Term Sheet Research Articles

Validity and Practically of Learning Resources Flipbook Identification of Basidiomycota Mushrooms for Senior High School Students

The aim of this research is to describe validity flipbook type e-book in terms of the feasibility content, language, and display; and describe the practicality of an e-book in terms of an implementation observation. The method used in this study is a modified research and development method and was carried out at the Postgraduate Science Education, the State University of Surabaya in February 2020 - August 2021. The data collection technique was carried out using the validation method and the implementation observation method. The assessment instrument uses a validation sheet and an implementation observation sheet. The validity of the flipbook type e-book is reviewed from the feasibility of the content, the feasibility of the language, and the feasibility of the display. The validity of the flipbook-type e-book was assessed by three validators which included two biology lecturers and one biology teacher. For practicality, use the implementation observation sheet in terms of the use of flipbooks during the learning process. The observation sheet contains statements that will be filled out by four observers. Data analysis was carried out quantitatively. The developed e-book was tested on 20 students of class X Senior High School students in August 2021. The validation results of the flipbook type e-book by three validators obtained an average score of 3.84 with a very valid category. Based on practicality in terms of implementation, flipbooks get an average percentage of 87.2%. Thus, the flipbook-type e-book on the identification of Basidiomycota fungi is declared valid and practical.

Numerical investigation on the effect of different face sheet materials and core designs on the ballistic response of sandwich structures under low-velocity impact

In the present article, a detailed numerical deformation and failure analysis of sandwiched structures with different face sheet materials and core design has been carried out. Different face sheets materials ranging from aluminium alloys to composites such as carbon/epoxy and kevlar/epoxy fixed on different types of core were analyzed. Sandwiched structure with aluminium alloy face sheet showed minimum deformation of the impacting point, large impactor recoil and least strain energy absorption. Whereas carbon/epoxy face sheet showed large deformation of the impacting point for all the core designs. Employing the carbon/epoxy face sheet, the impactor recoiled only with square and hexagonal core design while the strain energy absorption was minimum for square and maximum for circular core designs. Kevlar/epoxy face sheet also showed large deformation of the impacting point for all the types of honeycomb core designs. The impactor recoiled very minimally for square core design and there was no recoil for the hexagonal and circular core. Kevlar/epoxy face sheet showed maximum displacement of the impacting point and strain energy absorption for the circular core. Thus, it can be said that sandwiched structure with a carbon/epoxy face sheet appeared to be the best choice in terms of energy absorption during the impact. The present study showed improvement in ballistic behaviour of sandwich structure with composite face sheet as compared to metallic face sheet in terms of energy absorption.

Formulation of weekly and monthly thumb rule models for prediction of potential productivity of sunflower in Punjab


 A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of meteorological parameters on Sunflower crop by analyzing meteorological and crop data (2003-2017) for three locations (Ludhiana, Ballowal Saunkhari and Amritsar) and to develop weather based “Weekly and Monthly Thumb Rule Models” for predicting the potential yield of sunflower crop in Punjab. These climatic normals were used for comparing the actual data to evaluate the effect of meteorological parameters on the yield of sunflower. In Punjab, ideally humid (maximum relative humidity between 77% - 94%) weather from mid-February to mid-March is favourable for optimum growth and development of vegetative stage in crop. The warm temperature (>35 ºC) during the seed development period after the flowering stage of sunflower is favourable for seed yield. However, heavy rainfall in the months of April and May with cloudy weather (sunshine hour < 9.2 hour) are not favourable for its productivity. The actual meteorological data of high yield crop years over the past 15 years were analyzed for different growth stages of sunflower to work out the critical ranges of meteorological parameters. Weather based “Thumb Rule Models” using the weekly and monthly meteorological data for different growth stages were formulated for use in developing the crop weather insurance term sheets and also predicting the potential yield of sunflower crop.

Roles of paper composition and humidity on the adhesion between paper sheet and glass: a molecular dynamics study

Understanding adhesion behavior between paper materials and inorganic substrate is important to minimize surface contamination by paper fragments. In this work, we investigate adhesion mechanisms between paper sheet and glass in terms of molecular interaction. Molecular dynamics simulations are employed to calculate adhesion force between paper film and the silica glass surfaces. Pulling and sliding tests are simulated to find the effects of the paper compositions such as glucan, mannan, and glucuronoxylan (xylan) and humidity on the adhesion. Simulation results reveal that artificially constructed film of mannan unit shows higher adhesion than that of cellulose film which consists of glucan unit due to more amount of hydroxyl groups on the silica surface. Adhesion force of xylan-cellulose composite case by pulling test is 40% lower than cellulose-only case, whereas during the sliding test, adhesion force of the former is 100% higher than the latter. It turns out that this difference comes from the existence of nanocavity around the xylan molecule when the composite is adsorbed on the silica surface. In addition, introduction of humidity leads to a further increase of adhesion due to hydrogen bonds bridged by water molecules. It is found that the adhesion force is maximized around surface density of 10 H2O/nm2. It is discussed that consideration of the capillary force for paper may result in different adhesion response that reflects more realistic situation.

Return mapping with a line search method for integrating stress of the distortional hardening law with differential softening

A stress-update algorithm for the recently proposed distortional anisotropic hardening law is developed based on the Newton–Raphson (N–R) algorithm and line search method. The investigated yield function enables the modeling of complex path-dependent flow stress evolutions, particularly the Bauschinger effect, latent hardening/softening, and differential permanent softening. Computationally, the continuous distortion of the yield function under strain-path changes leads to numerical instability, which is overcome by a newly reformulated step-size control method in the line search algorithm. The developed algorithms were implemented in ABAQUS using the closest-point projection method and validated for extra-deep drawing quality and DP780 steel sheets in terms of numerical accuracy and stability under reverse- and cross-loading path changes. The results show that the return-mapping algorithm significantly improves the accuracy and speed of convergence when the proposed line search method is incorporated. In contrast, the conventional N–R based algorithm fails to obtain converged stresses under abrupt loading path changes owing to the sharp corners introduced by the distorted yield surface.

Superelasticity, microstructure and texture characteristics of the rapidly solidified Ti–Zr–Nb–Sn shape memory alloy fibers for biomedical applications

The strong 001β<110>β recrystallization texture is known in favor of improving superelastic recovery strain in the biomedical nickel-free Ti–Zr–Nb–Sn shape memory alloys (SMAs) experienced severely cold-rolling followed by annealing. Whereas the severe cold rolling yielded thin ribbon-like sheets which probably have low practical applications for the fabrication of medical devices although they have excellent superelasticity. In this study, Ti–Zr–Nb–Sn SMA fibers with different Nb contents were directly prepared by rapidly solidifying the molten ingot and compared with the referenced alloy sheet in terms of their texture characteristics and superelastic properties. The superelastic SMA fibers have been shown to have a great potential for manufacturing fibrous structure-based plates or scaffolds for biomedical applications. The superelasticity of the rapidly solidified Ti–18Zr‒12.5Nb–2Sn (at.%) SMA fiber specimen was observed in a wide temperature window of 100 °C, ranging from ‒ 65 °C to 35 °C. The increase of 1 at.%‒Nb was first reported to decrease the As and Af of the Ti–Zr–Nb–Sn SMA sheet specimens by 89 °C and 95 °C, respectively. The high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) observations revealed that athermal ω phases and nanodomains were formed in the β matrix in the Ti–18Zr‒12.5Nb–2Sn (at.%) SMA fiber specimen. Unlike the referenced bulk sheet showing 001β<110>β recrystallization texture, the rapidly solidified SMA fiber specimen was found to have a main texture close to (334)β[3‾5‾6]β by using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). A recovery strain of 5.1% was obtained in the SMA fiber specimen at a pre-strain of 5.5%. The present rapid solidified Ti–Zr–Nb–Sn SMA fibers will be of considerable applications in manufacturing superelastic porous scaffolds for bone repair.

Investigating the incremental forming capabilities of extra deep drawn steel

Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) is a sheet metal forming process, which relies on minimum part-specific tooling. Extra Deep Drawn (EDD) steel has been used for making door inners, dash panels, bodyside inners, etc. due to its good weldability and relatively low yield strength. However, to date very limited work is reported on ISF of EDD steel. Besides, no work, which exhaustively discusses the practicability of EDD steel for effectual incremental forming of components, is found to be reported. The present work discusses the ISF of EDD steel sheets and examines the limitations of ISF in forming the parts out of 1.0 mm thick EDD steel sheets. Two geometries, i.e., ellipsoidal cone (with varying wall angle) and truncated cone (with constant wall angle) were used as test cases to evaluate the formability of EDD steel sheets, in terms of Critical Wall Angle (CWA). Further, the formability of EDD steel with ISF is evaluated using both strain-based and stress-based forming limit curves. The thickness distribution, geometrical accuracy, forming forces, and surface roughness and hardness are evaluated in the formed components. The work, through numerical simulations and experimental analyses, investigates the process capabilities of ISF to form the EDD steel sheets in terms of formability, thickness distribution, geometrical accuracy, forming forces, and surface roughness and hardness to ascertain the scope of the proposed process.

Seismic assessment of RC structures having shape memory alloys rebar and strengthened using CFRP sheets in terms of fragility curves

Seismic assessment of RC structures having shape memory alloys rebar and strengthened using CFRP sheets in terms of fragility curves

Managing global property portfolios, transactions and teams : A primer for corporate real estate executives — Part 4: Transactional Risk Management in Multinational Context

Part 4, the concluding segment in this series of articles, considers transactional risk management in the relationship-building and deal-making phases of a new project, including intended and potentially unintended impacts of exploratory discussions and preliminary documents such as term sheets, letters of intent and memoranda of understanding. There is also an overview of the importance of legal compliance and ethical considerations in an increasingly regulated and multicultural context.

Bounds on Regge growth of flat space scattering from bounds on chaos

We study four-point functions of scalars, conserved currents, and stress tensors in a conformal field theory, generated by a local contact term in the bulk dual description, in two different causal configurations. The first of these is the standard Regge configuration in which the chaos bound applies. The second is the ‘causally scattering configuration’ in which the correlator develops a bulk point singularity. We find an expression for the coefficient of the bulk point singularity in terms of the bulk S matrix of the bulk dual metric, gauge fields and scalars, and use it to determine the Regge scaling of the correlator on the causally scattering sheet in terms of the Regge growth of this S matrix. We then demonstrate that the Regge scaling on this sheet is governed by the same power as in the standard Regge configuration, and so is constrained by the chaos bound, which turns out to be violated unless the bulk flat space S matrix grows no faster than s2 in the Regge limit. It follows that in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the chaos bound applied to the boundary field theory implies that the S matrices of the dual bulk scalars, gauge fields, and gravitons obey the Classical Regge Growth (CRG) conjecture.

Computational modeling and simulation of gas focused liquid micro-sheets

The purpose of this work is to numerically evaluate the behavior of microscopic gas-focused liquid sheets in terms of material properties, nozzle structure and operating conditions used for experiments in spectroscopy and scattering where a short optical path is required. The numerical simulations are presented of a gas flow focusing nozzle, capable of producing a stream consisting of a sequence of perpendicular micrometre thin liquid sheets. The nozzle structure consists of a central circular capillary for delivery of the liquid and two circular capillaries that provide the focusing gas flow in a converging direction from opposite directions. High velocity impinging gas jets accelerate and form a thin elliptically shaped liquid sheet which contracts downstream and eventually forms a similar shaped sheet in the plane perpendicular to the primary sheet. The process repeats further downstream with another contraction, forming the tertiary sheet, existing now in the same plane as the primary sheet. This produces a liquid jet in form of a series of perpendicular micrometre thin liquid sheets. Three dimensional conservation equations of mass, energy and momentum for a compressible two-phase system are solved with a finite volume approach and an algebraic volume of fluid method. The influence of liquid viscosity, density, surface tension, nozzle layout variation as well as gas and liquid operating parameters on the evolution of the primary liquid sheet is elaborated. The parameter space of six flow characterizing dimensionless numbers is explored in the following ranges: Reynolds gas number 64–130, Reynolds liquid number 122–620, Weber number 23–803, ratio of liquid to gas mass flow rate 16–58, viscosity ratio 26–79, and density ratio 4807–7221. The layout of the primary sheet is given in terms of sheet thickness, width and length. The results show minor effect of dynamic viscosity, a moderate effect of density and a dominant role of the surface tension. The liquid sheet shape is sensitive to the variation of gas and liquid flow rates as well as the nozzle's structure width and the angle between the liquid delivery and the focusing gas capillaries.

Impact Investing - An Assessment and Proposal for Reforms

The innovation and venture capital (VC) worlds work on the belief that there are plug-and-play ideas which can meaningfully address persistent and intractable development challenges. Further, they believe that these innovations can arise from the most unexpected places through entrepreneurial brilliance and all that investors need to do is be on the look-out for such innovations. This belief stems from the success of some technology innovations of the last two decades which have been disruptive of existing markets and transformed our lives. Unfortunately, this has little basis in reality. As a thought experiment, just try to think of such plug-and-play innovations that have addressed persistent development challenges at scale in the last 20 years which have come through the VC approach to financing. What comes to our mind are products - e.g. pharmaceutical drugs or a high yield variety seed – that large companies are best placed to provide. Successful commercialisation of innovations like telemedicine, digital literacy and skilling, biometric attendance monitoring in schools/hospitals, credit-worthiness assessments for poor/SMEs, agriculture extension using ICT, labour market matching for low-skill jobs, data acquisition and management systems for utilities/SMEs/government systems, market access for SMEs, informal market aggregation, early warning systems on natural disasters/pests etc. have proved elusive despite countless efforts. In all these cases, all the technologies to address them have been around for years. The big problems of the world - poverty, gender inequality, poor learning outcomes, malnutrition, traffic congestion, cleanliness and sanitation, low agriculture productivity, pervasive informal markets, unaffordable housing, low productivity SMEs, credit constraints among poor and SMEs, maternal and child health problems, access to clean water (say, low-cost borewells) and electricity, cost-effective menstrual hygiene products, etc. – are unlikely to have flick-of-the-switch solutions. They require persistent effort over a long time. We need solid enterprises and companies than those built on the vapour-ware of ephemeral growth and valuations. In this paper, we have proposed a simple process innovation to the term sheet that forces the impact investor to commit to creating social and economic impact meaningfully rather than lazily or perfunctorily. We have outlined a twin-test of qualification for impact investments. One is the likelihood of the impact enterprise not funded by commercial investors and the other is measurable social impact generation. We have also offered an illustrative categorisation of such investments. We propose a framework for measuring impact using the concepts of retention and intensity.

Multiparameter Modeling and Analysis of Mechanical Cutting Process of Grain-Oriented Silicon Steel

The process of mechanical cutting of magnetic materials has many advantages in the form of high efficiency, no generation of thermal stresses or the possibility of shaping materials taking into account long cutting lines. In the literature, there are models that allow to control the technological quality of the mechanical cutting process, e.g. in terms of the obtained quality of the cut surface. However, there is a lack of data on the selection of technological parameters of the mechanical cutting process of grain-oriented silicon electrical sheets in terms of the obtained quality of the cut surface and the obtained magnetic properties of the workpiece. The paper presents a solution to the gradient optimization problem combining issues from the field of structural and magnetic analyzes. Using obtained relationships and results, it is possible to control cutting process to obtain high cut surface quality with minimum deterioration of magnetic properties.

The Design of Stratified Contingent Bank Liability Structure to Release Risk Incentive Effects

This paper proposes a new type of bank liability structure with stratified contingent capital based on the suggestions of Basel III and TLAC Term Sheet. It try to solve the problem that the total loss absorbing capacity of global systemically important banks is insufficient and the single contingent capital-CoCos will bring extra risk to the bank in recent years. Compared with single contingent capital, the bail-in mechanism of stratified contingent capital is more complex and its risk effects will be more uncertain. Therefore, this paper studies how to design the parameters setting of stratified contingent liability structure to release the incentive effect of original shareholders’ risk taking. Firstly, it analyzed the basic setting of bank capital structure and bail-in mechanism. And then, it calculated the value of CoCos, TLAC bonds, and original shareholders’ equity by replicating payoffs using sets of exotic options. Finally, it calculated the elasticity of the original shareholders’ equity value to the volatility of asset value. The elasticity is used to analyze the incentive effect of original shareholders’ risk taking. The numerical analysis shows that risk incentive effect is more sensitive to the parameters setting of CoCos. In any case, conversion rate has a more important impact than the trigger threshold. In particular, the effect of risk taking can be eliminated by setting the parameters properly.

Sustainability Manifesto for Financial Products: Carbon Equivalence Principle

Sustainability is a key point for financial markets and the label "Green" is an attempt to address this. Acquisition of the label "Green" for financial products carries potential benefits, hence the controversy and attractiveness of the label. However, such a binary label inadequately represents the carbon impact - we use carbon as a useful simplification of sustainability. Carbon impact has a range either size of zero. Both carbon emissions, and sequestration of carbon, are possible results of financial products. A binary label does not allow differentiation between a carbon neutral investment and a coal power plant. Carbon impact has timing and duration, a planted forest takes time to grow, a coal power plant takes time to emit. Hence we propose the Carbon Equivalence Principle (CEP) for financial products: that the carbon effect of a financial product shall be included as a linked term sheet compatible with existing bank systems. This can either be a single flow, i.e., a summary carbon flow, or a linked termsheet describing the carbon impacts in volume and time. The CEP means that the carbon impact of investment follows the money. Making carbon impacts consistent with existing bank systems enables direct alignment of financial product use and sustainability, improving on non-compatible disclosure proposals.

Studying parameters affecting the thinning rate during heat-assisted incremental sheet forming of the lightweight material

ABSTRACT Incremental sheet forming (ISF) is a promising sheet forming process and becomes a worthy alternative to the traditional sheet forming processes. ISF has used in manufacturing small batch or customised sheet components in various industrial sectors. One of the main challenges in this process is how to deals with hard to form materials like lightweight materials. Heat-assisted ISF processes have suggested improving the formability at warm or hot conditions. Among all heat-assisted ISF processes, frictional stir-assisted Single Point Incremental Forming (SPIF) recommended to deform AA6061-T6 sheets. The aim is to investigate the impact of the process parameters on the thinning rate of the final components. A Taguchi technique and varying wall angle conical frustum (VWACF) test have employed to conduct the experiments. Furthermore, analysis of variance (ANOVA) utilised to find the influence of these parameters on the thinning rate. The results show that spindle speed is the main parameter affected the formability of AA6061-T6 sheets in terms of thinning rate. The percentage contribution of this parameter was 90.53%. The maximum thinning is 59.56 % at a rotation speed, feed rate, step size, and tool diameter of 1200 rpm, 500 mm/min., 0.2 mm, and 10 mm, respectively.

Birational sheets in reductive groups

We define the group analogue of birational sheets, a construction performed by Losev for reductive Lie algebras. For G semisimple simply connected, we describe birational sheets in terms of Lusztig–Spaltenstein induction and we prove that they form a partition of G, and that they are unibranch varieties with smooth normalization by means of a local study.

Modeling Bond Between Corrosion-Cracked Concrete and Composite Sheets

A new empirical model for the prediction of bond strength between corrosion-cracked concrete and FRP sheets is proposed in this work. The model considers the impact of concrete-cracking level as well as the geometric characteristics of FRP sheets. Experimental data (from tests on reinforced concrete blocks underwent varying corrosion levels before attached to carbon FRP (CFRP) sheets at variable bond lengths and widths) is employed in the empirical modeling. Corrosion-induced cracks at widths of about 0.2–0.9 mm lead to reductions in bond strength and slippage at failure at ranges of 25–44% and 18–68%, respectively. The developed statistical model captures the correct trend for bond stress–slip relationship and precisely predicts bond characteristics between corroding concrete and CFRP sheets in terms of key parameters. The degradation parameters (incorporated in this model) confirmed those provided by the ACI committee 440 at ranges of 0.66–0.86 for bond strength and 0.63–0.89 for slip at ultimate bond stress. The prediction accuracy of the present model of published data shows the highest when compared with that of well-known published models.

Pre-Investment Due Diligence and Audit Practices of Venture Capital Firms in India

The pre-investment due diligence is a comprehensive systematic investigation, verification and evaluation of the prospective project before funds are committed. The paper aims to develop a comprehensive due diligence and audit framework to facilitate consistent evaluation of investment proposals. A brief literature review concerning the pre-investment assessment activities has been presented. In order to develop a pragmatic comprehensive framework, which requires a great deal of information and documents to be perused, the Focus group interview method has been adopted. The resultant discussions had been summarized under various heads - Business proposal screening, Term sheet, Current Valuation and Capital structure, amount of funds needed, structuring the deal, the antecedents of the core management team including the promoters, details of the product/service, nature of completion, industry/sector attractiveness etc. The paper as part of due diligence and audit process suggests the list of documents. The framework suggested would enable venture capital firms to adopt consistent and robust practices resulting in risk mitigation of its investments in new business ventures.

From the European Stability Mechanism to the European Monetary Fund: There and Back Again

AbstractIn December 2018, the Euro Summit endorsed the Term Sheet on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) reform prepared by the Eurogroup. In this context, the Euro Summit did not acknowledge the proposal of the European Commission to transform the ESM into the European Monetary Fund (EMF), but simply gave the Eurogroup a mandate to draft the relevant amendments to the ESM Treaty and submit them to the European Council of June 2019. Nonetheless, the justifications for the incorporation of the ESM into the body of the European Treaties continue to be valid and may come back into play. In this respect, it is worth highlighting two flaws that have emerged in the proposed transformation of the ESM into the EMF. First, the ESM Treaty does not contain any rule about extinction and transfer of functions. Second, the Commission’s proposal did not clarify what status the EMF would have enjoyed in the EU legal framework.