Hospitality IT: What Does the Future Hold?

The impact of information technology (IT) is far-reaching and driving dramatic shifts in business paradigms. Trends suggest greater adoption of IT will continue and develop at accelerating rates. Hence, hotel operators and executives must learn how to embrace IT and capitalize on the many capabilities it has to offer while minimizing the threats. The authors attempt to provide a sense of focus and a roadmap to help hoteliers understand the issues, see the future, and find an appropriate on ramp to the information superhighway

Hazards at Low-Head Dams

ABSTRACT: Low-head dams are small structures that are built for many purposes, the most common being to impound small amounts of water for various uses. At certain flow conditions, a dangerous countercurrent, known as a roller, can form downstream of a low-head dam. This current possesses an upstream directed surface velocity that can effectively trap debris, as well as unsuspecting humans, at the downstream side of the dam. It is this current that is responsible for the deaths of many individuals that have ventured too close to these structures over the years. It is the objective of this study to identify a relationship between easily observable parameters and the roller strength that can be used as a classification system. This will be done primarily through the use of computational fluid dynamics software to simulate various flow conditions. The results of these numerical models will then be compared, and a relationship will be identified. This study is currently underway, and therefore conclusive results are not available at this time. Although, comparison of the numerical results to physical model results have been used to verify that the flow conditions being produced by the software accurately represent the physical flow conditions

Extracellular Matrix of the Skin: 50 Years of Progress

The extracellular connective tissue matrix of the skin is a complex aggregate of distinct collagenous and non-collagenous components. Optimal quantities and delicate interactions of these components are necessary to maintain normal physiologic properties of skin. This overview summarizes the progress made in understanding the normal biology and biochemistry of the extracellular matrix, and will highlight cutaneous diseases with underlying molecular defects in the structure and expression of extracellular matrix components

PLENARY PANEL: A 360-DEGREE VIEW OF SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURAL POLICY; EDITED TRANSCRIPT

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Lighten Everyone\u27s Load: LIDAR Applications to Support Engineers, Planners, Scientists and More

Light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology is reshaping the civil engineering profession and offers many unique advantages. National efforts such as the 3D Elevation Plan (3DEP) are helping increase the availability of LIDAR data. LIDAR is one of the crucial technologies that is transitioning the world of civil and construction engineering from 2D paper-based design to 3D digital design. The high spatial resolution and accuracy capabilities of LIDAR have led to increased efficiencies, improved analyses, and more informed decision making. A further advantage of this dataset is that multiple people can use the same dataset for a variety of purposes across multiple disciplines. The visual nature of the dataset also is more intuitive than traditional data acquisition and analysis techniques. This presentation will provide a brief background of LIDAR , its capabilities, limitations and platforms, and discuss its current and future role in civil engineering. Examples of a wide range of transportation, geotechnical, coastal, and structural engineering, science, and planning applications will be presented including development of mobile LIDAR guidelines for transportation applications, seacliff erosion in San Diego, CA, landslides and slope stability studies in Oregon, Alaska, and New Zealand, earthquake and tsunami damages in American Samoa, Chile, and Japan, cultural heritage in Florence, Italy, and in-situ change detection for geomorphological studies and infrastructure monitoring. Benefits and challenges of LIDAR for these applications will be highlighted. E-learning resources created as part of the mobile LIDAR guidelines for the website learnmobilelidar.com will also be shown.https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/trec_seminar/1039/thumbnail.jp

Superlinear increase of photoluminescence with excitation intensity in Zn-doped GaN

We have observed a superlinear increase of photoluminescence (PL) intensity in a narrow range of excitation intensities for Zn-doped GaN. The characteristic intensity at which the abrupt increase occurs increases with increasing temperature. This is unlike the usual observations for defects in semiconductors in which the PL intensity increases linearly with excitation intensity, saturating at high intensity because defects become saturated with photogenerated charge carriers. The observed phenomenon is attributed to a redirection of electron and hole flow from nonradiative centers at low excitation intensity to a recombination path via the Zn-Ga acceptor at high excitation intensity. This is the same explanation responsible for the abrupt thermal quenching of PL reported earlier [Reshchikov et al., Phys. Rev. B 84, 075212 (2011).

Unmanned Aircraft System Assessments of Landslide Safety for Transportation Corridors

An assessment of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) concluded that current, off-the-shelf UAS aircraft and cameras can be effective for creating the digital surface models used to evaluate rock-slope stability and landslide risk along transportation corridors. The imagery collected with UAS can be processed using a photogrammetry technique called Structure-from-Motion (SfM) which generates a point cloud and surface model, similar to terrestrial laser scanning (TLS). We treated the TLS data as our control, or “truth,” because it is a mature and well-proven technology. The comparisons of the TLS surfaces and the SFM surfaces were impressive – if not comparable is many cases. Thus, the SfM surface models would be suitable for deriving slope morphology to generate rockfall activity indices (RAI) for landslide assessment provided the slopes. This research also revealed that UAS are a safer alternative to the deployment and operation of TLS operating on a road shoulder because UAS can be launched and recovered from a remote location and capable of imaging without flying directly over the road. However both the UAS and TLS approaches still require traditional survey control and photo targets to accurately geo-reference their respective DSM.List of Figures ...................................................................................................... vi List of Abbreviations ......................................................................................... vii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................ x Executive Summary ............................................................................................. xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 4 2.1 Landslide Hazards .................................................................................... 4 2.2 Unmanned Aircraft Systems Remote Sensing.......................................... 6 2.3 Structure From Motion (SfM) .................................................................. 7 2.4 Lidar terrain mapping ............................................................................... 8 CHAPTER 3 STUDY SITE/DATA .................................................................. 11 CHAPTER 4 METHODS ................................................................................ 13 4.1 Data Collection ............................................................................................. 13 4.1.1 Survey Control ..................................................................................... 14 4.1.2 TLS Surveys ........................................................................................ 16 4.1.3 UAS Imagery ....................................................................................... 17 4.1.4 Terrestrial Imagery Acquisition ........................................................... 19 4.2 Data Processing ............................................................................................ 20 4.2.1 Survey Control ..................................................................................... 20 4.2.2 TLS Processing .................................................................................... 20 4.2.3 SfM Processing .................................................................................... 21 4.2.4 Surface Generation .............................................................................. 22 4.3 Quality Evaluation ........................................................................................ 23 4.3.1 Completeness ....................................................................................... 23 4.3.2 Data Density/Resolution ...................................................................... 23 4.3.3 Accuracy Assessment .......................................................................... 23 4.3.2 Surface Morphology Analysis ............................................................. 24 4.2.6 Data Visualization ............................................................................... 25 CHAPTER 5 RESULTS ................................................................................. 27 v 5.1 UTIC DSM evaluation.................................................................................. 27 5.1.1 Completeness evaluation ..................................................................... 28 5.1.2 Data Density Evaluation ...................................................................... 29 5.1.3 Accuracy Evaluation............................................................................ 30 5.2 Geomorphological Evaluation ...................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION ............................................................................ 35 6.1 Evaluation of UAS efficiencies .................................................................... 35 6.2 DSM quality and completeness .................................................................... 37 6.3 Safety and operational considerations .......................................................... 37 CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ................................ 40 7.1 Technology Transfer..................................................................................... 41 7.1.1 Publications ......................................................................................... 41 7.1.2 Presentations ........................................................................................ 42 7.1.3 Multi-media outreach .......................................................................... 43 6.4 Integration of UAS and TLS data ................................................................. 44 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 4

Higher Blood Glucose within the Normal Range Is Associated with More Severe Strokes

Background. Higher fasting blood glucose (FBG) concentrations in the hyperglycemic range are associated with more severe strokes. Whether this association also extends into patients with FBG in the normoglycemic range is unclear. We studied the association of stroke severity and FBG in normoglycemic patients with ischemic stroke in a median of 7 days after stroke when the initial glycemic stress response has resolved. Method and Material. Included were 361 nondiabetic ischemic stroke patients with admission fasting blood glucose within 70–130 mg/dL admitted into an acute stroke rehabilitation unit in a median of 7 days after stroke. Data including neuroimaging, vital signs, cardiovascular risk factors, and admission functional independence measure (AFIM) were recorded prospectively. Results. FBG correlated with stroke severity in the normoglycemic 70–130 mg/dL range (FBG-AFIM correlation coefficient −0.17; P = 0.003). Odds ratio for more severe injury (below average AFIM score) was 2.02 for patients with FBG 110–130 mg/dL compared to FBG 70–90 mg/dL (95% confidence interval 1.10–3.73, P = 0.022). Each mg/dL increase in FBG was associated with an average decrease of 0.25 FIM points. In a multiple linear regression model, FBG was associated with more severe stroke (P = 0.002). Conclusion. One week after ischemic stroke, FBG within the normoglycemic range was associated with stroke severity

Photonic Passbands and Zeropoints for the Stromgren uvby system

Photonic passbands have been derived for the uvby standard system by convolving the original filter passbands of Str\"omgren and Perry with atmospheric extinction and the QE of a cooled 1P21 photomultiplier tube. Using these new passbands, synthetic photometry was calculated for all the stars in the extensive NGSL and MILES spectrophotometric libraries and compared with the homogenised b-y, m1 and c1 indices in the Hauck-Mermilliod 1998 catalog and the derived u - v and v - b colors. Excellent agreement between observed and synthetic photometry was achieved with regression slopes near unity. Slightly better fits were obtained by considering stars with b-y 0.5, separately. It is recommended that these new passbands be used together with the provided transformation equations to generate synthetic photometry from model atmosphere fluxes and observed spectrophotometry. Synthetic photometry was also carried out using the natural system of the 4-channel spectrograph-photometers and those of Cousins and Eggen in order to explore the systematic dfferences that could be expected between their instrumental systems and the standard system.Comment: 15 pages, including 10 figure