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| 2. |
- Larsson, Andreas, 1968-, et al.
(author)
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On the Parameter Identifiability and Test Data Informativeness in Finite Element Model Error Localization
- 2000
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In: Proceedings of IMAC XVIII. - San Antonio, TX. ; , s. 1520-1527, s. 1520-1527
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Two fundamental questions that arise in finite ele- ment model updating and error localization prob- lems are addressed. These are whether available test data are informative enough with respect to the quantification of possible model errors and whether sufficient identifiability of such errors is at hand for a given test data set. We advocate the use of informativeness and identifiability based indices in a preparatory process to increase the likelihood of a successful error localization. Based on model properties, such informativeness and identifiability indices may be used in the pre-test planning for the determination of frequency, time and spatial resolution to be used in a vibratory test. First, the test data informativeness with respect to model parameters which might be in error is quan- tified. Here a dual assumption is made such that if model parameter perturbations could be detected by data from the planned test, then the test data could be used to detect such perturbations, i.e. the test is informative. A Data Information Richness (DIR) index has been developed to assess the level od Data Informativeness with respect to model parameters. Secondly, the identifiability of the model parame- ters are studied. The dynamic properties of a struc- ture, as recorded by a measurement system, may under certain conditions change similarly by changing one parameter or a set of other parameters. Should that be the case, there is no identifi- ability and before a meaningful error localization may take place, either complementary test data have to be added or a re-parameterization of the model has to be made. To assess the identifiability, identifiability based criteria are further developed, based on earlier work by the authors. A newly developed orthogonality/co-linearity index ocI assist in the re-parameterization of systems with low identifiability. The methods of preparatory error localisation are applied to a six-degree-of-freedom system in a numerical example in which the analytical results of a finite element analysis are taken as substitute for measured data.
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| 4. |
- Abrahamsson, Thomas, 1968-
(author)
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Can Lactobacillus Reuteri Prevent Allergic Disease in Early Childhood?
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: An altered microbial exposure may be partly responsible for the increase of allergic diseases in populations with a western lifestyle. Activation of the immune system by microbes early in life is probably required for an accurate maturation of the immune system. Probiotics, live bacteria which are considered to confer health when ingested, have been suggested to prevent eczema and sensitisation infants.Aim: The general aim of this thesis was to assess the effect of oral supplementation with the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri) in infancy on the development of allergic disease and sensitisation during the first 2 years of life and to examine mechanisms possibly underlying eventual effects on allergic manifestations.Subjects: The thesis is based on results obtained from a prospective double-blind placebo-controlled multicenter trial, comprising 232 families with allergic disease, of whom 188 completed the study.Methods: The families were recruited at the antenatal clinic, and the mothers received L. reuteri ATCC 55730 (1 x 108 colony forming units) or placebo daily from gestational week 36 until delivery. Their babies then continued with the same study product from birth until 12 months of age and were followed up for another year. The primary outcomes were allergic disease, with or without positive skin prick test or circulating IgE to food allergens. Bacterial counts and prevalence were assessed in maternal breast milk and faeces and infant faeces, employing conventional cultivation methods. Cytokines and IgA antibodies were analysed in colostrum and mature milk from the mothers with ELISA, and Na/K- ratio in breast milk with ion selective electrodes. Circulating Th1/Th2-associated chemokines were analysed in cord and peripheral blood in the infants with Luminex or ELISA technique.Results: The incidence of eczema was similar, 36% in the treated versus 34% in the placebo group. The L. reuteri group had a lower cumulative incidence of IgE-associated allergic disease, 20% versus 35% (p=0.04), and less IgE-associated eczema during the second year, 8% versus 20% (p=0.02). The prevalence of L. reuteri was higher during the first year of life in stool samples from infants, as well as in colostrum, in the active as compared to the placebo treated group. Colostrum from L. reuteri supplemented mothers had lower levels of TGF-β2, and low levels of this cytokine were associated with less sensitisation. Low Th1- and high Th2-associated chemokine levels preceded allergic disease. The presence of L. reuteri in stool was associated with lower levels of the Th2-associated chemokines CCL17 and CCL22 and higher levels of the Th1-associated CXCL11.Conclusion: Although a preventive effect of probiotics on infant eczema was not confirmed, the L. reuteri treated infants had lower incidence of IgE-associated allergic disease at two years of age, and therefore possibly run a reduced risk to develop later respiratory allergic disease. The mechanisms underlying this effect require further elucidation.
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| 5. |
- Abrahamsson, Thomas R, 1968-, et al.
(author)
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Probiotics in prevention of IgE-associated eczema : a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial
- 2007
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In: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. - : Elsevier BV. - 0091-6749 .- 1097-6825. ; 119:5, s. 1174-1180
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- BACKGROUND: An altered microbial exposure may underlie the increase of allergic diseases in affluent societies. Probiotics may alleviate and even prevent eczema in infants. OBJECTIVE: To prevent eczema and sensitization in infants with a family history of allergic disease by oral supplementation with the probiotic Lactobacillus reuteri. METHODS: Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, which comprised 232 families with allergic disease, of whom 188 completed the study. The mothers received L reuteri ATCC 55730 (1 x 10(8) colony forming units) daily from gestational week 36 until delivery. Their babies then continued with the same product from birth until 12 months of age and were followed up for another year. Primary outcome was allergic disease, with or without positive skin prick test or circulating IgE to food allergens. RESULTS: The cumulative incidence of eczema was similar, 36% in the treated versus 34% in the placebo group. The L reuteri group had less IgE-associated eczema during the second year, 8% versus 20% (P = .02), however. Skin prick test reactivity was also less common in the treated than in the placebo group, significantly so for infants with mothers with allergies, 14% versus 31% (P = .02). Wheeze and other potentially allergic diseases were not affected. CONCLUSION: Although a preventive effect of probiotics on infant eczema was not confirmed, the treated infants had less IgE-associated eczema at 2 years of age and therefore possibly run a reduced risk to develop later respiratory allergic disease. CLINICAL IMPLICATION: Probiotics may reduce the incidence of IgE-associated eczema in infancy.
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| 6. |
- Ashwear, Nasseradeen, 1968-
(author)
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Vibration-based Assessment of Tensegrity Structures
- 2016
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Vibration structural health monitoring (VHM) uses the vibration properties to evaluate many civil structures during the design steps, building steps and service life.The whole function, expressed by stiffness and frequencies of tensegrity structures are primarily related to the level of pre-stress. The present work investigates the possibilities to use this relation in designing, constructing and evaluating the tensegrity structures.One of the aims of the thesis was to improve the current models for resonance frequency simulation of tensegrities. This has been achieved by introducing the bending behaviour of all components, and by a one-way coupling between the axial force and the stiffness.The environmental temperature effects on vibration properties of tensegrity structures have been also investigated. Changes in dynamic characteristics due to temperature variations were compared with the changes due to decreasing pre-tension in one of the cables. In general, it is shown that the change in structural frequencies coming from temperature changes could of several magnitude as those from damage.Coinciding natural frequencies and low stiffness are known issues of tensegrity structures. The former can be an obstacle in VHM, while the later normally limits their uses in real engineering applications. It has been shown that the optimum self-stress vector of tensegrity structures can be chosen such that their lowest natural frequency is high, and separated from others.The environmental temperature effects on vibration properties of tensegrity structures were revisited to find a solution such that the natural frequencies of the tensegrity structures are not strongly affected by the changes in the environmental temperature. An asymmetric self-stress vector can be chosen so that the criterion is fulfilled as well as possible. The level of pre-stress can also be regulated to achieve the solution. The last part of this thesis, services as a summary of the work.
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| 7. |
- Chen, Yousheng, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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A Pretest Planning Method for Model Calibration for Nonlinear Systems
- 2016
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In: Model Validation and Uncertainty Quantification, Volume 3. - Cham : Springer. - 2191-5644 .- 2191-5652. - 9783319297538 - 9783319297545 ; , s. 371-379
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- With increasing demands on more flexible and lighter engineering structures, it has been more common to take nonlinearity into account. Model calibration is an important procedure for nonlinear analysis in structural dynamics with many industrial applications. Pretest planning plays a key role in the previously proposed calibration method for nonlinear systems, which is based on multi-harmonic excitation and an effective optimization routine. This paper aims to improve the pretest planning strategy for the proposed calibration method. In this study, the Fisher information matrix (FIM), which is calculated from the gradients with respect to the chosen parameters with unknown values, is used for determining the locations, frequency range, and the amplitudes of the excitations as well as the sensor placements. This pretest planning based model calibration method is validated by a structure with clearance nonlinearity. Synthetic test data is used to simulate the test procedure. Model calibration and K-fold cross validation are conducted for the optimum configurations selected from the pretest planning as well as three other configurations. The calibration and cross validation results show that a more accurate estimation of parameters can be obtained by using test data from the optimum configuration.
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| 8. |
- Chen, Yousheng, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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An Efficient Simulation Method for Large-Scale Systems with Local Nonlinearities
- 2016
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In: Special topics in structural dynamics, 34th IMAC. - Cham : Springer. - 2191-5644 .- 2191-5652. - 9783319299105 - 9783319299099
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In practice, most mechanical systems show nonlinear characteristics within the operational envelope. However, the nonlinearities are often caused by local phenomena and many mechanical systems can be well represented by a linear model enriched with local nonlinearities. Conventional nonlinear response simulations are often computationally intensive; the problem which becomes more severe when large-scale nonlinear systems are concerned. Thus, there is a need to further develop efficient simulation techniques. In this work, an efficient simulation method for large-scale systems with local nonlinearities is proposed. The method is formulated in a state-space form and the simulations are done in the Matlab environment. The nonlinear system is divided into a linearized system and a nonlinear part represented as external nonlinear forces acting on the linear system; thus taking advantage in the computationally superiority in the locally nonlinear system description compared to a generally nonlinear counterpart. The triangular-order hold exponential integrator is used to obtain a discrete state-space form. To shorten the simulation time additionally, auxiliary matrices, similarity transformation and compiled C-codes (mex) to be used for the time integration are studied. Comparisons of the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method in relation to simulations using the ODE45 solver in Matlab and MSC Nastran are demonstrated on numerical examples of different model sizes.
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| 9. |
- Chen, Yousheng, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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Experimental Validation of a Nonlinear Model Calibration Method Based on Multiharmonic Frequency Responses
- 2017
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In: Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics. - : ASME Press. - 1555-1415 .- 1555-1423. ; 12:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Correlation and calibration using test data are natural ingredients in the process of validating computational models. Model calibration for the important subclass of nonlinear systems which consists of structures dominated by linear behavior with the presence of local nonlinear effects is studied in this work. The experimental validation of a nonlinear model calibration method is conducted using a replica of the École Centrale de Lyon (ECL) nonlinear benchmark test setup. The calibration method is based on the selection of uncertain model parameters and the data that form the calibration metric together with an efficient optimization routine. The parameterization is chosen so that the expected covariances of the parameter estimates are made small. To obtain informative data, the excitation force is designed to be multisinusoidal and the resulting steady-state multiharmonic frequency response data are measured. To shorten the optimization time, plausible starting seed candidates are selected using the Latin hypercube sampling method. The candidate parameter set giving the smallest deviation to the test data is used as a starting point for an iterative search for a calibration solution. The model calibration is conducted by minimizing the deviations between the measured steady-state multiharmonic frequency response data and the analytical counterparts that are calculated using the multiharmonic balance method. The resulting calibrated model's output corresponds well with the measured responses.
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| 10. |
- Chen, Yousheng, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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Frequency Response Calculations of a Nonlinear Structure a Comparison of Numerical Methods
- 2014
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In: Nonlinear Dynamics, Volume 2. - Cham : Springer. - 9783319045221 - 9783319045221 ; 2, s. 35-44
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Mechanical systems having presence of nonlinearities are often represented by nonlinear ordinary differential 5 equations. For most of such equations, exact analytic solutions are not found; thus numerical techniques have to be used. 6 In many applications, among which model calibration can be one, steady-state frequency response functions are the desired 7 quantities to calculate. 8 The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of computations of nonlinear frequency response functions 9 (FRFs) calculated directly within the frequency domain, using the Multi-Harmonic Balance method, with the time-domain 10 methods Runge–Kutta, Newmark and Pseudo Force in State Space (PFSS). The PFSS method is a recently developed state- 11 space based force feedback method that is shown to give efficient solutions. 12 The accuracy and efficiency of the methods are studied and compared using a model of a cantilever beam connected to a 13 non-linear spring at its free end.
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