Design Evaluation

The exergy and exergoeconomics analysis on a developed small-scale waste plastic pyrolysis plant for diesel oil recovery from thermoplastics has been completed. The exergy and exergoeconomics analysis were applied to the four components of the plant: the reactor, catalytic cracker, diffuser, and aircondenser to identify Components with higher exergy destruction and cost-related improvements in the system. The readings obtained during the experimental investigation were fitted on the exergoeconomics model equations and they were simulated with engineering equation software (EES). The results indicated that the reactor component has the highest value of exergy destruction of 0.4322 (kW). Furthermore, the exergoeconomics analysis revealed improvement of the condenser due to its low exergoeconomics factor of 0.00261 and high total cost rate of 1.895 $/h. However, the condenser will be improved if the investment cost rate and exergy destruction can be reduced.

This article describes the application of sunflower plots and classification trees to the study of onscreen typeface legibility. The two methods are useful for describing high-dimensional data in an intuitive manner, which is crucial for interacting with both the typographers who design the typefaces and the practitioners who must make decisions about which typeface to use for specific applications. Furthermore, classification trees help us make specific recommendations for how much of a character attribute is "enough" to make it legible. We present examples of sunflower plots and classification trees using data from a recent typeface legibility experiment, and we present R code for replicating our analyses. Some familiarity with classification trees and logistic regression will be helpful to the reader.

This article describes the application of sunflower plots and classification trees to the study of onscreen typeface legibility. The two methods are useful for describing high-dimensional data in an intuitive manner, which is crucial for interacting with both the typographers who design the typefaces and the practitioners who must make decisions about which typeface to use for specific applications. Furthermore, classification trees help us make specific recommendations for how much of a character attribute is "enough" to make it legible. We present examples of sunflower plots and classification trees using data from a recent typeface legibility experiment, and we present R code for replicating our analyses. Some familiarity with classification trees and logistic regression will be helpful to the reader.

Abstract: This paper describes and discusses the NICE project, an immersive learning environment for children implemented in the CAVE and related multi-user virtual reality (VR) technologies. The NICE project provides an engaging setting where children construct ...

Cross-section of the DMI200 melter through the discharge chamber. Cross-section through the DMI200 melter showing electrodes. Specifications of Double Outlet "J" Bubbler. Placement of double outlet bubblers. Schematic diagram of DMI 200 off-gas system. Glass Temperature Profile ofHLW Canisters filled by the EnergySolutions LAW Pilot Melter. Schematic drawing of vertical gradient furnace (VGF) for feed conversion test Temperature gradient (inside the loaded ceramic crucible) of the Vertical Gradient Furnace (VGF). I) Scanned image of thin section ofHLW-E-Bi6 after CCC "Bottom" indicates the sample orientation during CCC; 2)-4) Scanned images of the thin sections ofHLW-E-Bi6 after 2,4 and 6 hours of truncated CCC. I) -2) Scanned images of the thin sections ofHLW-E-Bi6r after 2 and 6 hours of truncated CCC. I) Scanned images of thin sections ofHLW-Bi-F2 after CCC; 2) -3) Scanned images of the thin sections ofHLW-Bi-F2 after 2 and 6 hours of truncated CCC. I) Scanned images of thin sections ofBLL-G-4IA after CCC; 2) -3) Scanned images of the thin sections ofBLL-G-4IA after 2 and 6 hours of truncated CCC. I) Scanned image of thin section ofHLW-Bi-BiO after CCC; 2) Scanned image of the thin section ofHLW-Bi-FO after CCC; 3) Scanned image of the thin section ofHLW-Bi-PO after CCC; 4) Scanned image of the thin section ofHLW-Bi-BiPO after CCC. I) Scanned image of thin section ofHLW-Bi-2Bi after CCC; 2) Scanned image of the thin section ofHLW-Bi-2P after CCC. Scanned image of thin section ofHLW-Bi-2POCr after CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofHLW -E-Bi6r after CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofHLW-E-Bi6 after truncated 2 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofHLW-E-Bi6 after truncated 4 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofHLW-E-Bi6 after truncated 6 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of HLW -E-Bi6r after truncated 2 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of HLW -E-Bi6r after truncated 6 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofHLW-Bi-F2 after CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of HLW -Bi-F2 after truncated 2 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of HLW -Bi-F2 after truncated 6 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images ofBLL-G-46A after CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of BLL-G-46A after truncated 2 hour CCC. Transmission optical microscopic images of BLL-G-46A after truncated 6 hour CCC.

Objective To evaluate the performance of a rapid test for chlamydia with first void male urine samples as a potential tool for diagnosis and screening of chlamydial infection in men. Settings A young people's sexual health centre (site 1) and a genitourinary medicine clinic (site 2) in the United Kingdom. Participants 1211 men aged 16-73 attending either of the two sites. Main outcome measures Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the Chlamydia Rapid Test versus polymerase chain reaction assay. Relation between the visual signal of the Chlamydia Rapid Test and organism load. Results Detection rates for Chlamydia trachomatis infection with polymerase chain reaction were 4.4% (20/ 454) at site 1 and 11.9% (90/757) at site 2. Compared with polymerase chain reaction assay, the resolved sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the Chlamydia Rapid Test was 82.6% (90/109), 98.5% (1085/1102), 84.1% (90/107), and 98.3% (1085/1104), respectively. The organism load in first void urine samples that were positive for chlamydia ranged from 7.28×10 2 to 6.93×10 6 plasmids/ ml and correlated significantly with the visual signal of the Chlamydia Rapid Test (r=0.7897, P<0.001). The performance of the new Chlamydia Rapid Test with first void male urine samples indicates that it would be an effective diagnostic tool for chlamydial infection in men. The availability of test results within an hour allows for immediate treatment and contact tracing, potentially reducing the risks of persistent infection and onward transmission. The test could also provide a simple and reliable alternative to nucleic acid amplification assays for testing of male urine in chlamydial screening programmes in high prevalence settings.

We describe a new interactive system for 3D design review, built to exploit the visual perception cue of motion parallax, in order to enhance shape perception and aesthetic evaluation. Traditional CAD applications typically use "bookmarked" static views for design evaluation. In our system, we replace static views with moving "shots" interspersed with cinematic visual transitions. Furthermore, users can access shots by picking object features on the 3D model, which invokes a spatial search over all shots, selects the ones deemed relevant to the feature, and plays back those shots. In this paper we describe the rationale behind this system, the main components, the implementation of the search technique, and the initial user evaluation of the system.

Service family architectures are based on a set of basic building blocks that can be configured appropriately to build different services based on the same set of assets. These building blocks should be designed to provide variability so as to facilitate configuration and assembly in order to produce a family of products/services. Such an architectural design for a family of services is recognized as a highly knowledge intensive process. Documenting design decisions associated with these various configurations leading to variability and the capability to trace the life of a variation in both forward and backward directions are key to a flexible development of a service family. In this paper, we discuss the key role played by a traceabilitybased knowledge management system in documenting such design decisions and in tracing variability. Using a case study, we illustrate the importance of using such a knowledge management system in the design and development of service families.

This document identifies materials and material mitigation processes that might be used in new designs for standardized canisters for storage, transportation, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel. It also addresses potential corrosion issues with existing dual-purpose canisters (DPCs) that could be addressed in new canister designs. The major potential corrosion risk during storage is stress corrosion cracking of the weld regions on the 304 SS/316 SS canister shell due to deliquescence of chloride salts on the surface. Two approaches are proposed to alleviate this potential risk. First, the existing canister materials (304 and 316 SS) could be used, but the welds mitigated to relieve residual stresses and/or sensitization. Alternatively, more corrosion-resistant steels such as super-austenitic or duplex stainless steels, could be used. Experimental testing is needed to verify that these alternatives would successfully reduce the risk of stress corrosion cracking during fuel storage.

A growing interest in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) can be observed over the last few years. Geographically dislocated users share a common virtual space as if they were at the same physical location. Although Virtual Reality (VR) is heading more and more in the direction of creating lifelike environments and stimulating all of the users senses the technology does not yet allow communication and interaction as it is in the real world. A more abstract representation is sufficient in most CVEs. This paper provides an overview on tools which can be used to enhance communication and interaction in CVEs by visualising behaviour. Not only is a set of tools presented and classified, an implementation approach on how to use these tools in a structured way in form of a framework is also given.

This paper explores the relation between metaphysical commitments and the evaluation of design projects. The dialectical relation of permanence and change needs to be incorporated into current design more frequently. Any project which lacks a clear metaphysical status makes the challenge to address permanence and change more difficult. Metaphysical uncertainty also results in (a) evaluations that have no clear criteria of success and (b) a shift in the language of evaluation from objective criteria towards expressions of personal taste. The paper contains some examples and a case study of new courthouses in the USA.

This report presents the results of work at the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado, to carefully evaluate, document, develop (when necessary), and describe the methodology for performing radiated susceptibil ity/ vulnerability measurements using a reverberation chamber. The report describes the reverberation chamber theory of operation, construction, evaluation, functional operation, and use for performing immunity measurements. It includes an estimate of measurement uncertainties derived empirically from test results and from comparisons with anechoic chamber measurements. Finally, it discusses the limitations and advantages of the measurement technique to assist potential users in determining the applicability for this technique to their electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) measurement needs.

This paper is among the first works to document experimental results for application-aware H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC) support over Wireless LANs. Application-aware support is achieved by introducing a bandwidth throttling device, called Virtual BottleNeck (VBN), before the WLAN Access Point. Throttling is set to a bandwidth slightly smaller than the actual WLAN capacity (either known or estimated), so that all packet/frame losses occur inside the VBN. Here, loss events are controlled by a scheduling mechanism devised to operate with information taken from the H.264 Network Abstraction Layer Units (NALUs). Despite its relative simplicity, the implemented scheduler exhibits effective video adaptation performance and close to optimal bandwidth efficiency. Setting up the trial was not trivial due to the lack of suitable publicly available tools. We filled this gap by implementing and integrating several separate software modules, e.g., streaming server, NALU dependency filtering, video frame concealment, etc. As a final result, the experimental trial supports the full delivery chain for an SVC stream with the only limitation of an off-line stream conversion for play-out and Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) measurement purposes, due to the unavailability of real time SVC players. 1 The source code of the software as well as all the videos produced and discussed throughout the remainder of this paper can be found at the URL -for download purposes note that videos are 300-400 MB each.

Nitric acid (HNO 3 ) vapor is a significant component of air pollution. Dry deposition of HNO 3 is thought to be a major contributor to terrestrial loading of anthropogenically-derived nitrogen (N), but many questions remain regarding the physico-chemical process of deposition and the biological responses to accumulation of dry-deposited HNO 3 on surfaces. To examine these processes experimentally, a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR) fumigation system has been constructed. This system enables simultaneous fumigation at several concentrations in working volumes 1.3 m dia by 1.3 m ht, allowing for simultaneous fumigation of many experimental units. Evaluation of the system indicates that it is appropriate for long-term exposures of several months duration and capable of mimicking patterns of diurnal atmospheric HNO 3 concentrations representative of areas with different levels of pollution.

GPUs continue to boost the number of streaming multiprocessors (SMs) to provide increasingly higher compute capabilities. To construct a scalable crossbar network-on-chip (NoC) that connects the SMs to the memory controllers, a cluster structure is introduced in modern GPUs in which several SMs are grouped together to share a network port. Because of network port sharing, clustered GPUs face severe NoC congestion, which creates a critical performance bottleneck. In this paper, we target redundant network traffic to mitigate GPU NoC congestion. In particular, we observe that in many GPU-compute applications, different SMs in a cluster access shared data. Sending redundant requests to access the same memory location wastes valuable NoC bandwidth-we find on average 19 percent (and up to 48 percent) of the requests to be redundant. To remove redundant NoC traffic, we propose distributed-block scheduling, intra-cluster coalescing (ICC) and the coalesced cache (CC) to coalesce L1 cache misses within and across SMs in a cluster, respectively. Our evaluation results show that distributed-block scheduling, ICC and CC are complementary and improve both performance and energy consumption. We report an average performance improvement of 15 percent (and up to 67 percent) while at the same time reducing system energy by 6 percent (and up to 19 percent) and improving the energy-delay product (EDP) by 19 percent on average (and up to 53 percent), compared to state-of-the-art distributed CTA scheduling.

The design issues and tests carried out with the ring imaging Cherenkov detector for the HERA-B experiment are reviewed. Results of on-the-bench tests of the employed photomultiplier tubes are reported together with the early commissioning measurements with the HERA proton beam.

%e report a new measurement of positron polarization (P) in Ga decay. Using a new polarimeter the asymmetry {A) in the decay of positronium in a magnetic Geld was measured to S%. When combined with a calculation of the positron depolarization on stopping in MgO powder the overall uncertainty in P is 11%. The most precise prior determination of P was to 12% accuracy. An eventual precision of 1% in A and 0.1% in comparisons of asymmetries from diferent sources is anticipated. In addition to the 'Ga work we point out the possible use of the polarimeter in a number of new measurements including a determination of e polarization in p, + and nuclear decay and in a g -2 experiment. Accurate and efficient measurement of positron polarization P=(o) and helicity (h=(o'p)/~p~is important in a number of current experiments as well as in tests of the V-A theory of weak inter- actions. %e have developed a positron polarimeter which is at least eight times as efficient as prior instruments and allows a compariso of the polari- zation of positrons of equal momenta but from different nuclei (or from the low-energy tail of the p'-positron distribution) to an accuracy of up to 0.1% (3% for positrons from p' decay). Absolute measurements of the polarization of positrons from a single source are now limited only by un- certainty in the calculation of depolarization for positrons stopping in the polarimeter. The polarimeter may also be used to determine the value of

Extreme Data is an incarnation of Big Data concept distinguished by the massive amounts of data that must be queried, communicated and analyzed in near real-time by using a very large number of memory or storage elements and exascale computing systems. Immediate examples are the scientific data produced at a rate of hundreds of gigabits-per-second that must be stored, filtered and analyzed, the millions of images per day that must be analyzed in parallel, the one billion of social data posts queried in real-time on an in-memory components database. Traditional disks or commercial storage nowadays cannot handle the extreme scale of such application data. Following the need of improvement of current concepts and technologies, we focus in this paper on the needs of data intensive applications running on systems composed of up to millions of computing elements (exascale systems). We propose in this paper a methodology to advance the state-of-the-art. The starting point is the definition of new programming paradigms, APIs, runtime tools and methodologies for expressing data-intensive tasks on exascale systems. This will pave the way for the exploitation of massive parallelism over a simplified model of the system architecture, thus promoting high performance and efficiency, offering powerful operations and mechanisms for processing extreme data sources at high speed and/or real time.

An analysis of 73 portfolios, prepared by University of Florida faculty as part of the Teaching Improvement Program competition, revealed tremendous variability in the quantity, quality, and coherence of the evidence presented to support claims of excellence in teaching. By analyzing portfolios prepared by faculty members representing different colleges and different types of teaching assignments, the researchers developed seven common guidelines for portfolio construction. We urge the nation's ranking universities to extend special status and salary incentives to those professors who devote most of their time to teaching and are particularly effective in the classroom. Such recognition will signify that the campus regards teaching excellence as a hallmark of professional status. (Boyer, 1991, p. 12) This quote, excerpted by Boyer from a 1990 report for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, addresses concerns about university teaching expressed by the public, state legislators, and an increasing number of members of university corn-Dorene Doerre Ross is Professor of Education and Coordinator of Elementary Teacher Education Programs at the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia. Dr. Ross conducts research in the areas of diversity and elementary teacher education. Elizabeth Bondy is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Florida. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Florida. Dr. Bondy teaches and conducts research in the area of elementary teacher education. Lynn Hartle is Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate from Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Hartle conducts research in early childhood education with a particular interest in playgrounds. Linda Leonard Lamme is Professor of Education at the University of Florida. Her Ph.D. is from Syracuse University. Her areas of interest include children's literature and language arts, as well as teacher education in those fields. Rodman Webb is Professor of Education and teaches courses in educational foundations and qualitative research methods at the University of Florida. He earned a doctorate in the Sociology of Education from Rutgers University. His research interests include democratic management, institutional change, and the micro-politics of schools.

The article is based on a detailed literature review pertaining to conceptual and methodological issues of climate change impact and vulnerability assessment. The impact of climate change differs among geographical regions owing to the abject difference in the levels of income, production and consumption pattern, availability and use of technology, etc. The initial impact assessment studies, which were based on estimating economic costs of climate change, were limited to a certain extent in finding the diverse impacts at different regions. There are a number of measurement constraints in terms of scientific and economic uncertainties. Further, for a long time, the mitigation policy approach has received major academic attention in the climate change policy literature, whereas the adaptation approach is only entertained while conducting vulnerability assessment. Vulnerability assessment on the other hand is integrated in nature, covering a large research domain from risk hazard literature to poverty literature.

Background: The development of palliative care in Peru remains limited, particularly for nononcological services, such as neurology. The goal of this study was to explore attitudes toward and knowledge about palliative and end-of-life care among patients, families, nurses, and doctors in a specialized neurological institute in Lima, Peru. Materials and Methods: We used a mixed methods approach consisting of 78 surveys and 21 qualitative, semistructured interviews that were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: Surveys identified a substantial need for palliative care in the neurological institute (63% of doctors and 77% of nurses reported palliative care needs in >30% of their patients), and for training (82% of doctors and 69% of nurses reported inadequate palliative care education). The key themes emerging from qualitative interviews concerned transparency of communication about prognosis and end-of-life choices in neurological disease. Familiarity with advance directives was limited among both clinicians and families, and participants were divided about whether or not patients should be informed of serious diagnoses and prognoses, and who should inform them. Barriers to transparency in patient-physician communication included (1) expectation of cure; (2) physician's lack of training in communication and end-of-life care; (3) a paternalistic culture; and (4) the nature of neurological diseases. Conclusions: Our study highlights opportunities to enhance palliative care and communication education for neurology providers and the public in Peru, a country that currently has no palliative care training program and no legal basis for advance directives.

Web accessibility for people with disabilities is a highly visible area of research in the field of ICT accessibility, including many policy activities across many countries. The commonly accepted guidelines for web accessibility (WCAG 1.0) were published in 1999 and have been extensively used by designers, evaluators and legislators. W3C-WAI published a new version of these guidelines (WCAG 2.0) in December 2008. One of the main goals of WCAG 2.0 was testability, that is, WCAG 2.0 should be either machine testable or reliably human testable. In this paper we present an educational experiment performed during an intensive web accessibility course. The goal of the experiment was to assess the testability of the 25 level-A success criteria of WCAG 2.0 by beginners. To do this, the students had to manually evaluate the accessibility of the same web page. The result was that only eight success criteria could be considered to be reliably human testable when evaluators were beginners. We also compare our experiment with a similar study published recently. Our work is not a conclusive experiment, but it does suggest some parts of WCAG 2.0 to which special attention should be paid when training accessibility evaluators.

SCWR (both thermal and fast neutron spectrum) are among the 6 reactor concepts selected in the frame of Generation IV. Significant work has been performed on the analysis of thermal spectrum concepts in FP5 HPLWR project. The present study is a preliminary analysis of the feasibility and performance of fast spectrum SCWR. The problem addressed is the following: can one design a fast neutron spectrum reactor with homogeneous core (without fertile blankets), having a breeding gain close to zero and a safe behaviour in transient conditions? It can be expected that the limited water inventory in the core leads to a small value of the moderation ratio (H/HM &lt; 0.5) making possible a core design in fast spectrum. However, a sudden draining in accidental conditions would involve a fast reactivity increase. The constraints set for the design are: nominal power of 2500 MWth, operation at 25 MPa and 500 deg. C core outlet temperature, high burn-up of 60 GWd/t. Global core pre-dimensioning c...

In 2005 the National Research Council (NRC) analyzed right-to-carry (RTC) laws, also known as shall-issue laws, which relax the requirements necessary to acquire a permit to carry a concealed weapon. The NRC essentially concluded that the data were not sufficient to determine whether RTC laws increased or decreased crime. However, a recent working paper from Abhay Aneja, John J. Donohue, and Alexandria Zhang (hereafter "ADZ") re-evaluates the NRC analysis and purports to find evidence that RTC laws increase murder, rape, robbery, and assault (ADZ 2014). ADZ's paper, issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has received substantial attention. In this article we re-analyze that paper from ADZ, using ADZ's own data and regression models, and contend that such conclusions are misleading.

Objective: To evaluate the validity of the Prosthetic Upper Extremity Functional Index (PUFI), a parent-and older childreport measure that evaluates the extent of Prosthetic limb use, ease of task performance with and without the prosthesis, and its usefulness. Design: Evaluation of discriminant validity (the PUFI's ability to detect differences between children), construct validity (between the parent-report PUFI and University of New Brunswick Test of Prosthetic Function [UNB Test]), and criterion validity (comparison of parent-report PUFI responses with an assessor's scores of a child's performance of PUFI activities). Setting: Four pediatric amputee clinics. Participants: Thirty-eight children, ages 3 to 18 years, with unilateral upper-extremity amputation and a prosthesis. Interventions: Not applicable. The PUFI and the UNB Test. The PUFI differentiated between children in high and low UNB Test score categories, and between younger and older children's functional abilities. The extent of correlation between PUFI ratings and UNB skill of performance scores was moderate for "ease of performance" and "usefulness of prosthesis" categories (rϾ.47, PϽ.05). The level of agreement between parent report and observational assessment of PUFI skills was acceptable (weighted range, .44 -.65). The PUFI showed acceptable validity and showed promise in identifying prosthetic skill and use in children of different ages and abilities.

So far, we have discussed the distinction between concepts-by-postulation and concepts-by-intuition (Chapter 1). We also studied the way basic concepts-by-intuition used in survey research can be expressed in assertions (Chapter 2). In this chapter, we will continue with the discussion of how assertions can be transformed into requests for an answer. While the choice of the topic of requests and the selection of concepts are determined by the research goal of the study, the formulation of questions or requests for an answer, as we call them, provides much more freedom of choice for the designer of a questionnaire. A great deal of research has been done on the effect of different ways in which requests are formulated (Schuman and Presser 1981; Billiet et al. 1986; Molenaar 1986). Also, a considerable part of the literature is devoted to devise rules of thumb for the wording of survey items (Converse and Presser 1986; Dillman 2000). On the other hand, relatively little attention is given to the linguistic procedures for the formulation of requests for answers in the survey literature. Therefore, in this chapter, we will discuss different procedures to transform the assertions, discussed in the last chapter, into requests for an answer. In doing so, we make use of a large body of research in linguistics, especially Harris (1978), Givon (1984), Weber (1993), Graesser et al. (1994), Huddleston (1994), Ginzburg (1996), and Groenendijk and Stokhof (1997). The rules for the formulation of requests for an answer in English will be presented in the text, but in general, these formulation rules also apply in other languages such as German, Dutch, French, and Spanish. If they are different in one of the languages just mentioned, it will be indicated in the appropriate section by a note.

The challenge of optimizing both performance and safety in nanomaterials hinges on our ability to resolve which structural features lead to desired properties. It has been difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about biological impacts from many studies of nanomaterials due to the lack of nanomaterial characterization, unknown purity, and/or alteration of the nanomaterials by the biological environment. To investigate the relative influence of core size, surface chemistry, and charge on nanomaterial toxicity, we tested the biological response of whole animals exposed to a matrix of nine structurally diverse, precision-engineered gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) of high purity and known composition. Members of the matrix include three core sizes and four unique surface coatings that include positively and negatively charged headgroups. Mortality, malformations, uptake, and elimination of AuNPs were all dependent on these parameters, showing the need for tightly controlled experimental design and nanomaterial characterization. Results presented herein illustrate the value of an integrated approach to identify design rules that minimize potential hazard.

This dissertation embraces the issue of evaluating design concepts. Being able to sort out the potential "best solutions" from a set of solutions is a central and important part of the design process. The subject discussed in this dissertation has its origins in the lack of knowledge about design concepts, something which is characteristic of the initial part of the design process and which frequently causes problems when it comes to evaluation and selection of solutions. The purpose of this dissertation is to develop aids and methods that enhance the understanding of design concepts in the early phases of the design process. From deductive reasoning about the fundamental mechanisms of the evaluation activity, the work has been divided into three different areas: process and system modelling, concept optimisation, and identification of potential failures. Part 1 Theoretical Frame and Context Part 2 Results: Contributions and Applications Part 3 Appended Papers and Appendixes

This report was pr epared as an acco unt of work sponsored b y an agency of the United S tates G overnment. Nei ther th e Uni ted States Governm ent, nor an y agency th ereof, nor any of their employees, nor an y of their co ntractors, subcontractors, or their emplo yees, make any warranty, express or im plied, or assu me any legal liability or responsibili ty for th e accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of an y i nformation, app aratus, produc t, or process disclosed, or represent that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to an y specific commercial p roduct, pro cess, or service b y tr ade name, trademark, manufacturer, o r otherwise, do es not necessa rily consti tute o r imply its en dorsement, recommendation, or favoring b y the United States Government, any agency thereof, or any of their contractor s or subcontractors. The views and opinions expr essed h erein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government, any agency thereof, or any of their contractors.

Power consumption in VLSI systems has become a critical metric for design evaluation. Although power reduction techniques can be applied at every level of design abstraction, most automated power reduction techniques apply to the lower levels of design abstraction, such as the register-transfer or gate level. We therefore investigated the power reduction attainable by the evolving automated behavioral-level technique of functional partitioning, in which a behavioral process is automatically divided into several smaller, mutually-exclusive, interacting processes. We demonstrate through several experiments that functional partitioning, which has already been shown to yield improvements in solving problems of I/O constraint satisfaction, synthesis complexity, and hardware/software partitioning, can also yield substantial reduction in power consumption (on average 41% total power reduction) with some overhead in size and performance.

TMT generó una vasta base de datos multi-dimensional de características de sitio para los cinco lugares geográficos candidatos para el proyecto. De manera de adoptar una decisión informada sobre donde emplazar el proyecto, el conjunto de datos, en cada sitio, fue reducido a un único valor por medio de la función de mérito de sitio. Este manuscrito describe algunos coeficientes relevantes involucrados en la función de mérito, con énfasis en la interpretación de los resultados en cada caso y sus limitaciones.

Final report of the study group on the safety of operational computer systems The use of computers in safety-critical applications Final report of the study group on the safety of operational computer systems Formerly ISBN 0 7176 1620 7 And now available in electronic format only All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. iii Preface vi Summary vii Foreword xi 1 Introduction 1 2 What makes computer-based systems special? 2 3 What advantages do computers bring? 5 4 Safety, reliability and system issues 8 5 Hardware, humans and computers 10 5.1 Allocation of function to hardware and computers 11 5.2 Allocation of function to computers and human operators 12 6 What problems do computers bring? 14 6.1 The difficulty of achieving logical perfection: the role of formal m...

Scalable Video Coding is the latest extension of the famous Advance Video Coding standard. The main advantage of SVC is that it can provide scalability for visual services which are serving customers with heterogeneous network conditions and terminals' capabilities. Nevertheless, the multimedia service research community and industry have not been able to fully utilize the entire potential of this video coding standard extension. One important reason is because of the lack of an evaluation tool-set and platform widely available for usage in the designing, evaluating as well as deploying processes of SVC-based visual services. EvalSVC aims to fill this gap and fosters SVC-based applications and research in multimedia services. It is capable of evaluating the enhanced features (such as spatial, temporal, SNR, and combined scalability) of SVC bit-streams transmitting over real or simulated networks. This tool-set is publicly available.

Handwashing is a basic yet important habit that has a big impact on public and personal health, especially in school environments. This study aimed to assess the impact of handwashing techniques on students in Medical Technology, Radiologic Technology, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Midwifery, and Nursing at DMC College Foundation, Inc., a La Salle supervised school located in Dipolog City, Zamboanga del Norte in Northwestern Mindanao. The study's respondents are students enrolled in the first semester of 2023-2024 who are officially enrolled in Levels 2-4 of these programs. These levels are frequently exposed to working with patients and materials in hospital and laboratory environments. Objectively, Kirkpatrick's Model was employed in the study where four of its main domains are measured namely, reaction, learning, behavior, and results. Descriptive statistics was utilized with frequency and percentage distribution, means and standard deviation, and ANOVA to treat the data. The results revealed that the design

Objective To evaluate the impact and cost effectiveness of a programme to transform adult critical care throughout England initiated in late 2000. Design Evaluation of trends in inputs, processes, and outcomes during 1998-2000 compared with last quarter of 2000-6. Setting 96 critical care units in England. Participants 349 817 admissions to critical care units. Interventions Adoption of key elements of modernisation and increases in capacity. Units were categorised according to when they adopted key elements of modernisation and increases in capacity. Main outcome measures Trends in inputs (beds, costs), processes (transfers between units, discharge practices, length of stay, readmissions), and outcomes (unit and hospital mortality), with adjustment for case mix. Differences in annual costs and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) adjusted for case mix were used to calculate net monetary benefits (valuing a QALY gain at £20 000 ($33 170, €22 100)). The incremental net monetary benefits were reported as the difference in net monetary benefits after versus before 2000. Results In the six years after 2000, the risk of unit mortality adjusted for case mix fell by 11.3% and hospital mortality by 13.4% compared with the steady state in the three preceding years. This was accompanied by substantial reductions both in transfers between units and in unplanned night discharges. The mean annual net monetary benefit increased significantly after 2000 (from £402 ($667, €445) to £1096 ($1810, €1210)), indicating that the changes were relatively cost effective. The relative contribution of the different initiatives to these improvements is unclear. Conclusion Substantial improvements in NHS critical care have occurred in England since 2000. While it is unclear which factors were responsible, collectively the interventions represented a highly cost effective use of NHS resources.

Research in the field of learning technologies is focused on finding the most effective way in which virtual learning environments (VLEs) and educational games comprehend and respond to students. Computer based tutoring is attempting to be comparable to one-to-one human tutoring. To address the stated problems, this research proposal investigates a new generation of adaptable affective intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs), with enhanced student and adaptable tutor models for flexible learning. This proposal focuses on improving the student model to represent aspects of the student's personality and emotion. As a primary research target, the adaptable tutor model will convey cognitive feedback and reflect some aspects of the student's personality and emotion. The implementation of the described student and tutor models will involve the evaluation of AI techniques such as Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), Bayesian networks and influence diagrams. This research will implement the virtual learning environment, PlayPhysics, which will include educational games to teach Physics to engineering students. PlayPhysics will be implemented using the Olympia architecture. An educational game (control group) and an adaptable educational game (experimental group) will be used for evaluation. Experimental results will determine the enhanced comprehension of the student. Reflection will be offered as an affinity seeking strategy throughout the student's learning. Potential AI software tools, e.g. Elvira and JAHMM, are being evaluated to model the enhanced student representation and the adaptable tutor models. The development of either of these two models has a potential research contribution. Finally, comparing PlayPhysics to other work, it is evident that innovating aspects are detecting the student's personality changes while interacting with PlayPhysics and modulating the educational game to reflect the emotional and personal attributes of the learner.

Annual Report CSMEP -Year 5 iii CSMEP budget limitations in FY2008 precluded any further work by the Habitat Subgroup on analyses related to alternative designs for monitoring habitat action effectiveness. CSMEP budget limitations in FY2008 precluded further work by the Harvest Subgroup on analyses related to alternative designs for monitoring harvest action effectiveness. The CSMEP Hatchery Subgroup focused on two primary tasks in FY2008 that completed the work begun in FY2007: 1. continued collaboration with the Ad Hoc Supplementation Work Group (AHSWG) developing approaches for basinwide evaluation of the long-term effects of hatchery supplementation, and 2. development of a statistical approach to calculate sample size requirements for relative reproductive success (RRS) studies. The CSMEP Hatchery Subgroup placed the bulk of their FY2008 effort into fuller collaboration with the AHSWG, in order to capitalize on the greater interagency support available within that group. This joint AHSWG and CSMEP effort resulted in a comprehensive approach to assess the impacts of supplementation on the long and short-term abundance and productivity of targeted populations. This approach consists of three components: Annual Report CSMEP -Year 5 iv CSMEP to highlight areas that require a coordinated inter-jurisdictional approach to develop a regional M&E plan in the Columbia River Basin. CSMEP used the following approach for this task: 1. Survey the management agencies for decisions made on a frequent basis (seasonally or annually) and those made on a more infrequent basis. 2. Identify those decisions which are primarily made under local jurisdiction versus those that may require collaboration or coordination with multiple managers. 3. Identify CSMEP work tasks, CBFWA Amendment Recommendations to the NPCC, and Federal Columbia River Power System Biological Opinion Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives (RPA) that address the monitoring needs for those decisions made in collaboration with multiple management agencies.

Auto-Pipe is a tool that aids in the design, evaluation and implementation of applications that can be executed on computational pipelines (and other topologies) using a set of heterogeneous devices including multiple processors and FPGAs. It has been developed to meet the needs arising in the domains of communications, computation on large datasets, and real time streaming data applications. This paper introduces the Auto-Pipe design flow and the X design language, and presents sample applications. The applications include the Triple-DES encryption standard, a subset of the signal-processing pipeline for VER-ITAS, a high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics experiment. These applications are discussed and their description in X is presented. From X, simulations of alternative system designs and stage-to-device assignments are obtained and analyzed. The complete system will permit production of executable code and bit maps that may be downloaded onto real devices. Future work required to complete the Auto-Pipe design tool is discussed.

SAIC acknowledges the contributions of several reviewers who offered valuable insight and commentary on recovery of raw materials, in situ processing, and propellant utilization strategies. Dr. Robert L. Ash of Old Dominion University examined our characterization of propellant recovery and processing options, and suggested key areas for technology development and early testing of candidate processes. Mr. James R. French of JRF Engineering Services provided a systems-level critique of the assessment approach and alternative utilization strategies, and reviewed the results of performance trades. Dr. Kumar Ramohaili of the Center for Utilization of Lunar and Planetary Resources at the University of Arizona reviewed the infrastructure assessment approach that we proposed, and offered suggestions on presentation of this material. We also appreciate review of the final manuscript and editorial suggestions by Terri Ramlose of SAIC. The study team thanks Diane Unne, the NASA Task Leader, Michael Meyer, and other members of the NASA/LeRC technical staff for their guidance and discussions of this work. U w iii PREOED!NG PPlGE BLANK NOT F_Lh_ED \ :\ PRF.OEgIi_G P_.GE BLANK r_or FILIV_ED U Terrestrial mining and resource extraction methods use readily available resources to expedite processing or to reduce cost; on Earth, the abundant supplies of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and water are used extensively. Because these resources are not readily available on the Moon, lunar processes derived from terrestrial experience must be modified to conserve these and any other reagents that must be supplied from Earth.:: Other methods have-been proposed that do not require reagents, but make use of thermal or electrical energy to separate various constituents of lunar regolith. These processes could be considered "space-based": they are not the most economical choices for processing on Earth, but they may offer advantages in space, where energy is more abundant and cheaper to provide than reagents. Experience with these processing candidates is very limited, and materials technology advances are likely to be required even to test these processes in a relevant environment. Thirteen lunar-based processing candidates (Table -1) were selected for detailed consideration. Since this study included candidate propellant constituents that could be combined with LOX, the amounts of recovered LOX and metal for a metal get must be balanced to meet the desired propellant mixture ratio. Processes typically recover much more oxygen than a specific metal, so process output requirements were

This paper discusses Supply Chain Network (SCN) design problem under uncertainty, and presents a critical review of the optimization models proposed in the literature. Some drawbacks and missing aspects in the literature are pointed out, thus motivating the development of a comprehensive SCN design methodology. Through an analysis of supply chains uncertainty sources and risk exposures, the paper reviews key random environmental factors and discusses the nature of major disruptive events threatening SCN. It also discusses relevant strategic SCN design evaluation criteria, and it reviews their use in existing models. We argue for the assessment of SCN robustness as a necessary condition to ensure sustainable value creation.Several definitions of robustness, responsiveness and resilience are reviewed, and the importance of these concepts for SCN design is discussed. This paper contributes to framing the foundations for a robust SCN design methodology.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reviews the human factors engineering (HFE) programs of applicants for nuclear power plant construction permits, operating licenses, standard design certifications, and combined operating licenses. The purpose of these safety reviews is to help ensure that personnel performance and reliability are appropriately supported. Detailed design review procedures and guidance for the evaluations is provided in three key documents: the Standard Review Plan (NUREG-0800), the HFE Program Review Model (NUREG-0711), and the Human-System Interface Design Review Guidelines (NUREG-0700). These documents were last revised in 2007, 2004 and 2002, respectively. The NRC is committed to the periodic update and improvement of the guidance to ensure that it remains a stateof-the-art design evaluation tool. To this end, the NRC is updating its guidance to stay current with recent research on human performance, advances in HFE methods and tools, and new technology being employed in plant and control room design. NUREG-0711 is the first document to be addressed. We present the methodology used to update NUREG-0711 and summarize the main changes made. Finally, we discuss the current status of the update program and the future plans.

Muon collider luminosity depends on the number of muons in the storage ring and on the transverse size of the beams in collision. Ionization cooling as it is currently envisioned will not cool the beam sizes sufficiently well to provide adequate luminosity without large muon intensities. Six-dimensional cooling schemes will reduce the longitudinal emittance of a muon beam so that smaller high frequency RF cavities can be used for later stages of cooling and for acceleration. However, the bunch length at collision energy is then shorter than needed to match the interaction region beta function. New ideas to shrink transverse beam dimensions by lengthening each bunch will help achieve high luminosity in muon colliders. Analytic expressions for the reverse emittance exchange mechanism were derived, including a new resonant method of beam focusing.

We present Parallel Prophet, which projects potential parallel speedup from an annotated serial program before actual parallelization. Programmers want to see how much speedup could be obtained prior to investing time and effort to write parallel code. With Parallel Prophet, programmers simply insert annotations that describe the parallel behavior of the serial program. Parallel Prophet then uses lightweight interval profiling and dynamic emulations to predict potential performance benefit. Parallel Prophet models many realistic features of parallel programs: unbalanced workload, multiple critical sections, nested and recursive parallelism, and specific thread schedulings and paradigms, which are hard to model in previous approaches. Furthermore, Parallel Prophet predicts speedup saturation resulting from memory and caches by monitoring cache hit ratio and bandwidth consumption in a serial program. We achieve very small runtime overhead: approximately a 1.2-10 times slowdown and moderate memory consumption. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Parallel Prophet in eight benchmarks in the OmpSCR and NAS Parallel benchmarks by comparing our predictions with actual parallelized code. Our simple memory model also identifies performance limitations resulting from memory system contention.

Graphics processing units (GPUs) have become increasingly popular accelerators in supercomputers, and this trend is likely to continue. With its disruptive architecture and a variety of optimization options, it is often desirable to understand the dynamics between potential application transformations and potential hardware features when designing future GPUs for scientific workloads. However, current codesign efforts have been limited to manual investigation of benchmarks on microarchitecture simulators, which is labor-intensive and timeconsuming. As a result, system designers can explore only a small portion of the design space. In this paper, we propose SESH framework, a model-driven codesign framework for GPU, that is able to automatically search the design space by simultaneously exploring prospective application and hardware implementations and evaluate potential software-hardware interactions.

Psychological interventions in relation to epilepsy are worthy of empirical investigation since there is broad agreement that the psycho-social problems of epilepsy are often more disabling than the seizure attacks. The present study using a controlled outcome design evaluated the efficacy of a 2-day psycho-educational program among patients with epilepsy in Nigeria. The psycho-educational program is the consequence of a two-stage study design, which set out to identify and evaluate psycho-social factors that determine interictal psychopathology in people with epilepsy. Thirty outpatients matched according to seizure type and frequency of seizures were randomly assigned to treatment (n 5 15) or waiting-list control (n 5 15) groups. The major outcome measures used were knowledge about illness schedule, the Becks depression inventory and the Crown-Crisp experiential index. Significant differences between the two groups were found on the three major scales used. The treatment group by within-group analyses, showed a substantial significant decrease in level of depression, a significant increase in the knowledge about epilepsy as well as a significant decrease in all measures of neurotic disorders except for hysterical sub-scale.