A non-contact geomatics technique for monitoring membrane roof structures

This thesis presents research carried out to monitor the behaviour of membrane structures, using the non-contact geornatics techniques of terrestrial laser scanning and videogrammetry. Membrane structures are covers or enclosures in which fabric surface is pre-tensioned to provide a stable shape under environmental loads. It is most often adopted by structural engineers as the solution to the roof of a building. Membrane structures resist extemally-imposed loads by a combination of curvature and tension of the highly flexible fabric membrane. However, collapse may occur if the real deflections exceed the designed tolerances. In order to avoid such failures in the future, a generic monitoring system, incorporating in-house software for observing and analysing the behaviour of existing membrane structures, was developed. This system has been applied to observe three different types of as-built membrane structures, with two primary issues investigated and resolved. The first aspect of the research was devoted to determining differences which exist between the designed model and the finished structure. To address this issue, terrestrial laser scanning was applied to generate the as-built model of the membrane structure. Statistical comparisons were then performed between the resultant scanned model and the designed mathematical model. The disparities were determined, allowing the factors causing these differences to be further explored. The second research issue investigated the effects of loading on the displacement of the membrane roof. A videogrammetric monitoring system employing stereo CCD video cameras was used to observe the movements of the membrane roofs. In order to accommodate constraints at the test site, a non-contact control method and structured light targeting were adopted in the monitoring scheme. Once the processing was completed, displacements occurring over time were determined. Investigations on the three types of finished membrane structures have been successfully achieved, proving the system to be a viable metrology tool for structural engineers involved in monitoring real-world membrane structures. The system effectively fulfilled the requirements for understanding the interaction of membrane surface geometry, applied loads and structural response. The information acquired by the system offers great potential to collaborating engineers who are involved in the design and refinement of such structures.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

What do they eat? A survey of eat-out habit of university students in Taiwan

[EN] Main purpose of this research is trying to understand food likeliness of Taiwan college students, and probe whether these food are healthy. Three survey steps are taken as: step 1, market survey for what kind of foods are selling around the campuses; step 2, questionnaire investigation for students food preference; step 3, analyzing whether these favorite foods are healthy or not. The result shows: major consideration for students food selection are “taste” and “price”; 63% of students are taking food or snacks late at night at least once a week. Top three most favorite foods are: Taiwanese fries (yan su ji), carbon grilled chicken and fried fish steaks. Quantities of these foods are small, prices are low, and easy access from roadside food stands. Problems of them are high calories, easy to accumulate free radical in human body, plus insanitary food processing environment. They are harmful to student health. We suggest Taiwan government take it seriouslyShih, K.; Wang, M.; Shih, H.; Lee, S.; Lin, T. (2020). What do they eat? A survey of eat-out habit of university students in Taiwan. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 421-430. https://doi.org/10.4995/INN2019.2019.10562OCS42143

Association algorithm to mine the rules that govern enzyme definition and to classify protein sequences

BACKGROUND: The number of sequences compiled in many genome projects is growing exponentially, but most of them have not been characterized experimentally. An automatic annotation scheme must be in an urgent need to reduce the gap between the amount of new sequences produced and reliable functional annotation. This work proposes rules for automatically classifying the fungus genes. The approach involves elucidating the enzyme classifying rule that is hidden in UniProt protein knowledgebase and then applying it for classification. The association algorithm, Apriori, is utilized to mine the relationship between the enzyme class and significant InterPro entries. The candidate rules are evaluated for their classificatory capacity. RESULTS: There were five datasets collected from the Swiss-Prot for establishing the annotation rules. These were treated as the training sets. The TrEMBL entries were treated as the testing set. A correct enzyme classification rate of 70% was obtained for the prokaryote datasets and a similar rate of about 80% was obtained for the eukaryote datasets. The fungus training dataset which lacks an enzyme class description was also used to evaluate the fungus candidate rules. A total of 88 out of 5085 test entries were matched with the fungus rule set. These were otherwise poorly annotated using their functional descriptions. CONCLUSION: The feasibility of using the method presented here to classify enzyme classes based on the enzyme domain rules is evident. The rules may be also employed by the protein annotators in manual annotation or implemented in an automatic annotation flowchart

Adaptation of Southwest Coast of Taiwan Due to Climate Change

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive

The association of molecular typing, vancomycin MIC, and clinical outcome for patients with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections

AbstractBackground/PurposeThere are reports of an increase in vancomycin minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) over time, a phenomenon referred to as “MIC creep”, but some studies have conflicting results. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association of molecular typing, vancomycin MIC, and clinical outcome for patients with MRSA infections.MethodsThirty-two MRSA isolates from Taichung Veterans General Hospital (TCVGH), Taichung, Taiwan during the period of 2003 to 2008 were analyzed for the association of sequence typing, vancomycin MIC, and the correlated clinical outcome for patients with MRSA infections. The vancomycin MICs of 28 additional isolates from 2014 were used for the detection of MIC creep.ResultsAmong the genotypes of 32 isolates, there were 17 (53.1%) isolates with ST239-SCCmecIII, seven (21.9%) isolates with ST5-SCCmecII, six (18.8%) isolates with ST59-SCCmecIV, and two (6.2%) isolates with ST59-SCCmecVT. Two isolates had an MIC of 2 μg/mL and were identified as ST239-SCCmecIII. No statistically significant change in the distribution of MICs of all isolates was observed between 2003 and 2014 (p = 0.263). There was no significant difference in the mortality rates between two groups of patients with vancomycin MICs < 2 μg/mL and ≥ 2 μg/mL (p = > 0.99).ConclusionThere was no vancomycin MIC creep in the period from 2003 to 2014 in this study. Appropriate prognostic models for assessment of the association among sequence types, vancomycin MICs, and clinical outcome warrant further investigation