An Analysis of Insulated Concrete Forms for Use in Sustainable Military Construction

Insulated Concrete Forms are a block style construction material more typically comprised of expanded polystyrene which fit together and are filled with reinforced concrete to construct the exterior wall systems of a building. By design, this material provides a higher level of insulation and greater structural integrity that stands up to damaging winds, fire, and explosive blasts. This study shows that utilizing this material is not the most cost effective material choice when constructing new facilities, however, it does reduce energy consumption and contributes towards total energy reduction goals established by the Department of Defense. This study also showed there are multiple barriers preventing increased use of Insulated Concrete Forms to include a lack of knowledge of the advantages of this material, a resistance to change from more traditional materials, and to some degree the increased initial cost of utilizing this material. This study concludes there is merit in considering Insulated Concrete Forms for use in sustainable military construction

Alias-free, real coefficient m-band QMF banks for arbitrary m

Based on a generalized framework for alias free QMF banks, a theory is developed for the design of uniform QMF banks with real-coefficient analysis filters, such that aliasing can be completely canceled by appropriate choice of real-coefficient synthesis filters. These results are then applied for the derivation of closed-form expressions for the synthesis filters (both FIR and IIR), that ensure cancelation of aliasing for a given set of analysis filters. The results do not involve the inversion of the alias-component (AC) matrix

Power quality event classification using complex wavelets phasor models and customized convolution neural network

Origin and triggers of power quality (PQ) events must be identified in prior, in order to take preventive steps to enhance power quality. However it is important to identify, localize and classify the PQ events to determine the causes and origins of PQ disturbances. In this paper a novel algorithm is presented to classify voltage variations into six different PQ events considering the space phasor model (SPM) diagrams, dual tree complex wavelet transforms (DTCWT) sub bands and the convolution neural network (CNN) model. The input voltage data is converted into SPM data, the SPM data is transformed using 2D DTCWT into low pass and high pass sub bands which are simultaneously processed by the 2D CNN model to perform classification of PQ events. In the proposed method CNN model based on Google Net is trained to perform classification of PQ events with default configuration as in deep neural network designer in MATLAB environment. The proposed algorithm achieve higher accuracy with reduced training time in classification of events than compared with reported PQ event classification methods

Introduction to the computational structural mechanics testbed

The Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM) testbed software system based on the SPAR finite element code and the NICE system is described. This software is denoted NICE/SPAR. NICE was developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory and contains data management utilities, a command language interpreter, and a command language definition for integrating engineering computational modules. SPAR is a system of programs used for finite element structural analysis developed for NASA by Lockheed and Engineering Information Systems, Inc. It includes many complementary structural analysis, thermal analysis, utility functions which communicate through a common database. The work on NICE/SPAR was motivated by requirements for a highly modular and flexible structural analysis system to use as a tool in carrying out research in computational methods and exploring computer hardware. Analysis examples are presented which demonstrate the benefits gained from a combination of the NICE command language with a SPAR computational modules

Healthy People 2030 launch

bsc-pres-Huang-September-17-2020-508.pdf20201185

Reasoning paradigms for OWL ontologies

Representing knowledge in OWL provides two important limitations; on one hand efficient reasoning on real-world ontologies containing a large set of individuals is still a challenging task. On the other hand though OWL offers a reasonable trade-off between expressibility and decidability, it can not be used efficiently to model certain application domains. In this paper we give an overview of some of the most relevant approaches in this domain and present OWL2Jess, which is a comprehensive converter tool enabling Jess reasoning over OWL ontologies

The quantitative effects of different light sources on the growth parameters of pepper seedlings

In this research, the effects that three different light sources: a high pressure sodium lamp (HPS), an incandescent lamp (IL), a light emitting diode (LED) and two different colors (red and blue), have on the pepper seedling quality were determined in detail. The effects of light sources and colors on growth and quantitative characteristics of pepper seedlings were analyzed including the following: height of seedling, diameter of seedling, dry weights for root, stem and leaves, leaf weight ratio, stem weight ratio, root weight ratio, leaf area, leaf thickness, leaf area ratio and specific leaf area. According to the results obtained, it was seen that the effect of light sources and their colors on the growth and quantitative characteristics of pepper seedlings were different depending on the growing periods of autumn and spring. Light source treatments increased some characteristics, such as stem diameter and stem weight ratio. Under blue LED light conditions, the seedlings root, stem and leaf dry weights were much better compared to seedlings treated with other light sources. It has been determined that blue light sources, in particular, are more effective on the leaf area ratio in the autumn period. Blue LED lamps increased the leaf area in both periods, while the lowest leaf area value was found under the blue color of an IL light source in both periods. This study showed that pepper seedling growth is light limited during the spring period, and artificial LED lighting can significantly increase plant growth

Resource allocation techniques for spectral and energy-efficient next generation wireless networks

Efficient utilization of wireless resources is mandated to fulfill the requirements of the sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks, such as high data rates, low latency, and ubiquitous connectivity. The word "resource" implies quantities such as bandwidth, power, and time. Efficiently allocating such limited resources is an effective means to enhance the wireless systems’ performance. Specifically, resource allocation intends to assign limited resources to users, maximizing the utilization of these resources, and attaining the best system performance. In this line, in this dissertation, low-complexity and efficient resource allocation strategies in networks assisted by various technologies, including nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA), reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), full-duplex (FD), cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CFmMIMO), and integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) are developed and investigated. The first part of the dissertation focuses on analyzing the outage and throughput performances, as well as optimizing the sum rate for an FD NOMA-assisted cooperative spectrum-sharing network. The second part develops novel user clustering and resource allocation algorithms to boost the sum spectral efficiency of a CFmMIMO-NOMA system. Besides, novel lowcomplexity resource allocation algorithms for optimizing the energy efficiency and total transmit power of RIS-aided CF and RIS-enabled federated learning (FL) networks are proposed. The third part examines the application of RIS and FD in ISAC networks to improve the transmission rate and sensing performance. Finally, the last part draws concluding remarks and discusses several topics for future investigation