Field Measurement and Bayesian Modal Identification of a Primary-Secondary Structure

AbstractThe Mong-Man-Wai Building (MMW) is a seven-storied reinforced concrete building situated on the campus of the City University of Hong Kong. On its roof a two-storied steel frame has been recently constructed to host a new wind tunnel laboratory, forming a primary-secondary structure. This paper presents field instrumentation and modal identification of the structural system. A number of setups were carried out to cover all locations of interest using a limited number of triaxial sensors. Ambient vibration measurements were obtained and modal identification was performed using a Bayesian FFT Approach. The approach views modal identification as an inference problem where probability is used as a measure for the relative plausibility of outcomes given a model of the response and measured data. The modal identification results reveal a number of interesting features about the building and the roof frame. Five modes are presented in this paper, exhibiting the dynamics of the primary and secondary structure as well as their coupling

Editorial: Addressing community priorities in autism research

Autism is a form of neurodiversity, currently characterized by differences compared to the neurotypical population across multiple domains including sensory processing (Proff et al., 2021), social communication style (Crompton et al., 2021), attentional processing (Murray et al., 2005), and movement and motor processing (Miller et al., 2021). Historically, autism (and thus autistic people) has been studied through a medical lens (Chapman and Carel, 2022), owing primarily to the characterization of autism as a disorder of childhood development. These conceptualizations led to dehumanizing narratives about autistic people (Botha) and have impacted on who we consider to be knowledgeable about what it is like to be autistic (Kourti). In recent years, there has been a shift toward recognition of autism as a form of neurodivergence; a naturally occurring variation in the human population that may lead to a differential profile of strengths and challenges in comparison to the non-autistic population (Den Houting, 2019). This shift has been primarily driven by the autistic self-advocacy and neurodiversity movements (Kapp et al., 2013; Walker, 2021), which have campaigned for better understanding of autistic people

Sequential design of computer experiments for the estimation of a probability of failure

This paper deals with the problem of estimating the volume of the excursion set of a function $f:\mathbb{R}^d \to \mathbb{R}$ above a given threshold, under a probability measure on $\mathbb{R}^d$ that is assumed to be known. In the industrial world, this corresponds to the problem of estimating a probability of failure of a system. When only an expensive-to-simulate model of the system is available, the budget for simulations is usually severely limited and therefore classical Monte Carlo methods ought to be avoided. One of the main contributions of this article is to derive SUR (stepwise uncertainty reduction) strategies from a Bayesian-theoretic formulation of the problem of estimating a probability of failure. These sequential strategies use a Gaussian process model of $f$ and aim at performing evaluations of $f$ as efficiently as possible to infer the value of the probability of failure. We compare these strategies to other strategies also based on a Gaussian process model for estimating a probability of failure.Comment: This is an author-generated postprint version. The published version is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

The first measurement of two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations in central Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. We observe a growing trend with energy now not only for the longitudinal and the outward but also for the sideward pion source radius. The pion homogeneity volume and the decoupling time are significantly larger than those measured at RHIC.Comment: 17 pages, 5 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 12, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/388

Suppression of charged particle production at large transverse momentum in central Pb-Pb collisions at sNN=2.76\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76 TeV

Inclusive transverse momentum spectra of primary charged particles in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}}$ = 2.76 TeV have been measured by the ALICE Collaboration at the LHC. The data are presented for central and peripheral collisions, corresponding to 0-5% and 70-80% of the hadronic Pb-Pb cross section. The measured charged particle spectra in $|\eta|<0.8$ and $0.3 < p_T < 20$ GeV/$c$ are compared to the expectation in pp collisions at the same $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$, scaled by the number of underlying nucleon-nucleon collisions. The comparison is expressed in terms of the nuclear modification factor $R_{\rm AA}$. The result indicates only weak medium effects ($R_{\rm AA} \approx$ 0.7) in peripheral collisions. In central collisions, $R_{\rm AA}$ reaches a minimum of about 0.14 at $p_{\rm T}=6$-7GeV/$c$ and increases significantly at larger $p_{\rm T}$. The measured suppression of high-$p_{\rm T}$ particles is stronger than that observed at lower collision energies, indicating that a very dense medium is formed in central Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages, 5 captioned figures, 3 tables, authors from page 10, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/98

Antibodies against endogenous retroviruses promote lung cancer immunotherapy

B cells are frequently found in the margins of solid tumours as organized follicles in ectopic lymphoid organs called tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS)1,2. Although TLS have been found to correlate with improved patient survival and response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), the underlying mechanisms of this association remain elusive1,2. Here we investigate lung-resident B cell responses in patients from the TRACERx 421 (Tracking Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Evolution Through Therapy) and other lung cancer cohorts, and in a recently established immunogenic mouse model for lung adenocarcinoma3. We find that both human and mouse lung adenocarcinomas elicit local germinal centre responses and tumour-binding antibodies, and further identify endogenous retrovirus (ERV) envelope glycoproteins as a dominant anti-tumour antibody target. ERV-targeting B cell responses are amplified by ICB in both humans and mice, and by targeted inhibition of KRAS(G12C) in the mouse model. ERV-reactive antibodies exert anti-tumour activity that extends survival in the mouse model, and ERV expression predicts the outcome of ICB in human lung adenocarcinoma. Finally, we find that effective immunotherapy in the mouse model requires CXCL13-dependent TLS formation. Conversely, therapeutic CXCL13 treatment potentiates anti-tumour immunity and synergizes with ICB. Our findings provide a possible mechanistic basis for the association of TLS with immunotherapy response

A New Adaptive Importance Sampling Scheme for Reliability Calculations

An adaptive importance sampling methodology is proposed to compute the multidimensional integrals encountered in reliability analysis. In the proposed methodology, samples are simulated as the states of a Markov chain and are distributed asymptotically according to the optimal importance sampling density. A kernel sampling density is then constructed from these samples which is used as the sampling density in an importance sampling simulation. The Markov chain samples populate the region of higher probability density in the failure domain and so the kernel sampling density approximates the optimal importance sampling density for a large variety of shapes of the failure domain. This adaptive feature is insensitive to the probability level to be estimated. A numerical example demonstrates the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the method

Special issue on structural identification and monitoring with dynamic data

Preface. Special issue S1 April 2015Dr. Ching-Tai Ng, Prof. Siu-Kui A