Comparison of Methods of Pump Scheduling in Water Supply Systems

In the domestic water supply industry, the reduction of pumping costs is a continuing objective. With the efficient scheduling of pumping operations, it is considered that 10% of the annual expenditure on energy and related costs may be saved. A typical cost function will include all of the expenditure caused by the pumping process and also consider the electrical cost of pumping taking into account the various electrical tariffs, as well as peak demand and pump switching costs. Using only fixed speed pumps, it is possible to use an efficient dynamic programming based method, provided that the storage reservoir levels are known. Other techniques that are showing fruitful results in optimisation are genetic programming and simulated annealing. This paper compares these methods and discusses which is more appropriate in this type of pump scheduling problem

The Investigation of Pump Performance and Evaluation over the Internet

Selection and configuration are widely met tasks in design; this is an example of a web-based selection/configuration tool with embedded optimisation. Pumps inevitably deteriorate over their product lifecycle, in which interaction generally occurs in terms of flow, pressure and electricity consumption. Practical implementations of pump scheduling suggest that a 10% of the annual expenditure on energy costs may be saved. The object is to minimise the energy cost incurred, while selecting the best schedule of legal available pumps. The results illustrate that the recording of pump characteristics over the internet provides an efficient method of pump performance and evaluation

Towards a Moral Community: Moral Education Strategies in Indonesian Schools

  Moral education is a foundational yet contestable matter in any society. Debates about moral education help to define the parameters of true and right conduct in a society. The contestable nature of moral education curricula in Indonesia perhaps indicates the critical importance of character development in national and cultural formation and in the continuous creation and recreation of national identity. This study of the nature of moral education in junior secondary schools in the Yogyakarta region used a qualitative focus group approach. Teachers, lecturers, and trainee teachers were selected to be formed into five focus groups designed to provide a deeper analysis of the conflicting understandings of the nature of morality and of the expression of that morality in the curriculum. The findings showed several areas of contradiction and confusion in moral education in schools, including differences in religious and secular conceptualizations of morality and differences between those who wanted to promote or exclude intercultural understandings of morality within the state. Keywords: moral education, character education, morality, Pancasila, Indonesi

Assessment of the Possibility to Remotely Monitor and control a pH process: An experimental study

The control of pH is important in many processes including wastewater treatment, chemical processes and biological processes. This paper considers a model reference non-linear controller developed by Jayadeva et al. (1990a). The method is tested using a 7-litre continuously stirred tank reactor to neutralise a strong acid using a strong alkaline solution. The method is first realised using a simulation of the process. Subsequently it is demonstrated on an experimental rig using real-time control. Experimental results confirm that a robust control of the process is achievable

A control design for linear-time-delay systems

One outcome of a PhD project (David Tingey). Industrial systems which involve time delays are difficult to control in general. In addition, the presence of a time-delay may make a control loop unstable. In this work, a new stability criterion and control law is provided to control a class of time delay systems with delay in the state. The result has been applied to a mechanical system and can also be applied to flight and marine control. This work was done as a joint collaboration with Leeds Metropolitan University. This work is supported by the EPSRC case PhD studentship

The Effect of Participation in Organized Soccer on Fitnessgram Scores in 11-12 Year Old Girls

Purpose: Childhood obesity is increasing at an alarming rate throughout the United States and has been associated with multiple health complications such as heart disease and diabetes. Due to these increasing rates and health effects, there is a need to determine effective methods to measure physical activity as well as promote physical activity. One form of determining a child\u27s level of fitness is through the Fitnessgram. This study was designed to determine if formally testing fitness levels with the Fitnessgram in 11-12 year old girls participating in organized soccer is correlated with changes in fitness levels from pre-season to post-season, determine if using a measure such as the Fitnessgram influences the motivation to participate in organized and nonorganized physical activities, and determine if girls participating in organized soccer have higher fitness levels when compared to normative data. Subjects: Subjects were recruited from a soccer club and consisted of four female soccer players ages 11 to 12. Inclusion was based on participation in organized girls soccer and exclusion was based on parent/guardian and/or player\u27s refusal to consent to participation. Instrumentation: The Fitnessgram was used to provide feedback on whether or not the child achieved the criterion referenced age and gender specific standards for physical activity or fitness. In addition, participants were asked to complete questionnaires relative to the study. Procedure: Fitnessgram protocol was followed to evaluate strength, flexibility, body composition, and endurance. Subjects completed six tests both pre and post season which included curl-ups, trunk lifts, push-ups, PACER, skinfold measurements and sit and reach. Data Analysis: A related sample t-test compared pre and post-season measurements for curl-ups, trunk lift, push-ups, PACER test, and sit and each measurements. Results: Results of this study revealed no significant difference in preseason Fitnessgram scores compared to post-season scores. Conclusion and Clinical Implications: A major focus of physical therapy is to promote health and wellness across the lifespan. This includes advocating the benefits of exercise, encouraging participation in physical activity, and educating on the risks of obesity. In the future health professionals as well and educators could utilize the Fitnessgram to provide an objective measure of a child\u27s fitness level in reference to standardized age and gender specific norms

Identification and validation of copy number variants using SNP genotyping arrays from a large clinical cohort.

BACKGROUND: Genotypes obtained with commercial SNP arrays have been extensively used in many large case-control or population-based cohorts for SNP-based genome-wide association studies for a multitude of traits. Yet, these genotypes capture only a small fraction of the variance of the studied traits. Genomic structural variants (GSV) such as Copy Number Variation (CNV) may account for part of the missing heritability, but their comprehensive detection requires either next-generation arrays or sequencing. Sophisticated algorithms that infer CNVs by combining the intensities from SNP-probes for the two alleles can already be used to extract a partial view of such GSV from existing data sets. RESULTS: Here we present several advances to facilitate the latter approach. First, we introduce a novel CNV detection method based on a Gaussian Mixture Model. Second, we propose a new algorithm, PCA merge, for combining copy-number profiles from many individuals into consensus regions. We applied both our new methods as well as existing ones to data from 5612 individuals from the CoLaus study who were genotyped on Affymetrix 500K arrays. We developed a number of procedures in order to evaluate the performance of the different methods. This includes comparison with previously published CNVs as well as using a replication sample of 239 individuals, genotyped with Illumina 550K arrays. We also established a new evaluation procedure that employs the fact that related individuals are expected to share their CNVs more frequently than randomly selected individuals. The ability to detect both rare and common CNVs provides a valuable resource that will facilitate association studies exploring potential phenotypic associations with CNVs. CONCLUSION: Our new methodologies for CNV detection and their evaluation will help in extracting additional information from the large amount of SNP-genotyping data on various cohorts and use this to explore structural variants and their impact on complex traits

The PsyCoLaus study: methodology and characteristics of the sample of a population-based survey on psychiatric disorders and their association with genetic and cardiovascular risk factors.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The Psychiatric arm of the population-based CoLaus study (PsyCoLaus) is designed to: 1) establish the prevalence of threshold and subthreshold psychiatric syndromes in the 35 to 66 year-old population of the city of Lausanne (Switzerland); 2) test the validity of postulated definitions for subthreshold mood and anxiety syndromes; 3) determine the associations between psychiatric disorders, personality traits and cardiovascular diseases (CVD), 4) identify genetic variants that can modify the risk for psychiatric disorders and determine whether genetic risk factors are shared between psychiatric disorders and CVD. This paper presents the method as well as somatic and sociodemographic characteristics of the sample. METHODS: All 35 to 66 year-old persons previously selected for the population-based CoLaus survey on risk factors for CVD were asked to participate in a substudy assessing psychiatric conditions. This investigation included the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies to elicit diagnostic criteria for threshold disorders according to DSM-IV and algorithmically defined subthreshold syndromes. Complementary information was gathered on potential risk and protective factors for psychiatric disorders, migraine and on the morbidity of first-degree family members, whereas the collection of DNA and plasma samples was part of the original somatic study (CoLaus). RESULTS: A total of 3,691 individuals completed the psychiatric evaluation (67% participation). The gender distribution of the sample did not differ significantly from that of the general population in the same age range. Although the youngest 5-year band of the cohort was underrepresented and the oldest 5-year band overrepresented, participants of PsyCoLaus and individuals who refused to participate revealed comparable scores on the General Health Questionnaire, a self-rating instrument completed at the somatic exam. CONCLUSIONS: Despite limitations resulting from the relatively low participation in the context of a comprehensive and time-consuming investigation, the PsyCoLaus study should significantly contribute to the current understanding of psychiatric disorders and comorbid somatic conditions by: 1) establishing the clinical relevance of specific psychiatric syndromes below the DSM-IV threshold; 2) determining comorbidity between risk factors for CVD and psychiatric disorders; 3) assessing genetic variants associated with common psychiatric disorders and 4) identifying DNA markers shared between CVD and psychiatric disorders