On the Motion of Substance in a Channel of a Network: Extended Model and New Classes of Probability Distributions

We discuss the motion of substance in a channel containing nodes of a network. Each node of the channel can exchange substance with: (i) neighboring nodes of the channel, (ii) network nodes which do not belong to the channel, and (iii) environment of the network. The new point in this study is that we assume possibility for exchange of substance among flows of substance between nodes of the channel and: (i) nodes that belong to the network but do not belong to the channel and (ii) environment of the network. This leads to an extension of the model of motion of substance and the extended model contains previous models as particular cases. We use a discrete-time model of motion of substance and consider a stationary regime of motion of substance in a channel containing a finite number of nodes. As results of the study, we obtain a class of probability distributions connected to the amount of substance in nodes of the channel. We prove that the obtained class of distributions contains all truncated discrete probability distributions of discrete random variable ω which can take values 0,1,⋯,N. Theory for the case of a channel containing infinite number of nodes is presented in Appendix A. The continuous version of the discussed discrete probability distributions is described in Appendix B. The discussed extended model and obtained results can be used for the study of phenomena that can be modeled by flows in networks: motion of resources, traffic flows, motion of migrants, etc.     

膜厚监控系统的光谱宽度对窄带滤光片性能的影响

讨论了膜厚监控系统的光谱宽度对波分复用窄带滤光片特性的影响,分析了监控过程中所出现的信号异常现象,其主要原因是控制光光谱宽度以及控制波长与滤光片中心波长不一致,所以控制光光谱分辨率必须小于单个法布里-珀罗滤光片最后2层膜折转点波长宽度的一半,即对100GHz的滤光片,监控系统的光谱宽度必须小于0．2nm。一旦产生中心波长偏离,就必定产生厚度控制误差。讨论了高折射率膜和低折射率膜的信号变化规律,发现当中心波长比监控波长长时,虽然信号变化规律正确,但判读到极值时的膜厚变薄。中心波长偏离越长,厚度将越薄。而当中心波长比监控波长短时,信号将出现反转。中心波长越短,反转量越大。最后指出了监控误差对滤光片Tmax和半峰全宽的影响。     

变电站直流系统绝缘监察仿真装置的设计

针对电力系统实验不能在现场模拟操作而使学生能更好的了解电力系统的现象,研究设计了一种变电站直流系统绝缘监察仿真装置.该装置能模拟直流系统金属性和非金属性接地,利用警铃和光字牌的声、光效果来模拟直流接地时绝缘监察装置发出的音响信号和灯光信号,及早发现绝缘降低并处理.该装置能完成电气类学生的专业课实验,填补了本专业在直流接地方面教学中的空白,实现了学生能在课堂上操作模拟现场现象,将教学和现场实践有机结合,到达较好的教学效果.     

Investigation of scattering of elastic waves by cylinders in 1-3 piezocomposites

The scattering behavior of P-waves in piezoelectric composites with 1–3 connectivity is studied. The method of wave function expansion is adopted for the theoretical derivations. Analytical expressions are obtained for the distributions of mechanical displacement in z-direction along the circumferences of piezoelectric cylinders. These solutions are used to study the influence of each element of the stiffness matrix and the piezoelectric matrix on the various resonant modes of vibration. Numerical results obtained indicate that perturbations of the elements c₄₄ and e₁₅ significantly affect resonant frequencies and amplitudes, perturbations of c₁₁ and c₁₂ have pronounced effects on resonant modes of high frequencies also. However, the resonant modes are not so sensitive to the perturbations of c₁₃, e₃₁ and e₃₃. The dynamic characteristics of 1–3 connectivity piezoelectric composites exposed here are meaningful for the design and manufacture of sensor/actuator elements by this kind of composites as well as the on-line health monitoring of the mechanical properties variations of the composites itself.     

Randomly chosen chaotic maps can give rise to nearly ordered behavior

Parrondo’s paradox [J.M.R. Parrondo, G.P. Harmer, D. Abbott, New paradoxical games based on Brownian ratchets, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85 (2000), 5226–5229] (see also [O.E. Percus, J.K. Percus, Can two wrongs make a right? Coin-tossing games and Parrondo’s paradox, Math. Intelligencer 24 (3) (2002) 68–72]) states that two losing gambling games when combined one after the other (either deterministically or randomly) can result in a winning game: that is, a losing game followed by a losing game = a winning game. Inspired by this paradox, a recent study [J. Almeida, D. Peralta-Salas, M. Romera, Can two chaotic systems give rise to order? Physica D 200 (2005) 124–132] asked an analogous question in discrete time dynamical system: can two chaotic systems give rise to order, namely can they be combined into another dynamical system which does not behave chaotically? Numerical evidence is provided in [J. Almeida, D. Peralta-Salas, M. Romera, Can two chaotic systems give rise to order? Physica D 200 (2005) 124–132] that two chaotic quadratic maps, when composed with each other, create a new dynamical system which has a stable period orbit. The question of what happens in the case of random composition of maps is posed in [J. Almeida, D. Peralta-Salas, M. Romera, Can two chaotic systems give rise to order? Physica D 200 (2005) 124–132] but left unanswered. In this note we present an example of a dynamical system where, at each iteration, a map is chosen in a probabilistic manner from a collection of chaotic maps. The resulting random map is proved to have an infinite absolutely continuous invariant measure (acim) with spikes at two points. From this we show that the dynamics behaves in a nearly ordered manner. When the foregoing maps are applied one after the other, deterministically as in [O.E. Percus, J.K. Percus, Can two wrongs make a right? Coin-tossing games and Parrondo’s paradox, Math. Intelligencer 24 (3) (2002) 68–72], the resulting composed map has a periodic orbit which is stable.     

A methodology for structural health monitoring with diffuse ultrasonic waves in the presence of temperature variations

Diffuse ultrasonic waves for structural health monitoring offer the advantages of simplicity of signal generation and reception, sensitivity to damage, and large area coverage; however, there are the serious disadvantages of no accepted methodology for analyzing the complex recorded signals and sensitivity to environmental changes such as temperature and surface conditions. Presented here is a methodology for applying diffuse ultrasonic waves to the problem of detecting structural damage in the presence of unmeasured temperature changes. This methodology is based upon the prediction and observation that the first order effect of a temperature change on a diffuse ultrasonic wave is a time dilation or compression. A multi-step procedure is implemented to (1) record a set of baseline waveforms from the undamaged specimen at temperatures spanning the expected operating range, (2) select a waveform from the baseline set whose temperature is the closest to that of a subsequently measured signal, (3) adjust this baseline waveform to best match the signal, and (4) calculate an error parameter between the signal and the adjusted waveform and compare this parameter to a threshold to determine the structural status. This procedure is applied to experimental data from aluminum plate specimens with artificial flaws. Probability of detection and the minimum flaw size detected are presented as a function of the size of the baseline waveform set. It is shown that a probability of detection of over 95% can be achieved with a small number of baseline waveforms.     

General expression of the calibration curve for the CR-39 radon track detectors

The CR-39 detectors are widely used as passive radon dosimeters, as well as in physics laboratories or for industrial applications. For what concerns radon monitoring, the calibration curve which is usually adopted corresponds to a linear relation between the actual etched track density and the track density counted by an automatic acquisition system. This linear calibration provides very accurate radon exposure assessments in a restricted range of etched track density, however it neglects the effect of the tracks overlapping that becomes as relevant as the track density increases. In the present work the mathematical expression of the area covered by a set of uniformly distributed tracks is deduced. This result allows then to infer the probability that the system acquires the right track density, providing a general calibration curve for a solid state radon track detector. The process of track production and reading routine is also simulated adopting a Monte Carlo approach, showing that the obtained results are in agreement with the function proposed as calibration curve. Moreover, a linear dependence between the track average area and the rate parameter of the calibration curve has been observed. Finally a semi-empirical correlation based on the previous results is proposed.     

Reliability of Speaking and Maximum Voice Range Measures in Screening for Dysphonia

Speech range profile (SRP) is a graphical display of frequency-intensity occurring interactions during functional speech activity. Few studies have suggested the potential clinical applications of SRP. However, these studies are limited to qualitative case comparisons and vocally healthy participants. The present study aimed to examine the effects of voice disorders on speaking and maximum voice ranges in a group of vocally untrained women. It also aimed to examine whether voice limit measures derived from SRP were as sensitive as those derived from voice range profile (VRP) in distinguishing dysphonic from healthy voices. Ninety dysphonic women with laryngeal pathologies and 35 women with normal voices, who served as controls, participated in this study. Each subject recorded a VRP for her physiological vocal limits. In addition, each subject read aloud the "North Wind and the Sun" passage to record SRP. All the recordings were captured and analyzed by Soundswell's computerized real-time phonetogram Phog 1.0 (Hitech Development AB, T?by, Sweden). The SRPs and the VRPs were compared between the two groups of subjects. Univariate analysis results demonstrated that individual SRP measures were less sensitive than the corresponding VRP measures in discriminating dysphonic from normal voices. However, stepwise logistic regression analyses revealed that the combination of only two SRP measures was almost as effective as a combination of three VRP measures in predicting the presence of dysphonia (overall prediction accuracy: 93.6% for SRP vs 96.0% for VRP). These results suggest that in a busy clinic where quick voice screening results are desirable, SRP can be an acceptable alternate procedure to VRP.     

Optical coherence tomography based imaging of dental demineralisation and cavity restoration in 840 nm and 1310 nm wavelength regions

In this paper, a study of in-house built optical coherence tomography (OCT) system with a wavelength of 840 nm for imaging of dental caries, progress in demineralisation and cavity restoration is presented. The caries when imaged with the 840 nm OCT system showed minute demineralisation in the order of 5 μm. The OCT system was also proposed to study the growth of lesion and this was demonstrated by artificially inducing caries with a demineralisation solution of pH 4.8. The progress of carious lesion to a depth of about 50–60 μm after 60 hours of demineralisation was clearly observed with the 840 nm OCT system. The tooth samples were subjected to accelerated demineralisation condition at pH of approximately 2.3 to study the adverse effects and the onset of cavity formation was clearly observed. The restoration of cavity was also studied by employing different restorative materials (filled and unfilled). In the case of restoration without filler material (unfilled), the restoration boundaries were clearly observed. Overall, results were comparable with that of the widely used 1310 nm OCT system. In the case of restoration with filler material, the 1310 nm OCT imaging displayed better imaging capacity due to lower scattering than 840 nm imaging.     

Consortium GARR and the European National Research and Education Networks Optical Infrastructure Developments

Abstract

GARR is engineering its next generation of the Italian Research and Education Network (GARR-X), which will exploit a countrywide optical infrastructure based on DWDM equipment and advanced multi-domain services. The trend is common in all National Research and Education Networks [1 TERENA NREN Compendium. http://www.terena.org/activities/compendium ISSN 1569-4496 [Google Scholar]] in Europe and worldwide. NRENs are relying more and more on direct use of optical equipment to fulfill the researchers' requirements. These hybrid networks are built to provide services on a multi-domain environment both at the circuit and at the IP layer for researchers in, for example, radio astronomy (eVLBI [2 European Very Long Baseline Interferometry http://www.evlbi.org [Google Scholar]]), GRID computing (EGEE [3 Enabling Grids for E-sciencE http://public.eu-egee.org [Google Scholar]], LHC [4 The Large Hadron Collider http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc [Google Scholar]]), high-performance computing (DEISA [5 The Distributed European Infrastructure for Supercomputing Applications http://www.deisa.org [Google Scholar]]). This article outlines the status and issues of ongoing research activities in GARR [6 http://www.garr.it/garr-b-home-engl.shtmlConsortium GARR, the Italian NREN [Google Scholar]] and NRENs to provide, manage, and evolve dedicated optical-based networks for providing multi-domain end-to-end services. The research is performed mainly in the framework of the European Commission co-funded project GÉANT2 [7 The pan-European R&E network http://www.geant2.net [Google Scholar]].