Field and laboratory investigation into scour around breakwaters

Coastal scour accounts for a significant proportion of the damage to marine structures. It is therefore important to be able to measure, model and predict scour effects to inform the design of new structures and to assess potential damage to existing ones. The aim of this project was to compare the results from field surveys to those obtained in a marine test laboratory. Since this project employed small scale modelling this provided a further opportunity to compare results with those obtained in previous published studies. This project has compared collected data from two coastal structures with results obtained from modelling in the COAST facility at the University of Plymouth. The results obtained have validated the use of this technique. Scouring was investigated in the vicinity of two breakwater structures; the Falmouth Eastern breakwater and the Mount Batten breakwater. A bathymetric survey was conducted in the vicinity of Mount Batten breakwater and previously published data from the Falmouth breakwater was obtained. This data was used to model the sea bed profile at the end of each of the structures. Small scale models of these two breakwaters were designed and built for this project and tested in laboratory facilities. Data collected from the field surveys was subsequently compared to results collected from laboratory testing and then the differences were analysed. It was found that expected scour pits were not present at the end of either structure. This indicates how complex scour in coastal areas is to predict and model, it is likely that variables such as such tides, bidirectional currents, interaction with other structures and turbulence from marine vessels accounts for the absence of the usual scour patterns in these cases. However the data collected was valuable in developing the test methodology and will be helpful in future work. The similarity between the small scale laboratory results obtained and previously published literature for larger scale modelling indicates that this method of testing could be considered valid for the future design and development of costal structures as well as providing a tool to model the behaviour of such structures in hostile conditions. There are economic advantages to being able to test in smaller less expensive facilities and this project has demonstrated the validity of such small scale testing

Leaving the Lecture Hall: Conducting HF/E Outside the Classroom

Georgia Tech HF/E students initiated and managed a multisemester project to experience the nuances of conducting HF/E outside the classroom setting. This article focuses on the lessons learned beyond the classroom: project management, team coordination, communication with non-HF/E team members, application of research methods, and integration of data to prioritize and guide design changes. The goal of this article is to help guide other HF/E students and educators when implementing similar projects by providing the lessons we learned from this experience

Moving In Out and Around the Home: Solutions from Older Adults with Long-term Mobility Impairment

Presented at the 2015 annual conference of Rehabilitative Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) in Denver, CO.The purpose of this study was to explore how older adults aging with long-term mobility impairment have adapted to mobility challenges in the home. Through in-home interviews, participants discussed their experience moving in, out and around their home with regard to challenges, solutions, barriers, and changes with age. This paper provides a characterization of the solutions used by participants to overcome in-home mobility challenges as well as unresolved barriers they faced. These themes illustrate the ingenuity of the participants as well as opportunities to support aging in place via design to better match a person’s environment to his/her capabilities

A hybrid MLP-PNN architecture for fast image superresolution

Proceedings of Joint International Conference ICANN/ICONIP 2003 Istanbul, Turkey, June 26–29, 2003The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-44989-2_50Image superresolution methods process an input image sequence of a scene to obtain a still image with increased resolution. Classical approaches to this problem involve complex iterative minimization procedures, typically with high computational costs. In this paper is proposed a novel algorithm for superresolution that enables a substantial decrease in computer load. First, a probabilistic neural network architecture is used to perform a scattered-point interpolation of the image sequence data. The network kernel function is optimally determined for this problem by a multi-layer perceptron trained on synthetic data. Network parameters dependence on sequence noise level is quantitatively analyzed. This super-sampled image is spatially filtered to correct finite pixel size effects, to yield the final high-resolution estimate. Results on a real outdoor sequence are presented, showing the quality of the proposed method.This work has been partially supported by TIC2001-0572-C02-02 gran

Combining Substrate Specificity Analysis with Support Vector Classifiers Reveals Feruloyl Esterase as a Phylogenetically Informative Protein Group

Our understanding of how fungi evolved to develop a variety of ecological niches, is limited but of fundamental biological importance. Specifically, the evolution of enzymes affects how well species can adapt to new environmental conditions. Feruloyl esterases (FAEs) are enzymes able to hydrolyze the ester bonds linking ferulic acid to plant cell wall polysaccharides. The diversity of substrate specificities found in the FAE family shows that this family is old enough to have experienced the emergence and loss of many activities. In this study we evaluate the relative activity of FAEs against a variety of model substrates as a novel predictive tool for Ascomycota taxonomic classification. Our approach consists of two analytical steps; (1) an initial unsupervised analysis to cluster the FAEs substrate specificity data which were generated by cultivation of 34 Ascomycota strains and then an analysis of the produced enzyme cocktail against 10 substituted cinnamate and phenylalkanoate methyl esters, (2) a second, supervised analysis for training a predictor built on these substrate activities. By applying both linear and non-linear models we were able to correctly predict the taxonomic Class (∼86% correct classification), Order (∼88% correct classification) and Family (∼88% correct classification) that the 34 Ascomycota belong to, using the activity profiles of the FAEs. The good correlation with the FAEs substrate specificities that we have defined via our phylogenetic analysis not only suggests that FAEs are phylogenetically informative proteins but it is also a considerable step towards improved FAEs functional prediction.published_or_final_versio

The magnitude and factors associated with delays in management of smear positive tuberculosis in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

To assess the magnitude and factors responsible for delay in TB management. A cross sectional hospital based survey in Dar es Salaam region, May 2006. We interviewed 639 TB patients. A total of 78.4% of patients had good knowledge on TB transmission. Only 35.9% had good knowledge on the symptoms. Patient delay was observed in 35.1% of the patients, with significantly (X2 = 5.49, d.f. = 1, P = 0.019) high proportion in females (41.0%) than in males (31.5%). Diagnosis delay was observed in 52.9% of the patients, with significantly (X2 = 10.1, d.f. = 1, P = 0.001) high proportion in females (62.1%) than in males (47.0%). Treatment delay was observed in 34.4% of patients with no significant differences among males and females. Several risk factors were significantly associated with patient's delays in females but not in males. The factors included not recognizing the following as TB symptoms: night sweat (OR = 1.92, 95% CI 1.20, 3.05), chest pain (OR = 1.62, 95% CI 1.1, 2.37), weight loss (OR = 1.55, 95% CI 1.03, 2.32), and coughing blood (OR = 1.47, 95% CI 1.01, 2.16). Other factors included: living more than 5 Km from a health facility (OR = 2.24, 95% CI 1.41, 3.55), no primary education (OR = 1.74, 95% CI 1.01, 3.05) and no employment (OR = 1.77, 95% CI 1.20, 2.60). In multiple logistic regression, five factors were more significant in females (OR = 2.22, 95% CI 1.14, 4.31) than in males (OR = 0.70, 95% CI 0.44, 1.11). These factors included not knowing that night sweat and chest pain are TB symptoms, a belief that TB is always associated with HIV infection, no employment and living far from a health facility. There were significant delays in the management of TB patients which were contributed by both patients and health facilities. However, delays in most of patients were due to delay of diagnosis and treatment in health facilities. The delays at all levels were more common in females than males. This indicates the need for education targeting health seeking behaviour and improvement in health system