12,383 research outputs found
Estimating fugitive bioaerosol releases from static compost windrows: feasibility of portable wind tunnel approach
An assessment of the fugitive release of bioaerosols from static compost piles
was conducted at a green waste composting facility in South East England; this
representing the initial stage of a programme of research into the influence of
process parameters on bioaerosol emission flux. Wind tunnel experiments
conducted on the surface of static windrows generated specific bioaerosol
emission rates (SBER2s) at ground level of between 13 - 22 x10 3 cfu/m 2 /s for
mesophilic actinomycetes and between 8 - 11 x10 3 cfu/m 2 /s for Aspergillus
fumigatus. Air dispersion modelling of these emissions using the SCREEN3 air
dispersion model in area source term mode was used to generate source depletion
curves downwind of the facility for comparative purposes
Structural development of laminar flow control aircraft chordwise wing joint designs
For laminar flow to be achieved, any protuberances on the surface must be small enough to avoid transition to turbulent flow. However, the surface must have joints between the structural components to allow assembly or replacement of damaged parts, although large continuous surfaces can be utilized to minimize the number the number of joints. Aircraft structural joints usually have many countersunk bolts or rivets on the outer surface. To maintain no mismatch on outer surfaces, it is desirable to attach the components from the inner surface. It is also desirable for the panels to be interchangeable, without the need for shims at the joint, to avoid surface discontinuities that could cause turbulence. Fabricating components while pressing their outer surfaces against an accurate mold helps to ensure surface smoothness and continuity at joints. These items were considered in evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of the joint design concepts. After evaluating six design concepts, two of the leading candidates were fabricated and tested using many small test panels. One joint concept was also built and tested using large panels. The small and large test panel deflections for the leading candidate designs at load factors up to +1.5 g's were well within the step and waviness requirements for avoiding transition.The small panels were designed and tested for compression and tension at -65 F, at ambient conditions, and at 160 F. The small panel results for the three-rib and the sliding-joint concepts indicated that they were both acceptable. The three-rib concept, with tapered splice plates, was considered to be the most practical. A modified three-rib joint that combined the best attributes of previous candidates was designed, developed, and tested. This improved joint met all of the structural strength, surface smoothness, and waviness criteria for laminar flow control (LFC). The design eliminated all disadvantages of the initial three-rib concept except for unavoidable eccentricity, which was reduced and reacted satisfactorily by the rib supports. It should also result in a relatively simple low-cost installation, and makes it easy to replace any panels damaged in the field
Bayesian hierarchical model for the prediction of football results
The problem of modelling football data has become increasingly popular in the last few years and many different models have been proposed with the aim of estimating the characteristics that bring a team to lose or win a game, or to predict the score of a particular match. We propose a Bayesian hierarchical model to fulfil both these aims and test its predictive strength based on data about the Italian Serie A 1991-1992 championship. To overcome the issue of overshrinkage produced by the Bayesian hierarchical model, we specify a more complex mixture model that results in a better fit to the observed data. We test its performance using an example of the Italian Serie A 2007-2008 championship
Sensitivity of predicted bioaerosol exposure from open windrow composting facilities to ADMS dispersion model parameters
Bioaerosols are released in elevated quantities from composting facilities and are associated with negative health effects, although dose-response relationships are not well understood, and require improved exposure classification. Dispersion modelling has great potential to improve exposure classification, but has not yet been extensively used or validated in this context. We present a sensitivity analysis of the ADMS dispersion model specific to input parameter ranges relevant to bioaerosol emissions from open windrow composting. This analysis provides an aid for model calibration by prioritising parameter adjustment and targeting independent parameter estimation. Results showed that predicted exposure was most sensitive to the wet and dry deposition modules and the majority of parameters relating to emission source characteristics, including pollutant emission velocity, source geometry and source height. This research improves understanding of the accuracy of model input data required to provide more reliable exposure predictions
Baby-Step Giant-Step Algorithms for the Symmetric Group
We study discrete logarithms in the setting of group actions. Suppose that
is a group that acts on a set . When , a solution
to can be thought of as a kind of logarithm. In this paper, we study
the case where , and develop analogs to the Shanks baby-step /
giant-step procedure for ordinary discrete logarithms. Specifically, we compute
two sets such that every permutation of can be
written as a product of elements and . Our
deterministic procedure is optimal up to constant factors, in the sense that
and can be computed in optimal asymptotic complexity, and and
are a small constant from in size. We also analyze randomized
"collision" algorithms for the same problem
Pneumococcal Serotype-Specific Antibodies Persist through Early Childhood after Infant Immunization: Follow-Up from a Randomized Controlled Trial
Background: In a previous UK multi-center randomized study 278 children received three doses of 7-valent (PCV-7) or 13-
valent (PCV-13) pneumococcal conjugate vaccine at 2, 4 and 12 months of age. At 13 months of age, most of these children had pneumococcal serotype-specific IgG concentrations 8.
Methods: Children who had participated in the original study were enrolled again at 3.5 years of age. Persistence of immunity following infant immunization with either PCV-7 or PCV-13 and the immune response to a PCV-13 booster at preschool age were investigated.
Results: In total, 108 children were followed-up to the age of 3.5 years and received a PCV-13 booster at this age. At least 76% of children who received PCV-7 or PCV-13 in infancy retained serotype-specific IgG concentrations 0.35 mg/ml against each of 4/6 of the additional PCV-13 serotypes; for serotypes 1 and 3 this proportion was 45% and 52%. In the PCV-7 group these percentages were significantly lower for serotypes 1, 5 and 7F. A pre-school PCV-13 booster was highly immunogenic and resulted in low rates of local and systemic adverse effects.
Conclusion: Despite some decline in antibody from 13 months of age, these data suggest that a majority of pre-school
children maintain protective serotype-specific antibody concentrations following conjugate vaccination at 2, 4 and 12 months of age.
Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT0109547
Audio Features Affected by Music Expressiveness
Within a Music Information Retrieval perspective, the goal of the study
presented here is to investigate the impact on sound features of the musician's
affective intention, namely when trying to intentionally convey emotional
contents via expressiveness. A preliminary experiment has been performed
involving tuba players. The recordings have been analysed by extracting a
variety of features, which have been subsequently evaluated by combining both
classic and machine learning statistical techniques. Results are reported and
discussed.Comment: Submitted to ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in
Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2016), Pisa, Italy, July 17-21, 201
Is subdiffusional transport slower than normal?
We consider anomalous non-Markovian transport of Brownian particles in
viscoelastic fluid-like media with very large but finite macroscopic viscosity
under the influence of a constant force field F. The viscoelastic properties of
the medium are characterized by a power-law viscoelastic memory kernel which
ultra slow decays in time on the time scale \tau of strong viscoelastic
correlations. The subdiffusive transport regime emerges transiently for t<\tau.
However, the transport becomes asymptotically normal for t>>\tau. It is shown
that even though transiently the mean displacement and the variance both scale
sublinearly, i.e. anomalously slow, in time, ~ F t^\alpha,
~ t^\alpha, 0<\alpha<1, the mean displacement at each instant
of time is nevertheless always larger than one obtained for normal transport in
a purely viscous medium with the same macroscopic viscosity obtained in the
Markovian approximation. This can have profound implications for the
subdiffusive transport in biological cells as the notion of "ultra-slowness"
can be misleading in the context of anomalous diffusion-limited transport and
reaction processes occurring on nano- and mesoscales
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