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In this study, Al joint systems without heat-affected zones (HAZ) were developed on Al/Fe alloy lap joints fabricated by resistance element welding (REW). The robustness of the joints with and without HAZs was quantitatively evaluated to consider another side effect in REW Al/Fe alloy systems. Compared to conventional REW, removing the Al HAZ not only alters the steel properties, but also reduces the work hardening of the Al alloy due to the difference in the distinct heat transfer paths. Furthermore, the presence of Al HAZ significantly influenced the hardness characteristics of the molten steel portion. In the cold wall configuration without Al HAZ, hardness values exceeding those of the hot wall by approximately 100 Hv or more were observed. At a welding current of 10.5 kA, the hot wall configuration demonstrated an approximate 30 % increase in tensile shear load and a 66 % increase in displacement compared to the cold wall configuration without HAZ. In the cold wall conditions, interfacial failure (IF) was not attributed to microstructural disparities but was linked to the formation of an inherent notch root when S20C melted due to the absence of Al HAZ. Contrary to previous reports, the presence of HAZ in Al alloys results the production of tough steel through REW.

The proliferation of uncategorized information on the Internet has intensified the need for effective recommender systems. Recommender systems have evolved from content-based filtering to collaborative filtering and, most recently, to deep learning-based and hybrid models. However, they often face challenges such as high computational costs, reduced reliability, and the Cold Start problem. We introduce a persona-based user modeling approach for real-time movie recommendations. Our system employs Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) and Deep Learning algorithms to manage complex and sparse data types and to mitigate the Cold Start issue. Experimental results, based on criteria involving 50 topics and 35 personas, indicate a significant performance gain. Specifically, with 500 users, the precision@K for NMF was 86.01%, and for the Deep Neural Network (DNN), it was 92.67%. Tested with 900 users, the precision@K for NMF increased to 97.04%, and for DNN, it was 95.55%. These results represent an approximate 10% and 5% improvement in performance, respectively. The system not only delivers fast and accurate recommendations but also reduces computational overhead by updating the model only when user personas change. The generated user personas can be adapted for other recommendation services or large-scale data mining.

This study was conducted to investigate the possibility of using gaze entropy to evaluate an operator's situation awareness in an emergency accident situation of a nuclear power plant. Gaze entropy can be an effective measure for evaluating an operator's situation awareness at a nuclear power plant because it can express gaze movement as a single comprehensive number. In order to determine the relationship between situation awareness and gaze entropy for an emergency accident situation of a nuclear power plant, an experiment was conducted to measure situation awareness and gaze entropy using simulators created for emergency accident situations LOCA, SGTR, SLB, and LOV. The experiment was to judge the accident situation of nuclear power plants presented in the simulator. The results showed that situation awareness and Shannon, dwell time, and Markov entropy had a significant negative correlation, while visual attention entropy (VAE) did not show any significant correlation with situation awareness. The results determined that Shannon entropy, dwell time entropy, and Markov entropy could be used as measures to evaluate situation awareness.

The present study investigates a fatigue property and its microstructural and interface geometrical effect on the resistance element welded (REWed) aluminum (Al)/high-strength steel (Fe) lap joint. The assembled Al/Fe joints were subjected under the fatigue strength up to 80% of tensile-shear loads with 0.1 of the load ratio. As a result, an exceptional fatigue strength has been secured inducing the base material fracture because there are no noticeable interfacial defects at the 10.5 kA welding condition compared to assemblies joined with 3.5–4.5 kA of welding currents. Even, maximum tensile-shear loads exceed 9 kN at the 10.5 kA welding condition. Microstructural developments of base materials and welding interfaces were thoroughly analyzed by an optical microscopy (OM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), the development of prior-austenite-grain-boundaries (PAGBs) and α'-martensite phases were observed in the welding interfaces at all conditions. Heat affected zone (HAZ) developments of AA5052 were quantitatively analyzed in terms of recrystallization and grain growth, providing significant differences in the fatigue performances and striation, crack propagation developments. In addition, with the help of a finite element (FE) computational modeling, a mechanical stress distribution and strain behavior by geometries of the joining interface are discussed in detail.

In this paper, we propose a novel method to quantify the neural synchronization between subjects in the collaborative process through electroencephalogram (EEG) hyperscanning. We hypothesized that the neural synchronization in EEGs will increase when the communication of the operators is smooth and the teamwork is better. We quantified the EEG signal for multiple subjects using a representative EEG quantification method, and studied the changes in brain activity occurring during collaboration. The proposed method quantifies neural synchronization between subjects through bispectral analysis. We found that phase synchronization between EEGs of multi subjects increased significantly during the periods of collaborative work. Traditional methods for a human error analysis used a retrospective analysis, and most of them were analyzed for an unspecified majority. However, the proposed method is able to perform the real-time monitoring of human error and can directly analyze and evaluate specific groups. Keywords: Human error, EEG, Hyperscanning, Bispectral analysis

Abstract We study the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) of the metric of the Kerr black hole in modified gravity (Kerr-MOG black hole), which is one of the exact solutions of the field equation of modified gravity in the strong gravity regime. The Kerr-MOG metric is constructed; it is the commonly known Kerr metric in Boyer–Lindquist coordinates by adding a repulsive term like the Yukawa force, which is explained in quantum gravity. In this paper, we numerically calculate the circular orbit of a photon and the ISCO of a test particle of Kerr-MOG black holes.

For the resonance treatment of a very high temperature reactors (VHTR) fuel with the double heterogeneity, an extension of the pin-based pointwise energy slowing-down method (PSM) was developed and implemented into DeCART. The proposed method, PSM-double heterogeneity (DH), has an improved spherical unit cell model with an explicit tri-structural isotropic (TRISO) model, a matrix layer, and a moderator for reflecting the moderation effect. The moderator volume was analytically derived using the relation of the Dancoff factor and the mean chord length. In the first step, the pointwise homogenized cross-sections for the compact was obtained after solving the slowing down equation for the spherical unit cell. Then, the shielded cross-section for the homogenized fuel compact was generated using the original PSM. The verification calculations were performed for the fuel pins with various packing fractions, compact sizes, TRISO sizes, and fuel temperatures. Additionally, two fuel block problems with very different sizes were examined and the depletion calculation was carried out for investigating the accuracy of the proposed method. They revealed that the PSM-DH has a good performance in the VHTR problems.

To date, Korea has built four 1000 MW gross-power ultra-critical coal-fired power plants. With the introduction of this new power plant type, there is a need for the development of best practices and lessons learned associated with its construction. One such need identified as a gap in literature is the early project planning estimation of project duration. To fill this research gap, this study utilized the Program Evaluation and Review Technique/Critical Path Method (PERT/CPM) and Monte Carlo simulations for estimating the appropriate construction duration at the planning stage of a new 1000 MW class coal-fired power plant project. Through the case study of the four Korean ultra-critical coal-fired power plants in operation, there was found an 85% likelihood of construction duration to be between 64 and 68 months. From interviews with subject matter experts, the most significant risk factors were found to be labor strikes and construction safety incidents. The findings within aid early planning decision makers by providing a replicable and accurate schedule estimation process. While the findings are based on Korean power plants, the results of this research can be used as a tool for coal-fired power plant construction schedule estimation worldwide.

This paper describes the effects of a comprehensive lifestyle modification program (CLMP) on glycemic control and body composition in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: This study was performed from October 2003 to April 2005, and used an experimental design with random assignment. The experimental group (n = 25) received CLMP for 4 months and follow-up sessions for 9 months. CLMP included nurse-led education on exercise and diet, and counseling on stress management and self-monitoring of their diabetic health. The control group (n = 23) received a 1-hour educational session on diabetic diet at the beginning of the study. Glucose level and body composition were measured in both groups a total of five times: at baseline (pre-intervention) and at 0, 3, 6 and 9 months post intervention. Results: Repeated-measures ANOVA showed that there were statistically significant differences in fasting blood sugar and HbA1c levels between the two groups (both p < .05). Both groups demonstrated statistically significant changes in body composition over time, but there was no significant difference in the pattern of change between the two groups. Conclusion: CLMP is a useful program, and its multiple approaches by nurses as the leaders and coordinators appear to have positive and synergistic roles in improving and maintaining stable glucose level and body composition in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Overexpression of p53 is the most frequent genetic alteration in breast cancer. Recently, many studies have shown that the expression of mutant p53 differs for each subtype of breast cancer and is associated with different prognoses. In this study, we aimed to determine the suitable cut-off value to predict the clinical outcome of p53 overexpression and its usefulness as a prognostic factor in each subtype of breast cancer, especially in luminal A breast cancer. Approval was granted by the Institutional Review Board of Samsung Medical Center. We analyzed a total of 7,739 patients who were surgically treated for invasive breast cancer at Samsung Medical Center between Dec 1995 and Apr 2013. Luminal A subtype was defined as ER&PR + and HER2- and was further subclassified according to Ki-67 and p53 expression as follows: luminal A (Ki-67-,p53-), luminal A (Ki-67+, p53-), luminal A (Ki-67 -, p53+) and luminal A (Ki-67+, p53+). Low-risk luminal A subtype was defined as negative for both Ki-67 and p53 (luminal A [ki-67-, p53-]), and others subtypes were considered to be high-risk luminal A breast cancer. A cut-off value of 10% for p53 was a good predictor of clinical outcome in all patients and luminal A breast cancer patients. The prognostic role of p53 overexpression for OS and DFS was only significant in luminal A subtype. The combination of p53 and Ki-67 has been shown to have the best predictive power as calculated by the area under curve (AUC), especially for long-term overall survival. In this study, we have shown that overexpression of p53 and Ki-67 could be used to discriminate low-risk luminal A subtype in breast cancer. Therefore, using the combination of p53 and Ki-67 expression in discriminating low-risk luminal A breast cancer may improve the prognostic power and provide the greatest clinical utility.

To derive the metallicities of M3 and M5, we used the shape of red giant branch, horizontal branch magnitude, and red giant branch bump on the (V - I) - V color magnitude diagrams. [Fe/H] values ranging -1.46 -1.69 for M3, and -1.00 -1.49 for M5 are estimated. This result leads the morpholgies of red giant and horizontal branches on the (V-I) - v color magnitude diagrams can be good indirect metallicity indicators of galactic globular clusters.

The Hβ and some metal line indices, such as Mg2, Fe52, Fe53 of single-age and single-metallicity populations are computed based on the method of evolutionary population synthesis, with careful consideration of the variation of the horizontal-branch morphology with metallicity and age. We find (a) that while metal lines are little affected, the Hβ index is severely enhanced (up to 30%) by the presence of the blue horizontal-branch stars, frustrating the current age-estimations from this index without careful consideration of these stars, and (b) that there is a systematic trend in the sense that the globular clusters in giant elliptical galaxies appear to be older than those in our Galaxy by several billion years. We also calculate these indices for the stellar populations with a metallicity spread, by adopting metallicity distribution functions predicted by chemical evolution models. The comparison of the models with the observed indices of the central regions of the early-type galaxies yields the results (a) that the ages of the giant elliptical galaxies would be older than the previous estimations by several billion years, and (b) that there is a considerable age spread among elliptical galaxies, in the sense that the giant elliptical galaxies are older than the small ones.

The propagation of radiation source uncertainties in spent nuclear fuel (SNF) cask shielding calculations is presented in this paper. The uncertainty propagation employs the depletion and source term outputs of the deterministic code STREAM as input to the transport simulation of the Monte Carlo (MC) codes MCS and MCNP6. The uncertainties of dose rate coming from two sources: nuclear data and modeling parameters, are quantified. The nuclear data uncertainties are obtained from the stochastic sampling of the cross-section covariance and perturbed fission product yields. Uncertainties induced by perturbed modeling parameters consider the design parameters and operating conditions. Uncertainties coming from the two sources result in perturbed depleted nuclide inventories and radiation source terms which are then propagated to the dose rate on the cask surface. The uncertainty analysis results show that the neutron and secondary photon dose have uncertainties which are dominated by the cross section and modeling parameters, while the fission yields have relatively insignificant effect. Besides, the primary photon dose is mostly influenced by the fission yield and modeling parameters, while the cross-section data have a relatively negligible effect. Moreover, the neutron, secondary photon, and primary photon dose can have uncertainties up to about 13%, 14%, and 6%, respectively.

The methods and performance of a 3D pin-by-pin neutronics code based on the 2D/1D decoupling method are presented. The code was newly developed as an effort to achieve enhanced accuracy and high calculation performance that are sufficient for the use in practical nuclear design analyses. From the 3D diffusion-based finite difference method (FDM) formulation, decoupled planar formulations are established by treating pre-determined axial leakage as a source term. The decoupled axial problems are formulated with the radial leakage source term. To accelerate the pin-by-pin calculation, the two-level coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) formulation, which consists of the multigroup node-wise CMFD and the two-group assembly-wise CMFD is implemented. To enhance the accuracy, both the discontinuity factor method and the super-homogenization (SPH) factor method are examined for pin-wise cross-section homogenization. The parallelization is achieved with the OpenMP package. The accuracy and performance of the pin-by-pin calculations are assessed with the VERA and APR1400 benchmark problems. It is demonstrated that pin-by-pin 2D/1D alternating calculations within the two-level 3D CMFD framework yield accurate solutions in about 30 s for the typical commercial core problems, on a parallel platform employing 32 threads.

How sulfur dioxide emitted through coal combustion is oxidized to sulfate particles during winter haze pollution events has been the subject of debate. Here, the authors show that rapid oxidation takes place by nitrogen dioxide and nitrous acid, producing nitrous oxide together with sulfate.

Overlay refers to controlling the vertical alignment and misalignment between circuit patterns manufactured in the previous process and circuit patterns manufactured in the current process during the stacking process of circuit patterns in the semiconductor manufacturing process. A critical factor in ensuring precise overlay measurements is using an optimized overlay mark design. Many semiconductor manufacturers have put considerable effort into optimizing overlay measurement marks to reduce high costs. However, image-based overlay measurement encounters several challenges, including resolution degradation, image distortion, and noise introduction during digital data conversion. These issues can amplify the uncertainty of overlay measurements, impair optical resolution, and heighten the risk of mismeasurement. In this paper, we introduce irregular grating patterns designed to address the principal challenges faced by the commonly utilized Advanced Imaging Metrology (AIM) marks, namely large overlays and image distortion. Furthermore, we propose an overlay mark capable of precisely identifying overlays exceeding half a pitch and incorporating as much data as possible within the limits of optical resolution. This aims to improve overlay measurement performance. The experimental findings demonstrate that the proposed Pulsated Grating Target (PGT) mark enhances overall measurement uncertainty by approximately 17% compared to the AIM mark. The practical applicability of the PGT was validated through experiments, and we achieved enhanced precision and reliability in overlay measurements by resolving the issue of large overlays--the most significant challenge with grating patterns--and simultaneously enhancing mark performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]