Tracing Microplastics in Municipal Potable Water Across Residential Buildings

Limited research on microplastics makes it increasingly difficult to measure the potential dangers of their toxicological effect on humans and the environment. Today, evidence has revealed that microplastics have been located in highly remote areas of the world. There are few studies that examine the movement of microplastics within urban landscapes and even fewer that observe different communities within cities. To this end, a study was devised that utilized filtration, dehydration, and Laser Direct Infrared Spectroscopy to monitor drinking water microplastics found in residential buildings across different communities. Houses and apartments of low and high-income at different distances from the nearest water treatment plant were considered. Comparisons between format differences between housing units were made possible by creating a ratio between rent and the square footage of the unit. Samples were extracted from kitchen faucets for their high impact on cooking and human consumption. While there was no significant difference between distance, income level, and building structure some factors had a stronger influence on microplastic count than others. Using a general linear model, it was found that distance had the greatest effect on microplastic count followed by building type and then income levels. The greater the distance from a water treatment plant the fewer microplastics one was exposed to. Microplastics were found to be more abundant in apartments as opposed to houses. A weak positive correlation between income level and the number of microplastics was found but was not significant enough to state that income played a role in microplastic count. This is interpreted as microplastics having no discrimination on one’s socioeconomic status. As everyone, no matter their background is affected by microplastics, it is recommended that more research be conducted in order to confirm whether other building types and other factors have an influence on microplastic exposure

Relative Survival Methods – Theory, Applications and Extensions to Monitoring

In cancer research, one is often interested in the part of the hazard which corresponds to the disease. If the cause of death is unknown as in cancer registry data, the standard methods in survival analysis do not distinguish between the mortality due to disease and other causes. This issue becomes the main motivation for the development of relative survival methods. First, the main concepts in relative survival are presented. Both non-parametric estimators and models of the excess hazard are studied and discussed. Simulation studies show that even if the Pohar-Perme method is an unbiased estimator of the so-called net survival, the traditional Ederer 2 estimator might still be preferable in certain situations due to its lower variance. When informative censoring is present, the degree of bias looks to be the same on average for both estimators. When it comes to modelling of the excess hazard, we cover two different types of models. The first group corresponds to parametric models where the baseline excess hazard is a piecewise constant function. For real-life data, this is usually not the case and a more flexible and semi-parametric model based on the EM-algorithm is therefore considered. By simulation, the piecewise constant models still perform decent if the gradient of the baseline excess hazard is not large and there are enough data such that a finer splitting of the follow-up interval can be used in the estimation procedure. In some situations, one might also want to monitor the excess hazard over time in order to detect a change. An approach based on methods from relative survival and statistical process control is proposed for this intention. Different simulation setups are used in order to illustrate the purpose of the method. Finally, most of the methods presented are applied to colon and rectum cancer data from the Norwegian Cancer Registry. Interesting results are obtained from the analysis. For instance, the effect of tumour location seems to vary between age groups. Similar arguments are observed related to cancer stage as well. The CUSUM charts show a clear improvement in the excess hazard over time, which agree with the results from non-parametric methods when stratified by diagnosis year period

Drones in Libraries: The Development of an Interdisciplinary Research Service Using Drones and 3D Modeling Technologies at Ryerson University Library

On June 1, 2019, new rules for flying a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) or “drone” in Canada came into effect, requiring drone pilot certification to operate any drone between 250 g and 25 kg. In response to new regulations and the needs of our researchers, the Ryerson Library has initiated the development of a research service dedicated to supporting the use of drones and 3D modeling technologies. Before cancellation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the joint CAG/CCA/CARTO-ACMLA conference - CAG 2020: Resilience on a Dynamic Planet - provided a national venue to showcase our progress to date. This report will summarize our workshop content and outline existing collaborations and future directions for our research and service

Wireless Mesh Network Performance for Urban Search and Rescue Missions

In this paper we demonstrate that the Canine Pose Estimation (CPE) system can provide a reliable estimate for some poses and when coupled with effective wireless transmission over a mesh network. Pose estimates are time sensitive, thus it is important that pose data arrives at its destination quickly. Propagation delay and packet delivery ratio measuring algorithms were developed and used to appraise Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) performance as a means of carriage for this time-critical data. The experiments were conducted in the rooms of a building where the radio characteristics closely resembled those of a partially collapsed building-a typical US&R environment. This paper presents the results of the experiments, which demonstrate that it is possible to receive the canine pose estimation data in realtime although accuracy of the results depend on the network size and the deployment environment.Comment: 19 Pages, IJCNC Journa

Dimensionering av en bågbro i trä - jämförelse av handberäkningar och Finita Element Metoden

In the past it was common to build in timber but in the last 150 years, steel and concrete in particular have been the dominating material in bridge-buildings. This is mainly due to not having mastered the timber construction to the same extent as steel and concrete. Nowdays the interest in timber bridges have increased and the technical solutions have been greatly developed in the last 15 years. The purpose of this study is to provide an insight of how a design of an arch bridge in timber is according to Eurocode can be done. For the report the design will be checked with hand calculations and with commercial FEM software, SAP2000. When hand calculations have been too time consuming or not possible for the authors to implement FEM have been used for the design values. The case study is based on an existing arch bridge with a stresslaminated timber deck in Norway which was designed by the old Norweigan standards. The results from the hand calculations gave a lower strength compared to methods based on the finite element method. The difference between the two methods were not very large, hand calculation are about 20 % lower than the methods which were calculated by FEM. For out of plane buckling the bracing stiffnes at the attachment points have a great influense on the strength of the arch. In reality the hinged attachment points is not rigid at the transverse direction and should be considered when designing the bridge. The buckling load can vary between 1 and 45 MN but make the greatest contribution before the out of the plane stiffness reaches 10000 N/mm. Bending stresses in the transverse direction is a big problem for the deck. The material utilization of the deck was calculated to 565 % of the recommended pre-stress level of 1 MPa. Both compression and tension are the same in the deck but with opposite signs, this may be because the modeling is done with shell elements. When comparising the authors' plate model with Ekström in Chap. 9.6.1 it can be seen that the solid elements provide a different stressdistributions at the top and bottom of the deck. The tensile stresses are less than the compressive stresses in the solid plate member, this is due to the maximum compression stresses that are obtained directly under the load which generates an "disrupted zone" of the stresses. When modeling account, therefor no accurate representation of the results are obtained when modelizing the plate member in SAP2000. Although the calculations shows that the bridge lacks strength at some points, we must not forget that this is an existing functional bridge in Norway. The bridge is designed for old standards according to Norwegian regulations and has probably passed the requirements. This is a sign that the new Eurocode is much more stricter than previous standards

Wireless Mesh Network Performance for Urban Search and Rescue Missions

in this paper we demonstrate that the Canine Pose Estimation (CPE) system can provide a reliable estimate for some poses and when coupled with effective wireless transmission over a mesh network. Pose estimates are time sensitive, thus it is important that pose data arrives at its destination quickly. Propagation delay and packet delivery ratio measuring algorithms were developed and used to appraise Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) performance as a means of carriage for this time-critical data. The experiments were conducted in the rooms of a building where the radio characteristics closely resembled those of a partially collapsed building-a typical US&R environment. This paper presents the results of the experiments, which demonstrate that it is possible to receive the canine pose estimation data in realtime although accuracy of the results depend on the network size and the deployment environment

Ben-tomo! A Cooperative VR Cooking Game

Ben-tomo! is a cooperative multiplayer VR cooking experience, in which 2 players must work together maneuvering around progressively wackier kitchens to prepare bentos, Japanese lunch boxes, before their customers lose interest. Using the VR facilities provided by Takemura Labs at Osaka University, we were able to create a compelling experience for both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift users that encourages cooperation and excitement between players

COMPUTER SCIENCE EXPERIENCE AT WPI

This report addresses issues related to confidence in Computer Science, and how it affects performance and the decision to take Computer Science courses. Our aim with this project was to gather data on this issue broadly, and specifically at WPI, todetermine how much confidence affects people and what has been done to mitigate this issue elsewhere. A survey was distributed to WPI students to collect data on how confidence affects Computer Science of WPI. Our report concludes with several solutions that worked at other schools to improve performance and diversity. It was found that confidence in computing ability varied by gender, ethnicity, and major where the minority group or groups in each of those categories had lower confidence in their computing ability