infinity by Riemannian geometry method and Lyapunov functional method.     

A general framework for describing photofission observables of actinides at an average excitation energy below 30 MeV

A reasonable prediction of photofission observables plays a paramount role in understanding the photofission process and guiding various photofission-induced applications, such as short-lived isotope production, nuclear waste disposal, and nuclear safeguards. However, the available experimental data for photofission observables are limited, and the existing models and programs have mainly been developed for neutron-induced fission processes. In this study, a general framework is proposed for characterizing the photofission observables of actinides, including the mass yield distributions (MYD) and isobaric charge distributions (ICD) of fission fragments and the multiplicity and energy distributions of prompt neutrons (n_p) and prompt γ rays (γ_p). The framework encompasses various systematic neutron models and empirical models considering the Bohr hypothesis and does not rely on the experimental data as input. These models are then validated individually against experimental data at an average excitation energy below 30 MeV, which shows the reliability and robustness of the general framework. Finally, we employ this framework to predict the characteristics of photofission fragments and the emissions of prompt particles for typical actinides including ²³²Th, ^{235, 238}U and ²⁴⁰Pu. It is found that the ²³⁸U(γ, f) reaction is more suitable for producing neutron-rich nuclei compared to the ²³²Th(γ, f) reaction. In addition, the average multiplicity number of both n_p and γ_p increases with the average excitation energy.     

A Dynamic Anomaly Detection Approach Based on Permutation Entropy for Predicting Aging-Related Failures

Software aging is a phenomenon referring to the performance degradation of a long-running software system. This phenomenon is an accumulative process during execution, which will gradually lead the system from a normal state to a failure-prone state. It is a crucial challenge for system reliability to predict the Aging-Related Failures (ARFs) accurately. In this paper, permutation entropy (PE) is modified to Multidimensional Multi-scale Permutation Entropy (MMPE) as a novel aging indicator to detect performance anomalies, since MMPE is sensitive to dynamic state changes. An experiment is set on the distributed database system Voldemort, and MMPE is calculated based on the collected performance metrics during execution. Finally, based on MMPE, a failure prediction model using the machine learning method to reveal the anomalies is presented, which can predict failures with high accuracy.     

A micrometer head integrated microfluidic device for facile droplet size control and automatic measurement of a droplet size

A novel microfluidic droplet generator is proposed, which can control the droplet size through turning an integrated micrometer head with ease, and the size of the produced micro-droplet can be automatically and real-time monitored by an open-sourced software and off-the-shelf hardware.     

Solvability of a nonlinear fifth‐order difference equation

Some formulas for well‐defined solutions to four very special cases of a nonlinear fifth‐order difference equation have been presented recently in this journal, where some of them were proved by the method of induction, some are only quoted, and no any theory behind the formulas was given. Here, we show in an elegant constructive way how the general solution to the difference equation can be obtained, from which the special cases very easily follow, which is also demonstrated here. We also give some comments on the local stability results on the special cases of the nonlinear fifth‐order difference equation previously publish in this journal.     

Mechanical effects of acupuncture

Acupuncture, a physiotherapy, has been widely accepted all around the world. This study focuses on the influence of membrane structures and explains the acupuncture sensations from the aspect of mechanical properties. By mathematical modeling and numerical simulation, the scientific meaning of the acupuncture depth is investigated and phenomena and theory of acupuncture are discussed. The simulation results show that (a) the fascial structure is the main contributor to the force on the needle, the axial force will gradually increase before piercing the fascial, and suddenly decrease after piercing the fascial; (b) there is an inverse relationship between the needle radius and the maximum radial stress, which indicates that the needle should not be too sharp to cause local stress concentration and piece the fascia layer; and (c) the simulation results of comprehensively considering the static friction and sliding friction is identical with the experiment results. This study proposes a preliminary study of mechanical effects of acupuncture manipulation, clarifies key factors affecting the stress on the needle, and explains the objective requirement of acupuncture depth to effective treatment.     

On molecular topological properties of hex‐derived networks

Topological indices are numerical parameters of a molecular graph, which characterize its topology and are usually graph invariant. In quantitative structure–activity relationship/quantitative structure–property relationship study, physico‐chemical properties and topological indices such as Randić, atom–bond connectivity (ABC), and geometric–arithmetic (GA) index are used to predict the bioactivity of chemical compounds. Graph theory has found a considerable use in this area of research. In this paper, we study hex‐derived networks HDN1(n) and HDN2(n), which are generated by hexagonal network of dimension n and derive analytical closed results of general Randić index R_α(G) for different values of α, for these networks of dimension n. We also compute the general first Zagreb, ABC, GA, ABC₄, and GA₅ indices for these hex‐derived networks for the first time and give closed formulae of these degree‐based indices for hex‐derived networks. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability of a von Karman equation with infinite memory

In this paper, we consider a von Karman equation with infinite memory. For von Karman equations with finite memory, there is a lot of literature concerning on existence of the solutions, decay of the energy, and existence of the attractors. However, there are few results on existence and energy decay rate of the solutions for von Karman equations with infinite memory. The main goal of the present paper is to generalize previous results by treating infinite history instead of finite history.