Physicomechanical characteristics of a disperse-filled polytetrafluoroethylene

Composite polymer materials based on PTFE containing ultradisperse -sialon (1–10 wt.%) as the cross-linking agent are studied. It is shown that the injection of small amounts of fillers (1–2 wt.%) increases the degree of composite crystallinity. A correlation between the structure, element distribution on the surface layers of samples, and tribotechnical characteristics of composites is found. The change in the physicomechanical characteristics is associated with the effect of the interstructural plasticization.Ammosov Yakutsk State University, Yakutsk, Russia. Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 797–806, November–December, 1999.     

A REPRESENTATION FORMULA RELATED TO SCHR(O)DINGER OPERATORS

Schr(o)dinger operator is a central subject in the mathematical study of quantum mechanics.Consider the Schrodinger operator H = -△ V on R, where △ = d2/dx2 and the potential function V is real valued. In Fourier analysis, it is well-known that a square integrable function admits an expansion with exponentials as eigenfunctions of -△. A natural conjecture is that an L2 function admits a similar expansion in terms of "eigenfunctions" of H, a perturbation of the Laplacian (see [7], Ch. Ⅺ and the notes), under certain condition on V.     

Staircase transportation problems with superadditive rewards and cumulative capacities

A cumulative-capacitated transportation problem is studied. The supply nodes and demand nodes are each chains. Shipments from a supply node to a demand node are possible only if the pair lies in a sublattice, or equivalently, in a staircase disjoint union of rectangles, of the product of the two chains. There are (lattice) superadditive upper bounds on the cumulative flows in all leading subrectangles of each rectangle. It is shown that there is a greatest cumulative flow formed by the natural generalization of the South-West Corner Rule that respects cumulative-flow capacities; it has maximum reward when the rewards are (lattice) superadditive; it is integer if the supplies, demands and capacities are integer; and it can be calculated myopically in linear time. The result is specialized to earlier work of Hoeffding (1940), Fréchet (1951), Lorentz (1953), Hoffman (1963) and Barnes and Hoffman (1985). Applications are given to extreme constrained bivariate distributions, optimal distribution with limited one-way product substitution and, generalizing results of Derman and Klein (1958), optimal sales with age-dependent rewards and capacities.To our friend, Philip Wolfe, with admiration and affection, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.Research was supported respectively by the IBM T.J. Watson and IBM Almaden Research Centers and is a minor revision of the IBM Research Report [6].     

Creep of polymer concrete in the nonlinear region

Two polyester-based polymer concretes with various volume content of diabase as an extender and aggregate are tested in creep under compression at different stress levels. The phenomenological and structural approaches are both used to analyze the experimental data. Common features of changes in the instantaneous and creep compliances are clarified, and a phenomenological creep model which accounts for the changes in the instantaneous compliance and in the retardation spectrum depending on the stress level is developed. It is shown that the model can be used to describe the experimental results of stress relaxation and creep under repeated loading. Modeling of the composite structure and subsequent solution of the optimization problem confirm the possibility of the existence of an interphase layer more compliant than the binder. A direct correlation between the interphase volume content and the instantaneous compliance of the composite is revealed. It is found that the distinction in nonlinearity of the viscoelastic behavior of the two polymer concretes under investigation can be due to the difference in their porosity. Submitted to the 11th International Conference on Mechanics of Composite Materials (Riga, June 11–15, 2000.) Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 147–164, 2000.     

A model for predicting the shear bearing capacity of FRP-strengthened beams

The shear failure of reinforced concrete beams needs more attention than the bending failure since no or only small warning precedes the failure. For this reason, it is of utmost importance to understand the shear bearing capacity and also to be able to undertake significant rehabilitation work if necessary. In this paper, a design model for the shear strengthening of concrete beams by using fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) is presented, and the limitations of the truss model analogy are highlighted. The fracture mechanics approach is used in analyzing the bond behavior between the FRP composites and concrete. The fracture energy of concrete and the axial rigidity of the FRP are considered to be the most important parameters. The effective strain in the FRP when the debonding occurs is determined. The limitations of the anchorage length over the cross section are analyzed. A simple iterative design method for the shear debonding is finally proposed. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 44, No. 3, pp. 357–372, May–June, 2008.     

Coordinate and subspace optimization methods for linear least squares with non-quadratic regularization

This work addresses the problem of regularized linear least squares (RLS) with non-quadratic separable regularization. Despite being frequently deployed in many applications, the RLS problem is often hard to solve using standard iterative methods. In a recent work [M. Elad, Why simple shrinkage is still relevant for redundant representations? IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 52 (12) (2006) 5559–5569], a new iterative method called parallel coordinate descent (PCD) was devised. We provide herein a convergence analysis of the PCD algorithm, and also introduce a form of the regularization function, which permits analytical solution to the coordinate optimization. Several other recent works [I. Daubechies, M. Defrise, C. De-Mol, An iterative thresholding algorithm for linear inverse problems with a sparsity constraint, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. LVII (2004) 1413–1457; M.A. Figueiredo, R.D. Nowak, An EM algorithm for wavelet-based image restoration, IEEE Trans. Image Process. 12 (8) (2003) 906–916; M.A. Figueiredo, R.D. Nowak, A bound optimization approach to wavelet-based image deconvolution, in: IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, 2005], which considered the deblurring problem in a Bayesian methodology, also obtained element-wise optimization algorithms. We show that the last three methods are essentially equivalent, and the unified method is termed separable surrogate functionals (SSF). We also provide a convergence analysis for SSF. To further accelerate PCD and SSF, we merge them into a recently developed sequential subspace optimization technique (SESOP), with almost no additional complexity. A thorough numerical comparison of the denoising application is presented, using the basis pursuit denoising (BPDN) objective function, which leads all of the above algorithms to an iterated shrinkage format. Both with synthetic data and with real images, the advantage of the combined PCD-SESOP method is demonstrated.     

Superapproximation and Commutator Properties of Discrete Orthogonal Projections for Continuous Splines

This paper builds upon the L_p-stability results for discrete orthogonal projections on the spaces S_h of continuous splines of order r obtained by R. D. Grigorieff and I. H. Sloan in (1998, Bull. Austral. Math. Soc.58, 307–332). Properties of such projections were proved with a minimum of assumptions on the mesh and on the quadrature rule defining the discrete inner product. The present results, which include superapproximation and commutator properties, are similar to those derived by I. H. Sloan and W. Wendland (1999, J. Approx. Theory97, 254–281) for smoothest splines on uniform meshes. They are expected to have applications (as in I. H. Sloan and W. Wendland, Numer. Math. (1999, 83, 497–533)) to qualocation methods for non-constant-coefficient boundary integral equations, as well as to the wide range of other numerical methods in which quadrature is used to evaluate L₂-inner products. As a first application, we consider the most basic variable-coefficient boundary integral equation, in which the constant-coefficient operator is the identity. The results are also extended to the case of periodic boundary conditions, in order to allow appplication to boundary integral equations on closed curves.     

Effect of the adhesion interaction and the degree of filling on the internal stresses in finely divided crystalline fillers of epoxy composites

Two kinds of model composite materials with finely divided (1) crystal fillers—LiF or polyethylene-filled epoxy resin cured by polyethylenepolyamine — are investigated by X-ray diffractometry. It is found that tensile stresses arise in LiF crystals, which show a strong adhesion interaction with the binder, for all degrees of filling (from =2.2 to =74 vol.%) examined. Their values remain constant up to a degree of filling at which the boundary layers come into contact with one another. Then, the inner stresses decrease with increasing . In the crystalline regions of polyethylene, where the adhesion between the binder and crystals is weak, the inner stresses are compressive. It is shown that the thickness of the boundary layer of the matrix on the surface of filler particles can be evaluated by the method used.Institute of Polymer Mechanics, Latvian University, Riga, LV-1006 Latvia. Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 35, No. 6, pp. 807–820, November–December, 1999.     

Rigid isotopy classification of real algebraic curves of bidegree (3,3) on quadrics

A rigid isotopy of nonsingular real algebraic curves on a quadric is a path in the space of such curves of a given bidegree. We obtain the rigid isotopy classification of nonsingular real algebraic curves of bidegree (3, 3) on a hyperboloid and on an ellipsoid. We also study of the space of real algebraic curves of bidegree (3, 3) with a single node or cusp. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 66, No. 6, pp. 810–815, December, 1999.     

Embeddings of the classesH ω

In this paper we study functions belonging to the classesV _ε and ΛBV, which are encountered in the theory of Fourier trigonometric series. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the embedding of the classesH _ω in the classesV _ϕ and ABV are obtained. Translated fromMatematicheskie Zametki, Vol. 64, No. 5, pp. 713–719, November, 1998. This research was supported by the program “Leading Scientific Schools” under grant No. 96/97-15-96073.     

Variation of the structure and permeability of tensioned fiber layers during impregnation with a thermoplastic polymer melt

The influence of displacements of tensioned fibers on the impregnation of fibrous layers with a polymer melt and on the final composite structure is studied. Using computer simulation, it is shown that, during impregnation, the structure of tensioned fibrous layers changes considerably depending on the initial arrangement and tensioning of fibers. The consolidated regions formed under the melt front move inside the impregnated layer with the advancing melt front. Displacement of the tensioned fibers as well as the formation of “washouts” favors the impregnation of internal layers, but cause significant inhomogeneity of the polymer structure. The surface (on the side of the melt flow) regions are more saturated with the polymer than the internal ones. A difference in the melt percolation mechanisms at various impregnation regimes is revealed. The effective permeability coefficients of a tensioned fiber layer are not constant but depend on the conditions and regimes of impregnation. Submitted to the 11th Conference on the Mechanics of Composite Materials (Riga, June 11–15, 2000). Translated from Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 259–270, March–April, 2000.     

Poset block equivalence of integral matrices

Given square matrices and with a poset-indexed block structure (for which an block is zero unless ), when are there invertible matrices and with this required-zero-block structure such that ? We give complete invariants for the existence of such an equivalence for matrices over a principal ideal domain . As one application, when is a field we classify such matrices up to similarity by matrices respecting the block structure. We also give complete invariants for equivalence under the additional requirement that the diagonal blocks of and have determinant . The invariants involve an associated diagram (the ``-web') of -module homomorphisms. The study is motivated by applications to symbolic dynamics and -algebras.

     

On a class of self-similar processes with stationary increments in higher order Wiener chaoses

We study a class of self-similar processes with stationary increments belonging to higher order Wiener chaoses which are similar to Hermite processes. We obtain an almost sure wavelet-like expansion of these processes. This allows us to compute the pointwise and local Hölder regularity of sample paths and to analyse their behaviour at infinity. We also provide some results on the Hausdorff dimension of the range and graphs of multidimensional anisotropic self-similar processes with stationary increments defined by multiple Wiener–Itô integrals.     

Some comments on a paper onk-HNBUE life distributions

Summary In a recent paper by A. P. Basu and N. Ebrahimi (1984, Ann. Inst. Statist. Math., A, 36, 87–100) a new class of life distributions calledk-HNBUE (with dualk-HNWUE) is introduced. Closure properties and bounds on the moments and on the survival function to ak-HNBUE (k-HNWUE) life distribution are presented. However, some of the results presented are incorrect. This research was supported by Swedish Natural Science Research Council Post Doctoral Fellowship F-PD 1564-100.     

Boundedness of multilinear operators on weighted herz type spaces

In this paper, the author establishes the boundedness of multilinear operators on weighted Herz spaces and Herz-type Hardy spaces. The author also obtains their weak estimates on endpoints. As a special case, the conclusions may lead to the weighted estimates for multilinear Calderon-Zygmund operators.     

Valeurs d'une fonction de Picard en des points algébriques

Using geometric tools introduced by P. Cohen, H. Shiga, J. Wolfart and G. Wüstholz, we show in Theorem 1 that when a certain Gauss hypergeometric function takes an algebraic value at an algebraic point, then another Gauss hypergeometric function takes a transcendental value at a related algebraic point. Using Appell hypergeometric functions, which generalize to two variables the Gauss functions, we study values at algebraic points of a new transcendental function defined in terms of these two functions. By Theorem 2, these values correspond to abelian varieties in the same isogeny class. Using a result of Edixhoven-Yafaev [B. Edixhoven, A. Yafaev, Subvarieties of Shimura varieties, Ann. of Math. 157 (2003) 621-645], this last result is in turn related to the distribution of the moduli of such abelian varieties in certain Shimura varieties.     

The distributional dimension of fractals

In the book [1] H.Triebel introduces the distributional dimension of fractals in an analytical form and proves that： for Г as a non-empty set in R^n with Lebesgue measure ｜Г｜ = 0, one has dimH Г = dimD Г, where dimD Г and dimH Г are the Hausdorff dimension and distributional dimension, respectively. Thus we might say that the distributional dimension is an analytical definition for Hausdorff dimension. Therefore we can study Hausdorff dimension through the distributional dimension analytically. By discussing the distributional dimension, this paper intends to set up a criterion for estimating the upper and lower bounds of Hausdorff dimension analytically. Examples illustrating the criterion are included in the end.     

New fixed point theorems for <Emphasis Type="Italic">P</Emphasis><Subscript>1</Subscript>-compact mappings in Banach spaces

E E. Browder and W. V. Petryshyn defined the topological degree for A- proper mappings and then W. V. Petryshyn studied a class of A-proper mappings, namely, P1-compact mappings and obtained a number of important fixed point theorems by virtue of the topological degree theory. In this paper, following W. V. Petryshyn, we continue to study P1-compact mappings and investigate the boundary condition, under which many new fixed point theorems of P1-compact mappings are obtained. On the other hand, this class of A-proper mappings with the boundedness property includes completely continuous operators and so, certain interesting new fixed point theorems for completely continuous operators are obtained immediately. As a result of it, our results generalize several famous theorems such as Leray-Schauder＇s theorem, Rothe＇s theorem, Altman＇s theorem, Petryshyn＇s theorem, etc.