Determination/estimation of an optimal replacement interval under minimal repair

In this paper the problem of estimation of an optimal replacement interval for a system which is minimally repaired at failures is studied. The problem is investigated both under a parametric and a nonparametric form of the failure intensity of the system. It is assumed that observational data from n systems are available. Some asymptotic results are shown. A graphical procedure for determining/estimating an optimal replacement interval is presented. The procedure is particularly valuable for sensitivity analyses, for example with respect to the costs involved.     

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.     

MASS TRANSFER EXPERIMENTS ON SINGLE IRREGULAR-SHAPED PARTICLES

Mass transfer from irregular-shaped naphthalene particles (100-200 inn in size) was studitd in an electrodynamic balance. Charged particles were suspended in an electrostatic field directly in line with a calibrated air jet. Mass and size change histories were obtained under ambient conditions, and under steady- and pulsed-flow conditions. For natural convection, the time-averaged Sherwood number was similar to that for spheres. Forced-convection Sherwood number under steady-flow conditions was strongly dependent on particle shape and panicle Reynolds number, and was consistently higher than values predicted for spheres at comparable Reynolds numbers. This study validates the technique and indicates the shape effect on mass transfer form single particles.     

一种不同地面分辨率图像的拼接算法

航空遥感监测中变焦镜头的广泛应用以及飞行高度的变化会获得不同地面分辨率的航空影像,因此为了实时监控到飞行区域的整体情况,需要对不同地面分辨率的图像进行拼接。提出了针对不同地面分辨率图像进行拼接的方法。首先用四分法对图像进行分割,检测变化倍率,选择配准策略;然后用基于加速鲁棒性特征(Speeded-Up Robust Features,SURF)的算法对相邻图像进行拼接。获得了焦距变化从高倍过渡到低倍,或从低倍过渡到高倍的拼接图像。通过航空变焦模拟影像的拼接实验和地面变焦影像的拼接实验表明,该方法能够对不同地面分辨率的图像进行拼接,且拼接结果均以高分辨率为基准。     

On the estimation of nonlinear time series models

In the present paper, a framework for parametric estimation in nonlinear time series is developed. Strong consistency and asymptotic normality of minimum Hellinger distance estimates for a determined class of nonlinear models are investigated. The main Interest for these estimates is motivated by their robustness under perturbations as it has been emphazized in Beran [2]. The first part of the paper is devoted to the study of some probabilistic properties which ensure the existence and the optimal properties of the estimates     

Signal modeling using the gradient search

This letter presents a new method for continuous signal modeling. Firstly, the continuous signal can be represented as a function of the trigonometric functional extension (Fourier series). Fourier series of the signal are parameterized by the fundamental frequency and unknown parameters. Then, the gradient-based iterative identification algorithm is derived, for estimating parameters of the signal model with known and unknown frequencies, separately. Finally, the simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm is effective.     

One-Step Generalized Estimating Equations With Large Cluster Sizes

Medical studies increasingly involve a large sample of independent clusters, where the cluster sizes are also large. Our motivating example from the 2010 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) has 8,001,068 patients and 1049 clusters, with average cluster size of 7627. Consistent parameter estimates can be obtained naively assuming independence, which are inefficient when the intra-cluster correlation (ICC) is high. Efficient generalized estimating equations (GEE) incorporate the ICC and sum all pairs of observations within a cluster when estimating the ICC. For the 2010 NIS, there are 92.6 billion pairs of observations, making summation of pairs computationally prohibitive. We propose a one-step GEE estimator that (1) matches the asymptotic efficiency of the fully iterated GEE; (2) uses a simpler formula to estimate the ICC that avoids summing over all pairs; and (3) completely avoids matrix multiplications and inversions. These three features make the proposed estimator much less computationally intensive, especially with large cluster sizes. A unique contribution of this article is that it expresses the GEE estimating equations incorporating the ICC as a simple sum of vectors and scalars.     

Bayesian Estimation for the Order of INAR(q) Mo del

In this paper, we consider the problem of determining the order of INAR(q) model on the basis of the Bayesian estimation theory. The Bayesian es-timator for the order is given with respect to a squared-error loss function. The consistency of the estimator is discussed. The results of a simulation study for the estimation method are presented.