Math. Comput. Appl., Volume 27, Issue 1 (February 2022) – 17 articles

Practitioners in all applied domains value simple and adaptable lifetime distributions. They make it possible to create statistical models that are relatively easy to manage. A novel simple lifetime distribution with two parameters is proposed in this article. It is based on a parametric mixture of the exponential and weighted exponential distributions, with a mixture weight depending on a parameter of the involved distribution; no extra parameter is added in this mixture operation. It can also be viewed as a special generalized mixture of two exponential distributions. This decision is based on sound mathematical and physical reasoning; the weight modification allows us to combine some joint properties of the exponential and weighted exponential distribution, which are known as complementary in several modeling aspects. As a result, the proposed distribution may have a decreasing or unimodal probability density function and possess the demanded increasing hazard rate property. Other properties are studied, such as the moments, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves, Rényi entropy, stress-strength reliability, and mean residual life function. Subsequently, a part is devoted to the associated model, which demonstrates how it can be used in a real-world statistical scenario involving data. In this regard, we demonstrate how the estimated model performs well using five different estimation methods and simulated data. The analysis of two data sets demonstrates these excellent results. The new model is compared to the weighted exponential, Weibull, gamma, and generalized exponential models for performance. The obtained comparison results are overwhelmingly in favor of the proposed model according to some standard criteria. Full article

By fusing the Lindley and Lomax distributions, we present a unique three-parameter continuous model titled the minimum Lindley Lomax distribution. The quantile function, ordinary and incomplete moments, moment generating function, Lorenz and Bonferroni curves, order statistics, Rényi entropy, stress strength model, and stochastic sequencing are all carefully examined as basic statistical aspects of the new distribution. The characterizations of the new model are investigated. The proposed distribution’s parameters were evaluated using the maximum likelihood procedures. The stability of the parameter estimations is explored using a Monte Carlo simulation. Two applications are used to objectively assess the new model’s extensibility. Full article

We present a new algorithm to design lightweight cellular materials with required properties in a multi-physics context. In particular, we focus on a thermo-elastic setting by promoting the design of unit cells characterized both by an isotropic and an anisotropic behavior with respect to mechanical and thermal requirements. The proposed procedure generalizes the microSIMPATY algorithm to a thermo-elastic framework by preserving all the good properties of the reference design methodology. The resulting layouts exhibit non-standard topologies and are characterized by very sharp contours, thus limiting the post-processing before manufacturing. The new cellular materials are compared with the state-of-art in engineering practice in terms of thermo-elastic properties, thus highlighting the good performance of the new layouts which, in some cases, outperform the consolidated choices. Full article

A spline-based integral approximation is utilized to define a sequence of approximations to the error function that converge at a significantly faster manner than the default Taylor series. The real case is considered and the approximations can be improved by utilizing the approximation $\mathrm{erf}\left(x\right)\approx 1$ for $\left|x\right|>x_o$ and with $x_o$ optimally chosen. Two generalizations are possible; the first is based on demarcating the integration interval into m equally spaced subintervals. The second, is based on utilizing a larger fixed subinterval, with a known integral, and a smaller subinterval whose integral is to be approximated. Both generalizations lead to significantly improved accuracy. Furthermore, the initial approximations, and those arising from the first generalization, can be utilized as inputs to a custom dynamic system to establish approximations with better convergence properties. Indicative results include those of a fourth-order approximation, based on four subintervals, which leads to a relative error bound of 1.43 × 10⁻⁷ over the interval $\left[0, \infty \right]$. The corresponding sixteenth-order approximation achieves a relative error bound of 2.01 × 10⁻¹⁹. Various approximations that achieve the set relative error bounds of 10⁻⁴, 10⁻⁶, 10⁻¹⁰, and 10⁻¹⁶, over $\left[0, \infty \right]$, are specified. Applications include, first, the definition of functions that are upper and lower bounds, of arbitrary accuracy, for the error function. Second, new series for the error function. Third, new sequences of approximations for $\exp (-x^2)$ that have significantly higher convergence properties than a Taylor series approximation. Fourth, the definition of a complementary demarcation function $e_C(x)$ that satisfies the constraint $e_C^2(x)+{\mathrm{erf}}^2(x)=1$. Fifth, arbitrarily accurate approximations for the power and harmonic distortion for a sinusoidal signal subject to an error function nonlinearity. Sixth, approximate expressions for the linear filtering of a step signal that is modeled by the error function. Full article

A bounded form of the Teissier distribution, namely the unit Teissier distribution, is introduced. It is subjected to a thorough examination of its important properties, including shape analysis of the main functions, analytical expression for moments based on upper incomplete gamma function, incomplete moments, probability-weighted moments, and quantile function. The uncertainty measures Shannon entropy and extropy are also performed. The maximum likelihood estimation, least square estimation, weighted least square estimation, and Bayesian estimation methods are used to estimate the parameters of the model, and their respective performances are assessed via a simulation study. Finally, the competency of the proposed model is illustrated by using two data sets from diverse fields. Full article

The COVID-19 epidemic is an unprecedented and major social and economic challenge worldwide due to the various restrictions. Inflow of infective immigrants have not been given prominence in several mathematical and epidemiological models. To investigate the impact of imported infection on the number of deaths, cumulative infected and cumulative asymptomatic, we formulate a mathematical model with infective immigrants and considering vaccination. The basic reproduction number of the special case of the model without immigration of infective people is derived. We varied two key factors that affect the transmission of COVID-19, namely the immigration and vaccination rates. In addition, we considered two different SARS-CoV-2 transmissibilities in order to account for new more contagious variants such as Omicron. Numerical simulations using initial conditions approximating the situation in the US when the vaccination program was starting show that increasing the vaccination rate significantly improves the outcomes regarding the number of deaths, cumulative infected and cumulative asymptomatic. Other factors are the natural recovery rates of infected and asymptomatic individuals, the waning rate of the vaccine and the vaccination rate. When the immigration rate is increased significantly, the number of deaths, cumulative infected and cumulative asymptomatic increase. Consequently, accounting for the level of inflow of infective immigrants may help health policy/decision-makers to formulate policies for public health prevention programs, especially with respect to the implementation of the stringent preventive lock down measure. Full article

This paper is designed to explore the asymptotic behaviour of a two dimensional visco-elastic plate equation with a logarithmic nonlinearity under the influence of nonlinear frictional damping. Assuming that relaxation function g satisfies $g^{\prime }\left(t\right)\le -\xi \left(t\right)\mathbb{G}\left(g\left(t\right)\right)$, we establish an explicit general decay rates without imposing a restrictive growth assumption on the damping term. This general condition allows us to recover the exponential and polynomial rates. Our results improve and extend some existing results in the literature. We preform some numerical experiments to illustrate our theoretical results. Full article

The objective of the current numerical study is to explore the combined natural and forced convection and energy transport in a channel with an open cavity. An adiabatic baffle of finite length is attached to the top wall. The sinusoidal heating is implemented on the lower horizontal wall of the open cavity. The other areas of the channel cavity are treated as adiabatic. The governing equations are solved by the control volume technique for various values of relevant factors. The drag force, bulk temperature and average Nusselt number are computed. It is recognised that recirculating eddies beside the baffle become weak or disappear upon increasing the inclination angle of the channel/cavity. The average thermal energy transportation reduces steadily until the Ri = 1 and then it rises for all inclination angles and lengths of the baffle. Full article

In this paper, a new approach to investigating the unsteady natural convection flow of viscous fluid over a moveable inclined plate with exponential heating is carried out. The mathematical modeling is based on fractional treatment of the governing equation subject to the temperature, velocity and concentration field. Innovative definitions of time fractional operators with singular and non-singular kernels have been working on the developed constitutive mass, energy and momentum equations. The fractionalized analytical solutions based on special functions are obtained by using Laplace transform method to tackle the non-dimensional partial differential equations for velocity, mass and energy. Our results propose that by increasing the value of the Schimdth number and Prandtl number the concentration and temperature profiles decreased, respectively. The presence of a Prandtl number increases the thermal conductivity and reflects the control of thickness of momentum. The experimental results for flow features are shown in graphs over a limited period of time for various parameters. Furthermore, some special cases for the movement of the plate are also studied and results are demonstrated graphically via Mathcad-15 software. Full article

Thermal simulations are an important part of the design process in many engineering disciplines. In simulation-based design approaches, a considerable amount of time is spent by repeated simulations. An alternative, fast simulation tool would be a welcome addition to any automatized and simulation-based optimisation workflow. In this work, we present a proof-of-concept study of the application of convolutional neural networks to accelerate thermal simulations. We focus on the thermal aspect of electronic systems. The goal of such a tool is to provide accurate approximations of a full solution, in order to quickly select promising designs for more detailed investigations. Based on a training set of randomly generated circuits with corresponding finite element solutions, the full 3D steady-state temperature field is estimated using a fully convolutional neural network. A custom network architecture is proposed which captures the long-range correlations present in heat conduction problems. We test the network on a separate dataset and find that the mean relative error is around 2% and the typical evaluation time is 35 ms per sample (2 ms for evaluation, 33 ms for data transfer). The benefit of this neural-network-based approach is that, once training is completed, the network can be applied to any system within the design space spanned by the randomized training dataset (which includes different components, material properties, different positioning of components on a PCB, etc.). Full article

Gearboxes are widely used in industrial processes as mechanical power transmission systems. Then, gearbox failures can affect other parts of the system and produce economic loss. The early detection of the possible failure modes and their severity assessment in such devices is an important field of research. Data-driven approaches usually require an exhaustive development of pipelines including models’ parameter optimization and feature selection. This paper takes advantage of the recent Auto Machine Learning (AutoML) tools to propose proper feature and model selection for three failure modes under different severity levels: broken tooth, pitting and crack. The performance of 64 statistical condition indicators (SCI) extracted from vibration signals under the three failure modes were analyzed by two AutoML systems, namely the H2O Driverless AI platform and TPOT, both of which include feature engineering and feature selection mechanisms. In both cases, the systems converged to different types of decision tree methods, with ensembles of XGBoost models preferred by H2O while TPOT generated different types of stacked models. The models produced by both systems achieved very high, and practically equivalent, performances on all problems. Both AutoML systems converged to pipelines that focus on very similar subsets of features across all problems, indicating that several problems in this domain can be solved by a rather small set of 10 common features, with accuracy up to 90%. This latter result is important in the research of useful feature selection for gearbox fault diagnosis. Full article

This paper studies erosion at the tip of wind turbine blades by considering aerodynamic analysis, modal analysis and predictive machine learning modeling. Erosion can be caused by several factors and can affect different parts of the blade, reducing its dynamic performance and useful life. The ability to detect and quantify erosion on a blade is an important predictive maintenance task for wind turbines that can have broad repercussions in terms of avoiding serious damage, improving power efficiency and reducing downtimes. This study considers both sides of the leading edge of the blade (top and bottom), evaluating the mechanical imbalance caused by the material loss that induces variations of the power coefficient resulting in a loss in efficiency. The QBlade software is used in our analysis and load calculations are preformed by using blade element momentum theory. Numerical results show the performance of a blade based on the relationship between mechanical damage and aerodynamic behavior, which are then validated on a physical model. Moreover, two machine learning (ML) problems are posed to automatically detect the location of erosion (top of the edge, bottom or both) and to determine erosion levels (from 8% to 18%) present in the blade. The first problem is solved using classification models, while the second is solved using ML regression, achieving accurate results. ML pipelines are automatically designed by using an AutoML system with little human intervention, achieving highly accurate results. This work makes several contributions by developing ML models to both detect the presence and location of erosion on a blade, estimating its level and applying AutoML for the first time in this domain. Full article

Four discrete models, using the exact spectral derivative discretization finite difference (ESDDFD) method, are proposed for a chaotic five-dimensional, conformable fractional derivative financial system incorporating ethics and market confidence. Since the system considered was recently studied using the conformable Euler finite difference (CEFD) method and found to be hyperchaotic, and the CEFD method was recently shown to be valid only at fractional index $\alpha =1$, the source of the hyperchaos is in question. Through numerical experiments, illustration is presented that the hyperchaos previously detected is, in part, an artifact of the CEFD method, as it is absent from the ESDDFD models. Full article

The development of operator theory is stimulated by the need to solve problems emerging from several fields in mathematics and physics. At the present time, this theory has wide applications in the study of non-linear differential equations, in linear transport theory, in the theory of diffraction of acoustic and electromagnetic waves, in the theory of scattering and of inverse scattering, among others. In our work, we use the computer algebra system Mathematica to implement, for the first time on a computer, analytical algorithms developed by us and others within operator theory. The main goal of this paper is to present new operator theory algorithms related to Cauchy type singular integrals, defined in the unit circle. The design of these algorithms was focused on the possibility of implementing on a computer all the extensive symbolic and numeric calculations present in the algorithms. Several nontrivial examples computed with the algorithms are presented. The corresponding source code of the algorithms has been made available as a supplement to the online edition of this article. Full article

With the rapid advancement of sensor and network technology, there has been a notable increase in the availability of condition-monitoring data such as vibration, temperature, pressure, voltage, and other electrical and mechanical parameters. With the introduction of big data, it is possible to prevent potential failures and estimate the remaining useful life of the equipment by developing advanced mathematical models and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. These approaches allow taking maintenance actions quickly and appropriately. In this scenario, this paper presents a systematic literature review of statistical inference approaches, stochastic methods, and AI techniques for predictive maintenance in the automotive sector. It provides a summary on these approaches, their main results, challenges, and opportunities, and it supports new research works for vehicle predictive maintenance. Full article

The use of technological learning tools has been increasingly recognized as a useful tool to promote students’ motivation to deal with, and understand, mathematics concepts. Current digital technology allows students to work interactively with a large number and variety of graphics, complementing the theoretical results and often used paper and pencil calculations. The computer algebra system Mathematica is a very powerful software that allows the implementation of many interactive visual applications. The main goal of this work is to show how some new dynamic and interactive tools, created with Mathematica and available in the Computable Document Format (CDF), can be used as active learning tools to promote better student activity and engagement in the learning process. The CDF format allows anyone with a computer to use them, at no cost, even without an active Wolfram Mathematica license. Besides that, the presented tools are very intuitive to use which makes it suitable for less experienced users. Some tools applicable to several mathematics concepts taught in higher education will be presented. This kind of tools can be used either in a remote or classroom learning environment. The corresponding CDF files are made available as supplement of the online edition of this article. Full article