9,980 research outputs found
Use of Taguchi design of experiments to optimize and increase robustness of preliminary designs
The research performed this summer includes the completion of work begun last summer in support of the Air Launched Personnel Launch System parametric study, providing support on the development of the test matrices for the plume experiments in the Plume Model Investigation Team Project, and aiding in the conceptual design of a lunar habitat. After the conclusion of last years Summer Program, the Systems Definition Branch continued with the Air Launched Personnel Launch System (ALPLS) study by running three experiments defined by L27 Orthogonal Arrays. Although the data was evaluated during the academic year, the analysis of variance and the final project review were completed this summer. The Plume Model Investigation Team (PLUMMIT) was formed by the Engineering Directorate to develop a consensus position on plume impingement loads and to validate plume flowfield models. In order to obtain a large number of individual correlated data sets for model validation, a series of plume experiments was planned. A preliminary 'full factorial' test matrix indicated that 73,024 jet firings would be necessary to obtain all of the information requested. As this was approximately 100 times more firings than the scheduled use of Vacuum Chamber A would permit, considerable effort was needed to reduce the test matrix and optimize it with respect to the specific objectives of the program. Part of the First Lunar Outpost Project deals with Lunar Habitat. Requirements for the habitat include radiation protection, a safe haven for occasional solar flare storms, an airlock module as well as consumables to support 34 extra vehicular activities during a 45 day mission. The objective for the proposed work was to collaborate with the Habitat Team on the development and reusability of the Logistics Modules
A Holographic Path to the Turbulent Side of Gravity
We study the dynamics of a 2+1 dimensional relativistic viscous conformal
fluid in Minkowski spacetime. Such fluid solutions arise as duals, under the
"gravity/fluid correspondence", to 3+1 dimensional asymptotically anti-de
Sitter (AAdS) black brane solutions to the Einstein equation. We examine
stability properties of shear flows, which correspond to hydrodynamic
quasinormal modes of the black brane. We find that, for sufficiently high
Reynolds number, the solution undergoes an inverse turbulent cascade to long
wavelength modes. We then map this fluid solution, via the gravity/fluid
duality, into a bulk metric. This suggests a new and interesting feature of the
behavior of perturbed AAdS black holes and black branes, which is not readily
captured by a standard quasinormal mode analysis. Namely, for sufficiently
large perturbed black objects (with long-lived quasinormal modes), nonlinear
effects transfer energy from short to long wavelength modes via a turbulent
cascade within the metric perturbation. As long wavelength modes have slower
decay, this lengthens the overall lifetime of the perturbation. We also discuss
various implications of this behavior, including expectations for higher
dimensions, and the possibility of predicting turbulence in more general
gravitational scenarios.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures; v2: references added, and several minor change
A framework for closed-loop supply chains of reusable articles
Reuse practices contribute to the environmental and economical sustainability of production and distribution systems. Surprisingly, reuse closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) have not been widely researched for the moment. In this paper, we explore the scientific literature on reuse and we propose a framework for reusable articles. This conceptual structure includes a typology integrating under the reusable articles term different categories of articles (transportation items, packaging materials, tools) and addresses the management issues that arise in reuse CLSC. We ground our results in a set of case studies developed in real industrial settings, which have also been contrasted with cases available in existing literature.reverse logistics;case studies;closed-loop supply chains;returns managment
Cumulative dominance and heuristic performance in binary multi-attribute choice
Working paper 895, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu FabraSeveral studies have reported high performance of simple decision heuristics in multi-attribute decision making. In this paper, we focus on situations where attributes are binary and analyze the performance of Deterministic-Elimination-By-Aspects (DEBA) and similar decision heuristics. We consider non-increasing weights and two probabilistic models for the attribute values: one where attribute values are independent Bernoulli randomvariables; the other one where they are binary random variables with inter-attribute positive correlations. Using these models, we show that good performance of DEBA is explained by the presence of cumulative as opposed to simple dominance. We therefore introduce the concepts of cumulative dominance compliance and fully cumulative dominance compliance and show that DEBA satisfies those properties. We derive a lower bound with which cumulative dominance compliant heuristics will choose a best alternative and show that, even with many attributes, this is not small. We also derive an upper bound for the expected loss of fully cumulative compliance heuristics and show that this is moderate even when the number of attributes is large. Both bounds are independent of the values of the weights.Postprint (author’s final draft
The compact group--fossil group connection: observations of a massive compact group at z=0.22
It has been suggested that fossil groups could be the cannibalized remains of
compact groups, that lost energy through tidal friction. However, in the nearby
universe, compact groups which are close to the merging phase and display a
wealth of interacting features (such as HCG 31 and HCG 79) have very low
velocity dispersions and poor neighborhoods, unlike the massive, cluster-like
fossil groups studied to date. In fact, known z=0 compact groups are very
seldom embedded in massive enough structures which may have resembled the
intergalactic medium of fossil groups. In this paper we study the dynamical
properties of CG6, a massive compact group at z=0.220 that has several
properties in common with known fossil groups. We report on new g' and i'
imaging and multi-slit spectroscopic performed with GMOS on Gemini South. The
system has 20 members, within a radius of 1 h_70^-1 Mpc, a velocity dispersion
of 700 km/s and has a mass of 1.8 x 10^14 h_70^-1 Msun, similar to that of the
most massive fossil groups known. The merging of the four central galaxies in
this group would form a galaxy with magnitude M_r' ~ -23.4, typical for
first-ranked galaxies of fossil groups. Although nearby compact groups with
similar properties to CG 6 are rare, we speculate that such systems occurred
more frequently in the past and they may have been the precursors of fossil
groups.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures (one color, low resolution), uses emulateapj.sty.
Accepted for publication in ApJ Lette
Can Punctured Rate-1/2 Turbo Codes Achieve a Lower Error Floor than their Rate-1/3 Parent Codes?
In this paper we concentrate on rate-1/3 systematic parallel concatenated
convolutional codes and their rate-1/2 punctured child codes. Assuming
maximum-likelihood decoding over an additive white Gaussian channel, we
demonstrate that a rate-1/2 non-systematic child code can exhibit a lower error
floor than that of its rate-1/3 parent code, if a particular condition is met.
However, assuming iterative decoding, convergence of the non-systematic code
towards low bit-error rates is problematic. To alleviate this problem, we
propose rate-1/2 partially-systematic codes that can still achieve a lower
error floor than that of their rate-1/3 parent codes. Results obtained from
extrinsic information transfer charts and simulations support our conclusion.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Information Theory
Workshop, Chengdu, China, October 22-26, 200
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