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What copulas are, their estimation, and use is illustrated using a geographical diversification example. To accomplish this, dependencies between county-level yields are calculated for non-irrigated wheat, upland cotton, and sorghum using Pearson linear correlation and Kendall's tau. The use of Kendall's tau allows the implementation of copulas to estimate the dependency between county-level yields. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Four parametric copulas, Gaussian, Frank, Clayton, and Gumbel, are used to estimate Kendall's tau. These four estimates of Kendall's tau are compared to Pearson's linear correlation, a more typical measure of dependence. Using this information, functions are estimated to determine the relationships between dependencies and changes in geographic and climate data.

The effect on county-level crop yields based on changes of geographical and climate variables differed among the different dependency measures among the three different crops. Implementing alternative dependency measures changed the statistical significance and the signs of the coefficients in the sorghum and cotton dependence functions. Copula-based elasticities are consistently less than the linear correlation elasticities for wheat and cotton. For sorghum, however, the copula-based elasticities are generally larger. The results indicate that one should not take the issue of measuring dependence as a trivial matter.

This research not only extends the current literature on geographical diversification by taking a more detailed examination of factors impacting yield dependence, but also extends the copula literature by comparing estimation results using linear correlation and copula-based rank correlation.

This paper gives a bibliographical review of the finite element and boundary element parallel processing techniques from the theoretical and application points of view. Topics include: theory – domain decomposition/partitioning, load balancing, parallel solvers/algorithms, parallel mesh generation, adaptive methods, and visualization/graphics; applications – structural mechanics problems, dynamic problems, material/geometrical non‐linear problems, contact problems, fracture mechanics, field problems, coupled problems, sensitivity and optimization, and other problems; hardware and software environments – hardware environments, programming techniques, and software development and presentations. The bibliography at the end of this paper contains 850 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with presented subjects that were published between 1996 and 2002.

This paper presents the generalized theory of the most important energy principles in structural analysis. All derive from two basic complementary theorems denoted as the principles of virtual displacements and virtual forces. Both exact and approximate methods are discussed and particular attention is paid to the derivation of upper and lower limits. The theory is not restricted to linearly elastic bodies but includes ab initio the effect of non‐linear stress‐strain laws and thermal strains. Finally the basic principles are illustrated on a number of simple examples in preparation for the more complex ones to appear in Parts II and III.

In this paper, a residual correction method based upon an extension of the finite calculus concept is presented. The method is described and applied to the solution of a scalar convection‐diffusion problem and the problem of elasticity at the incompressible or quasi‐incompressible limit. The formulation permits the use of equal interpolation for displacements and pressure on linear triangles and tetrahedra as well as any low order element type. To add additional stability in the solution, pressure gradient corrections are introduced as suggested from developments of sub‐scale methods. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the performance of the method when applied to typical test problems.

Based on Eringen’s micropolar elasticity theory (MET), a two‐dimensional finite element formulation including one extra degree of freedom is derived by using a linear triangular element, and a corresponding computer program is also developed. By varying the technical constants such as micropolar Young’s modulus E_m, micropolar Poisson’s ratio ν_m, characteristic length l, coupling factor N, and micropolar elastic constants in accordance with the micropolar elastic restrictions, their effects on the Poisson’s ratio of the rectangular plate are studied in detail.

Gives a bibliographical review of the error estimates and adaptive finite element methods from the theoretical as well as the application point of view. The bibliography at the end contains 2,177 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with the subjects that were published in 1990‐2000.

The purpose of this paper is to present the composite finite element method (CFEM), with Cⁿ(n≥0) continuity so it improves the accuracy of the finite element method (FEM) for solving second‐order partial differential equations (PDEs) and also, can be used for solving higher order PDEs.

In this method, the nodal values in the conventional FEM have been replaced by the appropriate nodal functions. Based on this idea, a procedure has been proposed for obtaining the CFEM−Cⁿ shape functions based on the CFEM−Cⁿ⁻¹ shape functions as follows: the nodal values in the CFEM−Cⁿ⁻¹ have been replaced by deliberately selected nodal functions so that the smoothness of the CFEM−Cⁿ⁻¹ shape functions increase.

The proposed method has the following properties: first, its shape functions have simple explicit forms with respect to the natural coordinates of elements and consequently, the required integrals for calculation of stiffness matrix can be evaluated numerically by low‐order Gauss quadratures; second, numerical investigations show that the CFEM with Cⁿ(n>1) continuity leads to more accurate results in comparison with the FEM; third, in multi‐dimensional problems, the curved boundaries are modeled more accurately by the proposed method in comparison with the FEM; fourth, this method can treat with the weak discontinuities such as the interface between different materials, as simple as the FEM does; and fifth, this method can successfully model Kirchhoff plate problems.

This method is an improvement of the moving particle FEM and reproducing kernel element method. Despite these two methods, CFEM shape functions have simple explicit forms with respect to the natural coordinates of elements.

The purpose of this paper is to formulate a model of the equations of a two‐dimensional problem with the deformation of micropolar generalized thermoelastic medium with voids under the influence of various sources in the context of the Lord‐Shulman, Green‐Lindsay theories, as well as the classical dynamical coupled theory.

The normal mode analysis was used to obtain the exact expressions of the displacement components, force stress, coupled stress, change in volume fraction field and temperature distribution. Numerical results were given and illustrated graphically when the volume source was applied.

The presence of voids plays a significant role on all the physical quantities. The value of normal displacement and normal force stress increases while the temperature, tangential force stress and the couple stress increase and then decrease due to the presence of voids. The value of all the physical quantities converges to zero with increase in distance z.

Comparisons are made with the results predicted by the three theories in the presence and the absence of material constants due to voids.

The purpose of this paper is to show benefits of deflated preconditioned conjugate gradients (CG) in the solution of transient, incompressible, viscous flows coupled with heat transfer.

This paper presents the implementation of deflated preconditioned CG as the iterative driver for the system of linearized equations for viscous, incompressible flows and heat transfer simulations. The De Sampaio-Coutinho particular form of the Petrov-Galerkin Generalized Least Squares finite element formulation is used in the discretization of the governing equations, leading to symmetric positive definite matrices, allowing the use of the CG solver.

The use of deflation techniques improves the spectral condition number. The authors show in a number of problems of coupled viscous flow and heat transfer that convergence is achieved with a lower number of iterations and smaller time.

This work addressed for the first time the use of deflated CG for the solution of transient analysis of free/forced convection in viscous flows coupled with heat transfer.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a heuristic method for topology optimization of a continuum with bi-modulus material which is frequently occurred in practical engineering.

The essentials of this model are as follows: First, the original bi-modulus is replaced with two isotropic materials to simplify structural analysis. Second, the stress filed is adopted to calculate the effective strain energy densities (SED) of elements. Third, a floating reference interval of SED is defined and updated by active constraint. Fourth, the elastic modulus of an element is updated according to its principal stresses. Final, the design variables are updated by comparing the local effective SEDs and the current reference interval of SED.

Numerical examples show that the ratio between the tension modulus and the compression modulus of the bi-modulus material in a structure has a significant effect on the final topology design, which is different from that in the same structure with isotropic material. In the optimal structure, it can be found that the material points with the higher modulus are reserved as much as possible. When the ratio is far more than unity, the material can be considered as tension-only material. If the ratio is far less than unity, the material can be considered as compression-only material. As a result, the topology optimization of continuum structures with tension-only or compression-only materials can also be solved by the proposed method.

The value of this paper is twofold: the bi-modulus material layout optimization in a continuum can be solved by the method proposed in this paper, and the layout difference between the structure with bi-modulus material and the same structure but with isotropic material shows that traditional topology optimization result could not be suitable for a real bi-modulus layout design project.