A comparative study on optimal structural dynamics using wavelet functions

Wavelet solution techniques have become the focus of interest among researchers in different disciplines of science and technology. In this paper, implementation of two different wavelet basis functions has been comparatively considered for dynamic analysis of structures. For this aim, computational technique is developed by using free scale of simple Haar wavelet, initially. Later, complex and continuous Chebyshev wavelet basis functions are presented to improve the time history analysis of structures. Free-scaled Chebyshev coefficient matrix and operation of integration are derived to directly approximate displacements of the corresponding system. In addition, stability of responses has been investigated for the proposed algorithm of discrete Haar wavelet compared against continuous Chebyshev wavelet. To demonstrate the validity of the wavelet-based algorithms, aforesaid schemes have been extended to the linear and nonlinear structural dynamics. The effectiveness of free-scaled Chebyshev wavelet has been compared with simple Haar wavelet and two common integration methods. It is deduced that either indirect method proposed for discrete Haar wavelet or direct approach for continuous Chebyshev wavelet is unconditionally stable. Finally, it is concluded that numerical solution is highly benefited by the least computation time involved and high accuracy of response, particularly using low scale of complex Chebyshev wavelet

A New Design Optimization of Light Weight Front Lower Control Arm

In this paper, the design optimization and fabrication process of Aluminium cast for Lower Control Arm (LCA) were investigated. The aluminum lightweight front lower control arm will be developed using casting processing route and its performance will be investigated to determine the mechanical properties of the parts. In this work, the new concept design of cast lower arm are employed. Then, the topology optimization process is conducted to get the optimized shape based on target 20% weight reduction. The final optimized design is evaluated with structural strength analysis to analyze component performance in a vehicle. The parts that produced is expected to have a lightweight, high strength and good corrosion resistance and suitable for  current vehicle performance

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

The effect of synthetic polyethylene fiber on the strain hardening behavior of engineered cementitious composite (ECC)

This research investigated the effects of polyethylene (PE) fibers on the toughness and compressive and flexural strengths of engineered cementitious composite (ECC) cubes and slabs. In particular, this study discussed the reinforcing index (R.I.) as the main parameter. Tests were conducted in direct tension to evaluate the strain-hardening behavior of ECC with different PE fiber contents. Flexural toughness was also assessed following the ASTM C1018 procedure and post-cracking strength technique (PCSm). Results showed that the compressive strength linearly decreased with the increase of the reinforcing index, which in turn decreased the first crack load and significantly increased the ultimate load and failure deflections, and the ultimate strength of slabs. The toughness indices 120 to I-100 significantly increased with the increase in reinforcing index and even exceeded the considered limitations. Based on the observed results, a new definition for the ECC PE was proposed as an extension to the definition given in ASTM C1018. All the residual strength factors increased when the reinforcing index increased, indicating a higher amount of the retained strength. Similarly, the retained strength had a higher amount when the PCS24 values increased with increase in the reinforcing indices. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Optimum dynamic analysis of 2D frames using free-scaled wavelet functions

This paper presents a wavelet-based scheme for dynamic analysis of 2-dimensional (2D) frames. In the proposed approach, free-scaled wavelet functions are developed for Multi-Degrees-of-Freedom (MDOF) structures, particularly, complex Chebyshev and simple Haar wavelets are implemented. A simple step-by-step and explicit algorithm is presented to calculate the time history response of 2D frames. The validity of the proposed procedure is demonstrated with two examples compared with several common numerical integration procedures such as family ofNewmark-β, Wilson-θ and central difference method. Finally, it is shown that dynamic analysis of 2D frames is optimally accomplished by lesser computational time and high accuracy of results

Development of a Model-Based Clinical Sepsis Biomarker for Critically Ill Patients

Sepsis occurs frequently in the intensive care unit (ICU) and is a leading cause of admission, mortality, and cost. Treatment guidelines recommend early intervention, however positive blood culture results may take up to 48 hours. Insulin sensitivity (SI) is known to decrease with worsening condition and could thus be used to aid diagnosis. Some glycemic control protocols are able to accurately identify insulin sensitivity in real-time. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves and cut-off SI values for sepsis diagnosis were calculated for real-time model-based insulin sensitivity from glycemic control data of 36 patients with sepsis. Patients were identified as having sepsis based on a clinically validated sepsis score (ss) of 2 or higher (ss = 0-4 for increasing severity). A clinical biomarker was calculated from patient clinical data to maximize the discrimination between cohorts. Insulin sensitivity as a sepsis biomarker for diagnosis of severe sepsis achieves a 50% sensitivity, 76% specificity, 4.8% PPV, and 98.3% NPV at a SI cut-off value of 0.00013 L*mU min-1. A clinical biomarker combining SI, temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and their respective hourly rates of change achieves 73% sensitivity, 80% specificity, 8.4% PPV, and 99.2% NPV. Thus, a clinical biomarker provides an effective real-time negative predictive diagnostic for severe sepsis. Examination of both inter- and intra-patient statistical distribution of this biomarker and sepsis score show potential avenues to improve the positive predictive value

Molecular Diversity of HIV-1 among People Who Inject Drugs in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Massive Expansion of Circulating Recombinant Form (CRF) 33_01B and Emergence of Multiple Unique Recombinant Clusters

10.1371/journal.pone.0062560PLoS ONE85e6256

Impact of cisplatin dose intensity on human papillomavirus-related and -unrelated locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Aim The aim is to evaluate the impact of cisplatin dose modification on outcomes of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related (HPV+) and HPV-unrelated (HPV 12) locally advanced head and neck cancer (LAHNC) treated with chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Patients and methods A pooled analysis was conducted of stage III/IV oropharyngeal cancer (OPC), carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) and laryngo-hypopharyngeal cancer (LHC)\ua0patients treated with single-agent cisplatin CRT in 2000\u20132012 from two tertiary academic cancer centres. HPV status was determined by p16 staining and/or in situ hybridisation. LHC was assumed to be HPV 12. Unknown HPV status OPC/CUPs were excluded. Overall survival (OS) was calculated. Multivariable analysis (MVA) evaluated the impact of cisplatin dose intensity on survival for HPV+ and HPV 12 cohorts separately. Results A total of 404 HPV+ and 255 HPV 12 LAHNC (481 OPC, 18 CUP, 160 LHC) patients were included. Median follow-up was 4.3 (0.5\u201311.9) years. Three-year OS for cisplatin 200\ua0mg/m2 subgroups were 52%, 60%, and 72% (P\ua0=\ua00.001) for the HPV 12 and 91%, 90%, and 91% (P\ua0=\ua00.30) for the HPV+ patients. MVA confirmed a survival benefit with cisplatin >200\ua0mg/m2 for the HPV 12 (hazard ratio [HR] 0.5, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.3\u20130.7, P\ua0200\ua0mg/m2 (HR 0.5, 95% CI: 0.2\u20131.1, P\ua0=\ua00.07). Conclusions A survival benefit of cisplatin dose >200\ua0mg/m2 is evident for HPV 12 LAHNC patients, but not for HPV+ cohort overall, although the T4 or N3 subset may benefit from a higher cumulative cisplatin dose