The performance of a reliability system can be improved by different methods, e.g. the reliability of one or more components can be improved, hot or cold redundant components can be added to the system. Sometimes these measures can be equivalent as they will have the same effect on some performance measure of the system. This paper discusses the reliability equivalences of a series-parallel sys...

A methodology to estimate the discharge along rivers, even poorly gauged ones, taking advantage of water level measurements derived from satellite altimetry is proposed. The procedure is based on the application of the Rating Curve Model (RCM), a simple method allowing for the estimation of the flow conditions in a river section using only water levels recorded at that site and the discharges o...

In this paper, based on the kinematic accuracy theory and matrix-based system reliability analysis method, a practical method for system reliability analysis of the kinematic performance of planar linkageswith correlated failuremodes is proposed. The Taylor series expansion is utilized to derive a general expression of the kinematic performance errors caused by random variables. A proper limit ...

Online collaborative communities are now ubiquitous. Identifying the nature of the events that drive contributors to withdraw from a project is of prime importance to ensure the sustainability of those communities. Previous studies used ad hoc criteria to identify withdrawn contributors, preventing comparisons between results and introducing interpretation biases. This paper compares different ...

The Turing Test is of limited use for programs falling far short of human performance levels. We suggest an extension of Turing’s idea to a more differentiated measure the "Turing Ratio" which provides a framework for comparing both human and algorithmic task performance. Games provide an example of the concepts. It is argued that evolutionary computation is a key method for amplifying human in...