Combined shear/compression structural testing of asymmetric sandwich structures

Asymmetric sandwich technology can be applied in the design of lightweight, non-pressurized aeronautical structures such as those of helicopters. A test rig of asymmetric sandwich structures subjected to compression/shear loads was designed, validated, and set up. It conforms to the standard certification procedure for composite aeronautical structures set out in the “test pyramid”, a multiscale approach. The static tests until failure showed asymmetric sandwich structures to be extremely resistant, which, in the case of the tested specimen shape, were characterized by the absence of buckling and failure compressive strains up to 10,000 μ strains. Specimens impacted with perforation damage were also tested, enabling the original phenomenon of crack propagation to be observed step-by-step. The results of the completed tests thus enable the concept to be validated, and justify the possibility of creating a much larger machine to overcome the drawbacks linked to the use of small specimens

Non-dimensional Star-Identification

This study introduces a new "Non-Dimensional" star identification algorithm to reliably identify the stars observed by a wide field-of-view star tracker when the focal length and optical axis offset values are known with poor accuracy. This algorithm is particularly suited to complement nominal lost-in-space algorithms, which may identify stars incorrectly when the focal length and/or optical axis offset deviate from their nominal operational ranges. These deviations may be caused, for example, by launch vibrations or thermal variations in orbit. The algorithm performance is compared in terms of accuracy, speed, and robustness to the Pyramid algorithm. These comparisons highlight the clear advantages that a combined approach of these methodologies provides.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, 4 table

Examining the corporate social responsibility orientation in developing countries: An empirical investigation of the Carroll's CSR pyramid

Citation: Ehie, I. C. (2016). Examining the corporate social responsibility orientation in developing countries: An empirical investigation of the Carroll's CSR pyramid. International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 11(1), 1-20. doi:10.1504/IJBGE.2016.076337We investigate the seminal Carroll's corporate social responsibility (CSR) hierarchy using a sample from Nigerian companies. Carroll (1991) outlined four major components of CSR in a cumulative framework with economic responsibilities at the base and philanthropic responsibilities at the top of the pyramid with the legal and ethical components in between. The relevance of Carroll's CSR pyramid in the African context has been questioned and the need for an empirical study on the appropriateness of the CSR pyramid in Africa has been called for. This study is in response to this call to empirically test the relevance of the Carroll's CSR pyramid in the sub-Saharan Africa region. The study also tests the proposition that CSR is viewed through the lens of philanthropy in Africa. The findings empirically validate Visser's (2006) proposition that the philanthropic component weighs heavier than both the legal and ethical components of the CSR pyramid. The results provide a basis for the reliance on corporate philanthropy and guide CSR managers in sub-Saharan Africa in understanding the orientation that would lead to a more effective CSR implementation. Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

INCREASING STUDENTS’ ABILITY IN READING NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING STORY PYRAMID STRATEGY AT SMP AL-HIDAYAH MEDAN

This research was conducted to find out the using of Story Pyramid Strategy in increasing students’ ability in reading narrative text. The subject of this research was the eighth grade students’ of SMP Al-Hidayah Medan which consisted of 33 students’. This research applied Classroom Action Research (CAR). The technique for data analysis used qualitative and quantitative approach, data were taken from observation sheet, interview sheet, dairy notes, documentation and test. The result of this research showed that there was increasing the students’ ability in reading narrative text. The mean of the pre test was 36,06, in cycle I was 65, 75, in cycle two was75, 45, it indicated in cycle two were better than cycle I. The percentage of students’ who got point 70 or more also increased. In the pre test, there were 6 students’ who got point 70 (18, 18%). In the post test of cycle I the students’ who got point 70 or more were 21 students’ (63, 63%). It means that there was an increasing about 45, 45%. The post test of cycle II, the students’ who got point 70 or more were 29 students’ 87, 87% and the increasing was the about 69, 69%. Thus it can be stated the Story Pyramid Strategy could increase students’ ability in reading narrative text, and also the students’ were happy to learn reading narrative text by using Story Pyramid Strategy it could be seen in the result of observation sheet, interview sheet, dairy notes, test and documentation. They showed that the classroom were alive and active

Improving Students Reading Comprehension on Narrative Text Through Story Pyramid Strategy

This research is intended to answer the problem about how does story pyramid improve reading comprehension on finding out factual or detail information and understanding language feature on narrative text to the tenth grade students of SMA Muhammadiyah 2 Pontianak. The writer has conducted a classroom action research. The tools of data collection used written test, field note and observation checklist. On the first cycle the writer used story pyramid strategy as a strategy to improve the students reading comprehension on finding out the factual or detail information and understanding language feature on narrative text. The writer used picture and table as helping strategy in this cycle and the students mean score was 45. In the second cycle the writer used story pyramid strategy helped by questioning and guided question and students mean score was 67.1. The writer used story pyramid strategy helped by picture, guided question and jumble word in third cycle and the students mean score in this cycle was 79.8

Overcomplete steerable pyramid filters and rotation invariance

A given (overcomplete) discrete oriented pyramid may be converted into a steerable pyramid by interpolation. We present a technique for deriving the optimal interpolation functions (otherwise called 'steering coefficients'). The proposed scheme is demonstrated on a computationally efficient oriented pyramid, which is a variation on the Burt and Adelson (1983) pyramid. We apply the generated steerable pyramid to orientation-invariant texture analysis in order to demonstrate its excellent rotational isotropy. High classification rates and precise rotation identification are demonstrated

PWC-Net: CNNs for Optical Flow Using Pyramid, Warping, and Cost Volume

We present a compact but effective CNN model for optical flow, called PWC-Net. PWC-Net has been designed according to simple and well-established principles: pyramidal processing, warping, and the use of a cost volume. Cast in a learnable feature pyramid, PWC-Net uses the cur- rent optical flow estimate to warp the CNN features of the second image. It then uses the warped features and features of the first image to construct a cost volume, which is processed by a CNN to estimate the optical flow. PWC-Net is 17 times smaller in size and easier to train than the recent FlowNet2 model. Moreover, it outperforms all published optical flow methods on the MPI Sintel final pass and KITTI 2015 benchmarks, running at about 35 fps on Sintel resolution (1024x436) images. Our models are available on https://github.com/NVlabs/PWC-Net.Comment: CVPR 2018 camera ready version (with github link to Caffe and PyTorch code