Analysis of the Cost of Emergency Managers\u27 Meeting Load: A Hampton Road Case-Study

Preparation for a disaster is not something that can be done by a single organization thus there is a need for coordination between them. Meetings and joint exercises are one means of coordination used by the emergency management community. Meetings and exercises take time, including transportation of personnel and arrangements, and time is money. With limited budgets, emergency managers need to make hard decisions about how their time is allocated. This paper describes a cost model for meeting analysis and discusses a case study that looks at the holistic time spent on meetings and exercises, by personnel, for the Hampton Roads Region of Virginia. A novel way is used to display this expenditure, e.g., it is shown in terms of monetary cost instead of temporal cost. This analysis highlighted some unexpected results, i.e., the small number of personnel involved in multiple working group meetings and high level of travel costs between the HR and the state capital, Richmond. This cost model approach may provide emergency managers with better mechanisms to show their meetings costs to senior leadership

Effects of Conflict-of-Interest Policies in Psychiatry Residency on Antidepressant Prescribing

Concerns about the pharmaceutical industry’s influence in academic medical centers and on medical education have led many medical schools and teaching hospitals to adopt conflict-of-interest (COI) policies. Although the restrictiveness of these policies differs, the goal is the same: to shield physicians-in-training from the persuasive aspects of pharmaceutical promotion. But do these policies work? This Issue Brief examines how COI policies affect the prescribing patterns of antidepressants, one of the most heavily promoted drug classes in the past decade. As such, it provides the first empirical evidence of the effects of COI policies in residency on the subsequent prescribing patterns of practicing physicians

Input uncertainty quantification for simulation models with piecewise-constant non-stationary Poisson arrival processes

Input uncertainty (IU) is the outcome of driving simulation models using input distributions estimated by finite amounts of real-world data. Methods have been presented for quantifying IU when stationary input distributions are used. In this paper we extend upon this work and provide two methods for quantifying IU in simulation models driven by piecewise-constant non-stationary Poisson arrival processes. Numerical evaluation and illustrations of the methods are provided and indicate that the methods perform well

Simulation tool for variably saturated flow with comprehensive geochemical reactions in two and three-dimensional domains

We present a software tool for simulations of flow and multi-species solute transport in two and three-dimensional domains in combination with comprehensive intra-phase and inter-phase geochemistry. The software uses IPhreeqc, the coupling version of the geochemical modelling framework PHREEQC, as a reaction engine to the multi-purpose finite element solver COMSOL Multiphysics® for flow and transport simulations. Here we used COMSOL to solve Richards’ equation for aqueous phase flow in variably saturated porous media. The coupling procedure presented is in principle applicable to any simulation of aqueous phase flow and solute transport in COMSOL. The coupling with IPhreeqc gives major advantages over COMSOL’s built-in reaction capabilities, i.e., the soil solution is speciated from its element composition according to thermodynamic mass action equations with ion activity corrections. State-of-the-art adsorption models such as surface complexation with diffuse double layer calculations are accessible. In addition, IPhreeqc provides a framework to integrate user-defined kinetic reactions with possible dependencies on solution speciation (i.e., pH, saturation indices, and ion activities), allowing for modelling of microbially mediated reactions. Extensive compilations of geochemical reactions and their parameterization are accessible through associated databases

Raindrop Impact on Saturated Soil

Soil erosion is an important environmental phenomenon that causes many side effects such as reduction of soil productivity in the fields and transportation of pollutants to non-contaminated areas. Extensive well designed and controlled flume experiments in Ecological Engineering Laboratory at EPFL revealed that in order to understand some important aspects of erosion process such as morphological changes of the soil surface and crust effects, a detailed mechanistic study of erosion in small scale is needed. In this regard, this work is a start point of small scale simulation to get more interpretation of the soil particle rearrangement as the effect of raindrops. In this paper, particle rearrangement in saturated soil as a result of raindrop impact is studied. A raindrop with specified diameter falls into the container of saturated soil and causes agitation of dense particles inside the container. The aim is to visualize this process by testing the effect of raindrop diameter, particle size and particle physical properties. The numerical solution consists of two steps. At first, the raindrop impact on water surface is simulated using Large Eddy Simulation and VOF method so that the pressure change of the under layer is measured. Then, the profile of the pressure wave is applied on the mixture of water and particles in order to simulate the fluid-particle interaction using Particle-in-Cell (MP-PIC) method. This simulation reveals that the vertical rearrangement of particles has an important effect on crust and compaction process of the soil which needs further investigation. By presentation of this work in 9th OpenFOAM workshop, we intend to introduce the ability of the latest version of OpenFOAM (v 2.3) to simulate dense particle interaction and to discuss on the possibility of development of the solver to have a more robust two-way coupling between CFD and particle based methods such as Discrete Element Method (DEM)

Capillarity correction to periodic solutions of the shallow flow approximation

The shallow flow expansion is used to derive equations describing the flow of fluid in an unconfined aquifer. The expansion, which is carried out to second order, is combined with an approximation accounting for the influence of the capillary fringe to give a model that describes the motion of the phreatic surface as it is affected by the capillarity of the porous medium. The results are derived for the case of an aquifer in contact with a reservoir, with the fluid in the reservoir undergoing a steady periodic motion. A linearized solution of the second-order theory is shown to agree well with an "exact" numerical solution. It is demonstrated using the Iinearized solution that the porous medium capillarity affects the time- averaged mean square height of the phreatic surface of the aquifer in the second-order term, but leaves the first- order term unchanged

Capillarity correction to periodic solutions of the shallow flow approximation

The shallow flow expansion is used to derive equations describing the flow of fluid in an unconfined aquifer. The expansion, which is carried out to second order, is combined with an approximation accounting for the influence of the capillary fringe to give a model that describes the motion of the phreatic surface as it is affected by the capillarity of the porous medium. The results are derived for the case of an aquifer in contact with a reservoir, with the fluid in the reservoir undergoing a steady periodic motion. A linearized solution of the second-order theory is shown to agree well with an "exact" numerical solution. It is demonstrated using the Iinearized solution that the porous medium capillarity affects the time- averaged mean square height of the phreatic surface of the aquifer in the second-order term, but leaves the first- order term unchanged

Adaptable Imaging Package for Remote Vehicles

An easy-to-customize, low-cost solution for remote imagery is described. The system, denoted ImPROV (Imaging Package for Remote Vehicles), supports multiple cameras, live streaming, long-range encrypted communication using mobile networks, positioning and time-stamped imagery, etc. The adaptability of the system is demonstrated by its deployment on different remotely operated or autonomous vehicles, which include model aircraft, drones, balloon, kite and a submarine

Free-Piston Stirling Power Conversion Unit for Fission Surface Power, Phase I Final Report

This report summarizes the design of a 12 kW dual opposed free-piston Stirling convertor and controller for potential future use in space missions. The convertor is heated via a pumped NaK loop and cooling is provided by a pumped water circuit. Convertor efficiency is projected at 27 percent (AC electrical out/heat in). The controller converts the AC electrical output to 120 Vdc and is projected at 91 percent efficiency. A mechanically simple arrangement, based on proven technology, was selected in which the piston is resonated almost entirely by the working space pressure swing, while the displacer is resonated by planar mechanical springs in the bounce space