Inspection and Process of Tension of Cables of General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge

In 1997 and 1999, inspection works were carried out in the 384 cable stays of the six central piers of General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge, located in Maracaibo, Venezuela. Inspection indicated the presence of water and significant settlings in the sockets of the cables and corrosion along each cable and socket. The tension of the cables was also measured, and differences of up to 30% in the tension of the cables of some of the 24 groups corresponding to the six central piers (four groups of 16 for each pier) were found. The results suggested the need to retension the cables. This paper shows the outcome of the inspection and indicates the procedure and results of the process of retension, finished in July 2000.     

Experimental Investigation of the Recovery of Soaked Paper Using Evaporative Freeze Drying

The aim of this article is to develop an experiment and a procedure to investigate the restoration of water-damaged paper and archival materials using freeze drying in order to allow a reproducible test and comparison of the influence of different operating conditions on drying time and restored paper quality. Firstly, a reproducible method for the preparation of soaked samples simulating water-damaged paper has been developed. Then, the samples have been freeze-dried in a laboratory-scale apparatus that allowed monitoring the temperature as well as the weight of the samples. The technique of evaporative freezing, which reduces the drying time required, has been used in this case. An innovative procedure for the visualization of the progress of the drying process has been validated, thus allowing the validation of a simple phenomenological model of the time evolution of the ice core volume; in addition, data on the residual moisture of the dried paper sheets in different zones have been given. Finally, optimization of this particular drying process by using simple or more sophisticated approaches has been discussed.     

Development of intelligent multisensor surveillance systems with agents

Intelligent multisensor surveillance systems consist of several types of sensors, which are installed on fixed and mobile devices. These components provide a huge quantity of information that has to be contrasted, correlated and integrated in order to recognize and react on special situations. These systems work in highly dynamic environments, with severe security and robustness requirements. All these characteristics imply the need for distributed solutions. In these solutions, scattered components can decide and act with some degree of autonomy (for instance, if they become isolated), or cooperate and coordinate for a complete tracking of special situations. In order to cope with these requirements and to better structure the solution, we have decided to design surveillance system control as a multiagent system. This is done by applying an agent-orientated methodology, which is assessed with concrete scenarios.     

Lyapunov analysis of the approximate motion equations of flexible structures

In this paper, the effectiveness of the approximate motion equations of a flexible structure, obtained by the RitzKantorovich method, is analysed by using Lyapunov functions. The analysis, which is restricted to the case of a single flexible beam for the sake of simplicity, is carried out under the assumption that a partial dissipation is present, affecting only the first degrees of freedom of the system. By means of suitable Lyapunov functions, an overbounding estimate of the quadratic approximation error is determined as a decreasing function of the approximation order. The analysis is completed by considering the two ‘extreme’ cases: the theoretical absence of dissipation and the presence of structural dissipation, affecting all the infinite degrees of freedom.     

Gamma irradiation of PolyEthyleneTerephthalate and PolyEthyleneNaphthalate

The effect of gamma irradiation in air is investigated in two thermoplastic polyesters (PET and PEN), in order to evaluate the influence of aromatic density and the role of oxygen on radiation resistance. EPR measurements were carried out to detect radical stability against oxygen permeation and to provide radical characterization. Viscometric data reveal a different behaviour between films and thick samples. Positron annihilation spectra show a decrease of ortho-positronium intensity, which is more marked in film samples. ortho-positronium lifetime does not depend on the radiation dose.     

Maximization of mutual information for supervised linear feature extraction.

In this paper, we present a novel scheme for linear feature extraction in classification. The method is based on the maximization of the mutual information (MI) between the features extracted and the classes. The sum of the MI corresponding to each of the features is taken as an heuristic that approximates the MI of the whole output vector. Then, a component-by-component gradient-ascent method is proposed for the maximization of the MI, similar to the gradient-based entropy optimization used in independent component analysis (ICA). The simulation results show that not only is the method competitive when compared to existing supervised feature extraction methods in all cases studied, but it also remarkably outperform them when the data are characterized by strongly nonlinear boundaries between classes.     

Relaxed stability and performance conditions for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems with knowledge on membership function overlap.

This correspondence presents a relaxation of some earlier linear matrix inequality (LMI) conditions, which allow setting up less conservative stability or performance conditions for Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models. Unlike the previous literature, this correspondence takes into account the knowledge of the membership functions' shape by considering bounds on them and their cross products (interpreted as an overlap measure), introducing auxiliary LMI variables. Numerical examples illustrate the achieved improvements.     

Simultaneous Spark Plasma Synthesis and Densification of TiC–TiB2 Composites

The simultaneous synthesis and densification of dense TiC–TiB₂ composite has been investigated starting from Ti, B₄C, and C as reactants, and using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. The optimal conditions for complete conversion of the reactants to the composite were determined for different applied DC current levels. A kinetic investigation performed allows us to conclude that solid-state diffusion is the mechanism governing the synthesis process. It is seen that TiC is the first phase formed, while TiB₂ formation occurs afterward. Two intermediate boride phases, i.e. TiB and Ti₃B₄, are also formed but, as the SPS holding time was augmented, they were gradually and completely converted to TiB₂. Moreover, it is found that in order to reach relatively high dense products, an electric current needs to be applied for time intervals longer than those required for obtaining complete conversion. A pure dense product (relative density ∼98%) was obtained when an electric pulsed current of 1100 A and a mechanical pressure of 20 MPa were applied for about 4 min.     

Synthesis and antitumor evaluation of 2,5-disubstituted-indazolo[4, 3-gh]isoquinolin-6(2H)-ones (9-aza-anthrapyrazoles)

The synthesis and antitumor evaluation of 2, 5-disubstituted-indazolo[4,3-gh]isoquinolin-6(2H)-ones (9-aza-APs) are described. The key intermediates in the synthesis are benz[g]isoquinoline-5,10-diones which are substituted at positions 6 and 9 with groups of different nucleofugacity for SNAr displacements. The initial displacement of fluoride by a substituted hydrazine leads to the pyrazole analogues. Substitution of the remaining leaving group by an amine or BOC-protected amines leads to the 9-aza-APs 12. These analogues were converted into their maleate or hydrochloride salts 13. In two cases, namely, 13x and 13z, sidearm buildup was also employed in the synthetic pathway. In vitro evaluation of 9-aza-APs against the human colon tumor cell line LoVo uncovered for most of the compounds a cytotoxic potency lower than that of DuP-941 or mitoxantrone and comparable to that of doxorubicin. Only analogues 13c, 13n, and 13ff were as cytotoxic as DuP-941. Interestingly, while DuP-941 was highly cross-resistant in the LoVo cell line resistant to doxorubicin (LoVo/Dx), the 9-aza-APs carrying a distal lipophilic tertiary amine moiety in both chains were capable of overcoming the MDR resistance induced in this cell line. The 9-aza-APs show outstanding in vivo antitumor activity against both systemic P388 murine leukemia and MX-1 human mammary carcinoma transplanted in nude mice. At their optimal dosages, congeners 13a-c, 13f, 13n, 13q, 13x, and 13dd were highly effective against P388 leukemia with T/C% of 200-381, while the T/C% value of DuP-941 was 147. In the MX-1 tumor model, 24 compounds elicited percentages of tumor weight inhibitions (TWI) ranging from 50% to 99%. Congeners 13d, 13k, 13l, 13x, 13z, and 13ee emerged as the most effective ones, with TWI% 96, simliar to that of DuP-941 (TWI% = 95). On the basis of their efficacy profile in additional experimental tumors and lack of cardiotoxicity in preclinical models, two congeners have surfaced as potential clinical candidates.     

The VLISP verified PreScheme compiler

This paper describes a verified compiler for PreScheme, the implementation language for thevlisp run-time system. The compiler and proof were divided into three parts: A transformational front end that translates source text into a core language, a syntax-directed compiler that translates the core language into a combinator-based tree-manipulation language, and a linearizer that translates combinator code into code for an abstract stored-program machine with linear memory for both data and code. This factorization enabled different proof techniques to be used for the different phases of the compiler, and also allowed the generation of good code. Finally, the whole process was made possible by carefully defining the semantics ofvlisp PreScheme rather than just adopting Scheme's. We believe that the architecture of the compiler and its correctness proof can easily be applied to compilers for languages other than PreScheme.This work was supported by Rome Laboratory of the United States Air Force, contract No. F19628-89-C-0001, through the MITRE Corporation, and by NSF and DARPA under NSF grants CCR-9002253 and CCR-9014603. Author's current address: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Oregon Graduate Institute, P.O. Box 91000, Portland, OR 97291-1000.The work reported here was supported by Rome Laboratory of the United States Air Force, contract No. F19628-89-C-0001. Preparation of this paper was generously supported by The MITRE Corporation.This work was supported by Rome Laboratory of the United States Air Force, contract No. F19628-89-C-0001, through the MITRE Corporation, and by NSF and DARPA under NSF grants CCR-9002253 and CCR-9014603.