Cracks, microcracks and fracture in polymer structures: Formation, detection, autonomic repair

The first author would like to acknowledge the financial support from the European Union under the FP7 COFUND Marie Curie Action. N.M.P. is supported by the European Research Council (ERC StG Ideas 2011 n. 279985 BIHSNAM, ERC PoC 2015 n. 693670 SILKENE), and by the EU under the FET Graphene Flagship (WP 14 “Polymer nano-composites” n. 696656)

Asymptotic Stability of Neutral Set-Valued Functional Differential Equation by Fixed Point Method

This paper studies a class of nonlinear neutral set-valued functional differential equations. The globally asymptotic stability theorem with necessary and sufficient conditions is obtained via the fixed point method. Meanwhile, we give an example to illustrate the obtained result

Practical Stability and Integral Stability for Singular Differential Systems with Maxima

In this paper, we introduce various definitions of practical stability and integral stability for nonlinear singular differential systems with maxima and give criteria of stability for such systems via the Lyapunov method and comparison principle

Rapid Convergence of Approximate Solutions for Fractional Differential Equations

In this paper, we develop a generalized quasilinearization technique for a class of Caputo’s fractional differential equations when the forcing function is the sum of hyperconvex and hyperconcave functions of order m (m≥0), and we obtain the convergence of the sequences of approximate solutions by establishing the convergence of order k (k≥2)

Tree-ring based runoff reconstruction of the upper Fenhe River basin, NorthChina, since 1799 AD

To acquire long-term perspectives on the history of droughts, we have presented the first runoff reconstruction from March to July in the upper Fenhe River basin, based on Pinus tabulaeformis tree-ring width indices from the Guancen Mountains, headstream of the Fenhe River, North China. The reconstruction explains 54.8% of the instrumental runoff variance over the period from 1952 to 2008. An analysis of interannual runoff variability indicated that AD 2001 was not only the driest year for the instrumental period, but also the driest year since AD 1799 in the upper Fenhe River. More extreme single-year droughts existed in the 20th century than in the 19th century in the region. Multiyear and decadal scale dry regime analyses demonstrated that the instrumental runoff underestimated the potential severe and prolonged droughts in the Fenhe River basin in future, such as droughts similar to the multiyear pre-instrumental droughts from 1831 to 1842 and 1919 to 1929. Comparisons between the Fenhe River runoff reconstruction and other nearby precipitation reconstructions showed that drought occurrence has been synchronous in parts of north and northwestern China to some extent for the last 211 years. Spatial correlation analyses between runoff data and the gridded Palmer Drought Severity Index dataset indicated that the average runoff reconstruction from March to July in the upper Fenhe River represents the regional moisture variations in North China, especially in the entire Fenhe River basin. As for the highest frequency and severity of spring drought in Shanxi province, the runoff reconstruction can provide base data for historical drought analysis and water resource planning and management in the Fenhe River basin or even to entire Shanxi province.</p

Path-oriented test cases generation based adaptive genetic algorithm

<div><p>The automatic generation of test cases oriented paths in an effective manner is a challenging problem for structural testing of software. The use of search-based optimization methods, such as genetic algorithms (GAs), has been proposed to handle this problem. This paper proposes an improved adaptive genetic algorithm (IAGA) for test cases generation by maintaining population diversity. It uses adaptive crossover rate and mutation rate in dynamic adjustment according to the differences between individual similarity and fitness values, which enhances the exploitation of searching global optimum. This novel approach is experimented and tested on a benchmark and six industrial programs. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method is efficient in generating test cases for path coverage.</p></div

Description and the corresponding parameter settings to target path of six industrial programs.

<p>Description and the corresponding parameter settings to target path of six industrial programs.</p