Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving the Freight TransportationRoadway System during Snow Events: APerformance Evaluation of Deicing Chemicals

The ability of state DOTs to adequately clear roadways during winter weather conditions is critical for a safe and effective freight transportation system. Variables affecting winter maintenance operations include the type of precipitation, air and pavement temperature, traffic, wind, time of day, day of week, and maintenance equipment. The main objective of this study is to identify the best practices for normal deicing operations, based on the performance rating of deicing chemicals. Optimum deicer/brine ratios and the associated application rates will be determined for various weather conditions. The best practices will ensure effective deicing operation and economical use of deicing chemicals. Common deicing chemicals include sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, calcium magnesium acetate, potassium acetate, potassium formate and carbohydrate–based (corn or beet) deicer solution. Deicers take the form of pellets or liquids. Liquid deicers are commonly used for prewetting road salt or other chemicals, or they are used as liquid solution. Several laboratory tests for deicer performance evaluation have been developed. However, none of these tests have been correlated with field performance data nor have they provided standardized results to ensure an acceptable performance in the field. Nebraska will serve as the test bed for this study although the results can be generalized to other locations. This is an ideal test site because a large quantity of automatic vehicle location (AVL) system data from NDOR plow trucks will be available. The AVL data includes truck location with GPS coordinates and time stamps. In addition, the snow plow trucks are equipped with digital cameras, which take snapshots of the roadway. These onboard systems will also provide real-time surface temperatures, air temperatures, wind speed, deicer application rates, and roadway conditions. The field data will be available for correlation analysis with the data from laboratory testing through the use of a Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS). The correlations between the field deicing performance and the laboratory testing are crucial for the development of the best practices using competing deicing products for a variety of weather conditions. The end result will be clearer roads during snow events, which will lead to a safer and more efficient freight and passenger roadway system.
Static and Dynamic Performance of RC Bridge Bents with Architectural-Flared Columns

This report describes a study performed on architectural-flared column bents of bridges, with the objective of evaluating the static and dynamic performance of the bents. The bents feature a gap at the top of the flares, designed to separate the flares from structurally contributing. Focus of the study was on the effect of the gap width at the top of the column section. Static tests were performed to evaluate the performance of the bents until failure. The non-linear finite element analysis program DIANA was used in conducting the analytical study. The performances of the specimens were compared, and recommendations were also developed.
THE RESPONSE OF A REINFORCED SOIL WALL TO DIFFERENTIAL MOVEMENT

This report describes the construction and instrumentation of a 4.4 m high reinforced soil wall. It then describes the response of the wall to a differential settlement (sagging) of about 1 in 38 along the face of the wall and 1 in 42 perpendicular to the face of the wall, and goes on to describe the behaviour of the wall during its re-levelling. The wall was built from hexagonal shaped reinforced concrete facing units, galvanised mild steel reinforcing strips and a crushed limestone aggregate. The performance of the wall during construction was largely as expected. At depths of cover greater than between about one and two metres, the mean tension developed in the reinforcements at points close to the back of the facing units was about equivalent to at-rest earth pressures. However compaction operations generated higher earth pressures at shallower depths of cover. The performance of the wall during the settlement stage was good; the imposed settlement did not lead to gross distortion of the face of the wall nor did it generate excessive bending stresses at the connection between the facing units and strips. However, the tensions in the reinforcements increased significantly through the settlement and re-levelling stages. Current methods of design do not explicitly take account of increases in tension due to differential movement. (A)
FREQUENTLY ISOLATED BACTERIA FROM LACTATING COWS WITH CLINICAL AND SUBCLINICAL MASTITIS IN GHARBIA GOVERNORATE, EGYPT البکتیریا المعزولة فى کثیر من حالات التهاب الضرع السریرى وتحت السریرى من الابقار المرضعة بمحافظة الغربیة , مصر.

This study was carried out on a total number of 122 mixed breed cows (46 clinical and 76 subclinical mastitic cows) aged between 2-8 years old and collected from 17 dairy farms and also single cases from farmers located in different localities in Gharbia, Egypt. Bacteriological culturing revealed CNS isolated from clinical and subclinical cases 28 (60.9%), 19 (25%) respectively, CPS isolated from clinical cases only 9 (19.6%) and E. coli isolated from clinical and subclinical cases 9 (19.6%), 30 (39.5%) respectively. Serological identification of 10 E. coli isolates revealed following serotypes (O26, O111, O114, O125, O146 and O166). Sensitivity test for (CPS) showed that the highest resistance was to amoxicillin 66.7% and the lowest resistance was to Gentamycin and Sulphatrimethoprime 11%, (CNS) showed that the highest resistance was to Oxacillin 46.8% then Kanamycin 8.5% and E. Coli showed that the highest resistance was to Oxacillin 59%, the lowest resistance was to Gentamycin 5.1%, complete susceptibility to Enrofloxacine, Ciprofloxacine and high susceptibility to Gentamycin and Sulphatrimethoprime. Multiplex PCR of (CPS) isolates resulted in all isolates give a positive reaction at 279bp of nuc genes (Staphylococcus aureus) (S. aureus) meanwhile 2 isolates 1.6% (2/122) give a positive reaction at 147bp of mecA genes (methicillin resistance S. aureus) (MRSA). The objective of this study is to isolate and identify the common bacterial isolates from mixed breed mastitic cows, detection the antibiotics sensitivity of the studied bacteria and molecular detection of nuc genes (S. aureus specific primers) and mecA genes (methicillin resistance S. aureus specific primers) in (CPS).
Theoretical And Experimental Investigation Of Thermodiffusion (Soret Effect) In A Porous Medium

Thermodiffusion (the Soret effect) is important for the study of compositional variation in hydrocarbon reservoirs. The development of research history, theoretical modeling and applications to multicomponent hydrocarbon mixtures is included in this work. The Firoozabadi model appears to be an appropriate model for thermodiffusion estimation for hydrocarbon mixtures, and it is derived based on the equation of entropy generation rate and four postulates in non-equilibrium thermodynamics. Two equations of state, the Peng-Robinson Equation of State (PR-EoS) and the volume translated Peng Robinson Equation of State (vt-PR-EoS), have been used to estimate the thermodynamic properties of mixtures. In this work, different cases are presented: first, a new thermodiffusion cell designed to perform high pressure measurements in a porous medium has been validated at atmospheric pressure. Two systems were investigated, (1) 1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphtalene (THN) and n-dodecane (nC12), and (2) isobutylbenzene (IBB) and n-dodecane at 50% of mass fraction. Experimental results revealed an excellent agreement with benchmark values and a good agreement with theoretical data. Second, the thermal expansion and concentration expansion coefficients and the viscosity of mixtures are necessary properties for the determination of the thermodiffusion coefficient. The densities of binaries of nC12, IBB and THN for pressures from 0.1 to 20 MPa and a temperature centred on 25⁰ were measured. By an derivative method, the thermal expansion and concentration expansion coefficients were determined. Viscosities were directly measured using a high pressure high temperature viscometer. Finally, the thermosolutal convections of two ternary mixtures, methane (C1), n-butane (nC4) and n-dodecane (nC12) at a pressure of 35.0 MPa and nC12, THN and IBB at atmospheric pressure, in a porous medium, were investigated over a wide range of permeability. The effect of permeability in the homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media on fluid transport was studied with consideration of thermodiffusion and molecular diffusion. In the analysis of the homogeneous porous medium, it was found that, for permeability below 300 mD, the thermodiffusion for both mixtures was dominant; and above this level, buoyancy convection became the dominant mechanism. Also, the viscosity was found to influence the evaluation of the molecular and thermodiffusion coefficients. In the case of heterogeneous porous medium, the impact of permeability ratio on the composition of the mixture components, velocity in the porous medium and on the separation ratio was investigated. It was found that the heterogeneity of porous medium has a significant influence on the composition of the mixture components.
A Pre-Coded Multi-Carrier M-Ary Chaotic Vector Cyclic Shift Keying Transceiver for Reliable Communications

In this paper, we propose a pre-coded multi-carrier <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-ary chaotic vector cyclic shift keying (PC-MC-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-CVCSK) transceiver for reliable information transmissions. In this design, we exploit the principle of diagonalization to combat noises and interferences. At the PC-MC-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-CVCSK transmitter, we propose to precode the <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-ary modulated symbols based on the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and the reverse matrix of an eigenvalue matrix. Meanwhile, the chaotic generator outputs chaotic sequences, which are then cyclically shifted and used to modulate precoded symbols. At the receiver, reverse operations are conducted to recover the data. Moreover, we prove that a circulant matrix can be constructed by selecting the cyclic shift length, while the DFT aided processing will diagonalize the circulant matrix. Thanks to the diagonalization design, the inner product of information-bearing chaotic vectors becomes zero, thus signals can be orthogonalized to suppress interferences. Furthermore, theoretical performances of the proposed transceiver, including the bit error rate (BER), the symbol rate, the energy efficiency and the spectrum efficiency, and the computational complexity are analyzed. Simulation results validate the exact analysis. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the proposed PC-MC-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-CVCSK system outperforms the counterpart schemes, which can provide <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-ary high symbol rate transmission services with enhanced reliability performances.
INTELLIGENT DRIVER SUPPORT

Increasing road traffic has lead to a large increase in accidents and congestion throughout the world. Traditionally, congestion problems have been alleviated by building more roads. This option, however, is now severely constrained due to lack of lane, environmental concerns, and the high cost of road construction. The intelligent driver support system, developed at Lucas, consists of a number of automatic systems, on a Jaguar car, that allow intelligent cruise control, collision avoidance, and lane support. These systems offer the driver greater safety and comfort, and if used widely, could drastically improve the efficiency of the existing road network. This paper describes the technology and shows results from the car's use on public motorways.
Quantitative Risk Assessment Model for Ship Collisions in the Singapore Strait

This study develops a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) model to evaluate the navigational risk caused by the ship collision accidents in the Singapore Strait. Six trees are built to determine the occurrence frequencies of possible ship collision scenarios. There are four nodes: (i) own ship size, (ii) loading condition (loaded or not), (iii) hull damage and (iv) survivability in the tree. The ship collision consequences including the human life loss, property loss and environmental loss are measured according to previous International Maritime Organization (IMO) reports. F/N curves are depicted in order to illustrate the relationship between frequency and consequence caused by ship collisions. A case study which uses one month’s real-time ship movement data from the Lloyd's Marine Intelligence Unit (Lloyd’s MIU) database is finally employed to test the effectiveness of the proposed QRA model in this study.
iTRAQ-based Comparative Proteomic Analysis of Flag Leaves of Two Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Genotypes Differing in Waterlogging Tolerance at Anthesis

Background: Waterlogging is one of the major abiotic stresses limiting wheat product. Plants can adapt to waterlogging with changes in morphology, anatomy, and metabolism. Many genes and proteins play critical roles in adaptation to waterlogging. Results: the iTRAQ-based proteomic strategy was applied to identify the waterlogging-responsive proteins in wheat. A total of 4,999 unique proteins were identified in two wheat varieties, XM55 (waterlogging-tolerant) and YM158 (waterlogging-sensitive), at anthesis under waterlogging or not. Sixteen proteins were differentially accumulated between XM55 and YM158 under waterlogging with cultivar specificity. Of these, 11 proteins were up-regulated and 5 proteins were down-regulated. The up-regulated proteins included Fe-S cluster assembly factor, heat shock cognate 70, GTP-binding protein SAR1A-like, and CBS domain-containing protein. The down-regulated proteins contained photosystem II reaction center protein H, carotenoid 9,10 (9',10')-cleavage dioxygenase-like, psbP-like protein 1, and mitochondrial ATPase inhibitor. In addition, 9 proteins were responsive to waterlogging with non-cultivar specificity. These proteins included 3-isopropylmalate dehydratase large subunit, solanesyl-diphosphate synthase 2, DEAD-box ATP-dependent RNA helicase 3, and 3 predicted or uncharacterized proteins. Conclusions: This study revealed that the proteins were differential accumulated between the two contrast waterlogging wheat varieties in response to waterlogging, which provide valuable insights into wheat response to waterlogging stress. These differentially accumulated proteins might be applied to develop waterlogging tolerant wheat in further breeding programs.
DESIGN &

This paper describes the case study of a system testing for DIVERCITY. DIVERCITY was an EU funded project undertaken by a European consortium of researchers and practitioners from the construction industry. They were working together in an attempt to develop VR based software that enables the industry to better undertake the client briefing, design review, and construction planning phases of a construction project. The project had the acronym DIVERCITY – ‘Distributed Virtual Workspace for Enhancing Communication within the Construction Industry. DIVERCITY’s development and testing teams spread across four EU countries. That added an additional layer of complexity to the system testing. DIVERCITY used conformance approach for testing strategy to meet the user requirements of the system. This paper describes the methods used, and the lessons learned in the DIVERCITY project.
OP-EHEA190237_online 2883..2898

Ioanna Tzoulaki *, Raphaële Castagné, Claire L. Boulangé, Ibrahim Karaman , Elena Chekmeneva, Evangelos Evangelou, Timothy M.D. Ebbels, Manuja R. Kaluarachchi, Marc Chadeau-Hyam, David Mosen, Abbas Dehghan, Alireza Moayyeri, Diana L. Santos Ferreira, Xiuqing Guo, Jerome I. Rotter, Kent D. Taylor, Maryam Kavousi, Paul S. de Vries, Benjamin Lehne, Marie Loh, Albert Hofman, Jeremy K. Nicholson, John Chambers, Christian Gieger, Elaine Holmes,
Minecraft in the Classroom: Ideas, inspiration, and student projects for teachers

1. Introduction 2. What is Minecraft? 3. MinecraftEdu-Setup, advantages/disadvantages 4. Minecraft Vanilla-Setup, advantages/disadvantages 5. Minecraft Personal Edition-iPads/Android 6. Minecraft in Education - Why? 7. Minecraft and Teaching Humanities 8. Minecraft and Teaching Science 9. Minecraft and Teaching Math 10. Minecraft and Language Learning 11. Minecraft and Interdisciplinary Projects 12. Minecraft and Digital Citizenship 13. Minecraft and Homeschooling 14. Minecraft in Education-The Future
Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design

In an age of globalization and connectivity, the idea of 'mainstream culture' has become quaint. Websites, magazines, books, and television have all honed in on ever-diversifying subcultures, hoping to carve out niche audiences that grow savvier and more narrowly sliced by the day. Consequently, the discipline of graphic design has undergone a sea change. Where visual communication was once informed by a designer's creative intuition, the proliferation of specialized audiences now calls for more research-based design processes. "Design Studies", a collection of 27 essays from an international cast of top design researchers, sets out to mend this schism between research and practice. The essays presented here make a strong argument for performing rigorous experimentation and analysis. Each author outlines methods in which research has aided their design - whether by investigating how seniorcitizens react to design aesthetics, how hip hop culture can influence design, or how design for third-world nations is effected by cultural differences. This comprehensive reader is the definitive reference for this new direction in graphic design, and an essential resource for both students and practitioners.
Human Response to Vibration

The book's aim is to provide guidance on health risks arising from occupational exposure to vibration. Specific features include: an introduction to wave theory, vibration classification, and vibration axes; an introduction of regulation concerned with occupational vibration exposure; an analysis of vibration measurement topics that include measurement flow, measurement strategy, human vibration meters, accelerometers, and analysis methods; and an examination of whole body and hand-arm vibration standards. The book provides information to those requiring knowledge of human response to vibration for the purpose of making practical improvements to physical working environments. The book provides an educational tool and a reference and stimulus for consultants, practitioners, researchers and students, providing new ideas for the next generation of specialists.
A Primer for Agent-Based Simulation and Modeling in Transportation Applications

Agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS) methods have been applied across a spectrum of domains within transportation studies. Different paradigms for ABMS in transportation exist; in general ABMS has strong roots in the individual-based travelers' model in the activity-based travel demand domain. In the distributed system domain, ABMS is commonly seen as a method, known as multiagent systems, for a distributed autonomous system. Recently, transportation-related applications leveraging ABMS have continued to grow. This report attempts to clarify the concept of ABMS and summarize variant paradigms that have been studied in the transportation field. It will do this by distinguishing similarities of differences of the specified problems, model capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of ABMS scoped in different applications, and through a comprehensive review of ABMS approaches that have been seen in transportation studies. The report also seeks to connect the individual-based ABMS with the transportation problems viewed in the social science paradigm. This is achieved by trying to apply ABMS characterized by social science rules to study behavioral decisions of individual travelers. This exploratory study is demonstrated in an example of travelers' route choice decisions, which features a bottom-up, rather than a conventional top-down, approach to formulate the mechanism of an individual traveler's complex route choice behavioral process as a collaborative and reactive result of the traveler's mindset and the network environment integrated in an ABMS.
THE AESTHETICS OF PROPORTION IN STRUCTURAL FORM

This paper demonstrates that aesthetic concepts in engineering design are derived from various models of aesthetics. It also presents case studies on the application of the golden ratio in various structures. The aesthetic perceptions of various respondents who are shown families of rectangles, three span bridges and parallel chorded trusses are described. The preferences for a square or ratio of unity and for the golden ratio are discovered from these experiments. The study also includes approximate optimisation studies on the three span bridge and parallel chorded trusses. Finally, the possibility is mooted of making initial design decisions relating to proportions, by using plots of cost optimisation and aesthetic preferences. (A)
Direct marketing in action : cutting-edge strategies for finding and keeping the best customers

In a marketplace increasingly defined by customer categories with high expectations for service, quality, and responsiveness, companies are discovering that traditional mass marketing approaches are giving way to more targeted approaches that communicate directly with their customers. But to many consumers, direct marketing has a bad reputation, associated with intrusive door-to-door salesmen, dinnertime phone solicitations, junk mail, and, most recently, e-mail spam. In Direct Marketing in Action, a team of experts in the field dispels common myths and misconceptions about direct marketing and showcases the most current practices, principles, and techniques. The authors cover the full range of issues that must be considered in developing an effective direct marketing strategy, including competitive analysis, information and data management, media and channel selection, building brand loyalty, and measuring the results of campaigns. Bridging the gap between research and practice, clearly defining terms and concepts, and featuring numerous examples, Direct Marketing in Action will serve as an essential handbook for marketers and a comprehensive overview for students, teachers, and researchers. From the dentist who sends check-up reminders to his patients to the hotel chain that customizes room amenities based on their guests' profiles, direct marketing is infused with the idea that the best allocation of our marketing dollar is one that focuses on and communicates with our particular micro market-and reinforces the distinctive benefits that we provide to those customers. In Direct Marketing in Action the authors cover the full range of issues that must be considered in developing an effective direct marketing strategy, including competitive analysis, information and data management, media and channel selection, building brand loyalty, and measuring the results of campaigns. Bridging the gap between research and practice, clearly defining terms and concepts, featuring numerous examples, and presented in a format that can be read cover-to-cover or in modular fashion, Direct Marketing in Action will serve as an essential handbook for marketers and a comprehensive overview for students, teachers, and researchers.