Stated in its most basic form, the objective of damage diagnosis is to ascertain simply if damage is present or not based on measured dynamic characteristics of a system to be monitored. In reality, structures are subject to changing environmental and operational conditions that affect measured signals, and environmental and operational variations of the system can often mask subtle changes in ...

Excessive nitrogen and phosphorus can cause eutrophication in water bodies and needs to be reduced in most wastewaters before discharge to receiving waters. The excess biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) process has been shown to be an economical and environmentally compatible method of reducing phosphorus from wastewaters. Despite the complexity of EBPR mechanisms, appropriately designed and ...

We introduce an operational procedure to determine, with arbitrary probability and accuracy, optimal entanglement witnesses for every multipartite entangled state. This method provides an operational criterion for separability which is asymptotically necessary and sufficient. Our results are also generalized to detect all different types of multipartite entanglement.

The relation between the presence of a patent foramen ovale (PFO) and the risk of decompression illness (DCI) remains controversial. PFO is a common finding in the general population, with an autopsy prevalence of about 25%. Recent review articles in the diving literature have concluded the presence of a PFO may increase the relative risk for DCI but the absolute risk remains low. In space oper...