Getting on Track: Good Investments for Pennsylvania's Public Transit System

Provides an overview of the state's transit system and summarizes opportunities for investment in rapid transit, rail, and bus lines in each region. Includes policy recommendations

Colt Born With Bovine Foot

On November 10, 1938, a purebred Percheron filly, seven months of age, owned by S. S. Hansen of Nevada, Iowa, was presented at the Iowa State College Veterinary Clinic for examination. This colt possessed two fully and equally developed hoofs on the right front foot

Experimental investigation into the shear resistance of a reinforced UHPFRC web element

Ultra-high performance fiber reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) can be implemented in combination with steel reinforcing bars to enhance the performance of UHPFRC elements subject to shear stresses. This paper presents an experimental investigation into the behavior of a UHPFRC web element in shear. Two I-shaped beams are constructed out of UHPFRC, with longitudinal reinforcing bars in the tension flange. One of the beams includes transverse bars in the web; the other contains no transverse bars. When loaded to failure in a three-point bending test, the specimen with transverse bars exhibits greater shear strength than the specimen without transverse bars. The observed strengths of both specimens show good agreement with a proposed expression for estimating the shear strength of UHPFRC elements. The proposed expression is based on a truss model for shear resistance, and it treats UHPFRC fibers as reinforcement with a variable angle of inclination, bridging shear cracks at an angle perpendicular to the length of the crack

A Multi-Level Approach to Outreach for Geologic Sequestration Projects

AbstractPublic perception of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects represents a potential barrier to commercialization. Outreach to stakeholders at the local, regional, and national level is needed to create familiarity with and potential acceptance of CCS projects. This paper highlights the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium (MGSC) multi-level outreach approach which interacts with multiple stakeholders. The MGSC approach focuses on external and internal communication. External communication has resulted in building regional public understanding of CCS. Internal communication, through a project Risk Assessment process, has resulted in enhanced team communication and preparation of team members for outreach roles

Geological Storage of CO\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e in Sub-Seafloor Basalt: The CarbonSAFE Pre-Feasibility Study Offshore Washington State and British Columbia

The CarbonSAFE Cascadia project team is conducting a pre-feasibility study to evaluate technical and nontechnical aspects of collecting and storing 50 MMT of CO2 in a safe, ocean basalt reservoir offshore from Washington State and British Columbia. Sub-seafloor basalts are very common on Earth and enable CO2 mineralization as a long-term storage mechanism, permanently sequestering the carbon in solid rock form. Our project goals include the evaluation of this reservoir as an industrial-scale CO2 storage complex, developing potential source/transport scenarios, conducting laboratory and modeling studies to determine the potential capacity of the reservoir, and completing an assessment of economic, regulatory and project management risks. Potential scenarios include sources and transport options in the USA and in Canada. The overall project network consists of a coordination team of researchers from collaborating academic institutions, subcontractors, and external participants. Lessons learned from this study at the Cascadia Basin location may be transferrable elsewhere around the globe

Geological Storage of CO2 in Sub-Seafloor Basalt: The CarbonSAFE Pre-Feasibility Study Offshore Washington State and British Columbia

The CarbonSAFE Cascadia project team is conducting a pre-feasibility study to evaluate technical and nontechnical aspects of collecting and storing 50 MMT of CO2 in a safe, ocean basalt reservoir offshore from Washington State and British Columbia. Sub-seafloor basalts are very common on Earth and enable CO2 mineralization as a long-term storage mechanism, permanently sequestering the carbon in solid rock form. Our project goals include the evaluation of this reservoir as an industrial-scale CO2 storage complex, developing potential source/transport scenarios, conducting laboratory and modeling studies to determine the potential capacity of the reservoir, and completing an assessment of economic, regulatory and project management risks. Potential scenarios include sources and transport options in the USA and in Canada. The overall project network consists of a coordination team of researchers from collaborating academic institutions, subcontractors, and external participants. Lessons learned from this study at the Cascadia Basin location may be transferrable elsewhere around the globe

Specific versus General Principles for Constitutional AI

Human feedback can prevent overtly harmful utterances in conversational models, but may not automatically mitigate subtle problematic behaviors such as a stated desire for self-preservation or power. Constitutional AI offers an alternative, replacing human feedback with feedback from AI models conditioned only on a list of written principles. We find this approach effectively prevents the expression of such behaviors. The success of simple principles motivates us to ask: can models learn general ethical behaviors from only a single written principle? To test this, we run experiments using a principle roughly stated as "do what's best for humanity". We find that the largest dialogue models can generalize from this short constitution, resulting in harmless assistants with no stated interest in specific motivations like power. A general principle may thus partially avoid the need for a long list of constitutions targeting potentially harmful behaviors. However, more detailed constitutions still improve fine-grained control over specific types of harms. This suggests both general and specific principles have value for steering AI safely