Reliability analysis of a glulam beam

The present case study is an example of the use of reliability analysis to asses the failure probability of a tapered glulam beam. This beam is part of a true structure built for a super market in the town of Kokemaki in Finland. The reliability analysis is carried out using the snow load statistics available from the site and on material strength information available from previous experiments. The Eurocode 5 and the Finnish building code are used as the deterministic methods to which the probabilistic method is compared to. The calculations show that the effect of the strength variation is not significant, when the coefficient of variation of the strength is around 15% as usually assumed for glulam. The probability of failure resulting from a deterministic design based on Eurocode 5 is low compared to the target values and lower sections are possible if applying a probabilistic design method. In fire design, if a 60 min resistance is required, this is not the case according to Eurocode 5 design procedures, a higher section would be required. However, a probabilistic based fire analysis results in bounds for the yearly probability of failure which are comparable to the target value and to the values obtained from the normal probabilistic based design. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

An overview of the effects of video games on prosocial behaviour

Abstract. Because nearly everyone has the access to video games in the ever-digitalizing world, debates are rising and people are becoming more worried about, what kinds of negative and positive effects they might propose to the daily life of the individual. It seems people are more aware of the negative aspects that video games have on prosocial behaviour and there also seems to be more studies brought to the public about the negative effects than the positive ones. Due to these circumstances, I think it is important to research also the positive behavioural effects that video games have, and the studies conducted on them. Also, to review and bring out the different researches done to the prosocial effects that video games have for the prosocial behaviour of people in their life. To influence people’s attitudes with video games, we need to introduce proof of positive effects and benefits they have on people and to society. In this research I will be studying influences of prosocial interaction, their effects and what kind of aspects can have a positive effect to the prosocial behaviour of players. This is done by reviewing researches and studies that assess these matters and by providing insight to the causality between these studies. This way we can have a basis on the study to the individuals benefits in organizational and social aspects. It also may influence people that might be demonizing towards video games to rethink their attitude and have a clearer image of the positive benefits of video games

Integration of digital twin to augmented reality in industrial enrichment plants:an anticipated user experience study

Abstract. Understanding user experience is necessary in developmental phases of every service, program and system. However, when adopting new technology, the early developmental phases methods and metrics used in user experience are not sufficient in anticipation of situational use and use cases of users. Therefore, focus and perspective to anticipated user experience research early in the development phase is needed. These problems are also true in ubiquitous computing field of Industry 4.0 where human computer interaction is in constant flux. New types of technologies and solutions are emerging and constantly seeking ways to capture their market share, bring added value or to revolutionize the industrial field without first understanding the anticipated requirements. This is true also for different industrial process control applications like digital twins and ways that augmented reality could be utilized in the on-site and monitoring operations. This thesis determines what the anticipated user experiences are for the professionals working in the industry and how applications can be integrated to augmented reality in industrial contexts. To tackle this issues artifact and gamification as design method will be utilized. Anticipated user experience study approach is applied and combined with early developmental artifact in the interviews. Research data is collected both qualitatively and quantitatively, but the main research method and data analysis is implemented with qualitative data. Contributions of this thesis is to determine if the use of early developmental artifact helps with the anticipations of user experiences and use cases for new technology adaptations to augmented reality in industrial contexts. This thesis proposes the term artifact specificity constraint and contributes to a model for converged relations of virtual reality continuum and digital twins. This thesis outlays a coding scheme with nine categories to be used as a reference for similar focused research

Effects of Pollen Allergy on Pulmonary Function Tests

Background: To investigate the effect of high air-borne pollen count on respiratory system.Methods: This cross sectional (descriptive) study included sixty known asthmatics, of either sex and of all ages. Pollen count as per cubic meter was recorded daily during February to May as reported by meteorological department. History, clinical examination and lung function tests were recorded in each case. The Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) with pollen count of asthmatic patients was correlated.Results: The PFT of asthmatic patients were adversely affected significantly during pollen season. There was negative correlation of moderate strength with FEV1 in asthmatic patients with high air borne pollen count during the pollen season.Conclusion: Spirometry was shown to be an effective technique to study the pollen allergy problem in already asthmatic patient

Design of Vector Fields in Volumes using RBF

Em Computação Gráfica, campos vetoriais possuem diversas aplicações desde a síntese e mapeamento de texturas à animações de fluidos, produzindo efeitos amplamente utilizados na indústria do entretenimento. Para produzir tais campos, é preferível o uso de ferramentas de design em vez de simulações numéricas não só devido ao menor custo computacional mas, principalmente, por prover liberdade ao artista ao sintetizar o campo de acordo com a sua necessidade. Atualmente, na literatura, existem bons métodos de design de campos vetoriais em superfícies de objetos tridimensionais porém, o design no interior desses objetos ainda é pouco estudado, principalmente quando o campo de interesse possui propriedades específicas. O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma técnica para sintetizar campos vetoriais, com características do movimento de fluidos incompressíveis, no interior de domínios. Em uma primeira etapa, o método consiste na interpolação dos vetores de controle, com uma certa propriedade desejada, em todo o domínio. Posteriormente, o campo obtido é modificado para respeitar a geometria do contorno.Vector fields are important to an wide range of applications on the field of Computer Graphics, from the synthesis and mapping of textures to fluid animation, producing effects widely used on the entertainment industry. To produce such fields, design tools are prefered over numerical simulations not only for its lower computational cost, but mainly by providing freedom to the artist in the creation process. Nowadays, good methods of vector field design over surfaces exist in literature, however there is only a few studies on the synthesis of vector fields of the interior of objects and even fewer when specific properties of the field are required. This work presents a technique to synthesize vector fields with properties of imcompressible fluids motion in the interior of objects. On a first step, the method consists in interpolating control vectors with a certain desired property throughout the whole domain and later the resulting field is modified to properly fit the boundary geometry of the object