Maintenance and refurbishment planning for a group of bridges

During the service, highway overpasses are exposed to various deterioration processes. The rate of these unavoidable processes depends on intensity of usage, weather influences and maintenance level. If maintenance works are not planned and executed in an adequate manner, the performance of the structures under consideration reduces. Planning an optimum set of intervention measures on the level of a group of structures is a complex task that is often left to subjective, partial decisions of managers that have to take int the account also financial limitations.\ud A group of 27 highway overpasses, spanning over the highway section under consideration, was analysed. A multi-criteria model for the selection of bridges that should have priority in the refurbishment process was developed. Condition rating data were collected from the periodic check\ud reports and and structured appropriately. Key criteria that need to be taken into the account were identified: condition ration of the whole structure, age of the pass, possibility of joining the works on a string of passes, indirect cost influence, refurbishment cost for a structure and deterioraton rate of the structure. Relative importance among these citeria was determined by using Analytical Hierarchy Method (AHP). On this basis, a multi-criteria model to be used for the selection of a set of structures\ud that have refurbishment priority in the case of limited financial contribution was developed. Refurbishment priority was identified for a group of structures that have, as a whole, a maximum overall benefit with respect to the selected criteria and their relative importance. Further, the analysis of the influence of the financial constraint magnitude upon the selection of structures to be repaired and the accompanying benefits ( that can facilitate the decision of the decision-makers' side) was carried out. The obtained results show that the proposed model can serve as an efficient tool used in rational selection of group of structures yielding the maximum overall benefit, and in analysis of possibilitie that lead to additional benefit with minimum financial input

Adenine as cation in hexafluoridosilicate

V diplomskem delu opisujem sintezo heksafluoridosilikatne soli s formulo [RH2]2+[SiF6]2- (1), v kateri je R adenin. Pri sintezi so bili kot reaktanti uporabljeni: SiO2, fluorovodikova kislina in adenin. Reakcija je bila izvedena v stehiometričnem razmerju 1 : 1 med SiO2 in adeninom, kar je vodilo do nastanka dvoprotoniranega adeninskega kationa. Iz raztopine fluorovodikove kisline so se izločili kristali, ki so bili nato analizirani z rentgensko strukturno analizo. Nastali produkt sem strukturno primerjal s spojino [RH]2+[SiF6]2- (R = adenin) (2) z že znano strukturo, ki vsebuje enoprotoniran adeninski kation.In this thesis I describe the synthesis of hexafluoridosilicate salt with formula [RH2]2+[SiF6]2-(1), where R is adenine. SiO2, hydrofluoric acid and adenine were used as reactants in the synthesis. The reaction was performed in a stoichiometric ratio of 1 : 1 between SiO2 and adenine, which led to the formation of a double-protonated adenine cation. Crystals were formed in hydrofluoric acid solution, which were then analyzed by X–ray crystallography. The structure of resulting product was compared with compound [RH]2+[SiF6]2- (R = adenine) (2) with known structure containing a monoprotonated adenine cation

Case study in housing management in the city municipality of Novo mesto

Upravljanje večstanovanjskih stavb predstavlja zelo pomembno področje upravljanja nepremičnin, saj se tako zagotavlja redno vzdrževanje stavb in zagotavljanje pogojev za bivanje. V diplomski nalogi je predstavljen zakonski okvir upravljanja z večstanovanjskimi stavbami v Republiki Sloveniji. Podrobneje je predstavljen način upravljanja in vzdrževanja večstanovanjskih stavb v Mestni občini Novo mesto. Na primeru vzorčne večstanovanjske stavbe je prikazan način upravljanja z večstanovanjsko stavbo na primeru obnove fasade večstanovanjske stavbe. Poleg same investicije so prikazane tudi razlike med porabo toplotne energije pred in po obnovi fasade.The management of multi-dwelling buildings represents a very important real estate management area providing regular building maintenance and living conditions. This thesis presents the legislative framework of multi-dwelling building management in the Republic of Slovenia. It highlights the management and maintenance of multi-dwelling buildings in the municipality Novo mesto. A sample multi-dwelling building gives an inside look at the multi-dwelling building management regarding facade refurbishment. In addition to the investment, it shows also the differences in housing reserve fund before and after the facade refurbishment

Cellulosomics, a gene-centric approach to investigating the intraspecific diversity and adaptation of Ruminococcus flavefaciens within the rumen

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Monitoring of the heart movements using a FMCW radar and correlation with an ECG

Monitoring the heart activity is an important task to prevent and diagnose cardiovascular diseases. An electrocardio-gram (ECG) is the gold standard for such task. It monitors the heart electrical activity, and while the later is highly correlated to the cardiac mechanical activity, it does not provide all the information. Other sensors such as echo-cardiograph allow to monitor the heart movements, but such tools are hard to operate and expensive. Therefore, contact-less monitoring of the heart using RF sensing has gained interest over the past years. In this paper, we provide a process to extract the movement of the heart with a high accuracy from a millimeter wave radar, i.e. we describe a non invasive and affordable way to monitor cardiac movements. We then demonstrate the correlation between the observed movements and the ECG. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm to synchronize the ECG signal and the processed signal from the radar sensor. The results we obtained provide insights on the mechanical activity of the heart, which could assist cardiologists in their diagnosisComment: 10 pages, 19 figure

Meeting Report: The 2nd Annual Argonne Soils Workshop, Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago Illinois, USA, October 6-8, 2010

This report summarizes the proceedings of the 2nd Annual Argonne Soils Workshop held at Argonne National Laboratory October 6–8, 2010. The workshop assembled a diverse group of soil ecologists, microbiologists, molecular biologists, and computational scientists to discuss the challenges and opportunities related to implementation of metagenomics approaches in soil microbial ecology. The overarching theme of the workshop was “designing ecologically meaningful soil metagenomics research”, which encouraged presentations on both ecological and computational topics. The workshop fostered valuable cross-discipline communication and delivered the message that soil metagenomics research must be based on an iterative process between biological inquiry and bioinformatics tools

Chemical markers for rumen methanogens and methanogenesis

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Multiphasic analysis of the temporal development of the distal gut microbiota in patients following ileal pouch anal anastomosis

Abstract Background The indigenous gut microbiota are thought to play a crucial role in the development and maintenance of the abnormal inflammatory responses that are the hallmark of inflammatory bowel disease. Direct tests of the role of the gut microbiome in these disorders are typically limited by the fact that sampling of the microbiota generally occurs once disease has become manifest. This limitation could potentially be circumvented by studying patients who undergo total proctocolectomy with ileal pouch anal anastomosis (IPAA) for the definitive treatment of ulcerative colitis. A subset of patients who undergo IPAA develops an inflammatory condition known as pouchitis, which is thought to mirror the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis. Following the development of the microbiome of the pouch would allow characterization of the microbial community that predates the development of overt disease. Results We monitored the development of the pouch microbiota in four patients who underwent IPAA. Mucosal and luminal samples were obtained prior to takedown of the diverting ileostomy and compared to samples obtained 2, 4 and 8 weeks after intestinal continuity had been restored. Through the combined analysis of 16S rRNA-encoding gene amplicons, targeted 16S amplification and microbial cultivation, we observed major changes in structure and function of the pouch microbiota following ileostomy. There is a relative increase in anaerobic microorganisms with the capacity for fermentation of complex carbohydrates, which corresponds to the physical stasis of intestinal contents in the ileal pouch. Compared to the microbiome structure encountered in the colonic mucosa of healthy individuals, the pouch microbial community in three of the four individuals was quite distinct. In the fourth patient, a community that was much like that seen in a healthy colon was established, and this patient also had the most benign clinical course of the four patients, without the development of pouchitis 2 years after IPAA. Conclusions The microbiota that inhabit the ileal-anal pouch of patients who undergo IPAA for treatment of ulcerative colitis demonstrate significant structural and functional changes related to the restoration of fecal flow. Our preliminary results suggest once the pouch has assumed the physiologic role previously played by the intact colon, the precise structure and function of the pouch microbiome, relative to a normal colonic microbiota, will determine if there is establishment of a stable, healthy mucosal environment or the reinitiation of the pathogenic cascade that results in intestinal inflammation.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112442/1/40168_2012_Article_10.pd

Composition and Similarity of Bovine Rumen Microbiota across Individual Animals

The bovine rumen houses a complex microbiota which is responsible for cattle's remarkable ability to convert indigestible plant mass into food products. Despite this ecosystem's enormous significance for humans, the composition and similarity of bacterial communities across different animals and the possible presence of some bacterial taxa in all animals' rumens have yet to be determined. We characterized the rumen bacterial populations of 16 individual lactating cows using tag amplicon pyrosequencing. Our data showed 51% similarity in bacterial taxa across samples when abundance and occurrence were analyzed using the Bray-Curtis metric. By adding taxon phylogeny to the analysis using a weighted UniFrac metric, the similarity increased to 82%. We also counted 32 genera that are shared by all samples, exhibiting high variability in abundance across samples. Taken together, our results suggest a core microbiome in the bovine rumen. Furthermore, although the bacterial taxa may vary considerably between cow rumens, they appear to be phylogenetically related. This suggests that the functional requirement imposed by the rumen ecological niche selects taxa that potentially share similar genetic features

Gene prediction with Glimmer for metagenomic sequences augmented by classification and clustering

Environmental shotgun sequencing (or metagenomics) is widely used to survey the communities of microbial organisms that live in many diverse ecosystems, such as the human body. Finding the protein-coding genes within the sequences is an important step for assessing the functional capacity of a metagenome. In this work, we developed a metagenomics gene prediction system Glimmer-MG that achieves significantly greater accuracy than previous systems via novel approaches to a number of important prediction subtasks. First, we introduce the use of phylogenetic classifications of the sequences to model parameterization. We also cluster the sequences, grouping together those that likely originated from the same organism. Analogous to iterative schemes that are useful for whole genomes, we retrain our models within each cluster on the initial gene predictions before making final predictions. Finally, we model both insertion/deletion and substitution sequencing errors using a different approach than previous software, allowing Glimmer-MG to change coding frame or pass through stop codons by predicting an error. In a comparison among multiple gene finding methods, Glimmer-MG makes the most sensitive and precise predictions on simulated and real metagenomes for all read lengths and error rates tested