Aid?effectiveness: Technical Cooperation

SUMMARY Based on an extensive review of evaluations of technical cooperation projects in many sectors, this article identifies the reasons for success or failure; strengths and weaknesses of TC planning, coordination and implementation; and ways in which donors and developing countries could strengthen the implementation and long?term impact of TC projects. SOMMAIRE Efficacité de l'aide: la coopération technique Cet article identifie, en se basant sur une revue extensive d'évaluations de projets de coopération technique (CT) en divers secteurs, les raisons de la réussite ou de l'échec de la CT; les point forts et les points faibles de la planification, de la coordination et de I'implémentation de la CT; et les moyens par lesquelles les donneurs et les PVD pourraient améliorer les résultats et l'implémentation des projets de CT à long terme. RESUMEN Efectividad de la ayuda: cooperación técnica Basándose en una extensa revisión de las evaluaciones de proyectos de cooperación técnica, este artículo identifica las razones de los éxitos y fracasos, aciertos y debilidades de la planificación, coordinación e implementación de la cooperación técnica, así como las vías que los donantes y los países en desarrollo pueden usar para fortalecer la implementación y el impacto de largo plazo de los proyectos de cooperación técnica, Ayuda y creación de instituciones: algunas lecciones de la agricultura hindú

Peace and Conflict: Engineering Responsibilities and Opportunities

In many conflicts, the consequences of engineering projects are among the problems at issue, and engineers are unavoidably parties to the problems. Engineers need to raise their awareness of the potential effects of their projects, especially in situations of serious social and political contention, and to explore alternative designs or engineering solutions, and methods of implementation, that may ameliorate rather than exacerbate tensions. Engineers will also need to dialogue effectively with the many stakeholders affected if these projects are to be politically viable and achieve their technical purposes. The paper draws on several case studies of engineering projects in conflict situations, especially in developing countries. The article offers a check list of factors to take into account when designing and locating power, irrigation, mining, transport, and other types of engineering projects, in areas of conflict or potential conflict. The focus of the paper is primarily, but not entirely, on social conflict

Automatic document clustering using topic analysis

Web users are demanding more out of current search engines. This can be noticed by the behaviour of users when interacting with search engines [12, 28]. Besides traditional query/results interactions, other tools are springing up on the web. An example of such tools includes web document clustering systems. The idea is for the user to interact with the system by navigating through an organised hierarchy of topics. Document clustering is ideal for unspecified search goals or for the exploration of a topic by the inexpert [21]. Document clustering is there to transform the current interactions of searching through a large amount of links into an efficient interaction where the interaction is navigation through hierarchies. This report will give an overview of the major work in this area, we will also propose our current work, progress and pitfalls which are being tackled.peer-reviewe

Expanding query terms in context

Query expansion is normally performed using a thesaurus that is either generated from a collection of documents, or is otherwise language specific. We present a technique to discover associations between query terms that are synonyms based on past queries and documents common to multiple result sets, to enable query expansion to occur in context.peer-reviewe

Racheting assessment of a fixed tube sheet heat exchanger subject to in-phase pressure and temperature cycles

An investigation of the cyclic elastic-plastic response of an Olefin plant heat exchanger subject to cyclic thermal and pressure loading is presented. Design by Analysis procedures for assessment of shakedown and ratcheting are considered, based on elastic and inelastic analysis methods. The heat exchanger tube sheet thickness is non-standard as it is considerably less than that required by conventional design by formula rules. Ratcheting assessment performed using elastic and stress linearization indicates that shakedown occurs under the specified loading when the non-linear component of the through thickness stress is categorized as peak stress. In practice, the presence of the peak stress will cause local reverse plasticity or plastic shakedown in the component. In non-linear analysis with an elastic-perfectly plastic material model the vessel exhibits incremental plastic strain accumulation for 10 full load cycles, with no indication that the configuration will adapt to steady state elastic or plastic action; i.e. elastic shakedown or plastic shakedown. However, the strain increments are small and would not lead to the development of a global plastic collapse or gross plastic deformation during the specified life of the vessel. Cyclic analysis based on a strain hardening material model indicates that the vessel will adapt to plastic shakedown after 6 load cycles. This indicates that the stress categorization and linearization assumptions made in the elastic analysis are valid for this configuration

Evaluation of flight parameters during approach and landing phases by applying principal component analysis

This paper adopts an unsupervised learning technique, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to analyze flight data. While the flight parameters for a stable approach have been established for a while, the paper reevaluates these flight parameters using PCA for a set of airports across the United States of America. Some flight parameters were found to be more sensitive to some airports. The parameters have been cross-checked with experts in the industry to better interpret their significance.peer-reviewe

Literature review of machine learning techniques to analyse flight data

This paper analyses the increasing trend of using modern machine learning technologies to analyze flight data efficiently. Flight data offers an important insight into the operations of an aircraft. This paper reviews the research undertaken so far on the use of Machine Learning techniques for the analyses of flight data by evaluating various anomaly detection algorithms and the significance of feature selection in Flight Data Monitoring. These algorithms are compared to determine the best class of algorithms for highlighting significant flight anomalies. Furthermore, these algorithms are analyzed for various flight data parameters to determine which class of algorithms is sensitive to continuous parameters and which is sensitive to discrete parameters of flight data. The paper also addresses the ability of each anomaly detection algorithm to be easily adaptable to different datasets and different phases of flight, including take-off and landing.peer-reviewe

Evaluating plastic loads in torispherical heads using a new criterion of collapse

In ASME Design by Analysis, the plastic load of pressure vessels is established using the Twice Elastic Slope criterion of plastic collapse. This is based on a characteristic load-deformation plot obtained by inelastic analysis. This study investigates an alternative plastic criteria based on plastic work dissipation where the ratio of plastic to total work is monitored. Two sample analyses of medium thickness torispherical pressure vessels are presented. Elastic-perfectly plastic and strain hardening material models are considered in both small and large deformation analyses. The calculated plastic loads are assessed in comparison with experimental results from the literature

Hybrid machine learning–statistical method for anomaly detection in flight data

This paper investigates the use of an unsupervised hybrid statistical–local outlier factor algorithm to detect anomalies in time-series flight data. Flight data analysis is an activity carried out by airlines primarily as a means of improving the safety and operation of their fleet. Traditionally, this is performed by checking exceedances in pre-set limits to the flight data parameters. However, this method highlights single events during a flight, making this analysis laborious. The process also fails to establish trends or reflect potential unknown hazards. This research took advantage of machine learning techniques to recognize patterns in large datasets by implementing the local outlier factor (LOF). In order to minimize human input, a statistical approach was adopted to establish the threshold value above which the flights are considered to be anomalous and interpret the scores. This paper shows that LOF quantifies the degree of outlier-ness of an outlier rather than binary categorizing a point into inlier or outlier, as in the case of clustering algorithms. Thus, with LOF, for the first time, we demonstrated that in the aviation industry, anomalous flights could not only be identified but also be given an anomaly score to compare two anomalous flights in an unsupervised manner. Furthermore, LOF helps to track anomalous behavior in time during the flight. This is insightful when a flight is abnormal, only for some seconds or short duration. For the first time, we attempted to detect flight parameters responsible for anomalous behavior or at least give direction to human experts looking for the cause of abnormal behavior. This was all analyzed with real-life flight data in an unsupervised manner in contrast to simulated data.peer-reviewe

Influence of Type of Cigarette on Peripheral versus Central Lung Cancer

Objectives: Adenocarcinoma has replaced squamous cell carcinoma as the most common cell type of lung cancer in the United States. It has been proposed that this shift is due to the increased use of filter and lower-tar cigarettes, resulting in increased delivery of smoke to peripheral regions of the lungs, where adenocarcinoma usually occurs. We reviewed radiologic data to evaluate the hypothesis that tumors in smokers of cigarettes with lower-tar yield are more likely to occur peripherally than tumors in smokers of higher-yield cigarettes. Methods: At two urban academic medical centers, we reviewed computed tomographic scans, chest radiographs, and medical records to assign tumor location (peripheral or central) for 330 smokers diagnosed with carcinoma of the lung between 1993 and 1999. We compared the proportion of tumors in a peripheral versus central location by lifetime filter use and average lifetime tar rating (<21 and ≥21 mg). Results: Tumor location (69% peripheral and 31% central) was unrelated to cigarette filter use. Smokers of cigarettes with lower-tar ratings were more likely than those with higher ratings to have peripheral rather than central tumors (odds ratio, 1.76; 95% confidence interval, 0.89-3.47). When restricted to subjects with adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) was 2.31 (1.05-5.08). Conclusions: Among cigarette smokers with lung cancer, use of cigarettes with lower-tar yield was associated with preferential occurrence of tumors in peripheral sites. Our findings support the hypothesis that changes in smoking associated with lower-tar cigarettes have led to a shift in the location of smoking-related lung cancer