Orfalea College of Business- Fire & Life Safety Analysis

This report details the prescriptive and performance based analyses performed on the Orfalea College of Business building, located on the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus. Designed in accordance with the 1985 Uniform Building Code (UBC), this building is evaluated for compliance with the requirements prescribed under relevant codes in place as of 2016. The main function of this building is to serve both academic and administrative purposes, including classrooms and staff offices. Aspects of the building analyzed include: Egress Systems, Structural Fire Protection, Smoke Management, Fire Detection, Fire Notification, and Fire Suppression The prescriptive analysis demonstrates the lack of compliance in two general areas: egress systems and passive fire protection. Obstructions in corridors will impede egress travel, while propped open doors compromise the designed passive fire protection. The rest of the building features were deemed compliant based on the 2013 CBC. A performance based analysis was performed on the building using tenability criteria justified by relevant scientific research. Thresholds for visibility, temperature, and toxicity were considered in determining the Available Safe Egress Time (ASET). This analysis intended to evaluate the building based on Method 2 found in the 2015 Life Safety Code (LSC), where ASET must be greater than the Required Safe Egress Time (RSET). The results of the analysis revealed that both temperature and toxicity were not a concern for a fire scenario in what is deemed one of the most potentially hazardous areas in the building. Visibility, however, would drop below its minimum threshold at 300 seconds after fire ignition. The RSET was determined using justified pre-movement times and calculated egress times. The RSET proved to be 444 seconds, which is more than 2 minutes greater than the ASET. Thus, the performance criterion is not met. The building will maintain an acceptable level of protection if obstructions are removed from paths of egress and all fire and smoke doors are maintained in their proper position. The installation of sprinklers would greatly reduce the impact of a hazardous scenario, as it is nearly impossible to ensure that all doors required to be closed are closed due to the nature of the building

CROP INSURANCE UNDER QUALITY UNCERTAINTY

Quality related yield and price losses have had significant impact on producer income and risks, and in some instances exceeded yield and price losses covered by conventional insurance instruments. However, there are no effective third party quality risk transfer mechanisms especially for barley growers. In this paper, we develop a framework to incorporate quality-related risk in crop insurance programs. Specifically, we derive the optimum equilibrium coverage levels and risk premium that suppliers of insurance and producers would be willing to provide when the yield and revenue insurance instruments explicitly incorporate quality losses. The results of our analysis provide several important contributions. First, the methodology illustrates how quality impacts could be incorporated into crop insurance types of contracts. Second, we explicitly incorporate the correlation effects of yield and price shortfalls due to quality. Though applied here in the case of malting barley and scab, this approach could be applied similarly in many regions, crops, and quality factors.Risk and Uncertainty,

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SCAB WITH ALTERNATIVE RISK MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: THE CASE OF CROP QUALITY INSURANCE IN BARLEY

Managing quality risks, especially grain quality, has been a challenge facing farmers, grain merchandisers, and policymakers for many years. With the advent of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), food safety, and identity preservation, this is even more challenging today. In this paper, an equilibrium crop insurance model was developed and used to analyze the impact of quality risks on equilibrium coverage levels and risk premiums that suppliers of insurance and barley producers would be willing to provide when yield and revenue insurance instruments explicitly incorporate quality risks. The asking price concept and sensitivity analysis were used to evaluate farmers' behavior after they purchase crop quality insurance and to provide guidance and direction in the development of risk-efficient quality insurance instruments.crop insurance, equilibrium coverage levels, Fusarium Head Blight, premium rates, quality risks, risk aversion, Crop Production/Industries,

ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF FUSARIUM HEAD BLIGHT IN WHEAT AND BARLEY: 1998-2000

Fusarium Head Blight (FHB), commonly known as scab, has been a severe problem for wheat and barley producers since 1993. This study provides an update of economic losses suffered by wheat and barley producers in scab-affected regions in the United States. Emphasis is placed on estimating direct and secondary economic impacts of yield and price losses suffered by wheat and barley producers from 1998 to 2000. Nine states are included in the analysis for three wheat classes. Three of the nine states were also used for the analysis of malting and feed barley. The cumulative direct economic losses from FHB in hard red spring (HRS) wheat, soft red winter (SRW) wheat, durum wheat, and barley is estimated at $870 million from 1998 through 2000. The combined direct and secondary economic losses for all the crops were estimated at$2.7 billion. Two states, North Dakota and Minnesota, account for about 55 percent of the total dollar losses.Fusarium Head Blight, scab, vomitoxin, crop losses, wheat, barley, Crop Production/Industries,

Fotografía DE NIÑA SENTADA CON MUÑECO EN LAS MANOS [Material gráfico]

Copia digital. Madrid : Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 201

Genesis, Uses and Environment Implications of Iron Oxides and Ores

Iron oxides are chemical complexes which occur naturally, comprising iron and oxygen. Here, together, 16 types of iron oxides and oxyhydroxides have been identified. These two components of oxides are widely spread naturally. They are vital to humans and useful in most geological and biological activities. In addition, they are useful as pigments and catalyst in industries and hemoglobin in blood circulation. The interplay and conversion of these components from one form to another are essentially controlled by bacterial species. These contain 70 and 72% iron, respectively. Furthermore, iron ores are classified in terms of occurrence. Banded iron formation (BIF) comprises 15% iron, comprising minerals of iron that are bedded besides silica. Beneficiation processes of iron ore generate dust in the atmosphere, acid mine drainage in the ecosystem and metallic iron for steelmaking. Beneficiation process requires dissolution of minerals surrounding the ore and the release of metals and cement matrix into water courses. These generates acid leading to acid mine drainage. Therefore, there is a need for impact assessment of the environment in the planned beneficiation cycle. Sustainable beneficiation must be done to reduce impact on the natural, social or economic environment

Investigating the timecourse of accessing conversational implicatures during incremental sentence interpretation

Many contextual inferences in utterance interpretation are explained as following from the nature of conversation and the assumption that participants are rational. Recent psycholinguistic research has focussed on certain of these ‘Gricean’ inferences and have revealed that comprehenders can access them in online interpretation. However there have been mixed results as to the time-course of access. Some results show that Gricean inferences can be accessed very rapidly, as rapidly as any other contextually specified information (Sedivy, 2003; Grodner, Klein, Carbery, & Tanenhaus, 2010); while other studies looking at the same kind of inference suggest that access to Gricean inferences are delayed relative to other aspects of semantic interpretation (Huang & Snedeker, 2009; in press). While previous timecourse research has focussed on Gricean inferences that support the online assignment of reference to definite expressions, the study reported here examines the timecourse of access to scalar implicatures, which enrich the meaning of an utterance beyond the semantic interpretation. Even if access to Gricean inference in support of reference assignment may be rapid, it is still unknown whether genuinely enriching scalar implicatures are delayed. Our results indicate that scalar implicatures are accessed as rapidly as other contextual inferences. The implications of our results are discussed in reference to the architecture of language comprehension

Antibiotic Synergy Interaction against Multidrug-Resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolated from an Abattoir Effluent Environment

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen in environmental waters with a high prevalence of multidrug resistance. In this study the synergistic efficacy of synergy antibiotic combinations in multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa strains isolated from an abattoir effluent was investigated. Water samples were processed using membrane filtration; Pseudomonas was isolated with Pseudomonas Isolation Agar and confirmed using polymerase chain reaction with specie-specific primer. Susceptibility studies and in vitro synergy interaction testing were carried out, employing agar dilution and Etest procedure, respectively. Resistance was noted for clinically relevant antipseudomonal agents tested. Finding from antibiotic synergy interaction studies revealed that cefepime, imipenem, and meropenem combined with amikacin resulted in statistically significant (P < 0.0001) in vitro antibiotics synergy interaction, indicating the possible use of this regimen in treatment of pseudomonal infections

Evaluation of the performances of a single-use duodenoscope: Prospective multi-center national study

Objectives: A single-use duodenoscope (SUD) has been recently developed to overcome issues with endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP)-related cross-infections. The aim was to evaluate SUD safety and performance in a prospective multi-centre study. Methods: All consecutive patients undergoing ERCP in six French centers were prospectively enrolled. All procedures were performed with the SUD; in case of ERCP failure, operators switched to a reusable duodenoscope. Study outcomes were the successful completion of the procedure with SUD, safety and operators’ satisfaction based on a VAS 0–10 and on 22 qualitative items. The study protocol was approved by French authorities and registered (ID-RCB: 2020-A00346-33). External companies collected the database and performed statistical analysis. Results: Sixty patients (34 females, median age 65.5 years old) were enrolled. Main indications were bile duct stones (41.7%) and malignant biliary obstruction (26.7%). Most ERCP were considered ASGE grade 2 (58.3%) or 3 (35.0%). Fifty-seven (95.0%) procedures were completed using the SUD. Failures were unrelated to SUD (one duodenal stricture, one ampullary infiltration, and one tight biliary stricture) and could not be completed with reusable duodenoscopes. Median operators’ satisfaction was 9 (7–9). Qualitative assessments were considered clinically satisfactory in a median of 100% of items and comparable to a reusable duodenoscope in 97.9% of items. Three patients (5%) reported an adverse event. None was SUD-related. Conclusions: The use of a SUD allows ERCP to be performed with an optimal successful rate. Our data show that SUD could be used for several ERCP indications and levels of complexity