A methodology to measure the interface shear strength by means of the fiber push-in test

A methodology is presented to measure the fiber/matrix interface shear strength in composites. The strategy is based on performing a fiber push-in test at the central fiber of highly-packed fiber clusters with hexagonal symmetry which are often found in unidirectional composites with a high volume fraction of fibers. The mechanics of this test was analyzed in detail by means of three-dimensional finite element simulations. In particular, the influence of different parameters (interface shear strength, toughness and friction as well as fiber longitudinal elastic modulus and curing stresses) on the critical load at the onset of debonding was established. From the results of the numerical simulations, a simple relationship between the critical load and the interface shear strength is proposed. The methodology was validated in an unidirectional C/epoxy composite and the advantages and limitations of the proposed methodology are indicated.

Model-Driven Methodology for Rapid Deployment of Smart Spaces based on Resource-Oriented Architectures

Advances in electronics nowadays facilitate the design of smart spaces based on physical mash-ups of sensor and actuator devices. At the same time, software paradigms such as Internet of Things (IoT) and Web of Things (WoT) are motivating the creation of technology to support the development and deployment of web-enabled embedded sensor and actuator devices with two major objectives: (i) to integrate sensing and actuating functionalities into everyday objects, and (ii) to easily allow a diversity of devices to plug into the Internet. Currently, developers who are applying this Internet-oriented approach need to have solid understanding about specific platforms and web technologies. In order to alleviate this development process, this research proposes a Resource-Oriented and Ontology-Driven Development (ROOD) methodology based on the Model Driven Architecture (MDA). This methodology aims at enabling the development of smart spaces through a set of modeling tools and semantic technologies that support the definition of the smart space and the automatic generation of code at hardware level. ROOD feasibility is demonstrated by building an adaptive health monitoring service for a Smart Gym.

Methodology for registration of distended recutms in pelvic CT studies

Purpose: Accurate delineation of the rectum is of high importance in off-line adaptive radiation therapy since it is a major dose-limiting organ in prostate cancer radiotherapy. The intensity-based deformable image registration (DIR) methods cannot create a correct spatial transformation if there is no correspondence between the template and the target images. The variation of rectal filling, gas, or feces, creates a noncorrespondence in image intensities that becomes a great obstacle for intensity-based DIR. Methods: In this study the authors have designed and implemented a semiautomatic method to create a rectum mask in pelvic computed tomography (CT) images. The method, that includes a DIR based on the demons algorithm, has been tested in 13 prostate cancer cases, each comprising of two CT scans, for a total of 26 CT scans. Results: The use of the manual segmentation in the planning image and the proposed rectum mask method (RMM) method in the daily image leads to an improvement in the DIR performance in pelvic CT images, obtaining a mean value of overlap volume index = 0.89, close to the values obtained using the manual segmentations in both images. Conclusions: The application of the RMM method in the daily image and the manual segmentations in the planning image during prostate cancer treatments increases the performance of the registration in presence of rectal fillings, obtaining very good agreement with a physician's manual contours.

Methodology for registration of distended rectums in pelvic CT studies

Purpose: Accurate delineation of the rectum is of high importance in off-line adaptive radiation therapy since it is a major dose-limiting organ in prostate cancer radiotherapy. The intensity-based deformable image registration (DIR) methods cannot create a correct spatial transformation if there is no correspondence between the template and the target images. The variation of rectal filling, gas, or feces, creates a noncorrespondence in image intensities that becomes a great obstacle for intensity-based DIR. Methods: In this study the authors have designed and implemented a semiautomatic method to create a rectum mask in pelvic computed tomography (CT) images. The method, that includes a DIR based on the demons algorithm, has been tested in 13 prostate cancer cases, each comprising of two CT scans, for a total of 26 CT scans. Results: The use of the manual segmentation in the planning image and the proposed rectum mask method (RMM) method in the daily image leads to an improvement in the DIR performance in pelvic CT images, obtaining a mean value of overlap volume index = 0.89, close to the values obtained using the manual segmentations in both images. Conclusions: The application of the RMM method in the daily image and the manual segmentations in the planning image during prostate cancer treatments increases the performance of the registration in presence of rectal fillings, obtaining very good agreement with a physician's manual contours.

Sustainable Air Traffic Management System Development Methodology

As it is defined in ATM 2000+ Strategy (Eurocontrol 2001), the mission of the Air Traffic Management (ATM) System is: “For all the phases of a flight, the ATM system should facilitate a safe, efficient, and expedite traffic flow, through the provision of adaptable ATM services that can be dimensioned in relation to the requirements of all the users and areas of the European air space. The ATM services should comply with the demand, be compatible, operate under uniform principles, respect the environment and satisfy the national security requirements.” The objective of this paper is to present a methodology designed to evaluate the status of the ATM system in terms of the relationship between the offered capacity and traffic demand, identifying weakness areas and proposing solutions. The first part of the methodology relates to the characterization and evaluation of the current system, while a second part proposes an approach to analyze the possible development limit. As part of the work, general criteria are established to define the framework in which the analysis and diagnostic methodology presented is placed. They are: the use of Air Traffic Control (ATC) sectors as analysis unit, the presence of network effects, the tactical focus, the relative character of the analysis, objectivity and a high level assessment that allows assumptions on the human and Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) elements, considered as the typical high density air traffic resources. The steps followed by the methodology start with the definition of indicators and metrics, like the nominal criticality or the nominal efficiency of a sector; scenario characterization where the necessary data is collected; network effects analysis to study the relations among the constitutive elements of the ATC system; diagnostic by means of the “System Status Diagram”; analytical study of the ATC system development limit; and finally, formulation of conclusions and proposal for improvement. This methodology was employed by Aena (Spanish Airports Manager and Air Navigation Service Provider) and INECO (Spanish Transport Engineering Company) in the analysis of the Spanish ATM System in the frame of the Spanish airspace capacity sustainability program, although it could be applied elsewhere.

Improving the capacity of software acquisition management: An Alternative methodology

The acquisition of the information system technologies using the services of an external supplier could be the the best options to reduce the implementation and maintenance cost of software solutions, and allows a company to improve the efficient use of its resources. The focus of this paper is to outline a methodology structure for the software acquisition management. The methodology proposed in this paper is the result of the study and the convergence of the weakness and strengths of some models (CMMI, SA-CMM, ISO/IEC TR 15504, COBIT, and ITIL) that include the software acquisition process.

Ab initio Methodology for Calculating Elastic Constant and Sound Velocity for Hydrogen and Deuterium in Molecular Solid Phase

Hydrogen isotopes play a critical role both in inertial and magnetic confinement Nuclear Fusion. Since the preferent fuel needed for this technology is a mixture of deuterium and tritium. The study of these isotopes particularly at very low temperatures carries a technological interest in other applications. The present line promotes a deep study on the structural configuration that hydrogen and deuterium adopt at cryogenic temperatures and at high pressures. Typical conditions occurring in present Inertial Fusion target designs. Our approach is aims to determine the crystal structure characteristics, phase transitions and other parameters strongly correlated to variations of temperature and pressure. With this results is possible calculated the elastic constant and sound velocity for hydrogen and deuterium in molecular solid phase.

A Development Methodology to Facilitate the Integration of Smart Spaces into the Web of Things

How to create or integrate large Smart Spaces (considered as mash-ups of sensors and actuators) into the paradigm of ?Web of Things? has been the motivation of many recent works. A cutting-edge approach deals with developing and deploying web-enabled embedded devices with two major objectives: 1) to integrate sensor and actuator technologies into everyday objects, and 2) to allow a diversity of devices to plug to Internet. Currently, developers who want to use this Internet-oriented approach need have solid understanding about sensorial platforms and semantic technologies. In this paper we propose a Resource-Oriented and Ontology-Driven Development (ROOD) methodology, based on Model Driven Architecture (MDA), to facilitate to any developer the development and deployment of Smart Spaces. Early evaluations of the ROOD methodology have been successfully accomplished through a partial deployment of a Smart Hotel.

A novel methodology to determine the mechanical properties of amorphous materials through instrumented nanoindentation

A novel methodology based on instrumented indentation was developed to characterize the mechanical properties of amorphous materials. The approach is based on the concept of a universal postulate that assumes the existence of a characteristic indentation pressure proportional to the hardness. This hypothesis was numerically validated. This method overcomes the limitation of the conventional indentation models (pile-up effects and pressure sensitivity materials).

A methodology for the implementation and continuous improvement of social responsibility (RS) and financial responsibility

This work sets out an innovative methodology that aims to facilitate the implementation and continuous improvement of Social Responsibility. It is a methodology that takes account of strategic-economic, social and environmental questions and allows measuring the impact of each of these aspects on the stakeholders and on each of the value areas. It can be extrapolated to all kinds of organisations regardless of their size and sector and admits scaleable models. A marked feature that sets it aside from other methodologies is that it eliminates subjectivity from the qualitative aspects and introduces an algorithm to quantify them.

Social Housing in Great Metropolitan Areas: A New Methodology for Integrated Quality Evaluation and Comparison.

Este artículo expone la primera aplicación experimental de un método para el análisis y la comparación de experiencias de vivienda social internacional en el contexto de las grandes áreas metropolitanas. El método, desarrollado en la Universidad Politécnica Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) desde 2009, se basa en la utilización de códigos gráficos y numéricos comunes y la integración de diferentes escalas de aproximación al entorno construido, de la vivienda y su arquitectura, a sus materiales de construcción y llegando más lejos, la ciudad. Además, los datos están vinculados a tres conceptos clave estrechamente relacionados con las condiciones específicas de las grandes áreas metropolitanas: la economía, la densidad y la diversidad. El objetivo final de la investigación es proporcionar una herramienta para la evaluación de la calidad de las viviendas sociales, optimización de recursos y un diseño innovador.

A hardware in the loop design methodology for FPGA system and its application to complex functions

In this work, a unified algorithm-architecture-circuit co-design environment for complex FPGA system development is presented. The main objective is to find an efficient methodology for designing a configurable optimized FPGA system by using as few efforts as possible in verification stage, so as to speed up the development period. A proposed high performance FFT/iFFT processor for Multiband Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing Ultra Wideband (MB-OFDM UWB) system design process is given as an example to demonstrate the proposed methodology. This efficient design methodology is tested and considered to be suitable for almost all types of complex FPGA system designs and verifications.

Integration of temporal and semantic components into the Geographic Information. Part II: Methodology

The overall objective of this research project is to enrich geographic data with temporal and semantic components in order to significantly improve spatio-temporal analysis of geographic phenomena. To achieve this goal, we intend to establish and incorporate three new layers (structures) into the core of the Geographic Information by using mark-up languages as well as defining a set of methods and tools for enriching the system to make it able to retrieve and exploit such layers (semantic-temporal, geosemantic, and incremental spatio-temporal). Besides these layers, we also propose a set of models (temporal and spatial) and two semantic engines that make the most of the enriched geographic data. The roots of the project and its definition have been previously presented in Siabato & Manso-Callejo 2011. In this new position paper, we extend such work by delineating clearly the methodology and the foundations on which we will base to define the main components of this research: the spatial model, the temporal model, the semantic layers, and the semantic engines. By putting together the former paper and this new work we try to present a comprehensive description of the whole process, from pinpointing the basic problem to describing and assessing the solution. In this new article we just mention the methods and the background to describe how we intend to define the components and integrate them into the GI.

Methodology for developing a Speech into Sign Language Translation System in a New Semantic Domain

This paper proposes a methodology for developing a speech into sign language translation system considering a user-centered strategy. This method-ology consists of four main steps: analysis of technical and user requirements, data collection, technology adaptation to the new domain, and finally, evalua-tion of the system. The two most demanding tasks are the sign generation and the translation rules generation. Many other aspects can be updated automatical-ly from a parallel corpus that includes sentences (in Spanish and LSE: Lengua de Signos Española) related to the application domain. In this paper, we explain how to apply this methodology in order to develop two translation systems in two specific domains: bus transport information and hotel reception.