DesnowNet: Context-Aware Deep Network for Snow Removal

Existing learning-based atmospheric particle-removal approaches such as those used for rainy and hazy images are designed with strong assumptions regarding spatial frequency, trajectory, and translucency. However, the removal of snow particles is more complicated because it possess the additional attributes of particle size and shape, and these attributes may vary within a single image. Currently, hand-crafted features are still the mainstream for snow removal, making significant generalization difficult to achieve. In response, we have designed a multistage network codenamed DesnowNet to in turn deal with the removal of translucent and opaque snow particles. We also differentiate snow into attributes of translucency and chromatic aberration for accurate estimation. Moreover, our approach individually estimates residual complements of the snow-free images to recover details obscured by opaque snow. Additionally, a multi-scale design is utilized throughout the entire network to model the diversity of snow. As demonstrated in experimental results, our approach outperforms state-of-the-art learning-based atmospheric phenomena removal methods and one semantic segmentation baseline on the proposed Snow100K dataset in both qualitative and quantitative comparisons. The results indicate our network would benefit applications involving computer vision and graphics

Synthesis of Best Practice for Increasing Protection and Visibility of Highway Maintenance Vehicles, CTRE Final Report Iowa DOT Project TR-475, August 2002

The purpose of this research project is to study current practices in enhancing visibility and protection of highway maintenance vehicles involved in moving operations such as snow removal and shoulder operations, crack sealing, and pothole patching. The results will enable the maintenance staff to adequately assess the applicability and impact of each strategy to their use and budget. The report’s literature review chapter examines the use of maintenance vehicle warning lights, retroreflective tapes, shadow vehicles and truck-mounted attenuators, and advanced vehicle control systems, as well as other practices to improve visibility for both snowplow operators and vehicles. The chapter concludes that the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices does not specify what color or kind of warning lights to use. Thus, a wide variety of lights are being used on maintenance vehicles. The study of the relevant literatures also suggests that there are no clear guidelines for moving work zones at this time. Two types of surveys were conducted to determine current practices to improve visibility and safety in moving work zones across the country and in the state of Iowa. In the first survey of state departments of transportation, most indicated using amber warning lights on their maintenance vehicles. Almost all the responding states indicated using some form of reflective material on their vehicles to make them more visible. Most participating states indicated that the color of their vehicles is orange. Most states indicated using more warning lights on snow removal vehicles than their other maintenance vehicles. All responding state agencies indicated using shadow vehicles and/or truck-mounted attenuators during their moving operations. In the second survey of Iowa counties, most indicated using very similar traffic control and warning devices during their granular road maintenance and snow removal operations. Mounting warning signs and rotating or strobe lights on the rear of maintenance vehicles is common for Iowa counties. The most common warning devices used during the counties’ snow removal operations are reflective tapes, warning flags, strobe lights, and auxiliary headlamps

Accident Analysis of Ice Control Operations

Highway maintenance involves all work necessary to assure that the highway system is kept safe, open to traffic, and in proper working order. During winter, the removal of snow and ice from streets, roads, and highways is a major maintenance operation. With more than 135 million motor vehicles registered in the United States and roughly four million miles of roads and streets, local governments must be prepared to deal with the removal of snow and ice to insure public safety, and to reduce the adverse impact on the affected area’s economy. Snow and ice covered roads can paralyze the functioning of the community and pose a considerable threat to the public safety. They produce hazardous driving conditions which increase traffic deaths, injuries, and property damage. The general assumption has always been that snow and ice on highways causes accidents. There are a number of reasons for this assumption. Snow and ice reduce the coefficient of friction between the pavement and vehicle tires, making maneuvering of the vehicle very difficult and occasionally impossible. Ice is not always apparent to the motorist and is not uniform, so that the driver is not always prepared when he encounters an icy section on the roadway. Vehicle mobility is reduced, causing possible severe disruption of important public emergency services, such as fire, police, and ambulance operations. Without close attention to the effective removal of snow and ice from roads, the economy of the region involved will suffer, and traffic accidents will escalate. Most activities of individuals, industries, utilities, schools, and government activities are handicapped in social and economic ways during the duration of snow and ice conditions on roads and streets

Cost comparison of alternative airfield snow removal methodologies

Maintaining operational safety and status of airport runways during snowfall events is a challenging issue that many airports are grappling with. Ice and snow impacts on transportation infrastructure systems add significant costs to the American economy in the form of snow removal, damaged pavement and lost productivity due to travel delays. Most transport category aircraft are prohibited from operating on runways covered by untreated ice or by more than ½ inch of snow or slush. Hence, it is imperative that both small and large airports maintain operational status during snowfall events to support the existing operations. Conventional ice and snow removal practices are labor intensive and have environmental concerns such as possible contamination of nearby water bodies for highway and airport pavements. This preliminary study aims at identifying and establishing cost parameters for an ongoing research project on energy and economic analyses of alternative ice and snow removal strategies. One such alternative approach is the use of a heated pavement system using either conventional or renewable energy as a heat source, to keep the surface temperature of concrete pavements above freezing so that any frozen precipitation melts upon contact. Based on the limited data available, the costs incurred due to melting snow by hydronic heated pavements were calculated and compared with the operating costs of conventional snow removal strategies under specific case scenarios. A case study is carried out using limited data from Des Moines International (DSM) airport in Iowa to demonstrate the methodology

Distribution of VOCs between air and snow at the Jungfraujoch high alpine research station, Switzerland, during CLACE 5 (winter 2006)

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were analyzed in air and snow samples at the Jungfraujoch high alpine research station in Switzerland as part of CLACE 5 (CLoud and Aerosol Characterization Experiment) during February/March 2006. The fluxes of individual compounds in ambient air were calculated from gas phase concentrations and wind speed. The highest concentrations and flux values were observed for the aromatic hydrocarbons benzene (14.3 μg.m−2 s−1), 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene (5.27 μg.m−2 s−1), toluene (4.40 μg.m−2 −1), and the aliphatic hydrocarbons i-butane (7.87 μg.m−2 s−1), i-pentane (3.61 μg.m−2 s−1) and n-butane (3.23 μg.m−2 s−1). The measured concentrations and fluxes were used to calculate the efficiency of removal of VOCs by snow, which is defined as difference between the initial and final concentration/flux values of compounds before and after wet deposition. The removal efficiency was calculated at −24°C (−13.7°C) and ranged from 37% (35%) for o-xylene to 93% (63%) for i-pentane. The distribution coefficients of VOCs between the air and snow phases were derived from published poly-parameter linear free energy relationship (pp-LFER) data, and compared with distribution coefficients obtained from the simultaneous measurements of VOC concentrations in air and snow at Jungfraujoch. The coefficients calculated from pp-LFER exceeded those values measured in the present study, which indicates more efficient snow scavenging of the VOCs investigated than suggested by theoretical predictions

Greenhouse gas emission analysis for heated pavement system

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have become significant environmental indicators in analyzing the comparative environmental impacts of conventional and newly developed alternative systems or techniques. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is considered an accepted and systematic methodology to calculate the amount of carbon released from all the processes of a system/technique, helping users select the best environmental-friendly alternative. The use of automated heating based snow removal systems is gaining attention as an alternative strategy to traditional ice and snow removal practices such as the use of anti-icing chemicals and snowplowing vehicles. Most previous studies on heated pavement systems have focused on their efficiency and economic evaluation, but few studies have investigated their environmental impacts in a systematic manner. Considering the energy consumptions associated with heated pavement systems, their environmental impacts should be assessed over the life cycle before they could be implemented in airport pavement applications. This study employs a partial LCA methodology to assess the GHG emissions from various operations of energy sources used in geothermal heated pavement systems and their environmental impacts in contrast with traditional snow removal operations, Detailed discussions are presented in the context of developing an environment assessment framework to help users select the most environmental-friendly snow removal system

The problem of clearing snow in an aged society and the snow measures in the future : To keep living on the heavy snow ground

高齢者には、冬でもバリアフリーの状態で、慣れ親しんだ環境で生活を続けたいという願望がある。その為には、次のような生活のレベルの視点から雪対策が考えられなければならない。(1)除雪ライフサイクルを考える。①自分の家の除雪ライフサイクル:自分のライフサイクルから見た家族の除雪の労働力と、除雪の作業量(敷地面積、屋根の構造、玄関から門までの距離、車庫の有無などから試算)とを比較し、ライフサイクルの労働力が不足する時期の為に、必要な消雪・融雪設備や人手の確保など、経済状態も含めて考え、対策を立てる。そして高齢化による身体の変化により、冬期にどんな状態がバリアになるかを認識し、対策を考える。②地域の除雪ライフサイクル:近隣に住む人々の状況の変化に沿った除雪・排雪作業の軽量化、効率化(雪捨て場や流雪溝の設置、無雪道路)を図る。(2)行政との情報交換、要望を積極的に行い、地域全体の除雪の質の向上(道路除雪後の堆雪間題の解決、アパートの車庫の不足解消など)を図る。Many aged people prefer to continue their life in a familiar barrier-free environment, even in winter. Accordingly, from the viewpoint of the following levels of daily life, effective strategies to deal with the snow are required (1) Snow-removal life cycle ①Single-family snow-removal life cycle: Viewed from one's own life cycle, a comparison of the snow-removal capacity of a single family with the labor required to actually remove the snow (sweeping area, roof structure, distance between the porch and the gate, presence or absence of a garage) shows that a strategy to provide snow removing and melting equipment, assistance and economic support is needed for the period when the family life cycle work capacity is inadequate. Furthermore, it is also essential to clarifythe circumstances that constitute barriers in the winter season as the result ofone's physical changes that occur with aging. ②Regional snow-removal life cycle: Plans should be made to simplify or increase the efficiency of snow removal and snow clearing (establishment of a snow dump and snow run-off gutter, no-snow roads, etc.) in accordance with changes in the circumstances of the people residing in the neighborhood. (2) Plans should be made to implement qualitative improvement of snow removal throughout the entire region by means of positive information exchange with and the submission of requests to the government authorities.departmental bulletin pape

Nutrient Dynamics in a Warmer World: Nitrogen Uptake by Trees

Climate models project a reduced snowpack depth and delay of the onset of its seasonal formation in the northeastern United States over the next 100 years. Reduction of the snowpack leaves soils exposed to freezing air temperatures, which can induce soil frost and inhibit soil biotic activity. Increased soil frost may affect nutrient cycling by damaging fine roots and increasing root mortality. Repeated freezing damage and subsequent heightened production of fine roots in the following growing season may deplete nutrient and carbon reserves within trees. This may leave fine roots more susceptible to frost damage in the following winter, which could decrease nutrient uptake by trees in future years. In order to assess the effects of increased soil frost on nutrient uptake by trees in mixed temperate forests, I measured nitrogen uptake by excised fine roots from a snow removal experiment at Harvard Forest. There were no significant differences in soil freezing depth bet! ween reference and snow removal plots for the mild winter of 2011-2012. Fine roots from snow removal plots had higher mean rates of NH4+ (P = 0.0375) and NO3- uptake than fine roots from reference plots (P = 0.0645). Uptake of NH4+ was significantly greater than NO3- uptake in both reference (P = 0.011) and snow-removal (P = 0.003) plots. Differences in nutrient uptake by fine roots between the reference and snow-removal plots could be occurring for multiple reasons. Soil frost from the previous winter (2010/2011 winter) may have damaged fine roots, diminishing nutrient uptake capacity in the growing season of 2012. Furthermore, trees in the snow removal plots may be nutrient deficient from regenerating fine roots that died the previous winter (2010/2011 winter) when soil frost was greater. Increased fine root necromass and subsequent nutrient release through decomposition may increase nutrient availability in soils of the snow removal plots. However, increased soil ! nitrogen pools may lead to greater nutrient leaching from the ecosystem and change nutrient dynamics of northeastern forests

The Job of a UB Janitor

It varies. You can do carpet shampoo, floor work, taking care of trash, recycling, clean up spills of blood or chemicals, snow removal. It depends on the building. I work in some of the medical buildings where there are different labs and experiments. Other people who work in residence halls do not deal with these different conditions. Yeah, you bet it can be dangerous. Some of the areas where people work have nuclear materials. There is a nuclear reactor that people work in. The people who work in nuclear areas require special training about safety. Animal testing labs can be dangerous. In the labs with mice, you have to be aware of what you are dealing with

Estimating the Application Rate of Liquid Chloride Products Based on Residual Salt Concentration on Pavement

This technical report summarizes the results of laboratory testing on asphalt and concrete pavement. A known quantity of salt brine was applied as an anti-icer, followed by snow application, traffic simulation, and mechanical snow removal via simulated plowing. Using a sample from this plowed snow, researchers measured the chloride concentration to determine the amount of salt brine (as chloride) that remained on the pavement surface. Under the investigated scenarios, the asphalt samples showed higher concentrations of chloride in the plowed-off snow, and therefore lower concentrations of chlorides remaining on the pavement surface. In comparison, the concrete samples had much lower chloride concentrations in the plowed-off snow, and much higher chloride concentrations remaining on the pavement surface. An interesting pattern revealed by the testing was the variation in the percentage of residual chloride on the pavement surface with changes in temperature. When pavement type was not considered, more residual chloride was present at warmer temperatures and less residual chloride was present at colder temperatures. This observation warrants additional testing to determine if the pattern is in fact a statistically valid trend. The findings from the study will help winter maintenance agencies reduce salt usage while meeting the defined Level of Service. In addition, findings will contribute to environmentally sustainable policies and reduce the level of salt usage (from snow- and ice-control products) introduced into the environment