Free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates based on FSDT using one-dimensional IRBFN method

This paper presents a new effective radial basis function (RBF) collocation technique for the free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates using the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The plates, which can be rectangular or non-rectangular, are simply discretised by means of Cartesian grids. Instead of using conventional differentiated RBF networks, one-dimensional integrated RBF networks (1D-IRBFN) are employed on grid lines to approximate the field variables. A number of examples concerning various thickness-to-span ratios, material properties and boundary conditions are considered. Results obtained are compared with the exact solutions and numerical results by other techniques in the literature to investigate the performance of the proposed method

A Unified Approach for Multi-Scale Synchronous Correlation Search in Big Time Series -- Full Version

The wide deployment of IoT sensors has enabled the collection of very big time series across different domains, from which advanced analytics can be performed to find unknown relationships, most importantly the correlations between them. However, current approaches for correlation search on time series are limited to only a single temporal scale and simple types of relations, and cannot handle noise effectively. This paper presents the integrated SYnchronous COrrelation Search (iSYCOS) framework to find multi-scale correlations in big time series. Specifically, iSYCOS integrates top-down and bottom-up approaches into a single auto-configured framework capable of efficiently extracting complex window-based correlations from big time series using mutual information (MI). Moreover, iSYCOS includes a novel MI-based theory to identify noise in the data, and is used to perform pruning to improve iSYCOS performance. Besides, we design a distributed version of iSYCOS that can scale out in a Spark cluster to handle big time series. Our extensive experimental evaluation on synthetic and real-world datasets shows that iSYCOS can auto-configure on a given dataset to find complex multi-scale correlations. The pruning and optimisations can improve iSYCOS performance up to an order of magnitude, and the distributed iSYCOS can scale out linearly on a computing cluster.Comment: 18 page

Buckling and vibration analysis of laminated composite plate/shell structures via a smoothed quadrilateral flat shell element with in-plane rotations

This paper presents buckling and free vibration analysis of composite plate/shell structures of various shapes, modulus ratios, span-to-thickness ratios, boundary conditions and lay-up sequences via a novel smoothed quadrilateral flat element. The element is developed by incorporating a strain smoothing technique into a flat shell approach. As a result, the evaluation of membrane, bending and geometric stiffness matrices are based on integration along the boundary of smoothing elements, which leads to accurate numerical solutions even with badly-shaped elements. Numerical examples and comparison with other existing solutions show that the present element is efficient, accurate and free of locking

Low-threshold room temperature polariton lasing from fluorene-based oligomers

The authors are grateful to the Australian Research Council (ARC DP160100700 and DP200103036), Australian Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (AISRF53765), the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grants EP/M025330/1 and EP/L017008/1), China Scholarship Council and the Rank Prize Funds for financial support.Organic semiconductors possessing tightly bound Frenkel excitons are known to be attractive candidates for demonstrating polariton lasing at room temperature. As polariton lasing can occur without inversion, it is a potential route to very low threshold coherent light sources. However, so far, the thresholds of organic polariton lasers have generally been much higher than those of organic photon lasers. Here this problem has been addressed by investigating two new organic molecules with a structure combining fluorene and carbazole groups. The materials are readily deposited from solution and exhibit high photoluminescence quantum yields, high absorption coefficients, and large radiative decay rates in neat films. Room temperature polariton lasing is realized in both materials with incident thresholds of 13.5 and 9.7 µJ cm−2, corresponding to absorbed thresholds of 3.3 and 2.2 µJ cm−2, respectively. These are the lowest values reported to date for polariton lasing in organic semiconductor materials, and approach typical values for organic photon lasers. The step-like power dependent blue-shift of polariton modes indicates an interplay between different depletion channels of the exciton reservoir. This work brings practical room temperature polaritonic devices and future realization of electrically driven polariton lasers a step closer.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Is the abundance of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii relevant to Crohn's disease?

Reports that bacteria within the Firmicutes phylum, especially the species Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, are less abundant in Crohn’s disease (CD) patients and supernatants from cultures of this bacterium are anti-inflammatory prompted the investigation of the possible correlations between the abundance of F.prausnitzii and the response to treatment in patients with gut diseases and healthy controls. In a randomized, double-blind trial, faeces were collected from healthy volunteers, and from patients with active CD, ulcerative colitis (UC) and irritable bowel syndrome before and after treatment. The levels of F. prausnitzii DNA in faecal suspensions were determined by PCR. Treatment by an elemental diet was effective, resulting in decreases in both the Harvey and Bradshaw index (P<0.001) and the concentrations of serum C-reactive protein (P<0.05). The total levels of F. prausnitzii in faecal samples from CD patients at presentation were lower than those in the other groups both before and after the treatment. There was no correlation between F. prausnitzii abundance and the severity of CD before treatment. Clinical improvement unexpectedly correlated with a significant decrease in the abundance of F. prausnitzii, especially the A2-165 subgroup (P<0.05). Our data suggest that a paucity of F. prausnitzii in the gastrointestinal microbial communities is likely to be a minor aetiological factor in CD: recovery following elemental diet is attributed to lower levels of gut flora

Tumor-agnostic ctDNA levels by mFAST-SeqS in first-line HR-positive, HER2 negative metastatic breast cancer patients as a biomarker for survival

This prospective cohort study reports aneuploidy score by mFast-SeqS as a strong prognostic marker in MBC patients. mFAST-SeqS is an affordable and easily implementable method for the assessment of total ctDNA levels and, as such, provides an alternative prognostic tool. One mixed cohort (cohort A, n = 45) starting any type of treatment in any line of therapy and one larger cohort (cohort B, n = 129) consisting of patients starting aromatase inhibitors (AI) as first-line therapy were used. mFAST-SeqS was performed using plasma of blood in which CTCs (CellSearch) were enumerated. The resulting aneuploidy score was correlated with categorized CTC count and associated with outcome. The aneuploidy score was significantly correlated with CTC count, but discordance was observed in 31.6% when applying cut-offs of 5. In both cohorts, aneuploidy score was a significant prognostic marker for both PFS and OS. In the Cox regression models, the HR for aneuploidy score for PFS was 2.52 (95% CI: 1.56–4.07), and the HR for OS was 2.37 (95% CI: 1.36–4.14). Results presented here warrant further investigations into the clinical utility of this marker in MBC patients.</p

New method for measuring azimuthal distributions in nucleus-nucleus collisions

The methods currently used to measure azimuthal distributions of particles in heavy ion collisions assume that all azimuthal correlations between particles result from their correlation with the reaction plane. However, other correlations exist, and it is safe to neglect them only if azimuthal anisotropies are much larger than 1/sqrt(N), with N the total number of particles emitted in the collision. This condition is not satisfied at ultrarelativistic energies. We propose a new method, based on a cumulant expansion of multiparticle azimuthal correlations, which allows to measure much smaller values of azimuthal anisotropies, down to 1/N. It is simple to implement and can be used to measure both integrated and differential flow. Furthermore, this method automatically eliminates the major systematic errors, which are due to azimuthal asymmetries in the detector acceptance.Comment: final version (misprints corrected), to be published in Phys.Rev.

Institutions for Agricultural Mitigation: Potential and Challenges in Four Countries

The agriculture sector has great potential to contribute to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through changes in agricultural management and land use. However, the technical potential for agricultural mitigation has yet to translate into actual emission reductions due to considerable constraints to the generation of emission offsets through agricultural projects. These constraints include national and subnational policies and institutional structures as well as institutional and resource constraints at the local level, such as lack of knowledge, organizational capacity, and start-up finance. This paper explores the institutional barriers to agricultural mitigation in four developing countries: Ghana, Morocco, Mozambique, and Vietnam. The findings show that the institutional environment greatly influences the capacity to engage in agricultural mitigation activities. In particular, the centrally planned system in Vietnam provides little space for local, community-based organizations to act collectively around issues of mutual interest, making it difficult to engage numerous smallholders in agricultural mitigation projects. At the same time, government-led mitigation projects may be more feasible in Vietnam compared to the African case studies, where the governments lack well-defined and coordinated strategies and regulations to support mitigation. Governance of contractual obligations is also a challenge to agricultural mitigation. While several organizations in the case study countries have relevant experience for organizing smallholder farmers, most of these organizations lack technical expertise in carbon markets, have limited knowledge of strategies for agricultural mitigation, and lack resources needed for start-up and implementation of mitigation projects

Combination Antifungal Therapy for Cryptococcal Meningitis

Background Combination antifungal therapy (amphotericin B deoxycholate and flucytosine) is the recommended treatment for cryptococcal meningitis but has not been shown to reduce mortality, as compared with amphotericin B alone. We performed a randomized, controlled trial to determine whether combining flucytosine or high-dose fluconazole with high-dose amphotericin B improved survival at 14 and 70 days. Methods We conducted a randomized, three-group, open-label trial of induction therapy for cryptococcal meningitis in patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection. All patients received amphotericin B at a dose of 1 mg per kilogram of body weight per day; patients in group 1 were treated for 4 weeks, and those in groups 2 and 3 for 2 weeks. Patients in group 2 concurrently received flucytosine at a dose of 100 mg per kilogram per day for 2 weeks, and those in group 3 concurrently received fluconazole at a dose of 400 mg twice daily for 2 weeks. Results A total of 299 patients were enrolled. Fewer deaths occurred by days 14 and 70 among patients receiving amphotericin B and flucytosine than among those receiving amphotericin B alone (15 vs. 25 deaths by day 14; hazard ratio, 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.30 to 1.08; unadjusted P=0.08; and 30 vs. 44 deaths by day 70; hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.97; unadjusted P=0.04). Combination therapy with fluconazole had no significant effect on survival, as compared with monotherapy (hazard ratio for death by 14 days, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.44 to 1.41; P=0.42; hazard ratio for death by 70 days, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.45 to 1.11; P=0.13). Amphotericin B plus flucytosine was associated with significantly increased rates of yeast clearance from cerebrospinal fluid (−0.42 log10 colony-forming units [CFU] per milliliter per day vs. −0.31 and −0.32 log10 CFU per milliliter per day in groups 1 and 3, respectively; P<0.001 for both comparisons). Rates of adverse events were similar in all groups, although neutropenia was more frequent in patients receiving a combination therapy. Conclusions Amphotericin B plus flucytosine, as compared with amphotericin B alone, is associated with improved survival among patients with cryptococcal meningitis. A survival benefit of amphotericin B plus fluconazole was not found