可估量性:经由传统而实现的“神话”——评卡尔·卢埃林的《普通法传统》

《普通法传统》是卢埃林三十多年学术生涯的凝结。它围绕着美国州上诉法院的审理结果是否具有可估量性这个核心问题展开。卢埃林认为当时的美国州上诉法院正处于一种复苏普通法传统,即宏大风格之中。宏大风格实现的是真正的可估量性。但是,真正的可估量性需要存在一种统一的公正标准。

Real-time reliability evaluation based on damaged measurement degradation data

A method was proposed to evaluate the real-time reliability for a single product based on damaged measurement degradation data.Most researches on degradation analysis often assumed that the measurement process did not have any impact on the product's performance.However,in some cases,the measurement process may exert extra stress on products being measured.To obtain trustful results in such a situation,a new degradation model was derived.Then,by fusing the prior information of product and its own on-line degradation data,the real-time reliability was evaluated on the basis of Bayesian formula.To make the proposed method more practical,a procedure based on expectation maximization (EM) algorithm was presented to estimate the unknown parameters.Finally,the performance of the proposed method was illustrated by a simulation study.The results show that ignoring the influence of the damaged measurement process can lead to biased evaluation results,if the damaged measurement process is involved.

A complexity-scalable software-based MPEG-2 video encoder

With the development of general-purpose processors (GPP) and video signal processing algorithms, it is possible to implement a software-based real-time video encoder on GPP, and its low cost and easy upgrade attract developers' interests to transfer video encoding from specialized hardware to more flexible software. In this paper, the encoding structure is set up first to support complexity scalability; then a lot of high performance algorithms are used on the key time-consuming modules in coding process; finally, at programming level, processor characteristics are considered to improve data access efficiency and processing parallelism. Other programming methods such as lookup table are adopted to reduce the computational complexity. Simulation results showed that these ideas could not only improve the global performance of video coding, but also provide great flexibility in complexity regulation.

Nonlinear Mixed-Effects Models for Repairable Systems Reliability

Mixed-effects models,also called random-effects models,are a regression type of analysis which enables the analyst to not only describe the trend over time within each subject,but also to describe the variation among different subjects.Nonlinear mixed-effects models provide a powerful and flexible tool for handling the unbalanced count data.In this paper,nonlinear mixed-effects models are used to analyze the failure data from a repairable system with multiple copies.By using this type of models,statistical inferences about the population and all copies can be made when accounting for copy-to-copy variance.Results of fitting nonlinear mixed-effects models to nine failure-data sets show that the nonlinear mixed-effects models provide a useful tool for analyzing the failure data from multi-copy repairable systems.

Reliable evaluation method of quality control for compressive strength of concrete

Concrete in reinforced concrete structure (RC) is generally under significant compressive stress load. To guarantee required quality and ductility, various tests have to be conducted to measure the concrete’s compressive strength based on ACI (American Concrete Institute) code. Investigations of recent devastating collapses of structures around the world showed that some of the collapses directly resulted from the poor quality of the concrete. The lesson learned from these tragedies is that guaranteeing high quality of concrete is one of the most important factors ensuring the safety of the reinforced concrete structure. In order to ensure high quality of concrete, a new method for analyzing and evaluating the concrete production process is called for. In this paper, the indices of fit and stable degree are proposed as basis to evaluate the fitness and stability of concrete’s compressive strength. These two indices are combined to define and evaluate the quality index of the compressive strength of concrete. Prin-ciples of statistics are used to derive the best estimators of these indices. Based on the outcome of the study, a concrete compres-sive strength quality control chart is proposed as a tool to help the evaluation process. Finally, a new evaluation procedure to assess the quality control capability of the individual concrete manufacturer is also proposed.

Fair Value Disclosure, External Appraisers, and the Reliability of Fair Value Measurements

By developing an analytical model, this paper examines the role of the ＂external appraiser＂ as a tool to face the informational asymmetry issue related to fair value measurements. A comparison between such a signaling mechanism and a ＂full fair value disclosure＂ is firstly carried out, highlighting variables affecting the efficiency and the effectiveness of both information strategies. Then, recovering the traditional distinction between ＂protective disclosure＂ （hard information） and ＂informative disclosure＂ （soft information）, this paper demonstrates how the former could significantly increase the positive effects associated to an employment of an independent valuer, reaching some conclusions useful to the standard setting process.

Numerical Heat Transfer Modelling for Rapid Impact Assessment of Limiting Thermostat Reliability on Fuel-Oil Burner Pre-Heaters： A Case Study

In this paper, the impact of limiting thermostat on the rupture event occuring in Fuel-Oil burner fuel pre-heaters＇ resistant （heat generating） wires is inspected numerically. Gaseous fuel content in the pipeline has also been issued as a possibility. Heater＇s inner temperature distributions have been simulated by an in-house MATrix LABoratory （MATLAB） script in order to understand the resistant wire exposure to high temperatures by numerous scenarios. It is concluded that the effect of fuel flowrate is not a major effect on the wires＇ fate because of the limiting thermostat co-working. The main difference between the calculations is the effect of thermostat cut off function. The numerical simulations enlightened the dominant effect of thermostat sensing delay, so the overheating event. Intolerable delay results with a quick drop in the thermal efficiency and an increased possibility on wire rupture due to overheating which means a burner malfunction. Referring to the first numerical simulation results, a distributed and reduced heat flux was implemented with the same fluid and thermodynamic properties on a revised pre-heater model with an increased heater plate. The increment, thus the reduction on the heat flux of the ribbon wires has been noted as the key for safe operation.