3D Ultrasonic Wave Simulations for Structural Health Monitoring

Structural health monitoring (SHM) for the detection of damage in aerospace materials is an important area of research at NASA. Ultrasonic guided Lamb waves are a promising SHM damage detection technique since the waves can propagate long distances. For complicated flaw geometries experimental signals can be difficult to interpret. High performance computing can now handle full 3-dimensional (3D) simulations of elastic wave propagation in materials. We have developed and implemented parallel 3D elastodynamic finite integration technique (3D EFIT) code to investigate ultrasound scattering from flaws in materials. EFIT results have been compared to experimental data and the simulations provide unique insight into details of the wave behavior. This type of insight is useful for developing optimized experimental SHM techniques. 3D EFIT can also be expanded to model wave propagation and scattering in anisotropic composite materials

The use of the concept of Bobath in improving patients of quantitative disorders of consciousness

Patients reduced states of consciousness, because of excessive duration and severity of illness require particular care effects in all aspects of medical applications. The process of medical rehabilitation in these cases comes up against difficulties related to the lack or limitation of the interaction between the therapist and the patient. For these reasons, always seek individual respiratory effects on the brain of the patient in order to most effectively induce Neuroplastic processes. It appears that the concept of Bobath may be a method of realization of the therapeutic agents in patients who are limited consciousness. It is understood that the method in accordance with the concept of physiotherapy Bobath comes down more to learn the patient feel performed passively or actively moving, not only to indicate to him how this movement should look like. Patients remaining in the states of limited consciousness are a unique group in which the interpretation of receipt by them of external stimuli is problematic and often impossible to determine. Regardless of whether the consciousness of the patient is under the control of, or is disabled, body position and movement patterns performed in the framework of rehabilitation allow to receive mechanical stimuli, thus contributing to the implementation of the appropriate movement patterns or even - to eliminate abnormal patterns. Possibly the quick implementation of rehabilitation Bobath method seems to be particularly important in patients who have suffered injuries of the central nervous system were in a coma or minimal consciousness

Some Findings Concerning Requirements in Agile Methodologies

gile methods have appeared as an attractive alternative to conventional methodologies. These methods try to reduce the time to market and, indirectly, the cost of the product through flexible development and deep customer involvement. The processes related to requirements have been extensively studied in literature, in most cases in the frame of conventional methods. However, conclusions of conventional methodologies could not be necessarily valid for Agile; in some issues, conventional and Agile processes are radically different. As recent surveys report, inadequate project requirements is one of the most conflictive issues in agile approaches and better understanding about this is needed. This paper describes some findings concerning requirements activities in a project developed under an agile methodology. The project intended to evolve an existing product and, therefore, some background information was available. The major difficulties encountered were related to non-functional needs and management of requirements dependencies

Fruit fracture biomechanics and the release of Lepidium didymum pericarp-imposed mechanical dormancy by fungi

Mechanical dormancy imposed by a hard fruit pericarp prevents premature seed germination. Here, the authors show that the pericarp of Lepidium didymum prevents germination by limiting water uptake and that dormancy can be released by fungal activity that weakens predetermined breaking zones in the fruit coat

No evidence that footedness in pheasants influences cognitive performance in tasks assessing colour discrimination and spatial ability

The differential specialization of each side of the brain facilitates the parallel processing of information and has been documented in a wide range of animals. Animals that are more lateralized as indicated by consistent preferential limb use are commonly reported to exhibit superior cognitive ability as well as other behavioural advantages.We assayed the lateralization of 135 young pheasants (Phasianus colchicus), indicated by their footedness in a spontaneous stepping task, and related this measure to individual performance in either 3 assays of visual or spatial learning and memory. We found no evidence that pronounced footedness enhances cognitive ability in any of the tasks. We also found no evidence that an intermediate footedness relates to better cognitive performance. This lack of relationship is surprising because previous work revealed that pheasants have a slight population bias towards right footedness, and when released into the wild, individuals with higher degrees of footedness were more likely to die. One explanation for why extreme lateralization is constrained was that it led to poorer cognitive performance, or that optimal cognitive performance was associated with some intermediate level of lateralization. This stabilizing selection could explain the pattern of moderate lateralization that is seen in most non-human species that have been studied. However, we found no evidence in this study to support this explanation

Administracja, zarządzanie i handel zagraniczny w warunkach integracji. Materiały konferencyjne - zarządzanie

Ze wstępu: "Partnerstwo jest rodzajem związku między władzami lokalnymi a innymi organizacjami; strony zachowują wolność działania, ale zgadzają się współpracować dla osiągnięcia wspólnych celów. Istnieje szeroka gama efektywnego wykorzystania partnerstwa przy rozwiązywaniu zagadnień zrównoważonego rozwoju, takich jak odnowa wewnętrzna obszarów miast, przekształcanie i rewitalizacja śródmieść, ochrona terenów turystycznych, dynamizacja mieszkalnictwa itp."(...

Evidence of adaptive evolutionary divergence during biological invasion

Rapid phenotypic diversification during biological invasions can either arise by adaptation to alternative environments or by adaptive phenotypic plasticity. Where experimental evidence for adaptive plasticity is common, support for evolutionary diversification is rare. Here, we performed a controlled laboratory experiment using full-sib crosses between ecologically divergent threespine stickleback populations to test for a genetic basis of adaptation. Our populations are from two very different habitats, lake and stream, of a recently invaded range in Switzerland and differ in ecologically relevant morphological traits. We found that in a lake-like food treatment lake fish grow faster than stream fish, resembling the difference among wild type individuals. In contrast, in a stream-like food treatment individuals from both populations grow similarly. Our experimental data suggest that genetically determined diversification has occurred within less than 140 years after the arrival of stickleback in our studied region