Engineering Geognosy of Boyd County

Engineering soils and geologic maps are proving to be invaluable tools of engineers, industrial leaders, community planners, and administrators during tbe preliminary stages of planning and site selection for major construction projects and the development of plans to use nature\u27s basic resource--the land. Quantitative engineering data for soils and geological formations, and the interpretation of tbese data, are important factors to consider in the best land-use plans and in providing stable foundations and proper usage of earth materials for highways, buildings, and other earth structures. Engineering soils and geologic maps can be used to great advantage by planners and engineers to 1) make soil and geological reconnaissance surveys, 2) organize and check field surveys, 3) correlate and predict performances of soil and geological materials, and 4) locate construction material and resource deposits. Recognizing the need and demand for this type of information, the Research Division of the Kentucky Department of Highways has undertaken a pilot study to report tbe engineering geognosy of a selected area in Kentucky. The area reported herein is located in the vicinity of Ashland. This report discusses the engineering properties and behavior of unconsolidated surficial deposits and consolidated bedrock materials in Boyd County, Kentucky. It is based mainly on an interpretation of engineering test data retrieved and summarized from Kentucky Department of Highways\u27 design and construction plans for routes I 64, KY 3, and US 60, which pass tbrough the area; a soils report (1) prepared by the Soil Conservation Service for the city of Ashland; and published geologic reports and maps (2, 4, 5). Engineering soils and geologic maps and interpretations presented in this report should be viewed from a standpoint of rapidly providing generalized engineering information of the different soil and rock materials in the subject area. For important earthwork and foundation engineering purposes and for detailed and specific data, it is recommended that the soil and rock materials at a particular site be explored and tested thoroughly

Engineering Geognosy of Warren County

Engineering soils and geologic maps are proving to be invaluable to engineers, industrial leaders, community planners, and administrators during the preliminary stages of planning and site selection. Quantitative engineering data on soils and geological formations, and the interpretation of these data, are important factors to consider in developing the best land-use plans and providing stable foundations for highways, buildings, and other structures, such as dams. Information of this type, when available, is being used by public and private organizations in planning urban development. Engineering soils and geologic maps can be used to great advantage in four major ways by planners and engineers to 1) make soil and geological recmmaissance surverys, 2) organize and check field surveys, 3) correlate performance with soil and geological types, and 4) locate construction material deposits. Reorgnizing the need and demand for this type of information, the Research Division of the Kentucky Department of Highways has undertaken a pilot study to develop the engineering geognosy of a selected area in Kentucky. The area reported herein is located in the vicinity of Bowling Green. This report discusses the engineering and geologic properties of unconsolidated surfical deposits and consolidated bedrock materials in Warren County, Kentucky. It is based on an interpretation of engineering test data retrieved and summarized from Kentucky Department of Highways\u27 design and oonstruction plans for routes I 65, US 31 W, KY 67, and the Bowling Green-Owensboro Parkway and published geologic and soil reports (3, 5, 6, 7). Engineering soils and geologic maps and interpretations presented in this report should be viewed from a standpoint of rapidly providing generalized engineering and geologic information of the different soil and rock materials in the subject area. For important earthwork and foundation engineering purposes and for detailed and specific data, it is recommended that the soil and rock materials at a particular site be explored and tested thoroughly

The Full Landscape of Robust Mean Testing: Sharp Separations between Oblivious and Adaptive Contamination

We consider the question of Gaussian mean testing, a fundamental task in high-dimensional distribution testing and signal processing, subject to adversarial corruptions of the samples. We focus on the relative power of different adversaries, and show that, in contrast to the common wisdom in robust statistics, there exists a strict separation between adaptive adversaries (strong contamination) and oblivious ones (weak contamination) for this task. Specifically, we resolve both the information-theoretic and computational landscapes for robust mean testing. In the exponential-time setting, we establish the tight sample complexity of testing $\mathcal{N}(0,I)$ against $\mathcal{N}(\alpha v, I)$, where $\|v\|_2 = 1$, with an $\varepsilon$-fraction of adversarial corruptions, to be $$\tilde{\Theta}\!\left(\max\left(\frac{\sqrt{d}}{\alpha^2}, \frac{d\varepsilon^3}{\alpha^4},\min\left(\frac{d^{2/3}\varepsilon^{2/3}}{\alpha^{8/3}}, \frac{d \varepsilon}{\alpha^2}\right)\right) \right) \,,$$ while the complexity against adaptive adversaries is $$\tilde{\Theta}\!\left(\max\left(\frac{\sqrt{d}}{\alpha^2}, \frac{d\varepsilon^2}{\alpha^4} \right)\right) \,,$$ which is strictly worse for a large range of vanishing $\varepsilon,\alpha$. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first separation in sample complexity between the strong and weak contamination models. In the polynomial-time setting, we close a gap in the literature by providing a polynomial-time algorithm against adaptive adversaries achieving the above sample complexity $\tilde{\Theta}(\max({\sqrt{d}}/{\alpha^2}, {d\varepsilon^2}/{\alpha^4} ))$, and a low-degree lower bound (which complements an existing reduction from planted clique) suggesting that all efficient algorithms require this many samples, even in the oblivious-adversary setting.Comment: To appear in FOCS 202

Design of \u27Iris\u27, a Small Autonomous Surveillance UAV

This paper documents the design process used for a small autonomous surveillance UAV. The most significant requirements for the plane were size (man-packable), endurance (about 1 hour) and cost (essentially disposable). The plane that resulted, named Iris , is a tailless plane with a 45 cm wing span and a total mass of less than 200g. During flight tests, it achieved an endurance of 52 minutes. The estimated cost to manufacture the planes was $343, excluding the autopilot

HRP2 and pLDH-Based Rapid Diagnostic Tests, Expert Microscopy, and PCR for Detection of Malaria Infection during Pregnancy and at Delivery in Areas of Varied Transmission: A Prospective Cohort Study in Burkina Faso and Uganda.

BACKGROUND: Intermittent screening and treatment (IST) of malaria during pregnancy has been proposed as an alternative to intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp), where IPTp is failing due to drug resistance. However, the antenatal parasitaemias are frequently very low, and the most appropriate screening test for IST has not been defined. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We conducted a multi-center prospective study of 990 HIV-uninfected women attending ANC in two different malaria transmission settings at Tororo District Hospital, eastern Uganda and Colsama Health Center in western Burkina Faso. Women were enrolled in the study in the second or third trimester of pregnancy and followed to delivery, generating 2,597 blood samples for analysis. Screening tests included rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) targeting histidine-rich protein 2 (HRP2) and parasite lactate dehydrogenase (pLDH) and microscopy, compared to nPCR as a reference standard. At enrolment, the proportion of pregnant women who were positive for P. falciparum by HRP2/pan pLDH RDT, Pf pLDH/pan pLDH RDT, microscopy and PCR was 38%, 29%, 36% and 44% in Uganda and 21%, 16%, 15% and 35% in Burkina Faso, respectively. All test positivity rates declined during follow-up. In comparison to PCR, the sensitivity of the HRP2/pan pLDH RDT, Pf pLDH/pan pLDH RDT and microscopy was 75.7%, 60.1% and 69.7% in Uganda, 55.8%, 42.6% and 55.8% in Burkina Faso respectively for all antenatal visits. Specificity was greater than 96% for all three tests. Comparison of accuracy using generalized estimating equation revealed that the HRP2- detecting RDT was the most accurate test in both settings. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The study suggests that HRP2-based RDTs are the most appropriate point-of-care test currently available for use during pregnancy especially for symptomatic women, but will still miss some PCR-positive women. The clinical significance of these very low density infections needs to be better defined