Effect of Chemical Composition and Microstructure Parameters on Carbon and Low-Alloy Steel Corrosion Resistance Under Oil Industry Pipeline Operation Conditions

Metallurgist - The effect of chemical composition and microstructure parameters on corrosion resistance of carbon and low-alloy steels in neutral aqueous media, typical for oil-field pipeline...     

A Light Weight Secure Communication Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - The majority of security systems for wireless sensor networks are based on symmetric encryption. The main open issue for these approaches concerns the...     

Synthesis and Characterization of Carbon Steel Corrosion Inhibitors Based on 4,5,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene Scaffold

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - Three novel inhibitors based on 4,5,6,7-tetrahydrobenzo[b]thiophene scaffold were synthesized and characterized. The inhibitive action of...     

A Generalized Cubemap for Encoding 360° VR Videos using Polynomial Approximation

360^° VR videos provide users with an immersive visual experience. To encode 360^° VR videos, spherical pixels must be mapped onto a two‐dimensional domain to take advantage of the existing video encoding and storage standards. In VR industry, standard cubemap projection is the most widely used projection method for encoding 360^° VR videos. However, it exhibits pixel density variation at different regions due to projection distortion. We present a generalized algorithm to improve the efficiency of cubemap projection using polynomial approximation. In our algorithm, standard cubemap projection can be regarded as a special form with 1st‐order polynomial. Our experiments show that the generalized cubemap projection can significantly reduce the projection distortion using higher order polynomials. As a result, pixel distribution can be well balanced in the resulting 360^° VR videos. We use PSNR, S‐PSNR and CPP‐PSNR to evaluate the visual quality and the experimental results demonstrate promising performance improvement against standard cubemap projection and Google's equi‐angular cubemap.     

Laser Interference Oil Manometer of State Primary Standard of the Unit of Pressure Get 101–2011

Measurement Techniques - The design, principle of operation, and budget of errors of a laser interference oil manometer developed at the Mendeleev All-Russia Research Institute of Metrology (VNIIM)...     

Thermal Stability of the Structure and Microhardness of the Al–0.05 vol % Al2O3 Nanocomposite Fabricated by Accumulative Roll Bonding

Russian Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals - The evolution of the microstructure and microhardness of the Al–0.05 vol % nAl2O3 nanocomposite (where nAl2O3 are aluminum nanoparticles) and aluminum...     

Adaptive epidemic dissemination as a finite-horizon optimal stopping problem

Wireless Networks - Wireless ad hoc networks are characterized by their limited capabilities and their routine deployment in unfavorable environments. This creates the strong requirement to...     

Misconceptions of human factors concepts

Abstract

Like many scientific topics, Human Factors, and Ergonomics concepts are susceptible to being misunderstood by people unfamiliar with the subject matter. Most of the time these misunderstandings are harmless, like when a safety poster within a work setting encourages employees to 'overcome complacency'. This misunderstanding of complacency suggests it is a motivational aspect of human behaviour correctable with encouragement, whereas the human factors approach to overcoming complacency would be to evaluate how task design could diminish the destructive consequences of unexpected changes within a routine setting. No harm comes from the message within the safety poster, other than some wasted ink and paper, but misconceptions among particular audiences can eventually result in dire consequences for the human operator. This paper presents recent evidence that the concepts are being misapplied by casual consumers of human factors, particularly in the aftermath of accidents within complex systems, in ways detrimental to the core mission of improving the well-being of the human operator. Later, because this special issue presents new ways to demonstrate value via return on investment, practical efforts we can take to overcome such misconceptions are suggested.     

Linear regression-based multifidelity surrogate for disturbance amplification in multiphase explosion

Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization - When simulations are very expensive and many are required, as for optimization or uncertainty quantification, a way to reduce cost is using...