Determination of fracture toughness parameter of large metal structures Industrial review

Fracture toughness and resistance determined for large steel structures using stress intensity calculations - fracture mechanic

Discussion of: A statistical analysis of multiple temperature proxies: Are reconstructions of surface temperatures over the last 1000 years reliable?

Discussion of "A statistical analysis of multiple temperature proxies: Are reconstructions of surface temperatures over the last 1000 years reliable?" by B.B. McShane and A.J. Wyner [arXiv:1104.4002]Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS398J the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Effects of temporal variability of disturbance on the succession in marine fouling communities in northern-central Chile

We investigated the effects of temporal variability in a disturbance regime on fouling communities at two study sites in a northern-central Chilean bay. Fouling assemblages grown on artificial settlement substrata were disturbed by mechanical removal of biomass at different time intervals. Using one single disturbance frequency (10 disturbance events over 5 months) we applied 7 different temporal disturbance treatments: a constant disturbance regime (identical intervals between disturbance events), and 6 variable treatments where both variableness and sequences of intervals between disturbance events were manipulated. Two levels of temporal variableness (low and high, i.e. disturbance events were either dispersed or highly clumped in time) in the disturbance regime were applied by modifying the time intervals between subsequent disturbance events. To investigate the temporal coupling between disturbance events and other ecological processes (e.g. larval supply and recruitment intensity), three different sequences of disturbance intervals were nested in each of the two levels of temporal variableness. Species richness, evenness, total abundance, and structure of communities that experienced the various disturbance regimes were compared at the end of the experiment (15 days after the last disturbance event). Disturbance strongly influenced the community structure and led to a decrease in evenness and total abundance but not species richness. In undisturbed reference communities, the dominant competitor Pyura chilensis (Tunicata) occupied most available space while this species was suppressed in all disturbed treatments. Surprisingly, neither temporal variableness in the disturbance regime nor the sequence of intervals between disturbance events had an effect on community structure. Temporal variability in high disturbance regimes may be of minor importance for fouling communities, because they are dominated by opportunistic species that are adapted to rapidly exploit available space

An interesting example for spectral invariants

In "Illinois J. of Math. {\bf 38} (1994) 653--678", the heat operator of a Bismut superconnection for a family of generalized Dirac operators is defined along the leaves of a foliation with Hausdorff groupoid. The Novikov-Shubin invariants of the Dirac operators were assumed greater than three times the codimension of the foliation. It was then showed that the associated heat operator converges to the Chern character of the index bundle of the operator. In "J. K-Theory {\bf 1} (2008) 305--356", we improved this result by reducing the requirement on the Novikov-Shubin invariants to one half of the codimension. In this paper, we construct examples which show that this is the best possible result.Comment: Third author added. Some typos corrected and some material added. Appeared in Journal of K Theory, Volume 13, in 2014, pages 305 to 31

Tidal Response of Preliminary Jupiter Model

In anticipation of improved observational data for Jupiter's gravitational field from the Juno spacecraft, we predict the static tidal response for a variety of Jupiter interior models based on ab initio computer simulations of hydrogen-helium mixtures. We calculate hydrostatic-equilibrium gravity terms using the non-perturbative concentric Maclaurin Spheroid (CMS) method that eliminates lengthy expansions used in the theory of figures. Our method captures terms arising from the coupled tidal and rotational perturbations, which we find to be important for a rapidly-rotating planet like Jupiter. Our predicted static tidal Love number $k_2 = 0.5900$ is $\sim$10\% larger than previous estimates. The value is, as expected, highly correlated with the zonal harmonic coefficient $J_2$, and is thus nearly constant when plausible changes are made to interior structure while holding $J_2$ fixed at the observed value. We note that the predicted static $k_2$ might change due to Jupiter's dynamical response to the Galilean moons, and find reasons to argue that the change may be detectable, although we do not present here a theory of dynamical tides for highly oblate Jovian planets. An accurate model of Jupiter's tidal response will be essential for interpreting Juno observations and identifying tidal signals from effects of other interior dynamics in Jupiter's gravitational field.Comment: 10 Pages, 6 figures, 4 table