Beyond Katrina: Improving Disaster Response Capabilities

As Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma successively lashed the Gulf Coast starting in late August 2005, nature’s fury exposed serious weaknesses in the United States’s emergency response capabilities. These problems were not simply the failure of particular places or leaders to be ready for disaster but rather an indication of more fundamental issues. These must be addressed if the country is to be ready for serious challenges that may lay ahead, whether severe natural disasters, outbreaks of emergent infectious disease, or renewed terrorist attacks

Characterization of hemodialysis membranes by inverse size exclusion chromatography

Inverse size exclusion chromatography (i-SEC) was used to characterize three different cellulosic hollow fiber hemodialysis membranes, i.e. low-flux cuprophan and hemophan and high-flux RC-HP400A. With the i-SEC technique the pore size distribution and porosity of a membrane can be determined and adsorption phenomena can be studied. The membranes showed clear differences in pore size and porosity, the high-flux RC-HP400A membrane has a larger pore size as well as a higher porosity. For all the membranes it was found that the elution curves were best described by a homoporous pore volume distribution. It appeared that the bound or non-freezing water in the membranes was at least partly accessible to solutes. The test molecules creatinine and vitamin B 12 both adsorbed to the cellulosic membranes. The adsorption behavior of creatinine was strongly dependent on the NaCl concentration present. The observations could be explained by assuming that cuprophan and RC-HP400A are negatively charged whereas hemophan is positively charged due to the modification with N,N-diethylaminoethyl ether. The net charge of the hemophan is smaller

Surface heat-transfer coefficients of finned cylinders

An investigation to determine and correlate the experimental surface heat-transfer coefficients of finned cylinders with different air-stream cooling arrangements was conducted at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory from 1932 to 1938. The investigation covered the determination of the effect of fin width, fin space, fin thickness, and cylinder diameter on the heat transfer. Wind-tunnel tests were made in the free air stream with and without baffles and also with various devices for creating a turbulent air stream. Tests were also made with blower

The design of fins for air-cooled cylinders

An analysis was made to determine the proportions of fins made of aluminum, copper, magnesium, and steel necessary to dissipate maximum quantities of heat for different fin widths, fin weights, and air-flow conditions. The analysis also concerns the determination of the optimum fin proportions when specified limits are placed on the fin dimensions. The calculation of the heat flow in the fins is based on experimentally verified, theoretical equations. The surface heat-transfer coefficients used with this equation were taken from previously reported experiments. In addition to the presentation of fin-design information, this investigation shows that optimum fin dimensions are inappreciably affected by the differences in air flow that are obtained with different air-flow arrangements or by small changes in the length of the air-flow path

Intake of fat-soluble vitamins in the Belgian population : adequacy and contribution of foods, fortified foods and supplements

A key challenge of public health nutrition is to provide the majority of the population with a sufficient level of micronutrients while preventing high-consumers from exceeding the tolerable upper intake level. Data of the 2014 Belgian food consumption survey (n = 3200) were used to assess fat-soluble vitamin (vitamins A, D, E and K) intake from the consumption of foods, fortified foods and supplements. This study revealed inadequate intakes for vitamin A, from all sources, in the entire Belgian population and possible inadequacies for vitamin D. The prevalence of inadequate intake of vitamin A was lowest in children aged 3-6 (6-7%) and highest in adolescents (girls, 26%; boys, 34-37%). Except for women aged 60-64 years, more than 95% of the subjects had vitamin D intake from all sources below the adequate intake (AI) of 15 mu g/day. The risk for inadequate intake of vitamins K and E was low (median > AI). Belgian fortification and supplementation practices are currently inadequate to eradicate suboptimal intakes of vitamins A and D, but increase median vitamin E intake close to the adequate intake. For vitamin A, a small proportion (1-4%) of young children were at risk of exceeding the upper intake level (UL), while for vitamin D, inclusion of supplements slightly increased the risk for excessive intakes (% > UL) in adult women and young children. The results may guide health authorities when developing population health interventions and regulations to ensure adequate intake of fat-soluble vitamins in Belgium

KEANEKARAGAMAN JENIS DAN PEMANFAATAN TUMBUHAN OBAT DI KAWASAN TAMAN NASIONAL LORE LINDU (TNLL) DI DESA MATAUE KECAMATAN KULAWI KABUPATEN SIGI

Nowadays  the utilization of traditional medicine by people is used as alternative medicine for themselves. The utilization of traditional medicine is one of local community culture that still exist especially in Mataue village.  The research aimed to find out the variety of medicinal plants in Lore Lindu National Park in Mataue village and its utilization. The reseach was conducted for three months beginning on February up to the month of April 2015, in Lore Lindu National Park in Mataue village Kulawi subdistrict Sigi district.  The method of the research was survey method by making path which to place the first swath done purposively and made in four (4) paths, each path consisted of  5 plots with size 20 m x 20 m, the space among plots in each path was 20 meter,  then the utilization, the kind of medicinal plants were known by doing non formal interview to the field guide, who utilized the medicinal plants, local midwives, trained traditional midwives and literature review.  The data gathered then descibed as about the utilization and then analized for deciding the Important Rate Index (INP) and Species Variety Index  (H’).  The result of the reseach found that there were 43 species of medicinal plants from 32 familes. The medicinal plants that dominated on tree level was Alstonia scholaris (L.) R.Br INP 92,43%, on pole level was Syzygium sp INP 48,67%, on stem level was  Rubus fraxinifolius Poir INP 32,06%, while the species that dominated on seed and undergrowth level was Selaginella with INP 16,11%. The variey index of medicinal plants on tree level was 1,79 (moderate), pole 2,07 (moderate), stem 2,60 (moderate), seed and undergrowth 3,48 (high). The variety index of medicinal plants in general categorized as moderate to high category. People in Mataue still  depending on medicinal plants in order to cure some  diseases by utilizing plants from the forest.Keywords:Traditional medicine,  Lore Lindu National Park, Important Rate Index,  Species

High-performance Racing on Unmapped Tracks using Local Maps

Map-based methods for autonomous racing estimate the vehicle's location, which is used to follow a high-level plan. While map-based optimisation methods demonstrate high-performance results, they are limited by requiring a map of the environment. In contrast, mapless methods can operate in unmapped contexts since they directly process raw sensor data (often LiDAR) to calculate commands. However, a major limitation in mapless methods is poor performance due to a lack of optimisation. In response, we propose the local map framework that uses easily extractable, low-level features to build local maps of the visible region that form the input to optimisation-based controllers. Our local map generation extracts the visible racetrack boundaries and calculates a centreline and track widths used for planning. We evaluate our method for simulated F1Tenth autonomous racing using a two-stage trajectory optimisation and tracking strategy and a model predictive controller. Our method achieves lap times that are 8.8% faster than the Follow-The-Gap method and 3.22% faster than end-to-end neural networks due to the optimisation resulting in a faster speed profile. The local map planner is 3.28% slower than global methods that have access to an entire map of the track that can be used for planning. Critically, our approach enables high-speed autonomous racing on unmapped tracks, achieving performance similar to global methods without requiring a track map.Comment: 6 pages, 14 figures. Submitted to IV 202

Bayesian specification analysis and estimation of simultaneous equation models using Monte Carlo methods

Bayesian procedures for specification analysis or diagnostic checking of modeling assumptions for structural equations of econometric models are developed and applied using Monte Carlo numerical methods. Checks on the validity of identifying restrictions, exogeneity assumptions and other specifying assumptions are performed using posterior distributions for discrepancy vectors and functions representing departures from specifying assumptions. Several mappings or functions of reduced form coefficients are defined and their posterior distributions are computed. A restricted reduced form approach is used to compute posterior distributions for structural parameters. These procedures are applied in analyses of two econometric models