Mixed-mode cyclic debonding of adhesively bonded composite joints

A combined experimental-analytical investigation to characterize the cyclic failure mechanism of a simple composite-to-composite bonded joint is conducted. The cracked lap shear (CLS) specimens of graphite/epoxy adherend bonded with EC-3445 adhesive are tested under combined mode 1 and 2 loading. In all specimens tested, fatigue failure occurs in the form of cyclic debonding. The cyclic debond growth rates are measured. The finite element analysis is employed to compute the mode 1, mode 2, and total strain energy release rates (i.e., GI, GII, and GT). A wide range of mixed-mode loading, i.e., GI/GII ranging from 0.03 to 0.38, is obtained. The total strain energy release rate, G sub T, appeared to be the driving parameter for cyclic debonding in the tested composite bonded system

Interaction of mixed mode loading on cyclic debonding in adhesively bonded composite joints

A combined experimental and analytical investigation of an adhesively-bonded composite joint was conducted to characterize the fracture mode dependence of cyclic debonding. The system studied consisted of graphite/epoxy adherends bonded with EC 3445 adhesive. Several types of specimens are tested which provide the cyclic debond growth rate measurements under various load conditions: mode 1, mixed mode 1 to 2, and mostly mode 2. This study shows that the total strain-energy-release rate is the governing factor for cyclic debonding

Epidemiology of nosocomial infections in pediatric patients in an Iranian referral hospital

Nosocomial infections (NI) are important causes of morbid- ity and mortality in pediatric hospitals. Different surveillance methods for detecting hospital-acquired infection have been developed. The selection of which varies according to specific surveillance objectives and the resources are available. The aim of this study was to determine the epidemiology of noso- comial infections in medical wards of a tertiary-levels teaching pediatric hospital in Tehran, Iran. We performed a prospective cross-sectional study and NI was identified by daily review of medical charts of patients hospitalized for at least 48 hours. We evaluated 1497 patients. The overall patient NI rate was 3.34 per 100 patients and the infection rate per 1000 patient-days was 5.27. The most common site of infection was the respira- tory tract (36%) followed by the gastrointestinal tract (32%). S. aureus, P. aeruginosa and Salmonella species were the most frequent pathogen isolates. The lethality rate associated with NI was 10%. Describing the epidemiology of NI in this hospi- tal enable us to estimate infection occurrence, distribution and expected incidence, as well as recognizing trends and keeping track of possible outbreaks

Reckle Trees: Updatable Merkle Batch Proofs with Applications

We propose Reckle trees, a new vector commitment based on succinct RECursive arguments and MerKLE trees. Reckle trees\u27 distinguishing feature is their support for succinct batch proofs that are updatable - enabling new applications in the blockchain setting where a proof needs to be computed and efficiently maintained over a moving stream of blocks. Our technical approach is based on embedding the computation of the batch hash inside the recursive Merkle verification via a hash-based accumulator called canonical hashing. Due to this embedding, our batch proofs can be updated in logarithmic time, whenever a Merkle leaf (belonging to the batch or not) changes, by maintaining a data structure that stores previously-computed recursive proofs. Assuming enough parallelism, our batch proofs are also computable in $O(\log n)$ parallel time - independent of the size of the batch. As a natural extension of Reckle trees, we also introduce Reckle+ trees. Reckle+ trees provide updatable and succinct proofs for certain types of Map/Reduce computations. In this setting, a prover can commit to a memory $\mathsf{M}$ and produce a succinct proof for a Map/Reduce computation over a subset $I$ of $\mathsf{M}$. The proof can be efficiently updated whenever $I$ or $\mathsf{M}$ changes. We present and experimentally evaluate two applications of Reckle+ trees, dynamic digest translation and updatable BLS aggregation. In dynamic digest translation we are maintaining a proof of equivalence between Merkle digests computed with different hash functions, e.g., one with a SNARK-friendly Poseidon and the other with a SNARK-unfriendly Keccak. In updatable BLS aggregation we maintain a proof for the correct aggregation of a $t$-aggregate BLS key, derived from a $t$-subset of a Merkle-committed set of individual BLS keys. Our evaluation using Plonky2 shows that Reckle trees and Reckle+ trees have small memory footprint, significantly outperform previous approaches in terms of updates and verification time, enable applications that were not possible before due to huge costs involved (Reckle trees are up to 200 times faster), and have similar aggregation performance with previous implementations of batch proofs