Beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness compared

Beauty is the single most frequently and most broadly used aesthetic virtue term. The present study aimed at providing higher conceptual resolution to the broader notion of beauty by comparing it with three closely related aesthetically evaluative concepts which are likewise lexicalized across many languages: elegance, grace(fulness), and sexiness. We administered a variety of questionnaires that targeted perceptual qualia, cognitive and affective evaluations, as well as specific object properties that are associated with beauty, elegance, grace, and sexiness in personal looks, movements, objects of design, and other domains. This allowed us to reveal distinct and highly nuanced profiles of how a beautiful, elegant, graceful, and sexy appearance is subjectively perceived. As aesthetics is all about nuances, the fine-grained conceptual analysis of the four target concepts of our study provides crucial distinctions for future research

On Bounded Linear Codes and the Commutative Equivalence

The problem of the commutative equivalence of semigroups generated by semi-linear languages is studied. In particular conditions ensuring that the Kleene closure of a bounded semi-linear code is commutatively equivalent to a regular language are investigated

Faculty Notes- John Carroll University

Dec. 2013, Vol. 6, Issue 4https://collected.jcu.edu/faculty_notes/1025/thumbnail.jp

Análise e otimização de rotores apoiados sobre mancais hidrodinâmicos

Orientador: Tiago Henrique MachadoDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia MecânicaResumo: As máquinas rotativas são essenciais para o desenvolvimento de diversas atividades humanas. Com emprego em indústria, transporte, agricultura, entre outras áreas, é evidente a importância dessa classe de maquinário e seu grande efeito em vários setores da sociedade moderna. Dentre os tipos de mancais utilizados em máquinas rotativas, destaca-se o mancal hidrodinâmico, por sua simplicidade de fabricação e baixo custo de implementação em máquinas que já contém sistemas de lubrificação. Por este motivo, este trabalho se propõe a simular e otimizar máquinas rotativas apoiadas em mancais hidrodinâmicos. Essa dissertação apresenta a pesquisa desenvolvida durante o curso de mestrado em engenharia mecânica. O texto é escrito em um formato de coletânea de artigos precedidos por uma introdução, uma revisão bibliográfica e uma síntese da pesquisa, seguidos pelas conclusões e propostas de trabalhos futuros. Utilizando o método dos elementos finitos para as simulações, são analisadas as influências das modelagens de mancais, eixos e fundações no comportamento dinâmico dos rotores. Mostra-se incialmente o algoritmo base, e uma comparação entre os elementos de viga de Timoshenko e Euler-Bernoulli, justificando a escolha do primeiro. Analisa-se as diferenças de resposta entre rotores engastados e apoiados sobre mancais hidrodinâmicos, bem como entre fundações rígidas e flexíveis. Por fim, através das análises, obtém-se as relações entre os componentes e a resposta do sistema, que são utilizadas na proposição das otimizações demonstradas no quarto artigoAbstract: Extensively used in industry, transportation, agriculture, among other areas, it is evident that rotating machines are essential for the development of several human activities. Among the types of bearings used in rotating machines, the hydrodynamic bearings stand out because of their simplicity of manufacture and low implementation cost in machines that already have lubrication systems. For this reason, this work proposes to simulate and optimize rotating machines supported in hydrodynamic bearings. This dissertation presents the research developed during the master's degree in mechanical engineering. The text is written as a collection of articles preceded by an introduction, a bibliographical review and a research synthesis and followed by the conclusions and proposals of future works. Using the finite element method for the simulations, the influences of the modeling of bearings, shafts and foundations on the dynamic behavior of the rotors are analyzed. Initially, it shows the initial algorithm and a comparison between the beam elements of Timoshenko and Euler-Bernoulli, justifying the choice of the first one. The differences in response between clamped and supported rotors on hydrodynamic bearings, as well as between rigid and flexible foundations, are analyzed. Finally, through the analyses, the relations between the components and the response of the system are shown. These relations are used in the optimization proposed in the fourth articleMestradoMecanica de Solidos e Projeto MecanicoMestre em Engenharia Mecânica143102/2017-62017/07454-8CNPQFAPES

Flexural Buckling of Steel Cold-Formed Hollow Profiles in the Framework of Eurocodes

The use of cold-formed hollow structural (CFHS) steel has been growing in the past decade due to several advantages such as superior behavior towards lateral-torsional buckling, aesthetic structures, and feasibility of using internal volume to increase load-carrying capacity. The cold-forming process can change drastically the shape of the stress-strain curve and strength parameters of the base material. There are several investigations on buckling tests of hollow section columns; however, studies on cold-formed hollow sections are still lacking. This shortcoming of experimental data becomes more pronounced when the corner behavior of CFHS is under consideration. Only a limited number of corner coupon tests can be found in international literature. This Ph.D. thesis is developed in line with the progress of the European project INNOvative 3D JOINTS for Robust and Economic Hybrid Tubular Construction (INNO3DJOINTS). The primary objective is to advance, through analytical and experimental research, knowledge on the flexural buckling behavior of CFHS columns. An extensive experimental program ( 21 flexural buckling tests) on SHS and RHS columns has been carried out varying the steel grade (i.e. S275 and S355) and the overall slenderness ratio. This database serves as the basis for the assessment and improvement of the flexural buckling curve for CFHS. The stress-strain behavior of the sections was investigated by performing tensile coupon tests (81 tests) from both flat and corner areas. special effort was made to obtain the static stress-strain data by pausing the test for 60 seconds during the test. We also employed an innovative method to perform the coupon test on the corner area of CFHS. This procedure will reduce the secondary effect results from methods such as welding a plate or flattening the end grip, and therefore reduce the bias in the results of the corner area. A comprehensive discussion on the definition of safety and the adopted safety levels in EN1990 and EN1993-1-1 has been presented. The results show some potential criticisms of the application of current rules for plastic design and analysis of such a column and a further investigation is required on the matter. In addition, it is shown that the current material test procedures in BSI and ATM standards may lead to misevaluate the static strengths of material which is required for the design of structures

Revisiting Membership Problems in Subclasses of Rational Relations

We revisit the membership problem for subclasses of rational relations over finite and infinite words: Given a relation R in a class C_2, does R belong to a smaller class C_1? The subclasses of rational relations that we consider are formed by the deterministic rational relations, synchronous (also called automatic or regular) relations, and recognizable relations. For almost all versions of the membership problem, determining the precise complexity or even decidability has remained an open problem for almost two decades. In this paper, we provide improved complexity and new decidability results. (i) Testing whether a synchronous relation over infinite words is recognizable is NL-complete (PSPACE-complete) if the relation is given by a deterministic (nondeterministic) omega-automaton. This fully settles the complexity of this recognizability problem, matching the complexity of the same problem over finite words. (ii) Testing whether a deterministic rational binary relation is recognizable is decidable in polynomial time, which improves a previously known double exponential time upper bound. For relations of higher arity, we present a randomized exponential time algorithm. (iii) We provide the first algorithm to decide whether a deterministic rational relation is synchronous. For binary relations the algorithm even runs in polynomial time

Languages Generated by Iterated Idempotencies.

The rewrite relation with parameters m and n and with the possible length limit = k or :::; k we denote by w~, =kW~· or ::;kw~ respectively. The idempotency languages generated from a starting word w by the respective operations are wDAlso other special cases of idempotency languages besides duplication have come up in different contexts. The investigations of Ito et al. about insertion and deletion, Le., operations that are also observed in DNA molecules, have established that w5 and w~ both preserve regularity.Our investigations about idempotency relations and languages start out from the case of a uniform length bound. For these relations =kW~ the conditions for confluence are characterized completely. Also the question of regularity is -k n answered for aH the languages w- D 1 are more complicated and belong to the class of context-free languages.For a generallength bound, i.e."for the relations :"::kW~, confluence does not hold so frequently. This complicatedness of the relations results also in more complicated languages, which are often non-regular, as for example the languages WWithout any length bound, idempotency relations have a very complicated structure. Over alphabets of one or two letters we still characterize the conditions for confluence. Over three or more letters, in contrast, only a few cases are solved. We determine the combinations of parameters that result in the regularity of wDIn a second chapter sorne more involved questions are solved for the special case of duplication. First we shed sorne light on the reasons why it is so difficult to determine the context-freeness ofduplication languages. We show that they fulfiH aH pumping properties and that they are very dense. Therefore aH the standard tools to prove non-context-freness do not apply here.The concept of root in Formal Language ·Theory is frequently used to describe the reduction of a word to another one, which is in sorne sense elementary.For example, there are primitive roots, periodicity roots, etc. Elementary in connection with duplication are square-free words, Le., words that do not contain any repetition. Thus we define the duplication root of w to consist of aH the square-free words, from which w can be reached via the relation w~.Besides sorne general observations we prove the decidability of the question, whether the duplication root of a language is finite.Then we devise acode, which is robust under duplication of its code words.This would keep the result of a computation from being destroyed by dupli cations in the code words. We determine the exact conditions, under which infinite such codes exist: over an alphabet of two letters they exist for a length bound of 2, over three letters already for a length bound of 1.Also we apply duplication to entire languages rather than to single words; then it is interesting to determine, whether regular and context-free languages are closed under this operation. We show that the regular languages are closed under uniformly bounded duplication, while they are not closed under duplication with a generallength bound. The context-free languages are closed under both operations.The thesis concludes with a list of open problems related with the thesis' topics

Analysis of EFL students’ difficulty in the TOEFL Structure and Written Expression Section

TOEFL is one of the standardized tests which have been applied by many universities and institutions all around the world to test students’ English language proficiency. It also becomes one of the graduation standard requirements in the universities for the students, even in State Islamic University of Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh (UIN Ar-Raniry). However, many students faced the difficulty in responding the TOEFL especially in section two which is about Structure and Written Expression. In order to identify the students’ difficulty, the researcher conducted a reseacrh entitled : An analysis of EFL students’ difficulty in the TOEFL structure and written expression section. This research is underlied with two research questions: What are the most difficult elements faced by the EFL students and what are the factors influencing the difficulty in responding to the Structure and Written Expression section of the TOEFL? The research was conducted among EFL students of English Education Department of UIN Ar-Raniry. The population were 90 students academic year 2012 and the sample were 18 students taken by using ramdom sampling technique. The researcher used two tecniques of data collection. First technique was test which involved 18 students and the second technique was interview which only conducted for four students who were mostly error in the test session. The researcher found that the students faced the difficulties in some elements of grammar in the structure and written expression : reduced verb, the use of verb, parralelism, subject verb agreement, and relative clause. Moreover, the factors influencing the difficulties came from four factors : lack of grammar skill, lack of vocabulary mastery, easily distracted and less practice