122 research outputs found
Back to Nature
No full textBack to Nature focuses on finding ways to integrate nature with architecture in order to harness the positive effects of nature on the human psyche. As such psychological theories on restorative environments, neurological theories on the stress response and architectural theories concerning the sensory systems are combined to create a theoretical framework on how nature affects the human psyche. A series of case studies have been used to find and identify themes, strategies and design elements that can be used to design restorative spaces. These findings, combined with the theoretical framework form the basis for the themes, strategies and tools detailed in the proposed toolbox. These themes, strategies and tools are paramount in the design of restorative spaces and range from spatial themes to participatory themes, each with underlying strategies and tools. The design of a 120 meter high-rise building near the Wilhelminapier in Rotterdam functions as a test case for the themes, strategies and tools proposed in the research. The high-rise tower combines a public plinth with offices and dwellings extending the public space on the pier into an indoor wetlands. Each of the functions deals with the restorative spaces in a different manner. In order to create a coherent route the spaces are linked to natural environments based on qualities such as connection with water, far sights, or a dominant view towards the sky all depended on the vertical location of the space. The walking route through the building connects the environments and thus the spaces together forming a coherent restorative route from the public plinth to the dwellings in the top of the building.ExplorelabArchitectureArchitecture and The Built Environmen
Dynamic analysis of magnetorheological elastomer configured sandwich structures
No full textThe work presented in this thesis is concerned with the investigation of the dynamic behaviour of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) and smart sandwich structures. An extensive review, covering existing smart materials and their applications, has highlighted that smart materials and structures can be applied to large scale structures. Comprehensive experimental tests have been carried out in order to gain knowledge and data on the dynamic shear properties and behaviour of stiffness change of MRE and MRE cored adaptive sandwich beam structures depending on magnetic fields. Dynamic shear property tests with different curing stages have been enhanced to obtain various properties. The new developed forced vibration test rig enabled forced vibration tests of MRE embedded sandwich beam with various aspects such as different magnetic field strength, various oscillations of force amplitudes, boundary conditions and damping effects under localised magnetic fields to be made. In parallel to these experimental investigations, a new theoretical model was developed by combining the magnetisation effects on iron particles in terms of the curing times. In addition, a new macro scale modelling approach for rubber like materials (nonlinear behaving materials) was made by adopting FEA analysis to obtain the optimum volume of pores and size of iron particles to enhance the performance of MREs. A higher order sandwich beam theory is extended to include damping properties of MRE. It has been demonstrated that a higher order sandwich beam theory appears to be the most versatile and accurate modelling method for a sandwich beam with an MRE core material. The results from higher order theory have been combined with a power flow analysis for the smart floating sandwich raft vibration isolation system. Finally, an experimental study was performed to illustrate the control capabilities of MRE adaptive vibration absorber for a propeller shaft in real time. From this research work, a better understanding of the dynamic behaviour of MRE embedded sandwich beam has been acquired
Theory of Stochastically Excited and Dissipated Hamiltonian Systems — Some New Developments in Nonlinear Stochastic Structural Dynamics
No full text Some new developments in nonlinear stochastic structural dynamics recently made by the present author and his co-workers are reviewed. A nonlinear structure under random loading is modeled as a stochastically excited and dissipated Hamiltonian system of finite degree-of-freedom (DOF). The functional form of the exact stationary solution, the equivalent nonlinear system and the stochastic averaging equations of a stochastically excited and dissipated Hamiltonian system are constructed based on the integrability and resonance of the associated Hamiltonian system, and thus the response of the system is predicted. The stochastic stability, stochastic bifurcation and optimal nonlinear feedback control of the system are treated by using the stochastic averaging method for quasi-Hamiltonian systems. It is pointed out that the theory is promising and deserves further development. </jats:p
Modelling of capacitance tomography sensors
No full textCurrent electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) systems reconstruct cross-sectional images directly using the 'raw' capacitance data measured from the multielectrode sensors. These 'raw' measurements are affected by the pipe wall and/or external interelectrode capacitances, and hence it is impossible to reconstruct accurate quantitative images. The author analyses four types of pipe-mounted sensor, as categorised by their electrode and radial screen arrangements, and gives methods of calculating the internal interelectrode capacitances which exclude other interfering capacitances, thus enabling quantitative measurements and improved images to be obtained
Ion Motion Determines Multiphase Performance Dynamics of Perovskite LEDs
No full textsponsorship: K.E. contributed equally to the work as the first author. The authors acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 835133, ULTRA-LUX) and funding from European Regional Development Fund (project No 01.2.2-LMT-K-718-03-0048) under grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT). W.Q. would like to thank the financial support of the postdoctoral fellowship grant from FWO. (European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union|835133, European Regional Development Fund|01.2.2-LMT-K-718-03-0048, Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), FWO)status: Publishe
Attributable causes of cancer in China
No full textBackground: Most cancers are due to modifiable lifestyle and environmental risk factors, and are potentially preventable. No studies have provided a systematic quantitative assessment of the burden of cancer mortality and incidence attributable to known risk factors in China. Methods: We calculated the proportions of cancer deaths and new cases attributable to known risk factors in China, based on the prevalence of exposure around 1990 and national data on cancer mortality and incidence for the year 2005. Results: Chronic infection is the main risk factor for cancer in China, accounting for 29.4% of cancer deaths (31.7% in men and 25.3% in women), followed by tobacco smoking (22.6% with 32.7% in men and 5.0% in women), low fruit intake (13.0%), alcohol drinking (4.4%), low vegetable intake (3.6%) and occupational exposures (2.7%). The remaining factors, including environmental agents, physical inactivity, the use of exogenous hormones and reproductive factors are each responsible for <1.0%. Conclusions: Modifiable risk factors explain nearly 60% of cancer deaths in China, with a predominant role of chronic infection and tobacco smoking. Our findings could provide a basis for cancer prevention and control programs aimed at reducing cancer risk in other developing countries. © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society for Medical Oncology
Effect of enzymatic deimination on the conformation of recombinant prion protein
No full textDeimination is the post-translational conversion of arginine residues to citrulline. It has been implicated as a causative factor in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and more recently, as a marker of neurodegeneration. We have investigated the effect of the post-translational modification of arginine residues on the structure of recombinant ovine prion protein. Deiminated prion protein exhibited biophysical properties characteristic of the scrapie-associated conformer of prion protein viz. an increased β-sheet secondary structure, congophilic structures indicative of amyloid and proteinase K resistance which could be templated onto normal unmodified prion protein. In the light of these findings, a potential role of post-translational modifications to prion protein in disease initiation or propagation is discussed
A Robust Acoustic Feature Extraction Approach Based On Stacked Denoising Autoencoder
No full textAcoustic feature extraction (AFE) is considered as one of the most challenging techniques for speech applications since the adverse environment noises always cause significant variation on the extracted acoustic features. In this paper, we propose a systematical AFE approach which based on stacked denoising autoencoder (SDAE) aiming at extracting acoustic features automatically. Denoising autoencoder (DAE), which is trained to reconstruct a clean "repaired" input from a corrupted version of it, works as the basic building block to form SDAE. Besides, the training set with clean and noisy speech ensures the SDAE has much powerful ability to extract the robust features under different noise conditions. Considering the speaker classification task using features extracted by the proposed approach for evaluation, intensive experiments have been conducted on TIMIT and NIST SRE 2004 to show SDAE with 3 hidden layers (3L-SDAE) gives better performance than shallow layers. The results also show that the features extracted by 3L-SDAE performs better than MFCC features when SNR is lower than 6dB and act more robustly when SNR decreases. What's more, for different types of noises at SNR of 0dB, the accuracy of speaker classification using 3L-SDAE features is higher than about 84% while MFCC features is lower than 77%.EICPCI-S(ISTP)[email protected]
Coherence effects on two-pion interferometry in ultra-high energy heavy-ion collisions
No full textThe effects of two kinds of coherent lengths, the wave packet length of the emitter and the radius of the coherent source, on two-pion interferometry are studied. It is shown that both coherent lengths can decrease the apparent radius of the source and cause abundant pions at low momentum.http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:A1996VP57400005&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701Physics, NuclearSCI(E)2ARTICLE4469-47860
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