Improved Heterogeneous Distance Functions

Instance-based learning techniques typically handle continuous and linear input values well, but often do not handle nominal input attributes appropriately. The Value Difference Metric (VDM) was designed to find reasonable distance values between nominal attribute values, but it largely ignores continuous attributes, requiring discretization to map continuous values into nominal values. This paper proposes three new heterogeneous distance functions, called the Heterogeneous Value Difference Metric (HVDM), the Interpolated Value Difference Metric (IVDM), and the Windowed Value Difference Metric (WVDM). These new distance functions are designed to handle applications with nominal attributes, continuous attributes, or both. In experiments on 48 applications the new distance metrics achieve higher classification accuracy on average than three previous distance functions on those datasets that have both nominal and continuous attributes.Comment: See http://www.jair.org/ for an online appendix and other files accompanying this articl

Fabrication process of a high temperature polymer matrix engine duct

The process that was used in the molding of an advanced composite outer by-pass duct planned for the F404 engine is discussed. This duct was developed as a potential replacement for the existing titanium duct in order to reduce both the weight and cost of the duct. The composite duct is now going into the manufacturing technology portion of the program. The duct is fabricated using graphite cloth impregnated with the PMR-15 matrix system

Neutrino Annihilation between Binary Neutron Stars

We calculate the neutrino pair annihilation rate into electron pairs between two neutron stars in a binary system. We present a closed formula for the energy deposition rate at any point between the stars, where each neutrino of a pair derives from each star, and compare this result to that where all neutrinos derive from a single neutron star. An approximate generalization of this formula is given to include the relativistic effects of gravity. We find that this inter-star neutrino annihilation is a significant contributor to the energy deposition between heated neutron star binaries. In particular, for two neutron stars near their last stable orbit, inter-star neutrino annihilation energy deposition is almost equal to that of single star energy deposition.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Decay channels and charmonium mass-shifts

The discovery in the last few years of the $X, Y$ and $Z$ states of the extended charmonium family has highlighted the importance of the closeness of decay channels to an understanding of these mesons. We aid this debate by illustrating a simple calculational procedure for including the effect of open and nearby closed channels.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures Revised version: (1) corrected 2 typos in Table II, (2) additional text in penultimate paragraph to clarify the calculation of mass-shifts for $\eta_c'$ and $\eta_c"$. We thank colleagues for pointing out confusing wording of previous tex

General Relativistic Augmentation of Neutrino Pair Annihilation Energy Deposition Near Neutron Stars

General relativistic calculations are made of neutrino-antineutrino annihilation into electron-positron pairs near the surface of a neutron star. It is found that the efficiency of this process is enhanced over the Newtonian values up to a factor of more than 4 in the regime applicable to Type II supernovae and by up to a factor of 30 for collapsing neutron stars.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Wave Energy Amplification in a Metamaterial based Traveling Wave Structure

We consider the interaction between a particle beam and a propagating electromagnetic wave in the presence of a metamaterial. We show that the introduction of a metamaterial gives rise to a novel dispersion curve which determines a unique wave particle relationship, via the frequency dependence of the metamaterial and the novel ability of metamaterials to exhibit simultaneous negative permittivity and permeability. Using a modified form of Madey's theorem we find that the novel dispersion of the metamaterial leads to a amplification of the EM wave power

Behavior of composite bolted joints at elevated temperature

Experimental results from an investigation which examines the combined effects of temperature, joint geometry and out-of-plane constraint upon the response of mechanically fastened composite joints are presented. Data are presented for simulated mechanically fastened joint conditions in two laminate configurations fabricated from Hercules AS/3501-6 graphite-epoxy. Strength and failure mode results are presented for the test temperatures of 21 C, 121 C and 177 C and for a range of the geometric parameters W/D and e/D from 3.71 to 7.43 and 1.85 to 3.69, respectively. A hole diameter, D of 5.16 mm was utilized for all tests. Pin bearing tests with out-of-plane constraint were conducted at room temperature only. All elevated temperature data were generated for pin bearing conditions. Ultrasonic C scan inspection of the failed specimens was employed to assess the damage region and to determine failure mode. Comparative data are presented for pin bearing and out-of-plane constraint conditions for the above mentioned joint configurations. The joint under pin loading was modeled by two dimensional finite element methods. Predicted net section strain concentrations were compared with experimental results