Prefabrication in the UK housing construction industry

This paper aims to explore how prefabricated methods of construction could address housing shortages in the UK. The available literature is reviewed to evaluate current conditions of housing as well as prefabricated methods of construction in the UK. Advantages and limitations of prefabrication are investigated and discussed in relation to the current conditions. Interviews are also conducted as well as case studies in order to understand the challenges and to provide first hand information on current industry practises in the UK housing construction industry. Findings indicate that although offsite construction is widely known and acknowledged, there is little encouragement and incentives to maximise the use of prefabrication in the UK. Extra costs, larger lead time and engineering issues are found to be the key factors preventing the innovative processes of prefabricated construction in the UK’s residential sector

GB virus C viremia and anti-E2 antibody response among hemodialysis patients in Gorgan, Iran

Background: GB Virus C is a blood-borne virus and a member of Flaviviridae, like hepatitis C that is distributed globally and puts hemodialysis patients at high risk of developing liver disease. The clinical significance of GBV-C in this population remains unclear

Effects of Manual and Automatic Natural Ventilation Control Strategies on Thermal Comfort, Indoor Air Quality and Energy Consumption

Occupants of naturally ventilated buildings can tolerate wider ranges of temperature and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) if they have more control over their environment. Meanwhile, due to the complexity of advanced natural ventilation (ANV) strategies, introducing some form of automatic control is essential despite the fact that they limit the occupants’ control over their environment. Therefore, it is essential to understand the performance of ANV systems and occupants’ behaviours in order to identify a balance between automatic and manual controls to enhance the performance of ANV systems while maintaining the occupants’ comfort. The aim of the work reported in this paper is to evaluate the effects of a retrofitted ANV system with manual and automatic controls on thermal comfort, indoor air quality and energy consumption in an open-plan office building in the UK. Physical measurements were used to study the building performance in terms of thermal comfort, IAQ and energy consumption. The results revealed that occupants were much more aware about thermal comfort compared to IAQ. Therefore, relying on the occupants to control the ventilation system would considerably increase the risk of poor IAQ in buildings. Moreover, introducing automatic controls did not affect the thermal comfort conditions for those who understood and actively controlled the ANV system, while the situation improved for those occupants who were not active. Results of this study showed that introducing automated natural ventilation helped to reduce energy consumption by 8%

Investigation of the impact of excavation (reinforced) on the seismic behavior of adjacent steel structures under the influence of near-fault and far-fault earthquakes

Every year, as a result of earthquake, abundant losses may be created as result of roof motion and sliding and rupture. Under normal conditions, the ground and soils forming the ground tolerate and transfer the existing stresses and any kind of action like excavation and release of trench and applying dynamic load could distort the balance of stresses and endanger stability of roof. In this study, behavior of a steel building in adjacency of excavation is studied. The pit is stabled using hybrid system of pinching and anchoring and is studied before and after excavation under the effect of far and near-fault earthquakes with regard to soil-structure interaction. The results obtained from nonlinear dynamic analysis of time history of two said spectrums showed that the momentum of floor in the structure after excavation is increased compared to the time before excavation. The momentum of floor in the desired structure in near-fault earthquake has been increased compared to far-fault earthquake before excavation compared to the time after excavation. However, the overall drift of floors in the structure before excavation in near-fault earthquakes has been increased more than far-fault earthquakes.Keywords: excavation, earthquake, far and near-fault zone, dynamic behavior, soil-structure interaction, steel structur

The Effect of Massage With Lavender Oil on Restless Leg Syndrome in Hemodialysis Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a common problem in patients with chronic renal failure. It can reduce the quality of life and sleep disturbances. This disorder is usually treated pharmacologically. Recently, complementary medicine methods have been suggested because of chemical drugs adverse effects. There is not enough evidence about the effect of aromatherapy on RLS. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of massage with lavender oil on RLS symptoms in hemodialysis patients. Patients and Methods: This randomized clinical trial study included 70 hemodialysis patients with RLS that were randomly assigned into two groups in 2014. The experimental group received effleurage massage using lavender oil and control group received routine care for three weeks. Data was collected with RLS questionnaire and analyzed using independent and paired t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The mean RLS scores were not significantly different in the two groups at the start of study (22.41 ± 7.67 vs. 22.90 ± 4.38, P = 0.76). At the end of study, the mean RLS score significantly decreased in the intervention group, while this score remained relatively un-changed in the control group (12.41 ± 5.49 vs. 23.23 ± 4.52, P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Lavender oil massage was effective to improve RLS in hemodialysis patients. It has no adverse effects, is practical and cost-effective. It is suggested to be used along with routine treatment of RLS in hemodialysis patients

A dynamical law for slow crack growth in polycarbonate films

We study experimentally the slow growth of a single crack in polycarbonate films submitted to uniaxial and constant imposed stress. For this visco-plastic material, we uncover a dynamical law that describes the dependence of the instantaneous crack velocity with experimental parameters. The law involves a Dugdale-Barenblatt static description of crack tip plastic zones associated to an Eyring's law and an empirical dependence with the crack length that may come from a residual elastic field

Genuinely Multipartite Concurrence of N-qubit X-matrices

We find an algebraic formula for the N-partite concurrence of N qubits in an X-matrix. X- matricies are density matrices whose only non-zero elements are diagonal or anti-diagonal when written in an orthonormal basis. We use our formula to study the dynamics of the N-partite entanglement of N remote qubits in generalized N-party Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states. We study the case when each qubit interacts with a partner harmonic oscillator. It is shown that only one type of GHZ state is prone to entanglement sudden death; for the rest, N-partite entanglement dies out momentarily. Algebraic formulas for the entanglement dynamics are given in both cases

Know abnormal, find evil : frequent pattern mining for ransomware threat hunting and intelligence

Emergence of crypto-ransomware has significantly changed the cyber threat landscape. A crypto ransomware removes data custodian access by encrypting valuable data on victims’ computers and requests a ransom payment to reinstantiate custodian access by decrypting data. Timely detection of ransomware very much depends on how quickly and accurately system logs can be mined to hunt abnormalities and stop the evil. In this paper we first setup an environment to collect activity logs of 517 Locky ransomware samples, 535 Cerber ransomware samples and 572 samples of TeslaCrypt ransomware. We utilize Sequential Pattern Mining to find Maximal Frequent Patterns (MFP) of activities within different ransomware families as candidate features for classification using J48, Random Forest, Bagging and MLP algorithms. We could achieve 99% accuracy in detecting ransomware instances from goodware samples and 96.5% accuracy in detecting family of a given ransomware sample. Our results indicate usefulness and practicality of applying pattern mining techniques in detection of good features for ransomware hunting. Moreover, we showed existence of distinctive frequent patterns within different ransomware families which can be used for identification of a ransomware sample family for building intelligence about threat actors and threat profile of a given target

Effect of pipe size and location on water-main head loss in water distribution systems

This study discusses practical implications of considering unit head loss in different pipe sizes and in different locations of water distribution systems (WDSs) with regard to operation and maintenance. By visualizing unit head loss (using the Hazen-Williams relationship) in pipes obtained from 18 WDSs in North America, changes in unit head loss are put into perspective in different pipe sizes and different WDS locations. The results suggest that the importance of diameter is greater than that of the Hazen-Williams roughness factor, that flow rate plays a more important role than diameter in determination of head loss in pipes closer to water sources, and that diameter seems to be more important than flow rate in pipes at the periphery. Moreover, aging, tuberculation, and subsequently reduction in effective diameter can have a more critical effect on head loss in smaller pipes at the periphery of a system. Finally, effects of water conservation and pump scheduling in different locations of the network, as far as head loss is concerned, can potentially be more evident on larger pipes closer to the water source and in some cases on smaller pipes at the periphery. Therefore, it is suggested that network-level energy management decisions can have different effects on different pipe sizes in different locations