A Case Study of Building Information Modelling Enabled ‘Information Totem’ for Operations and Maintenance Integration

This paper reports upon the use of a semi-automated toolkit to aid the development of as-built Building Information Model (BIM) (As-built model reflects on-site changes by the contractor to the original BIM) from inception to final construction. An observational case study of two educational ‘multi-storey’ facilities obtained primary data from project archives and focus group meetings with key design team members. The results demonstrate that the data requirements for both structures evolve post occupation because of stakeholder tacit knowledge accrued via building operation and usage. The semi-automated toolkit developed can readily access operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals, retrieve room specific data (such as categories of equipment or building element) within the as-built BIM and, assist in the navigation and coordination of amendments and changes throughout the construction phase. This paper provides useful practice-based information for practitioners to develop suitable BIM data structures for future information requirements throughout a building’s lifecycle. The inherent value of the semi-automated toolkit resides in the facilitation of ease of handover for the Facilities Management team during the O&M stages

Non-identifiability of parameters for a class of shear-thinning rheological models, with implications for haematological fluid dynamics

Choosing a suitable model and determining its associated parameters from fitting to experimental data is fundamental for many problems in biomechanics. Models of shear-thinning complex fluids, dating from the work of Bird, Carreau, Cross and Yasuda, have been applied in highly-cited computational studies of hemodynamics for several decades. In this manuscript we revisit these models, first to highlight a degree of uncertainty in the naming conventions in the literature, but more importantly to address the problem of inferring model parameters by fitting to rheology experiments. By refitting published data, and also by simulation, we find large, flat regions in likelihood surfaces that yield families of parameter sets which fit the data equally well. Despite having almost indistinguishable fits to experimental data these varying parameter sets can predict very different flow profiles, and as such these parameters cannot be used to draw conclusions about physical properties of the fluids, such as zero-shear viscosity or relaxation time of the fluid, or indeed flow behaviours. We verify that these features are not a consequence of the experimental data sets through simulations; by sampling points from the rheological models and adding a small amount of noise we create a synthetic data set which reveals that the problem of param-eter identifiability is intrinsic to these models

Nano silver and nano zinc-oxide in surface waters - exposure estimation for Europe at high spatial and temporal resolution

Nano silver and nano zinc-oxide monthly concentrations in surface waters across Europe were modeled at ~6 × 9 km spatial resolution. Nano-particle loadings from households to rivers were simulated considering household connectivity to sewerage, sewage treatment efficiency, the spatial distribution of sewage treatment plants, and their associated populations. These loadings were used to model temporally varying nano-particle concentrations in rivers, lakes and wetlands by considering dilution, downstream transport, water evaporation, water abstraction, and nano-particle sedimentation. Temporal variability in concentrations caused by weather variation was simulated using monthly weather data for a representative 31-year period. Modeled concentrations represent current levels of nano-particle production. Two scenarios were modeled. In the most likely scenario, half the river stretches had long-term average concentrations exceeding 0.002 ng/L nano silver and 1.5 ng/L nano zinc oxide. In 10% of the river stretches, these concentrations exceeded 0.18 ng/L and 150 ng/L, respectively. Predicted concentrations were usually highest in July

Hematology and Plasma Chemistry as Indicators of Health and Ecological Status In Beluga Whales, Delphinapterus Leucas

The capture of beluga whales, Delphinapterus leucas, for instrumentation or tagging afforded the opportunity to collect blood, which was analyzed to evaluate the animals' health and gain information on basic physiological systems. Here, we report on hematological and plasma chemical constituents in samples obtained from 183 belugas, 55 of which were handled during attempts to apply tracking instruments. The other 128 samples were either drawn from live belugas captured for exhibit in zoological parks or research or obtained from the fresh carcasses of whales taken by Inuit hunters. The data span a 15-year period beginning in 1983 and represent various beluga stocks in the Canadian Arctic. The majority of the specimens were collected during the summer or estuarine phase of the belugas' annual cycle. Comparisons by age group, sex, stock, season, and year revealed significant differences in most of the cellular and chemical constituents examined. These results demonstrate some of the variability that might be encountered when examining a "random" selection of belugas at a particular location and time. Immature-sized whales had higher leucocyte counts, electrolyte concentrations, enzyme activity, total protein, albumin, hemoglobin, and some metabolites than older animals. Sex alone was associated with few hematological and plasma chemical differences. Seasonal variation in thyroid hormone activity was linked to marked environmental changes associated with the transition from cold oceanic waters to relatively warm estuaries. Two belugas recaptured 19 and 24 days after instrumentation showed changes in leucocyte counts, hematocrit, and a variety of plasma chemical constituents, some of which indicate inflammation and a likely physiological response to handling and tagging stresses.On a profité du fait qu'on capturait des bélougas, Delphinapterus leucas, en vue de les équiper d'instruments ou de les marquer, pour prélever des échantillons de sang qu'on a ensuite analysés afin d'évaluer l'état de santé des individus et de collecter de l'information sur leurs grands systèmes physiologiques. Nous présentons ici un rapport sur les constituants hématologiques et chimiques du plasma dans des échantillons provenant de 183 bélougas, dont 55 ont été manipulés au cours de tentatives visant à les équiper d'instruments de poursuite. Les 128 autres échantillons ont été obtenus soit de bélougas vivants capturés en vue d'être placés dans des zoos ou pour la recherche, soit de carcasses fraîches de baleines prises par les chasseurs inuits. Les données couvrent une période de 15 ans, commençant en 1983, et représentent divers stocks de bélougas de l'océan Arctique canadien. La plupart des spécimens ont été recueillis durant l'été ou durant la phase estuarienne du cycle annuel du bélouga. Des comparaisons par groupe d'âge, sexe, stock, saison et année ont révélé des différences marquées dans la plupart des constituants cellulaires et chimiques examinés. Ces résultats font ressortir une certaine variabilité à laquelle on peut s'attendre quand on étudie un échantillon "aléatoire" de bélougas pris à un endroit et à un moment donnés. Par rapport à des individus plus âgés, les baleines qui n'avaient pas atteint leur taille adulte avaient un compte de globules blancs plus élevé, de même qu'une plus forte concentration d'électrolytes, une plus grande activité enzymatique, et un taux plus fort d'albumine, d'hémoglobine et de certains métabolites. Le sexe seul n'était associé qu'à quelques différences hématologiques et chimiques du plasma. Une variation saisonnière de l'activité des hormones thyroïdiennes était liée à des changements nets du milieu correspondant à la transition des eaux froides océaniques aux estuaires relativement chauds. Deux bélougas recapturés 19 et 24 jours après avoir été équipés d'instruments montraient des changements dans le compte de globules blancs, dans l'hématocrite et dans divers constituants chimiques du plasma, dont certains révèlent une inflammation et probablement une réaction physiologique au stress dû à la manipulation et au marquage

A selected ion flow tube study of the reactions of gas-phase cations with PSCl3

A selected ion flow tube was used to investigate the positive ion chemistry of thiophosphoryl chloride, PSCl$_3$. Rate coefficients and ion product branching ratios have been determined at room temperature for reactions with nineteen cations ; H$_3$O$^+$, CF$_3^+$, CF$^+$, NO$^+$, NO$_2^+$, SF$_2^+$, SF$^+$, CF$_2^+$, O$_2^+$, H$_2$O$^+$, N$_2$O$^+$, O$^+$, CO$_2^+$, CO$^+$, N$^+$, N$_2^+$, Ar$^+$, F$^+$ and Ne$^+$ (in order of increasing recombination energy). Complementary data described in the previous paper have been obtained for this molecule via the observation of threshold photoelectron photoion coincidences. For ions whose recombination energies are in the range 10-22 eV, comparisons are made between the product ion branching rations of PSCl$_3$ from photoionisation and from ion-molecule reactions. In most instances, the data from the two experiments are well correlated, suggesting that long-range charge transfer is the dominant mechanism for these ion-molecule reactions ; the agreement is particularly good for the atomic ions Ar$^+$, F$^+$ and Ne$^+$. Some reactions (e.g. O$_2^+$ + PSCl$_3$), however, exhibit significant differences; short-range charge transfer must then be occurring following the formation of an ion-molecule complex. For ions whose recombination energies are less than 10 eV (i.e. H$_3$O$^+$, CF$_3^+$, CF$^+$ and NO$^+$), reactions can only occur via a chemical process in which bonds are broken and formed, because the recombination energy of the cation is less than the ionisation energy of PSCl$_3$

Meta-Analysis of Memory and Executive Dysfunctions in Relation to Vitamin D

Background: Hypovitaminosis D is associated with global cognitive impairment in adults. It remains unclear which domain-specific cognitive functions are affected with hypovitaminosis D.Objective: To systematically review and quantitatively synthesize the association of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentrations with episodic memory and executive functions in adults. Methods: A Medline and PsycINFO (R) libraries search was conducted on May 2012, with no limit of date, using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms "Vitamin D" OR "Hydroxycholecalciferols" combined with the MeSH terms "Memory" OR "Memory Disorders" OR "Executive Function" OR "Attention" OR "Cognition" OR "Cognition disorders" OR "Dementia" OR "Alzheimer disease" OR "Neuropsychological Tests". Fixed-effects meta-analysis was performed from 12 eligible studies using an inverse-variance method. Results: Of the 285 selected studies, 14 observational studies (including 3 prospective cohort studies) and 3 interventional studies met the selection criteria. All were of good quality. The number of participants ranged from 44-5,692 community-dwellers (0-100% women). In the pooled analysis, although episodic memory disorders showed only modest association with lower 25OHD concentrations (summary effect size of the difference (ES) =-0.09 [95% CI:-0.16;-0.03]), associations of greater magnitude were found with executive dysfunctions (processing speed: mean difference of Trail Making Test (TMT)-A score = 4.0 [95% CI: 1.20;6.83]; mental shifting: mean difference of TMT-B score = 12.47 [95% CI: 6.78; 18.16]; information updating tests: ES =-0.31 [95% CI:-0.5;-0.09]). The pooled risk of incident decline of TMT-B score was OR = 1.25 [95% CI: 1.05; 1.48] in case of initial lower 25OHD concentrations. Vitamin D repletion resulted in improved executive functions (ES =-0.50 [95% CI:-0.69;-0.32] for before-and-after comparison), but exhibited no difference with control groups (ES = 0.14 [95% CI:-0.04; 0.32] for between-group comparison after intervention). Conclusion: Lower serum 25OHD concentrations predict executive dysfunctions, especially on mental shifting, information updating and processing speed. The association with episodic memory remains uncertain

Is tagging with visual implant elastomer a reliable technique for marking earthworms?

Visual implant elastomer (VIE) has recently been employed to investigate different aspects of earthworm ecology. However, a number of fundamental questions relating to the detection and positioning of the tag, its persistence and potential effects on earthworms remain unknown. Seven earthworm species belonging to three ecological groupings, with different pigmentation and burrowing behaviour, were tagged using different coloured VIE. External inspection after two days, one week and 1, 10 and 27 months were followed by preservation, dissection and internal inspection. Tags could be seen in living specimens to 27 months, and dissection revealed that in most cases they were lodged in the coelomic cavity, held in place by septa. However, over longer time periods (more than two years), the chlorogogenous tissue tended to bind to the tags and made external observation increasingly difficult. Migration of the VIE material towards the posterior of the earthworm and potential loss of the tag were only observed on rare occasions, and a recovery rate in excess of 98% was recorded. By introducing a reasonable amount of VIE into segments, just after the clitellum, this technique can become a valuable tool in earthworm ecology and life history studies, particularly in short-medium term laboratory and field experiments

Edge states of graphene bilayer strip

The electronic structure of the zig-zag bilayer strip is analyzed. The electronic spectra of the bilayer strip is computed. The dependence of the edge state band flatness on the bilayer width is found. The density of states at the Fermi level is analytically computed. It is shown that it has the singularity which depends on the width of the bilayer strip. There is also asymmetry in the density of states below and above the Fermi energy.Comment: 9 page

Classical BI: Its Semantics and Proof Theory

We present Classical BI (CBI), a new addition to the family of bunched logics which originates in O'Hearn and Pym's logic of bunched implications BI. CBI differs from existing bunched logics in that its multiplicative connectives behave classically rather than intuitionistically (including in particular a multiplicative version of classical negation). At the semantic level, CBI-formulas have the normal bunched logic reading as declarative statements about resources, but its resource models necessarily feature more structure than those for other bunched logics; principally, they satisfy the requirement that every resource has a unique dual. At the proof-theoretic level, a very natural formalism for CBI is provided by a display calculus \`a la Belnap, which can be seen as a generalisation of the bunched sequent calculus for BI. In this paper we formulate the aforementioned model theory and proof theory for CBI, and prove some fundamental results about the logic, most notably completeness of the proof theory with respect to the semantics.Comment: 42 pages, 8 figure

Scaling in Late Stage Spinodal Decomposition with Quenched Disorder

We study the late stages of spinodal decomposition in a Ginzburg-Landau mean field model with quenched disorder. Random spatial dependence in the coupling constants is introduced to model the quenched disorder. The effect of the disorder on the scaling of the structure factor and on the domain growth is investigated in both the zero temperature limit and at finite temperature. In particular, we find that at zero temperature the domain size, $R(t)$, scales with the amplitude, $A$, of the quenched disorder as $R(t) = A^{-\beta} f(t/A^{-\gamma})$ with $\beta \simeq 1.0$ and $\gamma \simeq 3.0$ in two dimensions. We show that $\beta/\gamma = \alpha$, where $\alpha$ is the Lifshitz-Slyosov exponent. At finite temperature, this simple scaling is not observed and we suggest that the scaling also depends on temperature and $A$. We discuss these results in the context of Monte Carlo and cell dynamical models for phase separation in systems with quenched disorder, and propose that in a Monte Carlo simulation the concentration of impurities, $c$, is related to $A$ by $A \sim c^{1/d}$.Comment: RevTex manuscript 5 pages and 5 figures (obtained upon request via email [email protected]