The beta-Birnbaum-Saunders distribution An improved distribution for fatigue life modeling

Birnbaum and Saunders (1969a) introduced a probability distribution which is commonly used in reliability studies For the first time based on this distribution the so-called beta-Birnbaum-Saunders distribution is proposed for fatigue life modeling Various properties of the new model including expansions for the moments moment generating function mean deviations density function of the order statistics and their moments are derived We discuss maximum likelihood estimation of the model s parameters The superiority of the new model is illustrated by means of three failure real data sets (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved

Universal Experimental Measurement System «Sun-Walker» : Automotive measurement system for the evaluation of the solar irradiation distribution for the tests of the solar concentrated systems.

This Thesis project is a part of the research conducted in Solar industry. ABSOLICON Solar Concentrator AB has invented and started production of the prospective solar concentrated system Absolicon X10. The aims of this Thesis project are designing, assembling, calibrating and putting in operation the automatic measurement system intended to evaluate distribution of density of solar radiation in the focal line of the concentrated parabolic reflectors and to measure radiation from the artificial source of light being a calibration-testing tool.On the basis of the requirements of the company’s administration and needs of designing the concentrated reflectors the operation conditions for the Sun-Walker were formulated. As the first step, the complex design of the whole system was made and division on the parts was specified. After the preliminary conducted simulation of the functions and operation conditions of the all parts were formulated.As the next steps, the detailed design of all the parts was made. Most components were ordered from respective companies. Some of the mechanical components were made in the workshop of the company. All parts of the Sun-Walker were assembled and tested. The software part, which controls the Sun-Walker work and conducts measurements of solar irradiation, was created on the LabVIEW basis. To tune and test the software part, the special simulator was designed and assembled.When all parts were assembled in the complete system, the Sun-Walker was tested, calibrated and tuned.

Optimal Rehabilitation Strategy In Water Distribution Systems Considering Reduction In Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Most of water distribution systems (WDS) need rehabilitation due to aging infrastructure leading to decreasing capacity, increasing leakage and consequently low performance of the WDS. However an appropriate strategy including location and time of pipeline rehabilitation in a WDS with respect to a limited budget is the main challenge which has been addressed frequently by researchers and practitioners. On the other hand, selection of appropriate rehabilitation technique and material types is another main issue which has yet to address properly. The latter can affect the environmental impacts of a rehabilitation strategy meeting the challenges of global warming mitigation and consequent climate change. This paper presents a multi-objective optimization model for rehabilitation strategy in WDS addressing the abovementioned criteria mainly focused on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions either directly from fossil fuel and electricity or indirectly from embodied energy of materials. Thus, the objective functions are to minimise: (1) the total cost of rehabilitation including capital and operational costs; (2) the leakage amount; (3) GHG emissions. The Pareto optimal front containing optimal solutions is determined using Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm NSGA-II. Decision variables in this optimisation problem are classified into a number of groups as: (1) percentage proportion of each rehabilitation technique each year; (2) material types of new pipeline for rehabilitation each year. Rehabilitation techniques used here includes replacement, rehabilitation and lining, cleaning, pipe duplication. The developed model is demonstrated through its application to a Mahalat WDS located in central part of Iran. The rehabilitation strategy is analysed for a 40 year planning horizon. A number of conventional techniques for selecting pipes for rehabilitation are analysed in this study. The results show that the optimal rehabilitation strategy considering GHG emissions is able to successfully save the total expenses, efficiently decrease the leakage amount from the WDS whilst meeting environmental criteria.

International integration and long- run persistence of the GNP distribution

We use the Ramsey model of g,Towth elaborated by Bliss [1995] and Ventlira [1997] to show how international integration results in long-nm persistellce Df GNPs distribution, while allowing, under certain conditions on parameters, for convergellce during the transition. First, we pi·ovide relationships which explicitly relate, in the neighborhood of the steady-state, the magnitude of conditional convergence or divergence to the fundamentaIs of the economies. Second, we present ali analysis of the Cobb Douglas case with a broad dass of utility functions and show that there is always transitional convergenee with this technology. Third, directions for testing the Illodel against the traditional dosed-ecollomy setting are proposed. These lead to adding specific and world-wide regTessors to traditional growth regressions.

Operational functions for innovative startups in France

Nessa tese, é buscado um maior entendimento sobre a importância das funções operacionais nas startups francesas. Uma grande flexibilidade das tarefas a ser coberta e uma gestão horizontal caracterizam as startups. Desse jeito, não é muito comum para as empresas recentemente criadas como as startups ter uma politica clara de recursos humanos. Na verdade, cada participante na start-up pode ser levado a pensar de forma diferente em termos de vendas desenvolvimento de negócios, comercialização, marketing, tecnologia ou desenvolvimento de produto. Essa tese não vai explorar cada uma dessas tarefas. Mas vai procurar para identifcar a percepção sobre a alocação ótima de recursos para cada função chave da nova empresa. Qualquer seja o setor de mercado em consideração ou o estágio de amadurecimento da startup, funções chaves que são percebidas como sendo a base para start-ups bem sucedidas são pesquisa & desenvolvimento e comercialização. Funções de liderança não são tão importantes. Somente a startup focada na tecnologia tem uma "função de chefe executivo" com maior importância do que as startups médias. Além disso, empreendedores em série, bem sucedidos ou não, focam predominantemente aspectos relacionados ao marketing e à captação de recursos em detrimento de aspectos ligados à gestão do negócio. No final, os empresários, muitas vezes tem um preconceito ao respeito da sua formação acadêmica porque ele sobrestimam funções que eles pensam poder fazer em comparação das funções que eles são capazes de fazer. Nessa tese, intent-se demonstrar a relação entre as funções ocupadas por um sócio e as ações que ele possui na startup. Essa relação depende do número de sócios (conhecido como acionistas), o tipo de sócios (acionistas principais ou acionistas segundarias) e o impacto na administração corporativa a respeito da distribuição do capital próprio.

Benthic foraminiferal distribution on the southeastern Brazilian shelf and upper slope

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Ecological distribution of stream macroalgae in different spatial scales using taxonomic and morphological groups

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Search schemes for random optimization algorithms that preserve the asymptotic distribution

Markovian algorithms for estimating the global maximum or minimum of real valued functions defined on some domain Omega subset of R-d are presented. Conditions on the search schemes that preserve the asymptotic distribution are derived. Global and local search schemes satisfying these conditions are analysed and shown to yield sharper confidence intervals when compared to the i.i.d. case.

Wigner distribution for a class of isospectral position-dependent mass systems

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Primary power distribution systems planning taking into account reliability, operation and expansion costs

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Distinct mitochondrial HSP70 homologues conserved in various Leishmania species suggest novel biological functions

We report the identification of two distinct homologues of the 70-kDa mitochondrial heat shock protein (mtHSP70) from Leishmania chagasi/Leishmania infantum (Lc2.1 and Lc2.2). in Leishmania species, multiple genes encoding Lc2.2 are present whilst single genes encode Lc2.1. Strikingly, genes encoding Lc2.1-like proteins are absent from Trypanosoma species. Lc2.2 is characterized by a poly-glutamine rich C-terminus, absent from Lc2.1 or mtHSP70 homologues outside the trypanosomatids. Lc2.1 displays unique substitutions within its peptide-binding domain which modify amino acids strictly conserved in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial HSP70 proteins alike. Affinity purified antibodies recognize mainly a single protein in extracts from promastigotes/epimastigotes of various Leishmania/Trypanosoma species. Upon differentiation of Leishmania amazonensis into amastigotes a second protein (presumably Lc2.1) is induced and becomes the predominant mtHSP70 homologue expressed. Subcellular localization of these proteins was investigated and ratified a distribution throughout the mitochondrial matrix. Our results imply novel mtHSP70 functions which evolved within the genus Leishmania. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Brain distribution of myosin Va in rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss

This study presents data on myosin Va localization in the central nervous system of rainbow trout. We demonstrate, via immunoblots and immunocytochemistry, the expression of myosin Va in several neuronal populations of forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain and spinal cord. The neuronal populations that express myosin Va in trout constitute a very diverse group that do not seem to have many specific similarities such as neurotransmitters used, cellular size or length of their processes. The intensity of the immunoreactivity and the number of immunoreactive cells differ from region to region. Although there is a broad distribution of myosin Va, it is not present in all neuronal populations. This result is in agreement with a previous report, which indicated that myosin Va is approximately as abundant as conventional myosin II and kinesin, and it is broadly involved in neuronal motility events such as axoplasmatic transport. Furthermore, this distribution pattern is in accordance with what was shown in rats and mice; it indicates phylogenetic maintenance of the myosin Va main functions.

Effect of bound nucleon internal structure change on nuclear structure functions

Effect of bound nucleon internal structure change on nuclear structure functions is investigated based on local quark-hadron duality. The bound nucleon structure functions calculated for charged-lepton and (anti)neutrino scattering are all enhanced in symmetric nuclear matter at large Bjorken-x (x greater than or similar to 0.85) relative to those in a free nucleon. This implies that a part of the enhancement observed in the nuclear structure function F-2 (in the resonance region) at large Bjorken-x (the EMC effect) is due to the effect of the bound nucleon internal structure change. However, the x dependence for the charged-lepton and (anti)neutrino scattering is different. The former (latter) is enhanced (quenched) in the region 0.8 less than or similar to x less than or similar to 0.9 (0.7 less than or similar to x less than or similar to 0.85) due to the difference of the contribution from axial vector forrn factor. Because of these differences charge symmetry breaking in parton distributions will be enhanced in nuclei. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Laguerre moments and generalized functions

Here we explore the link between the moments of the Laguerre polynomials or Laguerre moments and the generalized functions (as the Dirac delta-function and its derivatives), presenting several interesting relations. A useful application is related to a procedure for calculating mean values in quantum optics that makes use of the so-called quasi-probabilities. One of them, the P-distribution, can be represented by a sum over Laguerre moments when the electromagnetic field is in a photon-number state. Consequently, the P-distribution can be expressed in terms of Dirac delta-function and derivatives. More specifically, we found a direct relation between P-distributions and the Laguerre factorial moments.

Quark sea structure functions of the nucleon in a statistical model

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)