3,720 research outputs found
Sex, lies and self-reported counts: Bayesian mixture models for heaping in longitudinal count data via birth-death processes
Surveys often ask respondents to report nonnegative counts, but respondents
may misremember or round to a nearby multiple of 5 or 10. This phenomenon is
called heaping, and the error inherent in heaped self-reported numbers can bias
estimation. Heaped data may be collected cross-sectionally or longitudinally
and there may be covariates that complicate the inferential task. Heaping is a
well-known issue in many survey settings, and inference for heaped data is an
important statistical problem. We propose a novel reporting distribution whose
underlying parameters are readily interpretable as rates of misremembering and
rounding. The process accommodates a variety of heaping grids and allows for
quasi-heaping to values nearly but not equal to heaping multiples. We present a
Bayesian hierarchical model for longitudinal samples with covariates to infer
both the unobserved true distribution of counts and the parameters that control
the heaping process. Finally, we apply our methods to longitudinal
self-reported counts of sex partners in a study of high-risk behavior in
HIV-positive youth.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AOAS809 in the Annals of
Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
High-Temperature Shape Memory Polymers
physical conformation changes when exposed to an external stimulus, such as a change in temperature. Such materials have a permanent shape, but can be reshaped above a critical temperature and fixed into a temporary shape when cooled under stress to below the critical temperature. When reheated above the critical temperature (Tc, also sometimes called the triggering or switching temperature), the materials revert to the permanent shape. The current innovation involves a chemically treated (sulfonated, carboxylated, phosphonated, or other polar function group), high-temperature, semicrystalline thermoplastic poly(ether ether ketone) (Tg .140 C, Tm = 340 C) mix containing organometallic complexes (Zn++, Li+, or other metal, ammonium, or phosphonium salts), or high-temperature ionic liquids (e.g. hexafluorosilicate salt with 1-propyl-3- methyl imidazolium, Tm = 210 C) to form a network where dipolar or ionic interactions between the polymer and the low-molecular-weight or inorganic compound forms a complex that provides a physical crosslink. Hereafter, these compounds will be referred to as "additives". The polymer is semicrystalline, and the high-melt-point crystals provide a temporary crosslink that acts as a permanent crosslink just so long as the melting temperature is not exceeded. In this example case, the melting point is .340 C, and the shape memory critical temperature is between 150 and 250 C. PEEK is an engineering thermoplastic with a high Young fs modulus, nominally 3.6 GPa. An important aspect of the invention is the control of the PEEK functionalization (in this example, the sulfonation degree), and the thermal properties (i.e. melting point) of the additive, which determines the switching temperature. Because the compound is thermoplastic, it can be formed into the "permanent" shape by conventional plastics processing operations. In addition, the compound may be covalently cross - linked after forming the permanent shape by S-PEEK by applying ionizing radiation ( radiation, neutrons), or by chemical crosslinking to form a covalent permanent network. With respect to other shape memory polymers, this invention is novel in that it describes the use of a thermoplastic composition that can be thermally molded or solution-cast into complex "permanent" shapes, and then reheated or redissolved and recast from solution to prepare another shape. It is also unique in that the shape memory behavior is provided by a non-polymer additive
Shale oil : potential economies of large-scale production, preliminary phase
Producing shale oil on a large scale is one of the possible
alternatives for reducing dependence of the United States on imported
petroleum. Industry is not producing shale oil on a commercial scale now
because costs are too high even though industry dissatisfaction is most
frequently expressed about "non-economic" barriers: innumerable permits,
changing environmental regulations, lease limitations, water rights
conflicts, legal challenges, and so on. The overall purpose of this
study is to estimate whether improved technology might significantly
reduce unit costs for production of shale oil in a planned large-scale
industry as contrasted to the case usually contemplated: a small
industry evolving slowly on a project-by-project basis.
In this preliminary phase of the study, we collected published data
on the costs of present shale oil technology and adjusted them to common
conditions; these data were assembled to help identify the best targets
for cost reduction through improved large-scale technology They show
that the total cost of producing upgraded shale oil (i.e. shale oil
accpetable as a feed to a petroleum refinery) by surface retorting ranges
from about 28/barrel in late '78 dollars with a 20% chance that
the costs would be lower than and 20% higher than that range. The
probability distribution reflects our assumptions about ranges of shale
richness, process performance, rate of return, and other factors that
seem likely in a total industry portfolio of projects.
About 40% of the total median cost is attributable to retorting, 20%
to upgrading, and the remaining 40% to resource acquisition, mining,
crushing, and spent shale disposal and revegetation. Capital charges account for about 70% of the median total cost and operating costs for
the other 30%.
There is a reasonable chance that modified in-situ processes (like
Occidental's) may be able to produce shale oil more cheaply than surface
retorting, but no reliable cost data have been published; in 1978, DOE
estimated a saving of roughly $5/B for in-situ.
Because the total costs of shale oil are spread over many steps in
the production process, improvements in most or all of those steps are
required if we seek a significant reduction in total cost. A June 1979
workshop of industry experts was held to help us identify possible
cost-reduction technologies. Examples of the improved large-scale
technologies proposed (for further evaluation) to the workshop were:
- Instead of hydrotreating raw shale oil to make syncrude capable of
being refined conventionally, rebalance all of a refinery's
processes (or develop new catalysts/processes less sensitive to
feed nitrogen) to accommodate shale oil feed -- a change analogous
to a shift from sweet crude to sour crude.
- Instead of refining at or near the retort site, use heated
pipelines to move raw shale oil to existing major refining areas.
- Instead of operating individual mines, open-pit mine all or much
of the Piceance Creek Basin.
- Instead of building individual retorts, develop new methods for
mass production of hundreds of retorts
Numerical simulation of long wave runup for breaking and nonbreaking waves
Tsunamis produce a wealth of quantitative data that can be used to improve tsunami hazard awareness and to increase the preparedness of the population at risk. These data also allow for a performance evaluation of the coastal infrastructure and observations of sediment transport, erosion, and deposition. The interaction of the tsunami with coastal infrastructures and with the movable sediment bed is a three-dimensional process. Therefore, for runup and inundation prediction, three-dimensional numerical models must be employed. In this study, we have employed Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate tsunami runup on idealized geometries for the validation and exploration of three-dimensional flow structures in tsunamis. We make use of the canonical experiments for long-wave runup for breaking and nonbreaking waves. The results of our study prove that SPH is able to reproduce the runup of long waves for different initial and geometric conditions. We have also investigated the applicability and the effectiveness of different viscous terms that are available in the SPH literature. Additionally, a new breaking criterion based on numerical experiments is introduced, and its similarities and differences with existing criteria are discussed
Synthesis and Characterization of a Phosphonated Graft Copolyimide
A new synthesis route of phosphonated multiblock, branched copolyimide is proposed in this research. The synthesis and characterization of the series of new phosphonated graft copolyimides were prepared by combination of one-step high temperature polymerization and phosphonation method by lithiation and reaction with excess diethylchlorophosphate. The phosphonate ester product was converted to the phosphonic acid by hydrolysis. A branched polyimide structure was achieved by coupling the two polyimides with 3, 3'-diaminobenzidine. A phosphonated branched copolyimide with 32% mol phosphonation exhibited high thermal stability, with a decomposition temperature in nitrogen of ∼475°C. Proton exchange membranes prepared from these copolyimides had proton conductivity of 0.02 - 0.03 S/cm at 100% humidity over a temperature range of 40 - 100°C
Quantum Friction in Nanomechanical Oscillators at Millikelvin Temperatures
We report low-temperature measurements of dissipation in megahertz-range,
suspended, single-crystal nanomechanical oscillators. At millikelvin
temperatures, both dissipation (inverse quality factor) and shift in the
resonance frequency display reproducible features, similar to those observed in
sound attenuation experiments in disordered glasses and consistent with
measurements in larger micromechanical oscillators fabricated from
single-crystal silicon. Dissipation in our single-crystal nanomechanical
structures is dominated by internal quantum friction due to an estimated number
of roughly 50 two-level systems, which represent both dangling bonds on the
surface and bulk defects.Comment: 5 pages, two-column format. Related papers available at
http://nano.bu.ed
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