Heat and Moisture Conduction in Unsaturated Soils

Mathematical models are developed for the prediction of heat transfer from hot water pipes buried in the soil. Heat transfer in the absence of moisture transfer is described as a function of the difference between the temperature of the pipe and the temperature of the soil surface. The energy balance is used to determine the longitudinal temperature distribution of the water. The method is extended to describe a system of equally spaced, parallel buried pipes. Soil temperature profiles around the pipes are presented. The model is used to calculate the land area that can be heated by an underground piping system carrying cooling water from the condensers of a 1000 MW nuclear-electric plant. A new development of the phenomenological equations for coupled heat and moisture flow, based on the theory of Irreversible Thermodynamics, is presented. Solutions of the equations for boundary conditions representative of buried piping systems designed for simultaneous soil heating and irrigation are presented

The ABC\u27s of the future : for the community members of Red Bluff

The Western community of Red Bluff needs a preschool. In 1917 a one-roomed school house, also known as the Little Red School House, was built to educate children. From 1965 until 2003 it was used as a preschool. When it closed, the community lost a historical building as well as the resources to empower preschoolers for its future generations. Ten Surveys were delivered to the community members of the West side of Red Bluff inquiring about their concerns regarding the closure. From the surveys three apparent themes emerged. From those three themes an action was put into place. A letter was written to the current deed holder of the building and the land that surrounds it, to inquire about the future plans for the building. Another letter was written to the Red Bluff Daily News Editor to communicate the need to educate the community and encourage them to express their support for a preschool in the Western community of Red Bluff. In order to help me out with these efforts I received a Capstone Grant from the Associated Students of CSU Monterey Bay

Differential Thermal Analysis of the Freeze-Thaw Mechanisms in Concrete

The freezing of water in concrete may create highly disruptive internal forces, depending upon the degree of saturation of the voids and the extent of the resulting dilations. Heretofore, it has not been possible to measure the internal pressures accompanying freezing; and it is this aspect of the automatic freeze-thaw testing of concrete with which the present study was concerned. By the use of thermocouples, imbedded in concrete and referenced to an ice-water bath, it was possible to plot, on an automatic multivolt potentiometer recorder, an isothermal phase change for the absorbed water, and to demonstrate a depression of the freezing point of the water with increasing confining pressures. It was also possible, at least in a general way, to relate the progress of damage in the concrete to increased absorption and freezing point depression

Proposed Remedies: Unstable Embankment at Mile Post 188 and Channel Erosion at Mile Post 190-191; I 64, Boyd County

The Department became aware of fill slippage on I 64 some 300 feet east of mile post 188 during the summer of 1967. In September of that year Mr. L. E. Richardson, Division of Maintenance, and Mr. Gordon D. Scott, Division of Research, made an inspection of the area. Mr. Scott reported cracking of shoulder, movement of the guard rail, and a failure in the berm along the toe. However, subsequent inspections showed the slip to be stabilizing by itself until late in 1970 when some additional movement was observed. In January of 1971, the most conspicuous pavement failure was located almost directly above the berm failure. It appeared that the berm failure may have affected the roadway failure; one crack was observed in the embankment surface about midway between the top of the eastern roadway shoulder and the top of the berm. The embankment slip appeared to have been triggered by deep erosion along the western margin of the fill and toe of the berm and extending from station 282+00 to station 285+50. The deeply eroded ditch was approximately 3 to 5 feet in depth and carried water from a median drain, station 282+00, and a 24-inch cross-drain at station 282+50

Route of administration for illicit prescription opioids: a comparison of rural and urban drug users

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nonmedical prescription opioid use has emerged as a major public health concern in recent years, particularly in rural Appalachia. Little is known about the routes of administration (ROA) involved in nonmedical prescription opioid use among rural and urban drug users. The purpose of this study was to describe rural-urban differences in ROA for nonmedical prescription opioid use.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A purposive sample of 212 prescription drug users was recruited from a rural Appalachian county (n = 101) and a major metropolitan area (n = 111) in Kentucky. Consenting participants were given an interviewer-administered questionnaire examining sociodemographics, psychiatric disorders, and self-reported nonmedical use and ROA (swallowing, snorting, injecting) for the following prescription drugs: buprenorphine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, OxyContin^®and other oxycodone.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among urban participants, swallowing was the most common ROA, contrasting sharply with substance-specific variation in ROA among rural participants. Among rural participants, snorting was the most frequent ROA for hydrocodone, methadone, OxyContin^®, and oxycodone, while injection was most common for hydromorphone and morphine. In age-, gender-, and race-adjusted analyses, rural participants had significantly higher odds of snorting hydrocodone, OxyContin^®, and oxycodone than urban participants. Urban participants had significantly higher odds of swallowing hydrocodone and oxycodone than did rural participants. Notably, among rural participants, 67% of hydromorphone users and 63% of morphine users had injected the drugs.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Alternative ROA are common among rural drug users. This finding has implications for rural substance abuse treatment and harm reduction, in which interventions should incorporate methods to prevent and reduce route-specific health complications of drug use.</p

A Rural/Urban Comparison of Privacy and Confidentiality Concerns Associated with Providing Sensitive Location Information in Epidemiologic Research Involving Persons Who Use Drugs

Background—Analyses that link contextual factors with individual-level data can improve our understanding of the risk environment ; however, the accuracy of information provided by participants about locations where illegal/stigmatized behaviors occur may be influenced by privacy/confidentiality concerns that may vary by setting and/or data collection approach. Methods—We recruited thirty-five persons who use drugs from a rural Appalachian town and a Mid-Atlantic city to participate in in-depth interviews. Through thematic analyses, we identified and compared privacy/confidentiality concerns associated with two survey methods that (1) collect self-reported addresses/cross-streets and (2) use an interactive web-based map to find/confirm locations in rural and urban settings. Results—Concerns differed more by setting than between methods. For example, (1) rural participants valued interviewer rapport and protections provided by the Certificate of Confidentiality more; (2) locations considered to be sensitive differed in rural (i.e., others\u27 homes) and urban (i.e., where drugs were used) settings; and (3) urban participants were more likely to view providing cross-streets as an acceptable alternative to providing exact addresses for sensitive locations and to prefer the web-based map approach. Conclusion—Rural-urban differences in privacy/confidentiality concerns reflect contextual differences (i.e., where drugs are used/purchased, population density, and prior drug-related arrests). Strategies to alleviate concerns include: (1) obtain a Certificate of Confidentiality, (2) collect geographic data at the scale necessary for proposed analyses, and (3) permit participants to provide intersections/landmarks in close proximity to actual locations rather than exact addresses or to skip questions where providing an intersection/landmark would not obfuscate the actual address

Healthcare Contact and Treatment Uptake Following Hepatitis C Virus Screening and Counseling Among Rural Appalachian People Who Use Drugs

Background—Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a major contributor to morbidity and mortality worldwide. Since 2009, Kentucky has led the United States in cases of acute HCV, driven largely by injection drug use in rural areas. Improved treatment regimens hold promise of mitigating the impact and transmission of HCV, but numerous barriers obstruct people who inject drugs (PWID) from receiving care, particularly in medically underserved settings. Methods—503 rural people who use drugs were recruited using respondent-driven sampling and received HCV screening and post-test counseling. Presence of HCV antibodies was assessed using enzyme immunoassay of dried blood samples. Sociodemographic and behavioral data were collected using computer-based questionnaires. Predictors of contacting a healthcare provider for follow-up following HCV-positive serotest and counseling were determined using discrete-time survival analysis. Results—150 (59%) of 254 participants reported contacting a healthcare provider within 18 months of positive serotest and counseling; the highest probability occurred within six months of serotesting. 35 participants (14%) reported they were seeking treatment, and 21 (8%) reported receiving treatment. In multivariate time-dependent modeling, health insurance, internet access, prior substance use treatment, meeting DSM-IV criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, and recent marijuana use increased the odds of making contact for follow-up. Participants meeting criteria for major depressive disorder and reporting prior methadone use, whether legal or illegal, were less likely to contact a provider. Conclusion—While only 8% received treatment after HCV-positive screening, contacting a healthcare provider was frequent in this sample of rural PWID, suggesting that the major barriers to care are likely further downstream. These findings offer insight into the determinants of engaging the cascade of medical treatment for HCV and ultimately, treatment-as-prevention. Further study and increased resources to support integrated interventions with effectiveness in other settings are recommended to mitigate the impact of HCV in this resource-deprived setting

Kernel Matrix-Based Heuristic Multiple Kernel Learning

Kernel theory is a demonstrated tool that has made its way into nearly all areas of machine learning. However, a serious limitation of kernel methods is knowing which kernel is needed in practice. Multiple kernel learning (MKL) is an attempt to learn a new tailored kernel through the aggregation of a set of valid known kernels. There are generally three approaches to MKL: fixed rules, heuristics, and optimization. Optimization is the most popular; however, a shortcoming of most optimization approaches is that they are tightly coupled with the underlying objective function and overfitting occurs. Herein, we take a different approach to MKL. Specifically, we explore different divergence measures on the values in the kernel matrices and in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). Experiments on benchmark datasets and a computer vision feature learning task in explosive hazard detection demonstrate the effectiveness and generalizability of our proposed methods

Turbine research package for research and development of high performance turboalternator Final report

Two-stage, axial flow turbine test rig for providing cold flow aerodynamic performance data on Brayton cycle alternator drive turbin

Turbine research package for research and development of high performance axial flow turbine-compressor Final report

Turbine research package for research and development of high performance axial flow turbine compresso