Long-Term Performance Evaluation Of NUdeck In Kearney East Bypass

The Kearney East Bypass bridge is the first project that implements the newly developed precast concrete deck system (known as 2nd generation NUDECK). The new system consists of full-depth full-width precast prestressed concrete deck panels that are 12 ft (3.66 m) long each. The panels have covered shear pockets at 4 ft (1.22 m) spacing on each girder line to host clustered shear connectors that are adjustable in height. Narrow unreinforced transverse joints are used to eliminate the need for deck overlay. Also, deck panels are post-tensioned in the longitudinal direction using a new post-tensioning system that eliminates the need for post- tensioning ducts, strand threading, and grouting operations. The project has twin bridges: a southbound bridge with cast-in-place (CIP) concrete deck, and northbound bridge with the new precast concrete (PC) deck system. The two bridges were completed in the fall of 2015 and opened to traffic in the fall of 2016. Due to the unique features of the new PC deck system, this research project was initiated to monitor short-term performance using live load test and long-term performance under traffic loads to evaluate the system performance. Both CIP concrete deck and PC deck bridges were instrumented and tested during the summer of 2016 to compare the performance of their superstructures. Also, finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted to predict the performance of the new PC deck system. The results of both analytical and experimental investigations indicated that the PC deck system performs as predicted and very comparable to the conventional CIP concrete deck

BER of MRC for M-QAM with imperfect channel estimation over correlated Nakagami-m fading

In this contribution, we provide an exact BER analysis for M-QAM transmission over arbitrarily correlated Nakagami-m fading channels with maximal-ratio combining (MRC) and imperfect channel estimation at the receiver. Assuming an arbitrary joint fading distribution and a generic pilot-based channel estimation method, we derive an exact BER expression that involves an expectation over (at most) 4 variables, irrespective of the number of receive antennas. The resulting BER expression includes well-known PDFs and the PDF of only the norm of the channel vector. In order to obtain the latter PDF for arbitrarily correlated Nakagami-m fading, several approaches from the literature are discussed. For identically distributed and arbitrarily correlated Nakagami-m channels with integer m, we present several BER performance results, which are obtained from numerical evaluation and confirmed by straightforward computer simulations. The numerical evaluation of the exact BER expression turns out to be much less time-consuming than the computer simulations

The consumption of energy for domestic use in three African villages

Very little information is available on domestic fuel consumption in African villages in Southern Africa. And yet, it is a problem that concerns a large number of people, and which is contributing to environmental deterioration. At three villages, 'in Lesotho, Transkei and KwaZulu, the collection and consumption of wood, dung and par2ffin were recorded. The larges~ quantities of energy are consumed . .in KwaZulu with the least in the Transkei (only slightly belong Lesotho). the total consumption of energy largely depends on the availability tv of wood. wood becorr.es scarce, is burnt for heat and cooking. Paraffin is used for light, and for cooking by some women. Wood and dung are burnt at efficiencies of below 3%. The most obvious short term solution, to shortages of energy, is to raise the effi8iency with which fuel is burnt, In the long term, alternative energy sources must be developed

AUTOPLAN: A PC-based automated mission planning tool

A PC-based automated mission and resource planning tool, AUTOPLAN, is described, with application to small-scale planning and scheduling systems in the Space Station program. The input is a proposed mission profile, including mission duration, number of allowable slip periods, and requirement profiles for one or more resources as a function of time. A corresponding availability profile is also entered for each resource over the whole time interval under study. AUTOPLAN determines all integrated schedules which do not require more than the available resources

Towards an Automatic Dictation System for Translators: the TransTalk Project

Professional translators often dictate their translations orally and have them typed afterwards. The TransTalk project aims at automating the second part of this process. Its originality as a dictation system lies in the fact that both the acoustic signal produced by the translator and the source text under translation are made available to the system. Probable translations of the source text can be predicted and these predictions used to help the speech recognition system in its lexical choices. We present the results of the first prototype, which show a marked improvement in the performance of the speech recognition task when translation predictions are taken into account.Comment: Published in proceedings of the International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP) 94. 4 pages, uuencoded compressed latex source with 4 postscript figure

Eight Years Superb Performance of a Motorcycles Race Track Pavement – A Design and Construction Review

This paper is part of the conference proceedings for the 52nd Associated Schools of Construction Annual International Conference in April 2016 at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.The primary purposes of this paper are to review the special pavement design and construction activities employed in construction of the Calabogie race track after a visual conduction survey to the surface conditions and interaction with the operation personnel and users to verify the performance of the track during the eight years’ service, and the effectiveness of the construction strategies, materials and mix designs used in the asphalt paving eight years ago. It was found that the pavement demonstrated good condition after eight years’ service including hosting numerous racing and competition events. Special construction methods, material designs and quality control and quality assurance procedures are the major factors contributing to the success of the track. This paper reviews the hot mix asphalt design, and special construction techniques employed during the construction including the project specifications, special paving techniques, field quality control and assurance, hydrated lime application in the mix and during paving. The review of the construction of the race track surface paving will have referential value for asphalt paving activities in highway constructio