LOCV calculation for Beta-stable matter at finite temperature

The method of lowest-order constrained variational, which predicts reasonably the nuclear matter semi-empirical data is used to calculate the equation of state of beta-stable matter at finite temperature. The Reid soft-core with and without the N-$\Delta$ interactions which fits the N-N scattering data as well as the $UV_{14}$ potential plus the three-nucleon interaction are considered in the nuclear many-body Hamiltonian. The electron and muon are treated relativistically in the total Hamiltonian at given temperature, to make the fluid electrically neutral and stable against beta decay. The calculation is performed for a wide range of baryon density and temperature which are of interest in the astrophysics. The free energy, entropy, proton abundance, etc. of nuclear beta-stable matter are calculated. It is shown that by increasing the temperature, the maximum proton abundance is pushed to the lower density while the maximum itself increases as we increase the temperature. The proton fraction is not enough to see any gas-liquid phase transition. Finally we get an overall agreement with other many-body techniques, which are available only at zero temperature.Comment: LaTex, 20 page

Probabilistic Strain Energy Life Assessment Model

AbstractUnder the “safe-life” methodology used by the United States Navy the service life of aircraft fleet are determined by monitoring the aircraft's usage and estimating the respective fatigue damage. The calculated fatigue life expenditure representing cumulative damage is then used to determine if it is possible for an aircraft or a fleet of aircrafts to reach the point of crack initiation and whether or not it should be retired. This research focuses on the development and initial application of a probabilistic strain-energy model to augment the empirical-based fatigue life expended approach. Experimental fatigue data obtained in this research is used to determine the relation between the number of cycles-to-failure and the cumulative total strain energy. A Bayesian framework for regression, including consideration of the model error is used to develop a probabilistic model of life that includes parameter uncertainties due to the limitation and scatter observed in the experimental data

The Mechanics of Fast-Start Performance of Pike Studied Using a Mechanical Fish

A northern pike (Esox lucius) is capable of achieving a maximum instantaneous acceleration of 25g, far greater than that achieved by any manmade vehicle. In order to understand the physical mechanisms behind achieving such high accelerations, we have built a mechanical fish to emulate the motion of a pike, a fast-start specialist. A live pike bends its body into either a C-shaped or an S-shaped curve and then uncoils it very quickly to send a traveling wave along its body in order to achieve high acceleration. We have designed a mechanical fish whose motion is accurately controlled by servo motors, to emulate the fast-start by bending its body to a curve from its original straight position, and then back to its straight position. Furthermore, this mechanical fish is designed to be adjustable in swimming pattern, tail shape, tail rigidity, and body rigidity, making it possible to study the influence of all of these parameters on the fast-start performance. Peak accelerations of 2.0 m/s2 and peak velocities of 0.09 m/s are measured. Although the maximum accelerations and velocities observed in our mechanical fish are smaller than those of live fish, the form of the measured acceleration signal as function of time is quite similar to that of a live fish. The hydrodynamic efficiencies are observed to be around 12%, and it is shown that the majority of the thrust is produced at the rear part of the mechanical fish - similarly to the live fish. Copyright © 2011 by ASME

Fuzzy evidence theory and Bayesian networks for process systems risk analysis

YesQuantitative risk assessment (QRA) approaches systematically evaluate the likelihood, impacts, and risk of adverse events. QRA using fault tree analysis (FTA) is based on the assumptions that failure events have crisp probabilities and they are statistically independent. The crisp probabilities of the events are often absent, which leads to data uncertainty. However, the independence assumption leads to model uncertainty. Experts’ knowledge can be utilized to obtain unknown failure data; however, this process itself is subject to different issues such as imprecision, incompleteness, and lack of consensus. For this reason, to minimize the overall uncertainty in QRA, in addition to addressing the uncertainties in the knowledge, it is equally important to combine the opinions of multiple experts and update prior beliefs based on new evidence. In this article, a novel methodology is proposed for QRA by combining fuzzy set theory and evidence theory with Bayesian networks to describe the uncertainties, aggregate experts’ opinions, and update prior probabilities when new evidences become available. Additionally, sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the most critical events in the FTA. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been demonstrated via application to a practical system.The research of Sohag Kabir was partly funded by the DEIS project (Grant Agreement 732242)

Dominant mutations of the Notch ligand Jagged1 cause peripheral neuropathy

Notch signaling is a highly conserved intercellular pathway with tightly regulated and pleiotropic roles in normal tissue development and homeostasis. Dysregulated Notch signaling has also been implicated in human disease, including multiple forms of cancer, and represents an emerging therapeutic target. Successful development of such therapeutics requires a detailed understanding of potential on-target toxicities. Here, we identify autosomal dominant mutations of the canonical Notch ligand Jagged1 (or JAG1) as a cause of peripheral nerve disease in 2 unrelated families with the hereditary axonal neuropathy Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 2 (CMT2). Affected individuals in both families exhibited severe vocal fold paresis, a rare feature of peripheral nerve disease that can be life-threatening. Our studies of mutant protein posttranslational modification and localization indicated that the mutations (p.Ser577Arg, p.Ser650Pro) impair protein glycosylation and reduce JAG1 cell surface expression. Mice harboring heterozygous CMT2-associated mutations exhibited mild peripheral neuropathy, and homozygous expression resulted in embryonic lethality by midgestation. Together, our findings highlight a critical role for JAG1 in maintaining peripheral nerve integrity, particularly in the recurrent laryngeal nerve, and provide a basis for the evaluation of peripheral neuropathy as part of the clinical development of Notch pathway–modulating therapeutics

The Power Laws of Violence against Women: Rescaling Research and Policies

BACKGROUND: Violence against Women -despite its perpetuation over centuries and its omnipresence at all social levels- entered into social consciousness and the general agenda of Social Sciences only recently, mainly thanks to feminist research, campaigns, and general social awareness. The present article analyzes in a secondary analysis of German prevalence data on Violence against Women, whether the frequency and severity of Violence against Women can be described with power laws. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Although the investigated distributions all resemble power-law distributions, a rigorous statistical analysis accepts this hypothesis at a significance level of 0.1 only for 1 of 5 cases of the tested frequency distributions and with some restrictions for the severity of physical violence. Lowering the significance level to 0.01 leads to the acceptance of the power-law hypothesis in 2 of the 5 tested frequency distributions and as well for the severity of domestic violence. The rejections might be mainly due to the noise in the data, with biases caused by self-reporting, errors through rounding, desirability response bias, and selection bias. CONCLUSION: Future victimological surveys should be designed explicitly to avoid these deficiencies in the data to be able to clearly answer the question whether Violence against Women follows a power-law pattern. This finding would not only have statistical implications for the processing and presentation of the data, but also groundbreaking consequences on the general understanding of Violence against Women and policy modeling, as the skewed nature of the underlying distributions makes evident that Violence against Women is a highly disparate and unequal social problem. This opens new questions for interdisciplinary research, regarding the interplay between environmental, experimental, and social factors on victimization

Δ(1232)\Delta(1232) Isobar Excitations and the Ground State of Nuclei

The influence of $\Delta$ isobar components on the ground state properties of nuclear systems is investigated for nuclear matter as well as finite nuclei. Many-body wave functions, including isobar configurations, and binding energies are evaluated employing the framework of the coupled-cluster theory. It is demonstrated that the effect of isobar configurations depends in a rather sensitive way on the model used for the baryon-baryon interaction. As examples for realistic baryon-baryon interactions with explicit inclusion of isobar channels we use the local ($V28$) and non-local meson exchange potentials (Bonn$_{2000}$) but also a model recently developed by the Salamanca group, which is based on a quark picture. The differences obtained for the nuclear observables are related to the treatment of the interaction, the $\pi$-exchange contributions in particular, at high momentum transfers.Comment: 12 pages, including 5 figure