An Analysis of Electromagnetic Flowmeters: A Numerical Study

As water scarcity increases, improved water management through better water measurement is of critical global significance. Today, the most common way to measure water in drinking water and wastewater systems is to use an electromagnetic (magnetic) flowmeter. A magnetic flowmeter has many components, and their accuracy can be compromised if not installed or calibrated correctly. The purpose of the present study was threefold. Each of the three components has been named to help the reader understand the context of the study without getting lost in the details. The Idealist. Using mathematical programs, the spacing of two types of magnetic flowmeter sensors was optimized and the performance of these sensors was numerically compared to the standard sensors in use today. The Egalitarian. Not all researchers who are interested in magnetic flowmeter analysis are trained to understand how they work. Thus, some researchers are limited in their abilities to identify improvements to water measurement practices. Consequently, an alternative magnetic flowmeter analysis method was compared to the traditional magnetic flowmeter analysis method and found good agreement, thereby enabling a new group of researchers to analyze magnetic flowmeters. The Capitalist. Computer models can be used to predict the flow of water through pipes. Some models match laboratory observations better than others but are more ex-pensive to use. This segment of research explored how sensitive magnetic flowmeters are to less expensive and more expensive models and found that they appear to exhibit some sensitivity to the choice of model

Assessing the Effects of Local Turbulence and Velocity Profiles on Electromagnetic Flow Meter Accuracy

The purpose of this research was to assess the effects of local turbulence and velocity profiles on electromagnetic (magnetic) flow meters. According to the American Water Works Association, “No tool available to water utilities has played a greater part in the conservation of water than the water meter (AWWA 2002).” Consequently, it is imperative to understand what variables may influence magnetic flow meter accuracy. Even though other researchers have explored the effects of turbulence profile development on orifice plates, the literature is not clear how magnetic flow meters respond to the effect of local turbulence. Accordingly, this study investigated the effects of local turbulence and velocity profiles on magnetic flow meter accuracy. Using five magnetic flow meters from five different manufacturers, laboratory tests were conducted with a CPA 65E flow conditioner located at different distances upstream of the meter. Numerical modeling using commercially available computational fluid dynamics software indicated that the deviations in flow meter accuracy were not proportional to the levels of local turbulence. It appears that magnetic flow meters may only be influenced by local turbulence to the degree that the upstream disturbance that distorts the velocity profile also increases local turbulence

Are We Preparing the Next Generation? K-12 Teacher Knowledge and Engagement in Teaching Core STEM Practices

Background: Several of the recent reform efforts in K-12 STEM education (e.g. Next Generation Science Standards [NGSS and Common Core State Standards-Mathematics [CCSS-M]) have included significant emphasis on the practices of STEM. We argue that K-12 teachers\u27 ability to effectively engage their students in these core STEM practices is fundamental to the success of potential and current engineering students and their subsequent careers as engineers. Practices such as identifying problems, modeling using mathematics, and arguing from evidence are fundamental processes in engineering. Helping students develop their capacity to engage in these practices early in their education will increase the likelihood of the students applying the practices and developing skills aligned with the work of engineers. We contend that engaging in the practices associated with engineering may increase K-12 student interest and the successful pursuit of engineering as a career because they will find relevance in what is being taught and gain knowledge of the applications of STEM content which will help them develop talents aligned with the work of engineers. Project: In recognition of the importance of being able to apply the practices of science and engineering (NGSS) and the practices of mathematics (CCSS-M) to be successful as an engineer (or a STEM professional), we emphasized the of importance and value of core STEM practices as part of i-STEM-our week-long intensive, statewide STEM professional development (PD) summer institute program for over 500 K-12 educators. During i-STEM, the K-12 educators were exposed to interactive plenary sessions in which keynote speakers walked the participants through the practices using authentic hands-on activities and materials detailing the practices, and STEM professional development providers engaged them in the practices in STEM topic specific strands (intensive 25 hour short courses based on themes such as mining, energy, computer science, robotics, transportation, and etc). To determine the impact of the summer institute, we developed and administered an instrument to assess the participants\u27 knowledge and engagement in teaching core STEM practices. Pre-Test Results: Our analysis revealed that before the teachers (N = 347) entered the i-STEM professional development offering they had very limited knowledge of core practices. When asked to list core practices some responded with answers such as, I have no knowledge of this. and Give background on rockets, watching videos, building rockets, discuss how and why they flew the farthest, redo and re-fly. and Not sure what you mean by practices. In contrast, when asked to rate their levels of knowledge of the math practices (on a scale of 1-10) the average rating was 5.67 (SD = 2.21) and knowledge of science/engineering practices was 2.62 (SD = 2.00). Responses indicated that the teachers rated their knowledge as moderate in math and low in science/engineering and yet they struggled to articulate many of the core STEM practices. Post-Test Results: The immediate post-test of the participants (n = 347) revealed increases in self-reported averaged ratings of knowledge of the CCSS-M practices (M = 6.63, SD = 1.86) and the NGSS science and engineering practices (M = 5.04, SD = 2.03). However, as with the pre-test, these ratings were misaligned with detailed articulation of the practices. Responses to the item asking the participants to list the core STEM practices included statements such as, I think there is a written explanation as to why things work and the steps broken down and explained. and Not familiar enough. Regardless many participants indicated that they had a better understanding of the practices after the i-STEM institute. å© American Society for Engineering Education, 2015

Gender Specific Disruptions in Emotion Processing in Younger Adults with Depression

Background: One of the principal theories regarding the biological basis of major depressive disorder (MDD) implicates a dysregulation of emotion-processing circuitry. Gender differences in how emotions are processed and relative experience with emotion processing might help to explain some of the disparities in the prevalence of MDD between women and men. This study sought to explore how gender and depression status relate to emotion processing. Methods: This study employed a 2 (MDD status) × 2 (gender) factorial design to explore differences in classifications of posed facial emotional expressions (N=151). Results: For errors, there was an interaction between gender and depression status. Women with MDD made more errors than did nondepressed women and men with MDD, particularly for fearful and sad stimuli (Ps Ps P=.01). Men with MDD, conversely, performed similarly to control men (P=.61). Conclusions: These results provide novel and intriguing evidence that depression in younger adults (years) differentially disrupts emotion processing in women as compared to men. This interaction could be driven by neurobiological and social learning mechanisms, or interactions between them, and may underlie differences in the prevalence of depression in women and men. Depression and Anxiety, 2009. Published 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Investigation of Amino and Fatty Acid Characterisation of Thevetia peruviana (Milk Bush) Seed

This study examined the amino acid profile and fatty acid analysis of Milk bush (thevetia peruviana) seed. The seeds were ground into very fine powder using three processing techniques. The parameters of interest were carried out using standard methods. The results of both essential and non-essential amino acids showed that the total essential amino acid content in oven-dried seed sample (OD.S), airdried seed sample (AD.S) and sun-dried seed sample (SD.S) were within the WHO Standard. It was observed that eighteen out of the twenty amino acids content of food were present in the seed with glutamic acid having the highest value, followed by aspartate and arginine. Also the eight essential amino acid needed in the daily diet were all present in the sample (arginine, valine, histidine, isoleucine, lysine, methionine, phenylanine, threonine, tryptophan and leucine). There were reductions in the level of some amino acids as a result of the processing treatments. The fatty acid analysis also revealed that the sample contained both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The unsaturated fatty acids for oven-dried, sun-dried and air-dried are 60.89, 2.21 and 20.47 respectively while the saturated fatty acids for oven-dried , sun-dried and air dried 26.15, 3.29 and 35.61 respectively. The result suggested that thevetia peruviana contains high quality protein and the oil is a good source of unsaturation which increases the shelf life and edibility of the oil. Keywords: Amino acid; Fatty acid; Characterization; Processing techniques; Milk-bush see

Optimal Supersaturated Designs for Lasso Sign Recovery

Supersaturated designs, in which the number of factors exceeds the number of runs, are often constructed under a heuristic criterion that measures a design's proximity to an unattainable orthogonal design. Such a criterion does not directly measure a design's quality in terms of screening. To address this disconnect, we develop optimality criteria to maximize the lasso's sign recovery probability. The criteria have varying amounts of prior knowledge about the model's parameters. We show that an orthogonal design is an ideal structure when the signs of the active factors are unknown. When the signs are assumed known, we show that a design whose columns exhibit small, positive correlations are ideal. Such designs are sought after by the Var(s+)-criterion. These conclusions are based on a continuous optimization framework, which rigorously justifies the use of established heuristic criteria. From this justification, we propose a computationally-efficient design search algorithm that filters through optimal designs under different heuristic criteria to select the one that maximizes the sign recovery probability under the lasso

Sex Impact on Knee and Ankle Muscle Extensor Forces During Loaded Running

Background: This study determined whether the knee and ankle muscle extensor forces increase when running with a body-borne load and whether these forces differ between the sexes. Methods: Thirty-six (twenty male and sixteen female) adults had the knee and ankle extensor force quantified when running 4.0 m/s with four body-borne loads (20, 25, 30, and 35 kg). Peak normalized (BW) and unnormalized (N) extensor muscle force, relative effort, and joint angle and angular velocity at peak muscle force for both the ankle and the knee were submitted to a mixed model ANOVA. Results: Significant load by sex interactions for knee unnormalized extensor force (p = 0.025) and relative effort (p = 0.040) were observed, as males exhibited greater knee muscle force and effort than females and increased their muscle force and effort with additional load. Males also exhibited greater ankle normalized and unnormalized extensor force (p = 0.004, p \u3c 0.001) and knee unnormalized force than females (p = 0.005). The load increased the normalized ankle and knee muscle force (p \u3c 0.001, p = 0.030) and relative effort (p \u3c 0.001, p = 0.044) and the unnormalized knee muscle force (p = 0.009). Conclusion: Running with a load requires greater knee and ankle extensor force, but males exhibited greater increases in muscle force, particularly at the knee, than females

Performance-based social comparisons in humans and long-tailed macaques

Social comparisons are a fundamental feature of human thinking and affect self-evaluations and task performance. Little is known about the evolutionary origins of social comparison processes, however. Previous studies that investigated performance-based social comparisons in nonhuman primates yielded mixed results. We report three experiments that aimed (a) to explore how the task type may contribute to performance in monkeys, and (b) how a competitive set-up affects monkeys compared to humans. In a co-action touchscreen task, monkeys were neither influenced by nor interested in the performance of the partner. This may indicate that the experimental set-up was not sufficiently relevant to trigger social comparisons. In a novel co-action foraging task, monkeys increased their feeding speed in competitive and co-active conditions, but not in relation to the degree of competition. In an analogue of the foraging task, human participants were affected by partner performance and experimental context, indicating that the task is suitable to elicit social comparisons in humans. Our studies indicate that specifics of task and experimental setting are relevant to draw the monkeys’ attention to a co-actor and that, in line with previous research, a competitive element was crucial. We highlight the need to explore what constitutes “relevant” social comparison situations for monkeys as well as nonhuman animals in general, and point out factors that we think are crucial in this respect (e.g. task type, physical closeness, and the species’ ecology). We discuss that early forms of social comparisons evolved in purely competitive environments with increasing social tolerance and cooperative motivations allowing for more fine-grained processing of social information. Competition driven effects on task performance might constitute the foundation for the more elaborate social comparison processes found in humans, which may involve context-dependent information processing and metacognitive monitoring