Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding and Managing the Impacts of Electric Vehicles on Electric Power Distribution Systems

While there are a number of useful studies on the greenhouse gas impacts of transportation electrification, only recently have researchers begun to understand the impacts of electricity on electric power infrastructure. Thus, the primary goals of this research project were to understand these impacts in detail and to develop new methods for reducing the impact of transportation electrification on the electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure. In particular, this report focuses on understanding and mitigating the impact of transportation electrification on the medium and low voltage distribution infrastructure, through which electricity is transported from the bulk power grid, through neighborhoods, to individual homes and businesses. This project focused specifically on the impacts of electric vehicles on two key components of power distribution systems: residential service transformers, and underground cables. This project also studied new methods to dynamically adjust the number of electric vehicles that are charging simultaneously, in order to mitigate the risk of electricity infrastructure damage from electric vehicle charging.
Hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis for Covid-19: Why simple data analysis can lead to the wrong conclusions from well-designed studies

Researchers of the University Minnesota School reported the first prospective randomized placebo-controlled trial (RCT) in evaluating the role of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) against COVID‐19. The trial's primary result reported by the authors was that, within four days after moderate or high-risk exposure to Covid-19, HCQ did not show benefit over placebo to prevent illnesses compatible with Covid-19 or confirmed infection (P=0.351, Fisher exact test). In this re-analysis, we show why the authors’ oversimplified analysis led to an incorrect conclusion from the data. We re-analyzed the dataset by applying multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), which are noise reduction methods used in large data sets. We used the same primary outcome measures as the authors (incidence of COVID-19-compatible disease by day 14) and the same statistical test that the authors used, such as the two-sided Fisher's exact test and others. The results obtained indicate that the individuals' age is a determining factor in the chemopreventive efficacy exerted by HCQ. Thus, in contradiction to the original authors' conclusions, the full data set's risk analysis shows that HCQ exhibits a chemopreventive effect for the group of subjects of ≤ 50 yrs that does not reach significance (P=0.083). However, not considering the analysis of the moderate-risk exposure group, we confirm that the high-risk exposure group (N=719) demonstrates a significant effect of HCQ in the under 50 age group (p=0.025). We also show, using MCA and the Mantel test, systematic differences between the treatment and placebo groups in their clinical characteristics, specifically asthma, and other-comorbidities which act as confounders that add noise to the data, such that the genuine effect of the drug is not seen in a standard analysis. After correcting these differences, the risk analysis showed that HCQ is also useful as a prophylactic agent for people over 50 years of age. This study, therefore, provides evidence of the necessity for higher-order analytics (such as MCA) in the presence of large data sets that include unknown confounders. In this case, it shows that the published conclusion of the group – that HCQ does not prevent COVID-type infective symptoms – was fundamentally flawed and should be reconsidered.
Pilot Visual Acquisition of Traffic: Operational Communications from OpEval-1

Abstract : Avionics devices designed to provide pilots with graphically displayed traffic information will enable pilots to acquire and verify the identity of any intruder aircraft within the general area, either before or in accordance with a controller-issued traffic advisory or alert. A preliminary evaluation was performed of an airborne capability to display traffic information (OpEval-1 July 1999). As part of that evaluation, audiotapes were analyzed of the communications between pilots flying aircraft equipped with a cockpit display of traffic information (CDTI) and terminal radar approach controllers, who provided them with air traffic services. The results revealed that pilots and controllers participated more frequently in collaborative communications that resulted in a reduction in radio-frequency congestion and improved overall communications. Pilot persistence in scanning for traffic called by air traffic control (ATC) - especially when that traffic was readily visible on the CDTI display, but not out the window - may have led to more responsive traffic reports, increases in positive visual acquisitions, and consequently proportionally fewer pilot reports of 'negative contact'. Only 4% of the pilots' and controllers' messages revealed communication problems such as inaccuracies, procedural deviations, and non-routine transactions. Information load, the novelty of pilot-initiated traffic calls, access to and knowledge of the traffic call sign by pilots, as well as the variability in ATC message structure each contributed to the occurrence of communication problems. The voice tape analyses suggest that new procedures and operational communications will be needed to support CDTI and guidance in collaborative decision-making involving air-ground traffic flow management.
Programmatic Life Cycle Environmental Assessment for Smoke/Obscurants. Volume 4. HC Smoke

Abstract : HC smoke in pots, grenades, and artillery rounds has been used in military testing and training exercises since the second world war. Research studies conducted to date indicate that HC smoke mix and its combustion products pose significant health hazards to manufacturing personnel and using troops. Therefore, a management plan has been implemented to replace HC smoke with tested, less toxic, noncarcinogenic chemicals. The objective of this report is to compile and review environmental assessment data including environmental impact data on HC smoke along its life cycle usage path from manufacturing to disposal so that mitigating controls may be instituted for the distribution and use of HC smoke until a suitable replacement is implemented into inventory supplies. It is also intended that this programmatic assessment be used and cited in site specific assessments. It has been concluded that the continuous use of present HC inventory stocks should be enforced with such mitigating controls as: (1) enforcing the Army directive to mask in the presence of HC smoke; (2) closely regulating the deployment of HC smoke on all its installations; (3) restricting HC deployment to areas of the installations as far as practically possible from cantonments and other populated areas; (4) taking special precautions to protect higher risk individuals such as those highly allergic, children, and the aged; and (5) under no circumstances should HC smoke be deployed indoors or in confined quarters.
Team Composition Optimization: The Team Optimal Profile System (TOPS)

Abstract : Teams have become strategic features in organizations. Research and practice suggest team effectiveness is driven considerably by the mix of team member attributes. Given the impact a team's composition has on its objectives, private industry and military leaders place a premium on making optimal team staffing decisions. Nonetheless, the challenges associated with achieving optimal team composition are significant and indicate a need for a tool/system to help commanders optimize personnel allocation. Accordingly, this report lays the foundation for a system that incorporates the elements required to help leaders optimize team composition. For our first task, leaders with extensive team staffing experience were interviewed to uncover the implicit decision models used by team staffing experts. Supplementing extant research, the interviews contributed to our second task: the development of a team composition decision taxonomy. The taxonomy defines and organizes elements of the team staffing decision domain. The interviews and taxonomy culminated in the development of a generic, customizable team composition optimization algorithm that models team composition-effectiveness relationships. Finally, we designed a framework/methodology for a Team Optimal Profiling System (TOPS) and demonstrated its use for making an optimal team composition decision.
EVALUATION OF TWO GEOTEXTILE INSTALLATIONS IN EXCESS OF A DECADE OLD

Many erosion-protection installations for roadway embankments were designed and constructed by using geotextiles during the 1960s. Two such installations constructed in 1969 were studied to evaluate the long-term field performance of the facilities and the geotextile material. These projects were the 79th Street Causeway in Miami Beach, Florida, and the Bahia Honda Bridge in Bahia Honda Key, Florida. The 79th Street Causeway was constructed with a woven geotextile as a filter in a rip-rap revetment-type seawall to protect one of the bridge abutments and a segment of the causeway. The geotextile design was used in place of a conventional granular filter design to prevent erosion of the subgrade soils through the rip-rap. The protected section was designed for 3-ft waves and and a 3-ft tidal variation. The Bahia Honda Bridge project was constructed with a woven geotextile as a subgrade-protection filter beneath sand-cement rip-rap-constructed bridge abutments, drains, and seawalls at both ends of the bridge. In this system, a geotextile was used to act as a filter between the rip-rap and underlying soil subgrade to prevent loss of soil due to weathering or wave action through cracks and holes in the rip-rap. The abutments and drains at the Bahia Honda Bridge were exposed to weathering conditions, and the seawall was designed to resist wave action and tidal variations. The performance evaluation of these installations consisted of a review of the design, visual observations, and testing of representative rip-rap, fabric, and underlying soil samples. In the laboratory study, the condition of the excavated fabrics was compared with new fabric characteristics. The study included strength and filtration evaluation of the fabric and gradation analysis of the surrounding soils. Field observations of the performance of the structures, evaluation procedures, and the results of laboratory tests are presented. The effects of construction procedures on long-term performance are also reviewed. (Author)
An information theoretic approach to timing jitter

In this dissertation, we investigate the fundamental impact of timing jitter on the storage and transmission of information. In Part I, we consider transmission using hard-limiting channels, in the presence of timing jitter. We introduce the Discrete Memoryless Jitter Channel (DMJC), an information theoretic channel model having a quantized time axis, that reflects timing jitter on a hard-limited channel. We derive bounds on the channel capacity of the DMJC for d-constrained inputs, and we prove the coding theorem and its converse for the DMJC. We introduce the Continuous-Time Memoryless Jitter Channel (CT-MJC), that reflects timing jitter on a similar hard-limited channel without time quantization. We also derive bounds on the capacity of the CT-MJC. We study spectral properties of timing jitter on a hard-limited channel. The obtained results are used to analyse carrier to noise ratio (CNR) measurements in the field of optical recording. We compare linear density estimates of the CT-MJC with those of classical information theoretic channel models, which are based on additive noise. In Part II, we consider the combination of additive noise and sampling timing jitter, which act as signal impairments for band-limited, Gaussian signals. We introduce timing jitter as a random process and study its influence on the signal dependent amplitude deviations of the resulting samples. We introduce the Additive White Gaussian Noise and Jitter channel (AWGN&J), that models the combination of additive noise and sampling jitter. We obtain tight bounds on the mutual information of the AWGN&J channel for a Gaussian input. For Gaussian signals, we derive the optimum spectral input distribution. It turns out that a kind of 'distorted waterfilling' is found that, dependent on the ratio between additive and jitter noise, leads to an optimal power spectral density that peaks at the low frequencies. In particular, we find that for Gaussian signals, sampling timing jitter leads to a finite capacity, independent of the input power.
Plasma markers of neurologic injury and systemic inflammation in individuals with self-reported neurologic post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC)

Background: The biologic mechanisms underlying neurologic post-acute-sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) are incompletely understood. Methods: We measured markers of neuronal injury (glial fibrillary acidic protein [GFAP], neurofilament light chain [NfL]) and soluble markers of inflammation among a cohort of people with prior confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection at early and late recovery following the initial illness (defined as less than and greater than 90 days, respectively). The primary clinical outcome was the presence of self-reported central nervous system (CNS) PASC symptoms during the late recovery timepoint. We compared fold-changes in marker values between those with and without CNS PASC symptoms using linear mixed effects models and examined relationships between neurologic and immunologic markers using rank linear correlations. Results: Of 121 individuals, 52 reported CNS PASC symptoms. During early recovery, those who went on to report CNS PASC symptoms had elevations in GFAP (1.3-fold higher mean ratio, 95% CI 1.04-1.63, p=0.02), but not NfL (1.06-fold higher mean ratio, 95% CI 0.89-1.26, p=0.54). During late recovery, neither GFAP nor NfL levels were elevated among those with CNS PASC symptoms. Although absolute levels of NfL did not differ, those who reported CNS PASC symptoms demonstrated a stronger downward trend over time in comparison to those who did not report CNS PASC symptoms (p=0.041). Those who went on to report CNS PASC also exhibited elevations in IL-6 (48% higher during early recovery and 38% higher during late recovery), MCP-1 (19% higher during early recovery), and TNF-alpha (19% higher during early recovery and 13% higher during late recovery). GFAP and NfL correlated with levels of several immune activation markers during early recovery; these correlations were attenuated during late recovery. Conclusions: Self-reported neurologic symptoms present >90 days following SARS-CoV-2 infection are associated with elevations in markers of neurologic injury and inflammation at early recovery timepoints, suggesting that early injury can result in long-term disease. The correlation of GFAP and NfL with markers of systemic immune activation suggests one possible mechanism that might contribute to these symptoms. Additional work is needed to better characterize these processes and to identify interventions to prevent or treat this condition.
Project Alliancing: A Relational Contracting Mechanism for Dynamic Projects

The environment in which construction projects are accomplished today often involves completing complex, uncertain projects within tight budget and time constraints. In this environment ‘change’ is a defining characteristic and is inevitable. Unfortunately, most traditional contracts do not embrace change, but instead treat it as an anomaly by trying to specify every possible contingency and assign liability in the event change occurs. As projects become more dynamic, this increasingly leads to detrimental adversarial relations as individuals focus on protecting profit and not collaborating to maximize project performance. In response to traditional contracting limitations, Project Alliancing, developed originally by British Petroleum in the North Sea, is a relational contracting mechanism widely employed by Australia’s public sector to handle high visibility, complex capital works projects. Project Alliancing is a dramatic departure from traditional contracting methods in that it encourages project participants to work as an integrated team by tying the commercial objectives (i.e. profit) of all the parties to the actual outcome of the project. In this arrangement all decisions are made “best for project” and not “best for individual” since the alliance either wins or loses as a group.
Motorcycle Crashes into Road Barriers: the Role of Stability and Different Types of Barriers for Injury Outcome

This research focused on motorcycle crashes into road barriers and addressed two research questions: the first to assess if injury risk for motorcyclists is affected by collisions with different types of barriers, and the second, to examine if injury outcome in these crashes can be affected by being in an upright position during the collision. Police-reported motorcycle crashes into road barriers in Sweden between 2003 and 2010 were analyzed across different barrier types, using the Fatal-Serious-Injury Ratio (FSI). In addition, 55 in-depth interviews with Swedish motorcyclists who had crashed into road barriers were included to measure threat-to-life and medical disability. The analysis of police records showed no statistically significant difference between the FSI-ratios for wire rope barriers, Kohlswa-beam and W-beam barriers, although these FSI-ratios were generally very high. The small number of in-depth case findings, however, showed that injury severity was lower in crashes in which the motorcyclists were in an upright position during the collision. The proportion of subjects with ISS 16+ was 24% lower in those crashes compared to those who slid into the barrier. In addition, AIS 2+ and AIS 3+ injuries were 22% and 12% lower, respectively. The mean Risk for Permanent Medical Impairment 10% (RPMI) was 51% lower, and leg injuries were more common although these results were not statistically significant. While the implementation of Anti-lock Brakes on motorcycles may improve stability during critical situations, further development of integrated leg protectors might still be needed.
An investigation into the prevalence of non-tripod pengrip and its implications for secondary school writers

This research addresses the twin issues of whether non-tripod grips are becoming more common and whether young people who adopt any of these grips experience greater problems than their peers. Existing research into writing grip focuses on young children, leaving the long-term consequences of an unorthodox grip poorly reported. The initial demographic survey investigated changes in penhold. The survey was conducted in a single secondary school, its satellite primary schools and adults in West Wales. This established a high frequency of non-tripod grips occurred among children and young adults that were not replicated in older adults. Statistical analysis of the data indicates that this change in grip happened quite abruptly to young people who began school in the early 1980s. The research also identified ninety-three secondary school pupils, using a range of non-tripod grips and matched each to a pupil using an orthodox grip. Thirteen non-tripod grips were identified, three for the first time, while the severity of others appears greater than in the existing literature. The effects of each grip were considered statistically, using the null hypothesis that groups of matched pupils sharing a grip, will have similar characteristics. Several consequences of the different grips were established, some of which can adversely affect performance and attitudes. These consequences include high levels of pain after even very short writing periods, a high number of adjustments needed to maintain writing, as well as different writing speeds, some of which fall below generally accepted norms. There is thus support for the initial hypothesis that those using non-tripod grips are affected by their choice of grip, which may negatively affect their education. This research ascertained, for the first time, the suitability of a range of unorthodox grips for the demanding writing tasks required by secondary schooling. It also identifies some grips that should be avoided if unnecessary difficulties with writing are to be prevented.
Solving dynamic multi-objective optimisation problems using vector evaluated particle swarm optimisation

Most optimisation problems in everyday life are not static in nature, have multiple objectives and at least two of the objectives are in conflict with one another. However, most research focusses on either static multi-objective optimisation (MOO) or dynamic singleobjective optimisation (DSOO). Furthermore, most research on dynamic multi-objective optimisation (DMOO) focusses on evolutionary algorithms (EAs) and only a few particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithms exist. This thesis proposes a multi-swarm PSO algorithm, dynamic Vector Evaluated Particle Swarm Optimisation (DVEPSO), to solve dynamic multi-objective optimisation problems (DMOOPs). In order to determine whether an algorithm solves DMOO efficiently, functions are required that resembles real world DMOOPs, called benchmark functions, as well as functions that quantify the performance of the algorithm, called performance measures. However, one major problem in the field of DMOO is a lack of standard benchmark functions and performance measures. To address this problem, an overview is provided from the current literature and shortcomings of current DMOO benchmark functions and performance measures are discussed. In addition, new DMOOPs are introduced to address the identified shortcomings of current benchmark functions. Guides guide the optimisation process of DVEPSO. Therefore, various guide update approaches are investigated. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis of DVEPSO is conducted to determine the influence of various parameters on the performance of DVEPSO. The investigated parameters include approaches to manage boundary constraint violations, approaches to share knowledge between the sub-swarms and responses to changes in the environment that are applied to either the particles of the sub-swarms or the non-dominated solutions stored in the archive. From these experiments the best DVEPSO configuration is determined and compared against four state-of-the-art DMOO algorithms.