Modeling of ship maneuvering motion using neural networks

In this paper, Neural Networks (NNs) are used in the modeling of ship maneuvering motion. A nonlinear response model and a linear hydrodynamic model of ship maneuvering motion are also investigated. The maneuverability indices and linear non-dimensional hydrodynamic derivatives in the models are identified by using two-layer feed forward NNs. The stability of parametric estimation is confirmed. Then, the ship maneuvering motion is predicted based on the obtained models. A comparison between the predicted results and the model test results demonstrates the validity of the proposed modeling method.     

An elastic-plastic iceberg material model considering temperature gradient effects and its application to numerical study

To simulate the FPSO-iceberg collision process more accurately, an elastic-plastic iceberg material model considering temperature gradient effects is proposed and applied. The model behaves linearly elastic until it reaches the ‘Tsai-Wu’ yield surfaces, which are a series of concentric elliptical curves of different sizes. Decreasing temperature results in a large yield surface. Failure criteria, based on the influence of accumulated plastic strain and hydrostatic pressure, are built into the model. Based on published experimental data on the relationship between depth and temperature in icebergs, three typical iceberg temperature profiles are proposed. According to these, ice elements located at different depths have different temperatures. The model is incorporated into LS-DYNA using a user-defined subroutine and applied to a simulation of FPSO collisions with different types of iceberg. Simulated area-pressure curves are compared with design codes to validate the iceberg model. The influence of iceberg shape and temperature on the collision process is analyzed. It is indicated that FPSO structural damage not only depends on the relative strength between the iceberg and the structure, but also depends on the local shape of the iceberg.     

Effect of pH on mechanical,physical and tribological properties of electroless Ni-P-Al<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> composite deposits for marine applications

Successful co-deposition of fine particulate matter within an Electroless Nickel-Phosphorous (ENi-P) matrix is dependent on various factors like bath composition, particle compatibility with metallic matrix, bath reactivity (pH), particle size and their distribution. ENi-P deposits incorporating Al₂O₃/Alumina in a disperse phase have varied effects on properties and attributes like surface roughness (Ra), microhardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance and surface morphology of the deposits obtained. This paper experimentally investigates the effect of alumina (1.55 g/L) on Ra, microhardness, surface morphology, deposition rate, wettability, wear resistance and corrosion resistance of ENi-P-Al₂O₃ composite deposits on mild steel substrates at bath pH 5, 7 and 9. Study reveals that optimum deposit parameters and deposition rates are achieved with bath pH. However, not much study has been undertaken concerning composite deposits obtained from higher bath pH or basic bath. This is attributable to the fact that at higher bath pH or alkaline baths, the bath gets unstable and eventually degrades or decomposes, thereby resulting in sub optimal or poor deposition. Hence, experimental investigations carried out by preparing suitable baths, operating under optimum conditions, and enabling successful composite deposition in acidic and alkaline baths have revealed that there is a significant improvement in the above mentioned properties of the as-deposited composite deposits, as the pH is increased from pH 5 to pH 9. This aspect can therefore be advantageously utilized for preparing various marine components like fasteners, nuts, bolts, washers, pipes, cables, components having relative motion etc.     

Serum levels of RBP4 might not be determined by diabetes mellitus but by kidney function and renal replacement therapy

It has been reported that retinol-binding protein 4(RBP4) is associated to adiposity,insulin resistance,and type 2 diabetes.Meanwhile,circulating RBP4 levels are also affected by renal function.The aim of the present study is to investigate whether serum levels of RBP4 are primarily associated with different stages of chronic kidney disease(CKD) or type 2 diabetes,if there is more potential relevance between RBP4 and renal replacement therapy.The serum levels of RBP4 were assessed by commercial competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)kit in 212 patients with the CKD stages 1—5 and in 24 healthy controls,while its correlation with clinical and metabolic parameters was analyzed.The serum level of RBP4 had a strong correlation with estimated glomerular filtration rate(e GFR)(P 0.001).Stratified by e GFR and treatment,no more differences in RBP4 serum concentration were detected between type 2 diabetic and non-diabetic subjects [CKD stages 1—5,non-dialysis(ND),hemodialysis(HD) and peritoneal dialysis(PD);P 0.05 for all].The elevation of RBP4 become higher in HD than in PD and ND in CKD5 patients(P = 0.008 and P = 0.04,respectively),while there was no significant difference between PD and ND groups.Multivariate linear regression analysis demonstrated three independent predictors of e GFR(β =-0.676,P 0.001),C-reactive protein(CRP)(β =-0.573,P 0.001) and creatine(β = 0.509,P = 0.024) in the study population.The study results demonstrated that the serum level of RBP4 was negatively related to the e GFR,whether diabetes mellitus(DM) affected the blood concentration of RBP4 or not.And the serum level of RBP4 exhibited significant difference in different renal replacement therapies.     

Numerical study for turbulent flow of drag and flow noise with wavy wall

In this paper, a numerical simulation of flow-induced noise by the low Mach number turbulent flow with a sinusoidal wavy wall was presented based on the unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations and Lighthill’s acoustic analogy. Large eddy simulation (LES) was used to investigate the space-time flow field and the Smagorinsky sub-grid scale (SGS) model was introduced for turbulence model. Using Lighthill’s acoustics analogy, the flow field simulated by LES was taken as near-field sound sources and radiated sound from turbulent flow was computed by the Curle’s integral formulation under the low Mach number approximation. Both spanwise wavy wall and streamwise wavy wall with various wall wave amplitudes were discussed to investigate their effects on reducing the drag and flow noise. The relationship between flow noise and drag on the wavy wall is also studied.     

选择性PDGF受体酪氨酸激酶抑制剂对兔PVR的治疗作用

目的　评价一种新的血小板源性生长因子 (platelet derivedgrowthfactor,PDGF)受体酪氨酸激酶抑制剂AG12 95对兔增殖性玻璃体视网膜病变 (proliferativevitreoretinopathy ,PVR)的治疗作用。 方法　兔结膜成纤维细胞 (rabbitconjunctivalfibroblastscells,RCF)培养 ,用MTT分析法检测PDGF AA和 BB以及AG12 95对兔RCF的增殖状况的影响。建立PVR动物模型 ,玻璃体腔内给予AG12 95 ,用牵引性视网膜脱离 (tractionalretinaldetach ment,TRD)的发生率判断药物的体内疗效。眼视网膜电生理检查和HE染色分析药物的毒性。结果　 10 μmol·L-1和 10 0 μmol·L-1两种浓度的AG12 95均可显著抑制由PDGF AA和 BB诱导的成纤维细胞的增生 ,10 0 μmol·L-1AG12 95可减缓兔TRD的发生 ,但其作用仅持续至第 2 1d。在AG12 95治疗组中 ,未发现明显的网膜毒性。结论　PDGF受体酪氨酸激酶抑制剂AG12 95可减缓兔TRD的发生。     

Performance analysis of AF relaying based on water-filling power allocation over Nakagami-<Emphasis Type="Italic">m</Emphasis> fading

This paper investigates exact performance of an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay system based on water-filling power allocation in Nakagami-m fading environment, where m is a nonnegative integer plus one half. We first offer the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the received signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at a destination. Then outage probability, moments of SNR, higher-order statistics of the capacity are explicitly conducted. Especially, average symbol error rate (SER) under an additive white generalized Gaussian noise (AWGGN) is developed for water-filling power allocation scheme. While the average SER subjected by an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) can be regarded as a special case. Finally, all theoretical formulas are truly attested by various simulation results.     

Heuristics for the identical machine scheduling problem with preventive maintenances

In this paper, two mixed integer programming models integrating production scheduling and preventive maintenances are proposed to derive the optimal solutions for the identical machine scheduling problem with unavailability constraints. In the first model, the maintenance activities are performed periodically and the objective is to minimize the makespan. In the second model, the maintenance activities are flexible and the machines’ continuous working time cannot exceed a maximum allowed time T; the objective is to minimize the total completion time of jobs. For the first problem, we propose a heuristic longest batch time (LBT) and prove that the worst case error bound of LBT is 2. For the second problem, we develop a heuristic modified smallest processing time (MSPT) based on some properties of the optimal solutions. Computational experiments show that both of the heuristics are effective and efficient compared with the results obtained by CPLEX and the other algorithms.     

Hardware architecture design of block-matching and 3D-filtering denoising algorithm

Block-matching and 3D-filtering(BM3D) is a state of the art denoising algorithm for image/video,which takes full advantages of the spatial correlation and the temporal correlation of the video. The algorithm performance comes at the price of more similar blocks finding and filtering which bring high computation and memory access. Area, memory bandwidth and computation are the major bottlenecks to design a feasible architecture because of large frame size and search range. In this paper, we introduce a novel structure to increase data reuse rate and reduce the internal static-random-access-memory(SRAM) memory. Our target is to design a phase alternating line(PAL) or real-time processing chip of BM3 D. We propose an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC) architecture of BM3 D for a 720 × 576 BT656 PAL format. The feature of the chip is with 100 MHz system frequency and a 166-MHz 32-bit double data rate(DDR). When noise is σ = 25, we successfully realize real-time denoising and achieve about 10 d B peak signal to noise ratio(PSNR) advance just by one iteration of the BM3 D algorithm.     

Study on Oxidation Activity of CuCeZrO<Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">x</Emphasis></Subscript> Doped with K for Diesel Engine Particles in NO/O<Subscript>2</Subscript>

CuCeZrO_x and KCuCeZrO_x catalysts were synthesized and coated on the blank diesel particulate filter (DPF) substrate and a particulate matter (PM) loading apparatus was used for soot loading. The catalytic performances of soot oxidation were evaluated by temperature programmed combustion (TPC) test and characterization tests were conducted to investigate the physicochemical properties of the catalysts. The reaction mechanism in the oxidation process was analyzed with diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy. The results demonstrated that CuCeZrO_x catalyst exhibited high activities of soot oxidation at low temperature and the best results have been attained with Cu_0.9Ce_0.05Zr_0.05O_x over which the maximum soot oxidation rate decreased to 410 °C. Characterization tests have shown that catalysts containing 90% Cu have uniformly distributed grains and small particle sizes, which provide excellent oxidation activity by providing more active sites and forming a good bond between the catalyst and the soot. The low-temperature oxidation activity of soot could be further optimized due to the excellent elevated NO’s conversion rate by partially substituting Cu with K. The maximum particle oxidation rate can be easily realized at such a low temperature as 347°C.