Imaging of two-dimensional unsaturated moisture flows in uncracked and cracked cement-based materials using electrical capacitance tomography

The development of visualizing tools to monitor unsaturated moisture flow in cement-based materials is of great importance, as most degradation processes in cement-based materials are connected to and take place in the presence moisture. This paper investigates the ability of electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) to image two-dimensional (2D) unsaturated moisture flow in cement-based materials. In ECT, the electrical permittivity distribution within an object is reconstructed based on measured capacitances between electrodes attached on the object’s surface. In a series of experiments, mortar specimens with and without discrete cracks were imaged with ECT during a 2D moisture ingress. The results show that ECT is able to monitor the evolution of the moisture flow, and to approximate the shape and position of the moisture front. These findings indicate that ECT is a viable method for monitoring and visualizing 2D unsaturated moisture flow in cement-based materials in the presence and absence of discrete cracks.     

Multivariate Analysis of Finnish Dialect Data An Overview of Lexical Variation

During the process of writing a comprehensive dictionary ofFinnish dialects, a large set of maps describing the regionaldistribution of the dialect words have been compiled in electronicform. In this article, we set out to analyse this corpus ofdata in order to gain new insight on the variation of Finnishdialects. We use a wide range of multivariate data analysismethods, including principal components analysis, independentcomponents analysis, clustering, and multidimensional scaling.We explain how to preprocess the data to overcome the problemof uneven sampling caused by the way the data has been collected.We discuss the results obtained by these methods and comparethem to the traditional view of Finnish dialect groups.     

Psychiatric disorders and homicide recidivism

There are no firm epidemiologic data concerning psychiatric disorders associated with homicide recidivism. The authors studied all homicide recidivists who were incarcerated in Finnish prisons or high-security hospitals and had committed their last offense during the 3-year period July 1, 1988-June 30, 1991. All recidivists (13 subjects) could be considered to suffer from either severe alcoholism combined with personality disorder (N = 11, 85%) or from schizophrenia (N = 2, 15%).     

A Mathematical Model for Simulation of Sofiwood Drying in Temperatures above Boiling Point of Water with Special Attention to the Boundary Conditions

A mathematical model for simulation of softwood drying also in temperatures exceeding the boiling point of water is presented. The equations are formulated in a conservative form based on the classical volume averaging technique with an addition of a pressure-driven moisture flux in the boundary condition. Numerical results using the control volume method are presented to show that this term missing in existing simulation models may account far the calculated build up of moisture at the very surface of a wood board. The possibility of neglecting the air- phase in the calculation of total gaseous pressure is investigated by means of an example. It shows that the effect of air pressure is only of very litde importance in the case of transversal flow in moderate tempertures.     

What the small Rubik’s cube taught me about data structures, information theory, and randomisation

This article discusses observations made when the state space of the 2 × 2 × 2 Rubik’s cube was constructed with various programs based on various data structures, gives theoretical explanations for the observations, and uses them to develop more memory-efficient data structures. The cube has 3,674,160 reachable states. The fastest program runs in 20 s and uses 11.1 million bytes of memory for the state set structure. It uses a 31-bit representation of the state and also stores the rotation through which each state was first found. Its memory consumption is remarkably small, considering that 3,674,160 × 31 bits is about 14.2 million bytes. Getting below this number was made possible by sharing common parts of states. Obviously, it is not possible to reduce memory consumption without limit. We derive an information-theoretic hard average lower bound of 6.07 million bytes that applies in this setting. We introduce a general-purpose variant of the data structure and end up with 8.9 million bytes and 48 s. We also discuss the performance of BDDs and perfect state packing in this application.     

Charge transfer resistance of spray deposited and compressed counter electrodes for dye-sensitized nanoparticle solar cells on plastic substrates

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was used to determine the effective charge transfer resistances of porous dye-sensitized solar cell counter electrodes prepared by low-temperature spray deposition and compression of conductive carbon and platinized Sb-doped SnO₂ powders on indium tin oxide-coated plastic substrates. The charge transfer resistances were 0.5–2 and 8–13 Ω cm², respectively, when using 3-methoxypropionitrile as the electrolyte solvent. The manufacturing method used lends itself to produce mechanically stable and even-quality electrodes in an easy and fast manner.     

Determination of specific heat of phenol formaldehyde resol resins by differential scanning calorimetry

The specific heat, Cp, was determined by DSC on a series of resol-type phenol formaldehyde resins with varying phenol formaldehyde molar ratio. The extrapolated Cp values at 25°C vary between 1.181-1.206 kJ · kg^?1 K^?1 and the dCp/dT ratio was found to be 0.0042kJ · kg^?1K^?2 in the temperature range of 70–125°C.     

A study of moderately thick quadrilateral plate elements based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation

Finite element analysis using plate elements based on the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) can predict the behaviors of moderately thick plates subject to large deformation. However, the formulation is subject to numerical locking, which compromises results. This study was designed to investigate and develop techniques to prevent or mitigate numerical locking phenomena. Three different ANCF plate element types were examined. The first is the original fully parameterized quadrilateral ANCF plate element. The second is an update to this element that linearly interpolates transverse shear strains to overcome slow convergence due to transverse shear locking. Finally, the third is based on a new higher order ANCF plate element that is being introduced here. The higher order plate element makes it possible to describe a higher than first-order transverse displacement field to prevent Poisson thickness locking. The term “higher order” is used, because some nodal coordinates of the new plate element are defined by higher order derivatives. The performance of each plate element type was tested by (1) solving a comprehensive set of small deformation static problems, (2) carrying out eigenfrequency analyses, and (3) analyzing a typical dynamic scenario. The numerical calculations were made using MATLAB. The results of the static and eigenfrequency analyses were benchmarked to reference solutions provided by the commercially available finite element software ANSYS. The results show that shear locking is strongly dependent on material thickness. Poisson thickness locking is independent of thickness, but strongly depends on the Poisson effect. Poisson thickness locking becomes a problem for both of the fully parameterized element types implemented with full 3-D elasticity. Their converged results differ by about 18 % from the ANSYS results. Corresponding results for the new higher order ANCF plate element agree with the benchmark. ANCF plate elements can describe the trapezoidal mode; therefore, they do not suffer from Poisson locking, a reported problem for fully parameterized ANCF beam elements. For cases with shear deformation loading, shear locking slows solution convergence for models based on either the original fully parameterized plate element or the newly introduced higher order plate element.     

Habits make smartphone use more pervasive

Examining several sources of data on smartphone use, this paper presents evidence for the popular conjecture that mobile devices are “habit-forming.” The form of habits we identified is called a checking habit: brief, repetitive inspection of dynamic content quickly accessible on the device. We describe findings on kinds and frequencies of checking behaviors in three studies. We found that checking habits occasionally spur users to do other things with the device and may increase usage overall. Data from a controlled field experiment show that checking behaviors emerge and are reinforced by informational “rewards” that are very quickly accessible. Qualitative data suggest that although repetitive habitual use is frequent, it is experienced more as an annoyance than an addiction. We conclude that supporting habit-formation is an opportunity for making smartphones more “personal” and “pervasive.”     

A FORMULA FOR THE INVERSE AUTOCORRELATION FUNCTION OF AN AUTOREGRESSIVE PROCESS

Abstract. The determination of the inverse autocorrelation function of a weakly stationary autoregressive process using the autocorrelation function is considered. Usually this is carried out either by using frequency domain methods or by solving first the parameters of the process and then using them. In this paper we give a simple formula by which the inverse autocorrelation function can be determined directly from the autocorrelation function.