This paper reported the designed approaches of cycloidal mechanisms, studied its dynamic forces and failure characteristics using finite element methods (FEM). A simplified cycloidal mechanism (CM) is constructed to fulfill dynamic analysis and reliability evaluation. The studied results show that the loads of the mechanism are shared mainly by a half of the outer rollers and the inner pins. The possible failures of the mechanism will occur at the inner pins caused by the bending stress, and at the cycloid disc induced by the contacting stress. The failure of the inner pins will dominate the damage of the mechanism. A method of evaluating stress variation is proposed for fulfilling reliability design. The stress variations are derived according to the data in dynamic analysis by regression analysis. The methods of design modification are reported for improve the reliabilities. The allowable loads of the CM can be decided accordingly based on the analyzed information.

Origami, the ancient paper folding art has inspired the engineering equipment and design for decades. The basic concept of origami is very general, which leads to applications ranging from small scale to large scale. Recently, researchers are interested in being able to create self-folding structures. Such a structure enables kinematic manipulation by external forces or moments without folding and/or unfolding operations. This is a beneficial application for many fields including aerospace systems, robots, small devices and self-assembly systems. In this paper, the investigation and analyses of the previous literatures on the key driving force of the actuation structure, including the heat, light, electricity, gas and other actuation methods. The aims are to provide researchers and practitioners with the support to systematically understand the latest technologies in this important and evolving field, with inspiration and direction for follow-up.

In the recent years, the development of wind turbines has been so hectic in Taiwan. The design of the turbine blades directly impacts power effectiveness. In this study, the effects of manufacturing parameters and environmental factors on the mechanical properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composites that are used in turbine blades are discussed. Parameters of the manufacturing process affect the mechanical properties. Carbon composites made by a different numbers of layers are tested on various aspects of performance such as mechanical strength and corrosion resistance.

This study investigated the flow bifurcations of flows driven by a pressure gradient in a rectangular curved tube. When fluid flows within a curved tube, due to the centrifugal effect, secondary vortices can be induced in the cross section of the tube. The secondary flow states are dependent on the magnitude of the pressure gradient (q) and the aspect ratio (γ). In this study, the continuation method was applied to investigate the flow bifurcations in a curved tube with increasing pressure gradient (1 < q < 6000) and aspect ratio (0.9 < γ < 1.4).

The bifurcation diagrams are composed of solution branches, which are linked by limiting points or bifurcation points. The flow states in a solution branch belong to the same group. The ranges of the flow states and the relationship between the states can also be derived from the bifurcation diagrams. In this study, two types of bifurcation were found, one in the range of 0.9 < γ < 1.17, and another in the range of 1.18 < γ < 1.4. The ranges of stable flow solutions and the distributions of limit and bifurcation points in both pressure gradient and aspect ratio are derived in this study.

EVA foams, like all other polymers, also exhibit strain-rate effects and hysteresis. However, currently available approaches for predicting the mechanical response of polymeric foam subjected to an arbitrarily imposed loading history and strain-rate effect are highly limited. Especially, the strain rates in the intermediate rate domain (between 100 and 102 s–1) are extremely difficult to study. The use of data generated through the drop tower technique for implementation in constitutive equations or numerical models has not been considered in past studies. In this study, an experiment including a quasi-static compression test and drop impact tests with a high speed camera was conducted. An inverse analysis technique combined with a finite element model for material parameter identification was developed to determine the stress–strain behavior of foam at different specific strain rates. It was used in this study to simulate multiple loading and unloading cycles on foam specimens, and the results were compared with experimental measurements.

Reducers are extensively used in many machines for reducing the speeds of mechanism. This paper proposed a new design of speed reducers to meet the performance requirements in high rigidness and large speed-reduction ratios. The movements of the reducer are designed based on the principles of differential displacements of the deceleration gear rings. The geometric models of the related components were designed using CAD software. The motions of mechanism were simulated for identifying the feasibility of designing including acquiring the kinematic properties. The mathematical models of structural stresses analysis were proposed so that the bending and contact stresses of the gear rings could be evaluated, accordingly. Finite element methods (FEM) were also used to analyze the structural stresses of the reducer. The studied results showed that the bending fracture of the gear rings would prior to its contacting fracture. The allowable loading of the reducer was then established according to the analyzed results of the maximum stresses on various transmitted torques. The methods of reliability evaluation were reported for considering the strength variation and calculating the reliabilities of the reducer at various loadings. The studied results are useful in structural design, stress analysis and reliability evaluation for developing high speed-reduction mechanisms.

This work is to present a formulation of cloaking or concentrating device in acoustics in which the transformed material could be either having uniform bulk modulus or having homogeneous density tensor. The transformed material parameters, depending on the mapping of physical and virtual coordinates, are often position-varying and anisotropic. This often adds substantial complexity in practical implementation. Here we present a theoretical algorithm that allows us to design a transformation field that could have either uniform bulk modulus or constant density tensor. For cloaking devices with constant bulk modulus, analytical and numerical results are presented for circular as well as for non-circular cloaking devices. Specifically, elliptical and twin-cloak devices are exemplified. To achieve the effect of constant density tensor, we consider only circular geometry. Devices with cloaking or concentrating effects can be exactly formulated. We note, however, that it seems unlikely at this moment to have a transformation device that has constant bulk modulus and constant density tensor at the same time. Nevertheless, we remark the present results are of still sufficient merit in that the uniform material parameters, in either set of material parameters, indeed greatly simplify the practice in real implementations.

In this study the Maximum Likelihood Estimator is utilized to identify the characteristics of failure of class-H insulation by considering accelerated life test data under censored situations from Nelson. The hazard rate function is considered in terms of the reliability, h(R), so-called AE model. The AE model is used to model the failures which are expressed as the serial connection between three modes, namely the turn, phase, and ground. This is the so-called competing failure. The main concern in the present investigation relates to the characteristic of changes in cumulative damage with temperature. The characteristic of the damage process basically change, with less capability of cumulation. The failure tends to be unpredictable in a constant hazard rate situation in much higher temperature environments. The parameters of the model are related to the temperature and follow the Arrhenius law. The numerical results indicate that the AE model is well fitted to the data and gives more information to identify the failure modes with fewer parameters. This is better than the using Weibull distribution with both parameters varied with temperature. According to the predicted lifetime, the turn needs to be rearranged primarily, followed by the phase. The ground mode only has influence on the failure at much higher temperatures.

In this study, the fictitious time integration method (FTIM) is applied to investigate wave propagation over an arbitrary bathymetry with measured uncertainty. The FTIM is used to convert the higher-order elliptic mild-slope equation (EMSE) into a FTIM like EMSE (FTIMEMSE). It has the advantage to describe wave transformation from deep water to shallow water region in a large coastal area with numerical efficiency. The validity of the noise resistance for the measured uncertainty of the bathymetry is also studied. In addition, typical examples for waves propagating over an elliptic shoal rest on a horizontal and sloping bottom is presented. It is concluded that the FTIM is robust in the numerical stability and capable of against the noise of the measurement.

This study introduces an equilibrium approach to price mortality-linked securities in a discrete time economy, assuming that the mortality rate has a transformed normal distribution. This pricing method complements current studies on the valuation of mortality-linked securities, which only have discrete trading opportunities and insufficient market trading data. Like the Wang transform, the valuation relationship is still risk-neutral (preference-free) and the mortality-linked security is priced as the expected value of its terminal payoff, discounted by the risk-free rate. This study provides an example of pricing the Swiss Re mortality bond issued in 2003 and obtains an approximated closed-form solution.

Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLA2) is an independent risk factor for CVD and has been proposed as a marker of vascular inflammation. Polyunsaturated n-3 fatty acids (FA) and several n-6 FA are known to suppress inflammation and may influence Lp-PLA2 mass and activity. The associations of n-3 and n-6 plasma FA with Lp-PLA2 mass and activity were analysed using linear regression analysis in 2246 participants of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis; statistical adjustments were made to control for body mass, inflammation, lipids, diabetes, and additional clinical and demographic factors. Lp-PLA2 mass and activity were significantly lower in participants with the higher n-3 FA EPA (β = − 4·72, P< 0·001; β = − 1·53; P= 0·023) and DHA levels (β = − 4·47, β = − 1·87; both P< 0·001). Those in the highest quintiles of plasma EPA and DHA showed 12·71 and 19·15 ng/ml lower Lp-PLA2 mass and 5·7 and 8·90 nmol/min per ml lower Lp-PLA2 activity than those in the first quintiles, respectively. In addition, lower Lp-PLA2 mass and activity were associated with higher levels of n-6 arachidonic acid (β = − 1·63, β = − 1·30; both P< 0·001), while γ-linolenic acid was negatively associated with activity (β = − 27·7, P= 0·027). Lp-PLA2 mass was significantly higher in participants with greater plasma levels of n-6 linoleic (β = 0·828, P= 0·011) and dihomo-γ-linolenic acids (β = 4·17, P= 0·002). Based on their independent associations with Lp-PLA2 mass and activity, certain n-3 and n-6 FA may have additional influences on CVD risk. Intervention studies are warranted to assess whether these macronutrients may directly influence Lp-PLA2 expression or activity.

We report production of a self-injected, collimated (8 mrad divergence), 600 pC bunch of electrons with energies up to 350 MeV from a petawatt laser-driven plasma accelerator in a plasma of electron density ne = 1017 cm−3, an order of magnitude lower than previous self-injected laser-plasma accelerators. The energy of the focused drive laser pulse (150 J, 150 fs) was distributed over several hot spots. Simulations show that these hot spots remained independent over a 5 cm interaction length, and produced weakly nonlinear plasma wakes without bubble formation capable of accelerating pre-heated (~1 MeV) plasma electrons up to the observed energies. The required pre-heating is attributed tentatively to pre-pulse interactions with the plasma.

Rose geranium (Pelargonium graveolens, Geraniaceae) has anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, and promotes wound healing. Similarly, Ganoderma tsugae (Ganodermataceae), Codonopsis pilosula (Campanulaceae) and Angelica sinensis (Apiaceae) are traditional Chinese herbs associated with immunomodulatory functions. In the present study, a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted to examine whether the Chinese medicinal herb complex, RG-CMH, which represents a mixture of rose geranium and extracts of G. tsugae, C. pilosula and A. sinensis, can improve the immune cell count of cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy to prevent leucopenia and immune impairment that usually occurs during cancer therapy. A total of fifty-eight breast cancer patients who received chemotherapy or radiotherapy were enrolled. Immune cell levels in patient serum were determined before, and following, 6 weeks of cancer treatment for patients receiving either an RG-CMH or a placebo. Administration of RG-CMH was associated with a significant reduction in levels of leucocytes from 31·5 % for the placebo group to 13·4 % for the RG-CMH group. Similarly, levels of neutrophils significantly decreased from 35·6 % for the placebo group to 11·0 % for the RG-CMH group. RG-CMH intervention was also associated with a decrease in levels of T cells, helper T cells, cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells compared with the placebo group. However, these differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. In conclusion, administration of RG-CMH to patients receiving chemotherapy/radiotherapy may have the capacity to delay, or ease, the reduction in levels of leucocytes and neutrophils that are experienced by patients during cancer treatment.

The study had indicated that the computational performances of the characteristics method with the time-line cubic spline interpolation are related to the endpoint constraint, especially for large Courant number in which the foot of the characteristic trajectory is located near the endpoint. The first derivative endpoint constraint with higher-order central difference approximation provides better simulation results among various endpoint constraints, but it still induces some degree of numerical error. In this study, by locating the foot of the characteristic trajectory away from the endpoint, the temporal reachout technique is proposed to avoid the effect of endpoint constraint on the time-line cubic spline interpolation. Modeling the transport of a Gaussian concentration distribution in a uniform flow with constant diffusion coefficient and the viscous Burgers equation is used to examine the temporal reachout technique. The outcomes show that the temporal reachout technique yields much better simulation results than the first derivative endpoint constraint with higher-order central difference approximation. The effect of endpoint constraint on the time-line cubic spline interpolation can be greatly diminished by the use of the temporal reachout technique.