Outsourcing of Laboratory Testing and Inspection Activities at State Transportation Agencies: Synthesis of Current Practices

Outsourcing of project activities at State Transportation Agencies (STA) to the private sector has become ubiquitous over the last several decades. This trend of increased outsourcing is primarily driven by the continued demand for public transportation infrastructure coupled with static or declining levels of in-house STA employees. Many prior studies have reported on the trends, impacts, challenges and costs of outsourcing functions, such as design, but few have focused on the use of consultants specifically for testing and inspection. This paper synthesizes the current state of practice of outsourcing testing and inspection activities across STAs within the United States. Specifically the study used a qualitative approach which included a literature review, surveys of STAs on their current state of practice for outsourcing testing and inspection, questionnaires of consultants that provide inspection services to the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), follow-on interviews with key STAs, and interviews with five Indiana DOT district construction directors to determine the following: Factors/criteria for determining the basis for outsourcing inspections and testing Factors influencing the motivation and decision to outsource testing and inspection Documents and guidelines used for ensuring quality in outsourced tests and inspections Benefits and advantages realized through outsourcing testing and inspection In addition to a synthesis of the current state of outsourcing across the STAs, five key strategies were identified to guide STAs with outsourcing testing and inspection activities. The key strategies include: (1) conducting strategic level planning, (2) developing a system of record to track in-house versus consultant cost, (3) maintaining a strong prequalification program, (4) consistently evaluating consultant performance, and (5) providing training to in-house staff and consultants. Application of these strategies can assist STAs in developing, sustaining, and guiding a quality testing and inspection outsourcing program

Guidelines for sustainable urban land use from the perspective of urban morphology at the example of New Belgrade

Општи циљ овог истраживања је унапређење теоретског дискурса концепта одрживог развоја града, разрадом специфичне области одрживог коришћења градског земљишта са позиције урбане морфологије, уз истовремени допринос расправи о одрживом развоју Новог Београда, систематизацијом и формирањем препорука за одрживо коришћење градског земљишта са становишта урбане морфологије, које могу да буду од користи као инпути приликом планирања реконструкције постојеће структуре и њеног евентуалног погушћавања новом изградњом. Истраживање је концептуално спроведено кроз три широко засноване целине: 1/ истраживање теоретских и методолошких основа, 2/ методолошка разрада са утврђивањем оперативног приступа и 3/ операционализација на актуелном примеру стамбених суперблокова Новог Београда. Обрађен је практични и теоријски дискурс коришћења градског земљишта и доказана холистичка природа феномена и узајамност утицаја теоријске и практичне сфере. Детаљно је разрађен и дефинисан феномен одрживог коришћења градског земљишта и позиција теме у европској пракси. Разјашњена је могућа дилема у вези са терминологијом: (амерички термин „land use planning“ (директан превод: „планирање коришћења земљишта“), широко обухвата тему коришћења градског земљишта и практично се своди на „урбанистичко планирање“, док је термин „sustainable urban land use“ (одрживо коришћење градског земљишта) у директној вези са идејом одрживог развоја и корен црпе из дефиниције коју разрађује Агенда 21, чиме се тежиште преноси на укупне ефекте/последице заузимања овог природног ресурса. Детаљном разрадом, систематизоване су области деловања и формиран оквир за анализе одрживог коришћења земљишта са позиције морфолошког аспекта: 1/површина у контексту типологије; 2/садржаји у контексту доступности; 3./промене које се дешавају у дистрибуцији садржаја кроз време; 4/елементи форме која се гради на земљишту кроз аспект одрживе изградње; и 5/интеракције у урбаном простору (оне које су изазване одређеним начинима заузимања/коришћења земљишта) кроз однос јавног и приватног...The overall objective of this research is to improve the theoretical discourse of sustainable development of the city through elaboration of a specific domain of sustainable urban land use from the urban morphology perspective, and to contribute to the debate on sustainable development of New Belgrade by systematization of a guidelines for sustainable urban land use from the perspective of urban morphology that can be of use as an input in planning the reconstruction of the existing structure and its possible thickening with the new construction. The research was conducted in three conceptually broad-based entities: 1 /theoretical and methodological basis, 2 /methodological approach elaboration with establishing the operational approach and 3 /operationalization on the example of housing superblocks of New Belgrade. Practical and theoretical discourses of urban land use were elaborated, holistic nature of the phenomenon and correlation between theoretical and practical spheres were proved. Phenomenon of sustainable urban land use were elaborated in detail, defined and explained the position it takes within European practice. The possible dilemma with the terminology were clarify: (American based notion “land use planning” widely encompasses use of urban land and virtually means “urban planning”, while the notion of „sustainable urban land use” is in direct connection to the idea of sustainable development and is rooted in Agenda 21 definition, what shifts focus to overall effects/consequences of occupation of this natural resource). By further detailed elaboration, activity fields were systematized and analytical frame for sustainable urban land use from the viewpoint of urban morphology was created: 1./ surface within the context of the typology; 2/uses/activities/functions within the context of accessibility; 3/changes that occur in distribution of uses through time; 4/some of elements of form which is built on the land through the aspect of sustainable building, and finally 5/interaction in urban space (those that have been caused by specific way of land occupancy/use) through public and private relation..

Inferring progression models for CGH data

Motivation: One of the mutational processes that has been monitored genome-wide is the occurrence of regional DNA copy number alterations (CNAs), which may lead to deletion or over-expression of tumor suppressors or oncogenes, respectively. Understanding the relationship between CNAs and different cancer types is a fundamental problem in cancer studies. Results: This article develops an efficient method that can accurately model the progression of the cancer markers and reconstruct evolutionary relationship between multiple types of cancers using comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) data. Such modeling can lead to better understanding of the commonalities and differences between multiple cancer types and potential therapies. We have developed an automatic method to infer a graph model for the markers of multiple cancers from a large population of CGH data. Our method identifies highly related markers across different cancer types. It then builds a directed acyclic graph that shows the evolutionary history of these markers based on how common each marker is in different cancer types. We demonstrated the use of this model in determining the importance of markers in cancer evolution. We have also developed a new method to measure the evolutionary distance between different cancers based on their markers. This method employs the graph model we developed for the individual markers to measure the distance between pairs of cancers. We used this measure to create an evolutionary tree for multiple cancers. Our experiments on Progenetix database show that our markers are largely consistent to the reported hot-spot imbalances and most frequent imbalances. The results show that our distance measure can accurately reconstruct the evolutionary relationship between multiple cancer types. Availability: All the code developed in this article are available at http://bioinformatics.cise.ufl.edu/phylogeny.html. Contact: [email protected]; [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics onlin

Exploring bacterial communities in aquaponic systems

Aquaponics is a production system based on the dynamic equilibrium between fish, plants, and microorganisms. In order to better understand the role of microorganisms in this tripartite relationship, we studied the bacterial communities hosted in eight aquaponic and aquaculture systems. The bacterial communities were analyzed by 16S rRNA gene deep sequencing. At the phylum level, the bacterial communities from all systems were relatively similar with a predominance of Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. At the genus level, however, the communities present in the sampled systems were more heterogeneous. The biofilter samples harbored more diverse communities than the corresponding sump samples. The core microbiomes from the coupled and decoupled systems shared more common operational taxonomic units than with the aquaculture systems. Eventually, some of the taxa identified in the systems could have beneficial functions for plant growth and health, but a deeper analysis would be required to identify the precise functions involved in aquaponics

Warranty Utility Cut Repairs (QC/QA of Utility Cut Repairs)

Poor construction techniques in utility cut repairs often lead to settlement of the patches, increasing the roughness of the pavement and decreasing the rideability of the repaired pavement. Identifying the company responsible for faulty pavement repairs is difficult since multiple utilities may have performed repairs in the same section. The objective of this study was to develop a set of guidelines to assist INDOT in addressing challenges with utility cut repairs. The key research tasks included: (1) a synthesis of utility cut repair guidelines among State Highway Agencies (SHAs), (2) interviews with INDOT engineers and utility contractors to identify the challenges faced in restoring utility cuts, (3) an evaluation of INDOT’s Electronic Permitting System in the context of managing utility cut permit information, and (4) an investigation of automated methods to track/manage utility cut repairs. INDOT specifications require utility cuts to be repaired using the T-section method, backfilled either, with soil compacted to 95% Standard Proctor density or with flowable fill, and edges treated with a tack coat for flexible pavements and dowel bars for rigid pavements. These specifications were found to be in alignment with a majority of the specifications of other State Highway Agencies. INDOT personnel recommended that flowable fill be made mandatory to circumvent the need for compaction, and suggested incorporating pre-qualification requirements for contractors who perform utility cut repairs. INDOT’s Electronic Permitting System lacks data fields to store information about contractors performing pavement cut repairs, record details of the work, such as dimensions of the cut, backfill materials, construction methods, etc., and list information about periodic inspections by INDOT. Including data fields to record such information will facilitate a more effective use of EPS for reviewing and managing permits and tracking the work done by permittees. Enhancements to the EPS System could also automated identification of repaired patches by correlating the global positioning system (GPS) location of INDOT’s pavement monitoring vehicle with the location information of utility cut repairs from the EPS

X-wave mediated instability of plane waves in Kerr media

Plane waves in Kerr media spontaneously generate paraxial X-waves (i.e. non-dispersive and non-diffractive pulsed beams) that get amplified along propagation. This effect can be considered a form of conical emission (i.e. spatio-temporal modulational instability), and can be used as a key for the interpretation of the out of axis energy emission in the splitting process of focused pulses in normally dispersive materials. A new class of spatio-temporal localized wave patterns is identified. X-waves instability, and nonlinear X-waves, are also expected in periodical Bose condensed gases.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

EU policies : new opportunities for aquaponics

Aquaponics is a modern and sustainable food production technology. This paper reviews different policies relevant to aquaponics in order to create a clear picture on how aquaponics can contribute to achieving European goals and how the policies and strategies can provide support and opportunities for this sector. Because aquaponics falls into fish as well as plant production relevant policies are the Common Agriculture Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, the European Union (EU) Food Safety and Nutrition Policy, and the EU Environmental Policy. Goals of these policies that are related to aquaponics include promoting innovation, increasing competitiveness and sustainability, improving access to space and water, welfare of fish, prevention of waste, and promoting resource-efficiency and low-carbon economy. Aquaponics contributes to achieving these goals by minimising water and nutrient use, utilising areas unfit for other food production systems, facilitating local food production and thus providing new business opportunities. The EU provides various frameworks for financial support for the different components of aquaponics, resulting in a range of opportunities for the newcomer as well as the already established aquaponics entrepreneurs. Financial support mostly targets research projects, while the sector also needs assistance in the commercial development

Comparative evaluation of two different fiber-reinforced composite materials in class 1 post-endodontic restorations in molars—a randomized clinical study

This study aimed to evaluate and compare two different fiber-reinforced composite materials in class I post-endodontic restoration in molars. A total of 50 patients were randomly assigned into two groups (n = 25 for each group); group A: everX Posterior (packable composite) with a top layer of solareX (nano-hybrid composite) and group B: everX Flow (flowable composite) with a top layer of G-aenial universal injectable (flowable composite). Patients were evaluated immediately after the procedure (baseline), at 6 months, and at 1 year time intervals based on the modified USPHS criteria. The statistical analysis using a chi-square test showed no statistically significant difference in the clinical performance of group A and group B. Clinical performance of the combination of everX Flow with overlying G-aenial universal injectable composite proved to be comparable with everX Posterior with overlying solareX composite as post-endodontic restorations in class I lesions in permanent molars