Learning building pathology using computers - evaluation of a prototype application

Building Surveying employers are requiring graduates with a high level of cognitive and experiential skills to enable them to survey buildings directly after graduation with little or no supervision. These skills have traditionally been built up over many years through on the job training. This has led to a change in thinking for educators as providing this type of graduate requires learning and training material that is time consuming and costly to provide, as it requires learners to be actively involved in real surveying tasks. One method that appears to solve some of these problems is computer-aided-learning (CAL). CAL can be defined as, “…a way of presenting educational material to a learner by means of computer program which gives the opportunity for individual interaction.” The full potential of CAL tools in the building-surveying domain has yet to be fully explored. This paper presents the results of a prototype application developed to enable inexperienced surveyors to learn building pathology without leaving their desktops

3D simulation of the leaching of cement-based materials in order to compare different leaching tests

International audienceLeaching of cement-based materials is a complex process that depends on both the material intrinsic properties and the leaching test. The microstructure and cement-type of the material are typical examples of the former whereas the later consist of solution pH and composition, solution renewal rate and the liquid/solid volume ratio. As most of the tests are not normalized, this leads to a diversity of results in terms of alteration layer thicknesses and leaching kinetics. As a consequence, it is often difficult to compare and transpose experimental data from one experience to the other. 1D reactive transport modeling has proven to be adequate to simulate the coupling between diffusion, dissolution / precipitation and sorption processes that take place during leaching. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the usefulness of 3D reactive transport modeling to accurately simulate the features of the leaching device features, which is essential to compare results obtained by different leaching tests. Such simulations also enable to assess the mutual interaction between samples if the device contains several of them. Additionally, these simulations represent an interesting numerical tool in order to design new or complementary leaching tests

Operative Management of Symptomatic, Metachronous Carotid Body Tumors Involving the Skull Base and Its Neurological Sequelae

A 44-year-old morbidly obese woman with a history of right carotid body tumor (CBT) resection presented with a symptomatic, nonfunctional, left Shamblin-III CBT. Abutment of the skull base precluded distal internal carotid artery control for arterial reconstruction, favoring parent vessel sacrifice after an asymptomatic provocative test. She underwent CBT resection with anticipated sacrifice of cranial nerves X and XII and the common carotid artery and its branches, developing baroreceptor failure syndrome and sequelae of cranial nerve sacrifice. When facing a symptomatic, metachronous CBT abutting the skull base, upfront operative intervention with adjuvant radiation for residual tumor optimizes curative resection

Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity determines estrogen receptor positive breast cancer dormancy and epithelial reconversion drives recurrence

More than 70% of human breast cancers (BCs) are estrogen receptor α-positive (ER+). A clinical challenge of ER+ BC is that they can recur decades after initial treatments. Mechanisms governing latent disease remain elusive due to lack of adequate in vivo models. We compare intraductal xenografts of ER+ and triple-negative (TN) BC cells and demonstrate that disseminated TNBC cells proliferate similarly as TNBC cells at the primary site whereas disseminated ER+ BC cells proliferate slower, they decrease CDH1 and increase ZEB1,2 expressions, and exhibit characteristics of epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) and dormancy. Forced E-cadherin expression overcomes ER+ BC dormancy. Cytokine signalings are enriched in more active versus inactive disseminated tumour cells, suggesting microenvironmental triggers for awakening. We conclude that intraductal xenografts model ER + BC dormancy and reveal that EMP is essential for the generation of a dormant cell state and that targeting exit from EMP has therapeutic potential

Skill competency development strategies by a contractor

Construction skills are one of the vital aspects of construction work which is growing in importance due to skill gaps and skill shortages during different economic cycles. The aim of this study was to investigate competence development strategies by a traditional construction company within its own pool of skill resources and among its supply chain members. The study was carried out via literature review, empirical studies involving a focus study, analysis of documentary evidence supported by unstructured interviews and a report of skill development/supply chain conference. The study demonstrates how long-term skill development can be achieved through: (a) strategic capacity planning which allows high retention, continuous training, and balanced construction demand and contractor’s supply capacity over the long term; (b) updating and upgrading the knowledge base of the supply chain through conferences and training schemes; (c) strategic investment in the workforce through training, vocational and higher degrees; and (d) acquaintance with different sources of finance. This study will assist small traditional firms in building competencies in skill development and improvement. It will assist an international audience who may face similar issue with their construction firm

Assortment optimisation under a general discrete choice model: A tight analysis of revenue-ordered assortments

The assortment problem in revenue management is the problem of deciding which subset of products to offer to consumers in order to maximise revenue. A simple and natural strategy is to select the best assortment out of all those that are constructed by fixing a threshold revenue $\pi$ and then choosing all products with revenue at least $\pi$. This is known as the revenue-ordered assortments strategy. In this paper we study the approximation guarantees provided by revenue-ordered assortments when customers are rational in the following sense: the probability of selecting a specific product from the set being offered cannot increase if the set is enlarged. This rationality assumption, known as regularity, is satisfied by almost all discrete choice models considered in the revenue management and choice theory literature, and in particular by random utility models. The bounds we obtain are tight and improve on recent results in that direction, such as for the Mixed Multinomial Logit model by Rusmevichientong et al. (2014). An appealing feature of our analysis is its simplicity, as it relies only on the regularity condition. We also draw a connection between assortment optimisation and two pricing problems called unit demand envy-free pricing and Stackelberg minimum spanning tree: These problems can be restated as assortment problems under discrete choice models satisfying the regularity condition, and moreover revenue-ordered assortments correspond then to the well-studied uniform pricing heuristic. When specialised to that setting, the general bounds we establish for revenue-ordered assortments match and unify the best known results on uniform pricing.Comment: Minor changes following referees' comment

Superfluid to normal phase transition and extreme regularity of superdeformed bands

We derive the exact semiclassical expression for the second inertial parameter $\cal B$ for the superfluid and normal phases. Interpolation between these limiting values shows that the function ${\cal B}(I)$ changes sign at the spin $I_c$, which is critical for a rotational spectrum. The quantity $\cal B$ turns out to be a sensitive measure of the change in static pairing correlations. The superfluid-to-normal transition reveals itself in the specific variation of the ratio ${\cal B}/{\cal A}$ versus spin $I$ with the plateau characteristic of the normal phase. We find this dependence to be universal for normal deformed and superdeformed bands. The long plateau with a small value ${\cal B}/{\cal A}\sim A^{-8/3}$ explains the extreme regularity of superdeformed bands.Comment: 30 pages in LaTeX, 6 figures (PostScript). To be published in Yadernaya Fizika (Physics of Atomic Nuclei), special edition dedecated to the 90th birthday of Prof. I. I. Gurevit

Microscopic Study of Superdeformed Rotational Bands in 151Tb

Structure of eight superdeformed bands in the nucleus 151Tb is analyzed using the results of the Hartree-Fock and Woods-Saxon cranking approaches. It is demonstrated that far going similarities between the two approaches exist and predictions related to the structure of rotational bands calculated within the two models are nearly parallel. An interpretation scenario for the structure of the superdeformed bands is presented and predictions related to the exit spins are made. Small but systematic discrepancies between experiment and theory, analyzed in terms of the dynamical moments, J(2), are shown to exist. The pairing correlations taken into account by using the particle-number-projection technique are shown to increase the disagreement. Sources of these systematic discrepancies are discussed -- they are most likely related to the yet not optimal parametrization of the nuclear interactions used.Comment: 32 RevTeX pages, 15 figures included, submitted to Physical Review