Interagency Collaborative Team Model for Capacity Building to Scale-Up Evidence-Based Practice

PubMed Central

Hurlburt, Michael; Aarons, Gregory A; Fettes, Danielle; Willging, Cathleen; Gunderson, Lara; Chaffin, Mark J

2015-01-01

Background System-wide scale up of evidence-based practice (EBP) is a complex process. Yet, few strategic approaches exist to support EBP implementation and sustainment across a service system. Building on the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) implementation framework, we developed and are testing the Interagency Collaborative Team (ICT) process model to implement an evidence-based child neglect intervention (i.e., SafeCare®) within a large children’s service system. The ICT model emphasizes the role of local agency collaborations in creating structural supports for successful implementation. Methods We describe the ICT model and present preliminary qualitative results from use of the implementation model in one large scale EBP implementation. Qualitative interviews were conducted to assess challenges in building system, organization, and home visitor collaboration and capacity to implement the EBP. Data collection and analysis centered on EBP implementation issues, as well as the experiences of home visitors under the ICT model. Results Six notable issues relating to implementation process emerged from participant interviews, including: (a) initial commitment and collaboration among stakeholders, (b) leadership, (c) communication, (d) practice fit with local context, (e) ongoing negotiation and problem solving, and (f) early successes. These issues highlight strengths and areas for development in the ICT model. Conclusions Use of the ICT model led to sustained and widespread use of SafeCare in one large county. Although some aspects of the implementation model may benefit from enhancement, qualitative findings suggest that the ICT process generates strong structural supports for implementation and creates conditions in which tensions between EBP structure and local contextual variations can be resolved in ways that support the expansion and maintenance of an EBP while preserving potential for public health benefit. PMID:27512239

Interagency Collaborative Team Model for Capacity Building to Scale-Up Evidence-Based Practice.

PubMed

Hurlburt, Michael; Aarons, Gregory A; Fettes, Danielle; Willging, Cathleen; Gunderson, Lara; Chaffin, Mark J

2014-04-01

System-wide scale up of evidence-based practice (EBP) is a complex process. Yet, few strategic approaches exist to support EBP implementation and sustainment across a service system. Building on the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) implementation framework, we developed and are testing the Interagency Collaborative Team (ICT) process model to implement an evidence-based child neglect intervention (i.e., SafeCare®) within a large children's service system. The ICT model emphasizes the role of local agency collaborations in creating structural supports for successful implementation. We describe the ICT model and present preliminary qualitative results from use of the implementation model in one large scale EBP implementation. Qualitative interviews were conducted to assess challenges in building system, organization, and home visitor collaboration and capacity to implement the EBP. Data collection and analysis centered on EBP implementation issues, as well as the experiences of home visitors under the ICT model. Six notable issues relating to implementation process emerged from participant interviews, including: (a) initial commitment and collaboration among stakeholders, (b) leadership, (c) communication, (d) practice fit with local context, (e) ongoing negotiation and problem solving, and (f) early successes. These issues highlight strengths and areas for development in the ICT model. Use of the ICT model led to sustained and widespread use of SafeCare in one large county. Although some aspects of the implementation model may benefit from enhancement, qualitative findings suggest that the ICT process generates strong structural supports for implementation and creates conditions in which tensions between EBP structure and local contextual variations can be resolved in ways that support the expansion and maintenance of an EBP while preserving potential for public health benefit.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

Assessing the impact of energy efficiency technologies at a district or city scale is of great interest to local governments, real estate developers, utility companies, and policymakers. This paper describes a flexible framework that can be used to create and run district and city scale building energy simulations. The framework is built around the new OpenStudio City Database (CityDB). Building footprints, building height, building type, and other data can be imported from public records or other sources. Missing data can be inferred or assigned from a statistical sampling of other datasets. Once all required data is available, OpenStudio Measures aremore » used to create starting point energy models and to model energy efficiency measures for each building. Together this framework allows a user to pose several scenarios such as 'what if 30% of the commercial retail buildings added rooftop solar' or 'what if all elementary schools converted to ground source heat pumps' and then visualize the impacts at a district or city scale. This paper focuses on modeling existing building stock using public records. However, the framework is capable of supporting the evaluation of new construction, district systems, and the use of proprietary data sources.« less

Public health nutrition capacity: assuring the quality of workforce preparation for scaling up nutrition programmes.

PubMed

Shrimpton, Roger; du Plessis, Lisanne M; Delisle, Hélène; Blaney, Sonia; Atwood, Stephen J; Sanders, David; Margetts, Barrie; Hughes, Roger

2016-08-01

To describe why and how capacity-building systems for scaling up nutrition programmes should be constructed in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Position paper with task force recommendations based on literature review and joint experience of global nutrition programmes, public health nutrition (PHN) workforce size, organization, and pre-service and in-service training. The review is global but the recommendations are made for LMIC scaling up multisectoral nutrition programmes. The multitude of PHN workers, be they in the health, agriculture, education, social welfare, or water and sanitation sector, as well as the community workers who ensure outreach and coverage of nutrition-specific and -sensitive interventions. Overnutrition and undernutrition problems affect at least half of the global population, especially those in LMIC. Programme guidance exists for undernutrition and overnutrition, and priority for scaling up multisectoral programmes for tackling undernutrition in LMIC is growing. Guidance on how to organize and scale up such programmes is scarce however, and estimates of existing PHN workforce numbers - although poor - suggest they are also inadequate. Pre-service nutrition training for a PHN workforce is mostly clinical and/or food science oriented and in-service nutrition training is largely restricted to infant and young child nutrition. Unless increased priority and funding is given to building capacity for scaling up nutrition programmes in LMIC, maternal and child undernutrition rates are likely to remain high and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases to escalate. A hybrid distance learning model for PHN workforce managers' in-service training is urgently needed in LMIC.

Mortality during a Large-Scale Heat Wave by Place, Demographic Group, Internal and External Causes of Death, and Building Climate Zone

PubMed Central

Joe, Lauren; Hoshiko, Sumi; Dobraca, Dina; Jackson, Rebecca; Smorodinsky, Svetlana; Smith, Daniel; Harnly, Martha

2016-01-01

Mortality increases during periods of elevated heat. Identification of vulnerable subgroups by demographics, causes of death, and geographic regions, including deaths occurring at home, is needed to inform public health prevention efforts. We calculated mortality relative risks (RRs) and excess deaths associated with a large-scale California heat wave in 2006, comparing deaths during the heat wave with reference days. For total (all-place) and at-home mortality, we examined risks by demographic factors, internal and external causes of death, and building climate zones. During the heat wave, 582 excess deaths occurred, a 5% increase over expected (RR = 1.05, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.03–1.08). Sixty-six percent of excess deaths were at home (RR = 1.12, CI 1.07–1.16). Total mortality risk was higher among those aged 35–44 years than ≥65, and among Hispanics than whites. Deaths from external causes increased more sharply (RR = 1.18, CI 1.10–1.27) than from internal causes (RR = 1.04, CI 1.02–1.07). Geographically, risk varied by building climate zone; the highest risks of at-home death occurred in the northernmost coastal zone (RR = 1.58, CI 1.01–2.48) and the southernmost zone of California’s Central Valley (RR = 1.43, CI 1.21–1.68). Heat wave mortality risk varied across subpopulations, and some patterns of vulnerability differed from those previously identified. Public health efforts should also address at-home mortality, non-elderly adults, external causes, and at-risk geographic regions. PMID:27005646

A Short History of War: The Evolution of Warfare and Weapons. Professional Readings in Military Strategy Number 5

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-06-30

first employed on large scale public works projects-building dikes, irrigation systems, the pyramids, and ziggurats of ancient Sumer-it was but a...original Sumerian word for the southern part of Iraq, the site of Sumer with its capital at the city of Ur . If the river is followed northward from...The first historical evidence of soldiers wearing helmets is also provided on the stele. From the bodies of soldiers found in the Death Pits of Ur

Intelligent Facades for High Performance Green Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dyson, Anna

Progress Towards Net-Zero and Net-Positive-Energy Commercial Buildings and Urban Districts Through Intelligent Building Envelope Strategies Previous research and development of intelligent facades systems has been limited in their contribution towards national goals for achieving on-site net zero buildings, because this R&D has failed to couple the many qualitative requirements of building envelopes such as the provision of daylighting, access to exterior views, satisfying aesthetic and cultural characteristics, with the quantitative metrics of energy harvesting, storage and redistribution. To achieve energy self-sufficiency from on-site solar resources, building envelopes can and must address this gamut of concerns simultaneously. With this project, wemore » have undertaken a high-performance building integrated combined-heat and power concentrating photovoltaic system with high temperature thermal capture, storage and transport towards multiple applications (BICPV/T). The critical contribution we are offering with the Integrated Concentrating Solar Façade (ICSF) is conceived to improve daylighting quality for improved health of occupants and mitigate solar heat gain while maximally capturing and transferring onsite solar energy. The ICSF accomplishes this multi-functionality by intercepting only the direct-normal component of solar energy (which is responsible for elevated cooling loads) thereby transforming a previously problematic source of energy into a high quality resource that can be applied to building demands such as heating, cooling, dehumidification, domestic hot water, and possible further augmentation of electrical generation through organic Rankine cycles. With the ICSF technology, our team is addressing the global challenge in transitioning commercial and residential building stock towards on-site clean energy self-sufficiency, by fully integrating innovative environmental control systems strategies within an intelligent and responsively dynamic building envelope. The advantage of being able to use the entire solar spectrum for active and passive benefits, along with the potential savings of avoiding transmission losses through direct current (DC) transfer to all buildings systems directly from the site of solar conversion, gives the system a compounded economic viability within the commercial and institutional building markets. With a team that spans multiple stakeholders across disparate industries, from CPV to A&E partners that are responsible for the design and development of District and Regional Scale Urban Development, this project demonstrates that integrating utility-scale high efficiency CPV installations with urban and suburban environments is both viable and desirable within the marketplace. The historical schism between utility scale CPV and BIPV has been one of differing scale and cultures. There is no technical reason why utility-scale CPV cannot be located within urban embedded district scale sites of energy harvesting. New models for leasing large areas of district scale roofs and facades are emerging, such that the model for utility scale energy harvesting can be reconciled to commercial and public scale building sites and campuses. This consortium is designed to unite utility scale solar harvesting into building applications for smart grid development.« less

The Public School Infrastructure Problem: Deteriorating Buildings and Deferred Maintenance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hunter, Richard C.

2009-01-01

The deterioration of public school buildings is more prevalent in large cities that, because of funding shortfalls, have deferred maintenance and require huge sums to bring their buildings up to acceptable standards. Cities such as New York will require approximately $680 million to address the problem of deferred maintenance for needed painting,…

Flood management: prediction of microbial contamination in large-scale floods in urban environments.

PubMed

Taylor, Jonathon; Lai, Ka Man; Davies, Mike; Clifton, David; Ridley, Ian; Biddulph, Phillip

2011-07-01

With a changing climate and increased urbanisation, the occurrence and the impact of flooding is expected to increase significantly. Floods can bring pathogens into homes and cause lingering damp and microbial growth in buildings, with the level of growth and persistence dependent on the volume and chemical and biological content of the flood water, the properties of the contaminating microbes, and the surrounding environmental conditions, including the restoration time and methods, the heat and moisture transport properties of the envelope design, and the ability of the construction material to sustain the microbial growth. The public health risk will depend on the interaction of these complex processes and the vulnerability and susceptibility of occupants in the affected areas. After the 2007 floods in the UK, the Pitt review noted that there is lack of relevant scientific evidence and consistency with regard to the management and treatment of flooded homes, which not only put the local population at risk but also caused unnecessary delays in the restoration effort. Understanding the drying behaviour of flooded buildings in the UK building stock under different scenarios, and the ability of microbial contaminants to grow, persist, and produce toxins within these buildings can help inform recovery efforts. To contribute to future flood management, this paper proposes the use of building simulations and biological models to predict the risk of microbial contamination in typical UK buildings. We review the state of the art with regard to biological contamination following flooding, relevant building simulation, simulation-linked microbial modelling, and current practical considerations in flood remediation. Using the city of London as an example, a methodology is proposed that uses GIS as a platform to integrate drying models and microbial risk models with the local building stock and flood models. The integrated tool will help local governments, health authorities, insurance companies and residents to better understand, prepare for and manage a large-scale flood in urban environments. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Epitrochoid Power-Law Nozzle Rapid Prototype Build/Test Project (Briefing Charts)

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-02-01

Production Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. PA clearance # 15122. 4 Epitrochoid Power-Law Nozzle Build/Test Build on SpaceX ...Multiengine Approach SpaceX ) Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. PA clearance # 15122. Engines: Merlin 1D on Falcon 9 v1.1 (Photo 5...to utilize features of high performance engines advances and the economies of scale of the multi-engine approach of SpaceX Falcon 9 – Rapid Prototype

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cory, K.; Coughlin, J.; Coggeshall, C.

State and local governments have grown increasingly aware of the economic, environmental, and societal benefits of taking a lead role in U.S. implementation of renewable energy, particularly distributed photovoltaic (PV) installations. Recently, solar energy's cost premium has declined as a result of technology improvements and an increase in the cost of traditional energy generation. At the same time, a nationwide public policy focus on carbon-free, renewable energy has created a wide range of financial incentives to lower the costs of deploying PV even further. These changes have led to exponential increases in the availability of capital for solar projects, andmore » tremendous creativity in the development of third-party ownership structures. As significant users of electricity, state and local governments can be an excellent example for solar PV system deployment on a national scale. Many public entities are not only considering deployment on public building rooftops, but also large-scale applications on available public lands. The changing marketplace requires that state and local governments be financially sophisticated to capture as much of the economic potential of a PV system as possible. This report examines ways that state and local governments can optimize the financial structure of deploying solar PV for public uses.« less

Analysis on the restriction factors of the green building scale promotion based on DEMATEL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wenxia, Hong; Zhenyao, Jiang; Zhao, Yang

2017-03-01

In order to promote the large-scale development of the green building in our country, DEMATEL method was used to classify influence factors of green building development into three parts, including green building market, green technology and macro economy. Through the DEMATEL model, the interaction mechanism of each part was analyzed. The mutual influence degree of each barrier factor that affects the green building promotion was quantitatively analysed and key factors for the development of green building in China were also finally determined. In addition, some implementation strategies of promoting green building scale development in our country were put forward. This research will show important reference value and practical value for making policies of the green building promotion.

Construction of large scale switch matrix by interconnecting integrated optical switch chips with EDFAs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liao, Mingle; Wu, Baojian; Hou, Jianhong; Qiu, Kun

2018-03-01

Large scale optical switches are essential components in optical communication network. We aim to build up a large scale optical switch matrix by the interconnection of silicon-based optical switch chips using 3-stage CLOS structure, where EDFAs are needed to compensate for the insertion loss of the chips. The optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) performance of the resulting large scale optical switch matrix is investigated for TE-mode light and the experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical analysis. We build up a 64 ×64 switch matrix by use of 16 ×16 optical switch chips and the OSNR and receiver sensibility can respectively be improved by 0.6 dB and 0.2 dB by optimizing the gain configuration of the EDFAs.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yu, Sha; Evans, Meredydd; Shi, Qing

China will account for about half of the new construction globally in the coming decade. Its floorspace doubled from 1996 to 2011, and Chinese rural buildings alone have as much floorspace as all of U.S. residential buildings. Building energy consumption has also grown, increasing by over 40% since 1990. To curb building energy demand, the Chinese government has launched a series of policies and programs. Combined, this growth in buildings and renovations, along with the policies to promote green buildings, are creating a large market for energy efficiency products and services. This report assesses the impact of China’s policies onmore » building energy efficiency and on the market for energy efficiency in the future. The first chapter of this report introduces the trends in China, drawing on both historical analysis, and detailed modeling of the drivers behind changes in floorspace and building energy demand such as economic and population growth, urbanization, policy. The analysis describes the trends by region, building type and energy service. The second chapter discusses China’s policies to promote green buildings. China began developing building energy codes in the 1980s. Over time, the central government has increased the stringency of the code requirements and the extent of enforcement. The codes are mandatory in all new buildings and major renovations in China’s cities, and they have been a driving force behind the expansion of China’s markets for insulation, efficient windows, and other green building materials. China also has several other important policies to encourage efficient buildings, including the Three-Star Rating System (somewhat akin to LEED), financial incentives tied to efficiency, appliance standards, a phasing out of incandescent bulbs and promotion of efficient lighting, and several policies to encourage retrofits in existing buildings. In the third chapter, we take “deep dives” into the trends affecting key building components. This chapter examines insulation in walls and roofs; efficient windows and doors; heating, air conditioning and controls; and lighting. These markets have seen significant growth because of the strength of the construction sector but also the specific policies that require and promote efficient building components. At the same time, as requirements have become more stringent, there has been fierce competition, and quality has at time suffered, which in turn has created additional challenges. Next we examine existing buildings in chapter four. China has many Soviet-style, inefficient buildings built before stringent requirements for efficiency were more widely enforced. As a result, there are several specific market opportunities related to retrofits. These fall into two or three categories. First, China now has a code for retrofitting residential buildings in the north. Local governments have targets of the number of buildings they must retrofit each year, and they help finance the changes. The requirements focus on insulation, windows, and heat distribution. Second, the Chinese government recently decided to increase the scale of its retrofits of government and state-owned buildings. It hopes to achieve large scale changes through energy service contracts, which creates an opportunity for energy service companies. Third, there is also a small but growing trend to apply energy service contracts to large commercial and residential buildings. This report assesses the impacts of China’s policies on building energy efficiency. By examining the existing literature and interviewing stakeholders from the public, academic, and private sectors, the report seeks to offer an in-depth insights of the opportunities and barriers for major market segments related to building energy efficiency. The report also discusses trends in building energy use, policies promoting building energy efficiency, and energy performance contracting for public building retrofits.« less

Advances in Multi-Sensor Scanning and Visualization of Complex Plants: the Utmost Case of a Reactor Building

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hullo, J.-F.; Thibault, G.; Boucheny, C.

2015-02-01

In a context of increased maintenance operations and workers generational renewal, a nuclear owner and operator like Electricité de France (EDF) is interested in the scaling up of tools and methods of "as-built virtual reality" for larger buildings and wider audiences. However, acquisition and sharing of as-built data on a large scale (large and complex multi-floored buildings) challenge current scientific and technical capacities. In this paper, we first present a state of the art of scanning tools and methods for industrial plants with very complex architecture. Then, we introduce the inner characteristics of the multi-sensor scanning and visualization of the interior of the most complex building of a power plant: a nuclear reactor building. We introduce several developments that made possible a first complete survey of such a large building, from acquisition, processing and fusion of multiple data sources (3D laser scans, total-station survey, RGB panoramic, 2D floor plans, 3D CAD as-built models). In addition, we present the concepts of a smart application developed for the painless exploration of the whole dataset. The goal of this application is to help professionals, unfamiliar with the manipulation of such datasets, to take into account spatial constraints induced by the building complexity while preparing maintenance operations. Finally, we discuss the main feedbacks of this large experiment, the remaining issues for the generalization of such large scale surveys and the future technical and scientific challenges in the field of industrial "virtual reality".

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lawrence, Thomas M.; Boudreau, Marie-Claude; Helsen, Lieve

Recent advances in information and communications technology (ICT) have initiated development of a smart electrical grid and smart buildings. Buildings consume a large portion of the total electricity production worldwide, and to fully develop a smart grid they must be integrated with that grid. Buildings can now be 'prosumers' on the grid (both producers and consumers), and the continued growth of distributed renewable energy generation is raising new challenges in terms of grid stability over various time scales. Buildings can contribute to grid stability by managing their overall electrical demand in response to current conditions. Facility managers must balance demandmore » response requests by grid operators with energy needed to maintain smooth building operations. For example, maintaining thermal comfort within an occupied building requires energy and, thus an optimized solution balancing energy use with indoor environmental quality (adequate thermal comfort, lighting, etc.) is needed. Successful integration of buildings and their systems with the grid also requires interoperable data exchange. However, the adoption and integration of newer control and communication technologies into buildings can be problematic with older legacy HVAC and building control systems. Public policy and economic structures have not kept up with the technical developments that have given rise to the budding smart grid, and further developments are needed in both technical and non-technical areas.« less

Building-related health impacts in European and Chinese cities: a scalable assessment method.

PubMed

Tuomisto, Jouni T; Niittynen, Marjo; Pärjälä, Erkki; Asikainen, Arja; Perez, Laura; Trüeb, Stephan; Jantunen, Matti; Künzli, Nino; Sabel, Clive E

2015-12-14

Public health is often affected by societal decisions that are not primarily about health. Climate change mitigation requires intensive actions to minimise greenhouse gas emissions in the future. Many of these actions take place in cities due to their traffic, buildings, and energy consumption. Active climate mitigation policies will also, aside of their long term global impacts, have short term local impacts, both positive and negative, on public health. Our main objective was to develop a generic open impact model to estimate health impacts of emissions due to heat and power consumption of buildings. In addition, the model should be usable for policy comparisons by non-health experts on city level with city-specific data, it should give guidance on the particular climate mitigation questions but at the same time increase understanding on the related health impacts and the model should follow the building stock in time, make comparisons between scenarios, propagate uncertainties, and scale to different levels of detail. We tested The functionalities of the model in two case cities, namely Kuopio and Basel. We estimated the health and climate impacts of two actual policies planned or implemented in the cities. The assessed policies were replacement of peat with wood chips in co-generation of district heat and power, and improved energy efficiency of buildings achieved by renovations. Health impacts were not large in the two cities, but also clear differences in implementation and predictability between the two tested policies were seen. Renovation policies can improve the energy efficiency of buildings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but this requires systematic policy sustained for decades. In contrast, fuel changes in large district heating facilities may have rapid and large impacts on emissions. However, the life cycle impacts of different fuels is somewhat an open question. In conclusion, we were able to develop a practical model for city-level assessments promoting evidence-based policy in general and health aspects in particular. Although all data and code is freely available, implementation of the current model version in a new city requires some modelling skills.

Practitioner consensus on the determinants of capacity building practice in high-income countries.

PubMed

Swanepoel, Elizabeth; Fox, Ann; Hughes, Roger

2015-07-01

To assess and develop consensus among experienced public health nutrition practitioners from high-income countries regarding conceptualisation of capacity building in practice, and to test the content validity of a previously published conceptual framework for capacity building in public health nutrition practice. A Delphi study involving three iterations of email-delivered questionnaires testing a range of capacity determinants derived from the literature. Consensus was set at >50% of panellists ranking items as 'very important' on a five-point Likert scale across three survey rounds. Public health nutrition practice in Australia, the UK, Canada and the USA. Public health nutrition practitioners and academics. Result A total of thirty expert panellists (68% of an initial panel of forty-four participants) completed all three rounds of Delphi questionnaires. Consensus identified determinants of capacity building in practice including partnerships, resourcing, community development, leadership, workforce development, intelligence and quality of project management. The findings from the study suggest there is broad agreement among public health nutritionists from high-income countries about how they conceptualise capacity building in public health nutrition practice. This agreement suggests considerable content validity for a capacity building conceptual framework proposed by Baillie et al. (Public Health Nutr 12, 1031-1038). More research is needed to apply the conceptual framework to the implementation and evaluation of strategies that enhance the practice of capacity building approaches by public health nutrition professionals.

Achieving Actionable Results from Available Inputs: Metamodels Take Building Energy Simulations One Step Further

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Horsey, Henry; Fleming, Katherine; Ball, Brian

Modeling commercial building energy usage can be a difficult and time-consuming task. The increasing prevalence of optimization algorithms provides one path for reducing the time and difficulty. Many use cases remain, however, where information regarding whole-building energy usage is valuable, but the time and expertise required to run and post-process a large number of building energy simulations is intractable. A relatively underutilized option to accurately estimate building energy consumption in real time is to pre-compute large datasets of potential building energy models, and use the set of results to quickly and efficiently provide highly accurate data. This process is calledmore » metamodeling. In this paper, two case studies are presented demonstrating the successful applications of metamodeling using the open-source OpenStudio Analysis Framework. The first case study involves the U.S. Department of Energy's Asset Score Tool, specifically the Preview Asset Score Tool, which is designed to give nontechnical users a near-instantaneous estimated range of expected results based on building system-level inputs. The second case study involves estimating the potential demand response capabilities of retail buildings in Colorado. The metamodel developed in this second application not only allows for estimation of a single building's expected performance, but also can be combined with public data to estimate the aggregate DR potential across various geographic (county and state) scales. In both case studies, the unique advantages of pre-computation allow building energy models to take the place of topdown actuarial evaluations. This paper ends by exploring the benefits of using metamodels and then examines the cost-effectiveness of this approach.« less

a Method for the Seamlines Network Automatic Selection Based on Building Vector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, P.; Dong, Y.; Hu, Y.; Li, X.; Tan, P.

2018-04-01

In order to improve the efficiency of large scale orthophoto production of city, this paper presents a method for automatic selection of seamlines network in large scale orthophoto based on the buildings' vector. Firstly, a simple model of the building is built by combining building's vector, height and DEM, and the imaging area of the building on single DOM is obtained. Then, the initial Voronoi network of the measurement area is automatically generated based on the positions of the bottom of all images. Finally, the final seamlines network is obtained by optimizing all nodes and seamlines in the network automatically based on the imaging areas of the buildings. The experimental results show that the proposed method can not only get around the building seamlines network quickly, but also remain the Voronoi network' characteristics of projection distortion minimum theory, which can solve the problem of automatic selection of orthophoto seamlines network in image mosaicking effectively.

Conversations around the Large Table: Building Community in a Portuguese Public Kindergarten.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vasconcelos, Teresa; Walsh, Daniel J.

2001-01-01

Analyzes how one teacher builds community in the daily life of her Portuguese public kindergarten classroom. Focuses on six themes: membership, awareness, negotiation, responsibility, ritual, and group memory. Concludes with a discussion of the teacher's practice and commitment to the community of the classroom. (Author/SD)

Water Consumption in Large Buildings Summary, 2012 CBECS

EIA Publications

2017-01-01

Using water consumption data from the Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), EIA estimates that the 46,000 large commercial buildings (greater than 200,000 square feet) used about 359 billion gallons of water (980 million gallons per day) in 2012. On average, these buildings used 7.9 million gallons per building, 20 gallons per square foot, and 18,400 gallons per worker in 2012. The types of buildings that are the most intensive water users are inpatient healthcare buildings, public order and safety buildings (which include prisons) and lodging buildings (which include hotels). For the second time in its history, EIA has collected water usage data through the CBECS.

The Greatest Legacy of the Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA): A Bibliometric Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keller, M. M.

2015-12-01

The Large Scale Biosphere Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia (LBA) is an international continental scale effort led by Brazil to understand how land use change and climate change affects the role of Amazonia in the Earth system. During the first decade of studies (1998-2007), LBA researchers generated new understanding of Amazonia and published over 1000 papers. However, most LBA participants agree that training and education of a large cohort of scientists, especially students from Brazil, was the greatest contribution of LBA. I analyzed bibliographic data from the NASA supported component project known as LBA-ECO. This component covered a large cross-section of the LBA subject areas highlighting land use and land cover change, carbon cycling, nutrient cycling and other aspects of terrestrial and aquatic ecology. I reviewed the complete bibliography of peer-reviewed papers reported by LBA-ECO researchers (http://www.lbaeco.org/cgi-bin/web/investigations/lbaeco_refs.pl). The researchers reported 691 contributions from 1996 through 2013 of which 24 were theses that were removed them from further analysis. Of 667 papers and book chapters, I tallied the first authors separating categories for Brazilians, all students, and Brazilian students. Numerically, LBA-ECO production of papers peaked in 2004. Publication by Brazilians, students, and Brazilian students generally followed the same pattern as publication in general. However, student and Brazilian student contributions as first authors showed clearly increasing proportions of the papers from project initiation through peak publication. Brazilian student participation as first authors averaged more than 20% of all publications from 2003 to 2010 and more than half of all student publications had Brazilians as first authors. Foreign researchers, some initially reluctant to invest in Brazilian students, almost universally adapted the belief that the greatest legacy of LBA would be the contribution to building a cadre of environmental researchers and professionals for the Amazon region. This belief was transformed into a commitment through pressure by NASA management and through the leadership of the LBA-ECO research team leading to LBA's greatest legacy.

Automated 3D structure composition for large RNAs

PubMed Central

Popenda, Mariusz; Szachniuk, Marta; Antczak, Maciej; Purzycka, Katarzyna J.; Lukasiak, Piotr; Bartol, Natalia; Blazewicz, Jacek; Adamiak, Ryszard W.

2012-01-01

Understanding the numerous functions that RNAs play in living cells depends critically on knowledge of their three-dimensional structure. Due to the difficulties in experimentally assessing structures of large RNAs, there is currently great demand for new high-resolution structure prediction methods. We present the novel method for the fully automated prediction of RNA 3D structures from a user-defined secondary structure. The concept is founded on the machine translation system. The translation engine operates on the RNA FRABASE database tailored to the dictionary relating the RNA secondary structure and tertiary structure elements. The translation algorithm is very fast. Initial 3D structure is composed in a range of seconds on a single processor. The method assures the prediction of large RNA 3D structures of high quality. Our approach needs neither structural templates nor RNA sequence alignment, required for comparative methods. This enables the building of unresolved yet native and artificial RNA structures. The method is implemented in a publicly available, user-friendly server RNAComposer. It works in an interactive mode and a batch mode. The batch mode is designed for large-scale modelling and accepts atomic distance restraints. Presently, the server is set to build RNA structures of up to 500 residues. PMID:22539264

Large-Scale Assessment, Rationality, and Scientific Management: The Case of No Child Left Behind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roach, Andrew T.; Frank, Jennifer

2007-01-01

This article examines the ways in which NCLB and the movement towards large-scale assessment systems are based on Weber's concept of formal rationality and tradition of scientific management. Building on these ideas, the authors use Ritzer's McDonaldization thesis to examine some of the core features of large-scale assessment and accountability…

Development of Residential Prototype Building Models and Analysis System for Large-Scale Energy Efficiency Studies Using EnergyPlus

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mendon, Vrushali V.; Taylor, Zachary T.

ABSTRACT: Recent advances in residential building energy efficiency and codes have resulted in increased interest in detailed residential building energy models using the latest energy simulation software. One of the challenges of developing residential building models to characterize new residential building stock is to allow for flexibility to address variability in house features like geometry, configuration, HVAC systems etc. Researchers solved this problem in a novel way by creating a simulation structure capable of creating fully-functional EnergyPlus batch runs using a completely scalable residential EnergyPlus template system. This system was used to create a set of thirty-two residential prototype buildingmore » models covering single- and multifamily buildings, four common foundation types and four common heating system types found in the United States (US). A weighting scheme with detailed state-wise and national weighting factors was designed to supplement the residential prototype models. The complete set is designed to represent a majority of new residential construction stock. The entire structure consists of a system of utility programs developed around the core EnergyPlus simulation engine to automate the creation and management of large-scale simulation studies with minimal human effort. The simulation structure and the residential prototype building models have been used for numerous large-scale studies, one of which is briefly discussed in this paper.« less

Demonstration of reduced-order urban scale building energy models

DOE PAGES

Heidarinejad, Mohammad; Mattise, Nicholas; Dahlhausen, Matthew; ...

2017-09-08

The aim of this study is to demonstrate a developed framework to rapidly create urban scale reduced-order building energy models using a systematic summary of the simplifications required for the representation of building exterior and thermal zones. These urban scale reduced-order models rely on the contribution of influential variables to the internal, external, and system thermal loads. OpenStudio Application Programming Interface (API) serves as a tool to automate the process of model creation and demonstrate the developed framework. The results of this study show that the accuracy of the developed reduced-order building energy models varies only up to 10% withmore » the selection of different thermal zones. In addition, to assess complexity of the developed reduced-order building energy models, this study develops a novel framework to quantify complexity of the building energy models. Consequently, this study empowers the building energy modelers to quantify their building energy model systematically in order to report the model complexity alongside the building energy model accuracy. An exhaustive analysis on four university campuses suggests that the urban neighborhood buildings lend themselves to simplified typical shapes. Specifically, building energy modelers can utilize the developed typical shapes to represent more than 80% of the U.S. buildings documented in the CBECS database. One main benefits of this developed framework is the opportunity for different models including airflow and solar radiation models to share the same exterior representation, allowing a unifying exchange data. Altogether, the results of this study have implications for a large-scale modeling of buildings in support of urban energy consumption analyses or assessment of a large number of alternative solutions in support of retrofit decision-making in the building industry.« less

Demonstration of reduced-order urban scale building energy models

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Heidarinejad, Mohammad; Mattise, Nicholas; Dahlhausen, Matthew

The aim of this study is to demonstrate a developed framework to rapidly create urban scale reduced-order building energy models using a systematic summary of the simplifications required for the representation of building exterior and thermal zones. These urban scale reduced-order models rely on the contribution of influential variables to the internal, external, and system thermal loads. OpenStudio Application Programming Interface (API) serves as a tool to automate the process of model creation and demonstrate the developed framework. The results of this study show that the accuracy of the developed reduced-order building energy models varies only up to 10% withmore » the selection of different thermal zones. In addition, to assess complexity of the developed reduced-order building energy models, this study develops a novel framework to quantify complexity of the building energy models. Consequently, this study empowers the building energy modelers to quantify their building energy model systematically in order to report the model complexity alongside the building energy model accuracy. An exhaustive analysis on four university campuses suggests that the urban neighborhood buildings lend themselves to simplified typical shapes. Specifically, building energy modelers can utilize the developed typical shapes to represent more than 80% of the U.S. buildings documented in the CBECS database. One main benefits of this developed framework is the opportunity for different models including airflow and solar radiation models to share the same exterior representation, allowing a unifying exchange data. Altogether, the results of this study have implications for a large-scale modeling of buildings in support of urban energy consumption analyses or assessment of a large number of alternative solutions in support of retrofit decision-making in the building industry.« less

78 FR 14565 - Changes in Flood Hazard Determinations

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-03-06

..., Building and team.com/lomrs.htm. County (12-03- Chairman at Development 1200P). Large, Loudoun Department... D. Public Works, team.com/lomrs.htm. 2078P). Sessoms, Jr., Municipal Center, Mayor, City of Building... flood insurance premium rates for new buildings and the contents of those buildings. For rating purposes...

Public attitudes toward programs of large-scale technological changes: Some reflections and policy prescriptions, appendix E

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shostak, A. B.

1973-01-01

The question of how ready the public is for the implementation of large-scale programs of technological change is considered. Four vital aspects of the issue are discussed which include: (1) the ways in which the public mis-perceives the change process, (2) the ways in which recent history impacts on public attitudes, (3) the ways in which the public divides among itself, and (4) the fundamentals of public attitudes towards change. It is concluded that nothing is so critical in the 1970's to securing public approval for large-scale planned change projects as is securing the approval by change-agents of the public.

Improvements in Certain District of Columbia Public Schools' Administrative Operations. Report to the Superintendent of the District of Columbia Public Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

General Accounting Office, Washington, DC.

The District of Columbia Public Schools system has taken action to ensure that supply items will be obtained at the most competitive prices. Because lack of storage facilities prevented bulk purchase of emergency items at competitive rates, the Division of Buildings and Grounds has remodeled a building as a warehouse to store large quantities of…

Pretest predictions for the response of a 1:8-scale steel LWR containment building model to static overpressurization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Clauss, D.B.

The analyses used to predict the behavior of a 1:8-scale model of a steel LWR containment building to static overpressurization are described and results are presented. Finite strain, large displacement, and nonlinear material properties were accounted for using finite element methods. Three-dimensional models were needed to analyze the penetrations, which included operable equipment hatches, personnel lock representations, and a constrained pipe. It was concluded that the scale model would fail due to leakage caused by large deformations of the equipment hatch sleeves. 13 refs., 34 figs., 1 tab.

HIV scale-up in Mozambique: Exceptionalism, normalisation and global health

PubMed Central

Høg, Erling

2014-01-01

The large-scale introduction of HIV and AIDS services in Mozambique from 2000 onwards occurred in the context of deep political commitment to sovereign nation-building and an important transition in the nation's health system. Simultaneously, the international community encountered a willing state partner that recognised the need to take action against the HIV epidemic. This article examines two critical policy shifts: sustained international funding and public health system integration (the move from parallel to integrated HIV services). The Mozambican government struggles to support its national health system against privatisation, NGO competition and internal brain drain. This is a sovereignty issue. However, the dominant discourse on self-determination shows a contradictory twist: it is part of the political rhetoric to keep the sovereignty discourse alive, while the real challenge is coordination, not partnerships. Nevertheless, we need more anthropological studies to understand the political implications of global health funding and governance. Other studies need to examine the consequences of public health system integration for the quality of access to health care. PMID:24499102

HIV scale-up in Mozambique: exceptionalism, normalisation and global health.

PubMed

Høg, Erling

2014-01-01

The large-scale introduction of HIV and AIDS services in Mozambique from 2000 onwards occurred in the context of deep political commitment to sovereign nation-building and an important transition in the nation's health system. Simultaneously, the international community encountered a willing state partner that recognised the need to take action against the HIV epidemic. This article examines two critical policy shifts: sustained international funding and public health system integration (the move from parallel to integrated HIV services). The Mozambican government struggles to support its national health system against privatisation, NGO competition and internal brain drain. This is a sovereignty issue. However, the dominant discourse on self-determination shows a contradictory twist: it is part of the political rhetoric to keep the sovereignty discourse alive, while the real challenge is coordination, not partnerships. Nevertheless, we need more anthropological studies to understand the political implications of global health funding and governance. Other studies need to examine the consequences of public health system integration for the quality of access to health care.

Managing public and media response to a reawakening volcano: lessons from the 2004 eruptive activity of Mount St. Helens: Chapter 23 in A volcano rekindled: the renewed eruption of Mount St. Helens, 2004-2006

USGS Publications Warehouse

Frenzen, Peter M.; Matarrese, Michael T.; Sherrod, David R.; Scott, William E.; Stauffer, Peter H.

2008-01-01

Volcanic eruptions and other infrequent, large-scale natural disturbances pose challenges and opportunities for public-land managers. In the days and weeks preceding an eruption, there can be considerable uncertainty surrounding the magnitude and areal extent of eruptive effects. At the same time, public and media interest in viewing developing events is high and concern for public safety on the part of local land managers and public safety officials is elevated. Land managers and collaborating Federal, State, and local officials must decide whether evacuations or restrictions to public access are necessary, the appropriate level of advance preparation, and how best to coordinate between overlapping jurisdictions. In the absence of a formal Federal or State emergency declaration, there is generally no identified source of supplemental funding for emergency-response preparation or managing extraordinary public and media response to developing events. In this chapter, we examine responses to escalating events that preceded the 2004 Mount St. Helens eruption and changes in public perception during the extended period of the largely nonexplosive, dome-building eruption that followed. Lessons learned include the importance of maintaining up-to-date emergency-response plans, cultivating close working relationships with collaborating agencies, and utilizing an organized response framework that incorporates clearly defined roles and responsibilities and effective communication strategies.

Biomass district heating methodology and pilot installations for public buildings groups

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chatzistougianni, N.; Giagozoglou, E.; Sentzas, K.; Karastergios, E.; Tsiamitros, D.; Stimoniaris, D.; Stomoniaris, A.; Maropoulos, S.

2016-11-01

The objective of the paper is to show how locally available biomass can support a small-scale district heating system of public buildings, especially when taking into account energy audit in-situ measurements and energy efficiency improvement measures. The step-by-step methodology is presented, including the research for local biomass availability, the thermal needs study and the study for the biomass district heating system, with and without energy efficiency improvement measures.

Project Management Life Cycle Models to Improve Management in High-rise Construction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burmistrov, Andrey; Siniavina, Maria; Iliashenko, Oksana

2018-03-01

The paper describes a possibility to improve project management in high-rise buildings construction through the use of various Project Management Life Cycle Models (PMLC models) based on traditional and agile project management approaches. Moreover, the paper describes, how the split the whole large-scale project to the "project chain" will create the factor for better manageability of the large-scale buildings project and increase the efficiency of the activities of all participants in such projects.

Planning and executing complex large-scale exercises.

PubMed

McCormick, Lisa C; Hites, Lisle; Wakelee, Jessica F; Rucks, Andrew C; Ginter, Peter M

2014-01-01

Increasingly, public health departments are designing and engaging in complex operations-based full-scale exercises to test multiple public health preparedness response functions. The Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) supplies benchmark guidelines that provide a framework for both the design and the evaluation of drills and exercises; however, the HSEEP framework does not seem to have been designed to manage the development and evaluation of multiple, operations-based, parallel exercises combined into 1 complex large-scale event. Lessons learned from the planning of the Mississippi State Department of Health Emergency Support Function--8 involvement in National Level Exercise 2011 were used to develop an expanded exercise planning model that is HSEEP compliant but accounts for increased exercise complexity and is more functional for public health. The Expanded HSEEP (E-HSEEP) model was developed through changes in the HSEEP exercise planning process in areas of Exercise Plan, Controller/Evaluator Handbook, Evaluation Plan, and After Action Report and Improvement Plan development. The E-HSEEP model was tested and refined during the planning and evaluation of Mississippi's State-level Emergency Support Function-8 exercises in 2012 and 2013. As a result of using the E-HSEEP model, Mississippi State Department of Health was able to capture strengths, lessons learned, and areas for improvement, and identify microlevel issues that may have been missed using the traditional HSEEP framework. The South Central Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center is working to create an Excel-based E-HSEEP tool that will allow practice partners to build a database to track corrective actions and conduct many different types of analyses and comparisons.

Building to Scale: An Analysis of Web-Based Services in CIC (Big Ten) Libraries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dewey, Barbara I.

Advancing library services in large universities requires creative approaches for "building to scale." This is the case for CIC, Committee on Institutional Cooperation (Big Ten), libraries whose home institutions serve thousands of students, faculty, staff, and others. Developing virtual Web-based services is an increasingly viable…

Multilingual Connotation Frames: A Case Study on Social Media for Targeted Sentiment Analysis and Forecast

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rashkin, Hannah J.; Bell, Eric B.; Choi, Yejin

People around the globe respond to major real world events through social media. To study targeted public sentiments across many languages and geographic locations, we introduce multilingual connotation frames: an extension from English connotation frames of Rashkin et al. (2016) with 10 additional European languages, focusing on the implied sentiments among event participants engaged in a frame. As a case study, we present large scale analysis on targeted public sentiments using 1.2 million multilingual connotation frames extracted from Twitter. We rely on connotation frames to build models to forecast country-specific connotation dynamics – perspective change over time towards salient entitiesmore » and events. Our results demonstrate that connotation dynamics can be accurately predicted up to half a week in advance.« less

Energy Efficiency Potential in the U.S. Single-Family Housing Stock

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wilson, Eric J.; Christensen, Craig B.; Horowitz, Scott G.

Typical approaches for assessing energy efficiency potential in buildings use a limited number of prototypes, and therefore suffer from inadequate resolution when pass-fail cost-effectiveness tests are applied, which can significantly underestimate or overestimate the economic potential of energy efficiency technologies. This analysis applies a new approach to large-scale residential energy analysis, combining the use of large public and private data sources, statistical sampling, detailed building simulations, and high-performance computing to achieve unprecedented granularity - and therefore accuracy - in modeling the diversity of the single-family housing stock. The result is a comprehensive set of maps, tables, and figures showing themore » technical and economic potential of 50 plus residential energy efficiency upgrades and packages for each state. Policymakers, program designers, and manufacturers can use these results to identify upgrades with the highest potential for cost-effective savings in a particular state or region, as well as help identify customer segments for targeted marketing and deployment. The primary finding of this analysis is that there is significant technical and economic potential to save electricity and on-site fuel use in the single-family housing stock. However, the economic potential is very sensitive to the cost-effectiveness criteria used for analysis. Additionally, the savings of particular energy efficiency upgrades is situation-specific within the housing stock (depending on climate, building vintage, heating fuel type, building physical characteristics, etc.).« less

A public health perspective to environmental barriers and accessibility problems for senior citizens living in ordinary housing.

PubMed

Granbom, Marianne; Iwarsson, Susanne; Kylberg, Marianne; Pettersson, Cecilia; Slaug, Björn

2016-08-11

Housing environments that hinder performance of daily activities and impede participation in social life have negative health consequences particularly for the older segment of the population. From a public health perspective accessible housing that supports active and healthy ageing is therefore crucial. The objective of the present study was to make an inventory of environmental barriers and investigate accessibility problems in the ordinary housing stock in Sweden as related to the functional capacity of senior citizens. Particular attention was paid to differences between housing types and building periods and to identify environmental barriers generating the most accessibility problems for sub-groups of senior citizens. Data on environmental barriers in dwellings from three databases on housing and health in old age was analysed (N = 1021). Four functional profiles representing large groups of senior citizens were used in analyses of the magnitude and severity of potential accessibility problems. Differences in terms of type of housing and building period were examined. High proportions of one-family houses as well as multi-dwellings had substantial numbers of environmental barriers, with significantly lower numbers in later building periods. Accessibility problems occurred already for senior citizens with few functional limitations, but more profound for those dependent on mobility devices. The most problematic housing sections were entrances in one-family houses and kitchens of multi-dwellings. Despite a high housing standard in the Swedish ordinary housing stock the results show substantial accessibility problems for senior citizens with functional limitations. To make housing accessible large-scale and systematic efforts are required.

Scalable methodology for large scale building energy improvement: Relevance of calibration in model-based retrofit analysis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Heo, Yeonsook; Augenbroe, Godfried; Graziano, Diane

2015-05-01

The increasing interest in retrofitting of existing buildings is motivated by the need to make a major contribution to enhancing building energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption and CO2 emission by the built environment. This paper examines the relevance of calibration in model-based analysis to support decision-making for energy and carbon efficiency retrofits of individual buildings and portfolios of buildings. The authors formulate a set of real retrofit decision-making situations and evaluate the role of calibration by using a case study that compares predictions and decisions from an uncalibrated model with those of a calibrated model. The case study illustratesmore » both the mechanics and outcomes of a practical alternative to the expert- and time-intense application of dynamic energy simulation models for large-scale retrofit decision-making under uncertainty.« less

40 CFR 141.203 - Tier 2 Public Notice-Form, manner, and frequency of notice.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... students, nursing home patients, prison inmates, etc.). Other methods may include: Publication in a local... others (e.g., apartment building owners or large private employers); posting in public places served by...

40 CFR 141.203 - Tier 2 Public Notice-Form, manner, and frequency of notice.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... students, nursing home patients, prison inmates, etc.). Other methods may include: Publication in a local... others (e.g., apartment building owners or large private employers); posting in public places served by...

Urban Renewable Building And Neighborhood Optimization

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

URBANopt is a user interface for creating and running district and city scale building energy simulations. The framework is built around the OpenStudio Urban Measures which are part of the OpenStudio project. Building footprints, building height, building type, and other data can be imported from public records or other sources. Footprints and locations for new buildings and district systems can also be specified. OpenStudio Measures are used to create starting point energy models and to model energy design features and efficiency measures for each building. URBANopt allows a user to pose several scenarios such as “what if 30% of themore » commercial retail buildings added roof top solar” or “what if all elementary schools converted to ground source heat pumps” and then visualize the impacts at a district or city scale. URBANopt is capable of modeling existing buildings, new construction, and district energy systems. URBANopt can be used to explore options for achieving Zero Energy across a collection of buildings (e.g., Zero Energy Districts).« less

Ry Horsey | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Ry Horsey Photo of Henry Horsey Ry Horsey Software Developer - Commercial Buildings Energy Modeling the field of commercial building energy modeling. He is particularly interested in the increasing tools to support large-scale commercial building energy modeling. This work has led to contributions to

Ignition and flame-growth modeling on realistic building and landscape objects in changing environments

Treesearch

Mark A. Dietenberger

2010-01-01

Effective mitigation of external fires on structures can be achieved flexibly, economically, and aesthetically by (1) preventing large-area ignition on structures by avoiding close proximity of burning vegetation; and (2) stopping flame travel from firebrands landing on combustible building objects. Using bench-scale and mid-scale fire tests to obtain flammability...

Ignition and flame travel on realistic building and landscape objects in changing environments

Treesearch

Mark A. Dietenberger

2007-01-01

Effective mitigation of external fires on structures can be achieved flexibly, economically, and aesthetically by (1) preventing large-area ignition on structures from close proximity of burning vegetations and (2) stopping flame travel from firebrands landing on combustible building objects. In using bench-scale and mid-scale fire tests to obtain fire growth...

Large-scale self-assembly of uniform submicron silver sulfide material driven by precise pressure control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qi, Juanjuan; Chen, Ke; Zhang, Shuhao; Yang, Yun; Guo, Lin; Yang, Shihe

2017-03-01

The controllable self-assembly of nanosized building blocks into larger specific structures can provide an efficient method of synthesizing novel materials with excellent properties. The self-assembly of nanocrystals by assisted means is becoming an extremely active area of research, because it provides a method of producing large-scale advanced functional materials with potential applications in the areas of energy, electronics, optics, and biologics. In this study, we applied an efficient strategy, namely, the use of ‘pressure control’ to the assembly of silver sulfide (Ag2S) nanospheres with a diameter of approximately 33 nm into large-scale, uniform Ag2S sub-microspheres with a size of about 0.33 μm. More importantly, this strategy realizes the online control of the overall reaction system, including the pressure, reaction time, and temperature, and could also be used to easily fabricate other functional materials on an industrial scale. Moreover, the thermodynamics and kinetics parameters for the thermal decomposition of silver diethyldithiocarbamate (Ag(DDTC)) are also investigated to explore the formation mechanism of the Ag2S nanosized building blocks which can be assembled into uniform sub-micron scale architecture. As a method of producing sub-micron Ag2S particles by means of the pressure-controlled self-assembly of nanoparticles, we foresee this strategy being an efficient and universally applicable option for constructing other new building blocks and assembling novel and large functional micromaterials on an industrial scale.

Why build a virtual brain? Large-scale neural simulations as jump start for cognitive computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Colombo, Matteo

2017-03-01

Despite the impressive amount of financial resources recently invested in carrying out large-scale brain simulations, it is controversial what the pay-offs are of pursuing this project. One idea is that from designing, building, and running a large-scale neural simulation, scientists acquire knowledge about the computational performance of the simulating system, rather than about the neurobiological system represented in the simulation. It has been claimed that this knowledge may usher in a new era of neuromorphic, cognitive computing systems. This study elucidates this claim and argues that the main challenge this era is facing is not the lack of biological realism. The challenge lies in identifying general neurocomputational principles for the design of artificial systems, which could display the robust flexibility characteristic of biological intelligence.

Putting the public (back) into public health: leadership, evidence and action.

PubMed

South, J; Connolly, A M; Stansfield, J A; Johnstone, P; Henderson, G; Fenton, K A

2018-03-13

There is a strong evidence-based rationale for community capacity building and community empowerment as part of a strategic response to reduce health inequalities. Within the current UK policy context, there are calls for increased public engagement in prevention and local decision-making in order to give people greater control over the conditions that determine health. With reference to the challenges and opportunities within the English public health system, this essay seeks to open debate about what is required to mainstream community-centred approaches and ensure that the public is central to public health. The essay sets out the case for a reorientation of public health practice in order to build impactful action with communities at scale leading to a reduction in the health gap. National frameworks that support local practice are described. Four areas of challenge that could potentially drive an implementation gap are discussed: (i) achieving integration and scale, (ii) effective community mobilization, (iii) evidencing impact and (iv) achieving a shift in power. The essay concludes with a call to action for developing a contemporary public health practice that is rooted in communities and offers local leadership to strengthen local assets, increase community control and reduce health inequalities.

Beyond wilderness: towards an anthropology of infrastructure and the built environment in the Russian North

PubMed Central

Schweitzer, Peter; Povoroznyuk, Olga; Schiesser, Sigrid

2017-01-01

Abstract Public and academic discourses about the Polar regions typically focus on the so-called natural environment. While, these discourses and inquiries continue to be relevant, the current article asks the question how to conceptualize the on-going industrial and infrastructural build-up of the Arctic. Acknowledging that the “built environment” is not an invention of modernity, the article nevertheless focuses on large-scale infrastructural projects of the twentieth century, which marks a watershed of industrial and infrastructural development in the north. Given that the Soviet Union was at the vanguard of these developments, the focus will be on Soviet and Russian large-scale projects. We will be discussing two cases of transportation infrastructure, one of them based on an on-going research project being conducted by the authors along the Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM) and the other focused on the so-called Northern Sea Route, the marine passage with a long history that has recently been regaining public and academic attention. The concluding section will argue for increased attention to the interactions between humans and the built environment, serving as a kind of programmatic call for more anthropological attention to infrastructure in the Russian north and other polar regions. PMID:29098112

(Re)inventing Government-Industry R and D Collaboration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Holmes, Bruce J.

1996-01-01

This paper describes the lessons learned in developing and operating a large-scale strategic alliance whose organization and coordination is U.S. Government-led using new means for R&D collaboration. Consortia in the United States counter a century of 1884 Sherman Anti-Trust Law-based governmental and legal policy and a longstanding business tradition of unfettered competition. Success in public-private collaboration in America requires compelling vision and motivation by both partners to reinvent our ways of doing business. The foundations for reinventing government and alliance building were laid in 1994 with Vice President Al Gore's mandates for Federal Lab Reviews and other examinations of the roles and missions for the nation's more than 700 government labs. In addition, the 1984 National Cooperative Research Act (NCRA) set in motion the abilities for U.S. companies to collaborate in pre-competitive technology development. The budget realities of the 1990's for NASA and other government agencies demand that government discover the means to accomplish its mission by leveraging resources through streamlining as well as alliances. Federal R&D investments can be significantly leveraged for greater national benefit through strategic alliances with industry and university partners. This paper presents early results from one of NASA's first large-scale public/private joint R&D ventures.

Finite difference and Runge-Kutta methods for solving vibration problems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lintang Renganis Radityani, Scolastika; Mungkasi, Sudi

2017-11-01

The vibration of a storey building can be modelled into a system of second order ordinary differential equations. If the number of floors of a building is large, then the result is a large scale system of second order ordinary differential equations. The large scale system is difficult to solve, and if it can be solved, the solution may not be accurate. Therefore, in this paper, we seek for accurate methods for solving vibration problems. We compare the performance of numerical finite difference and Runge-Kutta methods for solving large scale systems of second order ordinary differential equations. The finite difference methods include the forward and central differences. The Runge-Kutta methods include the Euler and Heun methods. Our research results show that the central finite difference and the Heun methods produce more accurate solutions than the forward finite difference and the Euler methods do.

Layer-by-layer assembly of two-dimensional materials into wafer-scale heterostructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Kibum; Lee, Kan-Heng; Han, Yimo; Gao, Hui; Xie, Saien; Muller, David A.; Park, Jiwoong

2017-10-01

High-performance semiconductor films with vertical compositions that are designed to atomic-scale precision provide the foundation for modern integrated circuitry and novel materials discovery. One approach to realizing such films is sequential layer-by-layer assembly, whereby atomically thin two-dimensional building blocks are vertically stacked, and held together by van der Waals interactions. With this approach, graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides--which represent one- and three-atom-thick two-dimensional building blocks, respectively--have been used to realize previously inaccessible heterostructures with interesting physical properties. However, no large-scale assembly method exists at present that maintains the intrinsic properties of these two-dimensional building blocks while producing pristine interlayer interfaces, thus limiting the layer-by-layer assembly method to small-scale proof-of-concept demonstrations. Here we report the generation of wafer-scale semiconductor films with a very high level of spatial uniformity and pristine interfaces. The vertical composition and properties of these films are designed at the atomic scale using layer-by-layer assembly of two-dimensional building blocks under vacuum. We fabricate several large-scale, high-quality heterostructure films and devices, including superlattice films with vertical compositions designed layer-by-layer, batch-fabricated tunnel device arrays with resistances that can be tuned over four orders of magnitude, band-engineered heterostructure tunnel diodes, and millimetre-scale ultrathin membranes and windows. The stacked films are detachable, suspendable and compatible with water or plastic surfaces, which will enable their integration with advanced optical and mechanical systems.

Layer-by-layer assembly of two-dimensional materials into wafer-scale heterostructures.

PubMed

Kang, Kibum; Lee, Kan-Heng; Han, Yimo; Gao, Hui; Xie, Saien; Muller, David A; Park, Jiwoong

2017-10-12

High-performance semiconductor films with vertical compositions that are designed to atomic-scale precision provide the foundation for modern integrated circuitry and novel materials discovery. One approach to realizing such films is sequential layer-by-layer assembly, whereby atomically thin two-dimensional building blocks are vertically stacked, and held together by van der Waals interactions. With this approach, graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenides-which represent one- and three-atom-thick two-dimensional building blocks, respectively-have been used to realize previously inaccessible heterostructures with interesting physical properties. However, no large-scale assembly method exists at present that maintains the intrinsic properties of these two-dimensional building blocks while producing pristine interlayer interfaces, thus limiting the layer-by-layer assembly method to small-scale proof-of-concept demonstrations. Here we report the generation of wafer-scale semiconductor films with a very high level of spatial uniformity and pristine interfaces. The vertical composition and properties of these films are designed at the atomic scale using layer-by-layer assembly of two-dimensional building blocks under vacuum. We fabricate several large-scale, high-quality heterostructure films and devices, including superlattice films with vertical compositions designed layer-by-layer, batch-fabricated tunnel device arrays with resistances that can be tuned over four orders of magnitude, band-engineered heterostructure tunnel diodes, and millimetre-scale ultrathin membranes and windows. The stacked films are detachable, suspendable and compatible with water or plastic surfaces, which will enable their integration with advanced optical and mechanical systems.

Reversing the Cycle of Deterioration in the Nation's Public School Buildings

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Council of the Great City Schools, 2014

2014-01-01

Across the nation, large urban school districts are experiencing premature and rapidly accelerating deterioration of school buildings. The conditions of buildings and equipment, most importantly in classrooms and school support spaces, are deteriorating to the point of hindering the core mission of schools: educating children. This report is the…

Newspaper coverage of controversies about large-scale swine facilities in rural communities in Illinois.

PubMed

Reisner, A E

2005-11-01

The building and expansion of large-scale swine facilities has created considerable controversy in many neighboring communities, but to date, no systematic analysis has been done of the types of claims made during these conflicts. This study examined how local newspapers in one state covered the transition from the dominance of smaller, diversified swine operations to large, single-purpose pig production facilities. To look at publicly made statements concerning large-scale swine facilities (LSSF), the study collected all articles related to LSSF from 22 daily Illinois newspapers over a 3-yr period (a total of 1,737 articles). The most frequent sets of claims used by proponents of LSSF were that the environment was not harmed, that state regulations were sufficiently strict, and that the state economically needed this type of agriculture. The most frequent claims made by opponents were that LSSF harmed the environment and neighboring communities and that stricter regulations were needed. Proponents' claims were primarily defensive and, to some degree, underplayed the advantages of LSSF. Pro-and anti-LSSF groups were talking at cross-purposes, to some degree. Even across similar themes, those in favor of LSSF and those opposed were addressing different sets of concerns. The newspaper claims did not indicate any effective alliances forming between local anti-LSSF groups and national environmental or animal rights groups.

Danny Studer | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Daniel.Studer@nrel.gov | 303-275-4368 Daniel joined NREL in 2009. As a member of the Commercial Buildings using EnergyPlus to identify large-scale areas for reducing and optimizing commercial building energy consumption. Recently, Daniel led NREL's commercial building workforce development efforts and he is leading

Robopedia: Leveraging Sensorpedia for Web-Enabled Robot Control

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Resseguie, David R

There is a growing interest in building Internetscale sensor networks that integrate sensors from around the world into a single unified system. In contrast, robotics application development has primarily focused on building specialized systems. These specialized systems take scalability and reliability into consideration, but generally neglect exploring the key components required to build a large scale system. Integrating robotic applications with Internet-scale sensor networks will unify specialized robotics applications and provide answers to large scale implementation concerns. We focus on utilizing Internet-scale sensor network technology to construct a framework for unifying robotic systems. Our framework web-enables a surveillance robot smore » sensor observations and provides a webinterface to the robot s actuators. This lets robots seamlessly integrate into web applications. In addition, the framework eliminates most prerequisite robotics knowledge, allowing for the creation of general web-based robotics applications. The framework also provides mechanisms to create applications that can interface with any robot. Frameworks such as this one are key to solving large scale mobile robotics implementation problems. We provide an overview of previous Internetscale sensor networks, Sensorpedia (an ad-hoc Internet-scale sensor network), our framework for integrating robots with Sensorpedia, two applications which illustrate our frameworks ability to support general web-based robotic control, and offer experimental results that illustrate our framework s scalability, feasibility, and resource requirements.« less

45. Master plan of 4th floor, building 1, U.S. Naval ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

45. Master plan of 4th floor, building 1, U.S. Naval supply activities, New York, Brooklyn, New York, public works department, March 2, 1953. Drawing #BK-S1-4. Scale 1/16=1. - U.S. Navy Fleet Supply Base, Storehouse No. 1, 830 Third Avenue, Brooklyn, Kings County, NY

Experience of public procurement of Open Compute servers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bärring, Olof; Guerri, Marco; Bonfillou, Eric; Valsan, Liviu; Grigore, Alexandru; Dore, Vincent; Gentit, Alain; Clement, Benoît; Grossir, Anthony

2015-12-01

The Open Compute Project. OCP (http://www.opencompute.org/). was launched by Facebook in 2011 with the objective of building efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost. The technologies are released as open hardware. with the goal to develop servers and data centres following the model traditionally associated with open source software projects. In 2013 CERN acquired a few OCP servers in order to compare performance and power consumption with standard hardware. The conclusions were that there are sufficient savings to motivate an attempt to procure a large scale installation. One objective is to evaluate if the OCP market is sufficiently mature and broad enough to meet the constraints of a public procurement. This paper summarizes this procurement. which started in September 2014 and involved the Request for information (RFI) to qualify bidders and Request for Tender (RFT).

Supports for libraries'restoration from the Great East Japan Earthquake : Challenges we address at Miyagi Prefectural Library

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumagai, Shinichiro

This article overviews the situations of damage and reconstruction of mainly public libraries in Miyagi Prefecture about 9 months after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Serious damage of library buildings was due not only to the tsunami or seismic sea wave but to violent shaking, the latter less reported by the media. We at the Miyagi Prefectural Library implemented reconstruction assistance for regional public libraries in both direct and indirect ways. Among them, we report in detail on the support we offered until the Minami-sanriku Town Library reopened its service. We highlight a prefectural library's role, acting between supporters and those supportees, to consider the necessity of middle organizations. We clarify what challenges we face and examine how best to provide assistance in case of large-scale disasters.

Enhancing public health outcomes in developing countries: from good policies and best practices to better implementation.

PubMed

Woolcock, Michael

2018-06-01

In rich and poor countries alike, a core challenge is building the state's capability for policy implementation. Delivering high-quality public health and health care-affordably, reliably and at scale, for all-exemplifies this challenge, since doing so requires deftly integrating refined technical skills (surgery), broad logistics management (supply chains, facilities maintenance), adaptive problem solving (curative care), and resolving ideological differences (who pays? who provides?), even as the prevailing health problems themselves only become more diverse, complex, and expensive as countries become more prosperous. However, the current state of state capability in developing countries is demonstrably alarming, with the strains and demands only likely to intensify in the coming decades. Prevailing "best practice" strategies for building implementation capability-copying and scaling putative successes from abroad-are too often part of the problem, while individual training ("capacity building") and technological upgrades (e.g. new management information systems) remain necessary but deeply insufficient. An alternative approach is outlined, one centered on building implementation capability by working iteratively to solve problems nominated and prioritized by local actors.

Urban area thermal monitoring: Liepaja case study using satellite and aerial thermal data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gulbe, Linda; Caune, Vairis; Korats, Gundars

2017-12-01

The aim of this study is to explore large (60 m/pixel) and small scale (individual building level) temperature distribution patterns from thermal remote sensing data and to conclude what kind of information could be extracted from thermal remote sensing on regular basis. Landsat program provides frequent large scale thermal images useful for analysis of city temperature patterns. During the study correlation between temperature patterns and vegetation content based on NDVI and building coverage based on OpenStreetMap data was studied. Landsat based temperature patterns were independent from the season, negatively correlated with vegetation content and positively correlated with building coverage. Small scale analysis included spatial and raster descriptor analysis for polygons corresponding to roofs of individual buildings for evaluating insulation of roofs. Remote sensing and spatial descriptors are poorly related to heat consumption data, however, thermal aerial data median and entropy can help to identify poorly insulated roofs. Automated quantitative roof analysis has high potential for acquiring city wide information about roof insulation, but quality is limited by reference data quality and information on building types, and roof materials would be crucial for further studies.

Multistage Security Mechanism For Hybrid, Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

sensor network . Building on research in the areas of the wireless sensor networks (WSN) and the mobile ad hoc networks (MANET), this thesis proposes an...A wide area network consisting of ballistic missile defense satellites and terrestrial nodes can be viewed as a hybrid, large-scale mobile wireless

Public-private interactions on health in South Africa: opportunities for scaling up.

PubMed

Kula, Nothemba; Fryatt, Robert J

2014-08-01

South Africa has long recognized partnerships between the public and private sectors as a policy objective in health, but experience is still limited and poorly documented. The objectives of this article are to understand the factors that increase the likelihood of success of public-private interactions in South Africa, and identify and discuss opportunities for them to be scaled up. There is a strong legislative framework and a number of guidelines and tools that have been developed by the Treasury for managing partnerships. The review of literature confirmed the need for the state to have effective regulations in order to oversee quality and standards and to provide stewardship and oversight. The public sector requires sufficient capacity not only to manage relationships with the private sector but also to enable innovation and experimentation. Evaluation is an integral part of all interactions not only to learn from successes but also to identify any perverse incentives that may lead to unintended consequences. Four case studies show that the private for-profit sector is already engaged in a number of projects that are closely aligned to current health system reform priorities. Factors that increase the likelihood of interactions being successful include: increasing the government's capacity to manage public-private relationships; choosing public-private interactions that are strategically important to national goals; building a knowledge base on what works, where and why; moving from pilots to large scale initiatives; harnessing the contracting expertise in private providers; and encouraging innovation and learning. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine © The Author 2013; all rights reserved.

EP and CD-ROM products - Current trends of production and market development -

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watanabe, Kazuhiko

The printed books and magazines/journals have been, and still even now are, dominant materials for public reading and reference usage. Microform publications have been also adopted for library collection build-up, but it is still within a very limited scale and coverage. As the first "new media" product, we should approve the fact that "CD-ROM" keeps amazingly large information storage capacity and also quite flexible application utility. So far, among the firstly released CD-ROMS, bibliographic databases, both for Japanese and English publications, look already quite widely purchased and now installed in many workstations of libraries. The users should evaluate its cost-effectiveness not only by its great data storage capacity but also by its frequent usage merit for library work rationalization. Multiple applied usage of CD-ROM will surely serve to such library routine works as searching, cataloguing, reading list preparation, inventory checking and new order placing, etc. 'CD-ROM' is the first EP product for quite wide usage.

Promoting country ownership and stewardship of health programs: The global fund experience.

PubMed

Atun, Rifat; Kazatchkine, Michel

2009-11-01

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was established in 2002 to provide large-scale financing to middle- and low-income countries to intensify the fight against the 3 diseases. Its model has enabled strengthening of local health leadership to improve governance of HIV programs in 5 ways. First, the Global Fund has encouraged development of local capacity to generate technically sound proposals reflecting country needs and priorities. Second, through dual-track financing-where countries are encouraged to nominate at least one government and one nongovernment principal recipient to lead program implementation-the Global Fund has enabled civil society and other nongovernmental organizations to play a critical role in the design, implementation, and oversight of HIV programs. Third, investments to strengthen community systems have enabled greater involvement of community leaders in effective mobilization of demand and scale-up for services to reach vulnerable groups. Fourth, capacity building outside the state sector has improved community participation in governance of public health. Finally, an emphasis on inclusiveness and diversity in planning, implementation, and oversight has broadly enhanced country coordination capacity. Strengthening local leadership capacity and governance are critical to building efficient and equitable health systems to deliver universal coverage of HIV services.

Ecological science and sustainability for the 21st century

USGS Publications Warehouse

Palmer, Margaret A.; Bernhardt, Emily S.; Chornesky, Elizabeth A.; Collins, Scott L.; Dobson, Andrew P.; Duke, Clifford S.; Gold, Barry; Jacobson, Robert B.; Kingsland, Sharon E.; Kranz, Rhonda H.; Mappin, Michael J.; Martinez, M. Luisa; Micheli, Fiorenza; Morse, Jennifer L.; Pace, Michael L.; Pascual, Mercedes; Palumbi, Stephen S.; Reichman, O. J.; Townsend, Alan R.; Turner, Monica G.

2005-01-01

Ecological science has contributed greatly to our understanding of the natural world and the impact of humans on that world. Now, we need to refocus the discipline towards research that ensures a future in which natural systems and the humans they include coexist on a more sustainable planet. Acknowledging that managed ecosystems and intensive exploitation of resources define our future, ecologists must play a greatly expanded role in communicating their research and influencing policy and decisions that affect the environment. To accomplish this, they will have to forge partnerships at scales and in forms they have not traditionally used. These alliances must act within three visionary areas: enhancing the extent to which decisions are ecologically informed; advancing innovative ecological research directed at the sustainability of the planet; and stimulating cultural changes within the science itself, thereby building a forward-looking and international ecology. We recommend: (1) a research initiative to enhance research project development, facilitate large-scale experiments and data collection, and link science to solutions; (2) procedures that will improve interactions among researchers, managers, and decision makers; and (3) efforts to build public understanding of the links between ecosystem services and humans.

Automated Decomposition of Model-based Learning Problems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Brian C.; Millar, Bill

1996-01-01

A new generation of sensor rich, massively distributed autonomous systems is being developed that has the potential for unprecedented performance, such as smart buildings, reconfigurable factories, adaptive traffic systems and remote earth ecosystem monitoring. To achieve high performance these massive systems will need to accurately model themselves and their environment from sensor information. Accomplishing this on a grand scale requires automating the art of large-scale modeling. This paper presents a formalization of [\\em decompositional model-based learning (DML)], a method developed by observing a modeler's expertise at decomposing large scale model estimation tasks. The method exploits a striking analogy between learning and consistency-based diagnosis. Moriarty, an implementation of DML, has been applied to thermal modeling of a smart building, demonstrating a significant improvement in learning rate.

A quantitative analysis study on the implementation of partnering in the design and build construction project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Halil, F. M.; Nasir, N. M.; Shukur, A. S.; Hashim, H.

2018-02-01

Design and Build construction project involved the biggest scale of the cost of investment as compared to the traditional approach. In Design and Build, the client hires a design professional that will design according to the client’s need and specification. This research aim is to explore the concept of partnering implementation practiced in the design and build procurement approach. Therefore, the selection of design professionals such as Contractors and consultants in the project is crucial to ensure the successful project completion on time, cost, and quality. The methodology adopted using quantitative approach. Administration of the questionnaire was distributed to the public client by using postal survey. Outcomes of the results, the public clients agreed that project management capabilities and commitment to budget as a crucial element of partnering from the design professional in design and build construction project.

Building Community Disaster Resilience: Perspectives From a Large Urban County Department of Public Health

PubMed Central

Fielding, Jonathan E.; Chandra, Anita; Williams, Malcolm; Eisenman, David; Wells, Kenneth B.; Law, Grace Y.; Fogleman, Stella; Magaña, Aizita

2013-01-01

An emerging approach to public health emergency preparedness and response, community resilience encompasses individual preparedness as well as establishing a supportive social context in communities to withstand and recover from disasters. We examine why building community resilience has become a key component of national policy across multiple federal agencies and discuss the core principles embodied in community resilience theory—specifically, the focus on incorporating equity and social justice considerations in preparedness planning and response. We also examine the challenges of integrating community resilience with traditional public health practices and the importance of developing metrics for evaluation and strategic planning purposes. Using the example of the Los Angeles County Community Disaster Resilience Project, we discuss our experience and perspective from a large urban county to better understand how to implement a community resilience framework in public health practice. PMID:23678937

Building Leadership Capacity in California's Public Education Systems: Lessons from the SCALE Initiative

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Knudson, Joel

2014-01-01

This report documents the history and evolution of the Stuart Foundation California Leaders in Education (SCALE) Initiative through 2014. It tells the story of how the work began, what it entails, and how it has developed across time. The report also identifies lessons learned from the SCALE experience. These lessons can inform the participants of…

Assessing the Feasibility of Large-Scale Countercyclical Public Job-Creation. Final Report, Volume III. Selected Implications of Public Job-Creation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Urban Inst., Washington, DC.

This last of a three-volume report of a study done to assess the feasibility of large-scale, countercyclical public job creation covers the findings regarding the priorities among projects, indirect employment effects, skill imbalances, and administrative issues; and summarizes the overall findings, conclusions, and recommendations. (Volume 1,…

Should we trust build-up/wash-off water quality models at the scale of urban catchments?

PubMed

Bonhomme, Céline; Petrucci, Guido

2017-01-01

Models of runoff water quality at the scale of an urban catchment usually rely on build-up/wash-off formulations obtained through small-scale experiments. Often, the physical interpretation of the model parameters, valid at the small-scale, is transposed to large-scale applications. Testing different levels of spatial variability, the parameter distributions of a water quality model are obtained in this paper through a Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm and analyzed. The simulated variable is the total suspended solid concentration at the outlet of a periurban catchment in the Paris region (2.3 km 2 ), for which high-frequency turbidity measurements are available. This application suggests that build-up/wash-off models applied at the catchment-scale do not maintain their physical meaning, but should be considered as "black-box" models. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A cloud-based framework for large-scale traditional Chinese medical record retrieval.

PubMed

Liu, Lijun; Liu, Li; Fu, Xiaodong; Huang, Qingsong; Zhang, Xianwen; Zhang, Yin

2018-01-01

Electronic medical records are increasingly common in medical practice. The secondary use of medical records has become increasingly important. It relies on the ability to retrieve the complete information about desired patient populations. How to effectively and accurately retrieve relevant medical records from large- scale medical big data is becoming a big challenge. Therefore, we propose an efficient and robust framework based on cloud for large-scale Traditional Chinese Medical Records (TCMRs) retrieval. We propose a parallel index building method and build a distributed search cluster, the former is used to improve the performance of index building, and the latter is used to provide high concurrent online TCMRs retrieval. Then, a real-time multi-indexing model is proposed to ensure the latest relevant TCMRs are indexed and retrieved in real-time, and a semantics-based query expansion method and a multi- factor ranking model are proposed to improve retrieval quality. Third, we implement a template-based visualization method for displaying medical reports. The proposed parallel indexing method and distributed search cluster can improve the performance of index building and provide high concurrent online TCMRs retrieval. The multi-indexing model can ensure the latest relevant TCMRs are indexed and retrieved in real-time. The semantics expansion method and the multi-factor ranking model can enhance retrieval quality. The template-based visualization method can enhance the availability and universality, where the medical reports are displayed via friendly web interface. In conclusion, compared with the current medical record retrieval systems, our system provides some advantages that are useful in improving the secondary use of large-scale traditional Chinese medical records in cloud environment. The proposed system is more easily integrated with existing clinical systems and be used in various scenarios. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

ENCAPSULATING WASTE DISPOSAL METHODS - PHASE I

EPA Science Inventory

Scale Matters: An Action Plan for Realizing Sector-Wide"Zero-Energy" Performance Goals in Commercial Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Selkowitz, Stephen; Selkowitz, Stephen; Granderson, Jessica

2008-06-16

It is widely accepted that if the United States is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions it must aggressively address energy end use in the building sector. While there have been some notable but modest successes with mandatory and voluntary programs, there have also been puzzling failures to achieve expected savings. Collectively, these programs have not yet reached the majority of the building stock, nor have they yet routinely produced very large savings in individual buildings. Several trends that have the potential to change this are noteworthy: (1) the growing market interest in 'green buildings' and 'sustainable design', (2) the majormore » professional societies (e.g. AIA, ASHRAE) have more aggressively adopted significant improvements in energy efficiency as strategic goals, e.g. targeting 'zero energy', carbon-neutral buildings by 2030. While this vision is widely accepted as desirable, unless there are significant changes to the way buildings are routinely designed, delivered and operated, zero energy buildings will remain a niche phenomenon rather than a sector-wide reality. Toward that end, a public/private coalition including the Alliance to Save Energy, LBNL, AIA, ASHRAE, USGBC and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) are developing an 'action plan' for moving the U.S. commercial building sector towards zero energy performance. It addresses regional action in a national framework; integrated deployment, demonstration and R&D threads; and would focus on measurable, visible performance indicators. This paper outlines this action plan, focusing on the challenge, the key themes, and the strategies and actions leading to substantial reductions in GHG emissions by 2030.« less

History, Philosophy, and Public Opinion Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Herbst, Susan

1993-01-01

Argues for the importance of the classical tradition (broad, speculative, and historically informed writing and research) in public opinion research. Argues that asking large, normative questions about public opinion processes, trying to build grand theory, and taking history seriously will enrich the field and command the attention of scholars in…

Models of education in medicine, public health, and engineering.

PubMed

Garcia, Patricia; Armstrong, Robert; Zaman, Muhammad H

2014-09-12

Discussion on global health in both the academic and the public domain has focused largely on research, capacity building, and service delivery. Although these efforts along with financial commitments from public and private partners have contributed to a broader appreciation and understanding of global health challenges, the reflection of global health in academic training has largely been lacking. However, integrative models are beginning to appear. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Implementing Large-Scale Instructional Technology in Kenya: Changing Instructional Practice and Developing Accountability in a National Education System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Piper, Benjamin; Oyanga, Arbogast; Mejia, Jessica; Pouezevara, Sarah

2017-01-01

Previous large-scale education technology interventions have shown only modest impacts on student achievement. Building on results from an earlier randomized controlled trial of three different applications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on primary education in Kenya, the Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity developed the…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Torcellini, P.; Pless, S.; Lobato, C.

Ongoing work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicates that net-zero energy building (NZEB) status is both achievable and repeatable today. This paper presents a definition framework for classifying NZEBs and a real-life example that demonstrates how a large-scale office building can cost-effectively achieve net-zero energy.

Large Scale Software Building with CMake in ATLAS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elmsheuser, J.; Krasznahorkay, A.; Obreshkov, E.; Undrus, A.; ATLAS Collaboration

2017-10-01

The offline software of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) serves as the platform for detector data reconstruction, simulation and analysis. It is also used in the detector’s trigger system to select LHC collision events during data taking. The ATLAS offline software consists of several million lines of C++ and Python code organized in a modular design of more than 2000 specialized packages. Because of different workflows, many stable numbered releases are in parallel production use. To accommodate specific workflow requests, software patches with modified libraries are distributed on top of existing software releases on a daily basis. The different ATLAS software applications also require a flexible build system that strongly supports unit and integration tests. Within the last year this build system was migrated to CMake. A CMake configuration has been developed that allows one to easily set up and build the above mentioned software packages. This also makes it possible to develop and test new and modified packages on top of existing releases. The system also allows one to detect and execute partial rebuilds of the release based on single package changes. The build system makes use of CPack for building RPM packages out of the software releases, and CTest for running unit and integration tests. We report on the migration and integration of the ATLAS software to CMake and show working examples of this large scale project in production.

Managing large-scale workflow execution from resource provisioning to provenance tracking: The CyberShake example

USGS Publications Warehouse

Deelman, E.; Callaghan, S.; Field, E.; Francoeur, H.; Graves, R.; Gupta, N.; Gupta, V.; Jordan, T.H.; Kesselman, C.; Maechling, P.; Mehringer, J.; Mehta, G.; Okaya, D.; Vahi, K.; Zhao, L.

2006-01-01

This paper discusses the process of building an environment where large-scale, complex, scientific analysis can be scheduled onto a heterogeneous collection of computational and storage resources. The example application is the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) CyberShake project, an analysis designed to compute probabilistic seismic hazard curves for sites in the Los Angeles area. We explain which software tools were used to build to the system, describe their functionality and interactions. We show the results of running the CyberShake analysis that included over 250,000 jobs using resources available through SCEC and the TeraGrid. ?? 2006 IEEE.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Torcellini, P.; Pless, S.; Lobato, C.

Until recently, large-scale, cost-effective net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs) were thought to lie decades in the future. However, ongoing work at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that NZEB status is both achievable and repeatable today. This paper presents a definition framework for classifying NZEBs and a real-life example that demonstrates how a large-scale office building can cost-effectively achieve net-zero energy. The vision of NZEBs is compelling. In theory, these highly energy-efficient buildings will produce, during a typical year, enough renewable energy to offset the energy they consume from the grid. The NREL NZEB definition framework classifies NZEBs according tomore » the criteria being used to judge net-zero status and the way renewable energy is supplied to achieve that status. We use the new U.S. Department of Energy/NREL 220,000-ft{sub 2} Research Support Facilities (RSF) building to illustrate why a clear picture of NZEB definitions is important and how the framework provides a methodology for creating a cost-effective NZEB. The RSF, scheduled to open in June 2010, includes contractual commitments to deliver a Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design (LEED) Platinum Rating, an energy use intensity of 25 kBtu/ft{sub 2} (half that of a typical LEED Platinum office building), and net-zero energy status. We will discuss the analysis method and cost tradeoffs that were performed throughout the design and build phases to meet these commitments and maintain construction costs at $259/ft{sub 2}. We will discuss ways to achieve large-scale, replicable NZEB performance. Many passive and renewable energy strategies are utilized, including full daylighting, high-performance lighting, natural ventilation through operable windows, thermal mass, transpired solar collectors, radiant heating and cooling, and workstation configurations allow for maximum daylighting.« less

Building simulation: Ten challenges

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hong, Tianzhen; Langevin, Jared; Sun, Kaiyu

Buildings consume more than one-third of the world’s primary energy. Reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions in the buildings sector through energy conservation and efficiency improvements constitutes a key strategy for achieving global energy and environmental goals. Building performance simulation has been increasingly used as a tool for designing, operating and retrofitting buildings to save energy and utility costs. However, opportunities remain for researchers, software developers, practitioners and policymakers to maximize the value of building performance simulation in the design and operation of low energy buildings and communities that leverage interdisciplinary approaches to integrate humans, buildings, and the power gridmore » at a large scale. This paper presents ten challenges that highlight some of the most important issues in building performance simulation, covering the full building life cycle and a wide range of modeling scales. In conclusion, the formulation and discussion of each challenge aims to provide insights into the state-of-the-art and future research opportunities for each topic, and to inspire new questions from young researchers in this field.« less

Building simulation: Ten challenges

DOE PAGES

Hong, Tianzhen; Langevin, Jared; Sun, Kaiyu

2018-04-12

Buildings consume more than one-third of the world’s primary energy. Reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions in the buildings sector through energy conservation and efficiency improvements constitutes a key strategy for achieving global energy and environmental goals. Building performance simulation has been increasingly used as a tool for designing, operating and retrofitting buildings to save energy and utility costs. However, opportunities remain for researchers, software developers, practitioners and policymakers to maximize the value of building performance simulation in the design and operation of low energy buildings and communities that leverage interdisciplinary approaches to integrate humans, buildings, and the power gridmore » at a large scale. This paper presents ten challenges that highlight some of the most important issues in building performance simulation, covering the full building life cycle and a wide range of modeling scales. In conclusion, the formulation and discussion of each challenge aims to provide insights into the state-of-the-art and future research opportunities for each topic, and to inspire new questions from young researchers in this field.« less

Semantic classification of urban buildings combining VHR image and GIS data: An improved random forest approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Du, Shihong; Zhang, Fangli; Zhang, Xiuyuan

2015-07-01

While most existing studies have focused on extracting geometric information on buildings, only a few have concentrated on semantic information. The lack of semantic information cannot satisfy many demands on resolving environmental and social issues. This study presents an approach to semantically classify buildings into much finer categories than those of existing studies by learning random forest (RF) classifier from a large number of imbalanced samples with high-dimensional features. First, a two-level segmentation mechanism combining GIS and VHR image produces single image objects at a large scale and intra-object components at a small scale. Second, a semi-supervised method chooses a large number of unbiased samples by considering the spatial proximity and intra-cluster similarity of buildings. Third, two important improvements in RF classifier are made: a voting-distribution ranked rule for reducing the influences of imbalanced samples on classification accuracy and a feature importance measurement for evaluating each feature's contribution to the recognition of each category. Fourth, the semantic classification of urban buildings is practically conducted in Beijing city, and the results demonstrate that the proposed approach is effective and accurate. The seven categories used in the study are finer than those in existing work and more helpful to studying many environmental and social problems.

Bibliography of NASA-related publications on wind turbine technology 1973-1995

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Spera, David A.

1995-01-01

A major program of research and development projects on wind turbines for generating electricity was conducted at the NASA Lewis Research Center from 1973 to 1988. Most of these projects were sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as a major element of its Federal Wind Energy Program. One other large-scale wind turbine project was sponsored by the Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of Interior (DOI). The peak years for wind energy work at Lewis were 1979-80, when almost 100 engineers, technicians, and administrative personnel were involved. From 1988 their conclusion in 1995, NASA wind energy activities have been directed toward the transfer of technology to commercial and academic organizations. Wind energy activities at NASA can be divided into two broad categories which are closely related and often overlapping: (1) Designing, building, and testing a series of 12 large-scale, experimental, horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT's); and (2) conducting supporting research and technology (SR&T) projects. The purpose of this bibliography is to assist those active in the field of wind energy in locating the technical information they need on wind power planning, wind loads, turbine design and analysis, fabrication and installation, laboratory and field testing, and operations and maintenance. This bibliography contains approximately 620 citations of publications by over 520 authors and co-authors. Sources are: (1) NASA reports authored by government grantee, and contractor personnel, (2) papers presented by attendees at NASA-sponsored workshops and conferences, (3) papers presented by NASA personnel at outside workshops and conferences, and (4) outside publications related to research performed at NASA/ DOE wind turbine sites.

Large Scale Metal Additive Techniques Review

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nycz, Andrzej; Adediran, Adeola I; Noakes, Mark W

2016-01-01

In recent years additive manufacturing made long strides toward becoming a main stream production technology. Particularly strong progress has been made in large-scale polymer deposition. However, large scale metal additive has not yet reached parity with large scale polymer. This paper is a review study of the metal additive techniques in the context of building large structures. Current commercial devices are capable of printing metal parts on the order of several cubic feet compared to hundreds of cubic feet for the polymer side. In order to follow the polymer progress path several factors are considered: potential to scale, economy, environmentmore » friendliness, material properties, feedstock availability, robustness of the process, quality and accuracy, potential for defects, and post processing as well as potential applications. This paper focuses on current state of art of large scale metal additive technology with a focus on expanding the geometric limits.« less

Cooperative investment in public goods is kin directed in communal nests of social birds

PubMed Central

van Dijk, René E; Kaden, Jennifer C; Argüelles-Ticó, Araceli; Dawson, Deborah A; Burke, Terry; Hatchwell, Ben J

2014-01-01

The tragedy of the commons predicts social collapse when public goods are jointly exploited by individuals attempting to maximize their fitness at the expense of other social group members. However, animal societies have evolved many times despite this vulnerability to exploitation by selfish individuals. Kin selection offers a solution to this social dilemma, but in large social groups mean relatedness is often low. Sociable weavers (Philetairus socius) live in large colonies that share the benefits of a massive communal nest, which requires individual investment for construction and maintenance. Here, we show that despite low mean kinship within colonies, relatives are spatially and socially clustered and that nest-building males have higher local relatedness to other colony members than do non-building males. Alternative hypotheses received little support, so we conclude that the benefits of the public good are shared with kin and that cooperative investment is, despite the large size and low relatedness of these communities, kin directed. PMID:25039999

International Communication and Confidence-Building in Europe. Report of the Leipzig-Tampere Seminar on Confidence-Building in the Non-Military Field (1st, Leipzig, East Germany, May 14-15, 1986). Publications Series B. 20/1986

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleinwachter, Wolfgang, Ed.; Nordenstreng, Kaarle, Ed.

Focusing on the role of the international mass media, these essays stress the urgency of building confidence in the relations among European states and populations in order to secure peace on a world-wide scale and to stop the arms race on the earth and prevent its extension to outer space. Titles and authors are as follows: (1) "Welcoming…

From catchment scale hydrologic processes to numerical models and robust predictions of climate change impacts at regional scales

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagener, T.

2017-12-01

Current societal problems and questions demand that we increasingly build hydrologic models for regional or even continental scale assessment of global change impacts. Such models offer new opportunities for scientific advancement, for example by enabling comparative hydrology or connectivity studies, and for improved support of water management decision, since we might better understand regional impacts on water resources from large scale phenomena such as droughts. On the other hand, we are faced with epistemic uncertainties when we move up in scale. The term epistemic uncertainty describes those uncertainties that are not well determined by historical observations. This lack of determination can be because the future is not like the past (e.g. due to climate change), because the historical data is unreliable (e.g. because it is imperfectly recorded from proxies or missing), or because it is scarce (either because measurements are not available at the right scale or there is no observation network available at all). In this talk I will explore: (1) how we might build a bridge between what we have learned about catchment scale processes and hydrologic model development and evaluation at larger scales. (2) How we can understand the impact of epistemic uncertainty in large scale hydrologic models. And (3) how we might utilize large scale hydrologic predictions to understand climate change impacts, e.g. on infectious disease risk.

Get It Together

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coffey, Dave

2006-01-01

The scale of the mechanical and plumbing systems required to support a large, multi-building academic health sciences/research center entails a lot of ductwork. Getting mechanical systems installed and running while carrying out activities from other building disciplines requires a great deal of coordinated effort. A university and its…

Large-scale fortification of condiments and seasonings as a public health strategy: equity considerations for implementation.

PubMed

Zamora, Gerardo; Flores-Urrutia, Mónica Crissel; Mayén, Ana-Lucia

2016-09-01

Fortification of staple foods with vitamins and minerals is an effective approach to increase micronutrient intake and improve nutritional status. The specific use of condiments and seasonings as vehicles in large-scale fortification programs is a relatively new public health strategy. This paper underscores equity considerations for the implementation of large-scale fortification of condiments and seasonings as a public health strategy by examining nonexhaustive examples of programmatic experiences and pilot projects in various settings. An overview of conceptual elements in implementation research and equity is presented, followed by an examination of equity considerations for five implementation strategies: (1) enhancing the capabilities of the public sector, (2) improving the performance of implementing agencies, (3) strengthening the capabilities and performance of frontline workers, (3) empowering communities and individuals, and (4) supporting multiple stakeholders engaged in improving health. Finally, specific considerations related to intersectoral action are considered. Large-scale fortification of condiments and seasonings cannot be a standalone strategy and needs to be implemented with concurrent and coordinated public health strategies, which should be informed by a health equity lens. © 2016 New York Academy of Sciences.

TARGET Publication Guidelines | Office of Cancer Genomics

Cancer.gov

Like other NCI large-scale genomics initiatives, TARGET is a community resource project and data are made available rapidly after validation for use by other researchers. To act in accord with the Fort Lauderdale principles and support the continued prompt public release of large-scale genomic data prior to publication, researchers who plan to prepare manuscripts containing descriptions of TARGET pediatric cancer data that would be of comparable scope to an initial TARGET disease-specific comprehensive, global analysis publication, and journal editors who receive such manuscripts, are

Side effects of problem-solving strategies in large-scale nutrition science: towards a diversification of health.

PubMed

Penders, Bart; Vos, Rein; Horstman, Klasien

2009-11-01

Solving complex problems in large-scale research programmes requires cooperation and division of labour. Simultaneously, large-scale problem solving also gives rise to unintended side effects. Based upon 5 years of researching two large-scale nutrigenomic research programmes, we argue that problems are fragmented in order to be solved. These sub-problems are given priority for practical reasons and in the process of solving them, various changes are introduced in each sub-problem. Combined with additional diversity as a result of interdisciplinarity, this makes reassembling the original and overall goal of the research programme less likely. In the case of nutrigenomics and health, this produces a diversification of health. As a result, the public health goal of contemporary nutrition science is not reached in the large-scale research programmes we studied. Large-scale research programmes are very successful in producing scientific publications and new knowledge; however, in reaching their political goals they often are less successful.

Strengthening and preparing: enhancing nursing research for disaster management.

PubMed

Usher, Kim; Redman-MacLaren, Michelle L; Mills, Jane; West, Caryn; Casella, Evan; Hapsari, Elsi D; Bonita, Sheila; Rosaldo, Rommel; Liswar, Amelia K; Zang, Yuli Amy

2015-01-01

Nurses are often first line responders in a large scale emergency or disaster. This paper reports an evaluative study of a tailored research capacity building course for nurse delegates from the Asia Pacific Emergency and Disaster Nursing Network (APEDNN). Twenty-three participant delegates from 19 countries attended a three-week course that included learning and teaching about the critique and conduct of research. An outcome of the course was the collaborative design of a study now being implemented in a number of countries with the aim of investigating nurses' preparedness for disaster response. Formal mentoring relationships have also been established between more and less experienced peers and facilitators to provide support in implementing this collaborative study. Overall, participant delegates rated the planning, implementation and content of the course highly. Recommendations from this study include funding a mix of face-to-face and distance mentoring and writing for publication workshops to ensure the sustainability of outcomes from a research capacity building course such as the one described. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

First Large-Scale Proteogenomic Study of Breast Cancer Provides Insight into Potential Therapeutic Targets | Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research

Cancer.gov

News Release: May 25, 2016 — Building on data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, a multi-institutional team of scientists has completed the first large-scale “proteogenomic” study of breast cancer, linking DNA mutations to protein signaling and helping pinpoint the genes that drive cancer.

Building rooftop classification using random forests for large-scale PV deployment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Assouline, Dan; Mohajeri, Nahid; Scartezzini, Jean-Louis

2017-10-01

Large scale solar Photovoltaic (PV) deployment on existing building rooftops has proven to be one of the most efficient and viable sources of renewable energy in urban areas. As it usually requires a potential analysis over the area of interest, a crucial step is to estimate the geometric characteristics of the building rooftops. In this paper, we introduce a multi-layer machine learning methodology to classify 6 roof types, 9 aspect (azimuth) classes and 5 slope (tilt) classes for all building rooftops in Switzerland, using GIS processing. We train Random Forests (RF), an ensemble learning algorithm, to build the classifiers. We use (2 × 2) [m2 ] LiDAR data (considering buildings and vegetation) to extract several rooftop features, and a generalised footprint polygon data to localize buildings. The roof classifier is trained and tested with 1252 labeled roofs from three different urban areas, namely Baden, Luzern, and Winterthur. The results for roof type classification show an average accuracy of 67%. The aspect and slope classifiers are trained and tested with 11449 labeled roofs in the Zurich periphery area. The results for aspect and slope classification show different accuracies depending on the classes: while some classes are well identified, other under-represented classes remain challenging to detect.

Interactive Visualization of Large-Scale Hydrological Data using Emerging Technologies in Web Systems and Parallel Programming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

2013-12-01

As geoscientists are confronted with increasingly massive datasets from environmental observations to simulations, one of the biggest challenges is having the right tools to gain scientific insight from the data and communicate the understanding to stakeholders. Recent developments in web technologies make it easy to manage, visualize and share large data sets with general public. Novel visualization techniques and dynamic user interfaces allow users to interact with data, and modify the parameters to create custom views of the data to gain insight from simulations and environmental observations. This requires developing new data models and intelligent knowledge discovery techniques to explore and extract information from complex computational simulations or large data repositories. Scientific visualization will be an increasingly important component to build comprehensive environmental information platforms. This presentation provides an overview of the trends and challenges in the field of scientific visualization, and demonstrates information visualization and communication tools developed within the light of these challenges.

Community-aware charging station network design for electrified vehicles in urban areas : reducing congestion, emissions, improving accessibility, and promoting walking, bicycling, and use of public transportation.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-08-31

A major challenge for achieving large-scale adoption of EVs is an accessible infrastructure for the communities. The societal benefits of large-scale adoption of EVs cannot be realized without adequate deployment of publicly accessible charging stati...

Assessing Large-Scale Public Job Creation. R&D Monograph 67.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Employment and Training Administration (DOL), Washington, DC.

To assess the feasibility of large-scale, countercyclical public job creation, a study was initiated. Job creation program activities were examined in terms of how many activities could be undertaken; what would be their costs; and what would be their characteristics (labor-intensity, skill-mix, and political acceptability) that might contribute…

Aligning smoke management with ecological and public health goals

Treesearch

Jonathan W. Long; Leland W. Tarnay; Malcolm P. North

2017-01-01

Past and current forest management affects wildland fire smoke impacts on downwind human populations. However, mismatches between the scale of benefits and risks make it difficult to proactively manage wildland fires to promote both ecological and public health. Building on recent literature and advances in modeling smoke and health effects, we outline a framework to...

Evaluating the Health Impact of Large-Scale Public Policy Changes: Classical and Novel Approaches

PubMed Central

Basu, Sanjay; Meghani, Ankita; Siddiqi, Arjumand

2018-01-01

Large-scale public policy changes are often recommended to improve public health. Despite varying widely—from tobacco taxes to poverty-relief programs—such policies present a common dilemma to public health researchers: how to evaluate their health effects when randomized controlled trials are not possible. Here, we review the state of knowledge and experience of public health researchers who rigorously evaluate the health consequences of large-scale public policy changes. We organize our discussion by detailing approaches to address three common challenges of conducting policy evaluations: distinguishing a policy effect from time trends in health outcomes or preexisting differences between policy-affected and -unaffected communities (using difference-in-differences approaches); constructing a comparison population when a policy affects a population for whom a well-matched comparator is not immediately available (using propensity score or synthetic control approaches); and addressing unobserved confounders by utilizing quasi-random variations in policy exposure (using regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, or near-far matching approaches). PMID:28384086

Cloud computing for genomic data analysis and collaboration.

PubMed

Langmead, Ben; Nellore, Abhinav

2018-04-01

Next-generation sequencing has made major strides in the past decade. Studies based on large sequencing data sets are growing in number, and public archives for raw sequencing data have been doubling in size every 18 months. Leveraging these data requires researchers to use large-scale computational resources. Cloud computing, a model whereby users rent computers and storage from large data centres, is a solution that is gaining traction in genomics research. Here, we describe how cloud computing is used in genomics for research and large-scale collaborations, and argue that its elasticity, reproducibility and privacy features make it ideally suited for the large-scale reanalysis of publicly available archived data, including privacy-protected data.

The Seasonal Predictability of Extreme Wind Events in the Southwest United States

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seastrand, Simona Renee

Extreme wind events are a common phenomenon in the Southwest United States. Entities such as the United States Air Force (USAF) find the Southwest appealing for many reasons, primarily for the an expansive, unpopulated, and electronically unpolluted space for large-scale training and testing. However, wind events can cause hazards for the USAF including: surface wind gusts can impact the take-off and landing of all aircraft, can tip the airframes of large wing-surface aircraft during the performance of maneuvers close to the ground, and can even impact weapons systems. This dissertation is comprised of three sections intended to further our knowledge and understanding of wind events in the Southwest. The first section builds a climatology of wind events for seven locations in the Southwest during the twelve 3-month seasons of the year. The first section further examines the wind events in relation to terrain and the large-scale flow of the atmosphere. The second section builds upon the first by taking the wind events and generating mid-level composites for each of the twelve 3-month seasons. In the third section, teleconnections identified as consistent with the large-scale circulation in the second paper were used as predictor variables to build a Poisson regression model for each of the twelve 3-month seasons. The purpose of this research is to increase our understanding of the climatology of extreme wind events, increase our understanding of how the large-scale circulation influences extreme wind events, and create a model to enhance predictability of extreme wind events in the Southwest. Knowledge from this paper will help protect personnel and property associated with not only the USAF, but all those in the Southwest.

Eight Ways to Build Community with Social Media

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cameron, Sally Chapman

2010-01-01

When Massachusetts' Bristol Community College (BCC) installed photovoltaic panels on the roofs of three campus buildings, the goal was to position the college as a regional leader in sustainability. The question was how to let the surrounding community know about its investment. The project took place largely out of public view, hidden high on the…

Buildings Energy Use Data Book, Edition 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liepins, G. E.; And Others

The stated purpose of this publication is to present a large amount of relevant data on energy use in an easily retrievable and usable format. The following topics are covered in eight chapters: (1) sector definitions; (2) buildings inventory; (3) appliance inventory; (4) heating and cooling units inventory; (5) appliance efficiencies; (6)…

Experimental feasibility study of the application of magnetic suspension techniques to large-scale aerodynamic test facilities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zapata, R. N.; Humphris, R. R.; Henderson, K. C.

1974-01-01

Based on the premises that (1) magnetic suspension techniques can play a useful role in large-scale aerodynamic testing and (2) superconductor technology offers the only practical hope for building large-scale magnetic suspensions, an all-superconductor three-component magnetic suspension and balance facility was built as a prototype and was tested successfully. Quantitative extrapolations of design and performance characteristics of this prototype system to larger systems compatible with existing and planned high Reynolds number facilities have been made and show that this experimental technique should be particularly attractive when used in conjunction with large cryogenic wind tunnels.

Experimental feasibility study of the application of magnetic suspension techniques to large-scale aerodynamic test facilities. [cryogenic traonics wind tunnel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zapata, R. N.; Humphris, R. R.; Henderson, K. C.

1975-01-01

Based on the premises that magnetic suspension techniques can play a useful role in large scale aerodynamic testing, and that superconductor technology offers the only practical hope for building large scale magnetic suspensions, an all-superconductor 3-component magnetic suspension and balance facility was built as a prototype and tested sucessfully. Quantitative extrapolations of design and performance characteristics of this prototype system to larger systems compatible with existing and planned high Reynolds number facilities at Langley Research Center were made and show that this experimental technique should be particularly attractive when used in conjunction with large cryogenic wind tunnels.

Exploring Cloud Computing for Large-scale Scientific Applications

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lin, Guang; Han, Binh; Yin, Jian

This paper explores cloud computing for large-scale data-intensive scientific applications. Cloud computing is attractive because it provides hardware and software resources on-demand, which relieves the burden of acquiring and maintaining a huge amount of resources that may be used only once by a scientific application. However, unlike typical commercial applications that often just requires a moderate amount of ordinary resources, large-scale scientific applications often need to process enormous amount of data in the terabyte or even petabyte range and require special high performance hardware with low latency connections to complete computation in a reasonable amount of time. To address thesemore » challenges, we build an infrastructure that can dynamically select high performance computing hardware across institutions and dynamically adapt the computation to the selected resources to achieve high performance. We have also demonstrated the effectiveness of our infrastructure by building a system biology application and an uncertainty quantification application for carbon sequestration, which can efficiently utilize data and computation resources across several institutions.« less

Assessment of automatic ligand building in ARP/wARP.

PubMed

Evrard, Guillaume X; Langer, Gerrit G; Perrakis, Anastassis; Lamzin, Victor S

2007-01-01

The efficiency of the ligand-building module of ARP/wARP version 6.1 has been assessed through extensive tests on a large variety of protein-ligand complexes from the PDB, as available from the Uppsala Electron Density Server. Ligand building in ARP/wARP involves two main steps: automatic identification of the location of the ligand and the actual construction of its atomic model. The first step is most successful for large ligands. The second step, ligand construction, is more powerful with X-ray data at high resolution and ligands of small to medium size. Both steps are successful for ligands with low to moderate atomic displacement parameters. The results highlight the strengths and weaknesses of both the method of ligand building and the large-scale validation procedure and help to identify means of further improvement.

Large Scale PEM Electrolysis to Enable Renewable Hydrogen Fuel Production

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-02-10

PEM Fuel Cell Anode + -Cathode e- e- e- e- Electric load...BOP system. • Enables new product launch (C- Series) Proton PEM cell stack for UK Vanguard subs 18UNCLASSIFIED: Dist A. Approved for public release...UNCLASSIFIED: Dist A. Approved for public release “Large Scale PEM Electrolysis to Enable Renewable Hydrogen Fuel Production” Alternative Energy

Mining Large Scale Tandem Mass Spectrometry Data for Protein Modifications Using Spectral Libraries.

PubMed

Horlacher, Oliver; Lisacek, Frederique; Müller, Markus

2016-03-04

Experimental improvements in post-translational modification (PTM) detection by tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) has allowed the identification of vast numbers of PTMs. Open modification searches (OMSs) of MS/MS data, which do not require prior knowledge of the modifications present in the sample, further increased the diversity of detected PTMs. Despite much effort, there is still a lack of functional annotation of PTMs. One possibility to narrow the annotation gap is to mine MS/MS data deposited in public repositories and to correlate the PTM presence with biological meta-information attached to the data. Since the data volume can be quite substantial and contain tens of millions of MS/MS spectra, the data mining tools must be able to cope with big data. Here, we present two tools, Liberator and MzMod, which are built using the MzJava class library and the Apache Spark large scale computing framework. Liberator builds large MS/MS spectrum libraries, and MzMod searches them in an OMS mode. We applied these tools to a recently published set of 25 million spectra from 30 human tissues and present tissue specific PTMs. We also compared the results to the ones obtained with the OMS tool MODa and the search engine X!Tandem.

Multisite Studies and Scaling up in Educational Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harwell, Michael

2012-01-01

A scale-up study in education typically expands the sample of students, schools, districts, and/or practices or materials used in smaller studies in ways that build in heterogeneity. Yet surprisingly little is known about the factors that promote successful scaling up efforts in education, in large part due to the absence of empirically supported…

Building gold standard corpora for medical natural language processing tasks.

PubMed

Deleger, Louise; Li, Qi; Lingren, Todd; Kaiser, Megan; Molnar, Katalin; Stoutenborough, Laura; Kouril, Michal; Marsolo, Keith; Solti, Imre

2012-01-01

We present the construction of three annotated corpora to serve as gold standards for medical natural language processing (NLP) tasks. Clinical notes from the medical record, clinical trial announcements, and FDA drug labels are annotated. We report high inter-annotator agreements (overall F-measures between 0.8467 and 0.9176) for the annotation of Personal Health Information (PHI) elements for a de-identification task and of medications, diseases/disorders, and signs/symptoms for information extraction (IE) task. The annotated corpora of clinical trials and FDA labels will be publicly released and to facilitate translational NLP tasks that require cross-corpora interoperability (e.g. clinical trial eligibility screening) their annotation schemas are aligned with a large scale, NIH-funded clinical text annotation project.

How big is too big or how many partners are needed to build a large project which still can be managed successfully?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Henkel, Daniela; Eisenhauer, Anton

2017-04-01

During the last decades, the number of large research projects has increased and therewith the requirement for multidisciplinary, multisectoral collaboration. Such complex and large-scale projects pose new competencies to form, manage, and use large, diverse teams as a competitive advantage. For complex projects the effort is magnified because multiple large international research consortia involving academic and non-academic partners, including big industries, NGOs, private and public bodies, all with cultural differences, individually discrepant expectations on teamwork and differences in the collaboration between national and multi-national administrations and research organisations, challenge the organisation and management of such multi-partner research consortia. How many partners are needed to establish and conduct collaboration with a multidisciplinary and multisectoral approach? How much personnel effort and what kinds of management techniques are required for such projects. This presentation identifies advantages and challenges of large research projects based on the experiences made in the context of an Innovative Training Network (ITN) project within Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions of the European HORIZON 2020 program. Possible strategies are discussed to circumvent and avoid conflicts already at the beginning of the project.

The emerging threats of climate change on tropical coastal ecosystem services, public health, local economies and livelihood sustainability of small islands: Cumulative impacts and synergies.

PubMed

Hernández-Delgado, E A

2015-12-15

Climate change has significantly impacted tropical ecosystems critical for sustaining local economies and community livelihoods at global scales. Coastal ecosystems have largely declined, threatening the principal source of protein, building materials, tourism-based revenue, and the first line of defense against storm swells and sea level rise (SLR) for small tropical islands. Climate change has also impacted public health (i.e., altered distribution and increased prevalence of allergies, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases). Rapid human population growth has exacerbated pressure over coupled social-ecological systems, with concomitant non-sustainable impacts on natural resources, water availability, food security and sovereignty, public health, and quality of life, which should increase vulnerability and erode adaptation and mitigation capacity. This paper examines cumulative and synergistic impacts of climate change in the challenging context of highly vulnerable small tropical islands. Multiple adaptive strategies of coupled social-ecological ecosystems are discussed. Multi-level, multi-sectorial responses are necessary for adaptation to be successful. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Photocopy of photograph entitled "Botanical Gardens and officers quarters, Fitzsimons ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

Photocopy of photograph entitled "Botanical Gardens and officers quarters, Fitzsimons General Hospital". Dated 1924 on the back, the photograph looks north from the corner of E. Colfax Ave. and Peoria St. Some features such as the buildings at the upper right are actual but other features such as the large building at the upper left are drawn in. Photograph in the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center Public Affairs Office, building 120. This photograph was never copyrighted and is in the public domain. - Fitzsimons General Hospital, Bounded by East Colfax to south, Peoria Street to west, Denver City/County & Adams County Line to north, & U.S. Route 255 to east, Aurora, Adams County, CO

Incorporating residual temperature and specific humidity in predicting weather-dependent warm-season electricity consumption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guan, Huade; Beecham, Simon; Xu, Hanqiu; Ingleton, Greg

2017-02-01

Climate warming and increasing variability challenges the electricity supply in warm seasons. A good quantitative representation of the relationship between warm-season electricity consumption and weather condition provides necessary information for long-term electricity planning and short-term electricity management. In this study, an extended version of cooling degree days (ECDD) is proposed for better characterisation of this relationship. The ECDD includes temperature, residual temperature and specific humidity effects. The residual temperature is introduced for the first time to reflect the building thermal inertia effect on electricity consumption. The study is based on the electricity consumption data of four multiple-street city blocks and three office buildings. It is found that the residual temperature effect is about 20% of the current-day temperature effect at the block scale, and increases with a large variation at the building scale. Investigation of this residual temperature effect provides insight to the influence of building designs and structures on electricity consumption. The specific humidity effect appears to be more important at the building scale than at the block scale. A building with high energy performance does not necessarily have low specific humidity dependence. The new ECDD better reflects the weather dependence of electricity consumption than the conventional CDD method.

Managing Risk and Uncertainty in Large-Scale University Research Projects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Sharlissa; Shangraw, R. F., Jr.

2011-01-01

Both publicly and privately funded research projects managed by universities are growing in size and scope. Complex, large-scale projects (over $50 million) pose new management challenges and risks for universities. This paper explores the relationship between project success and a variety of factors in large-scale university projects. First, we…

Evaluation of Large-Scale Public-Sector Reforms: A Comparative Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Breidahl, Karen N.; Gjelstrup, Gunnar; Hansen, Hanne Foss; Hansen, Morten Balle

2017-01-01

Research on the evaluation of large-scale public-sector reforms is rare. This article sets out to fill that gap in the evaluation literature and argues that it is of vital importance since the impact of such reforms is considerable and they change the context in which evaluations of other and more delimited policy areas take place. In our…

Organizing for Instruction: A Comparative Study of Public, Charter, and Catholic Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dorner, Lisa M.; Spillane, James P.; Pustejovsky, James

2011-01-01

Guided by theories of institutions, organizations, and sense-making, this manuscript examines how public, charter, and Catholic school staff in a large urban area organize for instruction and respond to educational change. To build theory about institutional processes of "organizing" from participants' perspectives, data included a…

School Mental Health: The Impact of State and Local Capacity-Building Training

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stephan, Sharon; Paternite, Carl; Grimm, Lindsey; Hurwitz, Laura

2014-01-01

Despite a growing number of collaborative partnerships between schools and community-based organizations to expand school mental health (SMH) service capacity in the United States, there have been relatively few systematic initiatives focused on key strategies for large-scale SMH capacity building with state and local education systems. Based on a…

Scaling earthquake ground motions for performance-based assessment of buildings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Huang, Y.-N.; Whittaker, A.S.; Luco, N.; Hamburger, R.O.

2011-01-01

The impact of alternate ground-motion scaling procedures on the distribution of displacement responses in simplified structural systems is investigated. Recommendations are provided for selecting and scaling ground motions for performance-based assessment of buildings. Four scaling methods are studied, namely, (1)geometric-mean scaling of pairs of ground motions, (2)spectrum matching of ground motions, (3)first-mode-period scaling to a target spectral acceleration, and (4)scaling of ground motions per the distribution of spectral demands. Data were developed by nonlinear response-history analysis of a large family of nonlinear single degree-of-freedom (SDOF) oscillators that could represent fixed-base and base-isolated structures. The advantages and disadvantages of each scaling method are discussed. The relationship between spectral shape and a ground-motion randomness parameter, is presented. A scaling procedure that explicitly considers spectral shape is proposed. ?? 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Engaging high school students as plasma science outreach ambassadors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wendt, Amy; Boffard, John

2017-10-01

Exposure to plasma science among future scientists and engineers is haphazard. In the U.S., plasma science is rare (or absent) in mainstream high school and introductory college physics curricula. As a result, talented students may be drawn to other careers simply due to a lack of awareness of the stimulating science and wide array of fulfilling career opportunities involving plasmas. In the interest of enabling informed decisions about career options, we have initiated an outreach collaboration with the Madison West High School Rocket Club. Rocket Club members regularly exhibit their activities at public venues, including large-scale expos that draw large audiences of all ages. Building on their historical emphasis on small scale rockets with chemical motors, we worked with the group to add a new feature to their exhibit that highlights plasma-based spacecraft propulsion for interplanetary probes. This new exhibit includes a model satellite with a working (low power) plasma thruster. The participating high school students led the development process, to be described, and enthusiastically learned to articulate concepts related to plasma thruster operation and to compare the relative advantages of chemical vs. plasma/electrical propulsion systems for different scenarios. Supported by NSF Grant PHY-1617602.

Computing at the speed limit (supercomputers)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bernhard, R.

1982-07-01

The author discusses how unheralded efforts in the United States, mainly in universities, have removed major stumbling blocks to building cost-effective superfast computers for scientific and engineering applications within five years. These computers would have sustained speeds of billions of floating-point operations per second (flops), whereas with the fastest machines today the top sustained speed is only 25 million flops, with bursts to 160 megaflops. Cost-effective superfast machines can be built because of advances in very large-scale integration and the special software needed to program the new machines. VLSI greatly reduces the cost per unit of computing power. The developmentmore » of such computers would come at an opportune time. Although the US leads the world in large-scale computer technology, its supremacy is now threatened, not surprisingly, by the Japanese. Publicized reports indicate that the Japanese government is funding a cooperative effort by commercial computer manufacturers to develop superfast computers-about 1000 times faster than modern supercomputers. The US computer industry, by contrast, has balked at attempting to boost computer power so sharply because of the uncertain market for the machines and the failure of similar projects in the past to show significant results.« less

Humidity Distributions in Multilayered Walls of High-rise Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gamayunova, Olga; Musorina, Tatiana; Ishkov, Alexander

2018-03-01

The limitation of free territories in large cities is the main reason for the active development of high-rise construction. Given the large-scale projects of high-rise buildings in recent years in Russia and abroad and their huge energy consumption, one of the fundamental principles in the design and reconstruction is the use of energy-efficient technologies. The main heat loss in buildings occurs through enclosing structures. However, not always the heat-resistant wall will be energy-efficient and dry at the same time (perhaps waterlogging). Temperature and humidity distributions in multilayer walls were studied in the paper, and the interrelation of other thermophysical characteristics was analyzed.

Evaluation of Sampling Methods for Bacillus Spore ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Journal Article Following a wide area release of biological materials, mapping the extent of contamination is essential for orderly response and decontamination operations. HVAC filters process large volumes of air and therefore collect highly representative particulate samples in buildings. HVAC filter extraction may have great utility in rapidly estimating the extent of building contamination following a large-scale incident. However, until now, no studies have been conducted comparing the two most appropriate sampling approaches for HVAC filter materials: direct extraction and vacuum-based sampling.

Experimental seismic behavior of a full-scale four-story soft-story wood-frame building with retrofits II: shake table test results

Treesearch

John W. van de Lindt; Pouria Bahmani; Gary Mochizuki; Steven E. Pryor; Mikhail Gershfeld; Jingjing Tian; Michael D. Symans; Douglas Rammer

2016-01-01

Soft-story wood-frame buildings have been recognized as a disaster preparedness problem for decades. The majority of these buildings were constructed from the 1920s to the 1960s and are prone to collapse during moderate to large earthquakes due to a characteristic deficiency in strength and stiffness in their first story. In order to propose and validate retrofit...

How International Large-Scale Skills Assessments Engage with National Actors: Mobilising Networks through Policy, Media and Public Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hamilton, Mary

2017-01-01

This paper examines how international, large-scale skills assessments (ILSAs) engage with the broader societies they seek to serve and improve. It looks particularly at the discursive work that is done by different interest groups and the media through which the findings become part of public conversations and are translated into usable form in…

Large-scale quarantine following biological terrorism in the United States: scientific examination, logistic and legal limits, and possible consequences.

PubMed

Barbera, J; Macintyre, A; Gostin, L; Inglesby, T; O'Toole, T; DeAtley, C; Tonat, K; Layton, M

2001-12-05

Concern for potential bioterrorist attacks causing mass casualties has increased recently. Particular attention has been paid to scenarios in which a biological agent capable of person-to-person transmission, such as smallpox, is intentionally released among civilians. Multiple public health interventions are possible to effect disease containment in this context. One disease control measure that has been regularly proposed in various settings is the imposition of large-scale or geographic quarantine on the potentially exposed population. Although large-scale quarantine has not been implemented in recent US history, it has been used on a small scale in biological hoaxes, and it has been invoked in federally sponsored bioterrorism exercises. This article reviews the scientific principles that are relevant to the likely effectiveness of quarantine, the logistic barriers to its implementation, legal issues that a large-scale quarantine raises, and possible adverse consequences that might result from quarantine action. Imposition of large-scale quarantine-compulsory sequestration of groups of possibly exposed persons or human confinement within certain geographic areas to prevent spread of contagious disease-should not be considered a primary public health strategy in most imaginable circumstances. In the majority of contexts, other less extreme public health actions are likely to be more effective and create fewer unintended adverse consequences than quarantine. Actions and areas for future research, policy development, and response planning efforts are provided.

A Life-Cycle Model of Human Social Groups Produces a U-Shaped Distribution in Group Size.

PubMed

Salali, Gul Deniz; Whitehouse, Harvey; Hochberg, Michael E

2015-01-01

One of the central puzzles in the study of sociocultural evolution is how and why transitions from small-scale human groups to large-scale, hierarchically more complex ones occurred. Here we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model as a first step towards understanding the ecological dynamics of small and large-scale human groups. By analogy with the interactions between single-celled and multicellular organisms, we build a theory of group lifecycles as an emergent property of single cell demographic and expansion behaviours. We find that once the transition from small-scale to large-scale groups occurs, a few large-scale groups continue expanding while small-scale groups gradually become scarcer, and large-scale groups become larger in size and fewer in number over time. Demographic and expansion behaviours of groups are largely influenced by the distribution and availability of resources. Our results conform to a pattern of human political change in which religions and nation states come to be represented by a few large units and many smaller ones. Future enhancements of the model should include decision-making rules and probabilities of fragmentation for large-scale societies. We suggest that the synthesis of population ecology and social evolution will generate increasingly plausible models of human group dynamics.

A Life-Cycle Model of Human Social Groups Produces a U-Shaped Distribution in Group Size

PubMed Central

Salali, Gul Deniz; Whitehouse, Harvey; Hochberg, Michael E.

2015-01-01

One of the central puzzles in the study of sociocultural evolution is how and why transitions from small-scale human groups to large-scale, hierarchically more complex ones occurred. Here we develop a spatially explicit agent-based model as a first step towards understanding the ecological dynamics of small and large-scale human groups. By analogy with the interactions between single-celled and multicellular organisms, we build a theory of group lifecycles as an emergent property of single cell demographic and expansion behaviours. We find that once the transition from small-scale to large-scale groups occurs, a few large-scale groups continue expanding while small-scale groups gradually become scarcer, and large-scale groups become larger in size and fewer in number over time. Demographic and expansion behaviours of groups are largely influenced by the distribution and availability of resources. Our results conform to a pattern of human political change in which religions and nation states come to be represented by a few large units and many smaller ones. Future enhancements of the model should include decision-making rules and probabilities of fragmentation for large-scale societies. We suggest that the synthesis of population ecology and social evolution will generate increasingly plausible models of human group dynamics. PMID:26381745

Transaction-Based Building Controls Framework, Volume 1: Reference Guide

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Somasundaram, Sriram; Pratt, Robert G.; Akyol, Bora A.

This document proposes a framework concept to achieve the objectives of raising buildings’ efficiency and energy savings potential benefitting building owners and operators. We call it a transaction-based framework, wherein mutually-beneficial and cost-effective market-based transactions can be enabled between multiple players across different domains. Transaction-based building controls are one part of the transactional energy framework. While these controls realize benefits by enabling automatic, market-based intra-building efficiency optimizations, the transactional energy framework provides similar benefits using the same market -based structure, yet on a larger scale and beyond just buildings, to the society at large.

Building generalized tree mass/volume component models for improved estimation of forest stocks and utilization potential

Treesearch

David W. MacFarlane

2015-01-01

Accurately assessing forest biomass potential is contingent upon having accurate tree biomass models to translate data from forest inventories. Building generality into these models is especially important when they are to be applied over large spatial domains, such as regional, national and international scales. Here, new, generalized whole-tree mass / volume...

Building Capacity for Assessment in PISA for Development Countries. PISA for Development Brief 14

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

OECD Publishing, 2017

2017-01-01

This article explains how the Program for International Student Initiative for Development (PISA-D) initiative aims to make PISA more accessible to middle- and low-income countries. A key component of PISA-D is building capacity in the participating countries for managing large-scale student learning assessments and using the results to support…

"I'm Not Sharing My Work!" An Approach to Community Building

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lewis, David; Slapak-Barski, Judith

2014-01-01

The faculty of a large southeastern university were brought together to form a "community of faculty." With support from a federal grant we set out to build what came to be called the Faculty Toolbox. This website serves as a public repository that brought together the faculty to share and contribute to its library of shared resources.…

Integrating Delta Building Physics & Economics: Optimizing the Scale of Engineered Avulsions in the Mississippi River Delta

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kenney, M. A.; Mohrig, D.; Hobbs, B. F.; Parker, G.

2011-12-01

Land loss in the Mississippi River Delta caused by subsidence and erosion has resulted in habitat loss, interference with human activities, and increased exposure of New Orleans and other settled areas to storm surge risks. Prior to dam and levee building and oil and gas production in the 20th century, the long term rates of land building roughly balanced land loss through subsidence. Now, however, sediment is being deposited at dramatically lower rates in shallow areas in and adjacent to the Delta, with much of the remaining sediment borne by the Mississippi being lost to the deep areas of the Gulf of Mexico. A few projects have been built in order to divert sediment from the river to areas where land can be built, and many more are under consideration as part of State of Louisiana and Federal planning processes. Most are small scale, although there have been some proposals for large engineered avulsions that would divert a significant fraction of the remaining available sediment (W. Kim, et al. 2009, EOS). However, there is debate over whether small or large diversions are the economically optimally and socially most acceptable size of such land building projects. From an economic point of view, the optimal size involves tradeoffs between scale economies in civil work construction, the relationship between depth of diversion and sediment concentration in river water, effects on navigation, and possible diminishing returns to land building at a single location as the edge of built land progresses into deeper waters. Because land building efforts could potentially involve billions of dollars of investment, it is important to gain as much benefit as possible from those expenditures. We present the result of a general analysis of scale economies in land building from engineered avulsions. The analysis addresses the question: how many projects of what size should be built at what time in order to maximize the amount of land built by a particular time? The analysis integrates three models: 1. coarse sediment diversion as a function of the width, depth, and timing of water diversions (using our field measurements of sediment concentration as a function of depth), 2. land building as a function of the location, water, and amount of sediment diverted, accounting for bathymetry, subsidence, and other factors, and 3. cost of building and operating the necessary civil works. Our statistical analysis of past diversions indicates existence of scale economies in width and scale of diseconomies in depth. The analysis explores general relationships between size, cost, and land building, and does not consider specific actual project proposals or locations. Sensitivity to assumptions about fine sediment capture, accumulation rates for organic material, and other inputs will be discussed.

Public Health Crisis in War and Conflict - Health Security in Aggregate.

PubMed

Quinn, John; Zelený, Tomáš; Subramaniam, Rammika; Bencko, Vladimír

2017-03-01

Public health status of populations is multifactorial and besides other factors it is linked to war and conflict. Public health crisis can erupt when states go to war or are invaded; health security may be reduced for affected populations. This study reviews in aggregate multiple indices of human security, human development and legitimacy of the state in order to describe a predictable global health portrait. Paradigm shift of large global powers to that non-state actors and proxies impact regional influence through scaled conflict and present major global health challenges for policy makers. Small scale conflict with large scale violence threatens health security for at-risk populations. The paper concludes that health security is directly proportional to state security. Copyright© by the National Institute of Public Health, Prague 2017

Changing the face of science: Lessons from the 2017 Science-A-Thon

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barnes, R. T.; Licker, R.; Burt, M. A.; Holloway, T.

2017-12-01

Studies have shown that over two-thirds of Americans cannot name a living scientist. This disconnect is a concern for science and scientists, considering the large role of public funding for science, and the importance of science in many policy issues. As a large-scale public outreach initiative and fundraiser, the Earth Science Women's Network (ESWN) launched "Science-A-Thon" on July 13, 2017. This "day of science" invited participants to share 12 photos over 12 hours of a day, including both personal routines and professional endeavors. Over 200 scientists participated, with the #DayofScience hashtag trending on Twitter for the day. Earth scientists represented the largest portion of participants, but the event engaged cancer biologists, computer scientists, and more, including scientists from more than 10 countries. Science-A-Thon builds on the success and visibility of other social media campaigns, such as #actuallivingscientist and #DresslikeaWoman. Importantly these efforts share a common goal, by providing diverse images of scientists we can shift the public perception of who a scientist is and what science looks like in the real world. This type of public engagement offers a wide range of potential role models for students, and individual stories to increase public engagement with science. Social media campaigns such as this shift the public perception of who scientists are, why they do what they do, and what they do each day. The actions and conversations emerging from Science-A-Thon included scientists talking about (1) their science and motivation, (2) the purpose and need for ESWN, and (3) why they chose to participate in this event increased the reach of a social media campaign and fundraiser.

eHealth provides a novel opportunity to exploit the advantages of the Nordic countries in psychiatric genetic research, building on the public health care system, biobanks, and registries.

PubMed

Andreassen, Ole A

2017-07-07

Nordic countries have played an important role in the recent progress in psychiatric genetics, both with large well-characterized samples and expertise. The Nordic countries have research advantages due to the organization of their societies, including system of personal identifiers, national health registries with information about diseases, treatment and prescriptions, and a public health system with geographical catchment areas. For psychiatric genetic research, the large biobanks and population surveys are a unique added value. Further, the population is motivated to participate in research, and there is a trust in the institutions of the society. These factors have been important for Nordic contributions to biomedical research, and particularly psychiatric genetics. In the era of eHealth, the situation seems even more advantageous for Nordic countries. The system with public health care makes it easy to implement national measures, and most of the Nordic health care sector is already based on electronic information. The potential advantages regarding informed consent, large scale recruitment and follow-up, and longitudinal cohort studies are tremendous. New precision medicine approaches can be tested within the health care system, with an integrated approach, using large hospitals or regions of the country as a test beds. However, data protection and legal framework have to be clarified. In order to succeed, it is important to keep the people's trust, and maintain the high ethical standards and systems for secure data management. Then the full potential of the Nordic countries can be leveraged in the new era of precision medicine including psychiatric genetics. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Extraction of land cover change information from ENVISAT-ASAR data in Chengdu Plain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Wenbo; Fan, Jinlong; Huang, Jianxi; Tian, Yichen; Zhang, Yong

2006-10-01

Land cover data are essential to most global change research objectives, including the assessment of current environmental conditions and the simulation of future environmental scenarios that ultimately lead to public policy development. Chinese Academy of Sciences generated a nationwide land cover database in order to carry out the quantification and spatial characterization of land use/cover changes (LUCC) in 1990s. In order to improve the reliability of the database, we will update the database anytime. But it is difficult to obtain remote sensing data to extract land cover change information in large-scale. It is hard to acquire optical remote sensing data in Chengdu plain, so the objective of this research was to evaluate multitemporal ENVISAT advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) data for extracting land cover change information. Based on the fieldwork and the nationwide 1:100000 land cover database, the paper assesses several land cover changes in Chengdu plain, for example: crop to buildings, forest to buildings, and forest to bare land. The results show that ENVISAT ASAR data have great potential for the applications of extracting land cover change information.

Open Land-Use Map: A Regional Land-Use Mapping Strategy for Incorporating OpenStreetMap with Earth Observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, D.; Fu, C. S.; Binford, M. W.

2017-12-01

The southeastern United States has high landscape heterogeneity, withheavily managed forestlands, highly developed agriculture lands, and multiple metropolitan areas. Human activities are transforming and altering land patterns and structures in both negative and positive manners. A land-use map for at the greater scale is a heavy computation task but is critical to most landowners, researchers, and decision makers, enabling them to make informed decisions for varying objectives. There are two major difficulties in generating the classification maps at the regional scale: the necessity of large training point sets and the expensive computation cost-in terms of both money and time-in classifier modeling. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) opens a new era in mapping and visualizing our world, where the platform is open for collecting valuable georeferenced information by volunteer citizens, and the data is freely available to the public. As one of the most well-known VGI initiatives, OpenStreetMap (OSM) contributes not only road network distribution, but also the potential for using this data to justify land cover and land use classifications. Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a platform designed for cloud-based mapping with a robust and fast computing power. Most large scale and national mapping approaches confuse "land cover" and "land-use", or build up the land-use database based on modeled land cover datasets. Unlike most other large-scale approaches, we distinguish and differentiate land-use from land cover. By focusing our prime objective of mapping land-use and management practices, a robust regional land-use mapping approach is developed by incorporating the OpenstreepMap dataset into Earth observation remote sensing imageries instead of the often-used land cover base maps.

Reserch on Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Color Steel Building Based on Multi-Source High-Resolution Satellite Imagery

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, S. W.; Ma, J. J.; Wang, J. M.

2018-04-01

As representative vulnerable regions of the city, dense distribution areas of temporary color steel building are a major target for control of fire risks, illegal buildings, environmental supervision, urbanization quality and enhancement for city's image. In the domestic and foreign literature, the related research mainly focuses on fire risks and violation monitoring. However, due to temporary color steel building's special characteristics, the corresponding research about temporal and spatial distribution, and influence on urban spatial form etc. has not been reported. Therefore, firstly, the paper research aim plans to extract information of large-scale color steel building from high-resolution images. Secondly, the color steel plate buildings were classified, and the spatial and temporal distribution and aggregation characteristics of small (temporary buildings) and large (factory building, warehouse, etc.) buildings were studied respectively. Thirdly, the coupling relationship between the spatial distribution of color steel plate and the spatial pattern of urban space was analysed. The results show that there is a good coupling relationship between the color steel plate building and the urban spatial form. Different types of color steel plate building represent the pattern of regional differentiation of urban space and the phased pattern of urban development.

Combining Flux Balance and Energy Balance Analysis for Large-Scale Metabolic Network: Biochemical Circuit Theory for Analysis of Large-Scale Metabolic Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beard, Daniel A.; Liang, Shou-Dan; Qian, Hong; Biegel, Bryan (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

Predicting behavior of large-scale biochemical metabolic networks represents one of the greatest challenges of bioinformatics and computational biology. Approaches, such as flux balance analysis (FBA), that account for the known stoichiometry of the reaction network while avoiding implementation of detailed reaction kinetics are perhaps the most promising tools for the analysis of large complex networks. As a step towards building a complete theory of biochemical circuit analysis, we introduce energy balance analysis (EBA), which compliments the FBA approach by introducing fundamental constraints based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Fluxes obtained with EBA are thermodynamically feasible and provide valuable insight into the activation and suppression of biochemical pathways.

Analysis of the impact of large scale seismic retrofitting strategies through the application of a vulnerability-based approach on traditional masonry buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferreira, Tiago Miguel; Maio, Rui; Vicente, Romeu

2017-04-01

The buildings' capacity to maintain minimum structural safety levels during natural disasters, such as earthquakes, is recognisably one of the aspects that most influence urban resilience. Moreover, the public investment in risk mitigation strategies is fundamental, not only to promote social and urban and resilience, but also to limit consequent material, human and environmental losses. Despite the growing awareness of this issue, there is still a vast number of traditional masonry buildings spread throughout many European old city centres that lacks of adequate seismic resistance, requiring therefore urgent retrofitting interventions in order to both reduce their seismic vulnerability and to cope with the increased seismic requirements of recent code standards. Thus, this paper aims at contributing to mitigate the social and economic impacts of earthquake damage scenarios through the development of vulnerability-based comparative analysis of some of the most popular retrofitting techniques applied after the 1998 Azores earthquake. The influence of each technique individually and globally studied resorting to a seismic vulnerability index methodology integrated into a GIS tool and damage and loss scenarios are constructed and critically discussed. Finally, the economic balance resulting from the implementation of that techniques are also examined.

Are building-level characteristics associated with indoor allergens in the household?

PubMed

Rosenfeld, Lindsay; Chew, Ginger L; Rudd, Rima; Emmons, Karen; Acosta, Luis; Perzanowski, Matt; Acevedo-García, Dolores

2011-02-01

Building-level characteristics are structural factors largely beyond the control of those who live in them. We explored whether building-level characteristics and indoor allergens in the household are related. We examined the relationship between building-level characteristics and indoor allergens: dust mite, cat, cockroach, and mouse. Building-level characteristics measured were presence of pests (seeing cockroaches and rodents), building type (public housing, buildings zoned commercially and residentially, and building size), and building condition (building age and violations). Allergen cutpoints were used for categorical analyses and defined as follows: dust mite: >0.25 μg/g; cat: >1 μg/g; cockroach: >1 U/g; mouse: >1.6 μg/g. In fully adjusted linear analyses, neither dust mite nor cat allergen were statistically significantly associated with any building-level characteristics. Cockroach allergen was associated with the presence of cockroaches (2.07; 95% CI, 1.23, 3.49) and living in public housing (2.14; 95% CI, 1.07, 4.31). Mouse allergen was associated with the presence of rodents (1.70; 95% CI, 1.29, 2.23), and building size: living in a low-rise (<8 floors; 0.60; 95% CI, 0.42, 0.87) or high-rise (8 + floors; 0.50; 95% CI, 0.29, 0.88; compared with house/duplex). In fully adjusted logistic analyses, cat allergen was statistically significantly associated with living in a high-rise (6.29; 95% CI, 1.51, 26.21; compared with a house/duplex). Mouse allergen was associated with living in public housing (6.20; 95% CI, 1.01, 37.95) and building size: living in a low-rise (0.16; 95% CI, 0.05, 0.52) or high-rise (0.06; 95% CI, 0.01, 0.50; compared with a house/duplex). Issues concerning building size and public housing may be particularly critical factors in reducing asthma morbidity. We suggest that future research explore the possible improvement of these factors through changes to building code and violations adherence, design standards, and incentives for landlords.

Interconnection Assessment Methodology and Cost Benefit Analysis for High-Penetration PV Deployment in the Arizona Public Service System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Baggu, Murali; Giraldez, Julieta; Harris, Tom

In an effort to better understand the impacts of high penetrations of photovoltaic (PV) generators on distribution systems, Arizona Public Service and its partners completed a multi-year project to develop the tools and knowledge base needed to safely and reliably integrate high penetrations of utility- and residential-scale PV. Building upon the APS Community Power Project-Flagstaff Pilot, this project investigates the impact of PV on a representative feeder in northeast Flagstaff. To quantify and catalog the effects of the estimated 1.3 MW of PV that will be installed on the feeder (both smaller units at homes and large, centrally located systems),more » high-speed weather and electrical data acquisition systems and digital 'smart' meters were designed and installed to facilitate monitoring and to build and validate comprehensive, high-resolution models of the distribution system. These models are being developed to analyze the impacts of PV on distribution circuit protection systems (including coordination and anti-islanding), predict voltage regulation and phase balance issues, and develop volt/VAr control schemes. This paper continues from a paper presented at the 2014 IEEE PVSC conference that described feeder model evaluation and high penetration advanced scenario analysis, specifically feeder reconfiguration. This paper presents results from Phase 5 of the project. Specifically, the paper discusses tool automation; interconnection assessment methodology and cost benefit analysis.« less

Integrating a project monitoring system into a public health network: experiences from Alive & Thrive Vietnam.

PubMed

Tuan, Nguyen Thanh; Alayon, Silvia; Do, Tran Thanh; Ngan, Tran Thi; Hajeebhoy, Nemat

2015-01-01

Little information is available about how to build a monitoring system to measure the output of preventive nutrition interventions, such as counselling on infant and young child feeding. This paper describes the Alive & Thrive Vietnam (A&T) project experience in nesting a large-scale project monitoring system into the existing public health information system (e.g. using the system and resources), and in using monitoring data to strengthen service delivery in 15 provinces with A&T franchises. From January 2012 to April 2014, the 780 A&T franchises provided 1,700,000 counselling contacts (~3/4 by commune franchises). In commune franchises in April 2014, 80% of mothers who were pregnant or with children under two years old had been to the counselling service at least one time, and 87% of clients had been to the service earlier. Monitoring data are used to track the progress of the project, make decisions, provide background for a costing study and advocate for the integration of nutrition counselling indicators into the health information system nationwide. With careful attention to the needs of stakeholders at multiple levels, clear data quality assurance measures and strategic feedback mechanisms, it is feasible to monitor the scale-up of nutrition programmes through the existing routine health information system.

Building Public Governing Board Capacity through State-Level Education Programs for College and University Board Members. State Policy Brief

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, 2013

2013-01-01

State policymakers and the public at large have a vested interest in the successful governance of their higher education system. The citizens who are appointed or elected to serve as trustees and regents of the state's colleges and universities oversee valuable public assets that they hold in trust for the state and current and future…

Leveraging Human-environment Systems in Residential Buildings for Aggregate Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Xiaoqi

Reducing the energy consumed in the built environment is a key objective in many sustainability initiatives. Existing energy saving methods have consisted of physical interventions to buildings and/or behavioral modifications of occupants. However, such methods may not only suffer from their own disadvantages, e.g. high cost and transient effect, but also lose aggregate energy saving potential due to the oftentimes-associated single-building-focused view and an isolated examination of occupant behaviors. This dissertation attempts to overcome the limitations of traditional energy saving research and practical approaches, and enhance residential building energy efficiency and sustainability by proposing innovative energy strategies from a holistic perspective of the aggregate human-environment systems. This holistic perspective features: (1) viewing buildings as mutual influences in the built environment, (2) leveraging both the individual and contextualized social aspects of occupant behaviors, and (3) incorporating interactions between the built environment and human behaviors. First, I integrate three interlinked components: buildings, residents, and the surrounding neighborhood, and quantify the potential energy savings to be gained from renovating buildings at the inter-building level and leveraging neighborhood-contextualized occupant social networks. Following the confirmation of both the inter-building effect among buildings and occupants' interpersonal influence on energy conservation, I extend the research further by examining the synergy that may exist at the intersection between these "engineered" building networks and "social" peer networks, focusing specifically on the additional energy saving potential that could result from interactions between the two components. Finally, I seek to reach an alignment of the human and building environment subsystems by matching the thermostat preferences of each household with the thermal conditions within their apartment, and develop the Energy Saving Alignment Strategy to be considered in public housing assignment policy. This strategy and the inter-building level energy management strategies developed in my preceding research possess large-scale cost-effectiveness and may engender long-lasting influence compared with existing energy saving approaches. Building from the holistic framework of coupled human-environment systems, the findings of this research will advance knowledge of energy efficiency in the built environment and lead to the development of novel strategies to conserve energy in residential buildings.

Large-Scale Cooperative Task Distribution on Peer-to-Peer Networks

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-01-01

SUBTITLE Large-scale cooperative task distribution on peer-to-peer networks 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6...of agents, and each agent attempts to form a coalition with its most profitable partner. The second algorithm builds upon the Shapley for- mula [37...ters at the second layer. These Category Layer clusters each represent a single resource, and agents join one or more clusters based on their

X-ray techniques for innovation in industry

PubMed Central

Lawniczak-Jablonska, Krystyna; Cutler, Jeffrey

2014-01-01

The smart specialization declared in the European program Horizon 2020, and the increasing cooperation between research and development found in companies and researchers at universities and research institutions have created a new paradigm where many calls for proposals require participation and funding from public and private entities. This has created a unique opportunity for large-scale facilities, such as synchrotron research laboratories, to participate in and support applied research programs. Scientific staff at synchrotron facilities have developed many advanced tools that make optimal use of the characteristics of the light generated by the storage ring. These tools have been exceptionally valuable for materials characterization including X-ray absorption spectroscopy, diffraction, tomography and scattering, and have been key in solving many research and development issues. Progress in optics and detectors, as well as a large effort put into the improvement of data analysis codes, have resulted in the development of reliable and reproducible procedures for materials characterization. Research with photons has contributed to the development of a wide variety of products such as plastics, cosmetics, chemicals, building materials, packaging materials and pharma. In this review, a few examples are highlighted of successful cooperation leading to solutions of a variety of industrial technological problems which have been exploited by industry including lessons learned from the Science Link project, supported by the European Commission, as a new approach to increase the number of commercial users at large-scale research infrastructures. PMID:25485139

Capacity Building: Data- and Research-Informed Development of Schools and Teaching Practices in Denmark and Norway

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Qvortrup, Lars

2016-01-01

Based on experiences from a number of large scale data- and research-informed school development projects in Denmark and Norway, led by the author, three hypotheses are discussed: that an effective way of linking research and practice is achieved (1) using a capacity building approach, that is, to collaborate in the practical school context…

Risk prediction of Critical Infrastructures against extreme natural hazards: local and regional scale analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rosato, Vittorio; Hounjet, Micheline; Burzel, Andreas; Di Pietro, Antonio; Tofani, Alberto; Pollino, Maurizio; Giovinazzi, Sonia

2016-04-01

Natural hazard events can induce severe impacts on the built environment; they can hit wide and densely populated areas, where there is a large number of (inter)dependent technological systems whose damages could cause the failure or malfunctioning of further different services, spreading the impacts on wider geographical areas. The EU project CIPRNet (Critical Infrastructures Preparedness and Resilience Research Network) is realizing an unprecedented Decision Support System (DSS) which enables to operationally perform risk prediction on Critical Infrastructures (CI) by predicting the occurrence of natural events (from long term weather to short nowcast predictions, correlating intrinsic vulnerabilities of CI elements with the different events' manifestation strengths, and analysing the resulting Damage Scenario. The Damage Scenario is then transformed into an Impact Scenario, where punctual CI element damages are transformed into micro (local area) or meso (regional) scale Services Outages. At the smaller scale, the DSS simulates detailed city models (where CI dependencies are explicitly accounted for) that are of important input for crisis management organizations whereas, at the regional scale by using approximate System-of-Systems model describing systemic interactions, the focus is on raising awareness. The DSS has allowed to develop a novel simulation framework for predicting earthquakes shake maps originating from a given seismic event, considering the shock wave propagation in inhomogeneous media and the subsequent produced damages by estimating building vulnerabilities on the basis of a phenomenological model [1, 2]. Moreover, in presence of areas containing river basins, when abundant precipitations are expected, the DSS solves the hydrodynamic 1D/2D models of the river basins for predicting the flux runoff and the corresponding flood dynamics. This calculation allows the estimation of the Damage Scenario and triggers the evaluation of the Impact Scenario. The regional output of cascading effects can be used as an input model for more detailed analyses within urban areas for instance. The DSS weights the overall expected Crisis Scenario by also considering, through an appropriate Consequences Analysis, the number of citizens affected by the Service(s) outages, the expected economic losses of the major industrial activities hit by the unavailability of relevant Services (electricity, water, telecommunications etc.) and the influence of outages of the availability of Public Services (hospitals, schools, public offices etc.) [1] S.Giovinazzi, S. Lagomarsino: A macroseismic method for the vulnerability assessment of buildings. 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver, BC, Canada (2004) [2] S. Lagomarsino, S.Giovinazzi: Macroseismic and mechanical models for the vulnerability and damage assessment of current buildings. Bull Earthquake Eng., 4:415-443 (2006)

[Privacy and public benefit in using large scale health databases].

PubMed

Yamamoto, Ryuichi

2014-01-01

In Japan, large scale heath databases were constructed in a few years, such as National Claim insurance and health checkup database (NDB) and Japanese Sentinel project. But there are some legal issues for making adequate balance between privacy and public benefit by using such databases. NDB is carried based on the act for elderly person's health care but in this act, nothing is mentioned for using this database for general public benefit. Therefore researchers who use this database are forced to pay much concern about anonymization and information security that may disturb the research work itself. Japanese Sentinel project is a national project to detecting drug adverse reaction using large scale distributed clinical databases of large hospitals. Although patients give the future consent for general such purpose for public good, it is still under discussion using insufficiently anonymized data. Generally speaking, researchers of study for public benefit will not infringe patient's privacy, but vague and complex requirements of legislation about personal data protection may disturb the researches. Medical science does not progress without using clinical information, therefore the adequate legislation that is simple and clear for both researchers and patients is strongly required. In Japan, the specific act for balancing privacy and public benefit is now under discussion. The author recommended the researchers including the field of pharmacology should pay attention to, participate in the discussion of, and make suggestion to such act or regulations.

Construction of a Species-Level Tree of Life for the Insects and Utility in Taxonomic Profiling

PubMed Central

Chesters, Douglas

2017-01-01

Abstract Although comprehensive phylogenies have proven an invaluable tool in ecology and evolution, their construction is made increasingly challenging both by the scale and structure of publically available sequences. The distinct partition between gene-rich (genomic) and species-rich (DNA barcode) data is a feature of data that has been largely overlooked, yet presents a key obstacle to scaling supermatrix analysis. I present a phyloinformatics framework for draft construction of a species-level phylogeny of insects (Class Insecta). Matrix-building requires separately optimized pipelines for nuclear transcriptomic, mitochondrial genomic, and species-rich markers, whereas tree-building requires hierarchical inference in order to capture species-breadth while retaining deep-level resolution. The phylogeny of insects contains 49,358 species, 13,865 genera, 760 families. Deep-level splits largely reflected previous findings for sections of the tree that are data rich or unambiguous, such as inter-ordinal Endopterygota and Dictyoptera, the recently evolved and relatively homogeneous Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Brachycera (Diptera), and Cucujiformia (Coleoptera). However, analysis of bias, matrix construction and gene-tree variation suggests confidence in some relationships (such as in Polyneoptera) is less than has been indicated by the matrix bootstrap method. To assess the utility of the insect tree as a tool in query profiling several tree-based taxonomic assignment methods are compared. Using test data sets with existing taxonomic annotations, a tendency is observed for greater accuracy of species-level assignments where using a fixed comprehensive tree of life in contrast to methods generating smaller de novo reference trees. Described herein is a solution to the discrepancy in the way data are fit into supermatrices. The resulting tree facilitates wider studies of insect diversification and application of advanced descriptions of diversity in community studies, among other presumed applications. PMID:27798407

Using a framework to implement large-scale innovation in medical education with the intent of achieving sustainability.

PubMed

Hudson, Judith N; Farmer, Elizabeth A; Weston, Kathryn M; Bushnell, John A

2015-01-16

Particularly when undertaken on a large scale, implementing innovation in higher education poses many challenges. Sustaining the innovation requires early adoption of a coherent implementation strategy. Using an example from clinical education, this article describes a process used to implement a large-scale innovation with the intent of achieving sustainability. Desire to improve the effectiveness of undergraduate medical education has led to growing support for a longitudinal integrated clerkship (LIC) model. This involves a move away from the traditional clerkship of 'block rotations' with frequent changes in disciplines, to a focus upon clerkships with longer duration and opportunity for students to build sustained relationships with supervisors, mentors, colleagues and patients. A growing number of medical schools have adopted the LIC model for a small percentage of their students. At a time when increasing medical school numbers and class sizes are leading to competition for clinical supervisors it is however a daunting challenge to provide a longitudinal clerkship for an entire medical school class. This challenge is presented to illustrate the strategy used to implement sustainable large scale innovation. A strategy to implement and build a sustainable longitudinal integrated community-based clerkship experience for all students was derived from a framework arising from Roberto and Levesque's research in business. The framework's four core processes: chartering, learning, mobilising and realigning, provided guidance in preparing and rolling out the 'whole of class' innovation. Roberto and Levesque's framework proved useful for identifying the foundations of the implementation strategy, with special emphasis on the relationship building required to implement such an ambitious initiative. Although this was innovation in a new School it required change within the school, wider university and health community. Challenges encountered included some resistance to moving away from traditional hospital-centred education, initial student concern, resource limitations, workforce shortage and potential burnout of the innovators. Large-scale innovations in medical education may productively draw upon research from other disciplines for guidance on how to lay the foundations for successfully achieving sustainability.

How Did the Information Flow in the #AlphaGo Hashtag Network? A Social Network Analysis of the Large-Scale Information Network on Twitter.

PubMed

Kim, Jinyoung

2017-12-01

As it becomes common for Internet users to use hashtags when posting and searching information on social media, it is important to understand who builds a hashtag network and how information is circulated within the network. This article focused on unlocking the potential of the #AlphaGo hashtag network by addressing the following questions. First, the current study examined whether traditional opinion leadership (i.e., the influentials hypothesis) or grassroot participation by the public (i.e., the interpersonal hypothesis) drove dissemination of information in the hashtag network. Second, several unique patterns of information distribution by key users were identified. Finally, the association between attributes of key users who exerted great influence on information distribution (i.e., the number of followers and follows) and their central status in the network was tested. To answer the proffered research questions, a social network analysis was conducted using a large-scale hashtag network data set from Twitter (n = 21,870). The results showed that the leading actors in the network were actively receiving information from their followers rather than serving as intermediaries between the original information sources and the public. Moreover, the leading actors played several roles (i.e., conversation starters, influencers, and active engagers) in the network. Furthermore, the number of their follows and followers were significantly associated with their central status in the hashtag network. Based on the results, the current research explained how the information was exchanged in the hashtag network by proposing the reciprocal model of information flow.

Review of optimization techniques of polygeneration systems for building applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Y, Rong A.; Y, Su; R, Lahdelma

2016-08-01

Polygeneration means simultaneous production of two or more energy products in a single integrated process. Polygeneration is an energy-efficient technology and plays an important role in transition into future low-carbon energy systems. It can find wide applications in utilities, different types of industrial sectors and building sectors. This paper mainly focus on polygeneration applications in building sectors. The scales of polygeneration systems in building sectors range from the micro-level for a single home building to the large- level for residential districts. Also the development of polygeneration microgrid is related to building applications. The paper aims at giving a comprehensive review for optimization techniques for designing, synthesizing and operating different types of polygeneration systems for building applications.

The quest for better quality-of-life - learning from large-scale shaking table tests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakashima, M.; Sato, E.; Nagae, T.; Kunio, F.; Takahito, I.

2010-12-01

Earthquake engineering has its origins in the practice of “learning from actual earthquakes and earthquake damages.” That is, we recognize serious problems by witnessing the actual damage to our structures, and then we develop and apply engineering solutions to solve these problems. This tradition in earthquake engineering, i.e., “learning from actual damage,” was an obvious engineering response to earthquakes and arose naturally as a practice in a civil and building engineering discipline that traditionally places more emphasis on experience than do other engineering disciplines. But with the rapid progress of urbanization, as society becomes denser, and as the many components that form our society interact with increasing complexity, the potential damage with which earthquakes threaten the society also increases. In such an era, the approach of ”learning from actual earthquake damages” becomes unacceptably dangerous and expensive. Among the practical alternatives to the old practice is to “learn from quasi-actual earthquake damages.” One tool for experiencing earthquake damages without attendant catastrophe is the large shaking table. E-Defense, the largest one we have, was developed in Japan after the 1995 Hyogoken-Nanbu (Kobe) earthquake. Since its inauguration in 2005, E-Defense has conducted over forty full-scale or large-scale shaking table tests, applied to a variety of structural systems. The tests supply detailed data on actual behavior and collapse of the tested structures, offering the earthquake engineering community opportunities to experience and assess the actual seismic performance of the structures, and to help society prepare for earthquakes. Notably, the data were obtained without having to wait for the aftermaths of actual earthquakes. Earthquake engineering has always been about life safety, but in recent years maintaining the quality of life has also become a critical issue. Quality-of-life concerns include nonstructural damage, business continuity, public health, quickness of damage assessment, infrastructure, data and communication networks, and other issues, and not enough useful empirical data have emerged about these issues from the experiences of actual earthquakes. To provide quantitative data that can be used to reduce earthquake risk to our quality of life, E-Defense recently has been implementing two comprehensive research projects in which a base-isolated hospital and a steel high-rise building were tested using the E-Defense shaking table and their seismic performance were examined particularly in terms of the nonstructural damage, damage to building contents and furniture, and operability, functionality, and business-continuity capability. The paper presents the overview of the two projects, together with major findings obtained from the projects.

Data management strategies for multinational large-scale systems biology projects.

PubMed

Wruck, Wasco; Peuker, Martin; Regenbrecht, Christian R A

2014-01-01

Good accessibility of publicly funded research data is essential to secure an open scientific system and eventually becomes mandatory [Wellcome Trust will Penalise Scientists Who Don't Embrace Open Access. The Guardian 2012]. By the use of high-throughput methods in many research areas from physics to systems biology, large data collections are increasingly important as raw material for research. Here, we present strategies worked out by international and national institutions targeting open access to publicly funded research data via incentives or obligations to share data. Funding organizations such as the British Wellcome Trust therefore have developed data sharing policies and request commitment to data management and sharing in grant applications. Increased citation rates are a profound argument for sharing publication data. Pre-publication sharing might be rewarded by a data citation credit system via digital object identifiers (DOIs) which have initially been in use for data objects. Besides policies and incentives, good practice in data management is indispensable. However, appropriate systems for data management of large-scale projects for example in systems biology are hard to find. Here, we give an overview of a selection of open-source data management systems proved to be employed successfully in large-scale projects.

Data management strategies for multinational large-scale systems biology projects

PubMed Central

Peuker, Martin; Regenbrecht, Christian R.A.

2014-01-01

Good accessibility of publicly funded research data is essential to secure an open scientific system and eventually becomes mandatory [Wellcome Trust will Penalise Scientists Who Don’t Embrace Open Access. The Guardian 2012]. By the use of high-throughput methods in many research areas from physics to systems biology, large data collections are increasingly important as raw material for research. Here, we present strategies worked out by international and national institutions targeting open access to publicly funded research data via incentives or obligations to share data. Funding organizations such as the British Wellcome Trust therefore have developed data sharing policies and request commitment to data management and sharing in grant applications. Increased citation rates are a profound argument for sharing publication data. Pre-publication sharing might be rewarded by a data citation credit system via digital object identifiers (DOIs) which have initially been in use for data objects. Besides policies and incentives, good practice in data management is indispensable. However, appropriate systems for data management of large-scale projects for example in systems biology are hard to find. Here, we give an overview of a selection of open-source data management systems proved to be employed successfully in large-scale projects. PMID:23047157

Applying the 15 Public Health Emergency Preparedness Capabilities to Support Large-Scale Tuberculosis Investigations in Complex Congregate Settings

PubMed Central

Toren, Katelynne Gardner; Elsenboss, Carina; Narita, Masahiro

2017-01-01

Public Health—Seattle and King County, a metropolitan health department in western Washington, experiences rates of tuberculosis (TB) that are 1.6 times higher than are state and national averages. The department’s TB Control Program uses public health emergency management tools and capabilities sustained with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant funding to manage large-scale complex case investigations. We have described 3 contact investigations in large congregate settings that the TB Control Program conducted in 2015 and 2016. The program managed the investigations using public health emergency management tools, with support from the Preparedness Program. The 3 investigations encompassed medical evaluation of more than 1600 people, used more than 100 workers, identified nearly 30 individuals with latent TB infection, and prevented an estimated 3 cases of active disease. These incidents exemplify how investments in public health emergency preparedness can enhance health outcomes in traditional areas of public health. PMID:28892445

Characterization and provenance of the building stones from Pompeii's archaeological site (southern Italy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balassone, G.; Kastenmeier, P.; di Maio, G.; Mormone, A.; Joachimski, M.

2009-04-01

Pompeii is one of the most famous and complex areas of archaeological investigation in the world and with a uniquely favorable state of preservation. Even if many studies have been devoted in time to many archaeological aspects of this ancient city, large-scale and detailed studies aimed at characterizing mineralogy, petrography and isotope geochemistry of the building stones are still lacking. The scope of the present research is to fill this gap, pointing to the definition of the provenance of the stony materials used for ancient constructions of the city of Pompeii and to the possible trade routes. This work is part of a large-scale survey carried out by the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut of Berlin, with the purposes of reconstructing the sources of raw materials of various archaeological sites of the Sarno Plain (e.g. Longola-Poggiomarino settlement, Nuceria, Stabiae, etc.) and consequently also the paleo-environments of this area during the Olocene (Seiler, 2006, 2008; Kastemeier and Seiler, 2007). We sampled all the litotypes with different macroscopic characteristics from various buildings according to location, age (time span VI century B.C. - I century A.D.) and utilization; the architectural buildings considered for this study are mainly represented public and religious buildings, houses and funerary monuments. As possible source areas, representative litotypes have been sampled from ancient pits and outcrops surrounding Pompeii as well. A set of 80 samples have been sampled by means of micro-drillings for mineralogical, petrographic and geochemical analyses, comprising optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, inductively coupled plasma mass, X-ray fluorescence and C-O isotope geochemistry. Minero-petrographic and XRD studies of Pompeii rock samples have shown that at least ten different litologies occur as building stones, belonging to basaltic to tephritic lavas, pyroclasts (tuffs, scoriae, etc.) and sedimentary rocks (limestone, travertines). Preliminary results on source localities indicate a local provenance for a set of volcanic rock samples, whereas the possible source areas of the sedimentary litotypes seem to be more complex. New minero-petrographic data of samples from surrounding outcrops are presented and compared to the related Pompeii building stones. References Seiler F. (2006) - Current research projects. In: Aktuelle Forchungsprojeckte, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Zentrale, 34-35. Seiler F. (2008) - Rekonstruktion der antiken Kulturlandschaften des Sarno-Beckens. Ein multidisziplinäres Kooperationsprojekt mit Partnern aus Naturwissenschaften und Altertumswissenschaften in Deutschland, Italien und England. In: P. G. Guzzo - M. P. Guidobaldi (Eds), Nuove ricerche archeologiche nell'area vesuviana (scavi 2003-2006). Convegno Internazionale, Roma 1-3 febbraio, 485-490. Kastenmeier P., Seiler F. (2007) - La ricostruzione dei paleo-paesaggi nella piana del Sarno. Quaderni Autorità di Bacino del Sarno. Studi, documentazione e ricerca, 1, 24-26.

Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales (LSD)

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-30

172. McDonald, MA, Hildebrand, JA, and Mesnick, S (2009). Worldwide decline in tonal frequencies of blue whale songs . Endangered Species Research 9...1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales ...estimating blue and fin whale density that is effective over large spatial scales and is designed to cope with spatial variation in animal density utilizing

Large-Scale Urban Decontamination; Developments, Historical Examples and Lessons Learned

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rick Demmer

2007-02-01

Recent terrorist threats and actual events have lead to a renewed interest in the technical field of large scale, urban environment decontamination. One of the driving forces for this interest is the real potential for the cleanup and removal of radioactive dispersal device (RDD or “dirty bomb”) residues. In response the U. S. Government has spent many millions of dollars investigating RDD contamination and novel decontamination methodologies. Interest in chemical and biological (CB) cleanup has also peaked with the threat of terrorist action like the anthrax attack at the Hart Senate Office Building and with catastrophic natural events such asmore » Hurricane Katrina. The efficiency of cleanup response will be improved with these new developments and a better understanding of the “old reliable” methodologies. Perhaps the most interesting area of investigation for large area decontamination is that of the RDD. While primarily an economic and psychological weapon, the need to cleanup and return valuable or culturally significant resources to the public is nonetheless valid. Several private companies, universities and National Laboratories are currently developing novel RDD cleanup technologies. Because of its longstanding association with radioactive facilities, the U. S. Department of Energy National Laboratories are at the forefront in developing and testing new RDD decontamination methods. However, such cleanup technologies are likely to be fairly task specific; while many different contamination mechanisms, substrate and environmental conditions will make actual application more complicated. Some major efforts have also been made to model potential contamination, to evaluate both old and new decontamination techniques and to assess their readiness for use. Non-radioactive, CB threats each have unique decontamination challenges and recent events have provided some examples. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as lead agency for these emergency cleanup responses, has a sound approach for decontamination decision-making that has been applied several times. The anthrax contamination at the U. S. Hart Senate Office Building and numerous U. S. Post Office facilities are examples of employing novel technical responses. Decontamination of the Hart Office building required development of a new approach for high level decontamination of biological contamination as well as techniques for evaluating the technology effectiveness. The World Trade Center destruction also demonstrated the need for, and successful implementation of, appropriate cleanup methodologies. There are a number of significant lessons that can be gained from a look at previous large scale cleanup projects. Too often we are quick to apply a costly “package and dispose” method when sound technological cleaning approaches are available. Understanding historical perspectives, advanced planning and constant technology improvement are essential to successful decontamination.« less

Robust Control of Multivariable and Large Scale Systems.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-03-14

AD-A175 $5B ROBUST CONTROL OF MULTIVRRIALE AND LARG SCALE SYSTEMS V2 R75 (U) HONEYWELL SYSTEMS AND RESEARCH CENTER MINNEAPOLIS MN J C DOYLE ET AL...ONIJQ 86 R alFS ja ,.AMIECFOEPF:ORMING ORGANIZATION So OFFICE SYMBOL 7a NAME OF MONITORING ORGANIZATI ON jonevwell Systems & Research If 4000c" Air...Force Office of Scientific Research .~ C :AE S C.rv. Stare arma ZIP Code) 7C ADDRESS (Crty. Stare. am ZIP Code, *3660 Marshall Street NE Building 410

Public health policy and the building up of a Brazilian medical identity.

PubMed

de Castro-Santos, L A

2005-12-01

Since George Herbert Mead studied "the social self" and the interactionists went further in distinguishing "images of self", a lecture on the building up of a Brazilian medical identity should try to focus on the patterns of self-images, presented images, and aspired-to images among the Brazilian medical elites during the First Republic (1889-1930). In no other period of Brazilian history were those "images" of professional identity so close--in contrast, later periods of Brazilian history witnessed an almost permanent "collision" or the clashing of such images among public health specialists. Oswaldo Cruz, Carlos Chagas, Artur Neiva and Belisário Pena are perhaps the best examples of successful careers as "sanitarians" (to recall John Duffy's historical work on luminaries before and after the "New Public Health" in the United States), and as important political actors during Brazil's First Republic. In light of the prominent political, policy-oriented, and scientific roles public health professionals played in Brazil, it is interesting to suggest that in large part such prominence resulted from the symbolic impact of the ideologies of sanitary reform on the political agenda of that period of Brazilian history. Where many studies look for personal rivalries and disputes around Chagas and Neiva as public figures, we may also see the importance of finding identity-building processes among public health specialists as an integrated group (e.g., trying to appear as "significant others" for the new generations of medical graduates in the country), regardless of existing rivalries. Cruz and Chagas, especially, were names with great impact in the Brazilian press (pro and con), a circumstance made possible largely by their easy and direct access to the Brazilian presidents Rodrigues Alves and Epitácio Pessoa, and, most clearly, by public health being one of Brazil's political priorities to find a place among the "civilized nations" of the world. A task that further concerns us is the drawing of a few tentative and very crude comparisons between identity-building among the medical and sanitary professionals in Brazil and France.

Factors Associated with Assignment of Therapeutic Homework in a Large Public Children's Mental Health System.

PubMed

Trask, Emily Velazquez; Barounis, Kya; Carlisle, Brandon L; Garland, Ann F; Aarons, Gregory A

2018-03-24

Therapeutic homework is a fundamental skill-building component of the majority of evidence-based therapies and is associated with better treatment outcomes. However, it is rarely utilized in public mental health settings. To determine barriers to homework use and identify predictors of clinicians' assignment of homework, an online survey was administered to 267 clinicians in a large diverse public mental health system. Clinicians who were younger, licensed, whose supervisors asked about homework and whose clients completed their homework more frequently were predictors of greater homework utilization. The survey results are discussed and a novel idea to increase the use of homework is introduced.

DEEP: A Database of Energy Efficiency Performance to Accelerate Energy Retrofitting of Commercial Buildings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hoon Lee, Sang; Hong, Tianzhen; Sawaya, Geof

The paper presents a method and process to establish a database of energy efficiency performance (DEEP) to enable quick and accurate assessment of energy retrofit of commercial buildings. DEEP was compiled from results of about 35 million EnergyPlus simulations. DEEP provides energy savings for screening and evaluation of retrofit measures targeting the small and medium-sized office and retail buildings in California. The prototype building models are developed for a comprehensive assessment of building energy performance based on DOE commercial reference buildings and the California DEER prototype buildings. The prototype buildings represent seven building types across six vintages of constructions andmore » 16 California climate zones. DEEP uses these prototypes to evaluate energy performance of about 100 energy conservation measures covering envelope, lighting, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, plug-loads, and domestic hot water. DEEP consists the energy simulation results for individual retrofit measures as well as packages of measures to consider interactive effects between multiple measures. The large scale EnergyPlus simulations are being conducted on the super computers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The pre-simulation database is a part of an on-going project to develop a web-based retrofit toolkit for small and medium-sized commercial buildings in California, which provides real-time energy retrofit feedback by querying DEEP with recommended measures, estimated energy savings and financial payback period based on users’ decision criteria of maximizing energy savings, energy cost savings, carbon reduction, or payback of investment. The pre-simulated database and associated comprehensive measure analysis enhances the ability to performance assessments of retrofits to reduce energy use for small and medium buildings and business owners who typically do not have resources to conduct costly building energy audit. DEEP will be migrated into the DEnCity - DOE’s Energy City, which integrates large-scale energy data for multi-purpose, open, and dynamic database leveraging diverse source of existing simulation data.« less

Large Scale Pedagogical Transformation as Widespread Cultural Change in Mexican Public Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rincón-Gallardo, Santiago

2016-01-01

This article examines how and under what conditions a new pedagogy can spread at scale using the Learning Community Project (LCP) in Mexico as a case study. Started as a small-scale, grassroots pedagogical change initiative in a handful of public schools, LCP evolved over an 8-year period into a national policy that spread its pedagogy of tutorial…

A Pile of Legos.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DePino, Andrew, Jr.

1994-01-01

Describes the relationships a high school built with neighborhood industry, a national laboratory, a national museum, and a large university while trying to build a scale model of the original atomic pile. Provides suggestions for teachers. (MVL)

Building Interdisciplinary Research Capacity: a Key Challenge for Ecological Approaches in Public Health.

PubMed

Galway, Lindsay P; Parkes, Margot W; Allen, Diana; Takaro, Tim K

2016-01-01

The shortcomings of public health research informed by reductionist and fragmented biomedical approaches and the emergence of wicked problems are fueling a renewed interest in ecological approaches in public health. Despite the central role of interdisciplinarity in the context of ecological approaches in public health research, inadequate attention has been given to the specific challenge of doing interdisciplinary research in practice. As a result, important knowledge gaps exist with regards to the practice of interdisciplinary research. We argue that explicit attention towards the challenge of doing interdisciplinary research is critical in order to effectively apply ecological approaches to public health issues. This paper draws on our experiences developing and conducting an interdisciplinary research project exploring the links among climate change, water, and health to highlight five specific insights which we see as relevant to building capacity for interdisciplinary research specifically, and which have particular relevance to addressing the integrative challenges demanded by ecological approaches to address public health issues. These lessons include: (i) the need for frameworks that facilitate integration; (ii) emphasize learning-by-doing; (iii) the benefits of examining issues at multiple scales; (iv) make the implicit, explicit; and (v) the need for reflective practice. By synthesizing and sharing experiences gained by engaging in interdisciplinary inquiries using an ecological approach, this paper responds to a growing need to build interdisciplinary research capacity as a means for advancing the ecological public health agenda more broadly.

Building Interdisciplinary Research Capacity: a Key Challenge for Ecological Approaches in Public Health

PubMed Central

Galway, Lindsay P.; Parkes, Margot W.; Allen, Diana; Takaro, Tim K.

2016-01-01

The shortcomings of public health research informed by reductionist and fragmented biomedical approaches and the emergence of wicked problems are fueling a renewed interest in ecological approaches in public health. Despite the central role of interdisciplinarity in the context of ecological approaches in public health research, inadequate attention has been given to the specific challenge of doing interdisciplinary research in practice. As a result, important knowledge gaps exist with regards to the practice of interdisciplinary research. We argue that explicit attention towards the challenge of doing interdisciplinary research is critical in order to effectively apply ecological approaches to public health issues. This paper draws on our experiences developing and conducting an interdisciplinary research project exploring the links among climate change, water, and health to highlight five specific insights which we see as relevant to building capacity for interdisciplinary research specifically, and which have particular relevance to addressing the integrative challenges demanded by ecological approaches to address public health issues. These lessons include: (i) the need for frameworks that facilitate integration; (ii) emphasize learning-by-doing; (iii) the benefits of examining issues at multiple scales; (iv) make the implicit, explicit; and (v) the need for reflective practice. By synthesizing and sharing experiences gained by engaging in interdisciplinary inquiries using an ecological approach, this paper responds to a growing need to build interdisciplinary research capacity as a means for advancing the ecological public health agenda more broadly. PMID:29546171

Lightweight computational steering of very large scale molecular dynamics simulations

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Beazley, D.M.; Lomdahl, P.S.

1996-09-01

We present a computational steering approach for controlling, analyzing, and visualizing very large scale molecular dynamics simulations involving tens to hundreds of millions of atoms. Our approach relies on extensible scripting languages and an easy to use tool for building extensions and modules. The system is extremely easy to modify, works with existing C code, is memory efficient, and can be used from inexpensive workstations and networks. We demonstrate how we have used this system to manipulate data from production MD simulations involving as many as 104 million atoms running on the CM-5 and Cray T3D. We also show howmore » this approach can be used to build systems that integrate common scripting languages (including Tcl/Tk, Perl, and Python), simulation code, user extensions, and commercial data analysis packages.« less

Building and measuring a high performance network architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kramer, William T.C.; Toole, Timothy; Fisher, Chuck

2001-04-20

Once a year, the SC conferences present a unique opportunity to create and build one of the most complex and highest performance networks in the world. At SC2000, large-scale and complex local and wide area networking connections were demonstrated, including large-scale distributed applications running on different architectures. This project was designed to use the unique opportunity presented at SC2000 to create a testbed network environment and then use that network to demonstrate and evaluate high performance computational and communication applications. This testbed was designed to incorporate many interoperable systems and services and was designed for measurement from the very beginning.more » The end results were key insights into how to use novel, high performance networking technologies and to accumulate measurements that will give insights into the networks of the future.« less

Large Scale Composite Manufacturing for Heavy Lift Launch Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stavana, Jacob; Cohen, Leslie J.; Houseal, Keth; Pelham, Larry; Lort, Richard; Zimmerman, Thomas; Sutter, James; Western, Mike; Harper, Robert; Stuart, Michael

2012-01-01

Risk reduction for the large scale composite manufacturing is an important goal to produce light weight components for heavy lift launch vehicles. NASA and an industry team successfully employed a building block approach using low-cost Automated Tape Layup (ATL) of autoclave and Out-of-Autoclave (OoA) prepregs. Several large, curved sandwich panels were fabricated at HITCO Carbon Composites. The aluminum honeycomb core sandwich panels are segments of a 1/16th arc from a 10 meter cylindrical barrel. Lessons learned highlight the manufacturing challenges required to produce light weight composite structures such as fairings for heavy lift launch vehicles.

Reshaping US Navy Pacific response in mitigating disaster risk in South Pacific Island nations: adopting community-based disaster cycle management.

PubMed

Reaves, Erik J; Termini, Michael; Burkle, Frederick M

2014-02-01

The US Department of Defense continues to deploy military assets for disaster relief and humanitarian actions around the world. These missions, carried out through geographically located Combatant Commands, represent an evolving role the US military is taking in health diplomacy, designed to enhance disaster preparedness and response capability. Oceania is a unique case, with most island nations experiencing "acute-on-chronic" environmental stresses defined by acute disaster events on top of the consequences of climate change. In all Pacific Island nation-states and territories, the symptoms of this process are seen in both short- and long-term health concerns and a deteriorating public health infrastructure. These factors tend to build on each other. To date, the US military's response to Oceania primarily has been to provide short-term humanitarian projects as part of Pacific Command humanitarian civic assistance missions, such as the annual Pacific Partnership, without necessarily improving local capacity or leaving behind relevant risk-reduction strategies. This report describes the assessment and implications on public health of large-scale humanitarian missions conducted by the US Navy in Oceania. Future opportunities will require the Department of Defense and its Combatant Commands to show meaningful strategies to implement ongoing, long-term, humanitarian activities that will build sustainable, host nation health system capacity and partnerships. This report recommends a community-centric approach that would better assist island nations in reducing disaster risk throughout the traditional disaster management cycle and defines a potential and crucial role of Department of Defense's assets and resources to be a more meaningful partner in disaster risk reduction and community capacity building.

Highly crystalline covalent organic frameworks from flexible building blocks.

PubMed

Xu, Liqian; Ding, San-Yuan; Liu, Junmin; Sun, Junliang; Wang, Wei; Zheng, Qi-Yu

2016-03-28

Two novel 2D covalent organic frameworks (TPT-COF-1 and TPT-COF-2) were synthesized from the flexible 2,4,6-triaryloxy-1,3,5-triazine building blocks on a gram scale, which show high crystallinity and large surface area. The controllable formation of highly ordered frameworks is mainly attributed to the self-assembly Piedfort unit of 2,4,6-triaryloxy-1,3,5-triazine.

Sybil--efficient constraint-based modelling in R.

PubMed

Gelius-Dietrich, Gabriel; Desouki, Abdelmoneim Amer; Fritzemeier, Claus Jonathan; Lercher, Martin J

2013-11-13

Constraint-based analyses of metabolic networks are widely used to simulate the properties of genome-scale metabolic networks. Publicly available implementations tend to be slow, impeding large scale analyses such as the genome-wide computation of pairwise gene knock-outs, or the automated search for model improvements. Furthermore, available implementations cannot easily be extended or adapted by users. Here, we present sybil, an open source software library for constraint-based analyses in R; R is a free, platform-independent environment for statistical computing and graphics that is widely used in bioinformatics. Among other functions, sybil currently provides efficient methods for flux-balance analysis (FBA), MOMA, and ROOM that are about ten times faster than previous implementations when calculating the effect of whole-genome single gene deletions in silico on a complete E. coli metabolic model. Due to the object-oriented architecture of sybil, users can easily build analysis pipelines in R or even implement their own constraint-based algorithms. Based on its highly efficient communication with different mathematical optimisation programs, sybil facilitates the exploration of high-dimensional optimisation problems on small time scales. Sybil and all its dependencies are open source. Sybil and its documentation are available for download from the comprehensive R archive network (CRAN).

Operational research within a Global Fund supported tuberculosis project in India: why, how and its contribution towards change in policy and practice

PubMed Central

Sagili, Karuna D; Satyanarayana, Srinath; Chadha, Sarabjit S; Wilson, Nevin C; Kumar, Ajay M V; Oeltmann, John E; Chadha, Vineet K; Nagaraja, Sharath Burugina; Ghosh, Smita; Q Lo, Terrence; Volkmann, Tyson; Willis, Matthew; Shringarpure, Kalpita; Reddy, Ravichandra Chinnappa; Kumar, Prahlad; Nair, Sreenivas A; Rao, Raghuram; Yassin, Mohammed; Mwangala, Perry; Zachariah, Rony; Tonsing, Jamhoih; Harries, Anthony D; Khaparde, Sunil

2018-01-01

ABSTRACT Background: The Global Fund encourages operational research (OR) in all its grants; however very few reports describe this aspect. In India, Project Axshya was supported by a Global Fund grant to improve the reach and visibility of the government Tuberculosis (TB) services among marginalised and vulnerable communities. OR was incorporated to build research capacity of professionals working with the national TB programme and to generate evidence to inform policies and practices. Objectives: To describe how Project Axshya facilitated building OR capacity within the country, helped in addressing several TB control priority research questions, documented project activities and their outcomes, and influenced policy and practice. Methods: From September 2010 to September 2016, three key OR-related activities were implemented. First, practical output-oriented modular training courses were conducted (n = 3) to build research capacity of personnel involved in the TB programme, co-facilitated by The Union, in collaboration with the national TB programme, WHO country office and CDC, Atlanta. Second, two large-scale Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) surveys were conducted at baseline and mid-project to assess the changes pertaining to TB knowledge, attitudes and practices among the general population, TB patients and health care providers over the project period. Third, studies were conducted to describe the project’s core activities and outcomes. Results: In the training courses, 44 participant teams were supported to develop research protocols on topics of national priority, resulting in 28 peer-reviewed scientific publications. The KAP surveys and description of project activities resulted in 14 peer-reviewed publications. Of the published papers at least 12 have influenced change in policy or practice. Conclusions: OR within a Global Fund supported TB project has resulted in building OR capacity, facilitating research in areas of national priority and influencing policy and practice. We believe this experience will provide guidance for undertaking OR in Global Fund projects. PMID:29553308

Operational research within a Global Fund supported tuberculosis project in India: why, how and its contribution towards change in policy and practice.

PubMed

Sagili, Karuna D; Satyanarayana, Srinath; Chadha, Sarabjit S; Wilson, Nevin C; Kumar, Ajay M V; Moonan, Patrick K; Oeltmann, John E; Chadha, Vineet K; Nagaraja, Sharath Burugina; Ghosh, Smita; Q Lo, Terrence; Volkmann, Tyson; Willis, Matthew; Shringarpure, Kalpita; Reddy, Ravichandra Chinnappa; Kumar, Prahlad; Nair, Sreenivas A; Rao, Raghuram; Yassin, Mohammed; Mwangala, Perry; Zachariah, Rony; Tonsing, Jamhoih; Harries, Anthony D; Khaparde, Sunil

2018-01-01

The Global Fund encourages operational research (OR) in all its grants; however very few reports describe this aspect. In India, Project Axshya was supported by a Global Fund grant to improve the reach and visibility of the government Tuberculosis (TB) services among marginalised and vulnerable communities. OR was incorporated to build research capacity of professionals working with the national TB programme and to generate evidence to inform policies and practices. To describe how Project Axshya facilitated building OR capacity within the country, helped in addressing several TB control priority research questions, documented project activities and their outcomes, and influenced policy and practice. From September 2010 to September 2016, three key OR-related activities were implemented. First, practical output-oriented modular training courses were conducted (n = 3) to build research capacity of personnel involved in the TB programme, co-facilitated by The Union, in collaboration with the national TB programme, WHO country office and CDC, Atlanta. Second, two large-scale Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) surveys were conducted at baseline and mid-project to assess the changes pertaining to TB knowledge, attitudes and practices among the general population, TB patients and health care providers over the project period. Third, studies were conducted to describe the project's core activities and outcomes. In the training courses, 44 participant teams were supported to develop research protocols on topics of national priority, resulting in 28 peer-reviewed scientific publications. The KAP surveys and description of project activities resulted in 14 peer-reviewed publications. Of the published papers at least 12 have influenced change in policy or practice. OR within a Global Fund supported TB project has resulted in building OR capacity, facilitating research in areas of national priority and influencing policy and practice. We believe this experience will provide guidance for undertaking OR in Global Fund projects.

Research, public policymaking, and knowledge-translation processes: Canadian efforts to build bridges.

PubMed

Lavis, John N

2006-01-01

Public policymakers must contend with a particular set of institutional arrangements that govern what can be done to address any given issue, pressure from a variety of interest groups about what they would like to see done to address any given issue, and a range of ideas (including research evidence) about how best to address any given issue. Rarely do processes exist that can get optimally packaged high-quality and high-relevance research evidence into the hands of public policymakers when they most need it, which is often in hours and days, not months and years. In Canada, a variety of efforts have been undertaken to address the factors that have been found to increase the prospects for research use, including the production of systematic reviews that meet the shorter term (but not urgent) needs of public policymakers and encouraging partnerships between researchers and policymakers that allow for their interaction around the tasks of asking and answering relevant questions. Much less progress has been made in making available research evidence to inform the urgent needs of public policymakers and in addressing attitudinal barriers and capacity limitations. In the future, knowledge-translation processes, particularly push efforts and efforts to facilitate user pull, should be undertaken on a sufficiently large scale and with a sufficiently rigorous evaluation so that robust conclusions can be drawn about their effectiveness.

Public Health and Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction Including Fracking: Global Lessons from a Scottish Government Review.

PubMed

Watterson, Andrew; Dinan, William

2018-04-04

Unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) including fracking for shale gas is underway in North America on a large scale, and in Australia and some other countries. It is viewed as a major source of global energy needs by proponents. Critics consider fracking and UOGE an immediate and long-term threat to global, national, and regional public health and climate. Rarely have governments brought together relatively detailed assessments of direct and indirect public health risks associated with fracking and weighed these against potential benefits to inform a national debate on whether to pursue this energy route. The Scottish government has now done so in a wide-ranging consultation underpinned by a variety of reports on unconventional gas extraction including fracking. This paper analyses the Scottish government approach from inception to conclusion, and from procedures to outcomes. The reports commissioned by the Scottish government include a comprehensive review dedicated specifically to public health as well as reports on climate change, economic impacts, transport, geology, and decommissioning. All these reports are relevant to public health, and taken together offer a comprehensive review of existing evidence. The approach is unique globally when compared with UOGE assessments conducted in the USA, Australia, Canada, and England. The review process builds a useful evidence base although it is not without flaws. The process approach, if not the content, offers a framework that may have merits globally.

Making the Handoff from Earthquake Hazard Assessments to Effective Mitigation Measures (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Applegate, D.

2010-12-01

This year has witnessed a barrage of large earthquakes worldwide with the resulting damages ranging from inconsequential to truly catastrophic. We cannot predict when earthquakes will strike, but we can build communities that are resilient to strong shaking as well as to secondary hazards such as landslides and liquefaction. The contrasting impacts of the magnitude-7 earthquake that struck Haiti in January and the magnitude-8.8 event that struck Chile in April underscore the difference that mitigation and preparedness can make. In both cases, millions of people were exposed to severe shaking, but deaths in Chile were measured in the hundreds rather than the hundreds of thousands that perished in Haiti. Numerous factors contributed to these disparate outcomes, but the most significant is the presence of strong building codes in Chile and their total absence in Haiti. The financial cost of the Chilean earthquake still represents an unacceptably high percentage of that nation’s gross domestic product, a reminder that life safety is the paramount, but not the only, goal of disaster risk reduction measures. For building codes to be effective, both in terms of lives saved and economic cost, they need to reflect the hazard as accurately as possible. As one of four federal agencies that make up the congressionally mandated National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) develops national seismic hazard maps that form the basis for seismic provisions in model building codes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency and private-sector practitioners. This cooperation is central to NEHRP, which both fosters earthquake research and establishes pathways to translate research results into implementation measures. That translation depends on the ability of hazard-focused scientists to interact and develop mutual trust with risk-focused engineers and planners. Strengthening that interaction is an opportunity for the next generation of earthquake scientists and engineers. In addition to the national maps, the USGS produces more detailed urban seismic hazard maps that communities have used to prioritize retrofits and design critical infrastructure that can withstand large earthquakes. At a regional scale, the USGS and its partners in California have developed a time-dependent earthquake rupture forecast that is being used by the insurance sector, which can serve to distribute risk and foster mitigation if the right incentives are in place. What the USGS and partners are doing at the urban, regional, and national scales, the Global Earthquake Model project is seeking to do for the world. A significant challenge for engaging the public to prepare for earthquakes is making low-probability, high-consequence events real enough to merit personal action. Scenarios help by starting with the hazard posed by a specific earthquake and then exploring the fragility of the built environment, cascading failures, and the real-life consequences for the public. To generate such a complete picture takes multiple disciplines working together. Earthquake scenarios are being used both for emergency management exercises and much broader public preparedness efforts like the Great California ShakeOut, which engaged nearly 7 million people.

KiMoSys: a web-based repository of experimental data for KInetic MOdels of biological SYStems

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The kinetic modeling of biological systems is mainly composed of three steps that proceed iteratively: model building, simulation and analysis. In the first step, it is usually required to set initial metabolite concentrations, and to assign kinetic rate laws, along with estimating parameter values using kinetic data through optimization when these are not known. Although the rapid development of high-throughput methods has generated much omics data, experimentalists present only a summary of obtained results for publication, the experimental data files are not usually submitted to any public repository, or simply not available at all. In order to automatize as much as possible the steps of building kinetic models, there is a growing requirement in the systems biology community for easily exchanging data in combination with models, which represents the main motivation of KiMoSys development. Description KiMoSys is a user-friendly platform that includes a public data repository of published experimental data, containing concentration data of metabolites and enzymes and flux data. It was designed to ensure data management, storage and sharing for a wider systems biology community. This community repository offers a web-based interface and upload facility to turn available data into publicly accessible, centralized and structured-format data files. Moreover, it compiles and integrates available kinetic models associated with the data. KiMoSys also integrates some tools to facilitate the kinetic model construction process of large-scale metabolic networks, especially when the systems biologists perform computational research. Conclusions KiMoSys is a web-based system that integrates a public data and associated model(s) repository with computational tools, providing the systems biology community with a novel application facilitating data storage and sharing, thus supporting construction of ODE-based kinetic models and collaborative research projects. The web application implemented using Ruby on Rails framework is freely available for web access at http://kimosys.org, along with its full documentation. PMID:25115331

Towards large-scale mapping of urban three-dimensional structure using Landsat imagery and global elevation datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, P.; Huang, C.

2017-12-01

The three-dimensional (3D) structure of buildings and infrastructures is fundamental to understanding and modelling of the impacts and challenges of urbanization in terms of energy use, carbon emissions, and earthquake vulnerabilities. However, spatially detailed maps of urban 3D structure have been scarce, particularly in fast-changing developing countries. We present here a novel methodology to map the volume of buildings and infrastructures at 30 meter resolution using a synergy of Landsat imagery and openly available global digital surface models (DSMs), including the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), ASTER Global Digital Elevation Map (GDEM), ALOS World 3D - 30m (AW3D30), and the recently released global DSM from the TanDEM-X mission. Our method builds on the concept of object-based height profile to extract height metrics from the DSMs and use a machine learning algorithm to predict height and volume from the height metrics. We have tested this algorithm in the entire England and assessed our result using Lidar measurements in 25 England cities. Our initial assessments achieved a RMSE of 1.4 m (R2 = 0.72) for building height and a RMSE of 1208.7 m3 (R2 = 0.69) for building volume, demonstrating the potential of large-scale applications and fully automated mapping of urban structure.

The effect of governance mechanisms on food safety in the supply chain: Evidence from the Lebanese dairy sector.

PubMed

Abebe, Gumataw K; Chalak, Ali; Abiad, Mohamad G

2017-07-01

Food safety is a key public health issue worldwide. This study aims to characterise existing governance mechanisms - governance structures (GSs) and food safety management systems (FSMSs) - and analyse the alignment thereof in detecting food safety hazards, based on empirical evidence from Lebanon. Firm-to-firm and public baseline are the dominant FSMSs applied in a large-scale, while chain-wide FSMSs are observed only in a small-scale. Most transactions involving farmers are relational and market-based in contrast to (large-scale) processors, which opt for hierarchical GSs. Large-scale processors use a combination of FSMSs and GSs to minimise food safety hazards albeit potential increase in coordination costs; this is an important feature of modern food supply chains. The econometric analysis reveals contract period, on-farm inspection and experience having significant effects in minimising food safety hazards. However, the potential to implement farm-level FSMS is influenced by formality of the contract, herd size, trading partner choice, and experience. Public baseline FSMSs appear effective in controlling food safety hazards; however, this may not be viable due to the scarcity of public resources. We suggest public policies to focus on long-lasting governance mechanisms by introducing incentive schemes and farm-level FSMSs by providing loans and education to farmers. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.

Evaluation of Hydrogel Technologies for the Decontamination ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Report This current research effort was developed to evaluate intermediate level (between bench-scale and large-scale or wide-area implementation) decontamination procedures, materials, technologies, and techniques used to remove radioactive material from different surfaces. In the event of such an incident, application of this technology would primarily be intended for decontamination of high-value buildings, important infrastructure, and landmarks.

Building spatially-explicit model predictions for ecological condition of streams in the Pacific Northwest: An assessment of landscape variables, models, endpoints and prediction scale

EPA Science Inventory

While large-scale, randomized surveys estimate the percentage of a region’s streams in poor ecological condition, identifying particular stream reaches or watersheds in poor condition is an equally important goal for monitoring and management. We built predictive models of strea...

A Weibull distribution accrual failure detector for cloud computing.

PubMed

Liu, Jiaxi; Wu, Zhibo; Wu, Jin; Dong, Jian; Zhao, Yao; Wen, Dongxin

2017-01-01

Failure detectors are used to build high availability distributed systems as the fundamental component. To meet the requirement of a complicated large-scale distributed system, accrual failure detectors that can adapt to multiple applications have been studied extensively. However, several implementations of accrual failure detectors do not adapt well to the cloud service environment. To solve this problem, a new accrual failure detector based on Weibull Distribution, called the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector, has been proposed specifically for cloud computing. It can adapt to the dynamic and unexpected network conditions in cloud computing. The performance of the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector is evaluated and compared based on public classical experiment data and cloud computing experiment data. The results show that the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector has better performance in terms of speed and accuracy in unstable scenarios, especially in cloud computing.

Factors associated with high-rise evacuation: qualitative results from the World Trade Center Evacuation Study.

PubMed

Gershon, Robyn R M; Qureshi, Kristine A; Rubin, Marcie S; Raveis, Victoria H

2007-01-01

Due to the fact that most high-rise structures (i.e., >75 feet high, or eight to ten stories) are constructed with extensive and redundant fire safety features, current fire safety procedures typically only involve limited evacuation during minor to moderate fire emergencies. Therefore, full-scale evacuation of high-rise buildings is highly unusual and consequently, little is known about how readily and rapidly high-rise structures can be evacuated fully. Factors that either facilitate or inhibit the evacuation process remain under-studied. This paper presents results from the qualitative phase of the World Trade Center Evacuation Study, a three-year, five-phase study designed to improve our understanding of the individual, organizational, and environmental factors that helped or hindered evacuation from the World Trade Center (WTC) Towers 1 and 2, on 11 September 2001. Qualitative data from semi-structured, in-depth interviews and focus groups involving WTC evacuees were collected and analyzed. On the individual level, factors that affected evacuation included perception of risk (formed largely by sensory cues), preparedness training, degree of familiarity with the building, physical condition, health status, and footwear. Individual behavior also was affected by group behavior and leadership. At the organizational level, evacuation was affected by worksite preparedness planning, including the training and education of building occupants, and risk communication. The environmental conditions affecting evacuation included smoke, flames, debris, general condition and degree of crowdedness on staircases, and communication infrastructure systems (e.g., public address, landline, cellular and fire warden's telephones). Various factors at the individual, organizational, and environmental levels were identified that affected evacuation. Interventions that address the barriers to evacuation may improve the full-scale evacuation of other high-rise buildings under extreme conditions. Further studies should focus on the development and evaluation of targeted interventions, including model emergency preparedness planning for high-rise occupancies.

AsterAnts: A Concept for Large-Scale Meteoroid Return and Processing using the International Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Globus, Al; Biegel, Bryan A.; Traugott, Steve

2004-01-01

AsterAnts is a concept calling for a fleet of solar sail powered spacecraft to retrieve large numbers of small (1/2-1 meter diameter) Near Earth Objects (NEOs) for orbital processing. AsterAnts could use the International Space Station (ISS) for NEO processing, solar sail construction, and to test NEO capture hardware. Solar sails constructed on orbit are expected to have substantially better performance than their ground built counterparts [Wright 1992]. Furthermore, solar sails may be used to hold geosynchronous communication satellites out-of-plane [Forward 1981] increasing the total number of slots by at least a factor of three. potentially generating $2 billion worth of orbital real estate over North America alone. NEOs are believed to contain large quantities of water, carbon, other life-support materials and metals. Thus. with proper processing, NEO materials could in principle be used to resupply the ISS, produce rocket propellant, manufacture tools, and build additional ISS working space. Unlike proposals requiring massive facilities, such as lunar bases, before returning any extraterrestrial larger than a typical inter-planetary mission. Furthermore, AsterAnts could be scaled up to deliver large amounts of material by building many copies of the same spacecraft, thereby achieving manufacturing economies of scale. Because AsterAnts would capture NEOs whole, NEO composition details, which are generally poorly characterized, are relatively unimportant and no complex extraction equipment is necessary. In combination with a materials processing facility at the ISS, AsterAnts might inaugurate an era of large-scale orbital construction using extraterrestrial materials.

Large Composite Structures Processing Technologies for Reusable Launch Vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clinton, R. G., Jr.; Vickers, J. H.; McMahon, W. M.; Hulcher, A. B.; Johnston, N. J.; Cano, R. J.; Belvin, H. L.; McIver, K.; Franklin, W.; Sidwell, D.

2001-01-01

Significant efforts have been devoted to establishing the technology foundation to enable the progression to large scale composite structures fabrication. We are not capable today of fabricating many of the composite structures envisioned for the second generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV). Conventional 'aerospace' manufacturing and processing methodologies (fiber placement, autoclave, tooling) will require substantial investment and lead time to scale-up. Out-of-autoclave process techniques will require aggressive efforts to mature the selected technologies and to scale up. Focused composite processing technology development and demonstration programs utilizing the building block approach are required to enable envisioned second generation RLV large composite structures applications. Government/industry partnerships have demonstrated success in this area and represent best combination of skills and capabilities to achieve this goal.

Mapping the Heavens: Probing Cosmology with Large Surveys

ScienceCinema

Frieman, Joshua [Fermilab

2017-12-09

This talk will provide an overview of recent and on-going sky surveys, focusing on their implications for cosmology. I will place particular emphasis on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the most ambitious mapping of the Universe yet undertaken, showing a virtual fly-through of the survey that reveals the large-scale structure of the galaxy distribution. Recent measurements of this large-scale structure, in combination with observations of the cosmic microwave background, have provided independent evidence for a Universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy as well as insights into how galaxies and larger-scale structures formed. Future planned surveys will build on these foundations to probe the history of the cosmic expansion--and thereby the dark energy--with greater precision.

Guided growth of large-scale, horizontally aligned arrays of single-walled carbon nanotubes and their use in thin-film transistors.

PubMed

Kocabas, Coskun; Hur, Seung-Hyun; Gaur, Anshu; Meitl, Matthew A; Shim, Moonsub; Rogers, John A

2005-11-01

A convenient process for generating large-scale, horizontally aligned arrays of pristine, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is described. The approach uses guided growth, by chemical vapor deposition (CVD), of SWNTs on miscut single-crystal quartz substrates. Studies of the growth reveal important relationships between the density and alignment of the tubes, the CVD conditions, and the morphology of the quartz. Electrodes and dielectrics patterned on top of these arrays yield thin-film transistors that use the SWNTs as effective thin-film semiconductors. The ability to build high-performance devices of this type suggests significant promise for large-scale aligned arrays of SWNTs in electronics, sensors, and other applications.

Mobility Data Analytics Center.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2016-01-01

Mobility Data Analytics Center aims at building a centralized data engine to efficiently manipulate : large-scale data for smart decision making. Integrating and learning the massive data are the key to : the data engine. The ultimate goal of underst...

An Integrative Structural Health Monitoring System for the Local/Global Responses of a Large-Scale Irregular Building under Construction

PubMed Central

Park, Hyo Seon; Shin, Yunah; Choi, Se Woon; Kim, Yousok

2013-01-01

In this study, a practical and integrative SHM system was developed and applied to a large-scale irregular building under construction, where many challenging issues exist. In the proposed sensor network, customized energy-efficient wireless sensing units (sensor nodes, repeater nodes, and master nodes) were employed and comprehensive communications from the sensor node to the remote monitoring server were conducted through wireless communications. The long-term (13-month) monitoring results recorded from a large number of sensors (75 vibrating wire strain gauges, 10 inclinometers, and three laser displacement sensors) indicated that the construction event exhibiting the largest influence on structural behavior was the removal of bents that were temporarily installed to support the free end of the cantilevered members during their construction. The safety of each member could be confirmed based on the quantitative evaluation of each response. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that the relation between these responses (i.e., deflection, strain, and inclination) can provide information about the global behavior of structures induced from specific events. Analysis of the measurement results demonstrates the proposed sensor network system is capable of automatic and real-time monitoring and can be applied and utilized for both the safety evaluation and precise implementation of buildings under construction. PMID:23860317

Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) Roofs for Sustainability and Energy Efficiency

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-01

ACRONYMS A/C Air Conditioning a-Si Amorphous Silicon AC Alternating Current AFB Air Force Base AHU Air Handing Unit APS Arizona Public...Service ASTM American Society for Testing and Materials AZ Arizona BIPV Building Integrated Photovoltaic BTU British Thermal Units C Celsius CA...AFB) in Arizona (AZ). This site was chosen based on the ESTCP review board’s recommendation, the large size of the BIPV roof, and the age. Site I

Destination bioeconomy - The path towards a smarter, more sustainable future.

PubMed

Dupont-Inglis, Joanna; Borg, Agnes

2018-01-25

Five years following the publication of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy, this article discusses the state of play of the bioeconomy in Europe. Placing specific focus on Industrial Biotech, it outlines ten pragmatic recommendations from BIO-TIC [BIO-TIC, A roadmap to a thriving industrial biotechnology sector in Europe, 2015], an EU FP7 funded project completed in 2015 and coordinated by EuropaBio, comprehensively examining the hurdles to the development of a bioeconomy in Europe, enabled by industrial biotech. These include improving opportunities for feedstock producers within the bioeconomy; investigating the scope for using novel biomass; developing a workforce which can maintain Europe's competitiveness in industrial biotechnology; introducing a long-term, stable and transparent policy and incentive framework to promote the bioeconomy; improving public perception and awareness of industrial biotechnology and bio-based products; identifying, leveraging and building upon EU capabilities for pilot and demonstration facilities; promoting the use of co-products from processing; improving the bioconversion and downstream processing steps; improving access to financing for large-scale biorefinery projects; developing stronger relationships between conventional and non-conventional players. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Energy Conservation: Heating Navy Hangars

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-07-01

temperature, IF Tf Inside air temperature 1 foot above the floor, OF T. Inside design temperature, IF To Hot water temperature setpoint , OF TON Chiller ...systems capable of optimizing energy usage base-wide. An add-on to an existing large scale EMCS is probably the first preference, followed by single...the building comfort conditions are met during hours of building occupancy. 2. Optimized Start/Stop turns on equipment at the latest possible time and

Layer by Layer Growth of 2D Quantum Superlattices (NBIT III)

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-02-28

building quantum superlatticies using 2D materials as the building blocks. Specifically, we develop methods that allow i) large-scale growth of aligned...superlattice and heterostructures, iii) lateral and clean patterning of 2D materials for atomically-thin circuitry and iv) novel physical properties...high precision and flexibility beyond conventional methods. Moreover, it provides the solutions for current major barrier for 2D materials (e.g

Building Community-Engaged Health Research and Discovery Infrastructure on the South Side of Chicago: Science in Service to Community Priorities

PubMed Central

Lindau, Stacy Tessler; Makelarski, Jennifer A.; Chin, Marshall H.; Desautels, Shane; Johnson, Daniel; Johnson, Waldo E.; Miller, Doriane; Peters, Susan; Robinson, Connie; Schneider, John; Thicklin, Florence; Watson, Natalie P.; Wolfe, Marcus; Whitaker, Eric

2011-01-01

Objective To describe the roles community members can and should play in, and an asset-based strategy used by Chicago’s South Side Health and Vitality Studies for, building sustainable, large-scale community health research infrastructure. The Studies are a family of research efforts aiming to produce actionable knowledge to inform health policy, programming, and investments for the region. Methods Community and university collaborators, using a consensus-based approach, developed shared theoretical perspectives, guiding principles, and a model for collaboration in 2008, which were used to inform an asset-based operational strategy. Ongoing community engagement and relationship-building support the infrastructure and research activities of the Studies. Results Key steps in the asset-based strategy include: 1) continuous community engagement and relationship building, 2) identifying community priorities, 3) identifying community assets, 4) leveraging assets, 5) conducting research, 6) sharing knowledge and 7) informing action. Examples of community member roles, and how these are informed by the Studies’ guiding principles, are provided. Conclusions Community and university collaborators, with shared vision and principles, can effectively work together to plan innovative, large-scale community-based research that serves community needs and priorities. Sustainable, effective models are needed to realize NIH’s mandate for meaningful translation of biomedical discovery into improved population health. PMID:21236295

DESIGN OF LARGE-SCALE AIR MONITORING NETWORKS

EPA Science Inventory

The potential effects of air pollution on human health have received much attention in recent years. In the U.S. and other countries, there are extensive large-scale monitoring networks designed to collect data to inform the public of exposure risks to air pollution. A major crit...

Collective backscattering of gyrotron radiation by small-scale plasma density fluctuations in large helical device

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kharchev, Nikolay; Batanov, German; Petrov, Alexandr

2008-10-15

A version of the collective backscattering diagnostic using gyrotron radiation for small-scale turbulence is described. The diagnostic is used to measure small-scale (k{sub s}{approx_equal}34 cm{sup -1}) plasma density fluctuations in large helical device experiments on the electron cyclotron heating of plasma with the use of 200 kW 82.7 GHz heating gyrotron. A good signal to noise ratio during plasma production phase was obtained, while contamination of stray light increased during plasma build-up phase. The effect of the stray radiation was investigated. The available quasioptical system of the heating system was utilized for this purpose.

Large prospective birth cohort studies on environmental contaminants and child health - goals, challenges, limitations and needs.

PubMed

Luo, Zhong-Cheng; Liu, Jian-Meng; Fraser, William D

2010-02-01

The adverse health effects of environmental contaminants (ECs) are a rising public health concern, and a major threat to sustainable socioeconomic development. The developing fetuses and growing children are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of ECs. However, assessing the health impact of ECs presents a major challenge, given that multiple outcomes may arise from one exposure, multiple exposures may result in one outcome, and the complex interactions between ECs, and between ECs, nutrients and genetic factors, and the dynamic temporal changes in EC exposures during the life course. Large-scale prospective birth cohort studies collecting extensive data and specimen starting from the prenatal or pre-conception period, although costly, hold promise as a means to more clearly quantify the health effects of ECs, and to unravel the complex interactions between ECs, nutrients and genotypes. A number of such large-scale studies have been launched in some developed counties. We present an overview of "why", "what" and "how" behind these efforts with an objective to uncover major unidentified limitations and needs. Three major limitations were identified: (1) limited data and bio-specimens regarding early life EC exposure assessments in some birth cohort studies; (2) heavy participant burdens in some birth cohort studies may bias participant recruitment, and risk substantial loss to follow-up, protocol deviations limiting the quality of data and specimens collection, with an overall potential bias towards the null effect; (3) lack of concerted efforts in building comparable birth cohorts across countries to take advantage of natural "experiments" (large EC exposure level differences between countries) for more in-depth assessments of dose-response relationships, threshold exposure levels, and positive and negative effect modifiers. Addressing these concerns in current or future large-scale birth cohort studies may help to produce better evidence on the health effects of ECs.

Use of Analogy in Learning Physics: The Role of Representations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Podolefsky, Noah S.; Finkelstein, Naoh D.

2006-01-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that analogies can promote student learning in physics and can be productively taught to students to support their learning, under certain conditions. We build on these studies to explore the use of analogy by students in a large introductory college physics course. In the first large-scale study of its kind, we…

Environmental assessment: The Eden project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roza, Christodoulaki

Non domestic buildings account for about one-sixth of the U.K.'s entire C02 emissions and one-third of the building related ones 2 . Their proportion of energy consumption, particularly electricity, has also been growing 2 . New buildings are not necessarily better, with energy use often proving to be much higher than their designers anticipated 2 . Annual C02 emissions of two- and sometimes three- times design expectations are far from unusual, leaving a massive credibility gap 2 . These and other global environmental and human health related concerns have motivated an increasing number of designers, developers and building users to pursue more environmentally sustainable designs and construction strategies 5 . However, these buildings can be difficult to evaluate, since they are large in scale, complex in materials and function and temporally dynamic due to limited service life of building components and changing user requirements 5 . All of these factors make environmental assessment of the buildings challenging. Previous Post Occupancy Review of Buildings and their Engineering (PROBE) building investigations have uncovered serious shortcomings in facilities management, or at least mismatches between a building's management needs and the ability of the occupiers to provide the right level of management 1 . Consequently, large differences between energy performance expectations and outcomes can occur virtually unnoticed, while designers continue to repeat flawed descriptions 2 . This investigation attempts to evaluate the building's operation and to help achieving demonstrable improvements in terms of energy efficiency and occupant satisfaction. The scope of this study is to evaluate the actual environmental performance of a building notable for its advanced design. The Education Resource Centre at the Eden Project was selected to compare design expectations with post occupancy performance. This report contains a small-scale survey of user satisfaction with the chosen building, an analysis of the building's energy use and information about the physical and managerial circumstances operating 24 . The author has attempted to zoom in on specific issues, such as energy performance and lighting consumption. Both successes and failures have been reported, providing owners, designers and end users with valuable, real-world information.

Building Public Will for Climate Change Solutions: Which Beliefs Are Most Helpful?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roser-Renouf, C.; Maibach, E.; Lewandowsky, S.; Cook, J.

2016-12-01

At the COP21 meeting in December 2015, the nations of the world set an ambitious climate change goal - to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees (C), ideally limiting the warming to 1.5 degrees. Achieving this ambitious goal will require building and/or sustaining a high degree of political will in dozens or hundreds of nations, especially highly industrialized nations. One important means of building/sustaining political will is to build public will (i.e., public demand) in support of this goal. Over the past decade, there has been a considerable amount of empirical social science research on public engagement with climate change. In this presentation, we will briefly review the findings of some of this research to suggest that five key beliefs largely form the basis for public will to address climate change. Specifically, people who hold the following beliefs are more likely to support actions to limit climate change, and to personally be taking helpful actions themselves: (1) climate change is real; (2) climate change is human-caused; (3) there is expert consensus about human-caused climate change; (4) climate change is harmful to people; (5) actions can be taken to limit climate change. We will also briefly review what is known about how to successfully communicate these ideas in ways that minimize the societal polarization about climate change (what we call the "acceptance gap") that has developed between liberals and conservatives in several primarily English-speaking nations.

Black Swans and the Effectiveness of Remediating Groundwater Contamination

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siegel, D. I.; Otz, M. H.; Otz, I.

2013-12-01

Black swans, outliers, dominate science far more than do predictable outcomes. Predictable success constitutes the Black Swan in groundwater remediation. Even the National Research Council concluded that remediating groundwater to drinking water standards has failed in typically complex hydrogeologic settings where heterogeneities and preferential flow paths deflect flow paths obliquely to hydraulic gradients. Natural systems, be they biological or physical, build upon a combination of large-scale regularity coupled to chaos at smaller scales. We show through a review of over 25 case studies that groundwater remediation efforts are best served by coupling parsimonious site characterization to natural and induced geochemical tracer tests to at least know where contamination advects with groundwater in the subsurface. In the majority of our case studies, actual flow paths diverge tens of degrees from anticipated flow paths because of unrecognized heterogeneities in the horizontal direction of transport, let alone the vertical direction. Consequently, regulatory agencies would better serve both the public and the environment by recognizing that long-term groundwater cleanup probably is futile in most hydrogeologic settings except to relaxed standards similar to brownfielding. A Black Swan

Development of EnergyPlus Utility to Batch Simulate Building Energy Performance on a National Scale

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Valencia, Jayson F.; Dirks, James A.

2008-08-29

EnergyPlus is a simulation program that requires a large number of details to fully define and model a building. Hundreds or even thousands of lines in a text file are needed to run the EnergyPlus simulation depending on the size of the building. To manually create these files is a time consuming process that would not be practical when trying to create input files for thousands of buildings needed to simulate national building energy performance. To streamline the process needed to create the input files for EnergyPlus, two methods were created to work in conjunction with the National Renewable Energymore » Laboratory (NREL) Preprocessor; this reduced the hundreds of inputs needed to define a building in EnergyPlus to a small set of high-level parameters. The first method uses Java routines to perform all of the preprocessing on a Windows machine while the second method carries out all of the preprocessing on the Linux cluster by using an in-house built utility called Generalized Parametrics (GPARM). A comma delimited (CSV) input file is created to define the high-level parameters for any number of buildings. Each method then takes this CSV file and uses the data entered for each parameter to populate an extensible markup language (XML) file used by the NREL Preprocessor to automatically prepare EnergyPlus input data files (idf) using automatic building routines and macro templates. Using a Linux utility called “make”, the idf files can then be automatically run through the Linux cluster and the desired data from each building can be aggregated into one table to be analyzed. Creating a large number of EnergyPlus input files results in the ability to batch simulate building energy performance and scale the result to national energy consumption estimates.« less

Environmental impact assessment and environmental audit in large-scale public infrastructure construction: the case of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

PubMed

He, Guizhen; Zhang, Lei; Lu, Yonglong

2009-09-01

Large-scale public infrastructure projects have featured in China's modernization course since the early 1980s. During the early stages of China's rapid economic development, public attention focused on the economic and social impact of high-profile construction projects. In recent years, however, we have seen a shift in public concern toward the environmental and ecological effects of such projects, and today governments are required to provide valid environmental impact assessments prior to allowing large-scale construction. The official requirement for the monitoring of environmental conditions has led to an increased number of debates in recent years regarding the effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Governmental Environmental Audits (GEAs) as environmental safeguards in instances of large-scale construction. Although EIA and GEA are conducted by different institutions and have different goals and enforcement potential, these two practices can be closely related in terms of methodology. This article cites the construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway as an instance in which EIA and GEA offer complementary approaches to environmental impact management. This study concludes that the GEA approach can serve as an effective follow-up to the EIA and establishes that the EIA lays a base for conducting future GEAs. The relationship that emerges through a study of the Railway's construction calls for more deliberate institutional arrangements and cooperation if the two practices are to be used in concert to optimal effect.

Building work engagement: A systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the effectiveness of work engagement interventions.

PubMed

Knight, Caroline; Patterson, Malcolm; Dawson, Jeremy

2017-07-01

Low work engagement may contribute towards decreased well-being and work performance. Evaluating, boosting and sustaining work engagement are therefore of interest to many organisations. However, the evidence on which to base interventions has not yet been synthesised. A systematic review with meta-analysis was conducted to assess the evidence for the effectiveness of work engagement interventions. A systematic literature search identified controlled workplace interventions employing a validated measure of work engagement. Most used the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Studies containing the relevant quantitative data underwent random-effects meta-analyses. Results were assessed for homogeneity, systematic sampling error, publication bias and quality. Twenty studies met the inclusion criteria and were categorised into four types of interventions: (i) personal resource building; (ii) job resource building; (iii) leadership training; and (iv) health promotion. The overall effect on work engagement was small, but positive, k  = 14, Hedges g  = 0.29, 95%-CI = 0.12-0.46. Moderator analyses revealed a significant result for intervention style, with a medium to large effect for group interventions. Heterogeneity between the studies was high, and the success of implementation varied. More studies are needed, and researchers are encouraged to collaborate closely with organisations to design interventions appropriate to individual contexts and settings, and include evaluations of intervention implementation. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Organizational Behavior published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bio-Response Operational Testing and Evaluation (BOTE) ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

Report and technical brief and informational video The Bio-response Operational Testing and Evaluation (BOTE) Project was a multi-agency effort designed to operationally test and evaluate, at the scale of a moderately sized building, a response to a B. anthracis spore release from initial public health and law enforcement investigation through environmental remediation.

Global-Scale P-Wave Tomography Designed for Accurate Prediction of Regional and Teleseismic Travel Times for Middle East Events

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-09-01

latitude-longitude grid. Building a spherical tessellation mesh involves recursive subdivision of triangular facets of an initial polyhedron (in our...of our local database at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Ruppert et al. 2005) and the publicly available Engdahl-van der Hilst-Buland (EHB

Intervention for First Graders with Limited Number Knowledge: Large-Scale Replication of a Randomized Controlled Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gersten, Russell; Rolfhus, Eric; Clarke, Ben; Decker, Lauren E.; Wilkins, Chuck; Dimino, Joseph

2015-01-01

Replication studies are extremely rare in education. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a scale-up replication of Fuchs et al., which in a sample of 139 found a statistically significant positive impact for Number Rockets, a small-group intervention for at-risk first graders that focused on building understanding of number operations. The…

On Feature Extraction from Large Scale Linear LiDAR Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Acharjee, Partha Pratim

Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) can generate co-registered elevation and intensity map over large terrain. The co-registered 3D map and intensity information can be used efficiently for different feature extraction application. In this dissertation, we developed two algorithms for feature extraction, and usages of features for practical applications. One of the developed algorithms can map still and flowing waterbody features, and another one can extract building feature and estimate solar potential on rooftops and facades. Remote sensing capabilities, distinguishing characteristics of laser returns from water surface and specific data collection procedures provide LiDAR data an edge in this application domain. Furthermore, water surface mapping solutions must work on extremely large datasets, from a thousand square miles, to hundreds of thousands of square miles. National and state-wide map generation/upgradation and hydro-flattening of LiDAR data for many other applications are two leading needs of water surface mapping. These call for as much automation as possible. Researchers have developed many semi-automated algorithms using multiple semi-automated tools and human interventions. This reported work describes a consolidated algorithm and toolbox developed for large scale, automated water surface mapping. Geometric features such as flatness of water surface, higher elevation change in water-land interface and, optical properties such as dropouts caused by specular reflection, bimodal intensity distributions were some of the linear LiDAR features exploited for water surface mapping. Large-scale data handling capabilities are incorporated by automated and intelligent windowing, by resolving boundary issues and integrating all results to a single output. This whole algorithm is developed as an ArcGIS toolbox using Python libraries. Testing and validation are performed on a large datasets to determine the effectiveness of the toolbox and results are presented. Significant power demand is located in urban areas, where, theoretically, a large amount of building surface area is also available for solar panel installation. Therefore, property owners and power generation companies can benefit from a citywide solar potential map, which can provide available estimated annual solar energy at a given location. An efficient solar potential measurement is a prerequisite for an effective solar energy system in an urban area. In addition, the solar potential calculation from rooftops and building facades could open up a wide variety of options for solar panel installations. However, complex urban scenes make it hard to estimate the solar potential, partly because of shadows cast by the buildings. LiDAR-based 3D city models could possibly be the right technology for solar potential mapping. Although, most of the current LiDAR-based local solar potential assessment algorithms mainly address rooftop potential calculation, whereas building facades can contribute a significant amount of viable surface area for solar panel installation. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm to calculate solar potential of both rooftop and building facades. Solar potential received by the rooftops and facades over the year are also investigated in the test area.

The Future of Climate Science (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bishop, R.

2010-12-01

High Performance Computing is currently deployed in several centers for climate research, but not at the levels needed to achieve substantial success on a global basis, given the complexity of the problem. A quantum leap in capabilities will be necessary to handle next-generation climate models that integrate newly emerging sciences, high-resolution grids, and voluminous observational data from satellites and sophisticated ground devices. Dr. Bishop will discuss efforts to build an International Centre for Earth Simulation (ICES) based in Switzerland that takes an holistic systems approach, and that has the competence and resources to achieve new insights in this new decade, and is capable to globally influence public policy with respect to weather, climate, environment, disaster risk reduction and socio-economic development. On this progressively crowded and fragile planet, such a capability will be invaluable, Bishop believes, if not imperative, for our long-term survival. ICES could serve as a test-bed for large scale public and private development planning. Decision makers could ask ‘what if’ questions for major construction projects (such as China’s Three Gorges Dam), and then interactively evaluate alternative scenarios. Likewise, ICES could help uncover the possible unintended consequences of climate remediation and adaptation strategies, geo-engineering ideas, CO2 sequestration, deep sea drilling, etc. ICES would be a resource for building more resilient societies in an era of rapid climate change and frequent natural disasters (such as flooding, extreme weather events and volcanic ash clouds), and therefore of great consequence to our future well-being. It would ultimately play a major role in the education and training of policy-makers, the public, and future Earth Scientists - in conjunction with the current national and regional centers.

The management of building fire safety towards the sustainability of Malaysian public universities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ebenehi, I. Y.; Mohamed, S.; Sarpin, N.; Masrom, M. A. N.; Zainal, R.; Azmi, M. A. Mohd

2017-11-01

Recently, there had been reduction in annual budgetary allocations to public universities in Malaysia due to some economic tensions. This situation had left many institutions in question with the options of scaling down their expenses as well as sourcing for other means of meeting up with the shortfalls in allocated funds. Hence, it affects the sustainability of the building itself. This paper is an attempt to look at the possibility of reducing incidents that could lead to expending unbudgeted fund to rehabilitating property unfortunately destroyed by fire on campus, in addition to limiting risk to life and interruption of academic and business activities. Several research had been conducted on FSM, nevertheless very few consider Higher Education Institutions (HEI)s holistically. Hence this research intends to fill that gap.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cutler, Dylan; Frank, Stephen; Slovensky, Michelle

Rich, well-organized building performance and energy consumption data enable a host of analytic capabilities for building owners and operators, from basic energy benchmarking to detailed fault detection and system optimization. Unfortunately, data integration for building control systems is challenging and costly in any setting. Large portfolios of buildings--campuses, cities, and corporate portfolios--experience these integration challenges most acutely. These large portfolios often have a wide array of control systems, including multiple vendors and nonstandard communication protocols. They typically have complex information technology (IT) networks and cybersecurity requirements and may integrate distributed energy resources into their infrastructure. Although the challenges are significant,more » the integration of control system data has the potential to provide proportionally greater value for these organizations through portfolio-scale analytics, comprehensive demand management, and asset performance visibility. As a large research campus, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) experiences significant data integration challenges. To meet them, NREL has developed an architecture for effective data collection, integration, and analysis, providing a comprehensive view of data integration based on functional layers. The architecture is being evaluated on the NREL campus through deployment of three pilot implementations.« less

The influence of cosmic rays on the stability and large-scale dynamics of the interstellar medium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuznetsov, V. D.

1986-06-01

The diffusion-convection formulation is used to study the influence of galactic cosmic rays on the stability and dynamics of the interstellar medium which is supposedly kept in equilibrium by the gravitational field of stars. It is shown that the influence of cosmic rays on the growth rate of MHD instability depends largely on a dimensionless parameter expressing the ratio of the characteristic acoustic time scale to the cosmic-ray diffusion time. If this parameter is small, the cosmic rays will decelerate the build-up of instabilities, thereby stabilizing the system; in contrast, if the parameter is large, the system will be destabilized.

Groundwater Variability in a Sandstone Catchment and Linkages with Large-scale Climatic Circulatio

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hannah, D. M.; Lavers, D. A.; Bradley, C.

2015-12-01

Groundwater is a crucial water resource that sustains river ecosystems and provides public water supply. Furthermore, during periods of prolonged high rainfall, groundwater-dominated catchments can be subject to protracted flooding. Climate change and associated projected increases in the frequency and intensity of hydrological extremes have implications for groundwater levels. This study builds on previous research undertaken on a Chalk catchment by investigating groundwater variability in a UK sandstone catchment: the Tern in Shropshire. In contrast to the Chalk, sandstone is characterised by a more lagged response to precipitation inputs; and, as such, it is important to determine the groundwater behaviour and its links with the large-scale climatic circulation to improve process understanding of recharge, groundwater level and river flow responses to hydroclimatological drivers. Precipitation, river discharge and groundwater levels for borehole sites in the Tern basin over 1974-2010 are analysed as the target variables; and we use monthly gridded reanalysis data from the Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project (20CR). First, groundwater variability is evaluated and associations with precipitation / discharge are explored using monthly concurrent and lagged correlation analyses. Second, gridded 20CR reanalysis data are used in composite and correlation analyses to identify the regions of strongest climate-groundwater association. Results show that reasonably strong climate-groundwater connections exist in the Tern basin, with a several months lag. These lags are associated primarily with the time taken for recharge waters to percolate through to the groundwater table. The uncovered patterns improve knowledge of large-scale climate forcing of groundwater variability and may provide a basis to inform seasonal prediction of groundwater levels, which would be useful for strategic water resource planning.

The public health disaster trust scale: validation of a brief measure.

PubMed

Eisenman, David P; Williams, Malcolm V; Glik, Deborah; Long, Anna; Plough, Alonzo L; Ong, Michael

2012-01-01

Trust contributes to community resilience by the critical influence it has on the community's responses to public health recommendations before, during, and after disasters. However, trust in public health is a multifactorial concept that has rarely been defined and measured empirically in public health jurisdictional risk assessment surveys. Measuring trust helps public health departments identify and ameliorate a threat to effective risk communications and increase resilience. Such a measure should be brief to be incorporated into assessments conducted by public health departments. We report on a brief scale of public health disaster-related trust, its psychometric properties, and its validity. On the basis of a literature review, our conceptual model of public health disaster-related trust and previously conducted focus groups, we postulated that public health disaster-related trust includes 4 major domains: competency, honesty, fairness, and confidentiality. A random-digit-dialed telephone survey of the Los Angeles county population, conducted in 2004-2005 in 6 languages. Two thousand five hundred eighty-eight adults aged 18 years and older including oversamples of African Americans and Asian Americans. Trust was measured by 4 items scored on a 4-point Likert scale. A summary score from 4 to 16 was constructed. Scores ranged from 4 to 16 and were normally distributed with a mean of 8.5 (SD 2.7). Cronbach α = 0.79. As hypothesized, scores were lower among racial/ethnic minority populations than whites. Also, trust was associated with lower likelihood of following public health recommendations in a hypothetical disaster and lower likelihood of household disaster preparedness. The Public Health Disaster Trust scale may facilitate identifying communities where trust is low and prioritizing them for inclusion in community partnership building efforts under Function 2 of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Preparedness Capability 1. The scale is brief, reliable, and validated in multiple ethnic populations and languages.

Implementation of AN Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System for Large Scale Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mah, S. B.; Cryderman, C. S.

2015-08-01

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), digital cameras, powerful personal computers, and software have made it possible for geomatics professionals to capture aerial photographs and generate digital terrain models and orthophotographs without using full scale aircraft or hiring mapping professionals. This has been made possible by the availability of miniaturized computers and sensors, and software which has been driven, in part, by the demand for this technology in consumer items such as smartphones. The other force that is in play is the increasing number of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) people who are building UAVs as a hobby or for professional use. Building a UAV system for mapping is an alternative to purchasing a turnkey system. This paper describes factors to be considered when building a UAV mapping system, the choices made, and the test results of a project using this completed system.

77 FR 38064 - Public Buildings Service; Information Collection; GSA Form 3453, Application/Permit for Use of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-26

... Buildings Service; Information Collection; GSA Form 3453, Application/Permit for Use of Space in Public Buildings and Grounds AGENCY: Public Buildings Service, GSA. ACTION: Notice of request for comments... regarding GSA Form 3453, Application/Permit for Use of Space in Public Buildings and Grounds. Public...

Interactive Exploration on Large Genomic Datasets.

PubMed

Tu, Eric

2016-01-01

The prevalence of large genomics datasets has made the the need to explore this data more important. Large sequencing projects like the 1000 Genomes Project [1], which reconstructed the genomes of 2,504 individuals sampled from 26 populations, have produced over 200TB of publically available data. Meanwhile, existing genomic visualization tools have been unable to scale with the growing amount of larger, more complex data. This difficulty is acute when viewing large regions (over 1 megabase, or 1,000,000 bases of DNA), or when concurrently viewing multiple samples of data. While genomic processing pipelines have shifted towards using distributed computing techniques, such as with ADAM [4], genomic visualization tools have not. In this work we present Mango, a scalable genome browser built on top of ADAM that can run both locally and on a cluster. Mango presents a combination of different optimizations that can be combined in a single application to drive novel genomic visualization techniques over terabytes of genomic data. By building visualization on top of a distributed processing pipeline, we can perform visualization queries over large regions that are not possible with current tools, and decrease the time for viewing large data sets. Mango is part of the Big Data Genomics project at University of California-Berkeley [25] and is published under the Apache 2 license. Mango is available at https://github.com/bigdatagenomics/mango.

Numerical Simulations of Vortical Mode Stirring: Effects of Large Scale Shear and Strain

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

Numerical Simulations of Vortical Mode Stirring: Effects of Large-Scale Shear and Strain M.-Pascale Lelong NorthWest Research Associates...can be implemented in larger-scale ocean models. These parameterizations will incorporate the effects of local ambient conditions including latitude...talk at the 1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Nonlinear Effects in Internal Waves Conference held

The Expanded Large Scale Gap Test

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-03-01

NSWC TR 86-32 DTIC THE EXPANDED LARGE SCALE GAP TEST BY T. P. LIDDIARD D. PRICE RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT ’ ~MARCH 1987 Ap~proved for public...arises, to reduce the spread in the LSGT 50% gap value.) The worst charges, such as those with the highest or lowest densities, the largest re-pressed...Arlington, VA 22217 PE 62314N INS3A 1 RJ14E31 7R4TBK 11 TITLE (Include Security CIlmsilficatiorn The Expanded Large Scale Gap Test . 12. PEIRSONAL AUTHOR() T

IMOS National Reference Stations: a continental-wide physical, chemical and biological coastal observing system.

PubMed

Lynch, Tim P; Morello, Elisabetta B; Evans, Karen; Richardson, Anthony J; Rochester, Wayne; Steinberg, Craig R; Roughan, Moninya; Thompson, Peter; Middleton, John F; Feng, Ming; Sherrington, Robert; Brando, Vittorio; Tilbrook, Bronte; Ridgway, Ken; Allen, Simon; Doherty, Peter; Hill, Katherine; Moltmann, Tim C

2014-01-01

Sustained observations allow for the tracking of change in oceanography and ecosystems, however, these are rare, particularly for the Southern Hemisphere. To address this in part, the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) implemented a network of nine National Reference Stations (NRS). The network builds on one long-term location, where monthly water sampling has been sustained since the 1940s and two others that commenced in the 1950s. In-situ continuously moored sensors and an enhanced monthly water sampling regime now collect more than 50 data streams. Building on sampling for temperature, salinity and nutrients, the network now observes dissolved oxygen, carbon, turbidity, currents, chlorophyll a and both phytoplankton and zooplankton. Additional parameters for studies of ocean acidification and bio-optics are collected at a sub-set of sites and all data is made freely and publically available. Our preliminary results demonstrate increased utility to observe extreme events, such as marine heat waves and coastal flooding; rare events, such as plankton blooms; and have, for the first time, allowed for consistent continental scale sampling and analysis of coastal zooplankton and phytoplankton communities. Independent water sampling allows for cross validation of the deployed sensors for quality control of data that now continuously tracks daily, seasonal and annual variation. The NRS will provide multi-decadal time series, against which more spatially replicated short-term studies can be referenced, models and remote sensing products validated, and improvements made to our understanding of how large-scale, long-term change and variability in the global ocean are affecting Australia's coastal seas and ecosystems. The NRS network provides an example of how a continental scaled observing systems can be developed to collect observations that integrate across physics, chemistry and biology.

IMOS National Reference Stations: A Continental-Wide Physical, Chemical and Biological Coastal Observing System

PubMed Central

Lynch, Tim P.; Morello, Elisabetta B.; Evans, Karen; Richardson, Anthony J.; Rochester, Wayne; Steinberg, Craig R.; Roughan, Moninya; Thompson, Peter; Middleton, John F.; Feng, Ming; Sherrington, Robert; Brando, Vittorio; Tilbrook, Bronte; Ridgway, Ken; Allen, Simon; Doherty, Peter; Hill, Katherine; Moltmann, Tim C.

2014-01-01

Sustained observations allow for the tracking of change in oceanography and ecosystems, however, these are rare, particularly for the Southern Hemisphere. To address this in part, the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) implemented a network of nine National Reference Stations (NRS). The network builds on one long-term location, where monthly water sampling has been sustained since the 1940s and two others that commenced in the 1950s. In-situ continuously moored sensors and an enhanced monthly water sampling regime now collect more than 50 data streams. Building on sampling for temperature, salinity and nutrients, the network now observes dissolved oxygen, carbon, turbidity, currents, chlorophyll a and both phytoplankton and zooplankton. Additional parameters for studies of ocean acidification and bio-optics are collected at a sub-set of sites and all data is made freely and publically available. Our preliminary results demonstrate increased utility to observe extreme events, such as marine heat waves and coastal flooding; rare events, such as plankton blooms; and have, for the first time, allowed for consistent continental scale sampling and analysis of coastal zooplankton and phytoplankton communities. Independent water sampling allows for cross validation of the deployed sensors for quality control of data that now continuously tracks daily, seasonal and annual variation. The NRS will provide multi-decadal time series, against which more spatially replicated short-term studies can be referenced, models and remote sensing products validated, and improvements made to our understanding of how large-scale, long-term change and variability in the global ocean are affecting Australia's coastal seas and ecosystems. The NRS network provides an example of how a continental scaled observing systems can be developed to collect observations that integrate across physics, chemistry and biology. PMID:25517905

A Protocol for Generating and Exchanging (Genome-Scale) Metabolic Resource Allocation Models.

PubMed

Reimers, Alexandra-M; Lindhorst, Henning; Waldherr, Steffen

2017-09-06

In this article, we present a protocol for generating a complete (genome-scale) metabolic resource allocation model, as well as a proposal for how to represent such models in the systems biology markup language (SBML). Such models are used to investigate enzyme levels and achievable growth rates in large-scale metabolic networks. Although the idea of metabolic resource allocation studies has been present in the field of systems biology for some years, no guidelines for generating such a model have been published up to now. This paper presents step-by-step instructions for building a (dynamic) resource allocation model, starting with prerequisites such as a genome-scale metabolic reconstruction, through building protein and noncatalytic biomass synthesis reactions and assigning turnover rates for each reaction. In addition, we explain how one can use SBML level 3 in combination with the flux balance constraints and our resource allocation modeling annotation to represent such models.

Building continental-scale 3D subsurface layers in the Digital Crust project: constrained interpolation and uncertainty estimation.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yulaeva, E.; Fan, Y.; Moosdorf, N.; Richard, S. M.; Bristol, S.; Peters, S. E.; Zaslavsky, I.; Ingebritsen, S.

2015-12-01

The Digital Crust EarthCube building block creates a framework for integrating disparate 3D/4D information from multiple sources into a comprehensive model of the structure and composition of the Earth's upper crust, and to demonstrate the utility of this model in several research scenarios. One of such scenarios is estimation of various crustal properties related to fluid dynamics (e.g. permeability and porosity) at each node of any arbitrary unstructured 3D grid to support continental-scale numerical models of fluid flow and transport. Starting from Macrostrat, an existing 4D database of 33,903 chronostratigraphic units, and employing GeoDeepDive, a software system for extracting structured information from unstructured documents, we construct 3D gridded fields of sediment/rock porosity, permeability and geochemistry for large sedimentary basins of North America, which will be used to improve our understanding of large-scale fluid flow, chemical weathering rates, and geochemical fluxes into the ocean. In this talk, we discuss the methods, data gaps (particularly in geologically complex terrain), and various physical and geological constraints on interpolation and uncertainty estimation.

14. Photographic copy of photograph dated ca. 1925; Photographer unknown; ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

14. Photographic copy of photograph dated ca. 1925; Photographer unknown; Original in Rath collection at Iowa State University Libraries, Department of Special Collection, Ames, Iowa; Filed under: Rath Packing Company, Public Relations, Symbol N, Box 106, File 6: THE RATH COMPLEX IN THE MID 1920; LARGE BUILDING TO LEFT OF SMOKESTACK IS HOG KILL (BUILDING 40); LOOKING NORTH FROM ACROSS CEDAR RIVER - Rath Packing Company, Sycamore Street between Elm & Eighteenth Streets, Waterloo, Black Hawk County, IA

OUT Success Stories: Solar Hot Water Technology

DOE R&D Accomplishments Database

Clyne, R.

2000-08-01

Solar hot water technology was made great strides in the past two decades. Every home, commercial building, and industrial facility requires hot water. DOE has helped to develop reliable and durable solar hot water systems. For industrial applications, the growth potential lies in large-scale systems, using flat-plate and trough-type collectors. Flat-plate collectors are commonly used in residential hot water systems and can be integrated into the architectural design of the building.

Pseudo-dynamic tests on masonry residential buildings seismically retrofitted by precast steel reinforced concrete walls

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Wenfeng; Wang, Tao; Chen, Xi; Zhong, Xiang; Pan, Peng

2017-07-01

A retrofitting technology using precast steel reinforced concrete (PSRC) panels is developed to improve the seismic performance of old masonry buildings. The PSRC panels are built up as an external PSRC wall system surrounding the existing masonry building. The PSRC walls are well connected to the existing masonry building, which provides enough confinement to effectively improve the ductility, strength, and stiffenss of old masonry structures. The PSRC panels are prefabricated in a factory, significantly reducing the situ work and associated construction time. To demonstrate the feasibility and mechanical effectivenss of the proposed retrofitting system, a full-scale five-story specimen was constructed. The retrofitting process was completed within five weeks with very limited indoor operation. The specimen was then tested in the lateral direction, which could potentially suffer sigifnicant damage in a large earthquake. The technical feasibility, construction workability, and seismic performance were thoroughly demonstrated by a full-scale specimen construction and pseudo-dynamic tests.

Teaching the Thrill of Discovery: Student Exploration of the Large-Scale Structures of the Universe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Juneau, Stephanie; Dey, Arjun; Walker, Constance E.; NOAO Data Lab

2018-01-01

In collaboration with the Teen Astronomy Cafes program, the NOAO Data Lab is developing online Jupyter Notebooks as a free and publicly accessible tool for students and teachers. Each interactive activity teaches students simultaneously about coding and astronomy with a focus on large datasets. Therefore, students learn state-of-the-art techniques at the cross-section between astronomy and data science. During the activity entitled “Our Vast Universe”, students use real spectroscopic data to measure the distance to galaxies before moving on to a catalog with distances to over 100,000 galaxies. Exploring this dataset gives students an appreciation of the large number of galaxies in the universe (2 trillion!), and leads them to discover how galaxies are located in large and impressive filamentary structures. During the Teen Astronomy Cafes program, the notebook is supplemented with visual material conducive to discussion, and hands-on activities involving cubes representing model universes. These steps contribute to build the students’ physical intuition and give them a better grasp of the concepts before using software and coding. At the end of the activity, students have made their own measurements, and have experienced scientific research directly. More information is available online for the Teen Astronomy Cafes (teensciencecafe.org/cafes) and the NOAO Data Lab (datalab.noao.edu).

Public Dialogue on Science in Sweden.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dyring, Annagreta

1988-01-01

Explains how Sweden has proceeded to popularize science. Addresses topics dealing with policy, the energy debate, booklets with large circulation, computers and society, contacts between schools and research, building up small science centers, mass media, literary quality, children's responsibility, and some of the challenges. (RT)

LOW MOLECULAR WEIGHT CARBONYLS IN LARGE MIDWESTERN OFFICE BUILDINGS. (R824795)

EPA Science Inventory

The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Concl...

Statistical Ensemble of Large Eddy Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Carati, Daniele; Rogers, Michael M.; Wray, Alan A.; Mansour, Nagi N. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

A statistical ensemble of large eddy simulations (LES) is run simultaneously for the same flow. The information provided by the different large scale velocity fields is used to propose an ensemble averaged version of the dynamic model. This produces local model parameters that only depend on the statistical properties of the flow. An important property of the ensemble averaged dynamic procedure is that it does not require any spatial averaging and can thus be used in fully inhomogeneous flows. Also, the ensemble of LES's provides statistics of the large scale velocity that can be used for building new models for the subgrid-scale stress tensor. The ensemble averaged dynamic procedure has been implemented with various models for three flows: decaying isotropic turbulence, forced isotropic turbulence, and the time developing plane wake. It is found that the results are almost independent of the number of LES's in the statistical ensemble provided that the ensemble contains at least 16 realizations.

A Weibull distribution accrual failure detector for cloud computing

PubMed Central

Wu, Zhibo; Wu, Jin; Zhao, Yao; Wen, Dongxin

2017-01-01

Failure detectors are used to build high availability distributed systems as the fundamental component. To meet the requirement of a complicated large-scale distributed system, accrual failure detectors that can adapt to multiple applications have been studied extensively. However, several implementations of accrual failure detectors do not adapt well to the cloud service environment. To solve this problem, a new accrual failure detector based on Weibull Distribution, called the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector, has been proposed specifically for cloud computing. It can adapt to the dynamic and unexpected network conditions in cloud computing. The performance of the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector is evaluated and compared based on public classical experiment data and cloud computing experiment data. The results show that the Weibull Distribution Failure Detector has better performance in terms of speed and accuracy in unstable scenarios, especially in cloud computing. PMID:28278229

Economic gains stimulate negative evaluations of corporate sustainability initiatives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Makov, Tamar; Newman, George E.

2016-09-01

In recent years, many organizations have sought to align their financial goals with environmental ones by identifying strategies that maximize profits while minimizing environmental impacts. Examples of this `win-win' approach can be found across a wide range of industries, from encouraging the reuse of hotel towels, to the construction of energy efficient buildings, to the large-scale initiatives of multi-national corporations. Although win-win strategies are generally thought to reflect positively on the organizations that employ them, here we find that people tend to respond negatively to the notion of profiting from environmental initiatives. In fact, observers may evaluate environmental win-wins less favourably than profit-seeking strategies that have no environmental benefits. The present studies suggest that how those initiatives are communicated to the general public may be of central importance. Therefore, organizations would benefit from carefully crafting the discourse around their win-win initiatives to ensure that they avoid this type of backlash.

Performances of Machine Learning Algorithms for Binary Classification of Network Anomaly Detection System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nawir, Mukrimah; Amir, Amiza; Lynn, Ong Bi; Yaakob, Naimah; Badlishah Ahmad, R.

2018-05-01

The rapid growth of technologies might endanger them to various network attacks due to the nature of data which are frequently exchange their data through Internet and large-scale data that need to be handle. Moreover, network anomaly detection using machine learning faced difficulty when dealing the involvement of dataset where the number of labelled network dataset is very few in public and this caused many researchers keep used the most commonly network dataset (KDDCup99) which is not relevant to employ the machine learning (ML) algorithms for a classification. Several issues regarding these available labelled network datasets are discussed in this paper. The aim of this paper to build a network anomaly detection system using machine learning algorithms that are efficient, effective and fast processing. The finding showed that AODE algorithm is performed well in term of accuracy and processing time for binary classification towards UNSW-NB15 dataset.

U.S. Complicity and Japan's Wartime Medical Atrocities: Time for a Response.

PubMed

Devolder, Katrien

2015-01-01

Shortly before and during the Second World War, Japanese doctors and medical researchers conducted large-scale human experiments in occupied China that were at least as gruesome as those conducted by Nazi doctors. Japan never officially acknowledged the occurrence of the experiments, never tried any of the perpetrators, and never provided compensation to the victims or issued an apology. Building on work by Jing-Bao Nie, this article argues that the U.S. government is heavily complicit in this grave injustice, and should respond in an appropriate way in order to reduce this complicity, as well as to avoid complicity in future unethical medical experiments. It also calls on other U.S. institutions, in particular the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, to urge the government to respond, or to at least inform the public and initiate a debate about this dark page of American and Japanese history.

Reflections on social activism in otolaryngology.

PubMed

Kopelovich, Jonathan C

2014-03-01

What is "social activism" to you? For older otolaryngologists, the term is likely to signify the tumult of the 1960s. For incoming generations, this connotation is outdated. Rather, it more broadly reflects concerted efforts to improve the public good. Some ally with existing institutions to work toward incremental progress. Some start new organizations, using technological tools to build networks, marshal resources, and leapfrog hurdles. Countering these efforts are the ever-changing challenges of practicing otolaryngology today: electronic health records, shifting incentives, and changes in the practice model. Employment by large conglomerates is more common, decreasing our visibility as community leaders. Burnout is a recognized "hazard," and budding otolaryngologists are particularly susceptible. Adding one more thing, like social activism, to a full plate seems counterintuitive. But it shouldn't be. You don't need a "bigger" plate to get involved in social causes. Start simple. Find a partner. Scale up. You'll find it rewarding.

Towards Building a High Performance Spatial Query System for Large Scale Medical Imaging Data.

PubMed

Aji, Ablimit; Wang, Fusheng; Saltz, Joel H

2012-11-06

Support of high performance queries on large volumes of scientific spatial data is becoming increasingly important in many applications. This growth is driven by not only geospatial problems in numerous fields, but also emerging scientific applications that are increasingly data- and compute-intensive. For example, digital pathology imaging has become an emerging field during the past decade, where examination of high resolution images of human tissue specimens enables more effective diagnosis, prediction and treatment of diseases. Systematic analysis of large-scale pathology images generates tremendous amounts of spatially derived quantifications of micro-anatomic objects, such as nuclei, blood vessels, and tissue regions. Analytical pathology imaging provides high potential to support image based computer aided diagnosis. One major requirement for this is effective querying of such enormous amount of data with fast response, which is faced with two major challenges: the "big data" challenge and the high computation complexity. In this paper, we present our work towards building a high performance spatial query system for querying massive spatial data on MapReduce. Our framework takes an on demand index building approach for processing spatial queries and a partition-merge approach for building parallel spatial query pipelines, which fits nicely with the computing model of MapReduce. We demonstrate our framework on supporting multi-way spatial joins for algorithm evaluation and nearest neighbor queries for microanatomic objects. To reduce query response time, we propose cost based query optimization to mitigate the effect of data skew. Our experiments show that the framework can efficiently support complex analytical spatial queries on MapReduce.

Towards Building a High Performance Spatial Query System for Large Scale Medical Imaging Data

PubMed Central

Aji, Ablimit; Wang, Fusheng; Saltz, Joel H.

2013-01-01

Support of high performance queries on large volumes of scientific spatial data is becoming increasingly important in many applications. This growth is driven by not only geospatial problems in numerous fields, but also emerging scientific applications that are increasingly data- and compute-intensive. For example, digital pathology imaging has become an emerging field during the past decade, where examination of high resolution images of human tissue specimens enables more effective diagnosis, prediction and treatment of diseases. Systematic analysis of large-scale pathology images generates tremendous amounts of spatially derived quantifications of micro-anatomic objects, such as nuclei, blood vessels, and tissue regions. Analytical pathology imaging provides high potential to support image based computer aided diagnosis. One major requirement for this is effective querying of such enormous amount of data with fast response, which is faced with two major challenges: the “big data” challenge and the high computation complexity. In this paper, we present our work towards building a high performance spatial query system for querying massive spatial data on MapReduce. Our framework takes an on demand index building approach for processing spatial queries and a partition-merge approach for building parallel spatial query pipelines, which fits nicely with the computing model of MapReduce. We demonstrate our framework on supporting multi-way spatial joins for algorithm evaluation and nearest neighbor queries for microanatomic objects. To reduce query response time, we propose cost based query optimization to mitigate the effect of data skew. Our experiments show that the framework can efficiently support complex analytical spatial queries on MapReduce. PMID:24501719

Architecture and Programming Models for High Performance Intensive Computation

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-06-29

Applications Systems and Large-Scale-Big-Data & Large-Scale-Big-Computing (DDDAS- LS ). ICCS 2015, June 2015. Reykjavk, Ice- land. 2. Bo YT, Wang P, Guo ZL...The Mahali project,” Communications Magazine , vol. 52, pp. 111–133, Aug 2014. 14 DISTRIBUTION A: Distribution approved for public release. Response ID

The influence of micro-topography and external bioerosion on coral-reef-building organisms: recruitment, community composition and carbonate production over time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mallela, Jennie

2018-03-01

The continued health and function of tropical coral reefs is highly dependent on the ability of reef-building organisms to build large, complex, three-dimensional structures that continue to accrete and evolve over time. The recent deterioration of reef health globally, including loss of coral cover, has resulted in significant declines in architectural complexity at a large, reef-scape scale. Interestingly, the fine-scale role of micro-structure in initiating and facilitating future reef development and calcium carbonate production has largely been overlooked. In this study, experimental substrates with and without micro-ridges were deployed in the lagoon at One Tree Island for 34 months. This study assessed how the presence or absence of micro-ridges promoted recruitment by key reef-building sclerobionts (corals and encrusters) and their subsequent development at micro (mm) and macro (cm) scales. Experimental plates were examined after 11 and 34 months to assess whether long-term successional and calcification processes on different micro-topographies led to convergent or divergent communities over time. Sclerobionts were most prevalent in micro-grooves when they were available. Interestingly, in shallow lagoon reef sites characterised by shoals of small parrotfish and low urchin abundance, flat substrates were also successfully recruited to. Mean rates of carbonate production were 374 ± 154 (SD) g CaCO3 m-2 yr-1 within the lagoon. Substrates with micro-ridges were characterised by significantly greater rates of carbonate production than smooth substrates. The orientation of the substrate and period of immersion also significantly impacted rates of carbonate production, with CaCO3 on cryptic tiles increasing by 28% between 11 and 34 months. In contrast, rates on exposed tiles declined by 35% over the same time. In conclusion, even at sites characterised by small-sized parrotfish and low urchin density, micro-topography is an important settlement niche clearly favouring sclerobiont early life-history processes and subsequent carbonate production.

Towards building high performance medical image management system for clinical trials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Fusheng; Lee, Rubao; Zhang, Xiaodong; Saltz, Joel

2011-03-01

Medical image based biomarkers are being established for therapeutic cancer clinical trials, where image assessment is among the essential tasks. Large scale image assessment is often performed by a large group of experts by retrieving images from a centralized image repository to workstations to markup and annotate images. In such environment, it is critical to provide a high performance image management system that supports efficient concurrent image retrievals in a distributed environment. There are several major challenges: high throughput of large scale image data over the Internet from the server for multiple concurrent client users, efficient communication protocols for transporting data, and effective management of versioning of data for audit trails. We study the major bottlenecks for such a system, propose and evaluate a solution by using a hybrid image storage with solid state drives and hard disk drives, RESTfulWeb Services based protocols for exchanging image data, and a database based versioning scheme for efficient archive of image revision history. Our experiments show promising results of our methods, and our work provides a guideline for building enterprise level high performance medical image management systems.

Highly multiplexed targeted proteomics using precise control of peptide retention time.

PubMed

Gallien, Sebastien; Peterman, Scott; Kiyonami, Reiko; Souady, Jamal; Duriez, Elodie; Schoen, Alan; Domon, Bruno

2012-04-01

Large-scale proteomics applications using SRM analysis on triple quadrupole mass spectrometers present new challenges to LC-MS/MS experimental design. Despite the automation of building large-scale LC-SRM methods, the increased numbers of targeted peptides can compromise the balance between sensitivity and selectivity. To facilitate large target numbers, time-scheduled SRM transition acquisition is performed. Previously published results have demonstrated incorporation of a well-characterized set of synthetic peptides enabled chromatographic characterization of the elution profile for most endogenous peptides. We have extended this application of peptide trainer kits to not only build SRM methods but to facilitate real-time elution profile characterization that enables automated adjustment of the scheduled detection windows. Incorporation of dynamic retention time adjustments better facilitate targeted assays lasting several days without the need for constant supervision. This paper provides an overview of how the dynamic retention correction approach identifies and corrects for commonly observed LC variations. This adjustment dramatically improves robustness in targeted discovery experiments as well as routine quantification experiments. © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Futuragua: Fostering Cross-Scale Knowledge to Inform Social-Environmental Decision Processes for Building Drought Resilience in Highly Seasonal Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDaniels, T.; Steyn, D. G.; Johnson, M. S.; Small, M.; Leclerc, G.; Vignola, R.; Chan, K.; Grossmann, I.; Wong-Parodi, G.

2014-12-01

Improving resilience to drought in complex social-environmental systems (SES) is extraordinarily important, particularly for rural tropical locations where small changes in climate regimes can have dramatic SES impacts. Efforts to build drought resilience must necessarily be planned and implemented within SES governance systems that involve linkages in water and land use administration from local to national levels. These efforts require knowledge and understanding that links climate and weather forecasts to regional and local hydrology, to social-economic and environmental systems, and to governance processes. In order to provide structure for such complex choices and investments, we argue that a focus on structured decision processes that involve linkages among science, technological perspectives, and public values conducted with agencies and stakeholders will provide a crucial framework for comparing and building insight for pursuing alternative courses of action to build drought resilience. This paper focuses on a regional case study in the seasonally-dry northwest region of Costa Rica, in watersheds rated as most threatened in the country in terms of drought. We present the overall framework guiding the transdisciplinary efforts to link scientific and technical understanding to public values, in order to foster civil society actions that lead to improved drought resilience. Initial efforts to characterize hydrological and climate regimes will be reported along with our approach to linking natural science findings, social inventories in terms of perspectives on SES, and the psychology and patterns of reliance on forecast information that provide the basis for characterizing public understanding. The overall linkage of technical and value information is focused on creating and comparing alternative actions that can potentially build resilience in short and long time frames by building decision making processes involving stakeholders, agencies and interested parties.

Scaling NASA Applications to 1024 CPUs on Origin 3K

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Taft, Jim

2002-01-01

The long and highly successful joint SGI-NASA research effort in ever larger SSI systems was to a large degree the result of the successful development of the MLP scalable parallel programming paradigm developed at ARC: 1) MLP scaling in real production codes justified ever larger systems at NAS; 2) MLP scaling on 256p Origin 2000 gave SGl impetus to productize 256p; 3) MLP scaling on 512 gave SGI courage to build 1024p O3K; and 4) History of MLP success resulted in IBM Star Cluster based MLP effort.

How to Recruit High-Performing Charter Management Organizations to a New Region: Results from the 2015 CMO Survey

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2016

2016-01-01

Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) are nonprofit entities that manage at least two charter schools. They play an important role in increasing the number of high-quality charter public schools by enabling the replication and expansion of models that work, creating economies of scale, encouraging collaboration, and building support structures…

Organizing urban ecosystem services through environmental stewardship governance in New York City

Treesearch

James J. Connolly; Erika S. Svendsen; Dana R. Fisher; Lindsay K. Campbell

2013-01-01

How do stewardship groups contribute to the management of urban ecosystem services? In this paper, we integrate the research on environmental stewardship with the social-ecological systems literature to explain how stewardship groups serve as bridge organizations between public agencies and civic organizations, working across scales and sectors to build the flexible...

Building brains for bodies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brooks, Rodney Allen; Stein, Lynn Andrea

1994-01-01

We describe a project to capitalize on newly available levels of computational resources in order to understand human cognition. We will build an integrated physical system including vision, sound input and output, and dextrous manipulation, all controlled by a continuously operating large scale parallel MIMD computer. The resulting system will learn to 'think' by building on its bodily experiences to accomplish progressively more abstract tasks. Past experience suggests that in attempting to build such an integrated system we will have to fundamentally change the way artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, and philosophy think about the organization of intelligence. We expect to be able to better reconcile the theories that will be developed with current work in neuroscience.

Beyond information and utility: Transforming public spaces with media facades.

PubMed

Fischer, Patrick Tobias; Zöllner, Christian; Hoffmann, Thilo; Piatza, Sebastian; Hornecker, Eva

2013-01-01

Media facades (often characterized as a building's digital skin) are public displays that substitute dynamic details and information for usually static structures. SMSlingshot is a media facade system at the confluence of art, architecture, and technology design in the context of urban human-computer interaction. It represents a participative approach to public displays that enlivens public spaces and fosters civic and social dialogue as an alternative to advertising and service-oriented information displays. Observations from SMSlingshot's implementation at festival exhibitions provide insight into the roles of scale, distance, and the spatial situation of media facade contexts. The lessons learned apply to most public-display situations and will be useful for designers and developers of this new medium in urban spaces.

Initiation process of earthquakes and its implications for seismic hazard reduction strategy.

PubMed

Kanamori, H

1996-04-30

For the average citizen and the public, "earthquake prediction" means "short-term prediction," a prediction of a specific earthquake on a relatively short time scale. Such prediction must specify the time, place, and magnitude of the earthquake in question with sufficiently high reliability. For this type of prediction, one must rely on some short-term precursors. Examinations of strain changes just before large earthquakes suggest that consistent detection of such precursory strain changes cannot be expected. Other precursory phenomena such as foreshocks and nonseismological anomalies do not occur consistently either. Thus, reliable short-term prediction would be very difficult. Although short-term predictions with large uncertainties could be useful for some areas if their social and economic environments can tolerate false alarms, such predictions would be impractical for most modern industrialized cities. A strategy for effective seismic hazard reduction is to take full advantage of the recent technical advancements in seismology, computers, and communication. In highly industrialized communities, rapid earthquake information is critically important for emergency services agencies, utilities, communications, financial companies, and media to make quick reports and damage estimates and to determine where emergency response is most needed. Long-term forecast, or prognosis, of earthquakes is important for development of realistic building codes, retrofitting existing structures, and land-use planning, but the distinction between short-term and long-term predictions needs to be clearly communicated to the public to avoid misunderstanding.

Scaling predictive modeling in drug development with cloud computing.

PubMed

Moghadam, Behrooz Torabi; Alvarsson, Jonathan; Holm, Marcus; Eklund, Martin; Carlsson, Lars; Spjuth, Ola

2015-01-26

Growing data sets with increased time for analysis is hampering predictive modeling in drug discovery. Model building can be carried out on high-performance computer clusters, but these can be expensive to purchase and maintain. We have evaluated ligand-based modeling on cloud computing resources where computations are parallelized and run on the Amazon Elastic Cloud. We trained models on open data sets of varying sizes for the end points logP and Ames mutagenicity and compare with model building parallelized on a traditional high-performance computing cluster. We show that while high-performance computing results in faster model building, the use of cloud computing resources is feasible for large data sets and scales well within cloud instances. An additional advantage of cloud computing is that the costs of predictive models can be easily quantified, and a choice can be made between speed and economy. The easy access to computational resources with no up-front investments makes cloud computing an attractive alternative for scientists, especially for those without access to a supercomputer, and our study shows that it enables cost-efficient modeling of large data sets on demand within reasonable time.

Cognitive Mapping Based on Conjunctive Representations of Space and Movement

PubMed Central

Zeng, Taiping; Si, Bailu

2017-01-01

It is a challenge to build robust simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system in dynamical large-scale environments. Inspired by recent findings in the entorhinal–hippocampal neuronal circuits, we propose a cognitive mapping model that includes continuous attractor networks of head-direction cells and conjunctive grid cells to integrate velocity information by conjunctive encodings of space and movement. Visual inputs from the local view cells in the model provide feedback cues to correct drifting errors of the attractors caused by the noisy velocity inputs. We demonstrate the mapping performance of the proposed cognitive mapping model on an open-source dataset of 66 km car journey in a 3 km × 1.6 km urban area. Experimental results show that the proposed model is robust in building a coherent semi-metric topological map of the entire urban area using a monocular camera, even though the image inputs contain various changes caused by different light conditions and terrains. The results in this study could inspire both neuroscience and robotic research to better understand the neural computational mechanisms of spatial cognition and to build robust robotic navigation systems in large-scale environments. PMID:29213234

Seismic isolation of buildings using composite foundations based on metamaterials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Casablanca, O.; Ventura, G.; Garescı, F.; Azzerboni, B.; Chiaia, B.; Chiappini, M.; Finocchio, G.

2018-05-01

Metamaterials can be engineered to interact with waves in entirely new ways, finding application on the nanoscale in various fields such as optics and acoustics. In addition, acoustic metamaterials can be used in large-scale experiments for filtering and manipulating seismic waves (seismic metamaterials). Here, we propose seismic isolation based on a device that combines some properties of seismic metamaterials (e.g., periodic mass-in-mass systems) with that of a standard foundation positioned right below the building for isolation purposes. The concepts on which this solution is based are the local resonance and a dual-stiffness structure that preserves large (small) rigidity for compression (shear) effects. In other words, this paper introduces a different approach to seismic isolation by using certain principles of seismic metamaterials. The experimental demonstrator tested on the laboratory scale exhibits a spectral bandgap that begins at 4.5 Hz. Within the bandgap, it filters more than 50% of the seismic energy via an internal dissipation process. Our results open a path toward the seismic resilience of buildings and a critical infrastructure to shear seismic waves, achieving higher efficiency compared to traditional seismic insulators and passive energy-dissipation systems.

Public Health and Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction Including Fracking: Global Lessons from a Scottish Government Review

PubMed Central

Watterson, Andrew

2018-01-01

Unconventional oil and gas extraction (UOGE) including fracking for shale gas is underway in North America on a large scale, and in Australia and some other countries. It is viewed as a major source of global energy needs by proponents. Critics consider fracking and UOGE an immediate and long-term threat to global, national, and regional public health and climate. Rarely have governments brought together relatively detailed assessments of direct and indirect public health risks associated with fracking and weighed these against potential benefits to inform a national debate on whether to pursue this energy route. The Scottish government has now done so in a wide-ranging consultation underpinned by a variety of reports on unconventional gas extraction including fracking. This paper analyses the Scottish government approach from inception to conclusion, and from procedures to outcomes. The reports commissioned by the Scottish government include a comprehensive review dedicated specifically to public health as well as reports on climate change, economic impacts, transport, geology, and decommissioning. All these reports are relevant to public health, and taken together offer a comprehensive review of existing evidence. The approach is unique globally when compared with UOGE assessments conducted in the USA, Australia, Canada, and England. The review process builds a useful evidence base although it is not without flaws. The process approach, if not the content, offers a framework that may have merits globally. PMID:29617318

Interfacial growth of large-area single-layer metal-organic framework nanosheets

PubMed Central

Makiura, Rie; Konovalov, Oleg

2013-01-01

The air/liquid interface is an excellent platform to assemble two-dimensional (2D) sheets of materials by enhancing spontaneous organizational features of the building components and encouraging large length scale in-plane growth. We have grown 2D molecularly-thin crystalline metal-organic-framework (MOF) nanosheets composed of porphyrin building units and metal-ion joints (NAFS-13) under operationally simple ambient conditions at the air/liquid interface. In-situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction studies of the formation process performed directly at the interface were employed to optimize the NAFS-13 growth protocol leading to the development of a post-injection method –post-injection of the metal connectors into the water subphase on whose surface the molecular building blocks are pre-oriented– which allowed us to achieve the formation of large-surface area morphologically-uniform preferentially-oriented single-layer nanosheets. The growth of such large-size high-quality sheets is of interest for the understanding of the fundamental physical/chemical properties associated with ultra-thin sheet-shaped materials and the realization of their use in applications. PMID:23974345

Facilitating Cohort Discovery by Enhancing Ontology Exploration, Query Management and Query Sharing for Large Clinical Data Repositories.

PubMed

Tao, Shiqiang; Cui, Licong; Wu, Xi; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2017-01-01

To help researchers better access clinical data, we developed a prototype query engine called DataSphere for exploring large-scale integrated clinical data repositories. DataSphere expedites data importing using a NoSQL data management system and dynamically renders its user interface for concept-based querying tasks. DataSphere provides an interactive query-building interface together with query translation and optimization strategies, which enable users to build and execute queries effectively and efficiently. We successfully loaded a dataset of one million patients for University of Kentucky (UK) Healthcare into DataSphere with more than 300 million clinical data records. We evaluated DataSphere by comparing it with an instance of i2b2 deployed at UK Healthcare, demonstrating that DataSphere provides enhanced user experience for both query building and execution.

Facilitating Cohort Discovery by Enhancing Ontology Exploration, Query Management and Query Sharing for Large Clinical Data Repositories

PubMed Central

Tao, Shiqiang; Cui, Licong; Wu, Xi; Zhang, Guo-Qiang

2017-01-01

To help researchers better access clinical data, we developed a prototype query engine called DataSphere for exploring large-scale integrated clinical data repositories. DataSphere expedites data importing using a NoSQL data management system and dynamically renders its user interface for concept-based querying tasks. DataSphere provides an interactive query-building interface together with query translation and optimization strategies, which enable users to build and execute queries effectively and efficiently. We successfully loaded a dataset of one million patients for University of Kentucky (UK) Healthcare into DataSphere with more than 300 million clinical data records. We evaluated DataSphere by comparing it with an instance of i2b2 deployed at UK Healthcare, demonstrating that DataSphere provides enhanced user experience for both query building and execution. PMID:29854239

The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial and Its Associated Research Resource

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial is a large-scale research effort conducted by the National Cancer Institute. PLCO offers an example of coordinated research by both the extramural and intramural communities of the National Institutes of Health. The purpose of this article is to describe the PLCO research resource and how it is managed and to assess the productivity and the costs associated with this resource. Such an in-depth analysis of a single large-scale project can shed light on questions such as how large-scale projects should be managed, what metrics should be used to assess productivity, and how costs can be compared with productivity metrics. A comprehensive publication analysis identified 335 primary research publications resulting from research using PLCO data and biospecimens from 2000 to 2012. By the end of 2012, a total of 9679 citations (excluding self-citations) have resulted from this body of research publications, with an average of 29.7 citations per article, and an h index of 45, which is comparable with other large-scale studies, such as the Nurses’ Health Study. In terms of impact on public health, PLCO trial results have been used by the US Preventive Services Task Force in making recommendations concerning prostate and ovarian cancer screening. The overall cost of PLCO was $454 million over 20 years, adjusted to 2011 dollars, with approximately $37 million for the collection, processing, and storage of biospecimens, including blood samples, buccal cells, and pathology tissues. PMID:24115361

A comparison of wake characteristics of model and prototype buildings in transverse winds

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Logan, E., Jr.; Phataraphruk, P.; Chang, J.

1978-01-01

Previously measured mean velocity and turbulence intensity profiles in the wake of a 26.8-m long building 3.2 m high and transverse to the wind direction in an atmospheric boundary layer several hundred meters thick were compared with profiles at corresponding stations downstream of a 1/50-scale model on the floor of a large meteorological wind tunnel in a boundary layer 0.61 m in thickness. The validity of using model wake data to predict full scale data was determined. Preliminary results are presented which indicate that disparities result from differences in relative depth of logarithmic layers, surface roughness, and the proximity of upstream obstacles.

Public inquiries about indoor air quality in California.

PubMed Central

Macher, J M; Hayward, S B

1991-01-01

To identify the indoor air quality issues about which Californians most often sought advice from a health department or a public information agency and to evaluate how well these agencies met the public's needs, members of the California Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Indoor Air Quality kept records of inquiries they received over a 30-month period from mid-1985 through 1987. Members of the IWG answered calls from residents of a least 49 of California's 58 counties. IWG members received more public inquiries about residences than about offices, educational institutions, commercial buildings, or medical facilities. However, each call about a residence probably represented fewer people at risk of exposure to a real or a potential problem than did calls about other types of buildings. Homeowners themselves asked the majority of the questions about residences, whereas a large number of the inquiries about office buildings were made, not by affected office workers, but by building managers, contractors, consultants, or company health and safety officers. The leading topics of concern in the residences were asbestos, chemical and biological contamination, and radon. In offices, chemical contamination, the ventilation system, biological contamination, asbestos, and tobacco smoke were the most frequently mentioned sources of problems. Callers often reported experiencing headaches, allergy symptoms, nose or throat irritation, and respiratory tract problems in connection with their complaints. IWG members directed a third of the calls elsewhere, of which half were referred to consultants or testing laboratories. The IWG's experience in the State of California could help other health departments prepare to face the public's increasing concern about indoor air pollution. PMID:1935848

78 FR 27906 - Lead; Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program for Public and Commercial Buildings; Notice of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-05-13

... construction (NAICS code 236), e.g., commercial building construction, industrial building construction, commercial and institutional building construction, building finishing contractors, drywall and insulation... Lead; Renovation, Repair, and Painting Program for Public and Commercial Buildings; Notice of Public...

PKI security in large-scale healthcare networks.

PubMed

Mantas, Georgios; Lymberopoulos, Dimitrios; Komninos, Nikos

2012-06-01

During the past few years a lot of PKI (Public Key Infrastructures) infrastructures have been proposed for healthcare networks in order to ensure secure communication services and exchange of data among healthcare professionals. However, there is a plethora of challenges in these healthcare PKI infrastructures. Especially, there are a lot of challenges for PKI infrastructures deployed over large-scale healthcare networks. In this paper, we propose a PKI infrastructure to ensure security in a large-scale Internet-based healthcare network connecting a wide spectrum of healthcare units geographically distributed within a wide region. Furthermore, the proposed PKI infrastructure facilitates the trust issues that arise in a large-scale healthcare network including multi-domain PKI infrastructures.

Evaluation of PCB sources and releases for identifying priorities to reduce PCBs in Washington State (USA).

PubMed

Davies, Holly; Delistraty, Damon

2016-02-01

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are ubiquitously distributed in the environment and produce multiple adverse effects in humans and wildlife. As a result, the purpose of our study was to characterize PCB sources in anthropogenic materials and releases to the environment in Washington State (USA) in order to formulate recommendations to reduce PCB exposures. Methods included review of relevant publications (e.g., open literature, industry studies and reports, federal and state government databases), scaling of PCB sources from national or county estimates to state estimates, and communication with industry associations and private and public utilities. Recognizing high associated uncertainty due to incomplete data, we strived to provide central tendency estimates for PCB sources. In terms of mass (high to low), PCB sources include lamp ballasts, caulk, small capacitors, large capacitors, and transformers. For perspective, these sources (200,000-500,000 kg) overwhelm PCBs estimated to reside in the Puget Sound ecosystem (1500 kg). Annual releases of PCBs to the environment (high to low) are attributed to lamp ballasts (400-1500 kg), inadvertent generation by industrial processes (900 kg), caulk (160 kg), small capacitors (3-150 kg), large capacitors (10-80 kg), pigments and dyes (0.02-31 kg), and transformers (<2 kg). Recommendations to characterize the extent of PCB distribution and decrease exposures include assessment of PCBs in buildings (e.g., schools) and replacement of these materials, development of Best Management Practices (BMPs) to contain PCBs, reduction of inadvertent generation of PCBs in consumer products, expansion of environmental monitoring and public education, and research to identify specific PCB congener profiles in human tissues.

Quantification of fossil fuel CO2 emissions on the building/street scale for a large U.S. city.

PubMed

Gurney, Kevin R; Razlivanov, Igor; Song, Yang; Zhou, Yuyu; Benes, Bedrich; Abdul-Massih, Michel

2012-11-06

In order to advance the scientific understanding of carbon exchange with the land surface, build an effective carbon monitoring system, and contribute to quantitatively based U.S. climate change policy interests, fine spatial and temporal quantification of fossil fuel CO(2) emissions, the primary greenhouse gas, is essential. Called the "Hestia Project", this research effort is the first to use bottom-up methods to quantify all fossil fuel CO(2) emissions down to the scale of individual buildings, road segments, and industrial/electricity production facilities on an hourly basis for an entire urban landscape. Here, we describe the methods used to quantify the on-site fossil fuel CO(2) emissions across the city of Indianapolis, IN. This effort combines a series of data sets and simulation tools such as a building energy simulation model, traffic data, power production reporting, and local air pollution reporting. The system is general enough to be applied to any large U.S. city and holds tremendous potential as a key component of a carbon-monitoring system in addition to enabling efficient greenhouse gas mitigation and planning. We compare the natural gas component of our fossil fuel CO(2) emissions estimate to consumption data provided by the local gas utility. At the zip code level, we achieve a bias-adjusted Pearson r correlation value of 0.92 (p < 0.001).

Building Efficiency Technologies by Tomorrow’s Engineers and Researchers (BETTER) Capstone. Final Technical Report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yee, Shannon

BETTER Capstone supported 29 student project teams consisting of 155 students over two years in developing transformative building energy efficiency technologies through a capstone design experience. Capstone is the culmination of an undergraduate student’s engineering education. Interdisciplinary teams of students spent a semester designing and prototyping a technological solution for a variety building energy efficiency problems. During this experience students utilized the full design process, including the manufacturing and testing of a prototype solution, as well as publically demonstrating the solution at the Capstone Design Expo. As part of this project, students explored modern manufacturing techniques and gained hands-on experiencemore » with these techniques to produce their prototype technologies. This research added to the understanding of the challenges within building technology education and engagement with industry. One goal of the project was to help break the chicken-and-egg problem with getting students to engage more deeply with the building technology industry. It was learned however that this industry is less interested in trying innovative new concept but rather interested in hiring graduates for existing conventional building efforts. While none of the projects yielded commercial success, much individual student growth and learning was accomplished, which is a long-term benefit to the public at large.« less

The use of data from national and other large-scale user experience surveys in local quality work: a systematic review.

PubMed

Haugum, Mona; Danielsen, Kirsten; Iversen, Hilde Hestad; Bjertnaes, Oyvind

2014-12-01

An important goal for national and large-scale surveys of user experiences is quality improvement. However, large-scale surveys are normally conducted by a professional external surveyor, creating an institutionalized division between the measurement of user experiences and the quality work that is performed locally. The aim of this study was to identify and describe scientific studies related to the use of national and large-scale surveys of user experiences in local quality work. Ovid EMBASE, Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid PsycINFO and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Scientific publications about user experiences and satisfaction about the extent to which data from national and other large-scale user experience surveys are used for local quality work in the health services. Themes of interest were identified and a narrative analysis was undertaken. Thirteen publications were included, all differed substantially in several characteristics. The results show that large-scale surveys of user experiences are used in local quality work. The types of follow-up activity varied considerably from conducting a follow-up analysis of user experience survey data to information sharing and more-systematic efforts to use the data as a basis for improving the quality of care. This review shows that large-scale surveys of user experiences are used in local quality work. However, there is a need for more, better and standardized research in this field. The considerable variation in follow-up activities points to the need for systematic guidance on how to use data in local quality work. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press in association with the International Society for Quality in Health Care; all rights reserved.

Information Power Grid Posters

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Vaziri, Arsi

2003-01-01

This document is a summary of the accomplishments of the Information Power Grid (IPG). Grids are an emerging technology that provide seamless and uniform access to the geographically dispersed, computational, data storage, networking, instruments, and software resources needed for solving large-scale scientific and engineering problems. The goal of the NASA IPG is to use NASA's remotely located computing and data system resources to build distributed systems that can address problems that are too large or complex for a single site. The accomplishments outlined in this poster presentation are: access to distributed data, IPG heterogeneous computing, integration of large-scale computing node into distributed environment, remote access to high data rate instruments,and exploratory grid environment.

The lost summer: Community experiences of large wildfires in Trinity County, California

Treesearch

Emily J. Davis; Cassandra Moseley; Pamela Jakes; Max Nielsen-Pincus

2011-01-01

As wildfires are increasing in scale and duration, and communities are increasingly located where these wildfires are occurring, we need a clearer understanding of how large wildfires affect economic and social well being. These wildfires can have complex impacts on rural public lands communities. They can threaten homes, public health, and livelihoods. Wildfires can...

Building energy governance in Shanghai

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kung, YiHsiu Michelle

With Asia's surging economies and urbanization, the region is adding to its built environment at an unprecedented rate, especially those population centers in China and India. With numerous existing buildings, plus a new building boom, construction in these major Asian cities has caused momentous sustainability challenges. This dissertation focuses on China's leading city, Shanghai, to explore and assess its existing commercial building energy policies and practices. Research estimates that Shanghai's commercial buildings might become a key challenge with regard to energy use and CO2 emissions as compared to other major Asian cities. Relevant building energy policy instruments at national and local levels for commercial buildings are reviewed. In addition, two benchmarks are established to further assess building energy policies in Shanghai. The first benchmark is based on the synthesis of relevant criteria and policy instruments as recommended by professional organizations, while the second practical benchmark is drawn from an analysis of three global cities: New York, London and Tokyo. Moreover, two large-scale commercial building sites - Shanghai IKEA and Plaza 66 - are selected for investigation and assessment of their efforts on building energy saving measures. Detailed building energy savings, CO2 reductions, and management cost reductions based on data availability and calculations are presented with the co-benefits approach. The research additionally analyzes different interventions and factors that facilitate or constrain the implementation process of building energy saving measures in each case. Furthermore, a multi-scale analytical framework is employed to investigate relevant stakeholders that shape Shanghai's commercial building energy governance. Research findings and policy recommendations are offered at the close of this dissertation. Findings and policy recommendations are intended to facilitate commercial building energy governance in Shanghai and other rapidly growing second-tier or third-tier cities in China, and to further contribute to the general body of knowledge on Asia's urban building sustainability.

Chicano Educational Achievement: Comparing Escuela Tlatelolco, a Chicanocentric School, and a Public High School. Latino Communities: Emerging Voices--Political, Social, Cultural, and Legal Issues--A Garland Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKissack, Elena Aragon de

Building on the theorem that a positive self-identity is fundamental to completion of an education, a study was conducted to learn how schools with differing backgrounds affected the ethnic identity of students. Two schools in Denver (Colorado) were selected for this case study. "Broderick High School" is a large public school whose…

Public knowledge and preventive behavior during a large-scale Salmonella outbreak: results from an online survey in the Netherlands

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Food-borne Salmonella infections are a worldwide concern. During a large-scale outbreak, it is important that the public follows preventive advice. To increase compliance, insight in how the public gathers its knowledge and which factors determine whether or not an individual complies with preventive advice is crucial. Methods In 2012, contaminated salmon caused a large Salmonella Thompson outbreak in the Netherlands. During the outbreak, we conducted an online survey (n = 1,057) to assess the general public’s perceptions, knowledge, preventive behavior and sources of information. Results Respondents perceived Salmonella infections and the 2012 outbreak as severe (m = 4.21; five-point scale with 5 as severe). Their knowledge regarding common food sources, the incubation period and regular treatment of Salmonella (gastro-enteritis) was relatively low (e.g., only 28.7% knew that Salmonella is not normally treated with antibiotics). Preventive behavior differed widely, and the majority (64.7%) did not check for contaminated salmon at home. Most information about the outbreak was gathered through traditional media and news and newspaper websites. This was mostly determined by time spent on the medium. Social media played a marginal role. Wikipedia seemed a potentially important source of information. Conclusions To persuade the public to take preventive actions, public health organizations should deliver their message primarily through mass media. Wikipedia seems a promising instrument for educating the public about food-borne Salmonella. PMID:24479614

Laureates

Science.gov Websites

, multi-scale observing systems under challenging field conditions to document unexpectedly large soil CO2 pleased to recognize the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division's Retro-commissioning Sensor synthetic biology while providing novel approaches for crop engineering to support Berkeley Lab and DOE's

The World's Largest Photovoltaic Concentrator System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Harry V.

1982-01-01

The Mississippi County Community College large-scale energy experiment, featuring the emerging high technology of solar electricity, is described. The project includes a building designed for solar electricity and a power plant consisting of a total energy photovoltaic system, and features two experimental developments. (MLW)

Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales: Utilizing Sparse Array Data to Develop and Implement a New Method for Estimating Blue and Fin Whale Density

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales ...Utilizing Sparse Array Data to Develop and Implement a New Method for Estimating Blue and Fin Whale Density Len Thomas & Danielle Harris Centre...to develop and implement a new method for estimating blue and fin whale density that is effective over large spatial scales and is designed to cope

77 FR 59925 - Public Buildings Service; Submission for OMB Review; Application/Permit for Use of Space in...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-10-01

... Buildings Service; Submission for OMB Review; Application/ Permit for Use of Space in Public Buildings and Grounds, GSA Form 3453 AGENCY: Public Buildings Service, GSA. ACTION: Notice of request for comments... regarding GSA Form 3453, Application/Permit for Use of Space in Public Buildings and Grounds. A notice was...

Evaluation of wind-induced internal pressure in low-rise buildings: A multi scale experimental and numerical approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tecle, Amanuel Sebhatu

Hurricane is one of the most destructive and costly natural hazard to the built environment and its impact on low-rise buildings, particularity, is beyond acceptable. The major objective of this research was to perform a parametric evaluation of internal pressure (IP) for wind-resistant design of low-rise buildings and wind-driven natural ventilation applications. For this purpose, a multi-scale experimental, i.e. full-scale at Wall of Wind (WoW) and small-scale at Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel (BLWT), and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach was adopted. This provided new capability to assess wind pressures realistically on internal volumes ranging from small spaces formed between roof tiles and its deck to attic to room partitions. Effects of sudden breaching, existing dominant openings on building envelopes as well as compartmentalization of building interior on the IP were systematically investigated. Results of this research indicated: (i) for sudden breaching of dominant openings, the transient overshooting response was lower than the subsequent steady state peak IP and internal volume correction for low-wind-speed testing facilities was necessary. For example a building without volume correction experienced a response four times faster and exhibited 30--40% lower mean and peak IP; (ii) for existing openings, vent openings uniformly distributed along the roof alleviated, whereas one sided openings aggravated the IP; (iii) larger dominant openings exhibited a higher IP on the building envelope, and an off-center opening on the wall exhibited (30--40%) higher IP than center located openings; (iv) compartmentalization amplified the intensity of IP and; (v) significant underneath pressure was measured for field tiles, warranting its consideration during net pressure evaluations. The study aimed at wind driven natural ventilation indicated: (i) the IP due to cross ventilation was 1.5 to 2.5 times higher for Ainlet/Aoutlet>1 compared to cases where Ainlet/Aoutlet<1, this in effect reduced the mixing of air inside the building and hence the ventilation effectiveness; (ii) the presence of multi-room partitioning increased the pressure differential and consequently the air exchange rate. Overall good agreement was found between the observed large-scale, small-scale and CFD based IP responses. Comparisons with ASCE 7-10 consistently demonstrated that the code underestimated peak positive and suction IP.

Enhancement of global flood damage assessments using building material based vulnerability curves

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Englhardt, Johanna; de Ruiter, Marleen; de Moel, Hans; Aerts, Jeroen

2017-04-01

This study discusses the development of an enhanced approach for flood damage and risk assessments using vulnerability curves that are based on building material information. The approach draws upon common practices in earthquake vulnerability assessments, and is an alternative for land-use or building occupancy approach in flood risk assessment models. The approach is of particular importance for studies where there is a large variation in building material, such as large scale studies or studies in developing countries. A case study of Ethiopia is used to demonstrate the impact of the different methodological approaches on direct damage assessments due to flooding. Generally, flood damage assessments use damage curves for different land-use or occupancy types (i.e. urban or residential and commercial classes). However, these categories do not necessarily relate directly to vulnerability of damage by flood waters. For this, the construction type and building material may be more important, as is used in earthquake risk assessments. For this study, we use building material classification data of the PAGER1 project to define new building material based vulnerability classes for flood damage. This approach will be compared to the widely applied land-use based vulnerability curves such as used by De Moel et al. (2011). The case of Ethiopia demonstrates and compares the feasibility of this novel flood vulnerability method on a country level which holds the potential to be scaled up to a global level. The study shows that flood vulnerability based on building material also allows for better differentiation between flood damage in urban and rural settings, opening doors to better link to poverty studies when such exposure data is available. Furthermore, this new approach paves the road to the enhancement of multi-risk assessments as the method enables the comparison of vulnerability across different natural hazard types that also use material-based vulnerability curves. Finally, this approach allows for more accuracy in estimating losses as a result of direct damages. 1 http://earthquake.usgs.gov/data/pager/

Extragalactic Astrophysics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Webb, James R.

2016-09-01

This book is intended to be a course about the creation and evolution of the universe at large, including the basic macroscopic building blocks (galaxies) and the overall large-scale structure. This text covers a broad range of topics for a graduate-level class in a physics department where students' available credit hours for astrophysics classes are limited. The sections cover galactic structure, external galaxies, galaxy clustering, active galaxies, general relativity and cosmology.

No Country Left Behind: Rhetoric and Reality of International Large-Scale Assessment. William H. Angoff Memorial Lecture Series

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feuer, Michael J.

2011-01-01

Few arguments about education are as effective at galvanizing public attention and motivating political action as those that compare the performance of students with their counterparts in other countries and that connect academic achievement to economic performance. Because data from international large-scale assessments (ILSA) have a powerful…

Influencing Public School Policy in the United States: The Role of Large-Scale Assessments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmidt, William H.; Burroughs, Nathan A.

2016-01-01

The authors review the influence of state, national and international large-scale assessments (LSAs) on education policy and research. They distinguish between two main uses of LSAs: as a means for conducting research that informs educational reform and LSAs as a tool for implementing standards and enforcing accountability. The authors discuss the…

Advanced DInSAR analysis for building damage assessment in large urban areas: an application to the city of Roma, Italy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

D'Aranno, Peppe J. V.; Marsella, Maria; Scifoni, Silvia; Scutti, Marianna; Sonnessa, Alberico; Bonano, Manuela

2015-10-01

Remote sensing data play an important role for the environmental monitoring because they allow to provide systematic information on very large areas and for a long period of time. Such information must be analyzed, validated and incorporated into proper modeling tools in order to become useful for performing risk assessment analysis. These approaches has been already applied in the field of natural hazard evaluation (i.e. for monitoring seismic, volcanic areas and landslides). However, not enough attention has been devoted to the development of validated methods for implementing quantitative analysis on civil structures. This work is dedicated to the comprehensive utilization of ERS / ENVISAT data store ESA SAR used to detect deformation trends and perform back-analysis of the investigated structures useful to calibrate the damage assessment models. After this preliminary analysis, SAR data of the new satellite mission (ie Cosmo SkyMed) were adopted to monitor the evolution of existent surface deformation processes and to detect new occurrence. The specific objective was to set up a data processing and data analysis chain tailored on a service that sustains the safe maintenance of the built-up environment, including critical construction such as public (schools, hospital, etc), strategic (dam, highways, etc) and also the cultural heritage sites. The analysis of the test area, in the southeastern sector of Roma, has provided three different levels and sub-levels of products from metropolitan area scale (territorial analysis), settlement scale (aggregated analysis) to single structure scale (damage degree associated to the structure).

National Water Quality Assessment Program; the Santee Basin and coastal drainage, North Carolina and South Carolina

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hughes, W. Brian

1994-01-01

In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), U.S. Department of the Interior, began a National Water-Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA). The long-term goals of NAWQA are to describe the status of and trends in the quality of a large representative part of the Nation's surface- and ground-water resources and to identify all the major factors that affect the quality of these resources. In addressing these goals, NAWQA produces water-quality information that is useful to policymakers and managers at State, Federal, and local levels.NAWQA emphasis is on regional scale water-quality problems. The program does not diminish the need for smaller scale studies and monitoring designed and conducted by State, Federal, and local agencies. NAWQA, however, provides a large-scale framework for conducting many of these activities and an understanding about regional and national water-quality conditions that cannot be acquired from these other programs and studies.Studies of 60 hydrologic systems that include parts of most major river basins and aquifer systems are the building blocks of the national assessment. The areas of the 60 study units range in size from 1,000 to more than 60,000 square miles (mi2) and represent 60 to 70 percent of the Nation's water use and population served by public water supplies. Twenty investigations were begun in 1991, 20 investigations began in 1994, and 20 are planned to begin in 1997. The assessment activities in the Santee River Basin and Coastal Drainage began in 1994.

Automated workflows for data curation and standardization of chemical structures for QSAR modeling

EPA Science Inventory

Large collections of chemical structures and associated experimental data are publicly available, and can be used to build robust QSAR models for applications in different fields. One common concern is the quality of both the chemical structure information and associated experime...

Four Fabric Structures. A Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Green, Peter

Photographs and descriptions of four projects using fabric to enclose large spaces are published so that administrators and designers looking for ways to build recreational facilities can consider these innovative shelters. Three of the four examples in this publication are air-supported structures: University of Santa Clara, Charles Wright…

Public health impact of the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest.

PubMed Central

Evans, C A

1993-01-01

The Los Angeles civil unrest in April 1992 stunned the nation. The days of violence resulted in 53 deaths, 2,325 reported injuries, more than 600 buildings completely destroyed by fire, and approximately $735 million in total damages. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the activities of the Public Health Programs and Services Branch of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services during and after the civil unrest and to illustrate the types of public health issues and problems that may result from large-scale civil disturbance. Public health agencies and jurisdictions should consider these issues in their disaster planning. Public Health Programs and Services Branch activities were directly affected by the violence and destruction. Women, Infants and Children Program vouchering sites and 20 drug program and alcohol recovery sites were damaged or burned and 15 county health centers closed during the unrest. At least 38 private medical and dental offices and 45 pharmacies were destroyed or damaged. County health authorities offered facilities to house relocated private care providers and filled prescriptions for medications where needed. The environmental health impact required the inspection of 2,827 burned and damaged sites for hazardous waste including asbestos; at 9 percent of the inspected sites, waste required special disposal. More than 1,000 food facilities suffered damage and required inspection before reopening. In the 3 months following the unrest, a 20-percent increase in disposal capacity was authorized at four county landfills to accommodate the disposal of debris. Violence was a public health issue of particular concern.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) PMID:8497562

Report of the Fermilab ILC Citizens' Task Force

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory convened the ILC Citizens' Task Force to provide guidance and advice to the laboratory to ensure that community concerns and ideas are included in all public aspects of planning and design for a proposed future accelerator, the International Linear Collider. In this report, the members of the Task Force describe the process they used to gather and analyze information on all aspects of the proposed accelerator and its potential location at Fermilab in northern Illinois. They present the conclusions and recommendations they reached as a result of the learning process and their subsequent discussions and deliberations.more » While the Task Force was charged to provide guidance on the ILC, it became clear during the process that the high cost of the proposed accelerator made a near-term start for the project at Fermilab unlikely. Nevertheless, based on a year of extensive learning and dialogue, the Task Force developed a series of recommendations for Fermilab to consider as the laboratory develops all successor projects to the Tevatron. The Task Force recognizes that bringing a next-generation particle physics project to Fermilab will require both a large international effort and the support of the local community. While the Task Force developed its recommendations in response to the parameters of a future ILC, the principles they set forth apply directly to any large project that may be conceived at Fermilab, or at other laboratories, in the future. With this report, the Task Force fulfills its task of guiding Fermilab from the perspective of the local community on how to move forward with a large-scale project while building positive relationships with surrounding communities. The report summarizes the benefits, concerns and potential impacts of bringing a large-scale scientific project to northern Illinois.« less

Scaling-up public sector childhood diarrhea management program: Lessons from Indian states of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

PubMed

Kumar, Sanjeev; Roy, Rajashree; Dutta, Sucharita

2015-12-01

Diarrhea remains a leading cause of death among children under five in India. Public health sector is an important source for diarrhea treatment with oral rehydration salts (ORS) and zinc. In 2010, Micronutrient Initiative started a project to improve service delivery for childhood diarrhea management through public health sector in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar. This paper aims to highlight feasible strategies, experiences and lessons learned from scaling-up zinc and ORS for childhood diarrhea management in the public sector in three Indian states. The project was implemented in six districts of Gujarat, 12 districts of UP and 15 districts of Bihar, which includes 10.5 million children. Program strategies included capacity building of health care providers, expanding service delivery through community health workers (CHWs), providing supportive supervision to CHWs, ensuring supplies and conducting monitoring and evaluation. The lessons described in this paper are based on program data, government documents and studies that were used to generate evidence and inform program scale-up. 140 000 health personnel, including CHWs, were trained in childhood diarrhea management. During three years, CHWs had sustained knowledge and have treated and reported more than three million children aged 2-59 months having diarrhea, of which 84% were treated with both zinc and ORS. The successful strategies were scaled-up. It is feasible and viable to introduce and scale-up zinc and ORS for childhood diarrhea treatment through public sector. Community-based service delivery, timely and adequate supplies, trained staff and pro-active engagement with government were essential for program success.

Zero Launch Mass 3D printer

NASA Image and Video Library

2018-05-01

Packing light is the idea behind the Zero Launch Mass 3-D Printer. Instead of loading up on heavy building supplies, a large scale 3-D printer capable of using recycled plastic waste and dirt at the destination as construction material would save mass and money when launching robotic precursor missions to build infrastructure on the Moon or Mars in preparation for human habitation. To make this a reality, Nathan Gelino, a researcher engineer with NASA’s Swamp Works at Kennedy Space Center, measured the temperature of a test specimen from the 3-D printer Tuesday as an early step in characterizing printed material strength properties. Material temperature plays a large role in the strength of bonds between layers.

Supporting Building Portfolio Investment and Policy Decision Making through an Integrated Building Utility Data Platform

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aziz, Azizan; Lasternas, Bertrand; Alschuler, Elena

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus funding of 2009 for smart grid projects resulted in the tripling of smart meters deployment. In 2012, the Green Button initiative provided utility customers with access to their real-time1 energy usage. The availability of finely granular data provides an enormous potential for energy data analytics and energy benchmarking. The sheer volume of time-series utility data from a large number of buildings also poses challenges in data collection, quality control, and database management for rigorous and meaningful analyses. In this paper, we will describe a building portfolio-level data analytics tool for operational optimization, businessmore » investment and policy assessment using 15-minute to monthly intervals utility data. The analytics tool is developed on top of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) platform, an open source software application that manages energy performance data of large groups of buildings. To support the significantly large volume of granular interval data, we integrated a parallel time-series database to the existing relational database. The time-series database improves on the current utility data input, focusing on real-time data collection, storage, analytics and data quality control. The fully integrated data platform supports APIs for utility apps development by third party software developers. These apps will provide actionable intelligence for building owners and facilities managers. Unlike a commercial system, this platform is an open source platform funded by the U.S. Government, accessible to the public, researchers and other developers, to support initiatives in reducing building energy consumption.« less

Construction of a Species-Level Tree of Life for the Insects and Utility in Taxonomic Profiling.

PubMed

Chesters, Douglas

2017-05-01

Although comprehensive phylogenies have proven an invaluable tool in ecology and evolution, their construction is made increasingly challenging both by the scale and structure of publically available sequences. The distinct partition between gene-rich (genomic) and species-rich (DNA barcode) data is a feature of data that has been largely overlooked, yet presents a key obstacle to scaling supermatrix analysis. I present a phyloinformatics framework for draft construction of a species-level phylogeny of insects (Class Insecta). Matrix-building requires separately optimized pipelines for nuclear transcriptomic, mitochondrial genomic, and species-rich markers, whereas tree-building requires hierarchical inference in order to capture species-breadth while retaining deep-level resolution. The phylogeny of insects contains 49,358 species, 13,865 genera, 760 families. Deep-level splits largely reflected previous findings for sections of the tree that are data rich or unambiguous, such as inter-ordinal Endopterygota and Dictyoptera, the recently evolved and relatively homogeneous Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Brachycera (Diptera), and Cucujiformia (Coleoptera). However, analysis of bias, matrix construction and gene-tree variation suggests confidence in some relationships (such as in Polyneoptera) is less than has been indicated by the matrix bootstrap method. To assess the utility of the insect tree as a tool in query profiling several tree-based taxonomic assignment methods are compared. Using test data sets with existing taxonomic annotations, a tendency is observed for greater accuracy of species-level assignments where using a fixed comprehensive tree of life in contrast to methods generating smaller de novo reference trees. Described herein is a solution to the discrepancy in the way data are fit into supermatrices. The resulting tree facilitates wider studies of insect diversification and application of advanced descriptions of diversity in community studies, among other presumed applications. [Data integration; data mining; insects; phylogenomics; phyloinformatics; tree of life.]. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

To Make Archives Available Online: Transcending Boundaries or Building Walls?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hansen, Lars-Erik; Sundqvist, Anneli

2012-01-01

The development of information technology and the rise of the Internet have rendered a large-scale digitization and dissemination of originally analog information objects. On the Web sites "Lararnas Historia" ("History of Teachers" www.lararhistoria.se) and "Ingenjorshistoria" ("History of Engineers"…

Applied Distributed Model Predictive Control for Energy Efficient Buildings and Ramp Metering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koehler, Sarah Muraoka

Industrial large-scale control problems present an interesting algorithmic design challenge. A number of controllers must cooperate in real-time on a network of embedded hardware with limited computing power in order to maximize system efficiency while respecting constraints and despite communication delays. Model predictive control (MPC) can automatically synthesize a centralized controller which optimizes an objective function subject to a system model, constraints, and predictions of disturbance. Unfortunately, the computations required by model predictive controllers for large-scale systems often limit its industrial implementation only to medium-scale slow processes. Distributed model predictive control (DMPC) enters the picture as a way to decentralize a large-scale model predictive control problem. The main idea of DMPC is to split the computations required by the MPC problem amongst distributed processors that can compute in parallel and communicate iteratively to find a solution. Some popularly proposed solutions are distributed optimization algorithms such as dual decomposition and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). However, these algorithms ignore two practical challenges: substantial communication delays present in control systems and also problem non-convexity. This thesis presents two novel and practically effective DMPC algorithms. The first DMPC algorithm is based on a primal-dual active-set method which achieves fast convergence, making it suitable for large-scale control applications which have a large communication delay across its communication network. In particular, this algorithm is suited for MPC problems with a quadratic cost, linear dynamics, forecasted demand, and box constraints. We measure the performance of this algorithm and show that it significantly outperforms both dual decomposition and ADMM in the presence of communication delay. The second DMPC algorithm is based on an inexact interior point method which is suited for nonlinear optimization problems. The parallel computation of the algorithm exploits iterative linear algebra methods for the main linear algebra computations in the algorithm. We show that the splitting of the algorithm is flexible and can thus be applied to various distributed platform configurations. The two proposed algorithms are applied to two main energy and transportation control problems. The first application is energy efficient building control. Buildings represent 40% of energy consumption in the United States. Thus, it is significant to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. The goal is to minimize energy consumption subject to the physics of the building (e.g. heat transfer laws), the constraints of the actuators as well as the desired operating constraints (thermal comfort of the occupants), and heat load on the system. In this thesis, we describe the control systems of forced air building systems in practice. We discuss the "Trim and Respond" algorithm which is a distributed control algorithm that is used in practice, and show that it performs similarly to a one-step explicit DMPC algorithm. Then, we apply the novel distributed primal-dual active-set method and provide extensive numerical results for the building MPC problem. The second main application is the control of ramp metering signals to optimize traffic flow through a freeway system. This application is particularly important since urban congestion has more than doubled in the past few decades. The ramp metering problem is to maximize freeway throughput subject to freeway dynamics (derived from mass conservation), actuation constraints, freeway capacity constraints, and predicted traffic demand. In this thesis, we develop a hybrid model predictive controller for ramp metering that is guaranteed to be persistently feasible and stable. This contrasts to previous work on MPC for ramp metering where such guarantees are absent. We apply a smoothing method to the hybrid model predictive controller and apply the inexact interior point method to this nonlinear non-convex ramp metering problem.

The Chandra Deep Wide-Field Survey: Completing the new generation of Chandra extragalactic surveys

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hickox, Ryan

2016-09-01

Chandra X-ray surveys have revolutionized our view of the growth of black holes across cosmic time. Recently, fundamental questions have emerged about the connection of AGN to their host large scale structures that clearly demand a wide, deep survey over a large area, comparable to the recent extensive Chandra surveys in smaller fields. We propose the Chandra Deep Wide-Field Survey (CDWFS) covering the central 6 sq. deg in the Bootes field, totaling 1.025 Ms (building on 550 ks from the HRC GTO program). CDWFS will efficiently probe a large cosmic volume, allowing us to carry out accurate new investigations of the connections between black holes and their large-scale structures, and will complete the next generation surveys that comprise a key part of Chandra's legacy.

The importance of building construction materials relative to other factors affecting structure survival during wildfire

USGS Publications Warehouse

Syphard, Alexandra D.; Brennan, Teresa J.; Keeley, Jon E.

2017-01-01

Structure loss to wildfire is a serious problem in wildland-urban interface areas across the world. Laboratory experiments suggest that fire-resistant building construction and design could be important for reducing structure destruction, but these need to be evaluated under real wildfire conditions, especially relative to other factors. Using empirical data from destroyed and surviving structures from large wildfires in southern California, we evaluated the relative importance of building construction and structure age compared to other local and landscape-scale variables associated with structure survival. The local-scale analysis showed that window preparation was especially important but, in general, creating defensible space adjacent to the home was as important as building construction. At the landscape scale, structure density and structure age were the two most important factors affecting structure survival, but there was a significant interaction between them. That is, young structure age was most important in higher-density areas where structure survival overall was more likely. On the other hand, newer-construction structures were less likely to survive wildfires at lower density. Here, appropriate defensible space near the structure and accessibility to major roads were important factors. In conclusion, community safety is a multivariate problem that will require a comprehensive solution involving land use planning, fire-safe construction, and property maintenance.

Building work engagement: A systematic review and meta‐analysis investigating the effectiveness of work engagement interventions

PubMed Central

Patterson, Malcolm; Dawson, Jeremy

2016-01-01

Summary Low work engagement may contribute towards decreased well‐being and work performance. Evaluating, boosting and sustaining work engagement are therefore of interest to many organisations. However, the evidence on which to base interventions has not yet been synthesised. A systematic review with meta‐analysis was conducted to assess the evidence for the effectiveness of work engagement interventions. A systematic literature search identified controlled workplace interventions employing a validated measure of work engagement. Most used the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES). Studies containing the relevant quantitative data underwent random‐effects meta‐analyses. Results were assessed for homogeneity, systematic sampling error, publication bias and quality. Twenty studies met the inclusion criteria and were categorised into four types of interventions: (i) personal resource building; (ii) job resource building; (iii) leadership training; and (iv) health promotion. The overall effect on work engagement was small, but positive, k = 14, Hedges g = 0.29, 95%‐CI = 0.12–0.46. Moderator analyses revealed a significant result for intervention style, with a medium to large effect for group interventions. Heterogeneity between the studies was high, and the success of implementation varied. More studies are needed, and researchers are encouraged to collaborate closely with organisations to design interventions appropriate to individual contexts and settings, and include evaluations of intervention implementation. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Organizational Behavior published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. PMID:28781428

Shake table tests of suspended ceilings to simulate the observed damage in the M s7.0 Lushan earthquake, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Duozhi; Dai, Junwu; Qu, Zhe; Ning, Xiaoqing

2016-06-01

Severe damage to suspended ceilings of metal grids and lay-in panels was observed in public buildings during the 2013 M s7.0 Lushan earthquake in China. Over the past several years, suspended ceilings have been widely used practice in public buildings throughout China, including government offices, schools and hospitals. To investigate the damage mechanism of suspended ceilings, a series of three-dimensional shake table tests was conducted to reproduce the observed damage. A full-scale reinforced concrete frame was constructed as the testing frame for the ceiling, which was single-story and infilled with brick masonry walls to represent the local construction of low-rise buildings. In general, the ceiling in the tests exhibited similar damage phenomena as the field observations, such as higher vulnerability of perimeter elements and extensive damage to the cross runners. However, it exhibited lower fragility in terms of peak ground/roof accelerations at the initiation of damage. Further investigations are needed to clarify the reasons for this behavior.

Spatial Information in Support of 3D Flood Damage Assessment of Buildings at Micro Level: A Review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amirebrahimi, S.; Rajabifard, A.; Sabri, S.; Mendis, P.

2016-10-01

Floods, as the most common and costliest natural disaster around the globe, have adverse impacts on buildings which are considered as major contributors to the overall economic damage. With emphasis on risk management methods for reducing the risks to structures and people, estimating damage from potential flood events becomes an important task for identifying and implementing the optimal flood risk-reduction solutions. While traditional Flood Damage Assessment (FDA) methods focus on simple representation of buildings for large-scale damage assessment purposes, recent emphasis on buildings' flood resilience resulted in development of a sophisticated method that allows for a detailed and effective damage evaluation at the scale of building and its components. In pursuit of finding the suitable spatial information model to satisfy the needs of implementing such frameworks, this article explores the technical developments for an effective representation of buildings, floods and other required information within the built environment. The search begins with the Geospatial domain and investigates the state-of-the-art and relevant developments from data point of view in this area. It is further extended to other relevant disciplines in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction domain (AEC/FM) and finally, even some overlapping areas between these domains are considered and explored.

20180318 - Automated workflows for data curation and standardization of chemical structures for QSAR modeling (ACS Spring)

EPA Science Inventory

Large collections of chemical structures and associated experimental data are publicly available, and can be used to build robust QSAR models for applications in different fields. One common concern is the quality of both the chemical structure information and associated experime...

Building Your Brand

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finkel, Ed

2018-01-01

Many community colleges have been in their communities for decades, and some take it for granted that campus stakeholders, prospective students and their families, and the public at large understands who they are and what they do. But like entities of all kinds, community colleges are becoming increasingly aware of the need to forge a consciously…

Computerized Serial Processing System at the University of California, Berkeley

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Silberstein, Stephen M.

1975-01-01

The extreme flexibility of the MARC format coupled with the simplicity of a batch-oriented processing system centered around a sequential master file has enabled the University of California, Berkeley, library to gradually build an unusually large serials data base in support of both technical and public services. (Author)

A Building Boom for Public Colleges.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schmidt, Peter

1998-01-01

Many state legislatures are authorizing the largest bond issues for campus facilities in years, in part for deferred maintenance and repairs. The robust national economy appears to be the main force driving the spending trend. Ironically, some of the states best positioned to give colleges large construction windfalls are those limited…

Building a Metrics-Enabled Marketing Curriculum: The Cornerstone Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pilling, Bruce K.; Rigdon, Edward E.; Brightman, Harvey J.

2012-01-01

The lack of analytical preparation of marketing students was a key concern at a large, public university in southeastern United States, leading to the decision to create a new required undergraduate marketing metrics course. This article describes the development of that course, designed specifically to strengthen analytical skills across the…

75 FR 75958 - Dairy Industry Advisory Committee; Public Meeting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-12-07

....gov . Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication (Braille, large print... the Jamie L Whitten Building, Room 104-A, 12th Street and Jefferson Drive, SW., Washington, DC 20250... Street and Jefferson Drive, SW., Washington, DC 20250. January 11 and 12, 2011....... 8 a.m.-5 p.m...

An automated curation procedure for addressing chemical errors and inconsistencies in public datasets used in QSAR modeling

EPA Science Inventory

Increasing availability of large collections of chemical structures and associated experimental data provides an opportunity to build robust QSAR models for applications in different fields. One common concern is the quality of both the chemical structure information and associat...

An investigation of rooftop STOL port aerodynamics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blanton, J. N.; Parker, H. M.

1972-01-01

An investigation into aerodynamic problems associated with large building rooftop STOLports was performed. Initially, a qualitative flow visualization study indicated two essential problems: (1) the establishment of smooth, steady, attached flow over the rooftop, and (2) the generation of acceptable crosswind profile once (1) has been achieved. This study indicated that (1) could be achieved by attaching circular-arc rounded edge extensions to the upper edges of the building and that crosswind profiles could be modified by the addition of porous vertical fences to the lateral edges of the rooftop. Important fence parameters associated with crosswind alteration were found to be solidity, fence element number and spacing. Large scale building induced velocity fluctuations were discovered for most configurations tested and a possible explanation for their occurrence was postulated. Finally, a simple equation relating fence solidity to the resulting velocity profile was developed and tested for non-uniform single element fences with 30 percent maximum solidity.

Adiabatic quantum-flux-parametron cell library adopting minimalist design

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Takeuchi, Naoki, E-mail: takeuchi-naoki-kx@ynu.jp; Yamanashi, Yuki; Yoshikawa, Nobuyuki

We herein build an adiabatic quantum-flux-parametron (AQFP) cell library adopting minimalist design and a symmetric layout. In the proposed minimalist design, every logic cell is designed by arraying four types of building block cells: buffer, NOT, constant, and branch cells. Therefore, minimalist design enables us to effectively build and customize an AQFP cell library. The symmetric layout reduces unwanted parasitic magnetic coupling and ensures a large mutual inductance in an output transformer, which enables very long wiring between logic cells. We design and fabricate several logic circuits using the minimal AQFP cell library so as to test logic cells inmore » the library. Moreover, we experimentally investigate the maximum wiring length between logic cells. Finally, we present an experimental demonstration of an 8-bit carry look-ahead adder designed using the minimal AQFP cell library and demonstrate that the proposed cell library is sufficiently robust to realize large-scale digital circuits.« less

Adiabatic quantum-flux-parametron cell library adopting minimalist design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takeuchi, Naoki; Yamanashi, Yuki; Yoshikawa, Nobuyuki

2015-05-01

We herein build an adiabatic quantum-flux-parametron (AQFP) cell library adopting minimalist design and a symmetric layout. In the proposed minimalist design, every logic cell is designed by arraying four types of building block cells: buffer, NOT, constant, and branch cells. Therefore, minimalist design enables us to effectively build and customize an AQFP cell library. The symmetric layout reduces unwanted parasitic magnetic coupling and ensures a large mutual inductance in an output transformer, which enables very long wiring between logic cells. We design and fabricate several logic circuits using the minimal AQFP cell library so as to test logic cells in the library. Moreover, we experimentally investigate the maximum wiring length between logic cells. Finally, we present an experimental demonstration of an 8-bit carry look-ahead adder designed using the minimal AQFP cell library and demonstrate that the proposed cell library is sufficiently robust to realize large-scale digital circuits.

Scaling up digital circuit computation with DNA strand displacement cascades.

PubMed

Qian, Lulu; Winfree, Erik

2011-06-03

To construct sophisticated biochemical circuits from scratch, one needs to understand how simple the building blocks can be and how robustly such circuits can scale up. Using a simple DNA reaction mechanism based on a reversible strand displacement process, we experimentally demonstrated several digital logic circuits, culminating in a four-bit square-root circuit that comprises 130 DNA strands. These multilayer circuits include thresholding and catalysis within every logical operation to perform digital signal restoration, which enables fast and reliable function in large circuits with roughly constant switching time and linear signal propagation delays. The design naturally incorporates other crucial elements for large-scale circuitry, such as general debugging tools, parallel circuit preparation, and an abstraction hierarchy supported by an automated circuit compiler.

Agent based models for testing city evacuation strategies under a flood event as strategy to reduce flood risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Medina, Neiler; Sanchez, Arlex; Nokolic, Igor; Vojinovic, Zoran

2016-04-01

This research explores the uses of Agent Based Models (ABM) and its potential to test large scale evacuation strategies in coastal cities at risk from flood events due to extreme hydro-meteorological events with the final purpose of disaster risk reduction by decreasing human's exposure to the hazard. The first part of the paper corresponds to the theory used to build the models such as: Complex adaptive systems (CAS) and the principles and uses of ABM in this field. The first section outlines the pros and cons of using AMB to test city evacuation strategies at medium and large scale. The second part of the paper focuses on the central theory used to build the ABM, specifically the psychological and behavioral model as well as the framework used in this research, specifically the PECS reference model is cover in this section. The last part of this section covers the main attributes or characteristics of human beings used to described the agents. The third part of the paper shows the methodology used to build and implement the ABM model using Repast-Symphony as an open source agent-based modelling and simulation platform. The preliminary results for the first implementation in a region of the island of Sint-Maarten a Dutch Caribbean island are presented and discussed in the fourth section of paper. The results obtained so far, are promising for a further development of the model and its implementation and testing in a full scale city

Challenges and Opportunities to Developing Synergies Among Diverse Environmental Observatories: FSML, NEON, and GLEON

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williamson, C. E.; Weathers, K. C.; Knoll, L. B.; Brentrup, J.

2012-12-01

Recent rapid advances in sensor technology and cyberinfrastructure have enabled the development of numerous environmental observatories ranging from local networks at field stations and marine laboratories (FSML) to continental scale observatories such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to global scale observatories such as the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON). While divergent goals underlie the initial development of these observatories, and they are often designed to serve different communities, many opportunities for synergies exist. In addition, the use of existing infrastructure may enhance the cost-effectiveness of building and maintaining large scale observatories. For example, FSMLs are established facilities with the staff and infrastructure to host sensor nodes of larger networks. Many field stations have existing staff and long-term databases as well as smaller sensor networks that are the product of a single or small group of investigators with a unique data management system embedded in a local or regional community. These field station based facilities and data are a potentially untapped gold mine for larger continental and global scale observatories; common ecological and environmental challenges centered on understanding the impacts of changing climate, land use, and invasive species often underlie these efforts. The purpose of this talk is to stimulate a dialog on the challenges of merging efforts across these different spatial and temporal scales, as well as addressing how to develop synergies among observatory networks with divergent roots and philosophical approaches. For example, FSMLs have existing long-term databases and facilities, while NEON has sparse past data but a well-developed template and closely coordinated team working in a coherent format across a continental scale. GLEON on the other hand is a grass-roots network of experts in science, information technology, and engineering with a common goal of building a scalable network around the world to understand and predict how lakes respond to global change. Creating synergies among networks at these divergent scales requires open discussions ranging from data collection and management to data serving and sharing. Coordination of these efforts can provide an additional opportunity to educate both students and the public in innovative new ways about the broader continental to global scale of ecological and environmental challenges that they have observed in their more local ecosystems.

Think global, act local: Preserving the global commons

PubMed Central

Hauser, Oliver P.; Hendriks, Achim; Rand, David G.; Nowak, Martin A.

2016-01-01

Preserving global public goods, such as the planet’s ecosystem, depends on large-scale cooperation, which is difficult to achieve because the standard reciprocity mechanisms weaken in large groups. Here we demonstrate a method by which reciprocity can maintain cooperation in a large-scale public goods game (PGG). In a first experiment, participants in groups of on average 39 people play one round of a Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) with their two nearest neighbours on a cyclic network after each PGG round. We observe that people engage in “local-to-global” reciprocity, leveraging local interactions to enforce global cooperation: Participants reduce PD cooperation with neighbours who contribute little in the PGG. In response, low PGG contributors increase their contributions if both neighbours defect in the PD. In a control condition, participants do not know their neighbours’ PGG contribution and thus cannot link play in the PD to the PGG. In the control we observe a sharp decline of cooperation in the PGG, while in the treatment condition global cooperation is maintained. In a second experiment, we demonstrate the scalability of this effect: in a 1,000-person PGG, participants in the treatment condition successfully sustain public contributions. Our findings suggest that this simple “local-to-global” intervention facilitates large-scale cooperation. PMID:27808222

A Framework for Daylighting Optimization in Whole Buildings with OpenStudio

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

2016-08-12

We present a toolkit and workflow for leveraging the OpenStudio (Guglielmetti et al. 2010) platform to perform daylighting analysis and optimization in a whole building energy modeling (BEM) context. We have re-implemented OpenStudio's integrated Radiance and EnergyPlus functionality as an OpenStudio Measure. The OpenStudio Radiance Measure works within the OpenStudio Application and Parametric Analysis Tool, as well as the OpenStudio Server large scale analysis framework, allowing a rigorous daylighting simulation to be performed on a single building model or potentially an entire population of programmatically generated models. The Radiance simulation results can automatically inform the broader building energy model, andmore » provide dynamic daylight metrics as a basis for decision. Through introduction and example, this paper illustrates the utility of the OpenStudio building energy modeling platform to leverage existing simulation tools for integrated building energy performance simulation, daylighting analysis, and reportage.« less

Generalized public health and industrial nurses work together. 1949.

PubMed

Schwem, Margaret A

2009-01-01

Occupational health has been considered a subset of public health nursing for years. The first industrial or occupational health nurses were employed by large companies in the 1890s but the role evolved quickly in the early 20(th) century. By mid-century, many large companies employed a physician and nurse(s) to provide examinations, screenings, episodic care, and trauma intervention for workers. Occupational health nurses faced different problems than community-based public health nurses in generalized nursing service. The intersection of public health and employee health was apparent, though, because large industries often constituted the main workplace for a smaller community and sickness could spread throughout a town if the occupational health nurse was not well-prepared in principles of infection control and health promotion. Excerpts from this July 1949 article about building relationship between public health and industrial nurses illustrate the benefits hoped for when they were formally connected to one another through cross-training and in-service education. The author, Margaret Schwem, was a supervisor at the Rensselaer County Department of Health in Troy, New York. In the original article, Schwem included a list of reference materials for those interested in public health and industrial nursing.

Building Data and Information Capacity in Environmental Public Health: A Best-Worst Scaling Experiment.

PubMed

Wallar, Lauren E; Sargeant, Jan M; McEwen, Scott A; Mercer, Nicola J; Papadopoulos, Andrew

Environmental public health practitioners rely on information technology (IT) to maintain and improve environmental health. However, current systems have limited capacity. A better understanding of the importance of IT features is needed to enhance data and information capacity. (1) Rank IT features according to the percentage of respondents who rated them as essential to an information management system and (2) quantify the relative importance of a subset of these features using best-worst scaling. Information technology features were initially identified from a previously published systematic review of software evaluation criteria and a list of software options from a private corporation specializing in inspection software. Duplicates and features unrelated to environmental public health were removed. The condensed list was refined by a working group of environmental public health management to a final list of 57 IT features. The essentialness of features was electronically rated by environmental public health managers. Features where 50% to 80% of respondents rated them as essential (n = 26) were subsequently evaluated using best-worst scaling. Ontario, Canada. Environmental public health professionals in local public health. Importance scores of IT features. The majority of IT features (47/57) were considered essential to an information management system by at least half of the respondents (n = 52). The highest-rated features were delivery to printer, software encryption capability, and software maintenance services. Of the 26 features evaluated in the best-worst scaling exercise, the most important features were orientation to all practice areas, off-line capability, and ability to view past inspection reports and results. The development of a single, unified environmental public health information management system that fulfills the reporting and functionality needs of system users is recommended. This system should be implemented by all public health units to support data and information capacity in local environmental public health. This study can be used to guide vendor evaluation, negotiation, and selection in local environmental public health, and provides an example of academia-practice partnerships and the use of best-worst scaling in public health research.

Acoustical case studies of three green buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siebein, Gary; Lilkendey, Robert; Skorski, Stephen

2005-04-01

Case studies of 3 green buildings with LEED certifications that required extensive acoustical retrofit work to become satisfactory work environments for their intended user groups will be used to define areas where green building design concepts and acoustical design concepts require reconciliation. Case study 1 is an office and conference center for a city environmental education agency. Large open spaces intended to collect daylight through clerestory windows provided large, reverberant volumes with few acoustic finishes that rendered them unsuitable as open office space and a conference room/auditorium. Case Study 2 describes one of the first gold LEED buildings in the southeast whose primary design concepts were so narrowly focused on thermal and lighting issues that they often worked directly against basic acoustical requirements resulting in sound levels of NC 50-55 in classrooms and faculty offices, crosstalk between classrooms and poor room acoustics. Case study 3 is an environmental education and conference center with open public areas, very high ceilings, and all reflective surfaces made from wood and other environmentally friendly materials that result in excessive loudness when the building is used by the numbers of people which it was intended to serve.

Promoting Teaching, Learning and Informed Decision-Making through the Lenses of International Large-Scale Assessment: Looking beyond Numbers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Säljö, Roger; Radišic, Jelena

2018-01-01

Public discussion on the quality of education in different corners of the world very much relies on the data provided by the international large-scale assessment (ILSA) studies. While aware of different methodological keystones and technicalities embedded in these, the idea behind this special issue is to contribute to the understanding of how…

Secondary Analysis and Large-Scale Assessments. Monograph in the Faculty of Education Research Seminar and Workshop Series.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tobin, Kenneth; Fraser, Barry J.

Large scale assessments of educational progress can be useful tools to judge the effectiveness of educational programs and assessments. This document contains papers presented at the research seminar on this topic held at the Western Australian Institute of Technology in November, 1984. It is the fifth in a series of publications of papers…

Effectiveness of Large-Scale Community-Based Intensive Behavioral Intervention: A Waitlist Comparison Study Exploring Outcomes and Predictors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Flanagan, Helen E.; Perry, Adrienne; Freeman, Nancy L.

2012-01-01

File review data were used to explore the impact of a large-scale publicly funded Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI) program for young children with autism. Outcomes were compared for 61 children who received IBI and 61 individually matched children from a waitlist comparison group. In addition, predictors of better cognitive outcomes were…

Public Education Finances: 1949-1985.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Denzau, Arthur

As a part of an overall study of large-scale communications satellite systems for education, an estimate was made of the amount of money available for media-technology for the next five to fifteen years. Information was gathered on public educational expenditures in the United States. Public elementary and secondary school expenditures were…

Mother Nature versus human nature: public compliance with evacuation and quarantine.

PubMed

Manuell, Mary-Elise; Cukor, Jeffrey

2011-04-01

Effectively controlling the spread of contagious illnesses has become a critical focus of disaster planning. It is likely that quarantine will be a key part of the overall public health strategy utilised during a pandemic, an act of bioterrorism or other emergencies involving contagious agents. While the United States lacks recent experience of large-scale quarantines, it has considerable accumulated experience of large-scale evacuations. Risk perception, life circumstance, work-related issues, and the opinions of influential family, friends and credible public spokespersons all play a role in determining compliance with an evacuation order. Although the comparison is not reported elsewhere to our knowledge, this review of the principal factors affecting compliance with evacuations demonstrates many similarities with those likely to occur during a quarantine. Accurate identification and understanding of barriers to compliance allows for improved planning to protect the public more effectively. © 2011 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2011.

Line segment extraction for large scale unorganized point clouds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Yangbin; Wang, Cheng; Cheng, Jun; Chen, Bili; Jia, Fukai; Chen, Zhonggui; Li, Jonathan

2015-04-01

Line segment detection in images is already a well-investigated topic, although it has received considerably less attention in 3D point clouds. Benefiting from current LiDAR devices, large-scale point clouds are becoming increasingly common. Most human-made objects have flat surfaces. Line segments that occur where pairs of planes intersect give important information regarding the geometric content of point clouds, which is especially useful for automatic building reconstruction and segmentation. This paper proposes a novel method that is capable of accurately extracting plane intersection line segments from large-scale raw scan points. The 3D line-support region, namely, a point set near a straight linear structure, is extracted simultaneously. The 3D line-support region is fitted by our Line-Segment-Half-Planes (LSHP) structure, which provides a geometric constraint for a line segment, making the line segment more reliable and accurate. We demonstrate our method on the point clouds of large-scale, complex, real-world scenes acquired by LiDAR devices. We also demonstrate the application of 3D line-support regions and their LSHP structures on urban scene abstraction.

Talking About The Smokes: a large-scale, community-based participatory research project.

PubMed

Couzos, Sophia; Nicholson, Anna K; Hunt, Jennifer M; Davey, Maureen E; May, Josephine K; Bennet, Pele T; Westphal, Darren W; Thomas, David P

2015-06-01

To describe the Talking About The Smokes (TATS) project according to the World Health Organization guiding principles for conducting community-based participatory research (PR) involving indigenous peoples, to assist others planning large-scale PR projects. The TATS project was initiated in Australia in 2010 as part of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, and surveyed a representative sample of 2522 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults to assess the impact of tobacco control policies. The PR process of the TATS project, which aimed to build partnerships to create equitable conditions for knowledge production, was mapped and summarised onto a framework adapted from the WHO principles. Processes describing consultation and approval, partnerships and research agreements, communication, funding, ethics and consent, data and benefits of the research. The TATS project involved baseline and follow-up surveys conducted in 34 Aboriginal community-controlled health services and one Torres Strait community. Consistent with the WHO PR principles, the TATS project built on community priorities and strengths through strategic partnerships from project inception, and demonstrated the value of research agreements and trusting relationships to foster shared decision making, capacity building and a commitment to Indigenous data ownership. Community-based PR methodology, by definition, needs adaptation to local settings and priorities. The TATS project demonstrates that large-scale research can be participatory, with strong Indigenous community engagement and benefits.

mySyntenyPortal: an application package to construct websites for synteny block analysis.

PubMed

Lee, Jongin; Lee, Daehwan; Sim, Mikang; Kwon, Daehong; Kim, Juyeon; Ko, Younhee; Kim, Jaebum

2018-06-05

Advances in sequencing technologies have facilitated large-scale comparative genomics based on whole genome sequencing. Constructing and investigating conserved genomic regions among multiple species (called synteny blocks) are essential in the comparative genomics. However, they require significant amounts of computational resources and time in addition to bioinformatics skills. Many web interfaces have been developed to make such tasks easier. However, these web interfaces cannot be customized for users who want to use their own set of genome sequences or definition of synteny blocks. To resolve this limitation, we present mySyntenyPortal, a stand-alone application package to construct websites for synteny block analyses by using users' own genome data. mySyntenyPortal provides both command line and web-based interfaces to build and manage websites for large-scale comparative genomic analyses. The websites can be also easily published and accessed by other users. To demonstrate the usability of mySyntenyPortal, we present an example study for building websites to compare genomes of three mammalian species (human, mouse, and cow) and show how they can be easily utilized to identify potential genes affected by genome rearrangements. mySyntenyPortal will contribute for extended comparative genomic analyses based on large-scale whole genome sequences by providing unique functionality to support the easy creation of interactive websites for synteny block analyses from user's own genome data.

Investigation the effect of outdoor air infiltration on the heat-shielding characteristics the outer walls of high-rise buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vytchikov, Yu. S.; Kostuganov, A. B.; Saparev, M. E.; Belyakov, I. G.

2018-03-01

The presented article considers the influence of infiltrated outdoor air on the heat-shielding characteristics of the exterior walls of modern residential and public buildings. A review of the sources devoted to this problem confirmed its relevance at the present time, especially for high-rise buildings. The authors of the article analyzed the effect of longitudinal and transverse air infiltration on the heat-shielding characteristics of the outer wall of a 25-story building that was built in Samara. The results showed a significant reduction of the reduced resistance to the heat transfer of the outer wall when air is infiltrated through it. There are the results of full-scale examination of external walls to confirm the calculated data. Based on the results of the study carried out by the authors of the article, general recommendations on the internal finishing of the outer walls of high-rise buildings are given.

Exposure to secondhand smoke among adults - Philippines, 2009.

PubMed

Baquilod, Marina M; Segarra, Agnes B; Barcenas, Glen; Mercado, Susan P; Rarick, James; Palipudi, Krishna Mohan; Asma, Samira; Andes, Linda J; Talley, Brandon

2016-06-01

We assessed the differences in exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) among adults at home, in indoor workplaces, and in various public places in the Philippines across various socio-demographic groups. Data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey conducted in 2009 in the Philippines were used. The data consist of survey answers from 9705 respondents from a nationally representative, multistage probability sample of adults aged 15 years or older. We considered that respondents were exposed to SHS if during the previous 30 days they reported that they lived in a home, worked in a building, or visited a public place where people smoked. The public places included in our analysis were indoor workplaces, public transportation vehicles, restaurants, government buildings or offices, and healthcare facilities. The differences in various socioeconomic and demographic groups' exposure to SHS in these places were also examined. Of respondents who reported working indoors, 36.8% were exposed to SHS. Men (43.3% [95% CI 39.7-46.9]) were more likely than women (28.8% [95% CI 25.4-32.4]) to be exposed to SHS (p < 0.001). Of those working in sites where smoking was not allowed, 13.9% were exposed to SHS, whereas 66.5% were exposed where smoking is allowed in some enclosed areas, and 90.7% were exposed where smoking is allowed everywhere. During the 30 days preceding the survey, more than 50% of those who took public transportation were exposed to SHS; exposure for those who visited public buildings was 33.6% in restaurants, 25.5% in government buildings or offices, and 7.6% in healthcare facilities. Despite a national law passed and several local government ordinances that have promulgated smoke-free workplaces, schools, government offices, and healthcare facilities, our findings show that a large proportion of adults were exposed to SHS at work and in public places, which offers opportunities to strengthen and improve enforcement of the smoke-free initiatives and ordinances in the Philippines. © The Author(s) 2013.

A state-based national network for effective wildlife conservation

USGS Publications Warehouse

Meretsky, Vicky J.; Maguire, Lynn A.; Davis, Frank W.; Stoms, David M.; Scott, J. Michael; Figg, Dennis; Goble, Dale D.; Griffith, Brad; Henke, Scott E.; Vaughn, Jacqueline; Yaffee, Steven L.

2012-01-01

State wildlife conservation programs provide a strong foundation for biodiversity conservation in the United States, building on state wildlife action plans. However, states may miss the species that are at the most risk at rangewide scales, and threats such as novel diseases and climate change increasingly act at regional and national levels. Regional collaborations among states and their partners have had impressive successes, and several federal programs now incorporate state priorities. However, regional collaborations are uneven across the country, and no national counterpart exists to support efforts at that scale. A national conservation-support program could fill this gap and could work across the conservation community to identify large-scale conservation needs and support efforts to meet them. By providing important information-sharing and capacity-building services, such a program would advance collaborative conservation among the states and their partners, thus increasing both the effectiveness and the efficiency of conservation in the United States.

On public space design for Chinese urban residential area based on integrated architectural physics environment evaluation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dong, J. Y.; Cheng, W.; Ma, C. P.; Tan, Y. T.; Xin, L. S.

2017-04-01

The residential public space is an important part in designing the ecological residence, and a proper physics environment of public space is of greater significance to urban residence in China. Actually, the measure to apply computer aided design software into residential design can effectively avoid an inconformity of design intent with actual using condition, and a negative impact on users due to bad architectural physics environment of buildings, etc. The paper largely adopts a design method of analyzing architectural physics environment of residential public space. By analyzing and evaluating various physics environments, a suitability assessment is obtained for residential public space, thereby guiding the space design.

A "white elephant" in the library: a case study on loss of space from the Arizona Health Sciences Library at the University of Arizona.

PubMed

Freiburger, Gary

2010-01-01

The Arizona Health Sciences Library is housed in a 4-story building that serves 4 University of Arizona colleges in Tucson. In October 2005, the dean of the college of medicine informed the library director that one floor of the library had to be converted to open classroom space by June 2006. Library staff planned and participated in the conversion of the space. Twenty thousand seven hundred square feet of library space (34% of public space in the building) was used briefly for large classes but is now rarely used. The space is now largely open and contains a variety of moveable seating and tables not suited for quiet study.

Investigating the Potential of Deep Neural Networks for Large-Scale Classification of Very High Resolution Satellite Images

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Postadjian, T.; Le Bris, A.; Sahbi, H.; Mallet, C.

2017-05-01

Semantic classification is a core remote sensing task as it provides the fundamental input for land-cover map generation. The very recent literature has shown the superior performance of deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN) for many classification tasks including the automatic analysis of Very High Spatial Resolution (VHR) geospatial images. Most of the recent initiatives have focused on very high discrimination capacity combined with accurate object boundary retrieval. Therefore, current architectures are perfectly tailored for urban areas over restricted areas but not designed for large-scale purposes. This paper presents an end-to-end automatic processing chain, based on DCNNs, that aims at performing large-scale classification of VHR satellite images (here SPOT 6/7). Since this work assesses, through various experiments, the potential of DCNNs for country-scale VHR land-cover map generation, a simple yet effective architecture is proposed, efficiently discriminating the main classes of interest (namely buildings, roads, water, crops, vegetated areas) by exploiting existing VHR land-cover maps for training.

Residential solar-heating system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1978-01-01

Complete residential solar-heating and hot-water system, when installed in highly-insulated energy-saver home, can supply large percentage of total energy demand for space heating and domestic hot water. System which uses water-heating energy storage can be scaled to meet requirements of building in which it is installed.

Preliminary design, analysis, and costing of a dynamic scale model of the NASA space station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gronet, M. J.; Pinson, E. D.; Voqui, H. L.; Crawley, E. F.; Everman, M. R.

1987-01-01

The difficulty of testing the next generation of large flexible space structures on the ground places an emphasis on other means for validating predicted on-orbit dynamic behavior. Scale model technology represents one way of verifying analytical predictions with ground test data. This study investigates the preliminary design, scaling and cost trades for a Space Station dynamic scale model. The scaling of nonlinear joint behavior is studied from theoretical and practical points of view. Suspension system interaction trades are conducted for the ISS Dual Keel Configuration and Build-Up Stages suspended in the proposed NASA/LaRC Large Spacecraft Laboratory. Key issues addressed are scaling laws, replication vs. simulation of components, manufacturing, suspension interactions, joint behavior, damping, articulation capability, and cost. These issues are the subject of parametric trades versus the scale model factor. The results of these detailed analyses are used to recommend scale factors for four different scale model options, each with varying degrees of replication. Potential problems in constructing and testing the scale model are identified, and recommendations for further study are outlined.

Creativity of Junior High School’s Students in Designing Earthquake Resistant Buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fitriani, D. N.; Kaniawati, I.; Ramalis, T. R.

2017-09-01

This research was stimulated by the present the territory of Indonesia is largely an area prone to earthquakes and the issue that human resources and disaster response planning process is still less competent and not optimal. In addition, the construction of houses and public facilities has not been in accordance with earthquake-resistant building standards. This study aims to develop students’ creativity through earthquake resistant building model’s projects. The research method used is descriptive qualitative method. The sample is one of the 7th grades consisting of 32 students in one of the junior high schools, Indonesia. Data was collected using an observation sheets and student worksheet. Results showed that students’ creativity in designing earthquake resistant building models varies greatly and yields new solutions to solve problems.

Posttest analysis of a 1:6-scale reinforced concrete reactor containment building

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Weatherby, J.R.

In an experiment conducted at Sandia National Laboratories, 1:6-scale model of a reinforced concrete light water reactor containment building was pressurized with nitrogen gas to more than three times its design pressure. The pressurization produced one large tear and several smaller tears in the steel liner plate that functioned as the primary pneumatic seal for the structure. The data collected from the overpressurization test have been used to evaluate and further refine methods of structural analysis that can be used to predict the performance of containment buildings under conditions produced by a severe accident. This report describes posttest finite elementmore » analyses of the 1:6-scale model tests and compares pretest predictions of the structural response to the experimental results. Strain and displacements calculated in axisymmetric finite element analyses of the 1:6-scale model are compared to strains and displacement measured in the experiment. Detailed analyses of the liner plate are also described in the report. The region of the liner surrounding the large tear was analyzed using two different two-dimensional finite elements model. The results from these analyzed indicate that the primary mechanisms that initiated the tear can be captured in a two- dimensional finite element model. Furthermore, the analyses show that studs used to anchor the liner to the concrete wall, played an important role in initiating the liner tear. Three-dimensional finite element analyses of liner plates loaded by studs are also presented. Results from the three-dimensional analyses are compared to results from two-dimensional analyses of the same problems. 12 refs., 56 figs., 1 tab.« less

Scaling and Optimization of Magnetic Refrigeration for Commercial Building HVAC Systems Greater than 175 kW in Capacity

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Abdelaziz, Omar; West, David L; Mallow, Anne M

Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) account for approximately one- third of building energy consumption. Magnetic refrigeration presents an opportunity for significant energy savings and emissions reduction for serving the building heating, cooling, and refrigeration loads. In this paper, we have examined the magnet and MCE material requirements for scaling magnetic refrigeration systems for commercial building cooling applications. Scaling relationships governing the resources required for magnetic refrigeration systems have been developed. As system refrigeration capacity increases, the use of superconducting magnet systems becomes more applicable, and a comparison is presented of system requirements for permanent and superconducting (SC) magnetization systems.more » Included in this analysis is an investigation of the ability of superconducting magnet based systems to overcome the parasitic power penalty of the cryocooler used to keep SC windings at cryogenic temperatures. Scaling relationships were used to develop the initial specification for a SC magnet-based active magnetic regeneration (AMR) system. An optimized superconducting magnet was designed to support this system. In this analysis, we show that the SC magnet system consisting of two 0.38 m3 regenerators is capable of producing 285 kW of cooling power with a T of 28 K. A system COP of 4.02 including cryocooler and fan losses which illustrates that an SC magnet-based system can operate with efficiency comparable to traditional systems and deliver large cooling powers of 285.4 kW (81.2 Tons).« less

Ice Accretion Test Results for Three Large-Scale Swept-Wing Models in the NASA Icing Research Tunnel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Broeren, Andy; Potapczuk, Mark; Lee, Sam; Malone, Adam; Paul, Ben; Woodard, Brian

2016-01-01

The design and certification of modern transport airplanes for flight in icing conditions increasing relies on three-dimensional numerical simulation tools for ice accretion prediction. There is currently no publically available, high-quality, ice accretion database upon which to evaluate the performance of icing simulation tools for large-scale swept wings that are representative of modern commercial transport airplanes. The purpose of this presentation is to present the results of a series of icing wind tunnel test campaigns whose aim was to provide an ice accretion database for large-scale, swept wings.

Improving data workflow systems with cloud services and use of open data for bioinformatics research.

PubMed

Karim, Md Rezaul; Michel, Audrey; Zappa, Achille; Baranov, Pavel; Sahay, Ratnesh; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich

2017-04-16

Data workflow systems (DWFSs) enable bioinformatics researchers to combine components for data access and data analytics, and to share the final data analytics approach with their collaborators. Increasingly, such systems have to cope with large-scale data, such as full genomes (about 200 GB each), public fact repositories (about 100 TB of data) and 3D imaging data at even larger scales. As moving the data becomes cumbersome, the DWFS needs to embed its processes into a cloud infrastructure, where the data are already hosted. As the standardized public data play an increasingly important role, the DWFS needs to comply with Semantic Web technologies. This advancement to DWFS would reduce overhead costs and accelerate the progress in bioinformatics research based on large-scale data and public resources, as researchers would require less specialized IT knowledge for the implementation. Furthermore, the high data growth rates in bioinformatics research drive the demand for parallel and distributed computing, which then imposes a need for scalability and high-throughput capabilities onto the DWFS. As a result, requirements for data sharing and access to public knowledge bases suggest that compliance of the DWFS with Semantic Web standards is necessary. In this article, we will analyze the existing DWFS with regard to their capabilities toward public open data use as well as large-scale computational and human interface requirements. We untangle the parameters for selecting a preferable solution for bioinformatics research with particular consideration to using cloud services and Semantic Web technologies. Our analysis leads to research guidelines and recommendations toward the development of future DWFS for the bioinformatics research community. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Telephone-administered motivational interviewing to reduce risky sexual behavior in HIV-infected rural persons: a pilot randomized clinical trial.

PubMed

Cosio, David; Heckman, Timothy G; Anderson, Timothy; Heckman, Bernadette D; Garske, John; McCarthy, John

2010-03-01

Although several studies have characterized patterns and predictors of continued risky sexual behavior in HIV-infected rural persons, far less research has evaluated interventions to reduce risky sex in this group. This pilot randomized clinical trial compared 2 brief telephone-administered interventions designed to reduce continued risky sexual behaviors in HIV-infected rural persons. Participants were 79 HIV-infected rural persons who reported 1 or more occasions of unprotected anal, vaginal, or oral sex in the past 2 months. Participants were recruited through AIDS service organizations in rural areas of 27 states and assigned randomly to either a 2-session, motivational interviewing plus skills-building intervention (i.e., integrated intervention; n = 48) or a 2-session, skills-building only comparison intervention (n = 31). Participants completed self-report measures of sexual behaviors and factors related to risky sex at preintervention and 2-month follow-up. Before enrolling into the intervention, 37% of participants had 2 or more sexual partners in the past 2 months, 29% had sex with 1 or more partners without knowing their partners' HIV serostatus, and almost one-third of participants located sex partners in high-risk environments (e.g., public parks, roadside rest areas). A 2 x 2 repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance found that integrated intervention participants reported greater increases in risk-reduction motivation and greater increases in condom-protected vaginal and oral intercourse occasions at follow-up compared to skills-building only participants. Brief telephone-administered interventions that integrate motivational interviewing with skills-building show potential to reduce risky sexual behaviors in HIV-infected rural persons. Additional and large-scale evaluations of this intervention approach appear warranted.

Data assimilation in optimizing and integrating soil and water quality water model predictions at different scales

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Relevant data about subsurface water flow and solute transport at relatively large scales that are of interest to the public are inherently laborious and in most cases simply impossible to obtain. Upscaling in which fine-scale models and data are used to predict changes at the coarser scales is the...

Oceans of opportunity or rough seas? What does the future hold for developments in European marine policy?

PubMed

Potts, Tavis; O'Higgins, Tim; Hastings, Emily

2012-12-13

The management of European seas is undergoing a process of major reform. In the past, oceans and coastal policy has traditionally evolved in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner, developed by different sector-based agencies and arms of government with competing aims and objectives. Recently, the call for integrated and ecosystem-based approaches has driven the conceptualization of a new approach. At the scale of Europe through the Integrated Maritime Policy and Marine Strategy Framework Directive and in national jurisdictions such as the Marine and Coastal Access Act in the United Kingdom, ecosystem-based planning is becoming the norm. There are major challenges to this process and this paper explores, in particular, the opportunities inherent in building truly integrated approaches that cross different sectors of activity, integrate across scales, incorporate public involvement and build a sense of oceans citizenship.

Building Support for Adolescent Sexuality and Reproductive Health Education and Responding to Resistance in Conservative Contexts: Cases From Pakistan.

PubMed

Chandra-Mouli, Venkatraman; Plesons, Marina; Hadi, Sheena; Baig, Qadeer; Lang, Iliana

2018-03-21

Despite international recommendations and supportive evidence, there are few examples of scaled-up and sustained programs to provide adolescents with sexuality education. Moreover, despite acknowledgment that building community support and responding to resistance are key challenges, there is a lack of detailed discussion on specific programmatic strategies to address these issues. This article reviews the work of 2 organizations-Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan-that are successfully implementing large-scale sexuality education programs in Pakistan, collectively reaching more than 500,000 students. This review aims to answer the following questions: (1) How did Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan work to understand Pakistani society and culture and shape their programs to build community support? (2) How did Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan overcome resistance to their efforts? We reviewed program documents and publications, synthesized key themes, identified questions of interest, and engaged key informants from Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan's leadership. The success of Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan was grounded in their readiness to understand the nuanced context within the communities, collaborate with groups of stakeholders-including parents, school officials, religious leaders, media personnel, and adolescents themselves-to ensure support, and stand up to forces of resistance to pursue their goals. Specific strategies included working with communities to select content, tactfully selecting and framing issues with careful consideration for sensitivities, engaging adolescents' influencers, strengthening media presence, showcasing school programs to increase understanding and transparency, and choosing opportune times to introduce messages. The successful strategies used by Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health through sexuality education can inform programs worldwide. Additionally, the programmatic weaknesses identified can guide future planning and action by Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan. We call on other programs to continue sharing challenges, specifically related to resistance, with sexuality education programs in order to develop a toolbox of additional strategies for community uptake. © Chandra-Mouli et al.

SMART Scale An Innovative Program Accelerating the Energy Efficiency Market

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Clark, Colin; Aldridge, Mahlon; Higgins, Cathy

Small business is a major component of the American economy. More than half of all private sector workers in this country are employed by small businesses and nearly two-thirds of the new jobs generated in the last ten years were created in this sector. Studies have shown that buildings of less than 50,000 square feet represent 94% of the commercial sector and half of all non-residential floor space in the United States. The future of the American economy relies on a vibrant, robust, and profitable small business community. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) can increase their profitability by reducing theirmore » operating costs through energy efficiency. The SMART Scale program delivers deep retrofits that maximize energy and cost savings for the SMB market and can be adapted throughout the country in markets of all sizes. For the past 14 years, Ecology Action has been perfecting a Direct Install (DI) program for the SMB market that offers this sector the type of sophisticated, comprehensive energy saving opportunities that were previously available only to large commercial and industrial customers. The DI 2.0 model that Ecology Action has administered for several public and investor-owned California utilities, and most recently for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD), provides the template for a successful retrofit program that can address the unique barriers faced by the SMB sector and achieve a greater impact than traditional DI programs. The impressive results produced by the DI 2.0 program prompted the US Department of Energy to award Ecology Action a $2 million grant in 2013 to create, demonstrate and roll out a replicable model for delivering deep retrofits to small commercial buildings. The grant enabled Ecology Action to build on the success of DI 2.0 by incorporating improvements into the model, market-testing it and designing a costeffective method of achieving significant energy savings for small businesses across the country.« less

Building Support for Adolescent Sexuality and Reproductive Health Education and Responding to Resistance in Conservative Contexts: Cases From Pakistan

PubMed Central

Chandra-Mouli, Venkatraman; Plesons, Marina; Hadi, Sheena; Baig, Qadeer; Lang, Iliana

2018-01-01

Background: Despite international recommendations and supportive evidence, there are few examples of scaled-up and sustained programs to provide adolescents with sexuality education. Moreover, despite acknowledgment that building community support and responding to resistance are key challenges, there is a lack of detailed discussion on specific programmatic strategies to address these issues. Objectives: This article reviews the work of 2 organizations—Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan—that are successfully implementing large-scale sexuality education programs in Pakistan, collectively reaching more than 500,000 students. This review aims to answer the following questions: (1) How did Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan work to understand Pakistani society and culture and shape their programs to build community support? (2) How did Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan overcome resistance to their efforts? Methods: We reviewed program documents and publications, synthesized key themes, identified questions of interest, and engaged key informants from Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan's leadership. Results: The success of Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan was grounded in their readiness to understand the nuanced context within the communities, collaborate with groups of stakeholders—including parents, school officials, religious leaders, media personnel, and adolescents themselves—to ensure support, and stand up to forces of resistance to pursue their goals. Specific strategies included working with communities to select content, tactfully selecting and framing issues with careful consideration for sensitivities, engaging adolescents' influencers, strengthening media presence, showcasing school programs to increase understanding and transparency, and choosing opportune times to introduce messages. Conclusion: The successful strategies used by Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health through sexuality education can inform programs worldwide. Additionally, the programmatic weaknesses identified can guide future planning and action by Aahung and Rutgers Pakistan. We call on other programs to continue sharing challenges, specifically related to resistance, with sexuality education programs in order to develop a toolbox of additional strategies for community uptake. PMID:29444802

Inferring cortical function in the mouse visual system through large-scale systems neuroscience.

PubMed

Hawrylycz, Michael; Anastassiou, Costas; Arkhipov, Anton; Berg, Jim; Buice, Michael; Cain, Nicholas; Gouwens, Nathan W; Gratiy, Sergey; Iyer, Ramakrishnan; Lee, Jung Hoon; Mihalas, Stefan; Mitelut, Catalin; Olsen, Shawn; Reid, R Clay; Teeter, Corinne; de Vries, Saskia; Waters, Jack; Zeng, Hongkui; Koch, Christof

2016-07-05

The scientific mission of the Project MindScope is to understand neocortex, the part of the mammalian brain that gives rise to perception, memory, intelligence, and consciousness. We seek to quantitatively evaluate the hypothesis that neocortex is a relatively homogeneous tissue, with smaller functional modules that perform a common computational function replicated across regions. We here focus on the mouse as a mammalian model organism with genetics, physiology, and behavior that can be readily studied and manipulated in the laboratory. We seek to describe the operation of cortical circuitry at the computational level by comprehensively cataloging and characterizing its cellular building blocks along with their dynamics and their cell type-specific connectivities. The project is also building large-scale experimental platforms (i.e., brain observatories) to record the activity of large populations of cortical neurons in behaving mice subject to visual stimuli. A primary goal is to understand the series of operations from visual input in the retina to behavior by observing and modeling the physical transformations of signals in the corticothalamic system. We here focus on the contribution that computer modeling and theory make to this long-term effort.

The study of integration about measurable image and 4D production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Chunsen; Hu, Pingbo; Niu, Weiyun

2008-12-01

In this paper, we create the geospatial data of three-dimensional (3D) modeling by the combination of digital photogrammetry and digital close-range photogrammetry. For large-scale geographical background, we make the establishment of DEM and DOM combination of three-dimensional landscape model based on the digital photogrammetry which uses aerial image data to make "4D" (DOM: Digital Orthophoto Map, DEM: Digital Elevation Model, DLG: Digital Line Graphic and DRG: Digital Raster Graphic) production. For the range of building and other artificial features which the users are interested in, we realize that the real features of the three-dimensional reconstruction adopting the method of the digital close-range photogrammetry can come true on the basis of following steps : non-metric cameras for data collection, the camera calibration, feature extraction, image matching, and other steps. At last, we combine three-dimensional background and local measurements real images of these large geographic data and realize the integration of measurable real image and the 4D production.The article discussed the way of the whole flow and technology, achieved the three-dimensional reconstruction and the integration of the large-scale threedimensional landscape and the metric building.

The Plant Phenology Ontology: A New Informatics Resource for Large-Scale Integration of Plant Phenology Data.

PubMed

Stucky, Brian J; Guralnick, Rob; Deck, John; Denny, Ellen G; Bolmgren, Kjell; Walls, Ramona

2018-01-01

Plant phenology - the timing of plant life-cycle events, such as flowering or leafing out - plays a fundamental role in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, including human agricultural systems. Because plant phenology is often linked with climatic variables, there is widespread interest in developing a deeper understanding of global plant phenology patterns and trends. Although phenology data from around the world are currently available, truly global analyses of plant phenology have so far been difficult because the organizations producing large-scale phenology data are using non-standardized terminologies and metrics during data collection and data processing. To address this problem, we have developed the Plant Phenology Ontology (PPO). The PPO provides the standardized vocabulary and semantic framework that is needed for large-scale integration of heterogeneous plant phenology data. Here, we describe the PPO, and we also report preliminary results of using the PPO and a new data processing pipeline to build a large dataset of phenology information from North America and Europe.

[Occupational dermatitis in construction and public workers].

PubMed

Frimat, Paul

2002-09-01

Construction workers perform a large variety of duties concerned with building, repairing, and wrecking buildings, bridges, dams, roads, railways and so on. The work may include mixing, pouring and spreading concrete, asphalt, gravel and other materials. Despite the increasing mechanization of construction and the more frequent use of precast concrete sections, contact with wet cement still occurs, particularly in small jobs. The work is hard physical labor, often under difficult conditions, including hot, cold, and wet weather. Occupational diseases of the skin in the construction have paralleled industrial development.

Your Face(book) and MySpace: Let's Hook Up

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gay, P. L.; Foster, T.

2008-06-01

In the public social network venues of MySpace and Facebook, individuals of all ages and nationalities look for like-minded online denizens with whom they can build relationships. Through social networking sites, it is possible for EPO programs to bring together diverse individuals to laugh, learn, and socialize around pet projects and favorite topics. Astronomy is popular among these people, with over 5000 members of the MySpace community listing ``astronomy'' as an interest. By building interesting MySpace and Facebook profiles for your programs, you can plug into the intellectual and social hunger of these individuals. In this workshop, we will discuss the tricks for creating an interesting profile, how to hide such weirdnesses as age and zodiacal sign, and the proper netiquette for nurturing large friends lists and building large communities. Specific emphasis will be given to using Facebook to build one-on-one relationships with program volunteers and students, and how to use MySpace as a way to distribute program announcements to large populations. We will also address the issues of contacting minors, and coping with stalkers and crazies. Come learn how to reach people who already want to learn and love the cosmos, and are just waiting to hear what you have to share.

Building America Case Study: Performance of a Hot-Dry Climate Whole House Retrofit, Stockton, California (Fact Sheet)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

ARBI

2014-09-01

The Stockton house retrofit is a two-story tudor style single family deep retrofit in the hot-dry climate of Stockton, CA. The home is representative of a deep retrofit option of the scaled home energy upgrade packages offered to targeted neighborhoods under the pilot Large-Scale Retrofit Program (LSRP) administered by the Alliance for Residential Building Innovation (ARBI). Deep retrofit packages expand on the standard package by adding HVAC, water heater and window upgrades to the ducting, attic and floor insulation, domestic hot water insulation, envelope sealing, lighting and ventilation upgrades. Site energy savings with the deep retrofit were 23% compared tomore » the pre-retrofit case, and 15% higher than the savings estimated for the standard retrofit package. Energy savings were largely a result of the water heater upgrade, and a combination of the envelope sealing, insulation and HVAC upgrade. The HVAC system was of higher efficiency than the building code standard. Overall the financed retrofit would have been more cost effective had a less expensive HVAC system been selected and barriers to wall insulation remedied. The homeowner experienced improved comfort throughout the monitored period and was satisfied with the resulting utility bill savings.« less

A capacity-building conceptual framework for public health nutrition practice.

PubMed

Baillie, Elizabeth; Bjarnholt, Christel; Gruber, Marlies; Hughes, Roger

2009-08-01

To describe a conceptual framework to assist in the application of capacity-building principles to public health nutrition practice. A review of the literature and consideration of the determinants of effective public health nutrition practice has been used to inform the development of a conceptual framework for capacity building in the context of public health nutrition practice. The limited literature supports a greater integration and application of capacity-building strategies and principles in public health nutrition practice, and that this application should be overt and strategic. A framework is proposed that identifies a number of determinants of capacity for effective public health nutrition action. The framework represents the key foundations for building capacity including leadership, resourcing and intelligence. Five key strategic domains supported by these foundation elements, including partnerships, organisational development, project management quality, workforce development and community development, are proposed. This framework can be used to assist the systematic assessment, development and evaluation of capacity-building activity within public health nutrition practice. Capacity building is a strategy within public health nutrition practice that needs to be central to public health nutrition intervention management. The present paper defines, contextualises and outlines a framework for integrating and making explicit the importance of capacity building within public health nutrition practice at many levels.

Support for solar energy: Examining sense of place and utility-scale development in California

DOE PAGES

Carlisle, Juliet E.; Kane, Stephanie L.; Solan, David; ...

2014-08-20

As solar costs have declined PV systems have experienced considerable growth since 2003, especially in China, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Thus, a more nuanced understanding of a particular public's attitudes toward utility-scale solar development, as it arrives in a market and region, is warranted and will likely be instructive for other areas in the world where this type of development will occur in the near future. Using data collected from a 2013 telephone survey (N=594) from the six Southern Californian counties selected based on existing and proposed solar developments and available suitable land, we examine public attitudes toward solarmore » energy and construction of large-scale solar facilities, testing whether attitudes toward such developments are the result of sense of place and attachment to place. Overall, we have mixed results. Place attachment and sense of place fail to produce significant effects except in terms of perceived positive benefits. That is, respondents interpret the change resulting from large-scale solar development in a positive way insofar as perceived positive economic impacts are positively related to support for nearby large-scale construction.« less

Support for solar energy: Examining sense of place and utility-scale development in California

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Juliet E. Carlisle; Stephanie L. Kane; David Solan

2015-07-01

As solar costs have declined PV systems have experienced considerable growth since 2003, especially in China, Japan, Germany, and the U.S. Thus, a more nuanced understanding of a particular public's attitudes toward utility-scale solar development, as it arrives in a market and region, is warranted and will likely be instructive for other areas in the world where this type of development will occur in the near future. Using data collected from a 2013 telephone survey (N = 594) from the six Southern Californian counties selected based on existing and proposed solar developments and available suitable land, we examine public attitudesmore » toward solar energy and construction of large-scale solar facilities, testing whether attitudes toward such developments are the result of sense of place and attachment to place. Overall, we have mixed results. Place attachment and sense of place fail to produce significant effects except in terms of perceived positive benefits. That is, respondents interpret the change resulting from large-scale solar development in a positive way insofar as perceived positive economic impacts are positively related to support for nearby large-scale construction.« less

Incorporation of spatial interactions in location networks to identify critical geo-referenced routes for assessing disease control measures on a large-scale campus.

PubMed

Wen, Tzai-Hung; Chin, Wei Chien Benny

2015-04-14

Respiratory diseases mainly spread through interpersonal contact. Class suspension is the most direct strategy to prevent the spread of disease through elementary or secondary schools by blocking the contact network. However, as university students usually attend courses in different buildings, the daily contact patterns on a university campus are complicated, and once disease clusters have occurred, suspending classes is far from an efficient strategy to control disease spread. The purpose of this study is to propose a methodological framework for generating campus location networks from a routine administration database, analyzing the community structure of the network, and identifying the critical links and nodes for blocking respiratory disease transmission. The data comes from the student enrollment records of a major comprehensive university in Taiwan. We combined the social network analysis and spatial interaction model to establish a geo-referenced community structure among the classroom buildings. We also identified the critical links among the communities that were acting as contact bridges and explored the changes in the location network after the sequential removal of the high-risk buildings. Instead of conducting a questionnaire survey, the study established a standard procedure for constructing a location network on a large-scale campus from a routine curriculum database. We also present how a location network structure at a campus could function to target the high-risk buildings as the bridges connecting communities for blocking disease transmission.

lidar change detection using building models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Angela M.; Runyon, Scott C.; Jalobeanu, Andre; Esterline, Chelsea H.; Kruse, Fred A.

2014-06-01

Terrestrial LiDAR scans of building models collected with a FARO Focus3D and a RIEGL VZ-400 were used to investigate point-to-point and model-to-model LiDAR change detection. LiDAR data were scaled, decimated, and georegistered to mimic real world airborne collects. Two physical building models were used to explore various aspects of the change detection process. The first model was a 1:250-scale representation of the Naval Postgraduate School campus in Monterey, CA, constructed from Lego blocks and scanned in a laboratory setting using both the FARO and RIEGL. The second model at 1:8-scale consisted of large cardboard boxes placed outdoors and scanned from rooftops of adjacent buildings using the RIEGL. A point-to-point change detection scheme was applied directly to the point-cloud datasets. In the model-to-model change detection scheme, changes were detected by comparing Digital Surface Models (DSMs). The use of physical models allowed analysis of effects of changes in scanner and scanning geometry, and performance of the change detection methods on different types of changes, including building collapse or subsistence, construction, and shifts in location. Results indicate that at low false-alarm rates, the point-to-point method slightly outperforms the model-to-model method. The point-to-point method is less sensitive to misregistration errors in the data. Best results are obtained when the baseline and change datasets are collected using the same LiDAR system and collection geometry.

Microarray Data Processing Techniques for Genome-Scale Network Inference from Large Public Repositories.

PubMed

Chockalingam, Sriram; Aluru, Maneesha; Aluru, Srinivas

2016-09-19

Pre-processing of microarray data is a well-studied problem. Furthermore, all popular platforms come with their own recommended best practices for differential analysis of genes. However, for genome-scale network inference using microarray data collected from large public repositories, these methods filter out a considerable number of genes. This is primarily due to the effects of aggregating a diverse array of experiments with different technical and biological scenarios. Here we introduce a pre-processing pipeline suitable for inferring genome-scale gene networks from large microarray datasets. We show that partitioning of the available microarray datasets according to biological relevance into tissue- and process-specific categories significantly extends the limits of downstream network construction. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our pre-processing pipeline by inferring genome-scale networks for the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana using two different construction methods and a collection of 11,760 Affymetrix ATH1 microarray chips. Our pre-processing pipeline and the datasets used in this paper are made available at http://alurulab.cc.gatech.edu/microarray-pp.

How Large Is the "Public Domain"? A Comparative Analysis of Ringer's 1961 Copyright Renewal Study and HathiTrust CRMS Data

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilkin, John P.

2017-01-01

The 1961 Copyright Office study on renewals, authored by Barbara Ringer, has cast an outsized influence on discussions of the U.S. 1923-1963 public domain. As more concrete data emerge from initiatives such as the large-scale determination process in the Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) project, questions are raised about the reliability…

Gossip-Based Broadcast

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leitão, João; Pereira, José; Rodrigues, Luís

Gossip, or epidemic, protocols have emerged as a powerful strategy to implement highly scalable and resilient reliable broadcast primitives on large scale peer-to-peer networks. Epidemic protocols are scalable because they distribute the load among all nodes in the system and resilient because they have an intrinsic level of redundancy that masks node and network failures. This chapter provides an introduction to gossip-based broadcast on large-scale unstructured peer-to-peer overlay networks: it surveys the main results in the field, discusses techniques to build and maintain the overlays that support efficient dissemination strategies, and provides an in-depth discussion and experimental evaluation of two concrete protocols, named HyParView and Plumtree.

Hierarchical Genetic Analysis of German Cockroach (Blattella germanica) Populations from within Buildings to across Continents

PubMed Central

Vargo, Edward L.; Crissman, Jonathan R.; Booth, Warren; Santangelo, Richard G.; Mukha, Dmitry V.; Schal, Coby

2014-01-01

Understanding the population structure of species that disperse primarily by human transport is essential to predicting and controlling human-mediated spread of invasive species. The German cockroach (Blattella germanica) is a widespread urban invader that can actively disperse within buildings but is spread solely by human-mediated dispersal over longer distances; however, its population structure is poorly understood. Using microsatellite markers we investigated population structure at several spatial scales, from populations within single apartment buildings to populations from several cities across the U.S. and Eurasia. Both traditional measures of genetic differentiation and Bayesian clustering methods revealed increasing levels of genetic differentiation at greater geographic scales. Our results are consistent with active dispersal of cockroaches largely limited to movement within a building. Their low levels of genetic differentiation, yet limited active spread between buildings, suggests a greater likelihood of human-mediated dispersal at more local scales (within a city) than at larger spatial scales (within and between continents). About half the populations from across the U.S. clustered together with other U.S. populations, and isolation by distance was evident across the U.S. Levels of genetic differentiation among Eurasian cities were greater than those in the U.S. and greater than those between the U.S. and Eurasia, but no clear pattern of structure at the continent level was detected. MtDNA sequence variation was low and failed to reveal any geographical structure. The weak genetic structure detected here is likely due to a combination of historical admixture among populations and periodic population bottlenecks and founder events, but more extensive studies are needed to determine whether signatures of global movement may be present in this species. PMID:25020136

Building Design Guidelines for Solar Energy Technologies

DOE R&D Accomplishments Database

Givoni, B.

1989-01-01

There are two main objectives to this publication. The first is to find out the communalities in the experience gained in previous studies and in actual applications of solar technologies in buildings, residential as well as nonresidential. The second objective is to review innovative concepts and products which may have an impact on future developments and applications of solar technologies in buildings. The available information and common lessons were collated and presented in a form which, hopefully, is useful for architects and solar engineers, as well as for teachers of "solar architecture" and students in Architectural Schools. The publication is based mainly on the collection and analysis of relevant information. The information included previous studies in which the performance of solar buildings was evaluated, as well as the personal experience of the Author and the research consultants. The state of the art, as indicated by these studies and personal experience, was summarized and has served as basis for the development of the Design Guidelines. In addition to the summary of the state of the art, as was already applied in solar buildings, an account was given of innovative concepts and products. Such innovations have occurred in the areas of thermal storage by Phase Change Materials (PCM) and in glazing with specialized or changeable properties. Interesting concepts were also developed for light transfer, which may enable to transfer sunlight to the core areas of large multi story nonresidential buildings. These innovations may have a significant impact on future developments of solar technologies and their applications in buildings.

Lifetime evaluation of large format CMOS mixed signal infrared devices

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Linder, A.; Glines, Eddie

2015-09-01

New large scale foundry processes continue to produce reliable products. These new large scale devices continue to use industry best practice to screen for failure mechanisms and validate their long lifetime. The Failure-in-Time analysis in conjunction with foundry qualification information can be used to evaluate large format device lifetimes. This analysis is a helpful tool when zero failure life tests are typical. The reliability of the device is estimated by applying the failure rate to the use conditions. JEDEC publications continue to be the industry accepted methods.

Potential utilization of the NASA/George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in earthquake engineering research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scholl, R. E. (Editor)

1979-01-01

Earthquake engineering research capabilities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facilities at George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Alabama, were evaluated. The results indicate that the NASA/MSFC facilities and supporting capabilities offer unique opportunities for conducting earthquake engineering research. Specific features that are particularly attractive for large scale static and dynamic testing of natural and man-made structures include the following: large physical dimensions of buildings and test bays; high loading capacity; wide range and large number of test equipment and instrumentation devices; multichannel data acquisition and processing systems; technical expertise for conducting large-scale static and dynamic testing; sophisticated techniques for systems dynamics analysis, simulation, and control; and capability for managing large-size and technologically complex programs. Potential uses of the facilities for near and long term test programs to supplement current earthquake research activities are suggested.

Bin recycling strategy for improving the histogram precision on GPU

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cárdenas-Montes, Miguel; Rodríguez-Vázquez, Juan José; Vega-Rodríguez, Miguel A.

2016-07-01

Histogram is an easily comprehensible way to present data and analyses. In the current scientific context with access to large volumes of data, the processing time for building histogram has dramatically increased. For this reason, parallel construction is necessary to alleviate the impact of the processing time in the analysis activities. In this scenario, GPU computing is becoming widely used for reducing until affordable levels the processing time of histogram construction. Associated to the increment of the processing time, the implementations are stressed on the bin-count accuracy. Accuracy aspects due to the particularities of the implementations are not usually taken into consideration when building histogram with very large data sets. In this work, a bin recycling strategy to create an accuracy-aware implementation for building histogram on GPU is presented. In order to evaluate the approach, this strategy was applied to the computation of the three-point angular correlation function, which is a relevant function in Cosmology for the study of the Large Scale Structure of Universe. As a consequence of the study a high-accuracy implementation for histogram construction on GPU is proposed.

DEVELOPMENT OF A SCALABLE, LOW-COST, ULTRANANOCRYSTALLINE DIAMOND ELECTROCHEMICAL PROCESS FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF CONTAMINANTS OF EMERGING CONCERN (CECS) - PHASE II

EPA Science Inventory

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will employ the large scale; highly reliable boron-doped ultrananocrystalline diamond (BD-UNCD®) electrodes developed during Phase I project to build and test Electrochemical Anodic Oxidation process (EAOP)...

The Developmental Evaluation of School Improvement Networks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peurach, Donald J.; Glazer, Joshua L.; Winchell Lenhoff, Sarah

2016-01-01

The national education reform agenda has rapidly expanded to include attention to continuous improvement research in education. The purpose of this analysis is to propose a new approach to "developmental evaluation" aimed at building a foundation for continuous improvement in large-scale school improvement networks, on the argument that…

Architectural and Mobility Management Designs in Internet-Based Infrastructure Wireless Mesh Networks

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhao, Weiyi

2011-01-01

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have recently emerged to be a cost-effective solution to support large-scale wireless Internet access. They have numerous applications, such as broadband Internet access, building automation, and intelligent transportation systems. One research challenge for Internet-based WMNs is to design efficient mobility…

Building software tools to help contextualize and interpret monitoring data

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Even modest monitoring efforts at landscape scales produce large volumes of data.These are most useful if they can be interpreted relative to land potential or other similar sites. However, for many ecological systems reference conditions may not be defined or are poorly described, which hinders und...

Three Conceptual Replication Studies in Group Theory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Melhuish, Kathleen

2018-01-01

Many studies in mathematics education research occur with a nonrepresentative sample and are never replicated. To challenge this paradigm, I designed a large-scale study evaluating student conceptions in group theory that surveyed a national, representative sample of students. By replicating questions previously used to build theory around student…

Detecting Item Drift in Large-Scale Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guo, Hongwen; Robin, Frederic; Dorans, Neil

2017-01-01

The early detection of item drift is an important issue for frequently administered testing programs because items are reused over time. Unfortunately, operational data tend to be very sparse and do not lend themselves to frequent monitoring analyses, particularly for on-demand testing. Building on existing residual analyses, the authors propose…

Effects of Interim Assessments on Student Achievement: Evidence from a Large-Scale Experiment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Konstantopoulos, Spyros; Miller, Shazia R.; van der Ploeg, Arie; Li, Wei

2016-01-01

We use data from a large-scale, school-level randomized experiment conducted in 2010-2011 in public schools in Indiana. Our sample includes more than 30,000 students in 70 schools. We examine the impact of two interim assessment programs (i.e., mCLASS in Grades K-2 and Acuity in Grades 3--8) on mathematics and reading achievement. Two-level models…

Development of Novel Therapeutics for Neglected Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-10-01

Approved for public release; distribution unlimited We undertook planning of kick off coordination meeting. A low dose infection model of CL was validated...A large scale synthesis of PEN optimized and in vitro studies were performed revealed that PEN alters parasite lipidome. Further studies were...Pentalinonsterol, Leishmania, cutaneous leishmaniasis, treatment Accomplishments • Undertook planning of kick off coordination meeting • Large scale synthesis of

What Googling Trends Tell Us About Public Interest in Earthquakes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Y. J.; Maharjan, R.

2017-12-01

Previous studies have shown that immediately after large earthquakes, there is a period of increased public interest. This represents a window of opportunity for science communication and disaster relief fundraising efforts to reach more people. However, how public interest varies for different earthquakes has not been quantified systematically on a global scale. We analyze how global search interest for the term "earthquake" on Google varies following earthquakes of magnitude ≥ 5.5 from 2004 to 2016. We find that there is a spike in search interest after large earthquakes followed by an exponential temporal decay. Preliminary results suggest that the period of increased search interest scales with death toll and correlates with the period of increased media coverage. This suggests that the relationship between the period of increased public interest in earthquakes and death toll might be an effect of differences in media coverage. However, public interest never remains elevated for more than three weeks. Therefore, to take advantage of this short period of increased public interest, science communication and disaster relief fundraising efforts have to act promptly following devastating earthquakes.

Rules of Engagement: Building a College-Going Culture in an Urban School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKillip, Mary E. M.; Godfrey, Kelly E.; Rawls, Anita

2013-01-01

Students who struggle in pursuit of postsecondary education tend to be Latino, Black, low-income, or first-generation college students. This article presents the case of a small public school serving students grades 6-12 from these traditionally underrepresented backgrounds in a large urban school district. Observations revealed that the school…

If You Build It, They Will Scan: Oxford University's Exploration of Community Collections

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lee, Stuart D.; Lindsay, Kate

2009-01-01

Traditional large digitization projects demand massive resources from the central unit (library, museum, or university) that has acquired funding for them. Another model, enabled by easy access to cameras, scanners, and web tools, calls for public contributions to community collections of artifacts. In 2009, the University of Oxford ran a…

75 FR 81204 - Notice of Public Information Collection Requirements Submitted to OMB for Review

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-12-27

... partnership community by building broad and deep relationships with the nongovernmental organization (NGO) community at large. In order to better coordinate the Agency's work with NGOs and to improve the effectiveness and extent of the Agency's outreach to the NGO community, the CFECI is requesting to send out a...

Lignite Research Project.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, Fred

Since it became known in l979 that the Arkansas Power and Light Company was going to build a large electricity generating plant near Hampton and that there would be a lignite mining operation established there to support the power plant, the Warren public schools have been preparing to meet the impact on the schools. Because it was assumed that…

How Institutional Research Can Create and Synthesize Retention and Attrition Information. Professional File Number 108, Fall 2008

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williford, A. Michael; Wadley, Joni Y.

2008-01-01

This study reports how an institutional research office at a large public research university has taken the lead to call attention to retention problems, describe attrition/retention predictors, and influence policy. Building on existing retention theories and previous institutional research studies, the institutional research office began…

Choice, Equity, and the Schools-within-Schools Reform

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ready, Douglas D.; Lee, Valerie E.

2008-01-01

Background/Context: There is general agreement that most public high schools should be smaller than they are. Although the small-schools movement attracts considerable support, there is a general reluctance or inability to close large schools and to build many new small schools. A more cost-effective approach is to divide larger high schools into…

Privatisation in reproductive health services in Pakistan: three case studies.

PubMed

Ravindran, T K Sundari

2010-11-01

Privatisation in Pakistan's health sector was part of the Structural Adjustment Programme that started in 1998 following the country's acute foreign exchange crisis. This paper examines three examples of privatisation which have taken place in service delivery, management and capacity-building functions in the health sector: 1) large-scale contracting out of publicly-funded health services to private, not-for-profit organisations; 2) social marketing/franchising networks providing reproductive health services; and 3) a public-private partnership involving a consortium of private players and the government of Pakistan. It assesses the extent to which these initiatives have contributed to promoting equitable access to good quality, comprehensive reproductive health services. The paper concludes that these forms of privatisation in Pakistan's health sector have at best made available a limited range of fragmented reproductive health services, often of sub-optimal quality, to a fraction of the population, with poor returns in terms of health and survival, especially for women. This analysis has exposed a deep-rooted malaise within the health system as an important contributor to this situation. Sustained investment in health system strengthening is called for, where resources from both public and private sectors are channelled towards achieving health equity, under the stewardship of the state and with active participation by and accountability to members of civil society. Copyright © 2010 Reproductive Health Matters. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

'Ingredients' of a supportive web of caring relationships at the end of life: findings from a community research project in Austria.

PubMed

Wegleitner, Klaus; Schuchter, Patrick; Prieth, Sonja

2018-04-27

In accordance with the pluralisation of life plans in late modernity, the societal organisation of care at the end of life is diverse. Although the public discourse in western societies is dominated by questions about optimising specialised palliative care services, public health approaches, which take into account the social determinants and inequalities in end-of-life care, have gained in importance over the last decade. Conceptual aspects, dimensions of impact and benefit for the dying and their communities are well discussed in the public health end-of-life care research literature. Our research focuses on the preconditions of a supportive caring web in order to understand how communities can build on their social capital to deal with existential uncertainty. As part of a large-scale community research project, we carried out focus groups and interviews with community members. Through dispositive analysis, we generated a set of care-web 'ingredients', which constitute and foster a caring community. These 'ingredients' need to be cultivated through an ongoing process of co-creation. This requires: (i) a focus on relationships and social systems; (ii) the creation of reflective spaces; and (iii) the strengthening of social capital, and d) the addressing of inequalities in care. © 2018 The Authors. Sociology of Health & Illness published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Foundation for SHIL.

Initiation process of earthquakes and its implications for seismic hazard reduction strategy.

PubMed Central

Kanamori, H

1996-01-01

For the average citizen and the public, "earthquake prediction" means "short-term prediction," a prediction of a specific earthquake on a relatively short time scale. Such prediction must specify the time, place, and magnitude of the earthquake in question with sufficiently high reliability. For this type of prediction, one must rely on some short-term precursors. Examinations of strain changes just before large earthquakes suggest that consistent detection of such precursory strain changes cannot be expected. Other precursory phenomena such as foreshocks and nonseismological anomalies do not occur consistently either. Thus, reliable short-term prediction would be very difficult. Although short-term predictions with large uncertainties could be useful for some areas if their social and economic environments can tolerate false alarms, such predictions would be impractical for most modern industrialized cities. A strategy for effective seismic hazard reduction is to take full advantage of the recent technical advancements in seismology, computers, and communication. In highly industrialized communities, rapid earthquake information is critically important for emergency services agencies, utilities, communications, financial companies, and media to make quick reports and damage estimates and to determine where emergency response is most needed. Long-term forecast, or prognosis, of earthquakes is important for development of realistic building codes, retrofitting existing structures, and land-use planning, but the distinction between short-term and long-term predictions needs to be clearly communicated to the public to avoid misunderstanding. Images Fig. 8 PMID:11607657

Large-scale virtual screening on public cloud resources with Apache Spark.

PubMed

Capuccini, Marco; Ahmed, Laeeq; Schaal, Wesley; Laure, Erwin; Spjuth, Ola

2017-01-01

Structure-based virtual screening is an in-silico method to screen a target receptor against a virtual molecular library. Applying docking-based screening to large molecular libraries can be computationally expensive, however it constitutes a trivially parallelizable task. Most of the available parallel implementations are based on message passing interface, relying on low failure rate hardware and fast network connection. Google's MapReduce revolutionized large-scale analysis, enabling the processing of massive datasets on commodity hardware and cloud resources, providing transparent scalability and fault tolerance at the software level. Open source implementations of MapReduce include Apache Hadoop and the more recent Apache Spark. We developed a method to run existing docking-based screening software on distributed cloud resources, utilizing the MapReduce approach. We benchmarked our method, which is implemented in Apache Spark, docking a publicly available target receptor against [Formula: see text]2.2 M compounds. The performance experiments show a good parallel efficiency (87%) when running in a public cloud environment. Our method enables parallel Structure-based virtual screening on public cloud resources or commodity computer clusters. The degree of scalability that we achieve allows for trying out our method on relatively small libraries first and then to scale to larger libraries. Our implementation is named Spark-VS and it is freely available as open source from GitHub (https://github.com/mcapuccini/spark-vs).Graphical abstract.

Building human resilience: the role of public health preparedness and response as an adaptation to climate change.

PubMed

Keim, Mark E

2008-11-01

Global climate change will increase the probability of extreme weather events, including heatwaves, drought, wildfire, cyclones, and heavy precipitation that could cause floods and landslides. Such events create significant public health needs that can exceed local capacity to respond, resulting in excess morbidity or mortality and in the declaration of disasters. Human vulnerability to any disaster is a complex phenomenon with social, economic, health, and cultural dimensions. Vulnerability to natural disasters has two sides: the degree of exposure to dangerous hazards (susceptibility) and the capacity to cope with or recover from disaster consequences (resilience). Vulnerability reduction programs reduce susceptibility and increase resilience. Susceptibility to disasters is reduced largely by prevention and mitigation of emergencies. Emergency preparedness and response and recovery activities--including those that address climate change--increase disaster resilience. Because adaptation must occur at the community level, local public health agencies are uniquely placed to build human resilience to climate-related disasters. This article discusses the role of public health in reducing human vulnerability to climate change within the context of select examples for emergency preparedness and response.

Forced Imbibition in Porous Media: A Fourfold Scenario

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Odier, Céleste; Levaché, Bertrand; Santanach-Carreras, Enric; Bartolo, Denis

2017-11-01

We establish a comprehensive description of the patterns formed when a wetting liquid displaces a viscous fluid confined in a porous medium. Building on model microfluidic experiments, we evidence four imbibition scenarios all yielding different large-scale morphologies. Combining high-resolution imaging and confocal microscopy, we show that they originate from two liquid-entrainment transitions and a Rayleigh-Plateau instability at the pore scale. Finally, we demonstrate and explain the long-time coarsening of the resulting patterns.

Microfluidic large-scale integration: the evolution of design rules for biological automation.

PubMed

Melin, Jessica; Quake, Stephen R

2007-01-01

Microfluidic large-scale integration (mLSI) refers to the development of microfluidic chips with thousands of integrated micromechanical valves and control components. This technology is utilized in many areas of biology and chemistry and is a candidate to replace today's conventional automation paradigm, which consists of fluid-handling robots. We review the basic development of mLSI and then discuss design principles of mLSI to assess the capabilities and limitations of the current state of the art and to facilitate the application of mLSI to areas of biology. Many design and practical issues, including economies of scale, parallelization strategies, multiplexing, and multistep biochemical processing, are discussed. Several microfluidic components used as building blocks to create effective, complex, and highly integrated microfluidic networks are also highlighted.

A dynamical systems approach to studying midlatitude weather extremes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Messori, Gabriele; Caballero, Rodrigo; Faranda, Davide

2017-04-01

Extreme weather occurrences carry enormous social and economic costs and routinely garner widespread scientific and media coverage. The ability to predict these events is therefore a topic of crucial importance. Here we propose a novel predictability pathway for extreme events, by building upon recent advances in dynamical systems theory. We show that simple dynamical systems metrics can be used to identify sets of large-scale atmospheric flow patterns with similar spatial structure and temporal evolution on time scales of several days to a week. In regions where these patterns favor extreme weather, they afford a particularly good predictability of the extremes. We specifically test this technique on the atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic region, where it provides predictability of large-scale wintertime surface temperature extremes in Europe up to 1 week in advance.

The co-evolution of social institutions, demography, and large-scale human cooperation.

PubMed

Powers, Simon T; Lehmann, Laurent

2013-11-01

Human cooperation is typically coordinated by institutions, which determine the outcome structure of the social interactions individuals engage in. Explaining the Neolithic transition from small- to large-scale societies involves understanding how these institutions co-evolve with demography. We study this using a demographically explicit model of institution formation in a patch-structured population. Each patch supports both social and asocial niches. Social individuals create an institution, at a cost to themselves, by negotiating how much of the costly public good provided by cooperators is invested into sanctioning defectors. The remainder of their public good is invested in technology that increases carrying capacity, such as irrigation systems. We show that social individuals can invade a population of asocials, and form institutions that support high levels of cooperation. We then demonstrate conditions where the co-evolution of cooperation, institutions, and demographic carrying capacity creates a transition from small- to large-scale social groups. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

Building Units Design and Scale Chemistry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Férey, Gérard

2000-06-01

The concept of a building unit (BU) is used in two ways: the first is an a posteriori tool for description of structures which can be used to imagine new topologies originating from the description; the second one, restricted to the routes leading to the solid from the solution, starts from the reality of these building units in the solution to design new solids obtained by the tuned precipitation of these BUs with proper counterions. The room temperature and the hydrothermal routes are examined. The existence of BUs with different sizes with close topologies, revealed by numerous examples, leads us to define the notion of "scale chemistry" which concerns the edification of solids with various BUs, either organic, hybrid, or inorganic, and the consequences it has for the corresponding frameworks and the voids they generate. Not only the framework is important, and applications of the existence of large cavities are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of the new trends which arise from this topological concept.

Cross-indexing of binary SIFT codes for large-scale image search.

PubMed

Liu, Zhen; Li, Houqiang; Zhang, Liyan; Zhou, Wengang; Tian, Qi

2014-05-01

In recent years, there has been growing interest in mapping visual features into compact binary codes for applications on large-scale image collections. Encoding high-dimensional data as compact binary codes reduces the memory cost for storage. Besides, it benefits the computational efficiency since the computation of similarity can be efficiently measured by Hamming distance. In this paper, we propose a novel flexible scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) binarization (FSB) algorithm for large-scale image search. The FSB algorithm explores the magnitude patterns of SIFT descriptor. It is unsupervised and the generated binary codes are demonstrated to be dispreserving. Besides, we propose a new searching strategy to find target features based on the cross-indexing in the binary SIFT space and original SIFT space. We evaluate our approach on two publicly released data sets. The experiments on large-scale partial duplicate image retrieval system demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

Using Multicriteria Analysis in Issues Concerning Adaptation of Historic Facilities for the Needs of Public Utility Buildings with a Function of a Theatre

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Obracaj, Piotr; Fabianowski, Dariusz

2017-10-01

Implementations concerning adaptation of historic facilities for public utility objects are associated with the necessity of solving many complex, often conflicting expectations of future users. This mainly concerns the function that includes construction, technology and aesthetic issues. The list of issues is completed with proper protection of historic values, different in each case. The procedure leading to obtaining the expected solution is a multicriteria procedure, usually difficult to accurately define and requiring designer’s large experience. An innovative approach has been used for the analysis, namely - the modified EA FAHP (Extent Analysis Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process) Chang’s method of a multicriteria analysis for the assessment of complex functional and spatial issues. Selection of optimal spatial form of an adapted historic building intended for the multi-functional public utility facility was analysed. The assumed functional flexibility was determined in the scope of: education, conference, and chamber spectacles, such as drama, concerts, in different stage-audience layouts.

Large-scale modular biofiltration system for effective odor removal in a composting facility.

PubMed

Lin, Yueh-Hsien; Chen, Yu-Pei; Ho, Kuo-Ling; Lee, Tsung-Yih; Tseng, Ching-Ping

2013-01-01

Several different foul odors such as nitrogen-containing groups, sulfur-containing groups, and short-chain fatty-acids commonly emitted from composting facilities. In this study, an experimental laboratory-scale bioreactor was scaled up to build a large-scale modular biofiltration system that can process 34 m(3)min(-1)waste gases. This modular reactor system was proven effective in eliminating odors, with a 97% removal efficiency for 96 ppm ammonia, a 98% removal efficiency for 220 ppm amines, and a 100% removal efficiency of other odorous substances. The results of operational parameters indicate that this modular biofiltration system offers long-term operational stability. Specifically, a low pressure drop (<45 mmH2O m(-1)) was observed, indicating that the packing carrier in bioreactor units does not require frequent replacement. Thus, this modular biofiltration system can be used in field applications to eliminate various odors with compact working volume.

The Three Gorges Dam Affects Regional Precipitation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wu, Liguang; Zhang, Qiang; Jiang, Zhihong

2006-01-01

Issues regarding building large-scale dams as a solution to power generation and flood control problems have been widely discussed by both natural and social scientists from various disciplines, as well as the policy-makers and public. Since the Chinese government officially approved the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) projects, this largest hydroelectric project in the world has drawn a lot of debates ranging from its social and economic to climatic impacts. The TGD has been partially in use since June 2003. The impact of the TGD is examined through analysis of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) rainfall rate and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature and high-resolution simulation using the Pennsylvania State University-National Center for Atmospheric Research (PSU-NCAR) fifth-generation Mesoscale Model (MM5). The independent satellite data sets and numerical simulation clearly indicate that the land use change associated with the TGD construction has increased the precipitation in the region between Daba and Qinling mountains and reduced the precipitation in the vicinity of the TGD after the TGD water level abruptly rose from 66 to 135 m in June 2003. This study suggests that the climatic effect of the TGD is on the regional scale (approx.100 km) rather than on the local scale (approx.10 km) as projected in previous studies.

National Water-Quality Assessment program: The Trinity River Basin

USGS Publications Warehouse

Land, Larry F.

1991-01-01

In 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began to implement a full-scale National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program. The long-term goals of the NAWQA program are to describe the status and trends in the quality of a large, representative part of the Nation's surface- and ground-water resources and to provide a sound, scientific understanding of the primary natural and human factors affecting the quality of these resources. In meeting these goals, the program will produce a wealth of water-quality information that will be useful to policy makers and managers at the national, State, and local levels. A major design feature of the NAWQA program will enable water-quality information at different areal scales to be integrated. A major component of the program is study-unit investigations, which comprise the principal building blocks of the program on which national-level assessment activities will be based. The 60 study-unit investigations that make up the program are hydrologic systems that include parts of most major river basins and aquifer systems. These study units cover areas of 1,200 to more than 65,000 square miles and incorporate about 60 to 70 percent of the Nation's water use and population served by public water supply. In 1991, the Trinity River basin study was among the first 20 NAWQA study units selected for study under the full-scale implementation plan.

Integrated energy system for the Asphalt Green Youth Sports and Arts Center and the Fireboat House

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barron, J.; Cole, W.J.

Energy conservation and solar energy measures are described for two old buildings, different in scale and character, that are being recycled by the Neighborhood Committee for the Asphalt Green into a community Sports and Arts Center and an Environmental Studies Center. The approach taken by the Authority in developing the integrated energy system design for the larger, commercial-scale Sports and Arts Center was to incorporate energy conservation and renewable energy measures that minimize life cycle costs. The benefits of this approach are significant. As documented in this report, energy costs will be reduced from about $50,000 per year (in 1979more » dollars) to $15,000 per year. The final design incorporates exterior shell insulation, on-site mechanical equipment, and a wind energy conversion system to generate electricity for the large lighting and cooling requirements, heat recovery from the ventilation exhaust air, generator motors and refrigeration system, and hot and cold thermal storage for load management. The Environmental Studies Center, formerly a fireboat station on the East River, is a smaller residential-scale structure. The approach in developing the renovation plan was to assess retrofit potential for cost-effective energy conservation, solar domestic hot water, and active and passive solar space heating. Energy measures were selected which would maximize educational potential for school children and which could be replicated by the general public.« less

Large-scale building scenes reconstruction from close-range images based on line and plane feature

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ding, Yi; Zhang, Jianqing

2007-11-01

Automatic generate 3D models of buildings and other man-made structures from images has become a topic of increasing importance, those models may be in applications such as virtual reality, entertainment industry and urban planning. In this paper we address the main problems and available solution for the generation of 3D models from terrestrial images. We first generate a coarse planar model of the principal scene planes and then reconstruct windows to refine the building models. There are several points of novelty: first we reconstruct the coarse wire frame model use the line segments matching with epipolar geometry constraint; Secondly, we detect the position of all windows in the image and reconstruct the windows by established corner points correspondences between images, then add the windows to the coarse model to refine the building models. The strategy is illustrated on image triple of college building.

Estimating insured residential losses from large flood scenarios on the Tone River, Japan - a data integration approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okada, T.; McAneney, K. J.; Chen, K.

2011-12-01

Flooding on the Tone River, which drains the largest catchment area in Japan and is now home to 12 million people, poses significant risk to the Greater Tokyo Area. In April 2010, an expert panel in Japan, the Central Disaster Prevention Council, examined the potential for large-scale flooding and outlined possible mitigation measures in the Greater Tokyo Area. One of the scenarios considered closely mimics the pattern of flooding that occurred with the passage of Typhoon Kathleen in 1947 and would potentially flood some 680 000 households above floor level. Building upon that report, this study presents a Geographical Information System (GIS)-based data integration approach to estimate the insurance losses for residential buildings and contents as just one component of the potential financial cost. Using a range of publicly available data - census information, location reference data, insurance market information and flood water elevation data - this analysis finds that insurance losses for residential property alone could reach approximately 1 trillion JPY (US 12.5 billion). Total insurance losses, including commercial and industrial lines of business, are likely to be at least double this figure with total economic costs being much greater again. The results are sensitive to the flood scenario assumed, position of levee failures, local flood depths and extents, population and building heights. The Average Recurrence Interval (ARI) of the rainfall following Typhoon Kathleen has been estimated to be on the order of 200 yr; however, at this juncture it is not possible to put an ARI on the modelled loss since we cannot know the relative or joint probability of the different flooding scenarios. It is possible that more than one of these scenarios could occur simultaneously or that levee failure at one point might lower water levels downstream and avoid a failure at all other points. In addition to insurance applications, spatial analyses like that presented here have implications for emergency management, the cost-benefit of mitigation efforts and land-use planning.

Towards building a disease-phenotype knowledge base: extracting disease-manifestation relationship from literature

PubMed Central

Xu, Rong; Li, Li; Wang, QuanQiu

2013-01-01

Motivation: Systems approaches to studying phenotypic relationships among diseases are emerging as an active area of research for both novel disease gene discovery and drug repurposing. Currently, systematic study of disease phenotypic relationships on a phenome-wide scale is limited because large-scale machine-understandable disease–phenotype relationship knowledge bases are often unavailable. Here, we present an automatic approach to extract disease–manifestation (D-M) pairs (one specific type of disease–phenotype relationship) from the wide body of published biomedical literature. Data and Methods: Our method leverages external knowledge and limits the amount of human effort required. For the text corpus, we used 119 085 682 MEDLINE sentences (21 354 075 citations). First, we used D-M pairs from existing biomedical ontologies as prior knowledge to automatically discover D-M–specific syntactic patterns. We then extracted additional pairs from MEDLINE using the learned patterns. Finally, we analysed correlations between disease manifestations and disease-associated genes and drugs to demonstrate the potential of this newly created knowledge base in disease gene discovery and drug repurposing. Results: In total, we extracted 121 359 unique D-M pairs with a high precision of 0.924. Among the extracted pairs, 120 419 (99.2%) have not been captured in existing structured knowledge sources. We have shown that disease manifestations correlate positively with both disease-associated genes and drug treatments. Conclusions: The main contribution of our study is the creation of a large-scale and accurate D-M phenotype relationship knowledge base. This unique knowledge base, when combined with existing phenotypic, genetic and proteomic datasets, can have profound implications in our deeper understanding of disease etiology and in rapid drug repurposing. Availability: http://nlp.case.edu/public/data/DMPatternUMLS/ Contact: rxx@case.edu PMID:23828786

25 CFR 91.12 - Business enterprises and public buildings.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... 25 Indians 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Business enterprises and public buildings. 91.12 Section... INDIAN VILLAGES, OSAGE RESERVATION, OKLAHOMA § 91.12 Business enterprises and public buildings. No... buildings shall be erected on lands within the boundaries of a village reserve except on tracts described in...

Slovenia’s Construction Act and Implementation Plans: A Case Study of Izola IPA-8

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ažman Momirski, Lucija

2017-10-01

The guidelines for urban design in Izola’s IPA-8 planning area, which is earmarked for hotels, apartment complexes, and sports, specify diverse forms of leisure living space required by modern society. The new tourist complex is not a large monotonous hotel complex, but rather a spatial arrangement in which guests experience an authentic local environment and city residents enjoy the new high-quality ambience. The hotel area is defined by three major communication axes from north to south, linking the countryside to the coastal area and opening up attractive sea views in the new complex. Internal east-west links connect buildings and public spaces. Because of the terraced terrain, a large number of paved ramps and internal public gardens have been designed between the structures. The extensions of the communication axes are laid out as squares, named based on the function of the public spaces. Hotel Street is the central axis and main connecting street, with public hotel services and restaurants. The west axis extends into Culture Square, where activities related to Izola’s culture and history are presented; here there is an opportunity to create new galleries, a small local museum, and an exhibition room. Apartment Square is located on the east communication axis, along which only a limited number of trade, catering, and service activities are planned. The plan received first prize in a public competition, and it later developed into detailed municipal spatial plan. In this process, it became clear that Slovenia’s Construction Act (ZGO-1) does not support plans to create terraced buildings.

Planning building energy conservation research in the US

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Abel, F.; LaMontagne, J.

1988-01-01

In the US, the federal government plays a key role in the development of energy conserving technologies and practices for buildings. The Office of Buildings and Community Systems (BCS) of the US Department of Energy provides federal leadership for both private and public sector activities in building energy conservation. The federal role in recent years has been largely limited to the development of technical options; behavioral and institutional factors are considered only to the extent necessary to inform the research planning process. Planning in the US requires dealing with uncertainties regarding the federal approach to energy conservation; this can change,more » often dramatically, with changes in administrations or changing economic and energy conditions. Thus federal research plans must be designed to be useful in a wide variety of circumstances. 7 refs.« less

Shake Table Testing of an Elevator System in a Full-Scale Five-Story Building

PubMed Central

Wang, Xiang; Hutchinson, Tara C.; Astroza, Rodrigo; Conte, Joel P.; Restrepo, José I.; Hoehler, Matthew S.; Ribeiro, Waldir

2016-01-01

SUMMARY This paper investigates the seismic performance of a functional traction elevator as part of a full-scale five-story building shake table test program. The test building was subjected to a suite of earthquake input motions of increasing intensity, first while the building was isolated at its base, and subsequently while it was fixed to the shake table platen. In addition, low-amplitude white noise base excitation tests were conducted while the elevator system was placed in three different configurations, namely, by varying the vertical location of its cabin and counterweight, to study the acceleration amplifications of the elevator components due to dynamic excitations. During the earthquake tests, detailed observation of the physical damage and operability of the elevator as well as its measured response are reported. Although the cabin and counterweight sustained large accelerations due to impact during these tests, the use of well-restrained guide shoes demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing the cabin and counterweight from derailment during high-intensity earthquake shaking. However, differential displacements induced by the building imposed undesirable distortion of the elevator components and their surrounding support structure, which caused damage and inoperability of the elevator doors. It is recommended that these aspects be explicitly considered in elevator seismic design. PMID:28242957

Shake Table Testing of an Elevator System in a Full-Scale Five-Story Building.

PubMed

Wang, Xiang; Hutchinson, Tara C; Astroza, Rodrigo; Conte, Joel P; Restrepo, José I; Hoehler, Matthew S; Ribeiro, Waldir

2017-03-01

This paper investigates the seismic performance of a functional traction elevator as part of a full-scale five-story building shake table test program. The test building was subjected to a suite of earthquake input motions of increasing intensity, first while the building was isolated at its base, and subsequently while it was fixed to the shake table platen. In addition, low-amplitude white noise base excitation tests were conducted while the elevator system was placed in three different configurations, namely, by varying the vertical location of its cabin and counterweight, to study the acceleration amplifications of the elevator components due to dynamic excitations. During the earthquake tests, detailed observation of the physical damage and operability of the elevator as well as its measured response are reported. Although the cabin and counterweight sustained large accelerations due to impact during these tests, the use of well-restrained guide shoes demonstrated its effectiveness in preventing the cabin and counterweight from derailment during high-intensity earthquake shaking. However, differential displacements induced by the building imposed undesirable distortion of the elevator components and their surrounding support structure, which caused damage and inoperability of the elevator doors. It is recommended that these aspects be explicitly considered in elevator seismic design.

Government stewardship of the for-profit private health sector in Afghanistan

PubMed Central

Sayedi, Omarzaman; Irani, Laili; Archer, Lauren C.; Sears, Kathleen; Sharma, Suneeta

2017-01-01

Abstract Background: Since 2003, Afghanistan's largely unregulated for-profit private health sector has grown at a rapid pace. In 2008, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) launched a long-term stewardship initiative to oversee and regulate private providers and align the sector with national health goals. Aim: We examine the progress the MoPH has made towards more effective stewardship, consider the challenges and assess the early impacts on for-profit performance. Methods: We reviewed publicly available documents, publications and the grey literature to analyse the development, adoption and implementation of strategies, policies and regulations. We carried out a series of key informant/participant interviews, organizational capacity assessments and analyses of hospital standards checklists. Using a literature review of health systems strengthening, we proposed an Afghan-specific definition of six key stewardship functions to assess progress towards MoPH stewardship objectives. Results: The MoPH and its partners have achieved positive results in strengthening its private sector stewardship functions especially in generating actionable intelligence and establishing strategic policy directions, administrative structures and a legal and regulatory framework. Progress has also been made on improving accountability and transparency, building partnerships and applying minimum required standards to private hospitals. Procedural and operational issues still need resolution and the MoPH is establishing mechanisms for resolving them. Conclusions: The MoPH stewardship initiative is notable for its achievements to date under challenging circumstances. Its success is due to the focus on developing a solid policy framework and building institutions and systems aimed at ensuring higher quality private services, and a rational long-term and sustainable role for the private sector. Although the MoPH stewardship initiative is still at an early stage, the evidence suggests that enhanced stewardship functions in the MoPH are leading to a more efficient and effective for-profit private sector. These successful early efforts offer high-leverage potential to rapidly scale up going forward. PMID:27683341

Government stewardship of the for-profit private health sector in Afghanistan.

PubMed

Cross, Harry E; Sayedi, Omarzaman; Irani, Laili; Archer, Lauren C; Sears, Kathleen; Sharma, Suneeta

2017-04-01

Since 2003, Afghanistan's largely unregulated for-profit private health sector has grown at a rapid pace. In 2008, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) launched a long-term stewardship initiative to oversee and regulate private providers and align the sector with national health goals. We examine the progress the MoPH has made towards more effective stewardship, consider the challenges and assess the early impacts on for-profit performance. We reviewed publicly available documents, publications and the grey literature to analyse the development, adoption and implementation of strategies, policies and regulations. We carried out a series of key informant/participant interviews, organizational capacity assessments and analyses of hospital standards checklists. Using a literature review of health systems strengthening, we proposed an Afghan-specific definition of six key stewardship functions to assess progress towards MoPH stewardship objectives. The MoPH and its partners have achieved positive results in strengthening its private sector stewardship functions especially in generating actionable intelligence and establishing strategic policy directions, administrative structures and a legal and regulatory framework. Progress has also been made on improving accountability and transparency, building partnerships and applying minimum required standards to private hospitals. Procedural and operational issues still need resolution and the MoPH is establishing mechanisms for resolving them. The MoPH stewardship initiative is notable for its achievements to date under challenging circumstances. Its success is due to the focus on developing a solid policy framework and building institutions and systems aimed at ensuring higher quality private services, and a rational long-term and sustainable role for the private sector. Although the MoPH stewardship initiative is still at an early stage, the evidence suggests that enhanced stewardship functions in the MoPH are leading to a more efficient and effective for-profit private sector. These successful early efforts offer high-leverage potential to rapidly scale up going forward. © VC The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales (LSD)

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Large Scale Density Estimation of Blue and Fin Whales ...sensors, or both. The goal of this research is to develop and implement a new method for estimating blue and fin whale density that is effective over...develop and implement a density estimation methodology for quantifying blue and fin whale abundance from passive acoustic data recorded on sparse

Evaluation of self-esteem in nursing teachers at public and private universities.

PubMed

Terra, Fábio de Souza; Marziale, Maria Helena Palucci; Robazzi, Maria Lúcia do Carmo Cruz

2013-01-01

The aim of this study was to evaluate the self-esteem of Nursing faculty in public and private universities and compare the measures presented by two groups of teachers. This descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted with 71 teachers from two universities (public and private) from a municipality in the south of the State of Minas Gerais. After pilot testing and validation, A questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were used. It was found that most teachers had high self-esteem, with no significant difference between the two groups. When the continuous scores on this scale were analyzed, there was a significant difference between universities, showing that the private university teachers had lower self-esteem scores. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale showed high value for coefficient alpha. It was concluded that self-esteem was high predominantly in the studied teachers, but those from the private university had lower scores. These data may help institutions to reflect on the issue and invest in building healthy environments, with the worker/teacher of Nursing as the protagonist, which represents advancement in the knowledge of the subject in the field of Nursing.

Tsunami Simulators in Physical Modelling Laboratories - From Concept to Proven Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Allsop, W.; Chandler, I.; Rossetto, T.; McGovern, D.; Petrone, C.; Robinson, D.

2016-12-01

Before 2004, there was little public awareness around Indian Ocean coasts of the potential size and effects of tsunami. Even in 2011, the scale and extent of devastation by the Japan East Coast Tsunami was unexpected. There were very few engineering tools to assess onshore impacts of tsunami, so no agreement on robust methods to predict forces on coastal defences, buildings or related infrastructure. Modelling generally used substantial simplifications of either solitary waves (far too short durations) or dam break (unrealistic and/or uncontrolled wave forms).This presentation will describe research from EPI-centre, HYDRALAB IV, URBANWAVES and CRUST projects over the last 10 years that have developed and refined pneumatic Tsunami Simulators for the hydraulic laboratory. These unique devices have been used to model generic elevated and N-wave tsunamis up to and over simple shorelines, and at example defences. They have reproduced full-duration tsunamis including the Mercator trace from 2004 at 1:50 scale. Engineering scale models subjected to those tsunamis have measured wave run-up on simple slopes, forces on idealised sea defences and pressures / forces on buildings. This presentation will describe how these pneumatic Tsunami Simulators work, demonstrate how they have generated tsunami waves longer than the facility within which they operate, and will highlight research results from the three generations of Tsunami Simulator. Of direct relevance to engineers and modellers will be measurements of wave run-up levels and comparison with theoretical predictions. Recent measurements of forces on individual buildings have been generalized by separate experiments on buildings (up to 4 rows) which show that the greatest forces can act on the landward (not seaward) buildings. Continuing research in the 70m long 4m wide Fast Flow Facility on tsunami defence structures have also measured forces on buildings in the lee of a failed defence wall.

Transformation of Public Kindergartens in Shenzhen: Internet Study of Public Views

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Li, Hui; Wang, X. Christine

2008-01-01

Since the early 1990s, the central government of China has been gradually privatizing early childhood education. As the main precursor of this large-scale reform in the country, Shenzhen has witnessed several innovative as well as radical changes. The existing public early childhood settings in the city were therefore forced to transform into…

Centimeter-Scale 2D van der Waals Vertical Heterostructures Integrated on Deformable Substrates Enabled by Gold Sacrificial Layer-Assisted Growth.

PubMed

Islam, Md Ashraful; Kim, Jung Han; Schropp, Anthony; Kalita, Hirokjyoti; Choudhary, Nitin; Weitzman, Dylan; Khondaker, Saiful I; Oh, Kyu Hwan; Roy, Tania; Chung, Hee-Suk; Jung, Yeonwoong

2017-10-11

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) such as molybdenum or tungsten disulfides (MoS 2 or WS 2 ) exhibit extremely large in-plane strain limits and unusual optical/electrical properties, offering unprecedented opportunities for flexible electronics/optoelectronics in new form factors. In order for them to be technologically viable building-blocks for such emerging technologies, it is critically demanded to grow/integrate them onto flexible or arbitrary-shaped substrates on a large wafer-scale compatible with the prevailing microelectronics processes. However, conventional approaches to assemble them on such unconventional substrates via mechanical exfoliations or coevaporation chemical growths have been limited to small-area transfers of 2D TMD layers with uncontrolled spatial homogeneity. Moreover, additional processes involving a prolonged exposure to strong chemical etchants have been required for the separation of as-grown 2D layers, which is detrimental to their material properties. Herein, we report a viable strategy to universally combine the centimeter-scale growth of various 2D TMD layers and their direct assemblies on mechanically deformable substrates. By exploring the water-assisted debonding of gold (Au) interfaced with silicon dioxide (SiO 2 ), we demonstrate the direct growth, transfer, and integration of 2D TMD layers and heterostructures such as 2D MoS 2 and 2D MoS 2 /WS 2 vertical stacks on centimeter-scale plastic and metal foil substrates. We identify the dual function of the Au layer as a growth substrate as well as a sacrificial layer which facilitates 2D layer transfer. Furthermore, we demonstrate the versatility of this integration approach by fabricating centimeter-scale 2D MoS 2 /single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) vertical heterojunctions which exhibit current rectification and photoresponse. This study opens a pathway to explore large-scale 2D TMD van der Waals layers as device building blocks for emerging mechanically deformable electronics/optoelectronics.

Modeling Security Bridge Certificate Authority Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ren, Yizhi; Li, Mingchu; Sakurai, Kouichi

Current Public Key Infrastructures suffer from a scaling problem, and some may have security problems, even given the topological simplification of bridge certification authorities. This paper analyzes the security problems in Bridge Certificate Authorities (BCA) model by using the concept of “impersonation risk, ” and proposes a new modified BCA model, which enhances its security, but is a bit more complex incertification path building and implementation than the existing one.

European security framework for healthcare.

PubMed

Ruotsalainen, Pekka; Pohjonen, Hanna

2003-01-01

eHealth and telemedicine services are promising business areas in Europe. It is clear that eHealth products and services will be sold and ordered from a distance and over national borderlines in the future. However, there are many barriers to overcome. For both national and pan-European eHealth and telemedicine applications a common security framework is needed. These frameworks set security requirements needed for cross-border eHealth services. The next step is to build a security infrastructure which is independent of technical platforms. Most of the European eHealth platforms are regional or territorial. Some countries are looking for a Public Key Infrastructure, but no large scale solutions do exist in healthcare. There is no clear candidate solution for European-wide interoperable eHealth platform. Gross-platform integration seems to be the most practical integration method at a European level in the short run. The use of Internet as a European integration platform is a promising solution in the long run.

BioPartsBuilder: a synthetic biology tool for combinatorial assembly of biological parts.

PubMed

Yang, Kun; Stracquadanio, Giovanni; Luo, Jingchuan; Boeke, Jef D; Bader, Joel S

2016-03-15

Combinatorial assembly of DNA elements is an efficient method for building large-scale synthetic pathways from standardized, reusable components. These methods are particularly useful because they enable assembly of multiple DNA fragments in one reaction, at the cost of requiring that each fragment satisfies design constraints. We developed BioPartsBuilder as a biologist-friendly web tool to design biological parts that are compatible with DNA combinatorial assembly methods, such as Golden Gate and related methods. It retrieves biological sequences, enforces compliance with assembly design standards and provides a fabrication plan for each fragment. BioPartsBuilder is accessible at http://public.biopartsbuilder.org and an Amazon Web Services image is available from the AWS Market Place (AMI ID: ami-508acf38). Source code is released under the MIT license, and available for download at https://github.com/baderzone/biopartsbuilder joel.bader@jhu.edu Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press.

Quantification of flood risk mitigation benefits: A building-scale damage assessment through the RASOR platform.

PubMed

Arrighi, Chiara; Rossi, Lauro; Trasforini, Eva; Rudari, Roberto; Ferraris, Luca; Brugioni, Marcello; Franceschini, Serena; Castelli, Fabio

2018-02-01

Flood risk mitigation usually requires a significant investment of public resources and cost-effectiveness should be ensured. The assessment of the benefits of hydraulic works requires the quantification of (i) flood risk in absence of measures, (ii) risk in presence of mitigation works, (iii) investments to achieve acceptable residual risk. In this work a building-scale is adopted to estimate direct tangible flood losses to several building classes (e.g. residential, industrial, commercial, etc.) and respective contents, exploiting various sources of public open data in a GIS environment. The impact simulations for assigned flood hazard scenarios are computed through the RASOR platform which allows for an extensive characterization of the properties and their vulnerability through libraries of stage-damage curves. Recovery and replacement costs are estimated based on insurance data, market values and socio-economic proxies. The methodology is applied to the case study of Florence (Italy) where a system of retention basins upstream of the city is under construction to reduce flood risk. Current flood risk in the study area (70 km 2 ) is about 170 Mio euros per year without accounting for people, infrastructures, cultural heritage and vehicles at risk. The monetary investment in the retention basins is paid off in about 5 years. However, the results show that although hydraulic works are cost-effective, a significant residual risk has to be managed and the achievement of the desired level of acceptable risk would require about 1 billion euros of investments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Zero Energy Building Pays for Itself: Odyssey Elementary

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Torcellini, Paul A

Odyssey Elementary is a large public school in an area of Utah with a growing population. Created as a prototype for the Davis School District, Odyssey is a zero energy building whose design has already been copied for two other new schools, both of which are targeting zero energy. It has a unique design with four 'houses' (or classroom wings) featuring generously daylit classrooms. This design contributes to the school's energy efficiency. In an effort to integrate positive messages about fitness into the learning environment, each house has a different take on the theme of 'bodies in motion' in themore » natural world. In a postoccupancy survey of parents, students, and teachers, more than 87% were satisfied with the building overall.« less

Invention, design and performance of coconut agrowaste fiberboards for ecologically efficacious buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lokko, Mae-ling Jovenes

As global quantities of waste by-products from food production as well as the range of their applications increase, researchers are realizing critical opportunities to transform the burden of underutilized wastes into ecological profits. Within the tropical hot-humid region, where half the world's current and projected future population growth is concentrated, there is a dire demand for building materials to meet ambitious development schemes and rising housing deficits. However, the building sector has largely overlooked the potential of local agricultural wastes to serve as alternatives to energy-intensive, imported building technologies. Industrial ecologists have recently investigated the use of agrowaste biocomposites to replace conventional wood products that use harmful urea-formaldehyde, phenolic and isocyanate resins. Furthermore, developments in the performance of building material systems with respect to cost, energy, air quality management and construction innovation have evolved metrics about what constitutes material 'upcycling' within building life cycle. While these developments have largely been focused on technical and cost performance, much less attention has been paid to addressing deeply-seated social and cultural barriers to adoption that have sedimented over decades of importation. This dissertation evaluates the development coconut agricultural building material systems in four phases: (i) non-toxic, low-energy production of medium-high density boards (500-1200 kg/m3) from coconut fibers and emerging biobinders; (ii) characterization and evaluation of coconut agricultural building materials hygrothermal performance (iii) scaled-up design development of coconut modular building material systems and (iv) development of a value translation framework for the bottom-up distribution of value to stakeholders within the upcycling framework. This integrated design methodological approach is significant to develop ecological thinking around agrowaste building materials, influence social and cultural acceptability and create value translation frameworks that sufficiently characterize the composite value proposition of upcycled building systems.

Linking native and invader traits explains native spider population responses to plant invasion

Treesearch

Jennifer N. Smith; Douglas J. Emlen; Dean E. Pearson

2016-01-01

Theoretically, the functional traits of native species should determine how natives respond to invader-driven changes. To explore this idea, we simulated a large-scale plant invasion using dead spotted knapweed (Centaurea stoebe) stems to determine if native spiders' web-building behaviors could explain differences in spider population responses to...

Designing Large-Scale Multisite and Cluster-Randomized Studies of Professional Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kelcey, Ben; Spybrook, Jessaca; Phelps, Geoffrey; Jones, Nathan; Zhang, Jiaqi

2017-01-01

We develop a theoretical and empirical basis for the design of teacher professional development studies. We build on previous work by (a) developing estimates of intraclass correlation coefficients for teacher outcomes using two- and three-level data structures, (b) developing estimates of the variance explained by covariates, and (c) modifying…

Improving Teacher Practice: Teachers' Perspectives on Capacity-Building Initiatives in Literacy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mattos, Joseph C.

2011-01-01

Educational research over the past 15 years shows that schools and school districts have, on a large scale, failed to translate reform goals into improved teacher practice and student learning. Although classroom teachers are central to successful school reform, research has rarely examined how teachers experience reform initiatives and how that…

The Water Turbine: An Integrative STEM Education Context

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Grubbs, Michael E.; Deck, Anita

2015-01-01

Water turbines have long been used to make work easier for humans while minimizing energy consumption. They are not only used in small- and large-scale operations, but also provide a great context for Integrative STEM education. Students can begin to understand the technological processes available by designing, building, and testing different…

Building Effective Green Energy Programs in Community Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bozell, Maureen R.; Liston, Cynthia D.

2010-01-01

Community colleges across the country are engaged in large-scale federal and state initiatives to train low-income individuals for the nascent field that's become known as "green jobs." Many green economy advocates believe that green jobs training can be part of career pathways that help move unemployed and disconnected individuals--who are often…

How Today's Undergraduate Students See Themselves as Tomorrow's Socially Responsible Leaders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ricketts, Kristina G.; Bruce, Jacklyn A.; Ewing, John C.

2008-01-01

A new generation of leaders is needed not only to build local partnerships in today's communities, but to assume all positions of leadership. Undergraduate students within a College of Agricultural Sciences at a large land grant university were given the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SLRS) to determine their self-perception of leadership…

Unsettling Ourselves: Some Thoughts on Non-Native Participation in Decolonization Work

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Soltys, Matt

2011-01-01

The ecological impact of colonialism is inextricable from empire building, industrialism, large-scale deforestation, and agriculture. Not long ago one could safely drink from nearly every lake, river, stream, and spring, and one could hunt animals as a part of intact ecosystems. Today's world is very different. Colonization alters the reality…

From Networked Learning to Operational Practice: Constructing and Transferring Superintendent Knowledge in a Regional Instructional Rounds Network

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Travis, Timothy J.

2015-01-01

Instructional rounds are an emerging network structure with processes and protocols designed to develop superintendents' knowledge and skills in leading large-scale improvement, to enable superintendents to build an infrastructure that supports the work of improvement, to assist superintendents in distributing leadership throughout their district,…

Solar energy use in U.S. agriculture. Overview and policy issues

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Using solar energy on farms for livestock watering, electric fence charging, and building lighting is not new in the United States, but in the past five years, solar energy is now being used more for large scale irrigation, heating water in dairies, and running motors/appliances in farm houses and b...

Virtual Environments Supporting Learning and Communication in Special Needs Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cobb, Sue V. G.

2007-01-01

Virtual reality (VR) describes a set of technologies that allow users to explore and experience 3-dimensional computer-generated "worlds" or "environments." These virtual environments can contain representations of real or imaginary objects on a small or large scale (from modeling of molecular structures to buildings, streets, and scenery of a…

The Building of Multimedia Communications Network based on Session Initiation Protocol

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuexiao, Han; Yanfu, Zhang

In this paper, we presented a novel design for a distributed multimedia communications network. We introduced the distributed tactic, flow procedure and particular structure. We also analyzed its scalability, stability, robustness, extension, and transmission delay of this architecture. Finally, the result shows our framework is suitable for very large scale communications.

Building the Case for Large Scale Behavioral Education Adoptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Layng, Zachary R.; Layng, T. V. Joe

2012-01-01

Behaviorally-designed educational programs are often based on a research tradition that is not widely understood by potential users of the programs. Though the data may be sound and the prediction of outcomes for individual learners quite good, those advocating adoption of behaviorally-designed educational programs may need to do more in order to…

Influence of small-scale disturbances by kangaroo rats on Chihuahuan Desert ants

Treesearch

R. L. Schooley; B. T. Bestelmeyer; J. F. Kelly

2000-01-01

Banner-tailed kangaroo rats (Dipodomys spectabilis) are prominent ecosystem engineers that build large mounds that influence the spatial structuring of fungi, plants, and some ground-dwelling animals. Ants are diverse and functionally important components of arid ecosystems; some species are also ecosystem engineers. We investigated the effects of...

SOCRAT Platform Design: A Web Architecture for Interactive Visual Analytics Applications

PubMed Central

Kalinin, Alexandr A.; Palanimalai, Selvam; Dinov, Ivo D.

2018-01-01

The modern web is a successful platform for large scale interactive web applications, including visualizations. However, there are no established design principles for building complex visual analytics (VA) web applications that could efficiently integrate visualizations with data management, computational transformation, hypothesis testing, and knowledge discovery. This imposes a time-consuming design and development process on many researchers and developers. To address these challenges, we consider the design requirements for the development of a module-based VA system architecture, adopting existing practices of large scale web application development. We present the preliminary design and implementation of an open-source platform for Statistics Online Computational Resource Analytical Toolbox (SOCRAT). This platform defines: (1) a specification for an architecture for building VA applications with multi-level modularity, and (2) methods for optimizing module interaction, re-usage, and extension. To demonstrate how this platform can be used to integrate a number of data management, interactive visualization, and analysis tools, we implement an example application for simple VA tasks including raw data input and representation, interactive visualization and analysis. PMID:29630069

SOCRAT Platform Design: A Web Architecture for Interactive Visual Analytics Applications.

PubMed

Kalinin, Alexandr A; Palanimalai, Selvam; Dinov, Ivo D

2017-04-01

The modern web is a successful platform for large scale interactive web applications, including visualizations. However, there are no established design principles for building complex visual analytics (VA) web applications that could efficiently integrate visualizations with data management, computational transformation, hypothesis testing, and knowledge discovery. This imposes a time-consuming design and development process on many researchers and developers. To address these challenges, we consider the design requirements for the development of a module-based VA system architecture, adopting existing practices of large scale web application development. We present the preliminary design and implementation of an open-source platform for Statistics Online Computational Resource Analytical Toolbox (SOCRAT). This platform defines: (1) a specification for an architecture for building VA applications with multi-level modularity, and (2) methods for optimizing module interaction, re-usage, and extension. To demonstrate how this platform can be used to integrate a number of data management, interactive visualization, and analysis tools, we implement an example application for simple VA tasks including raw data input and representation, interactive visualization and analysis.

Rigging dark haloes: why is hierarchical galaxy formation consistent with the inside-out build-up of thin discs?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pichon, C.; Pogosyan, D.; Kimm, T.; Slyz, A.; Devriendt, J.; Dubois, Y.

2011-12-01

State-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations show that gas inflow through the virial sphere of dark matter haloes is focused (i.e. has a preferred inflow direction), consistent (i.e. its orientation is steady in time) and amplified (i.e. the amplitude of its advected specific angular momentum increases with time). We explain this to be a consequence of the dynamics of the cosmic web within the neighbourhood of the halo, which produces steady, angular momentum rich, filamentary inflow of cold gas. On large scales, the dynamics within neighbouring patches drives matter out of the surrounding voids, into walls and filaments before it finally gets accreted on to virialized dark matter haloes. As these walls/filaments constitute the boundaries of asymmetric voids, they acquire a net transverse motion, which explains the angular momentum rich nature of the later infall which comes from further away. We conjecture that this large-scale driven consistency explains why cold flows are so efficient at building up high-redshift thin discs inside out.

Measuring public opinion on alcohol policy: a factor analytic study of a US probability sample.

PubMed

Latimer, William W; Harwood, Eileen M; Newcomb, Michael D; Wagenaar, Alexander C

2003-03-01

Public opinion has been one factor affecting change in policies designed to reduce underage alcohol use. Extant research, however, has been criticized for using single survey items of unknown reliability to define adult attitudes on alcohol policy issues. The present investigation addresses a critical gap in the literature by deriving scales on public attitudes, knowledge, and concerns pertinent to alcohol policies designed to reduce underage drinking using a US probability sample survey of 7021 adults. Five attitudinal scales were derived from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses addressing policies to: (1) regulate alcohol marketing, (2) regulate alcohol consumption in public places, (3) regulate alcohol distribution, (4) increase alcohol taxes, and (5) regulate youth access. The scales exhibited acceptable psychometric properties and were largely consistent with a rational framework which guided the survey construction.

Age distribution of human gene families shows significant roles of both large- and small-scale duplications in vertebrate evolution.

PubMed

Gu, Xun; Wang, Yufeng; Gu, Jianying

2002-06-01

The classical (two-round) hypothesis of vertebrate genome duplication proposes two successive whole-genome duplication(s) (polyploidizations) predating the origin of fishes, a view now being seriously challenged. As the debate largely concerns the relative merits of the 'big-bang mode' theory (large-scale duplication) and the 'continuous mode' theory (constant creation by small-scale duplications), we tested whether a significant proportion of paralogous genes in the contemporary human genome was indeed generated in the early stage of vertebrate evolution. After an extensive search of major databases, we dated 1,739 gene duplication events from the phylogenetic analysis of 749 vertebrate gene families. We found a pattern characterized by two waves (I, II) and an ancient component. Wave I represents a recent gene family expansion by tandem or segmental duplications, whereas wave II, a rapid paralogous gene increase in the early stage of vertebrate evolution, supports the idea of genome duplication(s) (the big-bang mode). Further analysis indicated that large- and small-scale gene duplications both make a significant contribution during the early stage of vertebrate evolution to build the current hierarchy of the human proteome.

New Markets for Solar Photovoltaic Power Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thomas, Chacko; Jennings, Philip; Singh, Dilawar

2007-10-01

Over the past five years solar photovoltaic (PV) power supply systems have matured and are now being deployed on a much larger scale. The traditional small-scale remote area power supply systems are still important and village electrification is also a large and growing market but large scale, grid-connected systems and building integrated systems are now being deployed in many countries. This growth has been aided by imaginative government policies in several countries and the overall result is a growth rate of over 40% per annum in the sales of PV systems. Optimistic forecasts are being made about the future of PV power as a major source of sustainable energy. Plans are now being formulated by the IEA for very large-scale PV installations of more than 100 MW peak output. The Australian Government has announced a subsidy for a large solar photovoltaic power station of 154 MW in Victoria, based on the concentrator technology developed in Australia. In Western Australia a proposal has been submitted to the State Government for a 2 MW photovoltaic power system to provide fringe of grid support at Perenjori. This paper outlines the technologies, designs, management and policies that underpin these exciting developments in solar PV power.

Out Flying the Eagle: China’s Drive for Domestic Economic Innovation and Its Impact on U.S.-China Relations

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-01

wind turbines from General Electric. China recognizes the issues with IPR but it is something that will take time to fix. It will be a significant...Large aircraft  Large-scale oil and gas exploration  Manned space, including lunar exploration  Next-generation broadband wireless ...circuits, and building an innovation system for China’s integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing industry. 3. New generation broadband wireless mobile

Towards physics responsible for large-scale Lyman-α forest bias parameters

DOE PAGES

Agnieszka M. Cieplak; Slosar, Anze

2016-03-08

Using a series of carefully constructed numerical experiments based on hydrodynamic cosmological SPH simulations, we attempt to build an intuition for the relevant physics behind the large scale density (b δ) and velocity gradient (b η) biases of the Lyman-α forest. Starting with the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation applied to the smoothed total density field in real-space, and progressing through redshift-space with no thermal broadening, redshift-space with thermal broadening and hydrodynamically simulated baryon fields, we investigate how approximations found in the literature fare. We find that Seljak's 2012 analytical formulae for these bias parameters work surprisingly well in the limit ofmore » no thermal broadening and linear redshift-space distortions. We also show that his b η formula is exact in the limit of no thermal broadening. Since introduction of thermal broadening significantly affects its value, we speculate that a combination of large-scale measurements of b η and the small scale flux PDF might be a sensitive probe of the thermal state of the IGM. Lastly, we find that large-scale biases derived from the smoothed total matter field are within 10–20% to those based on hydrodynamical quantities, in line with other measurements in the literature.« less

Towards physics responsible for large-scale Lyman-α forest bias parameters

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Agnieszka M. Cieplak; Slosar, Anze

Using a series of carefully constructed numerical experiments based on hydrodynamic cosmological SPH simulations, we attempt to build an intuition for the relevant physics behind the large scale density (b δ) and velocity gradient (b η) biases of the Lyman-α forest. Starting with the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation applied to the smoothed total density field in real-space, and progressing through redshift-space with no thermal broadening, redshift-space with thermal broadening and hydrodynamically simulated baryon fields, we investigate how approximations found in the literature fare. We find that Seljak's 2012 analytical formulae for these bias parameters work surprisingly well in the limit ofmore » no thermal broadening and linear redshift-space distortions. We also show that his b η formula is exact in the limit of no thermal broadening. Since introduction of thermal broadening significantly affects its value, we speculate that a combination of large-scale measurements of b η and the small scale flux PDF might be a sensitive probe of the thermal state of the IGM. Lastly, we find that large-scale biases derived from the smoothed total matter field are within 10–20% to those based on hydrodynamical quantities, in line with other measurements in the literature.« less

Conservation and adaptation to climate change.

PubMed

Brooke, Cassandra

2008-12-01

The need to adapt to climate change has become increasingly apparent, and many believe the practice of biodiversity conservation will need to alter to face this challenge. Conservation organizations are eager to determine how they should adapt their practices to climate change. This involves asking the fundamental question of what adaptation to climate change means. Most studies on climate change and conservation, if they consider adaptation at all, assume it is equivalent to the ability of species to adapt naturally to climate change as stated in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Adaptation, however, can refer to an array of activities that range from natural adaptation, at one end of the spectrum, to sustainability science in coupled human and natural systems at the other. Most conservation organizations deal with complex systems in which adaptation to climate change involves making decisions on priorities for biodiversity conservation in the face of dynamic risks and involving the public in these decisions. Discursive methods such as analytic deliberation are useful for integrating scientific knowledge with public perceptions and values, particularly when large uncertainties and risks are involved. The use of scenarios in conservation planning is a useful way to build shared understanding at the science-policy interface. Similarly, boundary organizations-organizations or institutions that bridge different scales or mediate the relationship between science and policy-could prove useful for managing the transdisciplinary nature of adaptation to climate change, providing communication and brokerage services and helping to build adaptive capacity. The fact that some nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are active across the areas of science, policy, and practice makes them well placed to fulfill this role in integrated assessments of biodiversity conservation and adaptation to climate change.

Evaluating Intention and Effect: The Impact of Healthcare Facility Design on Patient and Staff Well-Being.

PubMed

Alvaro, Celeste; Wilkinson, Andrea J; Gallant, Sara N; Kostovski, Deyan; Gardner, Paula

2016-01-01

This post occupancy evaluation (POE) assessed the impact of architectural design on psychosocial well-being among patients and staff in the context of a new complex continuing care and rehabilitation facility. Departing from typical POEs, the hospital design intentions formed the theoretical basis to assess outcomes. Intentions included creating an environment of wellness; enhancing connection to the community, the city, and nature; enhancing opportunities for social interaction; and inspiring activity. A pretest-posttest quasi experiment, including quantitative surveys, assessed the impact of the building design on well-being outcomes across three facilities-the new hospital, the former hospital, and a comparison facility with a similar population. With the exception of connection to neighborhood (for patients) and opportunities to visit with others (for staff) and wayfinding (for patients and staff), impressions of the new hospital mirrored the design intentions relative to the former hospital and the comparison facility among patients and staff. Perceptions of improvement in mental health, self-efficacy in mobility, satisfaction, and interprofessional interactions were enhanced at the new hospital relative to the former hospital, whereas optimism, depressive symptoms, general well-being, burnout, and intention to quit did not vary. Interestingly, patients and staff with favorable impressions of the building design fared better on most well-being-related outcomes relative to those with less favorable impressions. Beyond the value of assessing the impact of the design intentions on outcomes, the approach used in this study would benefit evaluation strategies across a diversity of health and other public and large-scale buildings. © The Author(s) 2015.

Indoor Air Quality of Residential Building Before and After Renovation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sánka, Imrich; Földváry, Veronika

2017-06-01

This study investigates the impact of energy renovation on the indoor air quality of an apartment building during the heating season. The study was performed in one residential building before and after its renovation. An evaluation of the indoor air quality was performed using objective measurements and a subjective survey. The concentration of CO2 was measured in the bedrooms, and a sampling of the total volatile compounds (TVOC) was performed in the living rooms of the selected apartments. Higher concentrations of CO2 and TVOC were observed in the residential building after its renovation. The concentrations of CO2, and TVOC in some of the cases exceeded the recommended maximum limits, especially after implementing energy-saving measures on the building. The average air exchange rate was visibly higher before the renovation of the building. The current study indicates that large-scale renovations may reduce the quality of an indoor environment in many apartments, especially in the winter season.

Improving efficiency of polystyrene concrete production with composite binders

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lesovik, R. V.; Ageeva, M. S.; Lesovik, G. A.; Sopin, D. M.; Kazlitina, O. V.; Mitrokhina, A. A.

2018-03-01

According to leading marketing researchers, the construction market in Russia and CIS will continue growing at a rapid rate; this applies not only to a large-scale major construction, but to a construction of single-family houses and small-scale industrial facilities as well. Due to this, there are increased requirements for heat insulation of the building enclosures and a significant demand for efficient walling materials with high thermal performance. All these developments led to higher requirements imposed on the equipment that produces such materials.

In Rhode Island, Building a bRIdge to the Knowledge Economy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Leonard, Adam

2012-01-01

In 2008, Rhode Island was in the early stages of refocusing its economic development efforts on transitioning to a knowledge-based economy. This move would require an educated workforce, largely deemed the responsibility of the state's 11 public and private institutions of higher education. For a state with slightly over a million residents and…

Healthy Schools: Lessons for a Clean Educational Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

US Environmental Protection Agency, 2008

2008-01-01

More than 53 million children and 6 million adults in the United States spend their days in elementary and secondary schools. Reducing environmental risks inside these buildings is critical to maintaining the public health. Almost all of New England's children will spend a large portion of their childhood in school. To help children stay healthy,…

Leadership, Hermandad (Brother/Sisterhood), and Organizational Culture: Crossing Boundaries to Build Collaborative Relationships among Latino Fraternal Organizations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heredia, Anna-Maria

2013-01-01

The purpose of the study is to explore the identity development and organizational culture of a student organization, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations council (NALFO) by implementing a community of practice approach at a large, public university in southwestern United States. The objective is to construct a sustainable…

Energy harvesting from wood floor vibration using a piezoelectric generator

Treesearch

Jiangming Kan; Robert J. Ross; Xiping Wang; Wenbin Li

2017-01-01

Vibration can occur in wood floor systems as a consequence of a variety of human activities, ranging from common daily movements associated with individuals living in homes to high-intensity activities associated with sporting events that are held in large sports arenas. For example, the potential for harvesting energy from a wooden floor system in public buildings...

Evaluating trade-offs of a large, infrequent sediment diversion for restoration of a forested wetland in the Mississippi delta

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rutherford, Jeffrey S.; Day, John W.; D'Elia, Christopher F.; Wiegman, Adrian R. H.; Willson, Clinton S.; Caffey, Rex H.; Shaffer, Gary P.; Lane, Robert R.; Batker, David

2018-04-01

Flood control levees cut off the supply of sediment to Mississippi delta coastal wetlands, and contribute to putting much of the delta on a trajectory for continued submergence in the 21st century. River sediment diversions have been proposed as a method to provide a sustainable supply of sediment to the delta, but the frequency and magnitude of these diversions needs further assessment. Previous studies suggested operating river sediment diversions based on the size and frequency of natural crevasse events, which were large (>5000 m3/s) and infrequent (active < once a year) in the last naturally active delta. This study builds on these previous works by quantitatively assessing tradeoffs for a large, infrequent diversion into the forested wetlands of the Maurepas swamp. Land building was estimated for several diversion sizes and years inactive using a delta progradation model. A benefit-cost analysis (BCA) combined model land building results with an ecosystem service valuation and estimated costs. Results demonstrated that land building is proportional to diversion size and inversely proportional to years inactive. Because benefits were assumed to scale linearly with land gain, and costs increase with diversion size, there are disadvantages to operating large diversions less often, compared to smaller diversions more often for the immediate project area. Literature suggests that infrequent operation would provide additional gains (through increased benefits and reduced ecosystem service costs) to the broader Lake Maurepas-Pontchartrain-Borgne ecosystem. Future research should incorporate these additional effects into this type of BCA, to see if this changes the outcome for large, infrequent diversions.

Four-center bubbled BPS solutions with a Gibbons-Hawking base

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heidmann, Pierre

2017-10-01

We construct four-center bubbled BPS solutions with a Gibbons-Hawking base space. We give a systematic procedure to build scaling solutions: starting from three-supertube configurations and using generalized spectral flows and gauge transformations to extend to solutions with four Gibbons-Hawking centers. This allows us to construct very large families of smooth horizonless solutions that have the same charges and angular momentum as supersymmetric black holes with a macroscopically large horizon area. Our construction reveals that all scaling solutions with four Gibbons Hawking centers have an angular momentum at around 99% of the cosmic censorship bound. We give both an analytical and a numerical explanation for this unexpected feature.

36 CFR 1280.80 - How do I request to use NARA public areas in the National Archives Building?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false How do I request to use NARA public areas in the National Archives Building? 1280.80 Section 1280.80 Parks, Forests, and Public... Apply to Use NARA Public Areas in the Washington, DC, Area? National Archives Building, Washington, Dc...

36 CFR 1280.80 - How do I request to use NARA public areas in the National Archives Building?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false How do I request to use NARA public areas in the National Archives Building? 1280.80 Section 1280.80 Parks, Forests, and Public... Apply to Use NARA Public Areas in the Washington, DC, Area? National Archives Building, Washington, Dc...

Statistical analysis of electromagnetic radiation measurements in the vicinity of GSM/UMTS base station installed on buildings in Serbia.

PubMed

Koprivica, Mladen; Slavkovic, Vladimir; Neskovic, Natasa; Neskovic, Aleksandar

2016-03-01

As a result of dense deployment of public mobile base stations, additional electromagnetic (EM) radiation occurs in the modern human environment. At the same time, public concern about the exposure to EM radiation emitted by such sources has increased. In order to determine the level of radio frequency radiation generated by base stations, extensive EM field strength measurements were carried out for 664 base station locations, from which 276 locations refer to the case of base stations with antenna system installed on buildings. Having in mind the large percentage (42 %) of locations with installations on buildings, as well as the inevitable presence of people in their vicinity, a detailed analysis of this location category was performed. Measurement results showed that the maximum recorded value of total electric field strength has exceeded International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection general public exposure reference levels at 2.5 % of locations and Serbian national reference levels at 15.6 % of locations. It should be emphasised that the values exceeding the reference levels were observed only outdoor, while in indoor total electric field strength in no case exceeded the defined reference levels. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Bottom-up production of meta-atoms for optical magnetism in visible and NIR light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barois, Philippe; Ponsinet, Virginie; Baron, Alexandre; Richetti, Philippe

2018-02-01

Many unusual optical properties of metamaterials arise from the magnetic response of engineered structures of sub-wavelength size (meta-atoms) exposed to light. The top-down approach whereby engineered nanostructure of well-defined morphology are engraved on a surface proved to be successful for the generation of strong optical magnetism. It faces however the limitations of high cost and small active area in visible light where nanometre resolution is needed. The bottom-up approach whereby the fabrication metamaterials of large volume or large area results from the combination of nanochemitry and self-assembly techniques may constitute a cost-effective alternative. This approach nevertheless requires the large-scale production of functional building-blocks (meta-atoms) bearing a strong magnetic optical response. We propose in this paper a few tracks that lead to the large scale synthesis of magnetic metamaterials operating in visible or near IR light.

Liver diseases: A major, neglected global public health problem requiring urgent actions and large-scale screening.

PubMed

Marcellin, Patrick; Kutala, Blaise K

2018-02-01

CLDs represent an important, and certainly underestimated, global public health problem. CLDs are highly prevalent and silent, related to different, sometimes associated causes. The distribution of the causes of these diseases is slowly changing, and within the next decade, the proportion of virus-induced CLDs will certainly decrease significantly while the proportion of NASH will increase. There is an urgent need for effective global actions including education, prevention and early diagnosis to manage and treat CLDs, thus preventing cirrhosis-related morbidity and mortality. Our role is to increase the awareness of the public, healthcare professionals and public health authorities to encourage active policies for early management that will decrease the short- and long-term public health burden of these diseases. Because necroinflammation is the key mechanism in the progression of CLDs, it should be detected early. Thus, large-scale screening for CLDs is needed. ALT levels are an easy and inexpensive marker of liver necroinflammation and could be the first-line tool in this process. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Costs and Operating Dynamics of Integrating Distributed Energy Resources in Commercial and Industrial Buildings with Electric Vehicle Charging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Flores, Robert Joseph

Growing concerns over greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions have increased the pressure to shift energy conversion paradigms from current forms to more sustainable methods, such as through the use of distributed energy resources (DER) at industrial and commercial buildings. This dissertation is concerned with the optimal design and dispatch of a DER system installed at an industrial or commercial building. An optimization model that accurately captures typical utility costs and the physical constraints of a combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) system is designed to size and operate a DER system at a building. The optimization model is then used with cooperative game theory to evaluate the financial performance of a CCHP investment. The CCHP model is then modified to include energy storage, solar powered generators, alternative fuel sources, carbon emission limits, and building interactions with public and fleet PEVs. Then, a separate plugin electric vehicle (PEV) refueling model is developed to determine the cost to operate a public Level 3 fast charging station. The CCHP design and dispatch results show the size of the building load and consistency of the thermal loads are critical to positive financial performance. While using the CCHP system to produce cooling can provide savings, heat production drives positive financial performance. When designing the DER system to reduce carbon emissions, the use of renewable fuels can allow for a gas turbine system with heat recovery to reduce carbon emissions for a large university by 67%. Further reductions require large photovoltaic installations coupled with energy storage or the ability to export electricity back to the grid if costs are to remain relatively low. When considering Level 3 fast charging equipment, demand charges at low PEV travel levels are sufficiently high to discourage adoption. Integration of the equipment can reduce demand charge costs only if the building maximum demand does not coincide with PEV refueling. Electric vehicle refueling does not typically affect DER design at low PEV travel levels, but can as electric vehicle travel increases. However, as PEV travel increases, the stochastic nature of PEV refueling disappears, and the optimization problem may become deterministic.

Angular Momentum Transport in Thin Magnetically Arrested Disks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marshall, Megan D.; Avara, Mark J.; McKinney, Jonathan C.

2018-05-01

In accretion disks with large-scale ordered magnetic fields, the magnetorotational instability (MRI) is marginally suppressed, so other processes may drive angular momentum transport leading to accretion. Accretion could then be driven by large-scale magnetic fields via magnetic braking, and large-scale magnetic flux can build-up onto the black hole and within the disk leading to a magnetically-arrested disk (MAD). Such a MAD state is unstable to the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability, which itself leads to vigorous turbulence and the emergence of low-density highly-magnetized bubbles. This instability was studied in a thin (ratio of half-height H to radius R, H/R ≈ 0.1) MAD simulation, where it has a more dramatic effect on the dynamics of the disk than for thicker disks. Large amounts of flux are pushed off the black hole into the disk, leading to temporary decreases in stress, then this flux is reprocessed as the stress increases again. Throughout this process, we find that the dominant component of the stress is due to turbulent magnetic fields, despite the suppression of the axisymmetric MRI and the dominant presence of large-scale magnetic fields. This suggests that the magnetic RT instability plays a significant role in driving angular momentum transport in MADs.

Applications of Optimal Building Energy System Selection and Operation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Marnay, Chris; Stadler, Michael; Siddiqui, Afzal

2011-04-01

Berkeley Lab has been developing the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) for several years. Given load curves for energy services requirements in a building microgrid (u grid), fuel costs and other economic inputs, and a menu of available technologies, DER-CAM finds the optimum equipment fleet and its optimum operating schedule using a mixed integer linear programming approach. This capability is being applied using a software as a service (SaaS) model. Optimisation problems are set up on a Berkeley Lab server and clients can execute their jobs as needed, typically daily. The evolution of this approach is demonstrated bymore » description of three ongoing projects. The first is a public access web site focused on solar photovoltaic generation and battery viability at large commercial and industrial customer sites. The second is a building CO2 emissions reduction operations problem for a University of California, Davis student dining hall for which potential investments are also considered. And the third, is both a battery selection problem and a rolling operating schedule problem for a large County Jail. Together these examples show that optimization of building u grid design and operation can be effectively achieved using SaaS.« less

Trends in Public Library Buildings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holt, Raymond M.

1987-01-01

Review of trends in public library buildings covers cycles in building activity; financial support; site selection; expansion, remodeling, or conversion of existing buildings; size of buildings; and such architectural concerns as flexible space, lighting, power, accommodation of computer systems, heat and ventilation, fire protection, security,…

Towards Large-area Field-scale Operational Evapotranspiration for Water Use Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Senay, G. B.; Friedrichs, M.; Morton, C.; Huntington, J. L.; Verdin, J.

2017-12-01

Field-scale evapotranspiration (ET) estimates are needed for improving surface and groundwater use and water budget studies. Ideally, field-scale ET estimates would be at regional to national levels and cover long time periods. As a result of large data storage and computational requirements associated with processing field-scale satellite imagery such as Landsat, numerous challenges remain to develop operational ET estimates over large areas for detailed water use and availability studies. However, the combination of new science, data availability, and cloud computing technology is enabling unprecedented capabilities for ET mapping. To demonstrate this capability, we used Google's Earth Engine cloud computing platform to create nationwide annual ET estimates with 30-meter resolution Landsat ( 16,000 images) and gridded weather data using the Operational Simplified Surface Energy Balance (SSEBop) model in support of the National Water Census, a USGS research program designed to build decision support capacity for water management agencies and other natural resource managers. By leveraging Google's Earth Engine Application Programming Interface (API) and developing software in a collaborative, open-platform environment, we rapidly advance from research towards applications for large-area field-scale ET mapping. Cloud computing of the Landsat image archive combined with other satellite, climate, and weather data, is creating never imagined opportunities for assessing ET model behavior and uncertainty, and ultimately providing the ability for more robust operational monitoring and assessment of water use at field-scales.

The construction and legitimation of workplace bullying in the public sector: insight into power dynamics and organisational failures in health and social care.

PubMed

Hutchinson, Marie; Jackson, Debra

2015-03-01

Health-care and public sector institutions are high-risk settings for workplace bullying. Despite growing acknowledgement of the scale and consequence of this pervasive problem, there has been little critical examination of the institutional power dynamics that enable bullying. In the aftermath of large-scale failures in care standards in public sector healthcare institutions, which were characterised by managerial bullying, attention to the nexus between bullying, power and institutional failures is warranted. In this study, employing Foucault's framework of power, we illuminate bullying as a feature of structures of power and knowledge in public sector institutions. Our analysis draws upon the experiences of a large sample (n = 3345) of workers in Australian public sector agencies - the type with which most nurses in the public setting will be familiar. In foregrounding these power dynamics, we provide further insight into how cultures that are antithetical to institutional missions can arise and seek to broaden the debate on the dynamics of care failures within public sector institutions. Understanding the practices of power in public sector institutions, particularly in the context of ongoing reform, has important implications for nursing. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Space Weather Research at the National Science Foundation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moretto, T.

2015-12-01

There is growing recognition that the space environment can have substantial, deleterious, impacts on society. Consequently, research enabling specification and forecasting of hazardous space effects has become of great importance and urgency. This research requires studying the entire Sun-Earth system to understand the coupling of regions all the way from the source of disturbances in the solar atmosphere to the Earth's upper atmosphere. The traditional, region-based structure of research programs in Solar and Space physics is ill suited to fully support the change in research directions that the problem of space weather dictates. On the observational side, dense, distributed networks of observations are required to capture the full large-scale dynamics of the space environment. However, the cost of implementing these is typically prohibitive, especially for measurements in space. Thus, by necessity, the implementation of such new capabilities needs to build on creative and unconventional solutions. A particularly powerful idea is the utilization of new developments in data engineering and informatics research (big data). These new technologies make it possible to build systems that can collect and process huge amounts of noisy and inaccurate data and extract from them useful information. The shift in emphasis towards system level science for geospace also necessitates the development of large-scale and multi-scale models. The development of large-scale models capable of capturing the global dynamics of the Earth's space environment requires investment in research team efforts that go beyond what can typically be funded under the traditional grants programs. This calls for effective interdisciplinary collaboration and efficient leveraging of resources both nationally and internationally. This presentation will provide an overview of current and planned initiatives, programs, and activities at the National Science Foundation pertaining to space weathe research.

Mars Public Mapping Project: Public Participation in Science Research; Providing Opportunities for Kids of All Ages

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rogers, L. D.; Valderrama Graff, P.; Bandfield, J. L.; Christensen, P. R.; Klug, S. L.; Deva, B.; Capages, C.

2007-12-01

The Mars Public Mapping Project is a web-based education and public outreach tool developed by the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. This tool allows the general public to identify and map geologic features on Mars, utilizing Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) visible images, allowing public participation in authentic scientific research. In addition, participants are able to rate each image (based on a 1 to 5 star scale) to help build a catalog of some of the more appealing and interesting martian surface features. Once participants have identified observable features in an image, they are able to view a map of the global distribution of the many geologic features they just identified. This automatic feedback, through a global distribution map, allows participants to see how their answers compare to the answers of other participants. Participants check boxes "yes, no, or not sure" for each feature that is listed on the Mars Public Mapping Project web page, including surface geologic features such as gullies, sand dunes, dust devil tracks, wind streaks, lava flows, several types of craters, and layers. Each type of feature has a quick and easily accessible description and example image. When a participant moves their mouse over each example thumbnail image, a window pops up with a picture and a description of the feature. This provides a form of "on the job training" for the participants that can vary with their background level. For users who are more comfortable with Mars geology, there is also an advanced feature identification section accessible by a drop down menu. This includes additional features that may be identified, such as streamlined islands, valley networks, chaotic terrain, yardangs, and dark slope streaks. The Mars Public Mapping Project achieves several goals: 1) It engages the public in a manner that encourages active participation in scientific research and learning about geologic features and processes. 2) It helps to build a mappable database that can be used by researchers (and the public in general) to quickly access image based data that contains particular feature types. 3) It builds a searchable database of images containing specific geologic features that the public deem to be visually appealing. Other education and public outreach programs at the Mars Space Flight Facility, such as the Rock Around the World and the Mars Student Imaging Project, have shown an increase in demand for programs that allow "kids of all ages" to participate in authentic scientific research. The Mars Public Mapping Project is a broadly accessible program that continues this theme by building a set of activities that is useful for both the public and scientists.

Ecological fire use for ecological fire management: Managing large wildfires by design

Treesearch

Timothy Ingalsbee

2015-01-01

Past fire exclusion policies and fire suppression actions have led to a historic "fire deficit" on public wildlands. These sociocultural actions have led to unprecedented environmental changes that have created conditions conducive to more frequent large-scale wildfires. Politicians, the newsmedia, and agency officials portray large wildland fires as...

Gravity versus radiation models: on the importance of scale and heterogeneity in commuting flows.

PubMed

Masucci, A Paolo; Serras, Joan; Johansson, Anders; Batty, Michael

2013-08-01

We test the recently introduced radiation model against the gravity model for the system composed of England and Wales, both for commuting patterns and for public transportation flows. The analysis is performed both at macroscopic scales, i.e., at the national scale, and at microscopic scales, i.e., at the city level. It is shown that the thermodynamic limit assumption for the original radiation model significantly underestimates the commuting flows for large cities. We then generalize the radiation model, introducing the correct normalization factor for finite systems. We show that even if the gravity model has a better overall performance the parameter-free radiation model gives competitive results, especially for large scales.

A VLSI decomposition of the deBruijn graph

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Collins, O.; Dolinar, S.; Mceliece, R.; Pollara, F.

1990-01-01

A new Viterbi decoder for convolutional codes with constraint lengths up to 15, called the Big Viterbi Decoder, is under development for the Deep Space Network. It will be demonstrated by decoding data from the Galileo spacecraft, which has a rate 1/4, constraint-length 15 convolutional encoder on board. Here, the mathematical theory underlying the design of the very-large-scale-integrated (VLSI) chips that are being used to build this decoder is explained. The deBruijn graph B sub n describes the topology of a fully parallel, rate 1/v, constraint length n+2 Viterbi decoder, and it is shown that B sub n can be built by appropriately wiring together (i.e., connecting together with extra edges) many isomorphic copies of a fixed graph called a B sub n building block. The efficiency of such a building block is defined as the fraction of the edges in B sub n that are present in the copies of the building block. It is shown, among other things, that for any alpha less than 1, there exists a graph G which is a B sub n building block of efficiency greater than alpha for all sufficiently large n. These results are illustrated by describing a special hierarchical family of deBruijn building blocks, which has led to the design of the gate-array chips being used in the Big Viterbi Decoder.

Developing a comprehensive curriculum for public health advocacy.

PubMed

Hines, Ayelet; Jernigan, David H

2012-11-01

There is a substantial gap in public health school curricula regarding advocacy. Development of such a curriculum faces three challenges: faculty lack advocacy skills and experience; the public health literature on effective advocacy is limited; and yet a successful curriculum must be scalable to meet the needs of approximately 9,000 public health students graduating each year. To meet these challenges, we propose a 100-hour interactive online curriculum in five sections: campaigning and organizing, policy making and lobbying, campaign communications, new media, and fund-raising. We outline the content for individual modules in each of these sections, describe how the curriculum would build on existing interactive learning and social media technologies, and provide readers the opportunity to "test-drive" excerpts of a module on "grasstops" organizing. Developing advocacy skills and expertise is critical to meeting the challenges of public health today, and we provide a blueprint for how such training might be brought to scale in the field.

CLINICAL SURFACES - Activity-Based Computing for Distributed Multi-Display Environments in Hospitals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bardram, Jakob E.; Bunde-Pedersen, Jonathan; Doryab, Afsaneh; Sørensen, Steffen

A multi-display environment (MDE) is made up of co-located and networked personal and public devices that form an integrated workspace enabling co-located group work. Traditionally, MDEs have, however, mainly been designed to support a single “smart room”, and have had little sense of the tasks and activities that the MDE is being used for. This paper presents a novel approach to support activity-based computing in distributed MDEs, where displays are physically distributed across a large building. CLINICAL SURFACES was designed for clinical work in hospitals, and enables context-sensitive retrieval and browsing of patient data on public displays. We present the design and implementation of CLINICAL SURFACES, and report from an evaluation of the system at a large hospital. The evaluation shows that using distributed public displays to support activity-based computing inside a hospital is very useful for clinical work, and that the apparent contradiction between maintaining privacy of medical data in a public display environment can be mitigated by the use of CLINICAL SURFACES.

The myths of 'big data' in health care.

PubMed

Jacofsky, D J

2017-12-01

'Big data' is a term for data sets that are so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. Billions of dollars have been spent on attempts to build predictive tools from large sets of poorly controlled healthcare metadata. Companies often sell reports at a physician or facility level based on various flawed data sources, and comparative websites of 'publicly reported data' purport to educate the public. Physicians should be aware of concerns and pitfalls seen in such data definitions, data clarity, data relevance, data sources and data cleaning when evaluating analytic reports from metadata in health care. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2017;99-B:1571-6. ©2017 The British Editorial Society of Bone & Joint Surgery.

Building Inventory Database on the Urban Scale Using GIS for Earthquake Risk Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaplan, O.; Avdan, U.; Guney, Y.; Helvaci, C.

2016-12-01

The majority of the existing buildings are not safe against earthquakes in most of the developing countries. Before a devastating earthquake, existing buildings need to be assessed and the vulnerable ones must be determined. Determining the seismic performance of existing buildings which is usually made with collecting the attributes of existing buildings, making the analysis and the necessary queries, and producing the result maps is very hard and complicated procedure that can be simplified with Geographic Information System (GIS). The aim of this study is to produce a building inventory database using GIS for assessing the earthquake risk of existing buildings. In this paper, a building inventory database for 310 buildings, located in Eskisehir, Turkey, was produced in order to assess the earthquake risk of the buildings. The results from this study show that 26% of the buildings have high earthquake risk, 33% of the buildings have medium earthquake risk and the 41% of the buildings have low earthquake risk. The produced building inventory database can be very useful especially for governments in dealing with the problem of determining seismically vulnerable buildings in the large existing building stocks. With the help of this kind of methods, determination of the buildings, which may collapse and cause life and property loss during a possible future earthquake, will be very quick, cheap and reliable.

A study of the viability of exploiting memory content similarity to improve resilience to memory errors

DOE PAGES

Levy, Scott; Ferreira, Kurt B.; Bridges, Patrick G.; ...

2014-12-09

Building the next-generation of extreme-scale distributed systems will require overcoming several challenges related to system resilience. As the number of processors in these systems grow, the failure rate increases proportionally. One of the most common sources of failure in large-scale systems is memory. In this paper, we propose a novel runtime for transparently exploiting memory content similarity to improve system resilience by reducing the rate at which memory errors lead to node failure. We evaluate the viability of this approach by examining memory snapshots collected from eight high-performance computing (HPC) applications and two important HPC operating systems. Based on themore » characteristics of the similarity uncovered, we conclude that our proposed approach shows promise for addressing system resilience in large-scale systems.« less

Engineering survey planning for the alignment of a particle accelerator: part II. Design of a reference network and measurement strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Junqueira Leão, Rodrigo; Raffaelo Baldo, Crhistian; Collucci da Costa Reis, Maria Luisa; Alves Trabanco, Jorge Luiz

2018-03-01

The building blocks of particle accelerators are magnets responsible for keeping beams of charged particles at a desired trajectory. Magnets are commonly grouped in support structures named girders, which are mounted on vertical and horizontal stages. The performance of this type of machine is highly dependent on the relative alignment between its main components. The length of particle accelerators ranges from small machines to large-scale national or international facilities, with typical lengths of hundreds of meters to a few kilometers. This relatively large volume together with micrometric positioning tolerances make the alignment activity a classical large-scale dimensional metrology problem. The alignment concept relies on networks of fixed monuments installed on the building structure to which all accelerator components are referred. In this work, the Sirius accelerator is taken as a case study, and an alignment network is optimized via computational methods in terms of geometry, densification, and surveying procedure. Laser trackers are employed to guide the installation and measure the girders’ positions, using the optimized network as a reference and applying the metric developed in part I of this paper. Simulations demonstrate the feasibility of aligning the 220 girders of the Sirius synchrotron to better than 0.080 mm, at a coverage probability of 95%.

Building 3D structures of vanadium pentoxide nanosheets and application as electrodes in supercapacitors.

PubMed

Zhu, Jixin; Cao, Liujun; Wu, Yingsi; Gong, Yongji; Liu, Zheng; Hoster, Harry E; Zhang, Yunhuai; Zhang, Shengtao; Yang, Shubin; Yan, Qingyu; Ajayan, Pulickel M; Vajtai, Robert

2013-01-01

Various two-dimensional (2D) materials have recently attracted great attention owing to their unique properties and wide application potential in electronics, catalysis, energy storage, and conversion. However, large-scale production of ultrathin sheets and functional nanosheets remains a scientific and engineering challenge. Here we demonstrate an efficient approach for large-scale production of V2O5 nanosheets having a thickness of 4 nm and utilization as building blocks for constructing 3D architectures via a freeze-drying process. The resulting highly flexible V2O5 structures possess a surface area of 133 m(2) g(-1), ultrathin walls, and multilevel pores. Such unique features are favorable for providing easy access of the electrolyte to the structure when they are used as a supercapacitor electrode, and they also provide a large electroactive surface that advantageous in energy storage applications. As a consequence, a high specific capacitance of 451 F g(-1) is achieved in a neutral aqueous Na2SO4 electrolyte as the 3D architectures are utilized for energy storage. Remarkably, the capacitance retention after 4000 cycles is more than 90%, and the energy density is up to 107 W·h·kg(-1) at a high power density of 9.4 kW kg(-1).