329 research outputs found
Hybrid titanium-CFRP laminates for high-performance bolted joints
This paper presents an experimental and numerical investigation of the mechanical response of bolted
joints manufactured using new hybrid composite laminates based on the substitution of CFRP plies with
titanium plies. The local hybridization of the material is proposed to increase the efficiency of the bolted
joints in CFRP structures. Two modeling strategies, based on non-linear finite element methods, are proposed
for the analysis of the bolt-bearing and transition regions of the hybrid laminates. The bolt-bearing
region is simulated using a three-dimensional finite element model that predicts ply failure mechanisms,
whereas the free-edge of the transition region is simulated using plane stress and cohesive elements. The
numerical and experimental results indicate that the use of hybrid composites can drastically increase
the strength of CFRP bolted joints and therefore increase the efficiency of this type of connection. In addition,
the numerical models proposed are able to predict the failure mechanisms and the strength of
hybrid composite laminates with a good accuracy
Performance assessment of portuguese secondary schools: the society and educational authorities perspectives
This paper describes a performance assessment of Portuguese secondary
schools using data envelopment analysis (DEA). The assessment adopts two
perspectives: a society perspective where schools are viewed as promoting
students achievement given student characteristics in terms of academic
abilities and socio-economic background; and an educational authorities
perspective where schools are viewed as transforming a set of resources
(including student academic abilities, socio-economic background, and also
school resources, such as teachers) into students' achievement. Two types of
DEA analysis are performed for each perspective: one using an output oriented
model allowing factor weights to vary freely from school to school and another
using a model that restricts factor weights to be equal for all schools. The first
model is well suited for identifying inefficient schools, whereas the latter is
best suited for improving discrimination between efficient schools when
pursuing the identification of benchmarks. Our sample comprised a small
number of schools and therefore the results obtained are mainly illustrative of
the potential of the method. Future research will explore the use of this method
for the assessment of schools at a national leve
A Lovelock black hole bestiary
We revisit the study of (A)dS black holes in Lovelock theories. We present a
new tool that allows to attack this problem in full generality. In analyzing
maximally symmetric Lovelock black holes with non-planar horizon topologies
many distinctive and interesting features are observed. Among them, the
existence of maximally symmetric vacua do not supporting black holes in vast
regions of the space of gravitational couplings, multi-horizon black holes, and
branches of solutions that suggest the existence of a rich diagram of phase
transitions. The appearance of naked singularities seems unavoidable in some
cases, raising the question about the fate of the cosmic censorship conjecture
in these theories. There is a preferred branch of solutions for planar black
holes, as well as non-planar black holes with high enough mass or temperature.
Our study clarifies the role of all branches of solutions, including
asymptotically dS black holes, and whether they should be considered when
studying these theories in the context of AdS/CFT.Comment: 40 pages, 16 figures; v2: references added and minor amendments; v3:
title changed to improve its accuracy and general reorganization of the
results to ameliorate their presentatio
Benchmarking of secondary schools based on students’ results in higher education
The performance of secondary schools is usually assessed based on students’ results on national exams at the end of secondary education. This research uses data on academic achievements by first-year univer- sity students to benchmark secondary schools on their ability to lead students to success in higher edu- cation. The analysis is conducted using data of University of Porto and Catholic University of Porto, Portu- gal, for a three-year period, corresponding to more than 10.0 0 0 students from 65 degrees, for which the school of origin is known. A number of variables representing students’ success in Higher education were constructed for each school in our sample and aggregated through a Benefit of the Doubt indicator. Re- sults suggest that the schools’ ranking based on schools’ ability to prepare students for university success is quite different from the ranking based on results on national exams. Given these findings, we propose complementing schools’ performance assessments (traditionally based on national exam results or indi- cators of value added) with indicators that account for the preparation of students for success in future challenges, which is indisputably a key objective of secondary education. We propose a composite indi- cator for the analysis of these complementary aims as well, and results show that frontier units indeed exhibit trade offs between traditional measures of performance and our new measure of performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio
Classical instability in Lovelock gravity
We introduce a simple method for the investigation of the classical stability
of static solutions with a horizon in Lovelock gravity. The method is
applicable to the investigation of high angular momentum instabilities, similar
to those found by Dotti and Gleiser for Gauss-Bonnet black holes. The method
does not require the knowledge of the explicit analytic form of the black hole
solution. In this paper we apply our method to a case where the explicit
solution is known and show that it identifies correctly the resulting unstable
modes.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
World state of quality: a frontier approach to benchmark the performance of countries worldwide
Purpose - The World State of Quality (WSQ) Project aims to evaluate, analyse, rank and categorise countries according to their performance in quality as a multidimensional concept. The Project involves the computation of an overall score for each country, obtained as a weighted average of ranking positions of 16 metrics, with weights determined by a panel of experts. Methodology-This work proposes an alternative strategy for that procedure, using a Benefit-of-the-Doubt (BoD) Composite Indicator approach under the framework of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). This strategy avoids the need of using subjective weights and normalising data by rank positions, using a more objective procedure to obtain the countries’ ranking. A new overall score of the World State of Quality is proposed, which allows the categorisation of countries’ performance. The novel insights resulting from the use of this methodology are discussed, including the identification of strengths and weaknesses of the various countries, and the peers that can be used for facilitating continuous improvements policies. Findings - The results show that the BoD approach and the original method used by the WSQ Project present comparable results. Countries’ strengths and weaknesses and their suitable peers and targets for benchmarking are presented with illustrative examples. Originality/value – A novel frontier approach for countries’ benchmarking regarding their performance in quality is proposed, incorporating new insights into the current method.FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia(2021.05244)The authors acknowledge the financial support provided by FCT- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology) through PhD research grants and SFRH/BD/131285/2017.
This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units
Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020
Benchmarking dos serviços dos hospitais portugueses: uma aplicação de data envelopment analysis
Neste artigo, apresentamos a aplicação de um modelo de Data Envelopment
Analysis aos serviços de Medicina Interna da maioria dos hospitais do Serviço
Nacional de Saúde Português, numa perspetiva de eficiência. O modelo de
avaliação é apresentado para a generalidade dos serviços hospitalares, tendo
os inputs e outputs sido escolhidos após análise dos seus impactos nos gastos
globais dos diferentes serviços. Nesta aplicação impõem-se restrições aos
pesos, por forma a evitar obter serviços com pesos pouco razoáveis para as
variáveis do modelo. Observa-se que as maiores poupanças são possÃveis nos
medicamentos e material clÃnico. É feita uma comparação entre serviços
eficientes e ineficientes, observando-se que os meios complementares de
diagnóstico e terapêutica (recursos) e as variáveis de acesso aos cuidados
(elementos da produção) são determinantes na definição do melhor
desempenho dos serviços de Medicina Interna analisados.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Resistance Curves in the Tensile and Compressive Longitudinal Failure of Composites
This paper presents a new methodology to measure the crack resistance curves associated with fiber-dominated failure modes in polymer-matrix composites. These crack resistance curves not only characterize the fracture toughness of the material, but are also the basis for the identification of the parameters of the softening laws used in the analytical and numerical simulation of fracture in composite materials. The method proposed is based on the identification of the crack tip location by the use of Digital Image Correlation and the calculation of the J-integral directly from the test data using a simple expression derived for cross-ply composite laminates. It is shown that the results obtained using the proposed methodology yield crack resistance curves similar to those obtained using FEM-based methods in compact tension carbon-epoxy specimens. However, it is also shown that the Digital Image Correlation based technique can be used to extract crack resistance curves in compact compression tests for which FEM-based techniques are inadequate
Viscosity Bound and Causality in Superfluid Plasma
It was argued by Brigante et.al that the lower bound on the ratio of the
shear viscosity to the entropy density in strongly coupled plasma is translated
into microcausality violation in the dual gravitational description. Since
transport properties of the system characterize its infrared dynamics, while
the causality of the theory is determined by its ultraviolet behavior, the
viscosity bound/microcausality link should not be applicable to theories that
undergo low temperature phase transitions. We present an explicit model of
AdS/CFT correspondence that confirms this fact.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. References added, typos fixe
Causality in AdS/CFT and Lovelock theory
We explore the constraints imposed on higher curvature corrections of the
Lovelock type due to causality restrictions in the boundary of asymptotically
AdS space-time. In the framework of AdS/CFT, this is related to positivity of
the energy constraints that arise in conformal collider physics. We present
explicit analytic results that fully address these issues for cubic Lovelock
gravity in arbitrary dimensions and give the formal analytic results that
comprehend general Lovelock theory. The computations can be performed in two
ways, both by considering a thermal setup in a black hole background and by
studying the scattering of gravitons with a shock wave in AdS. We show that
both computations coincide in Lovelock theory. The different helicities, as
expected, provide the boundaries defining the region of allowed couplings. We
generalize these results to arbitrary higher dimensions and discuss their
consequences on the shear viscosity to energy density ratio of CFT plasmas, the
possible existence of Boulware-Deser instabilities in Lovelock theory and the
extent to which the AdS/CFT correspondence might be valid for arbitrary
dimensions.Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures; v2: minor amendments and clarifications
include
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