Flow-based Influence Graph Visual Summarization

Visually mining a large influence graph is appealing yet challenging. People are amazed by pictures of newscasting graph on Twitter, engaged by hidden citation networks in academics, nevertheless often troubled by the unpleasant readability of the underlying visualization. Existing summarization methods enhance the graph visualization with blocked views, but have adverse effect on the latent influence structure. How can we visually summarize a large graph to maximize influence flows? In particular, how can we illustrate the impact of an individual node through the summarization? Can we maintain the appealing graph metaphor while preserving both the overall influence pattern and fine readability? To answer these questions, we first formally define the influence graph summarization problem. Second, we propose an end-to-end framework to solve the new problem. Our method can not only highlight the flow-based influence patterns in the visual summarization, but also inherently support rich graph attributes. Last, we present a theoretic analysis and report our experiment results. Both evidences demonstrate that our framework can effectively approximate the proposed influence graph summarization objective while outperforming previous methods in a typical scenario of visually mining academic citation networks.Comment: to appear in IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM), Shen Zhen, China, December 201

Relative Stability and Local Curvature Analysis in Carbon Nanotori

We introduce a concise formalism to characterize nanometer-sized tori based on carbon nanotubes and to determine their stability by combining {\em ab initio} density functional calculations with a continuum elasticity theory approach that requires only shape information. We find that the high strain energy in nanotori containing only hexagonal rings is significantly reduced in nanotori containing also other polygons. Our approach allows to determine local curvature and link it to local strain energy, which is correlated with local stability and chemical reactivity

Local curvature and stability of two-dimensional systems

We propose a fast method to determine the local curvature in two-dimensional (2D) systems with arbitrary shape. The curvature information, combined with elastic constants obtained for a planar system, provides an accurate estimate of the local stability in the framework of continuum elasticity theory. Relative stabilities of graphitic structures including fullerenes, nanotubes and schwarzites, as well as phosphorene nanotubes, calculated using this approach, agree closely with ab initio density functional calculations. The continuum elasticity approach can be applied to all 2D structures and is particularly attractive in complex systems with known structure, where the quality of parameterized force fields has not been established

Development of a Design Method for H2Ri Wicking Fabric in Pavement Structures

A new roadway drainage design concept is proposed to reduce the roadway water content and enhance the overall pavement performance by implementing H2Ri geotextile with lateral wicking ability. Compared with conventional drainage materials, this type of geotextile has high tensile strength and higher specific surface area, which enable to continuously transport water under unsaturated conditions. SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) images indicated that the geotextile functions effectively for soils with particle size larger than 12 microns. A series of tests were performed to establish the relationships among different parameters, including resilient modulus test, large-scale direct shear test, salt concentration test and pressure plate test. Test results indicated that the soil-geotextile system can work effectively to reduce the water content within the pavement structure by 2%. By doing so, the corresponding resilient modulus can be increased by 3 times and the permanent deformation can be reduced to half of that value. Meanwhile, the interface frictional strength between geotextile and soil was not sensitive to water content change.DISCLAIMER................................................................................................................................ I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................... III TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... IV LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................... VI LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... VIII EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1.0 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 3 1.1 Problem Statement ........................................................................................................ 3 1.2 Research Objectives ...................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research Methodology ................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................. 7 2.1 Water Sources in Pavement Structures ......................................................................... 7 2.2 Detrimental Effect of Water on Pavement Performance .............................................. 8 2.3 Conventional Drainage Design Methods and Traditional Geotextile Applications ... 13 2.4 A Geotextile with Wicking Ability for Unsaturated Water Drainage ........................ 18 2.5 Potential Issues and Concerns ..................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER 3.0 MATERIAL CHARACTERIZATIONS ........................................................ 28 3.1 Soil Properties ............................................................................................................. 28 3.2 Resilient Modulus Test ............................................................................................... 29 3.3 Pressure Plate Test and Salt Concentration Test......................................................... 39 3.4 H2Ri Geotextile Air Entry Value Determination ....................................................... 48 3.5 Unsaturated Soil Hydraulic Conductivity ................................................................... 51 v 3.6 Large Direct Shear Test .............................................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 4.0 GEOTEXTILE WORKING MECHANISM AND POTENTIAL ISSUES 63 4.1 H2Ri Geotextile Working Theoretical Range............................................................. 63 4.2 Soil-Geotextile System Working Mechanism ............................................................ 64 4.3 Potential Issues............................................................................................................ 71 CHAPTER 5.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................... 93 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 96 APPENDIX A BASIC PROPERTIES FOR AB3 BASE COURSE ..................................... 105 APPENDIX B RESILIENT MODULUS TEST ..................................................................... 106 APPENDIX C SWCC AND GWCC TEST RESULTS ......................................................... 113 APPENDIX D LARGE-SCALE DIRECT SHEAR TEST ................................................... 11

Generalization and modelling of rigid polyisocyanurate foam reaction kinetics, structural units effect, and cell configuration mechanism

PIR/PUR ratio was derived from differential manipulation of generalized polyisocyanurate kinetic model. The structural unit effects on polymerization of isocyanurate, urethane and urea linkages were evaluated based on Mayo-Lewise tercopolymerization scheme. The cell microstructural configuration model was further developed from profiled FOAMAT reactivity parameters with integrated analysis of cell interface physics. The interstitial border area was defined by interface free energy theory, the shear viscosity was evaluated by foam motion, gas fraction, and partial pressure, and the cell inflation was re-examined by gas-liquid surface tension variability. The cell anisotropic degree, assumed as an aspect ratio of infinitesimal volume elements in cell uniformity, was characterized by equilibrated work increase of surface energy approximated by 2D stretching deformation from sphere cell to spheroid cell. The relationship between pressure and surface tension of elongated cells was also derived from modelling at the same condition of cell deformation