Numerical simulation of mesomechanical behavior of porous brittle materials

The influence of the types of porous structure on the features of deformation, damage accumulation and fracture of mesovolumes of brittle materials is studied. At the mesoscale, the pores of different shape are taken into account explicitly. The digital models were made using random values of coordinates and radii of spherical voids or solid spheres. For numerical modeling of the mechanical behavior up to failure, the evolutionary approach is applied with considering the nonlinear constitutive equations to describe damage accumulation and its influence on the degradation of the strength properties of the frame of porous ceramics. The calculated averaged stress-strain diagrams were shown to be sensitive not only to the value of porosity but also to the shape of pores. The simulation results are validated with experimental data for zirconia and alumina ceramics. Good qualitative and quantitative agreement of modeling results with experimental data suggests that taking into account of two-scale porosity in the form of explicit consideration of large pores at the mesoscale and implicit integrated consideration of tiny pores and cracks from the microscale in the form of accumulated damage is quite sufficient in the framework of the hierarchical modeling

Blow-up regimes in failure of rock specimens

For damage evaluation, the stage of superfast catastrophic failure of a medium and its mechanical behavior in a state of self-organized criticality prior to the onset of a blow-up fracture mode is of great interest for identification of its precursors. In this work, the data of experimental and numerical investigations of mechanical behavior of a medium before its catastrophic failure and the onset of a blow-up fracture mode are presented. Rock samples and ceramic specimens are subjected to three-point bending and uniaxial compression testing. Surface velocities of the loaded specimens are registered using a laser Doppler vibrometer. The blow-up regime duration is measured to be about 10–20 ms. The specimens’ mechanical behavior is numerically simulated under experimental conditions, including the regime of catastrophic fracture. The model parameters of damage accumulation are determined from a comparison with the experimental data. A number of features of the material mechanical response before the catastrophic fracture are identified, which could be treated as failure precursors

The Hubble flow around the CenA / M83 galaxy complex

We present HST/ACS images and color-magnitude diagrams for 24 nearby galaxies in and near the constellation of Centaurus with radial velocities V_LG < 550 km/s. Distances are determined based on the luminosities of stars at the tip of the red giant branch that range from 3.0 Mpc to 6.5 Mpc. The galaxies are concentrated in two spatially separated groups around Cen A (NGC 5128) and M 83 (NGC 5236). The Cen A group itself has a mean distance of 3.76 +/-0.05 Mpc, a velocity dispersion of 136 km/s, a mean harmonic radius of 192 kpc, and an estimated orbital/virial mass of (6.4 - 8.1) x 10^12 M_sun. This elliptical dominated group is found to have a relatively high mass-to-light ratio: M/L_B = 125 M_sun/L_sun. For the M 83 group we derived a mean distance of 4.79 +/-0.10 Mpc, a velocity dispersion of 61 km/s, a mean harmonic radius of 89 kpc, and estimated orbital/virial mass of (0.8 - 0.9) x 10^12 M_sun. This spiral dominated group is found to have a relatively low M/L_B = 34 M_sun/L_sun. The radius of the zero-velocity surface around Cen A lies at R_0 = 1.40 +/-0.11 Mpc, implying a total mass within R_0 of M_T = (6.0 +/-1.4) x 10^12 M_sun. This value is in good agreement with the Cen A virial/orbital mass estimates and provides confirmation of the relatively high M/L_B of this elliptical-dominated group. The centroids of both the groups, as well as surrounding field galaxies, have very small peculiar velocities, < 25 km/s, with respect to the local Hubble flow with H_0 = 68 km/s/Mpc.Comment: 31 pages including 9 figures and 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal, 133, N0. 2 (February), 200

Probe of dark galaxies via disturbed/ lopsided isolated galaxies

Searching for lopsided/interacting objects among ~1500 isolated galaxies yields only eight strongly disturbed galaxies which may be explained as a result of their interaction with massive dark objects. We present results of spectral and photometric observations of these galaxies performed with the 6-m telescope that lead to significant restriction on cosmic abundance of dark galaxies.Comment: To appear in proceedings IAU Symp 244, 'Dark Galaxies and Lost Baryons', June 200

Security analyst networks, performance and career outcomes

Authors' draft. Final version to be published in The Journal of Finance. Available online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/Using a sample of 42,376 board directors and 10,508 security analysts we construct a social network, mapping the connections between analysts and directors, between directors, and between analysts. We use social capital theory and techniques developed in social network analysis to measure the analyst’s level of connectedness and investigate whether these connections provide any information advantage to the analyst. We find that better-connected (better-networked) analysts make more accurate, timely, and bold forecasts. Moreover, analysts with better network positions are less likely to lose their job, suggesting that these analysts are more valuable to their brokerage houses. We do not find evidence that analyst innate forecasting ability predicts an analyst’s future network position. In contrast, past forecast optimism has a positive association with building a better network of connections

Molecular alliance of Lymantria dispar multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus and a short unmodified antisense oligonucleotide of its anti-apoptotic IAP-3 gene: A novel approach for gypsy moth control

Baculovirus IAP (inhibitor-of-apoptosis) genes originated by capture of host genes. Unmodified short antisense DNA oligonucleotides (oligoDNAs) from baculovirus IAP genes can down-regulate specific gene expression profiles in both baculovirus-free and baculovirus-infected insects. In this study, gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) larvae infected with multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (LdMNPV), and LdMNPV-free larvae, were treated with oligoDNA antisense to the RING (really interesting new gene) domain of the LdMNPV IAP-3 gene. The results with respect to insect mortality, biomass accumulation, histological studies, RT-PCR, and analysis of DNA apoptotic fragmentation suggest that oligoRING induced increased apoptotic processes in both LdMNPV-free and LdMNPV-infected insect cells, but were more pronounced in the latter. These data open up possibilities for promising new routes of insect pest control using antisense phosphodiester DNA oligonucleotides

Ice imaging in aircraft anti-icing fluid films using polarized light

Article presents how to enhance ice contrast in the visible spectrum by using ice birefringence and polarized light reflection. The method can be used for both visual inspection and automatic ice detection systems

The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury

The ACS Nearby Galaxy Survey Treasury (ANGST) is a systematic survey to establish a legacy of uniform multi-color photometry of resolved stars for a volume-limited sample of nearby galaxies (D<4 Mpc). The survey volume encompasses 69 galaxies in diverse environments, including close pairs, small & large groups, filaments, and truly isolated regions. The galaxies include a nearly complete range of morphological types spanning a factor of ~10^4 in luminosity and star formation rate. The survey data consists of images taken with ACS on HST, supplemented with archival data and new WFPC2 imaging taken after the failure of ACS. Survey images include wide field tilings covering the full radial extent of each galaxy, and single deep pointings in uncrowded regions of the most massive galaxies in the volume. The new wide field imaging in ANGST reaches median 50% completenesses of m_F475W=28.0 mag, m_F606W=27.3 mag, and m_F814W=27.3 mag, several magnitudes below the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB). The deep fields reach magnitudes sufficient to fully resolve the structure in the red clump. The resulting photometric catalogs are publicly accessible and contain over 34 million photometric measurements of >14 million stars. In this paper we present the details of the sample selection, imaging, data reduction, and the resulting photometric catalogs, along with an analysis of the photometric uncertainties (systematic and random), for both the ACS and WFPC2 imaging. We also present uniformly derived relative distances measured from the apparent magnitude of the TRGB.Comment: 54 pages, including 24 pages of figures and 16 pages of tables. Project website and data available at http://www.nearbygalaxies.org/ . Data is also available through MAST. Scheduled to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Supplements. (Replaced to fix several figures that were damaged during compression

Molecular Alliance of Lymantria dispar Multiple Nucleopolyhedrovirus and a Short Unmodified Antisense Oligonucleotide of Its Anti-Apoptotic IAP-3 Gene: A Novel Approach for Gypsy Moth Control

Baculovirus IAP (inhibitor-of-apoptosis) genes originated by capture of host genes. Unmodified short antisense DNA oligonucleotides (oligoDNAs) from baculovirus IAP genes can down-regulate specific gene expression profiles in both baculovirus-free and baculovirus-infected insects. In this study, gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) larvae infected with multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (LdMNPV), and LdMNPV-free larvae, were treated with oligoDNA antisense to the RING (really interesting new gene) domain of the LdMNPV IAP-3 gene. The results with respect to insect mortality, biomass accumulation, histological studies, RT-PCR, and analysis of DNA apoptotic fragmentation suggest that oligoRING induced increased apoptotic processes in both LdMNPV-free and LdMNPV-infected insect cells, but were more pronounced in the latter. These data open up possibilities for promising new routes of insect pest control using antisense phosphodiester DNA oligonucleotides

Influence of Carbon Black Content on the Properties of Butadiene Elastomer

В работе приведены результаты исследования физико- механических свойств до и после термического старения, степени набухания в гидравлическом масле, а также температурные свойства эластомеров на основе бутадиенового каучука марки СКД-В в зависимости от содержания малоактивного печного технического углерода марки П‑803. С увеличением содержания технического углерода до 110 масс.ч. в эластомерной матрице происходит повышение относительного удлинения и условной прочности на разрыв, с дальнейшим увеличением содержания наблюдается снижение. С увеличением содержания технического углерода в резиновой смеси показатели плотности, твердости, условного напряжения и агрессивостойкости повышаются. После испытания на термическое старение наблюдается повышение плотности, твердости и условного напряжения, а относительное удлинение и предел прочности при разрыве снижаются. При помощи термомеханического анализатора установлено, что увеличение количества содержания технического углерода в резиновой смеси не оказывает существенного влияния на начало сегментальной подвижности эластомеров, но снижает изменение линейных размеров при повышении температуры. Методом дифференциально сканирующей калориметрии установлено, что изменение количества содержания технического углерода не влияет на среднюю температуру стеклования. При оптимальном содержании технического углерода наблюдается наиболее равномерное распределение частиц в объеме эластомерной матрицы без образования большого количества агломератов либо пустотThe paper presents the results of a study of physical and mechanical properties before and after thermal aging, aggressiveness, as well as the temperature properties of elastomers based on butadiene rubber grade SKD-V, depending on the content of low-activity furnace carbon grade P‑803. With an increase in the content of carbon black up to 110 wt.h. in the elastomeric matrix, an increase in relative elongation and conditional tensile strength occurs, with a further increase in the content, a decrease is observed. The results obtained after thermal aging of samples and their soaking in AMG‑10 hydraulic oil are considered. With an increase in the content of carbon black in the rubber compound, the indicators of density, hardness, conditional stress and aggressiveness increase. After the thermal aging test, an increase in density, hardness and nominal stress is observed, and the elongation and tensile strength decrease. Changing the amount of carbon black in the rubber mixture does not affect the beginning of the segmental mobility of the elastomer, but there is a decrease in the linear-temperature expansion of the samples. Using differential scanning calorimetry, it was found that a change in the amount of carbon black does not affect the glass transition temperature. Using electron microscopy, it was shown that at the optimum content of carbon black, the most uniform distribution of particles occurs in the volume of the elastomeric matrix without the formation of a large number of agglomerates or void