Smart Connected Homes: Integrating Sensor, Occupant and BIM data for Building Performance Analysis

Buildings produce huge volumes of data such as BIM, sensor, occupant and building maintenance data. Data is spread across multiple disconnected systems in numerous formats, making it difficult to identify performance gaps between building design and use. Better methods for gathering and analysing data can be used to support building managers with managing building performance. The knowledge can also be fed back to designers and contractors to help close the performance gaps. We have developed a platform to integrate BIM, sensor and occupant data for providing actionable advice for building managers. A social housing organisation is acting as a use case for the platform. A methodology for developing the information needs to support data capture across disconnected systems is proposed and the challenges of bringing data-sets together to provide meaningful information to building owners and managers are presented

Whiterock Conservancy baseline data project

Baseline surveys of pasture diversity and bird populations were conducted and will be used to help inform conservation-based land management decisions at the Whiterock Conservancy in southwest Iowa

Print Book vs. DDA Ebook Acquisition and Use at KSU Library

In January 2012, Kent State University Libraries implemented a 6-month pilot project for a Demand Driven Acquisitions (DDA) ebook purchasing model that uses a combination of the acquisition services provided by our primary book jobber (YBP) and the access services provided by an Ebook distributer (eBrary). Using the book jobber mediated DDA model provided the library with selected discovery records that closely matched specifications of the library’s print approval plan. The initial record load for DDA eligible records consisted of about 22,000 ebook records. New discovery records were added to the catalog each week as new eBrary ebooks became available. This presentation will report our assessment of this new acquisition model as compared to that of print books in terms of budget, costs, workflow, subjects, publishers, and publication dates. Because DDA empowers library users to choose which ebooks are actually purchased based on actual use, our assessment also compares ebook usage from a DDA discovery pool with print book circulation of an equivalent amount of latest acquisitions. The results of this study will help answer some of the key questions about this new acquisition model: (1) Does DDA align the library’s collection with current user requirements? (2) Does DDA lead to more active use of library book collection? (3) Is DDA cost-effective as an acquisition model? (4) What issues are associated with DDA and how may these issues be addressed

Pilot scale pyrolysis - determination of critical moisture content for sustainable organic waste pyrolysis

Economic feasibility of large scale organic waste pyrolysis was investigated for Inghams Enterprise (Waitoa) chicken dissolved air flotation sludge (DAF) and activated sludge (biosolids) from the Hamilton municipal waste water treatment plant. Processing data was obtained from pilot plant trials using the Lakeland Steel (Rotorua) continuous auger pyrolysis plant using feedstock at 15, 30, 45 and ~80% moisture contents. Economics were calculated based on estimated capital and operating costs of a large scale facility, revenue from selling char, savings from landfill diversion (including transportation and gate costs), energy savings by recycling syngas product and using waste heat for drying feedstock. For DAF, 15% moisture content gave yields of 21% syngas, 27% char, and 52% oil (dry weight basis). 15% moisture content gave the best processing conditions based on handling properties and degree of autogenesis. The DAF case does not give a payback period due to low scale of operations. For biosolids, 15% moisture content feedstock gave yields of 46% syngas, 31% char, and 21% oil (wet weight). Difficulties were found with plant blockages at 45% and 80% moisture contents. 15% moisture content gave the best processing conditions and the best economic performance with a payback time of 4.6 years for a facility that could process 11,000 tonnes per year

A Correlation Between Artistic Concepts and the Execution of Art Objects

The degree to which a work of art is predetermined depends upon the intent of the artist, and to an extent the materials he uses. Certain artistic choices, relationships, and possibilities can be explored by the intellect. The artist uses both a general type of conceptualization involving attitude, direction, aesthetic concerns and a more specific type which results in more concrete ideas for works. These more specific concepts are altered in the manifestation of the idea through certain choices involving formal decisions and materials. The artist can present a situation in which the spectator can participate by using manipulative type elements or materials which normally serve some specific function. The degree of participation is controlled by the artist because of the desire to maintain the unity and content of the work. The artist makes formal decisions both conceptually and visually. The intent of the work, and the artist&rsquo;s sensibility, dictates formal choices. The end product is the result of conceptualization (Apollonian) and creation (Dionysian). For the artist, the finished object asserts its own reality as a unique thing, completely removed from his experience and existing on its own terms.</p

Pro/DESKTOP in Schools: A pilot research study

Following the launch and widespread dissemination of the CAD/CAM in Schools Initiative and ProlDESKTOP (hereafter PDT) software, DATA recognised that the changes that are being brought about in children's designing are sufficiently profound to deserve careful research. This project is a small-scale exploration of the impact of this CAD initiative on children's designing and on the standards of work that can be achieved. Its aim is not to produce answers to these difficult questions. Rather its purpose is to clarify the questions that might need to be asked in a full scale evaluation. Because of the timing of this project and the looming examination demands in Years II, 12 and 13, we were asked to focus on Years 9 and 10. This paper represents a brief synopsis of some of the major issues that emerged through the study

Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines

Symposium: Seventh Annual Conference of the National Association of Women Judges: Conference Presentation

Swarm computational intelligence design for a high integrity protection system

The search meta-heuristic procedure that mimics the process of biological natural selection is an embedded part of artificial intelligence (AI). This is regularly used for obtaining the solution to some optimization problems such as the minimization of disastrous occurrence events in industries. Extra precautions are given to people and equipment operating in hazardous and harsh environments; thus there are safety systems designed to give the required, accurate, necessary and timely protections. There is hence the need to drastically reduce the probability of the occurrence of a system failure. A High Integrity Protection System (HIPS) is a safety device which could be installed on offshore facilities with the objective to mitigate a high pressure upsurge that has the potential to cause immense harm and subsequently destroy the system. The aim of the research is to use a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) approach to intelligently design the system in order to optimize and reduce the unavailability of the HIPS design. A Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) model is employed to build the HIPS structure. FTA is a top-down approach using Boolean logic operations that is used to analyze causes, investigates potential and likely faults and to quantify their contribution to system failure in the process of product design. Comparison is made between this HIPS-PSO approach and the previous work performed using a genetic algorithm(GA). Alongside from the simplicity in the design of the HIPS-PSO approach, a much faster execution time and a reduced system unavailability was obtained when compared with the GA approach

An intelligent novel tripartite - (PSO-GA-SA) optimization strategy

A solution approach for many challenging and non-differentiable optimization tasks in industries is the use of non-deterministic meta-heuristic methods. Some of these approaches include Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Simulated Annealing (SA). However, with the implementation usage of these robust and stochastic optimization approaches, there are still some predominant issues such as the problem of the potential solution being trapped in a local minima solution space. Other challenges include the untimely convergence and the slow rate of arriving at optimal solutions. In this research study, a tripartite version (PSO-GA-SA) is proposed to address these deficiencies. This algorithm is designed with the full exploration of all the capabilities of PSO, GA and SA functioning simultaneously with a high level of intelligent system techniques to exploit and exchange relevant population traits in real time without compromising the computational time. The design algorithm further incorporates a variable velocity component that introduces random intelligence depending on the fitness performance from one generation to the other. The robust design is validated with known mathematical test function models. There are substantial performance improvements when the novel PSO-GA-SA approach is subjected to three test functions used as case studies. The results obtained indicate that the new approach performs better than the individual methods from the fitness function deviation point of view and in terms of the total simulation time whilst operating with both a reduced number of generations and populations. Moreover, the new novel approach offers more beneficial trade-off between exploration and exploitation of PSO, GA and SA. This novel design is implemented using an object oriented programming approach and it is expected to be compatible with a variety of practical problems with specified input-output pairs coupled with constraints and limitations on the available resources