What heavy weight buildings in hot climates can tell us about their thermal performance

Concrete, masonry walls and stone finishes are high density materials and have high thermal capacity, they are referred to as heavy-weight construction or thermal mass, which is the main construction type in Lebanon. Although thermal mass construction is usually recommended in hot climates in order to reduce internal temperature fluctuation, its actual thermal behavior in Lebanon is not well documented through direct observation, relying instead on its theoretical performance. This study’s main objective is to characterize the actual thermal performance of such construction, in the context of building occupancy and intermittent A/C usage. The paper starts with a brief introduction of the residential typologies in Lebanon followed by the description of the three thermally monitored apartments, in use or empty, located in one same neighborhood of Beirut, Lebanon. The monitoring was undertaken during summer 2015 using hourly data loggers. The analysis of the recorded data provides a clear and empirical understanding on: 1. how heavy weight buildings interact within the hot and humid climate of Beirut; 2. how the effect of regulating the internal thermal fluctuation is shown; and 3. what are the most influential factors that would further enhance thermal performance of thermal mass construction

A review of minimum U-values for Lebanon and the associated effect of Internal gains

Since 2005 various publications have proposed different U-values to be used in Lebanon to reduce the buildings’ energy demand, creating confusion and a lack of specific and authoritative recommendation. Moreover, the various thermal performance guidelines are not easily comparable due to unexplained basic assumptions and guidance on the calculation of internal gains. This study has two interrelated objectives: a) test the most appropriate U-values for the climate of Beirut, b) study the consequence of increased internal gains have on the cooling energy load in low U-value construction. The paper does dynamic thermal simulation of the various U-values from local and international sources. The analysis allows the comparison and ranking of these various U-values based on the overall yearly energy demand for cooling. This is followed by a sensitivity study where a range of increased internal heat gains are inputted onto a low and a high U-value model to demonstrate that an increase in internal gains results in both models having the same cooling loads. Low U-values under this scenario due not result in a lower annual energy load. The study concludes that, although finding the appropriate U-value for hot climates seems uncontroversial, the effect of internal gains must be taken into consideration. Hence the importance of having consistent and harmonized national and regional benchmark values for U-values and internal gains

A unified convergence analysis for shuffling-type gradient methods

In this paper, we propose a unified convergence analysis for a class of generic shuffling-type gradient methods for solving finite-sum optimization problems. Our analysis works with any sampling without replacement strategy and covers many known variants such as randomized reshuffling, deterministic or randomized single permutation, and cyclic and incremental gradient schemes. We focus on two different settings: strongly convex and nonconvex problems, but also discuss the non-strongly convex case. Our main contribution consists of new non-asymptotic and asymptotic convergence rates for a wide class of shuffling-type gradient methods in both nonconvex and convex settings. We also study uniformly randomized shuffling variants with different learning rates and model assumptions. While our rate in the nonconvex case is new and significantly improved over existing works under standard assumptions, the rate on the strongly convex one matches the existing best-known rates prior to this paper up to a constant factor without imposing a bounded gradient condition. Finally, we empirically illustrate our theoretical results via two numerical examples: nonconvex logistic regression and neural network training examples. As byproducts, our results suggest some appropriate choices for diminishing learning rates in certain shuffling variants

Faktor Penguat Pada Peningkatan Kinerja Karyawan PT. Gading Murni Surabaya

The purpose of this study is to determine which factors as an amplifier to improve the performance of employees of PT. Gading Murni Surabaya, between the leadership style and compensation received by employees. This study uses a survey approach by collecting data using a questionnaire of 50 respondents then analyzed using quantitative methods. The regession equation is Y = 8.009 + 0,223 X1 + 0,240 X2. The results of this study concluded that the leadership style and compensation variables had a corrected item total correlation value exceeding r table = 0.284 and the reliability test of the leadership style variable, and the alpha cronbach's compensation results exceeded 0.060, which means that the variable was valid and reliable. Leadership and compensation styles also simultaneously have a significant effect on employee performance. And the independent variable that has the largest beta coefficient is the compensation variable (X2) with a beta coefficient of 0.240.   Keywords : Leadership style, Compesation and Employee Performance

Finite-Sum Smooth Optimization with SARAH

The total complexity (measured as the total number of gradient computations) of a stochastic first-order optimization algorithm that finds a first-order stationary point of a finite-sum smooth nonconvex objective function F(w)=1n∑ni=1fi(w) has been proven to be at least Ω(n−−√/ϵ) for n≤O(ϵ−2) where ϵ denotes the attained accuracy E[∥∇F(w~)∥2]≤ϵ for the outputted approximation w~ (Fang et al., 2018). In this paper, we provide a convergence analysis for a slightly modified version of the SARAH algorithm (Nguyen et al., 2017a;b) and achieve total complexity that matches the lower-bound worst case complexity in (Fang et al., 2018) up to a constant factor when n≤O(ϵ−2) for nonconvex problems. For convex optimization, we propose SARAH++ with sublinear convergence for general convex and linear convergence for strongly convex problems; and we provide a practical version for which numerical experiments on various datasets show an improved performance

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction