Performance indicators for roadway bridges

Publicado em "Maintenance, monitoring, safety, risk and resilience of bridges and bridge networks". ISBN 978-1-138-02851-7The performance indicators should, by its definition, allow capturing the life-cycle degradation processes affecting maintenance plans or the remaining lifetime. The qualitative or quantitative performance indicators are obtained through visual inspections, non-destructive tests or monitoring systems. After their quantification and the comparison with the respective performance goals and thresholds, a Quality Control plan should be accomplished. The COST TU1406 Action aims to uniform the European performance indicators, systemize the knowledge on the Quality Control plans for bridges, establish quality specifications and finally to develop the guideline and recommendations for the assessment of performance indicators. This contribution focuses on the current work of the first Working Group, WG1, where the first step is a collection of the key performance indicators at a European level. First those key performance indicators which capture mechanical and technical properties and its degradation behavior are assessed, while the further consideration reflect on the natural aging, quality of the material, service life design methods, and sustainable, environmental, economic and social based indicators.COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)Project “LeCIE – Life-cycle assessment for railway construction – strategies and methods

Cooperative kernels: GPU multitasking for blocking algorithms

There is growing interest in accelerating irregular data-parallel algorithms on GPUs. These algorithms are typically blocking , so they require fair scheduling. But GPU programming models (e.g. OpenCL) do not mandate fair scheduling, and GPU schedulers are unfair in practice. Current approaches avoid this issue by exploit- ing scheduling quirks of today’s GPUs in a manner that does not allow the GPU to be shared with other workloads (such as graphics rendering tasks). We propose cooperative kernels , an extension to the traditional GPU programming model geared towards writing blocking algorithms. Workgroups of a cooperative kernel are fairly scheduled, and multitasking is supported via a small set of language extensions through which the kernel and scheduler cooperate. We describe a prototype implementation of a cooperative kernel frame- work implemented in OpenCL 2.0 and evaluate our approach by porting a set of blocking GPU applications to cooperative kernels and examining their performance under multitasking

Impact of renal impairment on atrial fibrillation: ESC-EHRA EORP-AF Long-Term General Registry

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) and renal impairment share a bidirectional relationship with important pathophysiological interactions. We evaluated the impact of renal impairment in a contemporary cohort of patients with AF. Methods: We utilised the ESC-EHRA EORP-AF Long-Term General Registry. Outcomes were analysed according to renal function by CKD-EPI equation. The primary endpoint was a composite of thromboembolism, major bleeding, acute coronary syndrome and all-cause death. Secondary endpoints were each of these separately including ischaemic stroke, haemorrhagic event, intracranial haemorrhage, cardiovascular death and hospital admission. Results: A total of 9306 patients were included. The distribution of patients with no, mild, moderate and severe renal impairment at baseline were 16.9%, 49.3%, 30% and 3.8%, respectively. AF patients with impaired renal function were older, more likely to be females, had worse cardiac imaging parameters and multiple comorbidities. Among patients with an indication for anticoagulation, prescription of these agents was reduced in those with severe renal impairment, p <.001. Over 24 months, impaired renal function was associated with significantly greater incidence of the primary composite outcome and all secondary outcomes. Multivariable Cox regression analysis demonstrated an inverse relationship between eGFR and the primary outcome (HR 1.07 [95% CI, 1.01–1.14] per 10 ml/min/1.73 m2 decrease), that was most notable in patients with eGFR <30 ml/min/1.73 m2 (HR 2.21 [95% CI, 1.23–3.99] compared to eGFR ≥90 ml/min/1.73 m2). Conclusion: A significant proportion of patients with AF suffer from concomitant renal impairment which impacts their overall management. Furthermore, renal impairment is an independent predictor of major adverse events including thromboembolism, major bleeding, acute coronary syndrome and all-cause death in patients with AF

Linebacker: Preserving Victim Cache Lines in Idle Register Files of GPUs

Modern GPUs suffer from cache contention due to the limited cache size that is shared across tens of concurrently running warps. To increase the per-warp cache size prior techniques proposed warp throttling which limits the number of active warps. Warp throttling leaves several registers to be dynamically unused whenever a warp is throttled. Given the stringent cache size limitation in GPUs this work proposes a new cache management technique named Linebacker (LB) that improves GPU performance by utilizing idle register file space as victim cache space. Whenever a CTA becomes inactive, linebacker backs up the registers of the throttled CTA to the off-chip memory. Then, linebacker utilizes the corresponding register file space as victim cache space. If any load instruction finds data in the victim cache line, the data is directly copied to the destination register through a simple register-register move operation. To further improve the efficiency of victim cache linebacker allocates victim cache space only to a select few load instructions that exhibit high data locality. Through a careful design of victim cache indexing and management scheme linebacker provides 29.0% of speedup compared to the previously proposed warp throttling techniques

Strain measurement of medical textile using 2d digital image correlation method

Medical textile plays an important role in the technical textiles sector as one of the most rapidly growing sectors in the technical textile market. The textile materials should have some adequate mechanical properties to be useful as medical textile. Tensile strength presents one of the basic mechanical properties used to describe textile specimens. Standardized tensile testing procedures on textile specimens were commonly used in the past. The aim of this paper was to measure in-plane strain field on the tensile medical textile specimen using 2D Digital Image Correlation method (2D-DIC). 2D-DIC is a non-contact optical method for accurate displacement and strain full-field measurement. In this study, two medical cotton textiles, with density 120 and 130 g/m2, were used to create three specimens for each material. Each specimen was placed in the tensile testing machine and measured until the break. During the tensile testing, camera was automatically recording full-field displacement in X and Y directions. Textile 1 and Textile 2 showed significant differences in point distance values, despite the small deviation in densities (less than 10%). Mean value of the elongation for Textile 1 is more than a double than the elongation for Textile 2, although the difference for mean value of Maximum force if negligible. Also, it has been showed that 2D-DIC can play significant role for measurement in textile mechanical properties measurement

Mechanical Properties of Direct and Indirect Composite Materials Used in Prosthodontics

This study was conducted to investigate composite materials using mechanical equipment corresponded to masticatory system composed of two antagonistic parts that simulates bimaxilar contact in occlusion and articulation. The aim of this study was to investigate restorative materials with different chemical properties and to find out which material showed the best mechanical properties. The experiment was conducted using 4 types × 20 specimens of direct resin composite materials and equal number of indirect resin composites (IRCs). The following composites were tested: Tetric (Ivoclar Vivadent), Kerr Herculite XRV (Kerr), Charisma (Heraeus Kulzer), Heliomolar (Ivoclar Vivadent), Artglass (Heraeus Kulzer), Targis/Vectris (Ivoclar Vivadent), Vita Zeta LC (Vita) and Kerr Herculite Lab (Kerr). The universal dimensions of all specimens were 5 mm × 5 mm with 2 mm thickness. This was achieved using silicone molds. A total of 160 specimens (80 direct composite specimens and 80 indirect composite specimens) were tested using tensile testing machine. Artglass showed minimal change in thickness (30.20 ± 23.0 μm) compared to others. The highest change in thickness was found in Heliomolar (86.2 ± 32.6 μm). In the group of direct composite materials, Tetric experienced the lowest thickness change (31.0 ± 8.8 μm), while Charisma showed thickness variation of 65.2 ± 27.3 μm. Among indirect composites, Vita Zeta LC showed the highest value of thickness variation (76.2 ± 31.3 μm). In this experimental study, indirect composite specimens showed superior mechanical performance compared to direct composite specimens highlighted Artglass as the material of choice viewed from mechanical aspect

Clinical utility and prognostic implications of the novel 4S-AF scheme to characterize and evaluate patients with atrial fibrillation: a report from ESC-EHRA EORP-AF Long-Term General Registry

Aims: The 4S-AF classification scheme comprises of four domains: stroke risk (St), symptoms (Sy), severity of atrial fibrillation (AF) burden (Sb), and substrate (Su). We sought to examine the implementation of the 4S-AF scheme in the EORP-AF General Long-Term Registry and compare outcomes in AF patients according to the 4S-AF-led decision-making process. Methods and results: Atrial fibrillation patients from 250 centres across 27 European countries were included. A 4S-AF score was calculated as the sum of each domain with a maximum score of 9. Of 6321 patients, 8.4% had low (St), 47.5% EHRA I (Sy), 40.5% newly diagnosed or paroxysmal AF (Sb), and 5.1% no cardiovascular risk factors or left atrial enlargement (Su). Median follow-up was 24 months. Using multivariable Cox regression analysis, independent predictors of all-cause mortality were (St) [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 8.21, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.60-25.9], (Sb) (aHR 1.21, 95% CI: 1.08-1.35), and (Su) (aHR 1.27, 95% CI: 1.14-1.41). For CV mortality and any thromboembolic event, only (Su) (aHR 1.73, 95% CI: 1.45-2.06) and (Sy) (aHR 1.29, 95% CI: 1.00-1.66) were statistically significant, respectively. None of the domains were independently linked to ischaemic stroke or major bleeding. Higher 4S-AF score was related to a significant increase in all-cause mortality, CV mortality, any thromboembolic event, and ischaemic stroke but not major bleeding. Treatment of all 4S-AF domains was associated with an independent decrease in all-cause mortality (aHR 0.71, 95% CI: 0.55-0.92). For each 4S-AF domain left untreated, the risk of all-cause mortality increased substantially (aHR 1.35, 95% CI: 1.16-1.56). Conclusion: Implementation of the novel 4S-AF scheme is feasible, and treatment decisions based on this scheme improve mortality rates in AF

Clinical utility and prognostic implications of the novel 4S-AF scheme to characterize and evaluate patients with atrial fibrillation: a report from ESC-EHRA EORP-AF Long-Term General Registry

International audienceAbstract Aims The 4S-AF classification scheme comprises of four domains: stroke risk (St), symptoms (Sy), severity of atrial fibrillation (AF) burden (Sb), and substrate (Su). We sought to examine the implementation of the 4S-AF scheme in the EORP-AF General Long-Term Registry and compare outcomes in AF patients according to the 4S-AF-led decision-making process. Methods and results Atrial fibrillation patients from 250 centres across 27 European countries were included. A 4S-AF score was calculated as the sum of each domain with a maximum score of 9. Of 6321 patients, 8.4% had low (St), 47.5% EHRA I (Sy), 40.5% newly diagnosed or paroxysmal AF (Sb), and 5.1% no cardiovascular risk factors or left atrial enlargement (Su). Median follow-up was 24 months. Using multivariable Cox regression analysis, independent predictors of all-cause mortality were (St) [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) 8.21, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.60–25.9], (Sb) (aHR 1.21, 95% CI: 1.08–1.35), and (Su) (aHR 1.27, 95% CI: 1.14–1.41). For CV mortality and any thromboembolic event, only (Su) (aHR 1.73, 95% CI: 1.45–2.06) and (Sy) (aHR 1.29, 95% CI: 1.00–1.66) were statistically significant, respectively. None of the domains were independently linked to ischaemic stroke or major bleeding. Higher 4S-AF score was related to a significant increase in all-cause mortality, CV mortality, any thromboembolic event, and ischaemic stroke but not major bleeding. Treatment of all 4S-AF domains was associated with an independent decrease in all-cause mortality (aHR 0.71, 95% CI: 0.55–0.92). For each 4S-AF domain left untreated, the risk of all-cause mortality increased substantially (aHR 1.35, 95% CI: 1.16–1.56). Conclusion Implementation of the novel 4S-AF scheme is feasible, and treatment decisions based on this scheme improve mortality rates in AF