During recent years, urban building energy modeling has become known as a novel approach for identification, support and improvement of sustainable urban development initiatives and energy efficiency ...measures in cities. Urban building energy models draw the required information from the energy analysis of buildings in the urban context and suggest options for effective implementation of interventions. The growing interest in urban building energy models among researchers, urban designers and authorities has led to the development of a diversity of models and tools, evolving from physical to more advanced hybrid models. By critically analyzing the published research, this paper incorporates an updated overview of the field of urban building energy modeling and investigates possibilities, challenges and shortcomings, as well as an outlook for future improvements. The survey of previous studies identifies technical bottlenecks and legal barriers in access to data, systematic and inherent uncertainties as well as insufficient resources as the main obstacles. Furthermore, this study suggests that the main route to further improvements in urban building energy modeling is its integration with other urban models, such as climate and outdoor comfort models, energy system models and, in particular, mobility models.
•Urban building energy models (UBEMs) are tools for urban energy planning.•More accurate UBEMs rely on both statistical and physical modeling approaches.•Probabilistic methods and machine learning techniques improve the archetype development process.•Reliability of UBEMs links to their validation against measurement data.•Integration of UBEMs with urban climate, energy systems, and mobility models cannot be overlooked.
Airborne bacteria that enter an open wound during surgery can result in post-operative infections, commonly referred to as surgical site infections (SSIs). The level of contaminants is usually lower ...in the operating rooms (ORs) in contrast to adjacent corridors. Penetration of particles carrying bacteria through the doorway during a door opening gives rise to the OR contaminant level as door-opening and passage may occur every 2.5 minutes during a given surgical activity. The authors had previously conducted a successful research study to reduce the contaminant migration from an anteroom, through the doorway, into an Airborne Infection Isolation Room (AIIR). In contrast to the AIIRs, the ORs are usually over-pressured related to the surrounding environments. However, both ORs and AIIRs share the same interest in avoiding air exchange between the room and the adjacent space. This paper, built upon the previous research achievement, proposes an innovative design solution to reduce the bacteria penetration to the ORs during a door opening and staff passage. Previously achieved results from CFD simulation and laboratory measurement confirmed that installing a ventilation unit that supplies a high air volume into the OR through low-velocity wall diffusers, may significantly reduce the contaminant migration to the OR during door-opening activities.
Two new species of Carcinonemertes are described from leucosiid crabs found in the northeast and southwest Pacific Ocean. Carcinonemertes kurisi sp. nov. is associated with Randallia ornata, a crab ...commonly found from northern California to Baja California, Mexico. Carcinonemertes tasmanica sp. nov. is associated with Dittosa laevis, a crab found on mudflats in Hobart, off Tasmania, Australia. These are the first descriptions of Carcinonemertes recorded from leucosiid hosts. The two new species are compared with each other and other species in the genus Carcinonemertes. Diagnostic features of both species include a short stylet and a unique, corkscrew-shaped sheath. Notes and comparisons on measurements, functional morphology, distribution on host, and behaviour were obtained by examining live worms and preserved specimens.
The purple globe crab, Randallia ornata (Randall, 1839) (Decapoda: Leucosiidae) is a common crustacean found on sandy beaches from Northern California to Baja California, Mexico. An undescribed ...species of Carcinonemertes, which shares biological features with a partially described worm from Tasmania was recovered from R. ornata. The worm reaches 10 mm in length and secretes a sturdy tube with a distinctive spiral shape. The total prevalence of the worm on R. ornatawas 70% (85% for ovigerous female crabs, 67% for post-ovigerous female crabs, and 45% for male crabs). Intensities reached 32 worms per crab. Adult worms were found in crab egg masses, regressed adults were recovered from under the abdomen of post-ovigerous females, and encysted juveniles were found on the gill lamellae of non-ovigerous female crabs and occasionally from the gill lamellae of male crabs.PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Advances in computing techniques, as well as the reduction in the cost of technology, have made possible the viability and spread of complex virtual environments (VEs). However, efficient navigation ...within these environments remains problematic for the user. Several research projects have shown that users of VEs are often disoriented and have extreme difficulty completing navigational tasks. Furthermore, there is often more than one route to get to a specified destination. Novice users often lack the spatial knowledge needed to pick an appropriate route due to the deficiency of experience with the system. A number of navigation tools such as maps, 3-D thumbnails, trails, and personal agents have been proposed. The introduction of these tools have met with some degree of success, but most researchers agree that new techniques need to be developed to aid users efficiently navigate within complex VEs. In this paper, we propose the frequent wayfinding-sequence (FWS) methodology that uses a modified sequence mining technique to discover a model of routes taken by experienced users of a VE. The model is used to build an interface that provides navigation assistance to novice users by recommending routes. We conducted both real world and simulation experiments using our methodology. Results from the real world experiment suggest that the FWS approach has the potential to improve the user's navigation performance and the quality of the human-computer interaction. Our simulation studies showed that our approach is scalable, efficient, and able to find useful route models for complex VEs.
This paper discusses a new approach for developing a service-oriented infrastructure for distributed data mining applications. The proposed architecture hides the complexity of implementation details ...and enables users to perform data mining in a utility-like fashion. The service-oriented architecture provides an autonomic data mining framework where selfdescribing data mining services can be automatically discovered on the Internet. Moreover, this structure allows for the implementation of data mining algorithms for processing data on more than one site in a distributed manner. The performance of the proposed distributed data mining framework is compared to a standard data mining approach to demonstrate its effectiveness.
In large-scale virtual environments (VEs), there are often several different routes to a target destination. In this paper, we introduce a route preview tool to help users of VEs with the route ...selection process. Our experiments showed that the proposed route preview tool provides the necessary support to help users select a desirable route.
Microphysiological systems (MPS) are making advances to provide more standardized and predictive physiologically relevant responses to test articles in living tissues and organ systems. The ...excitement surrounding the potential of MPS to better predict human responses to medicines and improving clinical translation is overshadowed by their relatively slow adoption by the pharmaceutical industry and regulators. Collaboration between multiorganizational consortia and regulators is necessary to build an understanding of the strengths and limitations of MPS models and closing the current gaps. Here, we review some of the advances in MPS research, focusing on liver, intestine, vascular system, kidney and lung and present examples highlighting the context of use for these systems. For MPS to gain a foothold in drug development, they must have added value over existing approaches. Ideally, the application of MPS will augment in vivo studies and reduce the use of animals via tiered screening with less reliance on exploratory toxicology studies to screen compounds. Because MPS support multiple cell types (e.g. primary or stem-cell derived cells) and organ systems, identifying when MPS are more appropriate than simple 2D in vitro models for understanding physiological responses to test articles is necessary. Once identified, MPS models require qualification for that specific context of use and must be reproducible to allow future validation. Ultimately, the challenges of balancing complexity with reproducibility will inform the promise of advancing the MPS field and are critical for realization of the goal to reduce, refine and replace (3Rs) the use of animals in nonclinical research.
This paper reports on the pull-in behavior of nonlinear microelectromechanical coupled systems. The generalized differential quadrature method has been used as a high-order approximation to ...discretize the governing nonlinear integro-differential equation, yielding more accurate results with a considerably smaller number of grid points. Various electrostatically actuated microstructures such as cantilever beam-type and fixed-fixed beam-type microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) switches are studied. The proposed models capture the following effects: (1) the intrinsic residual stress from fabrication processes; (2) the fringing effects of the electrical field; and (3) the nonlinear stiffening or axial stress due to beam stretching. The effects of important parameters on the mechanical performance have been studied in detail. These results are expected to be useful in the optimum design of MEMS switches or other actuators. Further, the results obtained are summarized and compared with other existing empirical and analytical models.
PDF
