An extensible product structure model for product lifecycle management in the make-to-order environment

This paper presents a product structure model with a semantic representation technique that make the product structure extensible for developing product lifecycle management (PLM) systems that is flexible for make-to-order environment. In the make-to-order business context, each product could have a number of variants with slightly different constitutions to fulfill different customer requirements. All the variants of a family have common characteristics and each variant has its specific features. A master-variant pattern is proposed for building the product structure model to explicitly represent common characteristics and specific features of individual variants. The model is capable of enforcing the consistency of a family structure and its variant structure, supporting multiple product views, and facilitating the business processes. A semantic representation technique is developed that enables entity attributes to be defined and entities to be categorized in a neutral and semantic format. As a result, entity attributes and entity categorization can be redefined easily with its configurable capability for different requirements of the PLM systems. An XML-based language is developed for semantically representing entities and entity categories. A prototype as a proof-of-concept system is presented to illustrate the capability of the proposed extensible product structure model

Monte-Carlo approach to calculate the proton stopping in warm dense matter within particle-in-cell simulations

A Monte-Carlo approach to proton stopping in warm dense matter is implemented into an existing particle-in-cell code. The model is based on multiple binary-collisions among electron-electron, electron-ion and ion-ion, taking into account contributions from both free and bound electrons, and allows to calculate particle stopping in much more natural manner. At low temperature limit, when ``all'' electron are bounded at the nucleus, the stopping power converges to the predictions of Bethe-Bloch theory, which shows good consistency with data provided by the NIST. With the rising of temperatures, more and more bound electron are ionized, thus giving rise to an increased stopping power to cold matter, which is consistent with the report of a recently experimental measurement [Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 215002 (2015)]. When temperature is further increased, with ionizations reaching the maximum, lowered stopping power is observed, which is due to the suppression of collision frequency between projected proton beam and hot plasmas in the target.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Monte-Carlo approach to calculate the ionization of warm dense matter within particle-in-cell simulations

A physical model based on a Monte-Carlo approach is proposed to calculate the ionization dynam- ics of warm dense matters (WDM) within particle-in-cell simulations, and where the impact (col- lision) ionization (CI), electron-ion recombination (RE) and ionization potential depression (IPD) by surrounding plasmas are taken into consideration self-consistently. When compared with other models, which are applied in the literature for plasmas near thermal equilibrium, the temporal re- laxation of ionization dynamics can also be simulated by the proposed model. Besides, this model is general and can be applied for both single elements and alloys with quite different composi- tions. The proposed model is implemented into a particle-in-cell (PIC) code, with (final) ionization equilibriums sustained by competitions between CI and its inverse process (i.e., RE). Comparisons between the full model and model without IPD or RE are performed. Our results indicate that for bulk aluminium in the WDM regime, i) the averaged ionization degree increases by including IPD; while ii) the averaged ionization degree is significantly over estimated when the RE is neglected. A direct comparison from the PIC code is made with the existing models for the dependence of averaged ionization degree on thermal equilibrium temperatures, and shows good agreements with that generated from Saha-Boltzmann model or/and FLYCHK code.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

The black hole dynamical horizon and generalized second law of thermodynamics

The generalized second law of thermodynamics for a system containing a black hole dynamical horizon is proposed in a covariant way. Its validity is also tested in case of adiabatically collapsing thick light shells.Comment: JHEP style, 8 pages, 2 figures, version to appear in JHEP with typos correcte

A cusp electron gun for millimeter wave gyrodevices

The experimental results of a thermionic cusp electron gun, to drive millimeter and submillimeter wave harmonic gyrodevices, are reported in this paper. Using a "smooth" magnetic field reversal formed by two coils this gun generated an annular-shaped, axis-encircling electron beam with 1.5 A current, and an adjustable velocity ratio alpha of up to 1.56 at a beam voltage of 40 kV. The beam cross-sectional shape and transported beam current were measured by a witness plate technique and Faraday cup, respectively. These measured results were found to be in excellent agreement with the simulated results using the three-dimensional code MAGIC

CP Violation in Fermion Pair Decays of Neutral Boson Particles

We study CP violation in fermion pair decays of neutral boson particles with spin 0 or 1. We study a new asymmetry to measure CP violation in $\eta, K_L \rightarrow \mu^+\mu^-$ decays and discuss the possibility of measuring it experimentally. For the spin-1 particles case, we study CP violation in the decays of $J/\psi$ to $SU(3)$ octet baryon pairs. We show that these decays can be used to put stringent constraints on the electric dipole moments of $\Lambda$, $\Sigma$ and $\Xi$.Comment: 14p, OZ-93/22, UM-93/89, OITS 51

Sunward-propagating Alfv\'enic fluctuations observed in the heliosphere

The mixture/interaction of anti-sunward-propagating Alfv\'enic fluctuations (AFs) and sunward-propagating Alfv\'enic fluctuations (SAFs) is believed to result in the decrease of the Alfv\'enicity of solar wind fluctuations with increasing heliocentric distance. However, SAFs are rarely observed at 1 au and solar wind AFs are found to be generally outward. Using the measurements from Voyager 2 and Wind, we perform a statistical survey of SAFs in the heliosphere inside 6 au. We first report two SAF events observed by Voyager 2. One is in the anti-sunward magnetic sector with a strong positive correlation between the fluctuations of magnetic field and solar wind velocity. The other one is in the sunward magnetic sector with a strong negative magnetic field-velocity correlation. Statistically, the percentage of SAFs increases gradually with heliocentric distance, from about 2.7% at 1.0 au to about 8.7% at 5.5 au. These results provide new clues for understanding the generation mechanism of SAFs

Bell inequalities for Continuous-Variable Measurements

Tests of local hidden variable theories using measurements with continuous variable (CV) outcomes are developed, and a comparison of different methods is presented. As examples, we focus on multipartite entangled GHZ and cluster states. We suggest a physical process that produces the states proposed here, and investigate experiments both with and without binning of the continuous variable. In the former case, the Mermin-Klyshko inequalities can be used directly. For unbinned outcomes, the moment-based CFRD inequalities are extended to functional inequalities by considering arbitrary functions of the measurements at each site. By optimising these functions, we obtain more robust violations of local hidden variable theories than with either binning or moments. Recent inequalities based on the algebra of quaternions and octonions are compared with these methods. Since the prime advantage of CV experiments is to provide a route to highly efficient detection via homodyne measurements, we analyse the effect of noise and detection losses in both binned and unbinned cases. The CV moment inequalities with an optimal function have greater robustness to both loss and noise. This could permit a loophole-free test of Bell inequalities.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Changing communication on researchgate through interface updates

Informal scholarly communication across the Web is a growing component of the scholarly communication infrastructure. This study describes the effects of three different interfaces on these informal channels. Interface design has a widely studied effect on user behavior, and new users often encounter barriers during accessing social media tools. Using a mixed methods approach, we collected and grouped 413 posts across three distinct interfaces of ResearchGate's communication platform. Our results show that scholars were more polite in the initial group discussion interface but that user interface design did not change the core communication patterns of sharing information and opinions among scholars. The site also transitioned from one-to-many discussions to one-to-one posts, but new users were generally welcomed to the scholarly communications