A Non-Intrusive GMA Welding Process Quality Monitoring System Using Acoustic Sensing.

Science.gov (United States)

Cayo, Eber Huanca; Alfaro, Sadek Crisostomo Absi

2009-01-01

Most of the inspection methods used for detection and localization of welding disturbances are based on the evaluation of some direct measurements of welding parameters. This direct measurement requires an insertion of sensors during the welding process which could somehow alter the behavior of the metallic transference. An inspection method that evaluates the GMA welding process evolution using a non-intrusive process sensing would allow not only the identification of disturbances during welding runs and thus reduce inspection time, but would also reduce the interference on the process caused by the direct sensing. In this paper a nonintrusive method for weld disturbance detection and localization for weld quality evaluation is demonstrated. The system is based on the acoustic sensing of the welding electrical arc. During repetitive tests in welds without disturbances, the stability acoustic parameters were calculated and used as comparison references for the detection and location of disturbances during the weld runs.

Uncertainty quantification for criticality problems using non-intrusive and adaptive Polynomial Chaos techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gilli, L.; Lathouwers, D.; Kloosterman, J.L.; Hagen, T.H.J.J. van der; Koning, A.J.; Rochman, D.

2013-01-01

Highlights: ► Non-intrusive spectral techniques are applied to perform UQ of criticality problems. ► A new adaptive algorithm based on the definition of sparse grid is derived. ► The method is applied to two reference criticality problems. - Abstract: In this paper we present the implementation and the application of non-intrusive spectral techniques for uncertainty analysis of criticality problems. Spectral techniques can be used to reconstruct stochastic quantities of interest by means of a Fourier-like expansion. Their application to uncertainty propagation problems can be performed in a non-intrusive fashion by evaluating a set of projection integrals that are used to reconstruct the spectral expansion. This can be done either by using standard Monte Carlo integration approaches or by adopting numerical quadrature rules. We present the derivation of a new adaptive quadrature algorithm, based on the definition of a sparse grid, which can be used to reduce the computational cost associated with non-intrusive spectral techniques. This new adaptive algorithm and the Monte Carlo integration alternative are then applied to two reference problems. First, a stochastic multigroup diffusion problem is introduced by considering the microscopic cross-sections of the system to be random quantities. Then a criticality benchmark is defined for which a set of resonance parameters in the resolved region are assumed to be stochastic

Non-intrusive measurement and hydrodynamics characterization of gas–solid fluidized beds: a review

OpenAIRE

Sun, Jingyuan; Yan, Yong

2016-01-01

Gas-solid fluidization is a well-established technique to suspend or transport particles and has been applied in a variety of industrial processes. Nevertheless, our knowledge of fluidization hydrodynamics is still limited for the design, scale-up and operation optimization of fluidized bed reactors. It is therefore essential to characterize the two-phase flow behaviours in gas-solid fluidized beds and monitor the fluidization processes for control and optimization. A range of non-intrusive t...

Real-Time, Non-Intrusive Detection of Liquid Nitrogen in Liquid Oxygen at High Pressure and High Flow

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Jagdish P.; Yueh, Fang-Yu; Kalluru, Rajamohan R.; Harrison, Louie

2012-01-01

An integrated fiber-optic Raman sensor has been designed for real-time, nonintrusive detection of liquid nitrogen in liquid oxygen (LOX) at high pressures and high flow rates in order to monitor the quality of LOX used during rocket engine ground testing. The integrated sensor employs a high-power (3-W) Melles Griot diode-pumped, solid-state (DPSS), frequency-doubled Nd:YAG 532- nm laser; a modified Raman probe that has built-in Raman signal filter optics; two high-resolution spectrometers; and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with selected bandpass filters to collect both N2 and O2 Raman signals. The PMT detection units are interfaced with National Instruments Lab- VIEW for fast data acquisition. Studies of sensor performance with different detection systems (i.e., spectrometer and PMT) were carried out. The concentration ratio of N2 and O2 can be inferred by comparing the intensities of the N2 and O2 Raman signals. The final system was fabricated to measure N2 and O2 gas mixtures as well as mixtures of liquid N2 and LOX

Statistical Feature Extraction for Fault Locations in Nonintrusive Fault Detection of Low Voltage Distribution Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hsueh-Hsien Chang

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes statistical feature extraction methods combined with artificial intelligence (AI approaches for fault locations in non-intrusive single-line-to-ground fault (SLGF detection of low voltage distribution systems. The input features of the AI algorithms are extracted using statistical moment transformation for reducing the dimensions of the power signature inputs measured by using non-intrusive fault monitoring (NIFM techniques. The data required to develop the network are generated by simulating SLGF using the Electromagnetic Transient Program (EMTP in a test system. To enhance the identification accuracy, these features after normalization are given to AI algorithms for presenting and evaluating in this paper. Different AI techniques are then utilized to compare which identification algorithms are suitable to diagnose the SLGF for various power signatures in a NIFM system. The simulation results show that the proposed method is effective and can identify the fault locations by using non-intrusive monitoring techniques for low voltage distribution systems.

Non-intrusive uncertainty quantification of computational fluid dynamics simulations: notes on the accuracy and efficiency

Science.gov (United States)

Zimoń, Małgorzata; Sawko, Robert; Emerson, David; Thompson, Christopher

2017-11-01

Uncertainty quantification (UQ) is increasingly becoming an indispensable tool for assessing the reliability of computational modelling. Efficient handling of stochastic inputs, such as boundary conditions, physical properties or geometry, increases the utility of model results significantly. We discuss the application of non-intrusive generalised polynomial chaos techniques in the context of fluid engineering simulations. Deterministic and Monte Carlo integration rules are applied to a set of problems, including ordinary differential equations and the computation of aerodynamic parameters subject to random perturbations. In particular, we analyse acoustic wave propagation in a heterogeneous medium to study the effects of mesh resolution, transients, number and variability of stochastic inputs. We consider variants of multi-level Monte Carlo and perform a novel comparison of the methods with respect to numerical and parametric errors, as well as computational cost. The results provide a comprehensive view of the necessary steps in UQ analysis and demonstrate some key features of stochastic fluid flow systems.

Towards Real-Time, Nonintrusive Estimation of Driver Workload: A Simulator Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Gent, P.; Farah, H.; Nes, Nicole Van; van Arem, B.

2017-01-01

The aim of this research is to work towards building an open-source, platform-independent algorithm capable of predicting driver workload in real-time and in a non-intrusive way. To work towards a system that can also be implemented in on-road settings, we aimed at using off-the-shelf, non-intrusive

Flow visualization of two-phase flows using photochromic dye activation method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kawaji, M.; Ahmad, W.; DeJesus, J.M.; Sutharshan, B.; Lorencez, C.; Ojha, M.

1993-01-01

A non-intrusive flow visualization technique based on light activation of photochromic dye material has been used to obtain velocity profiles in gas-liquid flows including annular, slug and stratified flows. The preliminary results revealed several important two-phase flow mechanisms that have not been clearly seen previously. (orig.)

Non-intrusive measurement of emission indices. A new approach to the evaluation of infrared spectra emitted by aircraft engine exhaust gases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lindermeir, E.; Haschberger, P.; Tank, V. [Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Wessling (Germany). Inst. fuer Optoelektronik

1997-12-31

A non-intrusive method is used to determine the emission indices of a research aircraft`s engine in-flight. The principle is based on the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer MIROR which was specifically designed and built for operation aboard aircrafts. This device measures the spectrum of the infrared radiation emitted by the hot exhaust gas under cruise conditions. From these spectra mixing ratios and emission indices can be derived. An extension to previously applied evaluation schemes is proposed: Whereas formerly the plume was assumed a homogeneous layer of gas, temperature and concentration profiles are now introduced to the evaluation procedure. (author) 5 refs.

Three-dimensional investigation of the two-phase flow structure in a bubbly pipe flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schmidl, W.; Hassan, Y.A.; Ortiz-Villafuerte, J.

1996-01-01

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a nonintrusive measurement technique that can be used to study the structure of various fluid flows. PIV is used to measure the time-varying, full-field velocity data of a particle-seeded flow field within either a two-dimensional plane or three-dimensional volume. PIV is a very efficient measurement technique since it can obtain both qualitative and quantitative spatial information about the flow field being studied. The quantitative spatial velocity information can be further processed into information of flow parameters such as vorticity and turbulence over extended areas. The objective of this study was to apply recent advances and improvements in the PIV flow measurement technique to the full-field, nonintrusive analysis of a three-dimensional, two-phase fluid flow system in such a manner that both components of the two-phase system could be experimentally quantified

Medication Adherence using Non-intrusive Wearable Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. H. Lim

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Activity recognition approaches have been applied in home ambient systems to monitor the status and well- being of occupant especially for home care systems. With the advancement of embedded wireless sensing devices, various applications have been proposed to monitor user´s activities and maintain a healthy lifestyle. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a Smart Medication Alert and Treatment Electronic Systems (SmartMATES using a non-intrusive wearable activity recognition sensing system to monitor and alert an user for missing medication prescription. Two sensors are used to collect data from the accelerometer and radio transceiver. Based on the data collected, SmartMATES processes the data and generate a model for the various actions including taking medication. We have evaluated the SmartMATES on 9 participants. The results show that the SmartMATES can identify and prevent missing dosage in a less intrusive way than existing mobile application and traditional approaches.

Impedance void-meter and neural networks for vertical two-phase flows

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mi, Y.; Li, M.; Xiao, Z.; Tsoukalas, L.H.; Ishii, M.

1998-01-01

Most two-phase flow measurements, including void fraction measurements, depend on correct flow regime identification. There are two steps towards successful identification of flow regimes: one is to develop a non-intrusive instrument to demonstrate area-averaged void fluctuations, the other to develop a non-linear mapping approach to perform objective identification of flow regimes. A non-intrusive impedance void-meter provides input signals to a neural mapping approach used to identify flow regimes. After training, both supervised and self-organizing neural network learning paradigms performed flow regime identification successfully. The methodology presented holds considerable promise for multiphase flow diagnostic and measurement applications. (author)

Toolbox for non-intrusive structural and functional analysis of recombinant VLP based vaccines: a case study with hepatitis B vaccine.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anke M Mulder

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Fundamental to vaccine development, manufacturing consistency, and product stability is an understanding of the vaccine structure-activity relationship. With the virus-like particle (VLP approach for recombinant vaccines gaining popularity, there is growing demand for tools that define their key characteristics. We assessed a suite of non-intrusive VLP epitope structure and function characterization tools by application to the Hepatitis B surface antigen (rHBsAg VLP-based vaccine. METHODOLOGY: The epitope-specific immune reactivity of rHBsAg epitopes to a given monoclonal antibody was monitored by surface plasmon resonance (SPR and quantitatively analyzed on rHBsAg VLPs in-solution or bound to adjuvant with a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA. The structure of recombinant rHBsAg particles was examined by cryo transmission electron microscopy (cryoTEM and in-solution atomic force microscopy (AFM. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: SPR and competitive ELISA determined relative antigenicity in solution, in real time, with rapid turn-around, and without the need of dissolving the particulate aluminum based adjuvant. These methods demonstrated the nature of the clinically relevant epitopes of HBsAg as being responsive to heat and/or redox treatment. In-solution AFM and cryoTEM determined vaccine particle size distribution, shape, and morphology. Redox-treated rHBsAg enabled 3D reconstruction from CryoTEM images--confirming the previously proposed octahedral structure and the established lipid-to-protein ratio of HBsAg particles. Results from these non-intrusive biophysical and immunochemical analyses coalesced into a comprehensive understanding of rHBsAg vaccine epitope structure and function that was important for assuring the desired epitope formation, determinants for vaccine potency, and particle stability during vaccine design, development, and manufacturing. SIGNIFICANCE: Together, the methods presented here comprise a novel

Non-intrusive, fast and sensitive ammonia detection by laser photothermal deflection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vries, H.S.M. de; Harren, F.J.M.; Wyers, G.P.; Otjes, R.P.; Slanina, J.; Reuss, J.

1995-01-01

A recently developed non-intrusive photothermal deflection (PTD) instrument allows sensitive, rapid and quantitative detection of local ammonia concentrations in the air. Ammonia is vibrationally excited by an infrared CO 2 laser in an intracavity configuration. A HeNe beam passing over the CO 2 laser beam (multipass arrangement) is deflected by the induced refractive index gradient. The detection limit for ammonia in ambient air is 0.5 ppbv with a spatial resolution of a few mm 3 . The time resolution is 0.1 s (single line) or 15 s (multi line). The system is fully automated and suited for non-stop measuring periods of at least one week. Results were compared to those obtained with a continuous-flow denuder (CFD). (author)

Nuclear data needs for non-intrusive inspection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, D. L.; Michlich, B. J.

2000-01-01

Various nuclear-based techniques are being explored for use in non-intrusive inspection. Their development is motivated by the need to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to thwart trafficking in illicit narcotics, to stop the transport of explosives by terrorist organizations, to characterize nuclear waste, and to deal with various other societal concerns. Non-intrusive methods are sought in order to optimize inspection speed, to minimize damage to packages and containers, to satisfy environmental, health and safety requirements, to adhere to legal requirements, and to avoid inconveniencing the innocent. These inspection techniques can be grouped into two major categories: active and passive. They almost always require the use of highly penetrating radiation and therefore are generally limited to neutrons and gamma rays. Although x-rays are widely employed for these purposes, their use does not constitute nuclear technology and therefore is not discussed here. This paper examines briefly the basic concepts associated with nuclear inspection and investigates the related nuclear data needs. These needs are illustrated by considering four of the methods currently being developed and tested

Nuclear data needs for non-intrusive inspection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, D.L.; Micklich, B.J.

2001-01-01

Various nuclear-based techniques are being explored for use in non-intrusive inspection. Their development is motivated by the need to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to thwart trafficking in illicit narcotics, to stop the transport of explosives by terrorist organizations, to characterize nuclear waste, and to deal with various other societal concerns. Non-intrusive methods are sought in order to optimize inspection speed, to minimize damage to packages and containers, to satisfy environmental, health and safety requirements, to adhere to legal requirements, and to avoid inconveniencing the innocent. These inspection techniques can be grouped into two major categories: active and passive. They almost always require the use of highly penetrating radiation and therefore are generally limited to neutrons and gamma rays. Although x-rays are widely employed for these purposes, their use does not constitute 'nuclear technology' and therefore is not discussed here. This paper examines briefly the basic concepts associated with nuclear inspection and investigates the related nuclear data needs. These needs are illustrated by considering four of the methods currently being developed and tested. (author)

Non-intrusive uncertainty quantification in structural-acoustic systems using polynomial chaos expansion method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Mingjie

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A framework of non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion method (PC was proposed to investigate the statistic characteristics of the response of structural-acoustic system containing random uncertainty. The PC method does not need to reformulate model equations, and the statistics of the response can be evaluated directly. The results show that compared to the direct Monte Carlo method (MCM based on the original numerical model, the PC method is effective and more efficient.

Novel Non-Intrusive Vibration Monitoring System for Turbopumps, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — AI Signal Research, Inc. proposes to develop a Non-Intrusive Vibration Measurement System (NI-VMS) for turbopumps which will provide effective on-board/off-board...

Novel Non-Intrusive Vibration Monitoring System for Turbopumps, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — ASRI proposes to develop an advanced and commercially viable Non-Intrusive Vibration Monitoring System (NI-VMS) which can provide effective on-line/off-line engine...

Non-intrusive measurement of tritium activity in waste drums by modelling a 3He leak quantified by mass spectrometry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Demange, D.

2002-01-01

This study deals with a new method that makes it possible to measure very low tritium quantities inside radioactive waste drums. This indirect method is based on measuring the decaying product, 3 He, and requires a study of its behaviour inside the drum. Our model considers 3 He as totally free and its leak through the polymeric joint of the drum as two distinct phenomena: permeation and laminar flow. The numerical simulations show that a pseudo-stationary state takes place. Thus, the 3 He leak corresponds to the tritium activity inside the drum but it appears, however, that the leak peaks when the atmospheric pressure variations induce an overpressure in the drum. Nevertheless, the confinement of a drum in a tight chamber makes it possible to quantify the 3 He leak. This is a non-intrusive measurement of its activity, which was experimentally checked by using reduced models, representing the drum and its confinement chamber. The drum's confinement was optimised to obtain a reproducible 3 He leak measurement. The gaseous samples taken from the chamber were purified using selective adsorption onto activated charcoals at 77 K to remove the tritium and pre-concentrate the 3 He. The samples were measured using a leak detector mass spectrometer. The adaptation of the signal acquisition and the optimisation of the analysis parameters made it possible to reach the stability of the external calibrations using standard gases with a 3 He detection limit of 0.05 ppb. Repeated confinement of the reference drums demonstrated the accuracy of this method. The uncertainty of this non-intrusive measurement of the tritium activity in 200-liter drums is 15% and the detection limit is about 1 GBq after a 24 h confinement. These results led to the definition of an automated tool able to systematically measure the tritium activity of all storage waste drums. (authors)

Hydroelectric plant turbine, stream and spillway flow measurement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lampa, J.; Lemon, D.; Buermans, J. [ASL AQ Flow Inc., Sidney, BC (Canada)

2004-07-01

This presentation provided schematics of the turbine flow measurements and typical bulb installations at the Kootenay Canal and Wells hydroelectric power facilities in British Columbia. A typical arrangement for measuring stream flow using acoustic scintillation was also illustrated. Acoustic scintillation is portable, non-intrusive, suitable for short intakes, requires minimal maintenance and is cost effective and accurate. A comparison between current meters and acoustic scintillation was also presented. Stream flow measurement is valuable in evaluating downstream areas that are environmentally important for fish habitat. Stream flow measurement makes it possible to define circulation. The effects of any changes can be assessed by combining field measurements and numerical modelling. The presentation also demonstrated that computational fluid dynamics modelling appears promising in determining stream flow and turbulent flow at spillways. tabs., figs.

New Non-Intrusive Inspection Technologies for Nuclear Security and Nonproliferation

Science.gov (United States)

Ledoux, Robert J.

2015-10-01

Comprehensive monitoring of the supply chain for nuclear materials has historically been hampered by non-intrusive inspection systems that have such large false alarm rates that they are impractical in the flow of commerce. Passport Systems, Inc. (Passport) has developed an active interrogation system which detects fissionable material, high Z material, and other contraband in land, sea and air cargo. Passport's design utilizes several detection modalities including high resolution imaging, passive radiation detection, effective-Z (EZ-3D™) anomaly detection, Prompt Neutrons from Photofission (PNPF), and Nuclear Resonance Fluorescence (NRF) isotopic identification. These technologies combine to: detect fissionable, high-Z, radioactive and contraband materials, differentiate fissionable materials from high-Z shielding materials, and isotopically identify actinides, Special Nuclear Materials (SNM), and other contraband (e.g. explosives, drugs, nerve agents). Passport's system generates a 3-D image of the scanned object which contains information such as effective-Z and density, as well as a 2-D image and isotopic and fissionable information for regions of interest.

Programming heterogeneous MPSoCs tool flows to close the software productivity gap

CERN Document Server

Castrillón Mazo, Jerónimo

2014-01-01

This book provides embedded software developers with techniques for programmingheterogeneous Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs), capable of executing multiple applications simultaneously. It describes a set of algorithms and methodologies to narrow the software productivity gap, as well as an in-depth description of the underlying problems and challenges of today’s programming practices. The authors present four different tool flows: A parallelism extraction flow for applications writtenusing the C programming language, a mapping and scheduling flow for parallel applications, a special mapping flow for baseband applications in the context of Software Defined Radio (SDR) and a final flow for analyzing multiple applications at design time. The tool flows are evaluated on Virtual Platforms (VPs), which mimic different characteristics of state-of-the-art heterogeneous MPSoCs.   • Provides a novel set of algorithms and methodologies for programming heterogeneous Multi-Processor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs)...

Optical Particle Characterization in Flows

Science.gov (United States)

Tropea, Cameron

2011-01-01

Particle characterization in dispersed multiphase flows is important in quantifying transport processes both in fundamental and applied research: Examples include atomization and spray processes, cavitation and bubbly flows, and solid particle transport in gas and liquid carrier phases. Optical techniques of particle characterization are preferred owing to their nonintrusiveness, and they can yield information about size, velocity, composition, and to some extent the shape of individual particles. This review focuses on recent advances for measuring size, temperature, and the composition of particles, including several planar methods, various imaging techniques, laser-induced fluorescence, and the more recent use of femtosecond pulsed light sources. It emphasizes the main sources of uncertainty, the achievable accuracy, and the outlook for improvement of specific techniques and for specific applications. Some remarks are also directed toward the computational tools used to design and investigate the performance of optical particle diagnostic instruments.

Critical evaluation of reverse engineering tool Imagix 4D!

Science.gov (United States)

Yadav, Rashmi; Patel, Ravindra; Kothari, Abhay

2016-01-01

The comprehension of legacy codes is difficult to understand. Various commercial reengineering tools are available that have unique working styles, and are equipped with their inherent capabilities and shortcomings. The focus of the available tools is in visualizing static behavior not the dynamic one. Therefore, it is difficult for people who work in software product maintenance, code understanding reengineering/reverse engineering. Consequently, the need for a comprehensive reengineering/reverse engineering tool arises. We found the usage of Imagix 4D to be good as it generates the maximum pictorial representations in the form of flow charts, flow graphs, class diagrams, metrics and, to a partial extent, dynamic visualizations. We evaluated Imagix 4D with the help of a case study involving a few samples of source code. The behavior of the tool was analyzed on multiple small codes and a large code gcc C parser. Large code evaluation was performed to uncover dead code, unstructured code, and the effect of not including required files at preprocessing level. The utility of Imagix 4D to prepare decision density and complexity metrics for a large code was found to be useful in getting to know how much reengineering is required. At the outset, Imagix 4D offered limitations in dynamic visualizations, flow chart separation (large code) and parsing loops. The outcome of evaluation will eventually help in upgrading Imagix 4D and posed a need of full featured tools in the area of software reengineering/reverse engineering. It will also help the research community, especially those who are interested in the realm of software reengineering tool building.

Automatic flow-through dynamic extraction: A fast tool to evaluate char-based remediation of multi-element contaminated mine soils.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosende, María; Beesley, Luke; Moreno-Jimenez, Eduardo; Miró, Manuel

2016-02-01

An automatic in-vitro bioaccessibility test based upon dynamic microcolumn extraction in a programmable flow setup is herein proposed as a screening tool to evaluate bio-char based remediation of mine soils contaminated with trace elements as a compelling alternative to conventional phyto-availability tests. The feasibility of the proposed system was evaluated by extracting the readily bioaccessible pools of As, Pb and Zn in two contaminated mine soils before and after the addition of two biochars (9% (w:w)) of diverse source origin (pine and olive). Bioaccessible fractions under worst-case scenarios were measured using 0.001 mol L(-1) CaCl2 as extractant for mimicking plant uptake, and analysis of the extracts by inductively coupled optical emission spectrometry. The t-test of comparison of means revealed an efficient metal (mostly Pb and Zn) immobilization by the action of olive pruning-based biochar against the bare (control) soil at the 0.05 significance level. In-vitro flow-through bioaccessibility tests are compared for the first time with in-vivo phyto-toxicity assays in a microcosm soil study. By assessing seed germination and shoot elongation of Lolium perenne in contaminated soils with and without biochar amendments the dynamic flow-based bioaccessibility data proved to be in good agreement with the phyto-availability tests. Experimental results indicate that the dynamic extraction method is a viable and economical in-vitro tool in risk assessment explorations to evaluate the feasibility of a given biochar amendment for revegetation and remediation of metal contaminated soils in a mere 10 min against 4 days in case of phyto-toxicity assays. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

An innovative non-intrusive driver assistance system for vital signal monitoring.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sun, Y. & Yu, X.

2016-01-01

This paper describes an in-vehicle nonintrusive biopotential measurement system for driver health monitoring and fatigue detection. Previous research has found that the physiological signals including eye features, electrocardiography (ECG), electroencephalography (EEG) and their secondary

Systematic Evaluation of Uncertainty in Material Flow Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laner, David; Rechberger, Helmut; Astrup, Thomas Fruergaard

2014-01-01

Material flow analysis (MFA) is a tool to investigate material flows and stocks in defined systems as a basis for resource management or environmental pollution control. Because of the diverse nature of sources and the varying quality and availability of data, MFA results are inherently uncertain....... Uncertainty analyses have received increasing attention in recent MFA studies, but systematic approaches for selection of appropriate uncertainty tools are missing. This article reviews existing literature related to handling of uncertainty in MFA studies and evaluates current practice of uncertainty analysis......) and exploratory MFA (identification of critical parameters and system behavior). Whereas mathematically simpler concepts focusing on data uncertainty characterization are appropriate for descriptive MFAs, statistical approaches enabling more-rigorous evaluation of uncertainty and model sensitivity are needed...

Application of non-intrusive geophysical techniques at the Mixed Waste Landfill, Technical Area 3, Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peace, J.L.; Goering, T.J.

1996-03-01

The Environmental Restoration Project at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico is tasked with assessment and remediation of the Mixed Waste Landfill in Technical Area 3. The Mixed Waste Landfill is an inactive radioactive and mixed waste disposal site. The landfill contains disposal pits and trenches of questionable location and dimension. Non-intrusive geophysical techniques were utilized to provide an effective means of determining the location and dimension of suspected waste disposal trenches before Resource Conservation and Recovery Act intrusive assessment activities were initiated. Geophysical instruments selected for this investigation included a Geonics EM-31 ground conductivity meter, the new Geonics EM-61 high precision, time-domain metal detector, and a Geometrics 856 total field magnetometer. The results of these non-intrusive geophysical techniques were evaluated to enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of future waste-site investigations at Environmental Restoration Project sites

Thwarting Nonintrusive Occupancy Detection Attacks from Smart Meters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dapeng Man

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Occupancy information is one of the most important privacy issues of a home. Unfortunately, an attacker is able to detect occupancy from smart meter data. The current battery-based load hiding (BLH methods cannot solve this problem. To thwart occupancy detection attacks, we propose a framework of battery-based schemes to prevent occupancy detection (BPOD. BPOD monitors the power consumption of a home and detects the occupancy in real time. According to the detection result, BPOD modifies those statistical metrics of power consumption, which highly correlate with the occupancy by charging or discharging a battery, creating a delusion that the home is always occupied. We evaluate BPOD in a simulation using several real-world smart meter datasets. Our experiment results show that BPOD effectively prevents the threshold-based and classifier-based occupancy detection attacks. Furthermore, BPOD is also able to prevent nonintrusive appliance load monitoring attacks (NILM as a side-effect of thwarting detection attacks.

Diagnostic Indicators for Shipboard Mechanical Systems Using Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

McKay, Thomas D

2006-01-01

This thesis examines the use of Non-intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) in auxiliary shipboard systems, such as a low pressure air system, to determine the state of equipment in larger connected systems, such as the main propulsion engines...

A regionally-linked, dynamic material flow modelling tool for rolled, extruded and cast aluminium products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bertram, M.; Ramkumar, S.; Rechberger, H.

2017-01-01

A global aluminium flow modelling tool, comprising nine trade linked regions, namely China, Europe, Japan, Middle East, North America, Other Asia, Other Producing Countries, South America and Rest of World, has been developed. The purpose of the Microsoft Excel-based tool is the quantification...... of regional stocks and flows of rolled, extruded and casting alloys across space and over time, giving the industry the ability to evaluate the potential to recycle aluminium scrap most efficiently. The International Aluminium Institute will update the tool annually and publish a visualisation of results...

3D velocity measurements in fluid flows using multiple exposure holography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stanislas, M.; Rodriguez, O.; Dadi, M.; Beluche, F.

1987-01-01

An account is given of multiple exposure holography's application to the measurement of velocity in fluid flows. The method is nonintrusive, and yields access to the three components of the instantaneous velocity in three-dimensional domains. These characteristics render such holographic data complementary to classical LDV. Attention is given to solutions proposed for such limitations inherent in the method as the rather lengthy acquisition time; this difficulty is presently addressed by means of an automated evaluation methodology. 12 references

Nonintrusive Polynomial Chaos Expansions for Sensitivity Analysis in Stochastic Differential Equations

KAUST Repository

Jimenez, M. Navarro; Le Maî tre, O. P.; Knio, Omar

2017-01-01

A Galerkin polynomial chaos (PC) method was recently proposed to perform variance decomposition and sensitivity analysis in stochastic differential equations (SDEs), driven by Wiener noise and involving uncertain parameters. The present paper extends the PC method to nonintrusive approaches enabling its application to more complex systems hardly amenable to stochastic Galerkin projection methods. We also discuss parallel implementations and the variance decomposition of the derived quantity of interest within the framework of nonintrusive approaches. In particular, a novel hybrid PC-sampling-based strategy is proposed in the case of nonsmooth quantities of interest (QoIs) but smooth SDE solution. Numerical examples are provided that illustrate the decomposition of the variance of QoIs into contributions arising from the uncertain parameters, the inherent stochastic forcing, and joint effects. The simulations are also used to support a brief analysis of the computational complexity of the method, providing insight on the types of problems that would benefit from the present developments.

Nonintrusive Polynomial Chaos Expansions for Sensitivity Analysis in Stochastic Differential Equations

KAUST Repository

Jimenez, M. Navarro

2017-04-18

A Galerkin polynomial chaos (PC) method was recently proposed to perform variance decomposition and sensitivity analysis in stochastic differential equations (SDEs), driven by Wiener noise and involving uncertain parameters. The present paper extends the PC method to nonintrusive approaches enabling its application to more complex systems hardly amenable to stochastic Galerkin projection methods. We also discuss parallel implementations and the variance decomposition of the derived quantity of interest within the framework of nonintrusive approaches. In particular, a novel hybrid PC-sampling-based strategy is proposed in the case of nonsmooth quantities of interest (QoIs) but smooth SDE solution. Numerical examples are provided that illustrate the decomposition of the variance of QoIs into contributions arising from the uncertain parameters, the inherent stochastic forcing, and joint effects. The simulations are also used to support a brief analysis of the computational complexity of the method, providing insight on the types of problems that would benefit from the present developments.

Development of nonintrusive, scatter-independent techniques for measurement of liquid density inside dense sprays

Science.gov (United States)

Hartfield, Roy

1994-01-01

A nonintrusive optical technique for measuring the liquid density in sprays used to simulate LOX injector flows is under development. This manuscript is a report on work toward that development which is currently in progress. The technique is a scatter-independent, absorption-based approach which depends on the numerical inversion of a collection of absorption profiles. For the case in which visible radiation passes through liquid-gas interfaces so numerous in sprays, substantial reductions and alterations in the signal result from scattering even in the absence of absorption. To avoid these problems, X-Rays will be used as the absorbed radiation. The experimental process is simulated by integrating the absorption spectrum for a known distribution, adding instrument noise to this 'measurement', creating a projection from the 'measurement', filtering the projection, inverting the projection, and comparing the results with the original prescribed distribution.

Three-Phase Unbalanced Load Flow Tool for Distribution Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Demirok, Erhan; Kjær, Søren Bækhøj; Sera, Dezso

2012-01-01

This work develops a three-phase unbalanced load flow tool tailored for radial distribution networks based on Matlab®. The tool can be used to assess steady-state voltage variations, thermal limits of grid components and power losses in radial MV-LV networks with photovoltaic (PV) generators where...... most of the systems are single phase. New ancillary service such as static reactive power support by PV inverters can be also merged together with the load flow solution tool and thus, the impact of the various reactive power control strategies on the steady-state grid operation can be simply...... investigated. Performance of the load flow solution tool in the sense of resulting bus voltage magnitudes is compared and validated with IEEE 13-bus test feeder....

Flow mapping of multiphase flows using a novel single stem endoscopic particle image velocimetry instrument

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lad, N; Adebayo, D; Aroussi, A

2011-01-01

Particle image velocimetry (PIV) is a successful flow mapping technique which can optically quantify large portions of a flow regime. This enables the method to be completely non-intrusive. The ability to be non-intrusive to any flow has allowed PIV to be used in a large range of industrial sectors for many applications. However, a fundamental disadvantage of the conventional PIV technique is that it cannot easily be used with flows which have no or limited optical access. Flows which have limited optical access for PIV measurement have been addressed using endoscopic PIV techniques. This system uses two separate probes which relay a light sheet and imaging optics to a planar position within the desired flow regime. This system is effective in medical and engineering applications. The present study has been involved in the development of a new endoscopic PIV system which integrates the illumination and imaging optics into one rigid probe. This paper focuses on the validation of the images taken from the novel single stem endoscopic PIV system. The probe is used within atomized spray flow and is compared with conventional PIV measurement and also pitot-static data. The endoscopic PIV system provides images which create localized velocity maps that are comparable with the global measurement of the conventional PIV system. The velocity information for both systems clearly show similar results for the spray characterization and are also validated using the pitot-static data

Non-Intrusive Solution of Stochastic and Parametric Equations

KAUST Repository

Matthies, Hermann

2015-01-07

Many problems depend on parameters, which may be a finite set of numerical values, or mathematically more complicated objects like for example processes or fields. We address the situation where we have an equation which depends on parameters; stochastic equations are a special case of such parametric problems where the parameters are elements from a probability space. One common way to represent this dependability on parameters is by evaluating the state (or solution) of the system under investigation for different values of the parameters. But often one wants to evaluate the solution quickly for a new set of parameters where it has not been sampled. In this situation it may be advantageous to express the parameter dependent solution with an approximation which allows for rapid evaluation of the solution. Such approximations are also called proxy or surrogate models, response functions, or emulators. All these methods may be seen as functional approximations—representations of the solution by an “easily computable” function of the parameters, as opposed to pure samples. The most obvious methods of approximation used are based on interpolation, in this context often labelled as collocation. In the frequent situation where one has a “solver” for the equation for a given parameter value, i.e. a software component or a program, it is evident that this can be used to independently—if desired in parallel—solve for all the parameter values which subsequently may be used either for the interpolation or in the quadrature for the projection. Such methods are therefore uncoupled for each parameter value, and they additionally often carry the label “non-intrusive”. Without much argument all other methods— which produce a coupled system of equations–are almost always labelled as “intrusive”, meaning that one cannot use the original solver. We want to show here that this not necessarily the case. Another approach is to choose some other projection onto

Non-Intrusive Solution of Stochastic and Parametric Equations

KAUST Repository

Matthies, Hermann

2015-01-01

Many problems depend on parameters, which may be a finite set of numerical values, or mathematically more complicated objects like for example processes or fields. We address the situation where we have an equation which depends on parameters; stochastic equations are a special case of such parametric problems where the parameters are elements from a probability space. One common way to represent this dependability on parameters is by evaluating the state (or solution) of the system under investigation for different values of the parameters. But often one wants to evaluate the solution quickly for a new set of parameters where it has not been sampled. In this situation it may be advantageous to express the parameter dependent solution with an approximation which allows for rapid evaluation of the solution. Such approximations are also called proxy or surrogate models, response functions, or emulators. All these methods may be seen as functional approximations—representations of the solution by an “easily computable” function of the parameters, as opposed to pure samples. The most obvious methods of approximation used are based on interpolation, in this context often labelled as collocation. In the frequent situation where one has a “solver” for the equation for a given parameter value, i.e. a software component or a program, it is evident that this can be used to independently—if desired in parallel—solve for all the parameter values which subsequently may be used either for the interpolation or in the quadrature for the projection. Such methods are therefore uncoupled for each parameter value, and they additionally often carry the label “non-intrusive”. Without much argument all other methods— which produce a coupled system of equations–are almost always labelled as “intrusive”, meaning that one cannot use the original solver. We want to show here that this not necessarily the case. Another approach is to choose some other projection onto

Non-Intrusive Intelligibility Prediction Using a Codebook-Based Approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Charlotte; Kavalekalam, Mathew Shaji; Xenaki, Angeliki

2017-01-01

It could be beneficial for users of hearing aids if these were able to automatically adjust the processing according to the speech intelligibility in the specific acoustic environment. Most speech intelligibility metrics are intrusive, i.e., they require a clean reference signal, which is rarely...... a high correlation between the proposed non-intrusive codebookbased STOI (NIC-STOI) and the intrusive STOI indicating that NIC-STOI is a suitable metric for automatic classification of speech signals...

Filtered Rayleigh Scattering Measurements in a Buoyant Flow Field

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Meents, Steven M

2008-01-01

Filtered Rayleigh Scattering (FRS) is a non-intrusive, laser-based flow characterization technique that consists of a narrow linewidth laser, a molecular absorption filter, and a high resolution camera behind the filter to record images...

Complexity Reduction of Multiphase Flows in Heterogeneous Porous Media

KAUST Repository

Ghommem, Mehdi; Gildin, Eduardo; Ghasemi, Mohammadreza

2015-01-01

In this paper, we apply mode decomposition and interpolatory projection methods to speed up simulations of two-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media. We propose intrusive and nonintrusive model-reduction approaches that enable a significant

Non-intrusive investigation of flow and heat transfer characteristics of a channel with a built-in circular cylinder

Science.gov (United States)

Vyas, Apoorv; Mishra, Biswajit; Agrawal, Atul; Srivastava, Atul

2018-03-01

Interferometry-based experimental investigation of heat transfer phenomena associated with a channel fitted with a circular cylinder has been reported. Experiments have been performed with water as the working fluid, and the range of Reynolds number considered is 75 ≤ Re ≤ 165. The circular cylinder, placed at the inlet section of the channel, provides a blockage ratio of 0.5. The experimental methodology has been benchmarked against the results of transient numerical simulations. In order to assess the performance of the channel fitted with a circular cylinder for possible heat transfer enhancement from the channel wall(s), experiments have also been performed on a plane channel (without a cylinder). The interferometry-based experiments clearly highlighted the influence of the built-in cylinder in generating the flow instabilities and alterations in the thermal boundary layer profile along the heated wall of the channel. The phenomenon of vortex shedding behind the cylinder was successfully captured. A gradual increase in the vortex shedding frequency was observed with increasing Reynolds number. Quantitative data in the form of two-dimensional temperature distributions revealed an increase in the strength of wall thermal gradients in the wake region of the cylinder due to the periodic shedding of the vortices. In turn, a clear enhancement in the wall heat transfer rates was observed for the case of the channel fitted with a cylinder vis-à-vis the plane channel. To the best of the knowledge of the authors, the work reported is one of the first attempts to provide the planar field experimental data for a channel configuration with a built-in circular cylinder using non-intrusive imaging techniques and has the potential to serve as one of the benchmark studies for validating the existing as well as future numerical studies in the related area.

Particle image velocimetry measurements of the flow in the converging region of two parallel jets

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, Huhu, E-mail: huhuwang@tamu.edu; Lee, Saya, E-mail: sayalee@tamu.edu; Hassan, Yassin A., E-mail: y-hassan@tamu.edu

2016-09-15

Highlights: • The flow behaviors in the converging region were non-intrusively investigated using PIV. • The PIV results using two measuring scales and LDV data matched very well. • Significant momentum transfer was observed in the merging region right after the merging point. • Instantaneous vector field revealed characteristic interacting patterns of the jets. - Abstract: The interaction between parallel jets plays a critical role in determining the characteristics of the momentum and heat transfer in the flow. Specifically for next generation VHTR, the output temperature will be about 900 °C, and any thermal oscillations will create safety issues. The mixing variations of the coolants in the reactor core may influence these power oscillations. Numerous numerical tools such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been used to support the reactor design. The validation of CFD method is important to ensure the fidelity of the calculations. This requires high-fidelity, qualified benchmark data. Particle image velocimetry (PIV), a non-intrusive measuring technique, was used to provide benchmark data for resolving a simultaneous flow field in the converging region of two submerged parallel jets issued from rectangular channels. The jets studied in this work had an equal discharge velocity at room temperature. The turbulent characteristics including the distributions of mean velocities, turbulence intensities, Reynolds stresses and z-component vorticity were studied. The streamwise mean velocity measured by PIV and LDV were compared, and they agreed very well.

Two-phase flow measurements using a photochromic dye activation technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kawaji, M.

1998-01-01

A novel flow visualization method called photochromic dye activation (PDA) technique has been used to investigate flow structures and mechanisms in various two-phase flow regimes. This non-intrusive flow visualization technique utilizes light activation of a photochromic dye material dissolved in a clear liquid and is a molecular tagging technique, requiring no seed particles. It has been used to yield both quantitative and qualitative flow data in the liquid phase in annular flow, slug flow and stratified-wavy flows. (author)

Indian program for development of technologies relevant to reliable, non-intrusive, concealed-contraband detection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Auluck, S.K.H.

2007-01-01

Generating capability for reliable, non-intrusive detection of concealed-contraband, particularly, organic contraband like explosives and narcotics, has become a national priority. This capability spans a spectrum of technologies. If a technology mission addressing the needs of a highly sophisticated technology like PFNA is set up, the capabilities acquired would be adequate to meet the requirements of many other sets of technologies. This forms the background of the Indian program for development of technologies relevant to reliable, non-intrusive, concealed contraband detection. One of the central themes of the technology development programs would be modularization of the neutron source and detector technologies, so that common elements can be combined in different ways for meeting a variety of application requirements. (author)

Work flow management systems. Selection of Platforms and tools

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Munoz Garcia, M.

1997-01-01

This paper addresses a formal procedure for selecting the Platform and tools necessary to implement a Work Flow system in a company's organisation. The proposed method is based on a preliminary study to ascertain the company's requirements; in other words, the tool is selected on the basis of the environment in which it is to be used, thus making it essential to know the frequency of use, the types of tasks to be executed, the complexity of work flow, etc. Once the preliminary study has been performed, the formal selection method does no differ greatly from that for selecting any other tool. The objective is to establish a series of weighted parameters so that each candidate configuration can be assessed and one finally selected. Lastly, the paper discusses some practical considerations which became evident during the selection of a work flow management tool for our own company. (Author)

Non-intrusive reduced order modeling of nonlinear problems using neural networks

Science.gov (United States)

Hesthaven, J. S.; Ubbiali, S.

2018-06-01

We develop a non-intrusive reduced basis (RB) method for parametrized steady-state partial differential equations (PDEs). The method extracts a reduced basis from a collection of high-fidelity solutions via a proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and employs artificial neural networks (ANNs), particularly multi-layer perceptrons (MLPs), to accurately approximate the coefficients of the reduced model. The search for the optimal number of neurons and the minimum amount of training samples to avoid overfitting is carried out in the offline phase through an automatic routine, relying upon a joint use of the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) and the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) training algorithm. This guarantees a complete offline-online decoupling, leading to an efficient RB method - referred to as POD-NN - suitable also for general nonlinear problems with a non-affine parametric dependence. Numerical studies are presented for the nonlinear Poisson equation and for driven cavity viscous flows, modeled through the steady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. Both physical and geometrical parametrizations are considered. Several results confirm the accuracy of the POD-NN method and show the substantial speed-up enabled at the online stage as compared to a traditional RB strategy.

High-Resolution Gas Metering and Nonintrusive Appliance Load Monitoring System

Science.gov (United States)

Tewolde, Mahder

This thesis deals with design and implementation of a high-resolution metering system for residential natural gas meters. Detailed experimental measurements are performed on the meter to characterize and understand its measurement properties. Results from these experiments are used to develop a simple, fast and accurate technique to non-intrusively monitor the gas consumption of individual appliances in homes by resolving small amounts of gas usage. The technique is applied on an existing meter retrofitted with a module that includes a high-resolution encoder to collect gas flow data and a microprocessor to analyze and identify appliance load profiles. This approach provides a number of appealing features including low cost, easy installation and integration with automated meter reading (AMR) systems. The application of this method to residential gas meters currently deployed is also given. This is done by performing a load simulation on realistic gas loads with the aim of identifying the necessary parameters that minimize the cost and complexity of the mechanical encoder module. The primary benefits of the system are efficiency analysis, appliance health monitoring and real-time customer feedback of gas usage. Additional benefits of include the ability to detect very small leaks and theft. This system has the potential for wide scale market adoption.

FlowPing - The New Tool for Throughput and Stress Testing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ondrej Vondrous

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This article presents a new tool for network throughput and stress testing. The FlowPing tool is easy to use, and its basic output is very similar to standard Linux ping application. The FlowPing tool is not limited to reach-ability or round trip time testing but is capable of complex UDP based throughput stress testing with rich reporting capabilities on client and server sides. Our new tool implements features, which allow the user to perform tests with variable packet size and traffic rate. All these features can be used in one single test run. This allows the user to use and develop new methodologies for network throughput and stress testing. With the FlowPing tool, it is easy to perform the test with the slowly increasing the amount of network traffic and monitor the behavior of network when the congestion occurs.

Planning Tool for Strategic Evaluation of Facility Plans - 13570

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Magoulas, Virginia; Cercy, Michael [Savannah River National Laboratory, Savannah River Site, Aiken, SC 29808 (United States); Hall, Irin [Newport News Shipbuilding, 4101 Washington Ave., Newport News, VA 23607 (United States)

2013-07-01

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has developed a strategic planning tool for the evaluation of the utilization of its unique resources for processing and research and development of nuclear materials. The Planning Tool is a strategic level tool for assessing multiple missions that could be conducted utilizing the SRNL facilities and showcasing the plan. Traditional approaches using standard scheduling tools and laying out a strategy on paper tended to be labor intensive and offered either a limited or cluttered view for visualizing and communicating results. A tool that can assess the process throughput, duration, and utilization of the facility was needed. SRNL teamed with Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, to create the next generation Planning Tool. The goal of this collaboration was to create a simulation based tool that allows for quick evaluation of strategies with respect to new or changing missions, and clearly communicates results to the decision makers. This tool has been built upon a mature modeling and simulation software previously developed by NNS. The Planning Tool provides a forum for capturing dependencies, constraints, activity flows, and variable factors. It is also a platform for quickly evaluating multiple mission scenarios, dynamically adding/updating scenarios, generating multiple views for evaluating/communicating results, and understanding where there are areas of risks and opportunities with respect to capacity. The Planning Tool that has been developed is useful in that it presents a clear visual plan for the missions at the Savannah River Site (SRS). It not only assists in communicating the plans to SRS corporate management, but also allows the area stakeholders a visual look at the future plans for SRS. The design of this tool makes it easily deployable to other facility and mission planning endeavors. (authors)

Planning Tool for Strategic Evaluation of Facility Plans - 13570

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Magoulas, Virginia; Cercy, Michael; Hall, Irin

2013-01-01

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has developed a strategic planning tool for the evaluation of the utilization of its unique resources for processing and research and development of nuclear materials. The Planning Tool is a strategic level tool for assessing multiple missions that could be conducted utilizing the SRNL facilities and showcasing the plan. Traditional approaches using standard scheduling tools and laying out a strategy on paper tended to be labor intensive and offered either a limited or cluttered view for visualizing and communicating results. A tool that can assess the process throughput, duration, and utilization of the facility was needed. SRNL teamed with Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, to create the next generation Planning Tool. The goal of this collaboration was to create a simulation based tool that allows for quick evaluation of strategies with respect to new or changing missions, and clearly communicates results to the decision makers. This tool has been built upon a mature modeling and simulation software previously developed by NNS. The Planning Tool provides a forum for capturing dependencies, constraints, activity flows, and variable factors. It is also a platform for quickly evaluating multiple mission scenarios, dynamically adding/updating scenarios, generating multiple views for evaluating/communicating results, and understanding where there are areas of risks and opportunities with respect to capacity. The Planning Tool that has been developed is useful in that it presents a clear visual plan for the missions at the Savannah River Site (SRS). It not only assists in communicating the plans to SRS corporate management, but also allows the area stakeholders a visual look at the future plans for SRS. The design of this tool makes it easily deployable to other facility and mission planning endeavors. (authors)

Comparative exploration of multidimensional flow cytometry software: a model approach evaluating T cell polyfunctional behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Spear, Timothy T; Nishimura, Michael I; Simms, Patricia E

2017-08-01

Advancement in flow cytometry reagents and instrumentation has allowed for simultaneous analysis of large numbers of lineage/functional immune cell markers. Highly complex datasets generated by polychromatic flow cytometry require proper analytical software to answer investigators' questions. A problem among many investigators and flow cytometry Shared Resource Laboratories (SRLs), including our own, is a lack of access to a flow cytometry-knowledgeable bioinformatics team, making it difficult to learn and choose appropriate analysis tool(s). Here, we comparatively assess various multidimensional flow cytometry software packages for their ability to answer a specific biologic question and provide graphical representation output suitable for publication, as well as their ease of use and cost. We assessed polyfunctional potential of TCR-transduced T cells, serving as a model evaluation, using multidimensional flow cytometry to analyze 6 intracellular cytokines and degranulation on a per-cell basis. Analysis of 7 parameters resulted in 128 possible combinations of positivity/negativity, far too complex for basic flow cytometry software to analyze fully. Various software packages were used, analysis methods used in each described, and representative output displayed. Of the tools investigated, automated classification of cellular expression by nonlinear stochastic embedding (ACCENSE) and coupled analysis in Pestle/simplified presentation of incredibly complex evaluations (SPICE) provided the most user-friendly manipulations and readable output, evaluating effects of altered antigen-specific stimulation on T cell polyfunctionality. This detailed approach may serve as a model for other investigators/SRLs in selecting the most appropriate software to analyze complex flow cytometry datasets. Further development and awareness of available tools will help guide proper data analysis to answer difficult biologic questions arising from incredibly complex datasets. © Society

The fierce urgency of now: a proactive, pervasive content awareness tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Powell, James E [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Collins, Linn M [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Martinez, Mark L B [Los Alamos National Laboratory

2009-01-01

Information awareness is distinct from explicit infonnation seeking, such as searching. We describe an information awareness tool that supports text composition by providing awareness of relevant content and references proactively and non-intrusively. As a user composes text, the tool automatically searches mUltiple sources, retrieves results, and displays links to the results. The tool has been implemented using Web 2.0 and Digital Library 2.0 technologies, and is flexible and highly configurable.

AnalyzeHOLE: An Integrated Wellbore Flow Analysis Tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Keith J. Halford

2009-10-01

Conventional interpretation of flow logs assumes that hydraulic conductivity is directly proportional to flow change with depth. However, well construction can significantly alter the expected relation between changes in fluid velocity and hydraulic conductivity. Strong hydraulic conductivity contrasts between lithologic intervals can be masked in continuously screened wells. Alternating intervals of screen and blank casing also can greatly complicate the relation between flow and hydraulic properties. More permeable units are not necessarily associated with rapid fluid-velocity increases. Thin, highly permeable units can be misinterpreted as thick and less permeable intervals or not identified at all. These conditions compromise standard flow-log interpretation because vertical flow fields are induced near the wellbore. AnalyzeHOLE, an integrated wellbore analysis tool for simulating flow and transport in wells and aquifer systems, provides a better alternative for simulating and evaluating complex well-aquifer system interaction. A pumping well and adjacent aquifer system are simulated with an axisymmetric, radial geometry in a two-dimensional MODFLOW model. Hydraulic conductivities are distributed by depth and estimated with PEST by minimizing squared differences between simulated and measured flows and drawdowns. Hydraulic conductivity can vary within a lithology but variance is limited with regularization. Transmissivity of the simulated system also can be constrained to estimates from single-well, pumping tests. Water-quality changes in the pumping well are simulated with simple mixing models between zones of differing water quality. These zones are differentiated by backtracking thousands of particles from the well screens with MODPATH. An Excel spreadsheet is used to interface the various components of AnalyzeHOLE by (1) creating model input files, (2) executing MODFLOW, MODPATH, PEST, and supporting FORTRAN routines, and (3) importing and graphically

The Cash Flow as Financial Management Tool For Small Businesses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Osmar Siena

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This study is engaged on the axis of Financial Management, with research into the factors controlling corporation in small business finance. It has as main objective to analyze the cash flow tool as a tool for financial management and specific process to describe the use of the Cash Flow tool objectives; analyze the feasibility of implementing the Cash Flow tool as an instrument of financial management and suggest proposals for suitability for deployment of Cash Flows as a financial management system. Facing these objectives the research uses the precedence of qualitative methodology and applies the instruments on-site visit, interview and questionnaire to collect data. Descriptive analysis that confront the theoretical basis and the data obtained from research is used. With the completion of the analysis the following results were achieved: description of business processes researched; identifying the needs and forms of control currently used and presentation of improvement measures for the adjustment of non-conformities identified. The study contributes to both the academic improvement by analyzing the real situation of the company, as well as it serves as a recommendation to companies embracing similar difficulties in financial management.

Evaluating meeting support tools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Post, W.M.; Huis in't Veld, M.A.A.; Boogaard, S.A.A. van den

2008-01-01

Many attempts are underway for developing meeting support tools, but less attention is paid to the evaluation of meetingware. This article describes the development and testing of an instrument for evaluating meeting tools. First, we specified the object of evaluation - meetings - by means of a set

Evaluating meeting support tools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Post, W.M.; Huis in 't Veld, M. M.A.; Boogaard, S.A.A. van den

2007-01-01

Many attempts are underway for developing meeting support tools, but less attention is paid to the evaluation of meetingware. This article describes the development and testing of an instrument for evaluating meeting tools. First, we specified the object of evaluation -meetings- by means of a set of

Bifurcation Analysis with Aerodynamic-Structure Uncertainties by the Nonintrusive PCE Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linpeng Wang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available An aeroelastic model for airfoil with a third-order stiffness in both pitch and plunge degree of freedom (DOF and the modified Leishman–Beddoes (LB model were built and validated. The nonintrusive polynomial chaos expansion (PCE based on tensor product is applied to quantify the uncertainty of aerodynamic and structure parameters on the aerodynamic force and aeroelastic behavior. The uncertain limit cycle oscillation (LCO and bifurcation are simulated in the time domain with the stochastic PCE method. Bifurcation diagrams with uncertainties were quantified. The Monte Carlo simulation (MCS is also applied for comparison. From the current work, it can be concluded that the nonintrusive polynomial chaos expansion can give an acceptable accuracy and have a much higher calculation efficiency than MCS. For aerodynamic model, uncertainties of aerodynamic parameters affect the aerodynamic force significantly at the stage from separation to stall at upstroke and at the stage from stall to reattach at return. For aeroelastic model, both uncertainties of aerodynamic parameters and structure parameters impact bifurcation position. Structure uncertainty of parameters is more sensitive for bifurcation. When the nonlinear stall flutter and bifurcation are concerned, more attention should be paid to the separation process of aerodynamics and parameters about pitch DOF in structure.

A non-intrusive and continuous-in-space technique to investigate the wave transformation and breaking over a breakwater

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ferrari Simone

2016-01-01

Full Text Available To design longshore breakwaters, the evaluation of the wave motion transformations over the structures and of the energy they are able to absorb, dissipate and reflect is necessary. To characterize features and transformations of monochromatic wave trains above a breakwater, both submerged and emerged, we have designed and developed a non-intrusive and continuous-in-space technique, based on Image Analysis, and carried out an experimental campaign, in a laboratory flume equipped with a wave-maker, in order to test it. The investigation area was lighted with a light sheet and images were recorded by a video-camera. The working fluid was seeded with non buoyant particles to make it bright and clearly distinct from dark background and breakwater. The technique, that is based on a robust algorithm to identify the free surface, has showed to properly work also in prohibitive situations for traditional resistive probes (e.g., very shallow waters and/or breaking waves and to be able to measure the free surface all over the investigation field in a non-intrusive way. Two kind of analysis were mainly performed, a statistical and a spectral one. The peculiarities of the measurement technique allowed to describe the whole wave transformation and to supply useful information for design purposes.

Non-intrusive load characterization of an airfoil using PIV

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oudheusden, B.W. van; Scarano, F.; Casimiri, E.W.F. [Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, Delft Univ. of Tech., Delft (Netherlands)

2006-06-15

An assessment is made of the feasibility of using PIV velocity data for the non-intrusive aerodynamic force characterization (lift, drag and pitching moment) of an airfoil. The method relies upon the application of control-volume approaches in combination with the deduction of the pressure from the PIV experimental data, by making use of the momentum equation. First, the consistency of the method is verified by means of synthetic data obtained from CFD. Subsequently, the procedure was applied in an experimental investigation, in which the PIV approach is validated against standard pressure-based methods (surface pressure distribution and wake rake). (orig.)

Non-Intrusive Magneto-Optic Detecting System for Investigations of Air Switching Arcs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Pengfei; Zhang Guogang; Dong Jinlong; Liu Wanying; Geng Yingsan

2014-01-01

In current investigations of electric arc plasmas, experiments based on modern testing technology play an important role. To enrich the testing methods and contribute to the understanding and grasping of the inherent mechanism of air switching arcs, in this paper, a non-intrusive detecting system is described that combines the magneto-optic imaging (MOI) technique with the solution to inverse electromagnetic problems. The detecting system works in a sequence of main steps as follows: MOI of the variation of the arc flux density over a plane, magnetic field information extracted from the magneto-optic (MO) images, arc current density distribution and spatial pattern reconstruction by inverting the resulting field data. Correspondingly, in the system, an MOI set-up is designed based on the Faraday effect and the polarization properties of light, and an intelligent inversion algorithm is proposed that involves simulated annealing (SA). Experiments were carried out for high current (2 kA RMS) discharge cases in a typical low-voltage switchgear. The results show that the MO detection system possesses the advantages of visualization, high resolution and response, and electrical insulation, which provides a novel diagnostics tool for further studies of the arc. (low temperature plasma)

Reliability-based trajectory optimization using nonintrusive polynomial chaos for Mars entry mission

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Yuechen; Li, Haiyang

2018-06-01

This paper presents the reliability-based sequential optimization (RBSO) method to settle the trajectory optimization problem with parametric uncertainties in entry dynamics for Mars entry mission. First, the deterministic entry trajectory optimization model is reviewed, and then the reliability-based optimization model is formulated. In addition, the modified sequential optimization method, in which the nonintrusive polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) method and the most probable point (MPP) searching method are employed, is proposed to solve the reliability-based optimization problem efficiently. The nonintrusive PCE method contributes to the transformation between the stochastic optimization (SO) and the deterministic optimization (DO) and to the approximation of trajectory solution efficiently. The MPP method, which is used for assessing the reliability of constraints satisfaction only up to the necessary level, is employed to further improve the computational efficiency. The cycle including SO, reliability assessment and constraints update is repeated in the RBSO until the reliability requirements of constraints satisfaction are satisfied. Finally, the RBSO is compared with the traditional DO and the traditional sequential optimization based on Monte Carlo (MC) simulation in a specific Mars entry mission to demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed method.

Evaluation of the hooghoudt and kirkham tile drain equations in the soil and water assessment tool to simulate tile flow and nitrate-nitrogen.

Science.gov (United States)

Moriasi, Daniel N; Gowda, Prasanna H; Arnold, Jeffrey G; Mulla, David J; Ale, Srinivasulu; Steiner, Jean L; Tomer, Mark D

2013-11-01

Subsurface tile drains in agricultural systems of the midwestern United States are a major contributor of nitrate-N (NO-N) loadings to hypoxic conditions in the Gulf of Mexico. Hydrologic and water quality models, such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool, are widely used to simulate tile drainage systems. The Hooghoudt and Kirkham tile drain equations in the Soil and Water Assessment Tool have not been rigorously tested for predicting tile flow and the corresponding NO-N losses. In this study, long-term (1983-1996) monitoring plot data from southern Minnesota were used to evaluate the SWAT version 2009 revision 531 (hereafter referred to as SWAT) model for accurately estimating subsurface tile drain flows and associated NO-N losses. A retention parameter adjustment factor was incorporated to account for the effects of tile drainage and slope changes on the computation of surface runoff using the curve number method (hereafter referred to as Revised SWAT). The SWAT and Revised SWAT models were calibrated and validated for tile flow and associated NO-N losses. Results indicated that, on average, Revised SWAT predicted monthly tile flow and associated NO-N losses better than SWAT by 48 and 28%, respectively. For the calibration period, the Revised SWAT model simulated tile flow and NO-N losses within 4 and 1% of the observed data, respectively. For the validation period, it simulated tile flow and NO-N losses within 8 and 2%, respectively, of the observed values. Therefore, the Revised SWAT model is expected to provide more accurate simulation of the effectiveness of tile drainage and NO-N management practices. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

Development of Next Generation Multiphase Pipe Flow Prediction Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cem Sarica; Holden Zhang

2006-05-31

The developments of oil and gas fields in deep waters (5000 ft and more) will become more common in the future. It is inevitable that production systems will operate under multiphase flow conditions (simultaneous flow of gas, oil and water possibly along with sand, hydrates, and waxes). Multiphase flow prediction tools are essential for every phase of hydrocarbon recovery from design to operation. Recovery from deep-waters poses special challenges and requires accurate multiphase flow predictive tools for several applications, including the design and diagnostics of the production systems, separation of phases in horizontal wells, and multiphase separation (topside, seabed or bottom-hole). It is crucial for any multiphase separation technique, either at topside, seabed or bottom-hole, to know inlet conditions such as flow rates, flow patterns, and volume fractions of gas, oil and water coming into the separation devices. Therefore, the development of a new generation of multiphase flow predictive tools is needed. The overall objective of the proposed study is to develop a unified model for gas-oil-water three-phase flow in wells, flow lines, and pipelines to predict flow characteristics such as flow patterns, phase distributions, and pressure gradient encountered during petroleum production at different flow conditions (pipe diameter and inclination, fluid properties and flow rates). In the current multiphase modeling approach, flow pattern and flow behavior (pressure gradient and phase fractions) prediction modeling are separated. Thus, different models based on different physics are employed, causing inaccuracies and discontinuities. Moreover, oil and water are treated as a pseudo single phase, ignoring the distinct characteristics of both oil and water, and often resulting in inaccurate design that leads to operational problems. In this study, a new model is being developed through a theoretical and experimental study employing a revolutionary approach. The

Reduction of Motion Artifacts and Improvement of R Peak Detecting Accuracy Using Adjacent Non-Intrusive ECG Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minho Choi

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Non-intrusive electrocardiogram (ECG monitoring has many advantages: easy to measure and apply in daily life. However, motion noise in the measured signal is the major problem of non-intrusive measurement. This paper proposes a method to reduce the noise and to detect the R peaks of ECG in a stable manner in a sitting arrangement using non-intrusive sensors. The method utilizes two capacitive ECG sensors (cECGs to measure ECG, and another two cECGs located adjacent to the sensors for ECG are added to obtain the information on motion. Then, active noise cancellation technique and the motion information are used to reduce motion noise. To verify the proposed method, ECG was measured indoors and during driving, and the accuracy of the detected R peaks was compared. After applying the method, the sum of sensitivity and positive predictivity increased 8.39% on average and 26.26% maximally in the data. Based on the results, it was confirmed that the motion noise was reduced and that more reliable R peak positions could be obtained by the proposed method. The robustness of the new ECG measurement method will elicit benefits to various health care systems that require noninvasive heart rate or heart rate variability measurements.

Automatized material and radioactivity flow control tool in decommissioning process

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rehak, I.; Vasko, M.; Daniska, V.; Schultz, O.

2009-01-01

In this presentation the automatized material and radioactivity flow control tool in decommissioning process is discussed. It is concluded that: computer simulation of the decommissioning process is one of the important attributes of computer code Omega; one of the basic tools of computer optimisation of decommissioning waste processing are the tools of integral material and radioactivity flow; all the calculated parameters of materials are stored in each point of calculation process and they can be viewed; computer code Omega represents opened modular system, which can be improved; improvement of the module of optimisation of decommissioning waste processing will be performed in the frame of improvement of material procedures and scenarios.

Aero-Optical Wavefront Propagation and Refractive Fluid Interfaces in Large-Reynolds-Number Compressible Turbulent Flows

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Catrakis, Haris J; Jefferies, Rhett

2005-01-01

... of the refractive field and interfaces. Direct, non-intrusive, and non-integrated imaging of the refractive index field in purely gaseous flows is achieved using laser induced fluorescence of acetone vapor molecularly premixed in air...

Evaluation Influence: The Evaluation Event and Capital Flow in International Development.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, David A

2017-12-01

Assessing program effectiveness in human development is central to informing foreign aid policy-making and organizational learning. Foreign aid effectiveness discussions have increasingly given attention to the devaluing effects of aid flow volatility. This study reveals that the external evaluation event influences actor behavior, serving as a volatility-constraining tool. A case study of a multidonor aid development mechanism served examining the influence of an evaluation event when considering anticipatory effects. The qualitative component used text and focus group data combined with individual interview data (organizations n = 10, including 26 individuals). Quantitative data included financial information on all 75 capital investments. The integrated theory of influence and model of alternative mechanisms used these components to identify the linkage between the evaluation event and capital flow volatility. Aid approved in the year of the midterm evaluation was disbursed by the mechanism with low capital volatility. Anticipating the evaluation event influenced behavior resulting in an empirical record that program outcomes were enhanced and the mechanism was an improved organization. Formative evaluations in a development program can trigger activity as an interim process. That activity provides for a more robust assessment of ultimate consequence of interest. Anticipating an evaluation can stimulate donor reality testing. The findings inform and strengthen future research on the influence of anticipating an evaluation. Closely examining activities before, during, and shortly after the evaluation event can aid development of other systematic methods to improve understanding this phenomenon, as well as improve donor effectiveness strategies.

An investigation of fluid flow during induction stroke of a water analog model of an IC engine using an innovative optical velocimetry concept: LIPA

Science.gov (United States)

Stier, Bernd; Falco, R. E.

1994-01-01

Optical measurements on an axisymmetrical quartz component engine research model were made to evaluate the flow field encountered during induction. The measurement technique is LIPA (Laser Induced Photochemical Anemometry), a non-intrusive velocimetry concept that provides an investigator of fluid flow with a tool to attain planar information about three-dimensional velocity and vorticity vectors in a single measurement step. The goal of this investigation is to further develop this measurement technique and apply it to study the induction stroke of a water analog model of a four-stroke internal combustion engine. The research conducted in the water analog model is a fundamental scientific inquiry into the flow fields that develop in the induction stroke of an engine at idling engine speeds. As this is the first investigation of its kind using LIPA technique, our goal has been to quantify, in a preliminary manner, the flow field features that develop during the intake stroke. In the process a more comprehensive understanding of the flow field features was developed, and tied to the quantification. The study evaluated the flow field of the intake stroke by estimating fields of velocity and vorticity. On the basis of these data, information about fluid dynamics during induction at engine speeds of 10, 20, and 30 RPM (corresponding to 170, 340, and 510 RPM respectively, when air is the flowing medium) for three different valve lifts was obtained. The overall development of the flow field, its energy content (kinetic, fluctuation) for the different settings of the engine parameters, vorticity information, and cyclic variations have been quantified. These have been discussed in terms of mixing performance.

A nonintrusive temperature measuring system for estimating deep body temperature in bed.

Science.gov (United States)

Sim, S Y; Lee, W K; Baek, H J; Park, K S

2012-01-01

Deep body temperature is an important indicator that reflects human being's overall physiological states. Existing deep body temperature monitoring systems are too invasive to apply to awake patients for a long time. Therefore, we proposed a nonintrusive deep body temperature measuring system. To estimate deep body temperature nonintrusively, a dual-heat-flux probe and double-sensor probes were embedded in a neck pillow. When a patient uses the neck pillow to rest, the deep body temperature can be assessed using one of the thermometer probes embedded in the neck pillow. We could estimate deep body temperature in 3 different sleep positions. Also, to reduce the initial response time of dual-heat-flux thermometer which measures body temperature in supine position, we employed the curve-fitting method to one subject. And thereby, we could obtain the deep body temperature in a minute. This result shows the possibility that the system can be used as practical temperature monitoring system with appropriate curve-fitting model. In the next study, we would try to establish a general fitting model that can be applied to all of the subjects. In addition, we are planning to extract meaningful health information such as sleep structure analysis from deep body temperature data which are acquired from this system.

An analytical phantom for the evaluation of medical flow imaging algorithms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pashaei, A; Fatouraee, N

2009-01-01

Blood flow characteristics (e.g. velocity, pressure, shear stress, streamline and volumetric flow rate) are effective tools in diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerotic plaque, aneurism and cardiac muscle failure. Noninvasive estimation of cardiovascular blood flow characteristics is mostly limited to the measurement of velocity components by medical imaging modalities. Once the velocity field is obtained from the images, other flow characteristics within the cardiovascular system can be determined using algorithms relating them to the velocity components. In this work, we propose an analytical flow phantom to evaluate these algorithms accurately. The Navier-Stokes equations are used to derive this flow phantom. The exact solution of these equations obtains analytical expression for the flow characteristics inside the domain. Features such as pulsatility, incompressibility and viscosity of flow are included in a three-dimensional domain. The velocity domain of the resulted system is presented as reference images. These images could be employed to evaluate the performance of different flow characteristic algorithms. In this study, we also present some applications of the obtained phantom. The calculation of pressure domain from velocity data, volumetric flow rate, wall shear stress and particle trace are the characteristics whose algorithms are evaluated here. We also present the application of this phantom in the analysis of noisy and low-resolution images. The presented phantom can be considered as a benchmark test to compare the accuracy of different flow characteristic algorithms.

Two-phase PIV of bubbly flows: status and trends

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Deen, N.G.; Westerweel, Jerry; Delnoij, E.

2002-01-01

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a measurement technique that has received a lot of attention for this purpose in the last decade. PIV is an optical and thus non-intrusive measurement technique that gives instantaneous 2D velocity data for a whole plane in a 3D flow field. In this paper we will

An integrated Riverine Environmental Flow Decision Support System (REFDSS) to evaluate the ecological effects of alternative flow scenarios on river ecosystems

Science.gov (United States)

Maloney, Kelly O.; Talbert, Colin B.; Cole, Jeffrey C.; Galbraith, Heather S.; Blakeslee, Carrie J.; Hanson, Leanne; Holmquist-Johnson, Christopher L.

2015-01-01

In regulated rivers, managers must evaluate competing flow release scenarios that attempt to balance both human and natural needs. Meeting these natural flow needs is complex due to the myriad of interacting physical and hydrological factors that affect ecosystems. Tools that synthesize the voluminous scientific data and models on these factors will facilitate management of these systems. Here, we present the Riverine Environmental Flow Decision Support System (REFDSS), a tool that enables evaluation of competing flow scenarios and other variables on instream habitat. We developed a REFDSS for the Upper Delaware River, USA, a system that is regulated by three headwater reservoirs. This version of the REFDSS has the ability to integrate any set of spatially explicit data and synthesizes modeled discharge for three competing management scenarios, flow-specific 2-D hydrodynamic modeled estimates of local hydrologic conditions (e.g., depth, velocity, shear stress, etc.) at a fine pixel-scale (1 m2), and habitat suitability criteria (HSC) for a variety of taxa. It contains all individual model outputs, computationally integrates these data, and outputs the amount of potentially available habitat for a suite of species of interest under each flow release scenario. Users have the flexibility to change the time period of interest and vary the HSC. The REFDSS was developed to enable side-by-side evaluation of different flow management scenarios and their effects on potential habitat availability, allowing managers to make informed decisions on the best flow scenarios. An exercise comparing two alternative flow scenarios to a baseline scenario for several key species is presented. The Upper Delaware REFDSS was robust to minor changes in HSC (± 10 %). The general REFDSS platform was developed as a user-friendly Windows desktop application that was designed to include other potential parameters of interest (e.g., temperature) and for transferability to other riverine systems.

Business Case for Nonintrusive Load Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baechler, Michael C. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Hao, He [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2016-05-01

This report explores how utilities, researchers, and consumers could benefit from a lower cost approach to submetering using non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM). NILM is a process of using data from a single point of monitoring, such as a utility smart meter, to provide an itemized accounting of end use energy consumption in residential and small commercial buildings. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) prepared this report for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). PNNL participated in an advisory group as part of a research project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Bonneville Power Administration, and the State of Washington. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) convened the advisory committee for two workshops held to identify ways in which NILM may be used. PNNL, on behalf of DOE, helped to cosponsor the first of these workshops. Results of an end-use monitoring study of a bank branch conducted by PNNL are also presented for purposes of illustrating the need for better data in energy savings modeling (DOE 2013a).

An evaluation of Dynamic TOPMODEL for low flow simulation

Science.gov (United States)

Coxon, G.; Freer, J. E.; Quinn, N.; Woods, R. A.; Wagener, T.; Howden, N. J. K.

2015-12-01

Hydrological models are essential tools for drought risk management, often providing input to water resource system models, aiding our understanding of low flow processes within catchments and providing low flow predictions. However, simulating low flows and droughts is challenging as hydrological systems often demonstrate threshold effects in connectivity, non-linear groundwater contributions and a greater influence of water resource system elements during low flow periods. These dynamic processes are typically not well represented in commonly used hydrological models due to data and model limitations. Furthermore, calibrated or behavioural models may not be effectively evaluated during more extreme drought periods. A better understanding of the processes that occur during low flows and how these are represented within models is thus required if we want to be able to provide robust and reliable predictions of future drought events. In this study, we assess the performance of dynamic TOPMODEL for low flow simulation. Dynamic TOPMODEL was applied to a number of UK catchments in the Thames region using time series of observed rainfall and potential evapotranspiration data that captured multiple historic droughts over a period of several years. The model performance was assessed against the observed discharge time series using a limits of acceptability framework, which included uncertainty in the discharge time series. We evaluate the models against multiple signatures of catchment low-flow behaviour and investigate differences in model performance between catchments, model diagnostics and for different low flow periods. We also considered the impact of surface water and groundwater abstractions and discharges on the observed discharge time series and how this affected the model evaluation. From analysing the model performance, we suggest future improvements to Dynamic TOPMODEL to improve the representation of low flow processes within the model structure.

Uncertainty quantification-based robust aerodynamic optimization of laminar flow nacelle

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Neng; Tao, Yang; Liu, Zhiyong; Lin, Jun

2018-05-01

The aerodynamic performance of laminar flow nacelle is highly sensitive to uncertain working conditions, especially the surface roughness. An efficient robust aerodynamic optimization method on the basis of non-deterministic computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation and Efficient Global Optimization (EGO)algorithm was employed. A non-intrusive polynomial chaos method is used in conjunction with an existing well-verified CFD module to quantify the uncertainty propagation in the flow field. This paper investigates the roughness modeling behavior with the γ-Ret shear stress transport model including modeling flow transition and surface roughness effects. The roughness effects are modeled to simulate sand grain roughness. A Class-Shape Transformation-based parametrical description of the nacelle contour as part of an automatic design evaluation process is presented. A Design-of-Experiments (DoE) was performed and surrogate model by Kriging method was built. The new design nacelle process demonstrates that significant improvements of both mean and variance of the efficiency are achieved and the proposed method can be applied to laminar flow nacelle design successfully.

A review on measuring methods of gas-liquid flow rates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Minemura, Kiyoshi; Yamashita, Masato

2000-01-01

This paper presents a review on the state of current measuring techniques for gas-liquid multiphase flow rates. After briefly discussing the basic idea on measuring methods for single-phase and two-phase flows, existing methods for the two-phase flow rates are classified into several types, that is, with or without a homogenizing device, single or combined method of several techniques, with intrusive or non-intrusive sensors, and physical or software method. Each methods are comparatively reviewed in view of measuring accuracy and manageability. Its scope also contains the techniques developed for petroleum-gas-water flow rates. (author)

Transverse injection into Mach 2 flow behind a rearward-facing step - A 3-D, compressible flow test case for hypersonic combustor CFD validation

Science.gov (United States)

Mcdaniel, James C.; Fletcher, Douglas G.; Hartfield, Roy J.; Hollo, Steven D.

1991-01-01

A spatially-complete data set of the important primitive flow variables is presented for the complex, nonreacting, 3D unit combustor flow field employing transverse injection into a Mach 2 flow behind a rearward-facing step. A unique wind tunnel facility providing the capability for iodine seeding was built specifically for these measurements. Two optical techniques based on laser-induced-iodine fluorescence were developed and utilized for nonintrusive, in situ flow field measurements. LDA provided both mean and fluctuating velocity component measurements. A thermographic phosphor wall temperature measurement technique was developed and employed. Data from the 2D flow over a rearward-facing step and the complex 3D mixing flow with injection are reported.

STRING 3: An Advanced Groundwater Flow Visualization Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Schröder, Simon; Michel, Isabel; Biedert, Tim; Gräfe, Marius; Seidel, Torsten; König, Christoph

2016-04-01

The visualization of 3D groundwater flow is a challenging task. Previous versions of our software STRING [1] solely focused on intuitive visualization of complex flow scenarios for non-professional audiences. STRING, developed by Fraunhofer ITWM (Kaiserslautern, Germany) and delta h Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (Witten, Germany), provides the necessary means for visualization of both 2D and 3D data on planar and curved surfaces. In this contribution we discuss how to extend this approach to a full 3D tool and its challenges in continuation of Michel et al. [2]. This elevates STRING from a post-production to an exploration tool for experts. In STRING moving pathlets provide an intuition of velocity and direction of both steady-state and transient flows. The visualization concept is based on the Lagrangian view of the flow. To capture every detail of the flow an advanced method for intelligent, time-dependent seeding is used building on the Finite Pointset Method (FPM) developed by Fraunhofer ITWM. Lifting our visualization approach from 2D into 3D provides many new challenges. With the implementation of a seeding strategy for 3D one of the major problems has already been solved (see Schröder et al. [3]). As pathlets only provide an overview of the velocity field other means are required for the visualization of additional flow properties. We suggest the use of Direct Volume Rendering and isosurfaces for scalar features. In this regard we were able to develop an efficient approach for combining the rendering through raytracing of the volume and regular OpenGL geometries. This is achieved through the use of Depth Peeling or A-Buffers for the rendering of transparent geometries. Animation of pathlets requires a strict boundary of the simulation domain. Hence, STRING needs to extract the boundary, even from unstructured data, if it is not provided. In 3D we additionally need a good visualization of the boundary itself. For this the silhouette based on the angle of

Direct implementation of an axial-flow helium gas turbine tool in a system analysis tool for HTGRs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ji Hwan; No, Hee Cheon; Kim, Hyeun Min; Lim, Hong Sik

2008-01-01

This study concerns the development of dynamic models for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) through direct implementation of a gas turbine analysis code with a transient analysis code. We have developed a streamline curvature analysis code based on the Newton-Raphson numerical application (SANA) to analyze the off-design performance of helium gas turbines under conditions of normal operation. The SANA code performs a detailed two-dimensional analysis by means of throughflow calculation with allowances for losses in axial-flow multistage compressors and turbines. To evaluate the performance in the steady-state and load transient of HTGRs, we developed GAMMA-T by implementing SANA in the transient system code, GAMMA, which is a multidimensional, multicomponent analysis tool for HTGRs. The reactor, heat exchangers, and connecting pipes were designed with a one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic model that uses the GAMMA code. We assessed GAMMA-T by comparing its results with the steady-state results of the GTHTR300 of JAEA. We concluded that the results are in good agreement, including the results of the vessel cooling bypass flow and the turbine cooling flow

User-friendly Tool for Power Flow Analysis and Distributed ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Akorede

AKOREDE et al: TOOL FOR POWER FLOW ANALYSIS AND DISTRIBUTED GENERATION OPTIMISATION. 23 ... greenhouse gas emissions and the current deregulation of electric energy ..... Visual composition and temporal behaviour of GUI.

Real-time radiography, digital radiography, and computed tomography for nonintrusive waste drum characterization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Martz, H.E.; Schneberk, D.J.; Roberson, G.P.

1994-07-01

We are investigating and developing the application of x-ray nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and gamma-ray nondestructive assay (NDA) methods to nonintrusively characterize 208-liter (55-gallon) mixed waste drums. Mixed wastes contain both hazardous and radioactive materials. We are investigating the use of x-ray NDE methods to verify the content of documented waste drums and determine if they can be used to identify hazardous and nonconforming materials. These NDE methods are also being used to help waste certification and hazardous waste management personnel at LLNL to verify/confirm and/or determine the contents of waste. The gamma-ray NDA method is used to identify the intrinsic radioactive source(s) and to accurately quantify its strength. The NDA method may also be able to identify some hazardous materials such as heavy metals. Also, we are exploring techniques to combine both NDE and NDA data sets to yield the maximum information from these nonintrusive, waste-drum characterization methods. In this paper, we report an our x-ray NDE R ampersand D activities, while our gamma-ray NDA activities are reported elsewhere in the proceedings. We have developed a data, acquisition scanner for x-ray NDE real-time radiography (RTR), as well as digital radiography transmission computed tomography (TCT) along with associated computational techniques for image reconstruction, analysis, and display. We are using this scanner and real-waste drums at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). In this paper, we discuss some issues associated with x-ray imaging, describe the design construction of an inexpensive NDE drum scanner, provide representative DR and TCT results of both mock- and real-waste drums, and end with a summary of our efforts and future directions. The results of these scans reveal that RTR, DR, and CT imaging techniques can be used in concert to provide valuable information about the interior of low-level-, transuranic-, and mock-waste drums without

Non-intrusive optical study of gas and its exchange in human maxillary sinuses

Science.gov (United States)

Persson, L.; Andersson, M.; Svensson, T.; Cassel-Engquist, M.; Svanberg, K.; Svanberg, S.

2007-07-01

We demonstrate a novel non-intrusive technique based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy to investigate human maxillary sinuses in vivo. The technique relies on the fact that free gases have much sharper absorption features (typical a few GHz) than the surrounding tissue. Molecular oxygen was detected at 760 nm. Volunteers have been investigated by injecting near-infrared light fibre-optically in contact with the palate inside the mouth. The multiply scattered light was detected externally by a handheld probe on and around the cheek bone. A significant signal difference in oxygen imprint was observed when comparing volunteers with widely different anamnesis regarding maxillary sinus status. Control measurements through the hand and through the cheek below the cheekbone were also performed to investigate any possible oxygen offset in the setup. These provided a consistently non-detectable signal level. The passages between the nasal cavity and the maxillary sinuses were also non-intrusively optically studied, to the best of our knowledge for the first time. These measurements provide information on the channel conductivity which may prove useful in facial sinus diagnostics. The results suggest that a clinical trial together with an ear-nose-throat (ENT) clinic should be carried out to investigate the clinical use of the new technique.

Overview of the tool-flow for the Montium Processing Tile

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smit, Gerardus Johannes Maria; Rosien, M.A.J.; Guo, Y.; Heysters, P.M.

This paper presents an overview of a tool chain to support a transformational design methodology. The tool can be used to compile code written in a high level source language, like C, to a coarse grain reconfigurable architecture. The source code is first translated into a Control Data Flow Graph

Single-case synthesis tools I: Comparing tools to evaluate SCD quality and rigor.

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmerman, Kathleen N; Ledford, Jennifer R; Severini, Katherine E; Pustejovsky, James E; Barton, Erin E; Lloyd, Blair P

2018-03-03

Tools for evaluating the quality and rigor of single case research designs (SCD) are often used when conducting SCD syntheses. Preferred components include evaluations of design features related to the internal validity of SCD to obtain quality and/or rigor ratings. Three tools for evaluating the quality and rigor of SCD (Council for Exceptional Children, What Works Clearinghouse, and Single-Case Analysis and Design Framework) were compared to determine if conclusions regarding the effectiveness of antecedent sensory-based interventions for young children changed based on choice of quality evaluation tool. Evaluation of SCD quality differed across tools, suggesting selection of quality evaluation tools impacts evaluation findings. Suggestions for selecting an appropriate quality and rigor assessment tool are provided and across-tool conclusions are drawn regarding the quality and rigor of studies. Finally, authors provide guidance for using quality evaluations in conjunction with outcome analyses when conducting syntheses of interventions evaluated in the context of SCD. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Assessing Human Activity in Elderly People Using Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Alcalá, José M; Ureña, Jesús; Hernández, Álvaro; Gualda, David

2017-02-11

The ageing of the population, and their increasing wish of living independently, are motivating the development of welfare and healthcare models. Existing approaches based on the direct heath-monitoring using body sensor networks (BSN) are precise and accurate. Nonetheless, their intrusiveness causes non-acceptance. New approaches seek the indirect monitoring through monitoring activities of daily living (ADLs), which proves to be a suitable solution. ADL monitoring systems use many heterogeneous sensors, are less intrusive, and are less expensive than BSN, however, the deployment and maintenance of wireless sensor networks (WSN) prevent them from a widespread acceptance. In this work, a novel technique to monitor the human activity, based on non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM), is presented. The proposal uses only smart meter data, which leads to minimum intrusiveness and a potential massive deployment at minimal cost. This could be the key to develop sustainable healthcare models for smart homes, capable of complying with the elderly people' demands. This study also uses the Dempster-Shafer theory to provide a daily score of normality with regard to the regular behavior. This approach has been evaluated using real datasets and, additionally, a benchmarking against a Gaussian mixture model approach is presented.

Laboratory Evaluation of Air Flow Measurement Methods for Residential HVAC Returns

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walker, Iain; Stratton, Chris

2015-07-01

This project improved the accuracy of air flow measurements used in commissioning California heating and air conditioning systems in Title 24 (Building and Appliance Efficiency Standards), thereby improving system performance and efficiency of California residences. The research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addressed the issue that typical tools used by contractors in the field to test air flows may not be accurate enough to measure return flows used in Title 24 applications. The team developed guidance on performance of current diagnostics as well as a draft test method for use in future evaluations. The series of tests performed measured air flow using a range of techniques and devices. The measured air flows were compared to reference air flow measurements using inline air flow meters built into the test apparatus. The experimental results showed that some devices had reasonable results (typical errors of 5 percent or less) but others had much bigger errors (up to 25 percent).

Security constrained optimal power flow by modern optimization tools

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Security constrained optimal power flow by modern optimization tools. ... International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology ... If you would like more information about how to print, save, and work with PDFs, Highwire Press ...

Non-intrusive telemetry applications in the oilsands: from visible light and x-ray video to acoustic imaging and spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Shaw, John M.

2013-06-01

While the production, transport and refining of oils from the oilsands of Alberta, and comparable resources elsewhere is performed at industrial scales, numerous technical and technological challenges and opportunities persist due to the ill defined nature of the resource. For example, bitumen and heavy oil comprise multiple bulk phases, self-organizing constituents at the microscale (liquid crystals) and the nano scale. There are no quantitative measures available at the molecular level. Non-intrusive telemetry is providing promising paths toward solutions, be they enabling technologies targeting process design, development or optimization, or more prosaic process control or process monitoring applications. Operation examples include automated large object and poor quality ore during mining, and monitoring the thickness and location of oil water interfacial zones within separation vessels. These applications involve real-time video image processing. X-ray transmission video imaging is used to enumerate organic phases present within a vessel, and to detect individual phase volumes, densities and elemental compositions. This is an enabling technology that provides phase equilibrium and phase composition data for production and refining process development, and fluid property myth debunking. A high-resolution two-dimensional acoustic mapping technique now at the proof of concept stage is expected to provide simultaneous fluid flow and fluid composition data within porous inorganic media. Again this is an enabling technology targeting visualization of diverse oil production process fundamentals at the pore scale. Far infrared spectroscopy coupled with detailed quantum mechanical calculations, may provide characteristic molecular motifs and intermolecular association data required for fluid characterization and process modeling. X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS/USAXS) provides characteristic supramolecular structure information that impacts fluid rheology and process

Catalyst synthesis and evaluation using an integrated atomic layer deposition synthesis–catalysis testing tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Camacho-Bunquin, Jeffrey; Shou, Heng; Marshall, Christopher L.; Aich, Payoli; Beaulieu, David R.; Klotzsch, Helmut; Bachman, Stephen; Hock, Adam; Stair, Peter

2015-01-01

An integrated atomic layer deposition synthesis-catalysis (I-ALD-CAT) tool was developed. It combines an ALD manifold in-line with a plug-flow reactor system for the synthesis of supported catalytic materials by ALD and immediate evaluation of catalyst reactivity using gas-phase probe reactions. The I-ALD-CAT delivery system consists of 12 different metal ALD precursor channels, 4 oxidizing or reducing agents, and 4 catalytic reaction feeds to either of the two plug-flow reactors. The system can employ reactor pressures and temperatures in the range of 10 −3 to 1 bar and 300–1000 K, respectively. The instrument is also equipped with a gas chromatograph and a mass spectrometer unit for the detection and quantification of volatile species from ALD and catalytic reactions. In this report, we demonstrate the use of the I-ALD-CAT tool for the synthesis of platinum active sites and Al 2 O 3 overcoats, and evaluation of catalyst propylene hydrogenation activity

Catalyst synthesis and evaluation using an integrated atomic layer deposition synthesis–catalysis testing tool

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Camacho-Bunquin, Jeffrey; Shou, Heng; Marshall, Christopher L. [Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439 (United States); Aich, Payoli [Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439 (United States); Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607 (United States); Beaulieu, David R.; Klotzsch, Helmut; Bachman, Stephen [Arradiance Inc., Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 (United States); Hock, Adam [Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439 (United States); Department of Chemistry, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois 60616 (United States); Stair, Peter [Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439 (United States); Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208 (United States)

2015-08-15

An integrated atomic layer deposition synthesis-catalysis (I-ALD-CAT) tool was developed. It combines an ALD manifold in-line with a plug-flow reactor system for the synthesis of supported catalytic materials by ALD and immediate evaluation of catalyst reactivity using gas-phase probe reactions. The I-ALD-CAT delivery system consists of 12 different metal ALD precursor channels, 4 oxidizing or reducing agents, and 4 catalytic reaction feeds to either of the two plug-flow reactors. The system can employ reactor pressures and temperatures in the range of 10{sup −3} to 1 bar and 300–1000 K, respectively. The instrument is also equipped with a gas chromatograph and a mass spectrometer unit for the detection and quantification of volatile species from ALD and catalytic reactions. In this report, we demonstrate the use of the I-ALD-CAT tool for the synthesis of platinum active sites and Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} overcoats, and evaluation of catalyst propylene hydrogenation activity.

Fluid flow measurements by means of vibration monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Campagna, Mauro M; Dinardo, Giuseppe; Fabbiano, Laura; Vacca, Gaetano

2015-01-01

The achievement of accurate fluid flow measurements is fundamental whenever the control and the monitoring of certain physical quantities governing an industrial process are required. In that case, non-intrusive devices are preferable, but these are often more sophisticated and expensive than those which are more common (such as nozzles, diaphrams, Coriolis flowmeters and so on). In this paper, a novel, non-intrusive, simple and inexpensive methodology is presented to measure the fluid flow rate (in a turbulent regime) whose physical principle is based on the acquisition of transversal vibrational signals induced by the fluid itself onto the pipe walls it is flowing through. Such a principle of operation would permit the use of micro-accelerometers capable of acquiring and transmitting the signals, even by means of wireless technology, to a control room for the monitoring of the process under control. A possible application (whose feasibility will be investigated by the authors in a further study) of this introduced technology is related to the employment of a net of micro-accelerometers to be installed on pipeline networks of aqueducts. This apparatus could lead to the faster and easier detection and location of possible leaks of fluid affecting the pipeline network with more affordable costs. The authors, who have previously proven the linear dependency of the acceleration harmonics amplitude on the flow rate, here discuss an experimental analysis of this functional relation with the variation in the physical properties of the pipe in terms of its diameter and constituent material, to find the eventual limits to the practical application of the measurement methodology. (paper)

Fluid flow measurements by means of vibration monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Campagna, Mauro M.; Dinardo, Giuseppe; Fabbiano, Laura; Vacca, Gaetano

2015-11-01

The achievement of accurate fluid flow measurements is fundamental whenever the control and the monitoring of certain physical quantities governing an industrial process are required. In that case, non-intrusive devices are preferable, but these are often more sophisticated and expensive than those which are more common (such as nozzles, diaphrams, Coriolis flowmeters and so on). In this paper, a novel, non-intrusive, simple and inexpensive methodology is presented to measure the fluid flow rate (in a turbulent regime) whose physical principle is based on the acquisition of transversal vibrational signals induced by the fluid itself onto the pipe walls it is flowing through. Such a principle of operation would permit the use of micro-accelerometers capable of acquiring and transmitting the signals, even by means of wireless technology, to a control room for the monitoring of the process under control. A possible application (whose feasibility will be investigated by the authors in a further study) of this introduced technology is related to the employment of a net of micro-accelerometers to be installed on pipeline networks of aqueducts. This apparatus could lead to the faster and easier detection and location of possible leaks of fluid affecting the pipeline network with more affordable costs. The authors, who have previously proven the linear dependency of the acceleration harmonics amplitude on the flow rate, here discuss an experimental analysis of this functional relation with the variation in the physical properties of the pipe in terms of its diameter and constituent material, to find the eventual limits to the practical application of the measurement methodology.

ASCI visualization tool evaluation, Version 2.0

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kegelmeyer, P. [ed.] [Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (United States). Center for Computational Engineering

1997-04-01

The charter of the ASCI Visualization Common Tools subgroup was to investigate and evaluate 3D scientific visualization tools. As part of that effort, a Tri-Lab evaluation effort was launched in February of 1996. The first step was to agree on a thoroughly documented list of 32 features against which all tool candidates would be evaluated. These evaluation criteria were both gleaned from a user survey and determined from informed extrapolation into the future, particularly as concerns the 3D nature and extremely large size of ASCI data sets. The second step was to winnow a field of 41 candidate tools down to 11. The selection principle was to be as inclusive as practical, retaining every tool that seemed to hold any promise of fulfilling all of ASCI`s visualization needs. These 11 tools were then closely investigated by volunteer evaluators distributed across LANL, LLNL, and SNL. This report contains the results of those evaluations, as well as a discussion of the evaluation philosophy and criteria.

Nonintrusive verification attributes for excess fissile materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nicholas, N.J.; Eccleston, G.W.; Fearey, B.L.

1997-10-01

Under US initiatives, over two hundred metric tons of fissile materials have been declared to be excess to national defense needs. These excess materials are in both classified and unclassified forms. The US has expressed the intent to place these materials under international inspections as soon as practicable. To support these commitments, members of the US technical community are examining a variety of nonintrusive approaches (i.e., those that would not reveal classified or sensitive information) for verification of a range of potential declarations for these classified and unclassified materials. The most troublesome and potentially difficult issues involve approaches for international inspection of classified materials. The primary focus of the work to date has been on the measurement of signatures of relevant materials attributes (e.g., element, identification number, isotopic ratios, etc.), especially those related to classified materials and items. The authors are examining potential attributes and related measurement technologies in the context of possible verification approaches. The paper will discuss the current status of these activities, including their development, assessment, and benchmarking status

Full-Volume, Three-Dimensional, Transient Measurements of Bubbly Flows Using Particle Tracking Velocimetry and Shadow Image Velocimetry Coupled with Pattern Recognition Techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yassin Hassan

2001-01-01

Develop a state-of-the-art non-intrusive diagnostic tool to perform simultaneous measurements of both the temporal and three-dimensional spatial velocity of the two phases of a bubbly flow. These measurements are required to provide a foundation for studying the constitutive closure relations needed in computational fluid dynamics and best-estimate thermal hydraulic codes employed in nuclear reactor safety analysis and severe accident simulation. Such kinds of full-field measurements are not achievable through the commonly used point-measurement techniques, such as hot wire, conductance probe, laser Doppler anemometry, etc. The results can also be used in several other applications, such as the dynamic transport of pollutants in water or studies of the dispersion of hazardous waste

Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET) Interface Control Document

Science.gov (United States)

Grabbe, Shon R.

2017-01-01

This Interface Control Document (ICD) documents the airspace adaptation and air traffic inputs of NASA's Future ATM Concepts and Evaluation Tool (FACET). Its intended audience is the project manager, project team, development team, and stakeholders interested in interfacing with the system. FACET equips Air Traffic Management (ATM) researchers and service providers with a way to explore, develop and evaluate advanced air transportation concepts before they are field-tested and eventually deployed. FACET is a flexible software tool that is capable of quickly generating and analyzing thousands of aircraft trajectories. It provides researchers with a simulation environment for preliminary testing of advanced ATM concepts. Using aircraft performance profiles, airspace models, weather data, and flight schedules, the tool models trajectories for the climb, cruise, and descent phases of flight for each type of aircraft. An advanced graphical interface displays traffic patterns in two and three dimensions, under various current and projected conditions for specific airspace regions or over the entire continental United States. The system is able to simulate a full day's dynamic national airspace system (NAS) operations, model system uncertainty, measure the impact of different decision-makers in the NAS, and provide analysis of the results in graphical form, including sector, airport, fix, and airway usage statistics. NASA researchers test and analyze the system-wide impact of new traffic flow management algorithms under anticipated air traffic growth projections on the nation's air traffic system. In addition to modeling the airspace system for NASA research, FACET has also successfully transitioned into a valuable tool for operational use. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) traffic flow managers and commercial airline dispatchers have used FACET technology for real-time operations planning. FACET integrates live air traffic data from FAA radar systems and weather data

Cluster Flow: A user-friendly bioinformatics workflow tool [version 1; referees: 3 approved

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Philip Ewels

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Pipeline tools are becoming increasingly important within the field of bioinformatics. Using a pipeline manager to manage and run workflows comprised of multiple tools reduces workload and makes analysis results more reproducible. Existing tools require significant work to install and get running, typically needing pipeline scripts to be written from scratch before running any analysis. We present Cluster Flow, a simple and flexible bioinformatics pipeline tool designed to be quick and easy to install. Cluster Flow comes with 40 modules for common NGS processing steps, ready to work out of the box. Pipelines are assembled using these modules with a simple syntax that can be easily modified as required. Core helper functions automate many common NGS procedures, making running pipelines simple. Cluster Flow is available with an GNU GPLv3 license on GitHub. Documentation, examples and an online demo are available at http://clusterflow.io.

A Non-Intrusive Cyber Physical Social Sensing Solution to People Behavior Tracking: Mechanism, Prototype, and Field Experiments.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Yunjian; Zhou, Zhenyu; Chen, Fei; Duan, Peng; Guo, Zhen; Mumtaz, Shahid

2017-01-13

Tracking people's behaviors is a main category of cyber physical social sensing (CPSS)-related people-centric applications. Most tracking methods utilize camera networks or sensors built into mobile devices such as global positioning system (GPS) and Bluetooth. In this article, we propose a non-intrusive wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi)-based tracking method. To show the feasibility, we target tracking people's access behaviors in Wi-Fi networks, which has drawn a lot of interest from the academy and industry recently. Existing methods used for acquiring access traces either provide very limited visibility into media access control (MAC)-level transmission dynamics or sometimes are inflexible and costly. In this article, we present a passive CPSS system operating in a non-intrusive, flexible, and simplified manner to overcome above limitations. We have implemented the prototype on the off-the-shelf personal computer, and performed real-world deployment experiments. The experimental results show that the method is feasible, and people's access behaviors can be correctly tracked within a one-second delay.

Wire-mesh and ultrasound techniques applied for the characterization of gas-liquid slug flow

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ofuchi, Cesar Y.; Sieczkowski, Wytila Chagas; Neves Junior, Flavio; Arruda, Lucia V.R.; Morales, Rigoberto E.M.; Amaral, Carlos E.F.; Silva, Marco J. da [Federal University of Technology of Parana, Curitiba, PR (Brazil)], e-mails: ofuchi@utfpr.edu.br, wytila@utfpr.edu.br, neves@utfpr.edu.br, lvrarruda@utfpr.edu.br, rmorales@utfpr.edu.br, camaral@utfpr.edu.br, mdasilva@utfpr.edu.br

2010-07-01

Gas-liquid two-phase flows are found in a broad range of industrial applications, such as chemical, petrochemical and nuclear industries and quite often determine the efficiency and safety of process and plants. Several experimental techniques have been proposed and applied to measure and quantify two-phase flows so far. In this experimental study the wire-mesh sensor and an ultrasound technique are used and comparatively evaluated to study two-phase slug flows in horizontal pipes. The wire-mesh is an imaging technique and thus appropriated for scientific studies while ultrasound-based technique is robust and non-intrusive and hence well suited for industrial applications. Based on the measured raw data it is possible to extract some specific slug flow parameters of interest such as mean void fraction and characteristic frequency. The experiments were performed in the Thermal Sciences Laboratory (LACIT) at UTFPR, Brazil, in which an experimental two-phase flow loop is available. The experimental flow loop comprises a horizontal acrylic pipe of 26 mm diameter and 9 m length. Water and air were used to produce the two phase flow under controlled conditions. The results show good agreement between the techniques. (author)

Analytical Tools to Improve Optimization Procedures for Lateral Flow Assays

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Helen V. Hsieh

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Immunochromatographic or lateral flow assays (LFAs are inexpensive, easy to use, point-of-care medical diagnostic tests that are found in arenas ranging from a doctor’s office in Manhattan to a rural medical clinic in low resource settings. The simplicity in the LFA itself belies the complex task of optimization required to make the test sensitive, rapid and easy to use. Currently, the manufacturers develop LFAs by empirical optimization of material components (e.g., analytical membranes, conjugate pads and sample pads, biological reagents (e.g., antibodies, blocking reagents and buffers and the design of delivery geometry. In this paper, we will review conventional optimization and then focus on the latter and outline analytical tools, such as dynamic light scattering and optical biosensors, as well as methods, such as microfluidic flow design and mechanistic models. We are applying these tools to find non-obvious optima of lateral flow assays for improved sensitivity, specificity and manufacturing robustness.

Nonintrusive measurement of the liquid refractive index by using properties of the cuvette wall.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Ming; Ren, Junpeng; Miao, Runcai; Zhang, Zongquan

2016-10-01

We present a method of nonintrusive measurement of the refractive index of a liquid in a glass cuvette, which uses some optical properties of the cuvette wall and the principle of total internal reflection. By coating a transmission-scattering paint layer on the outer surface of the cuvette, we transform an incident laser beam into a transmitted scattered light. When the transmitted scattered light reaches the interface between the container wall and the liquid inside, the light beams satisfying the condition of total internal reflection are reflected to the coating layer, automatically forming a circular dark pattern that is related to the refractive index of the liquid. Based on an analytic relation between the diameter of the circular dark pattern and the refractive index of the liquid, we devised a method of in situ nonintrusive refractive index measurement. We tested the effect of several parameters on the measuring accuracy and found that the optimal thickness of the transmission-scattering layer is in the range of 50-70 μm, and the aperture of the diaphragm should be in the range of 0.7-1.0 mm. We measured the refractive indices of ethanol, Coca Cola, and red wine, and achieved an accuracy of ±3×10-4  RIU (refractive index unit).

Development of Next Generation Multiphase Pipe Flow Prediction Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tulsa Fluid Flow

2008-08-31

The developments of fields in deep waters (5000 ft and more) is a common occurrence. It is inevitable that production systems will operate under multiphase flow conditions (simultaneous flow of gas-oil-and water possibly along with sand, hydrates, and waxes). Multiphase flow prediction tools are essential for every phase of the hydrocarbon recovery from design to operation. The recovery from deep-waters poses special challenges and requires accurate multiphase flow predictive tools for several applications including the design and diagnostics of the production systems, separation of phases in horizontal wells, and multiphase separation (topside, seabed or bottom-hole). It is very crucial to any multiphase separation technique that is employed either at topside, seabed or bottom-hole to know inlet conditions such as the flow rates, flow patterns, and volume fractions of gas, oil and water coming into the separation devices. The overall objective was to develop a unified model for gas-oil-water three-phase flow in wells, flow lines, and pipelines to predict the flow characteristics such as flow patterns, phase distributions, and pressure gradient encountered during petroleum production at different flow conditions (pipe diameter and inclination, fluid properties and flow rates). The project was conducted in two periods. In Period 1 (four years), gas-oil-water flow in pipes were investigated to understand the fundamental physical mechanisms describing the interaction between the gas-oil-water phases under flowing conditions, and a unified model was developed utilizing a novel modeling approach. A gas-oil-water pipe flow database including field and laboratory data was formed in Period 2 (one year). The database was utilized in model performance demonstration. Period 1 primarily consisted of the development of a unified model and software to predict the gas-oil-water flow, and experimental studies of the gas-oil-water project, including flow behavior description and

Local Entropy Production in Turbulent Shear Flows: A Tool for Evaluating Heat Transfer Performance

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

H. HERWIG; F. KOCK

2006-01-01

Performance evaluation of heat transfer devices can be based on the overall entropy production in these devices.In our study we therefore provide equations for the systematic and detailed determination of local entropy production due to dissipation of mechanical energy and due to heat conduction, both in turbulent flows. After turbulence modeling has been incorporated for the fluctuating parts the overall entropy production can be determined by integration with respect to the whole flow domain. Since, however, entropy production rates show very steep gradients close to the wall, numerical solutions are far more effective with wall functions for the entropy production terms. These wall functions are mandatory when high Reynolds number turbulence models are used. For turbulent flow in a pipe with an inserted twisted tape as heat transfer promoter it is shown that based on the overall entropy production rate a clear statement from a thermodynamic point of view is possible. For a certain range of twist strength there is a decrease in overall entropy production compared to the case without insert. Also, the optimum twist strength can be determined. This information is unavailable when only pressure drop and heat transfer data are given.

Assessing Human Activity in Elderly People Using Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José M. Alcalá

2017-02-01

Full Text Available The ageing of the population, and their increasing wish of living independently, are motivating the development of welfare and healthcare models. Existing approaches based on the direct heath-monitoring using body sensor networks (BSN are precise and accurate. Nonetheless, their intrusiveness causes non-acceptance. New approaches seek the indirect monitoring through monitoring activities of daily living (ADLs, which proves to be a suitable solution. ADL monitoring systems use many heterogeneous sensors, are less intrusive, and are less expensive than BSN, however, the deployment and maintenance of wireless sensor networks (WSN prevent them from a widespread acceptance. In this work, a novel technique to monitor the human activity, based on non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM, is presented. The proposal uses only smart meter data, which leads to minimum intrusiveness and a potential massive deployment at minimal cost. This could be the key to develop sustainable healthcare models for smart homes, capable of complying with the elderly people’ demands. This study also uses the Dempster-Shafer theory to provide a daily score of normality with regard to the regular behavior. This approach has been evaluated using real datasets and, additionally, a benchmarking against a Gaussian mixture model approach is presented.

A qualitative and quantitative laser-based computer-aided flow visualization method. M.S. Thesis, 1992 Final Report

Science.gov (United States)

Canacci, Victor A.; Braun, M. Jack

1994-01-01

The experimental approach presented here offers a nonintrusive, qualitative and quantitative evaluation of full field flow patterns applicable in various geometries in a variety of fluids. This Full Flow Field Tracking (FFFT) Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) technique, by means of particle tracers illuminated by a laser light sheet, offers an alternative to Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV), and intrusive systems such as Hot Wire/Film Anemometry. The method makes obtainable the flow patterns, and allows quantitative determination of the velocities, accelerations, and mass flows of an entire flow field. The method uses a computer based digitizing system attached through an imaging board to a low luminosity camera. A customized optical train allows the system to become a long distance microscope (LDM), allowing magnifications of areas of interest ranging up to 100 times. Presented in addition to the method itself, are studies in which the flow patterns and velocities were observed and evaluated in three distinct geometries, with three different working fluids. The first study involved pressure and flow analysis of a brush seal in oil. The next application involved studying the velocity and flow patterns in a cowl lip cooling passage of an air breathing aircraft engine using water as the working fluid. Finally, the method was extended to a study in air to examine the flows in a staggered pin arrangement located on one side of a branched duct.

Chain-computerisation for better privacy protection : a new approach to developing non-intrusive information infrastructures that improve privacy protection

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grijpink, J.H.A.M.

1999-01-01

This is the second of a series of two articles in which the author presents some key elements from his recently completed thesis about functional, non-intrusive information infrastructures for interorganisational public policy implementation. The development of these information infrastructures

Continuous flow chemistry: a discovery tool for new chemical reactivity patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Hartwig, Jan; Metternich, Jan B; Nikbin, Nikzad; Kirschning, Andreas; Ley, Steven V

2014-06-14

Continuous flow chemistry as a process intensification tool is well known. However, its ability to enable chemists to perform reactions which are not possible in batch is less well studied or understood. Here we present an example, where a new reactivity pattern and extended reaction scope has been achieved by transferring a reaction from batch mode to flow. This new reactivity can be explained by suppressing back mixing and precise control of temperature in a flow reactor set up.

Continuous flow chemistry: a discovery tool for new chemical reactivity patterns

OpenAIRE

Hartwig, Jan; Metternich, Jan B.; Nikbin, Nikzad; Kirschning, Andreas; Ley, Steven V.

2014-01-01

Continuous flow chemistry as a process intensification tool is well known. However, its ability to enable chemists to perform reactions which are not possible in batch is less well studied or understood. Here we present an example, where a new reactivity pattern and extended reaction scope has been achieved by transferring a reaction from batch mode to flow. This new reactivity can be explained by suppressing back mixing and precise control of temperature in a flow reactor set up.

Evaluating teaching methods: validation of an evaluation tool for hydrodissection and phacoemulsification portions of cataract surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Ronald J; McCannel, Colin A; Gordon, Lynn K; Hollander, David A; Giaconi, JoAnn A; Stelzner, Sadiqa K; Devgan, Uday; Bartlett, John; Mondino, Bartly J

2014-09-01

To develop and assess the validity of an evaluation tool to assess quantitatively the hydrodissection and phacoemulsification portions of cataract surgery performed by residents. Case series. Jules Stein Eye Institute, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, and Veterans Administration Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA. The UCLA ophthalmology faculty members were surveyed and the literature was reviewed to develop a grading tool consisting of 15 questions to evaluate surgical technique, including questions from the Global Rating Assessment of Skills in Intraocular Surgery and from the International Council of Ophthalmology's Ophthalmology Surgical Competency Assessment Rubric. Video clips of the hydrodissection and phacoemulsification portions of cataract surgery performed by 1 postgraduate year 2 (PGY2) resident, 1 PGY3 resident, 2 PGY4 residents, and an advanced surgeon were independently graded in a masked fashion by an 8-member faculty panel. Eleven of the 15 questions had a significant association with surgical experience level (Pinstrument handling, flow of operation, and nucleus rotation. Nucleus cracking also had low variability. Less directly visible tasks, especially 3-dimensional tasks, had wider interobserver variability. Surgical performance can be validly measured using an evaluation tool. Improved videography and studies to identify the best questions for evaluating each step of cataract surgery may help ophthalmic educators more precisely measure training outcomes for improving teaching interventions. No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned. Published by Elsevier Inc.

A Non-Intrusive Cyber Physical Social Sensing Solution to People Behavior Tracking: Mechanism, Prototype, and Field Experiments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yunjian Jia

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Tracking people’s behaviors is a main category of cyber physical social sensing (CPSS-related people-centric applications. Most tracking methods utilize camera networks or sensors built into mobile devices such as global positioning system (GPS and Bluetooth. In this article, we propose a non-intrusive wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi-based tracking method. To show the feasibility, we target tracking people’s access behaviors in Wi-Fi networks, which has drawn a lot of interest from the academy and industry recently. Existing methods used for acquiring access traces either provide very limited visibility into media access control (MAC-level transmission dynamics or sometimes are inflexible and costly. In this article, we present a passive CPSS system operating in a non-intrusive, flexible, and simplified manner to overcome above limitations. We have implemented the prototype on the off-the-shelf personal computer, and performed real-world deployment experiments. The experimental results show that the method is feasible, and people’s access behaviors can be correctly tracked within a one-second delay.

An analytical evaluation for the pressure drop characteristics of bottom nozzle flow holes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, S. G.; Kim, H. J.; Lim, H. T.; Park, E. J.; Jeon, K. L.

2002-01-01

An analytical evaluation for the bottom nozzle flow holes was performed to find a best design concept in terms of pressure drop. For this analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), FLUENT 5.5, code was selected as an analytical evaluation tool. The applicability of CFD code was verified by benchmarking study with Vibration Investigation of Small-scale Test Assemblies (VISTA) test data in several flow conditions and typical flow hole shape. From this verification, the analytical data were benchmarked roughly within 17% to the VISTA test data. And, overall trend under various flow conditions looked very similar between both cases. Based on the evaluated results using CFD code, it is concluded that the deburring and multiple chamfer hole features at leading edge are the excellent design concept to decrease pressure drop across bottom nozzle plate. The deburring and multiple chamfer hole features at leading edge on the bottom nozzle plate have 12% and 17% pressure drop benefit against a single chamfer hole feature on the bottom nozzle plate, respectively. These design features are meaningful and applicable as a low pressure drop design concept of bottom nozzle for Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) fuel assembly

Void fraction measurement in two-phase flow processes via symbolic dynamic filtering of ultrasonic signals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chakraborty, Subhadeep; Keller, Eric; Talley, Justin; Srivastav, Abhishek; Ray, Asok; Kim, Seungjin

2009-01-01

This communication introduces a non-intrusive method for void fraction measurement and identification of two-phase flow regimes, based on ultrasonic sensing. The underlying algorithm is built upon the recently reported theory of a statistical pattern recognition method called symbolic dynamic filtering (SDF). The results of experimental validation, generated on a laboratory test apparatus, show a one-to-one correspondence between the flow measure derived from SDF and the void fraction measured by a conductivity probe. A sharp change in the slope of flow measure is found to be in agreement with a transition from fully bubbly flow to cap-bubbly flow. (rapid communication)

Characterization of mixed waste for sorting and inspection using non-intrusive methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roberson, G.P.; Ryon, R.W.; Bull, N.L.

1994-12-01

Characterization of mixed wastes (that is, radioactive and otherwise hazardous) requires that all hazardous, non-conforming, and radioactive materials be identified, localized, and quantified. With such information, decisions can be made regarding whether the item is treatable or has been adequately treated. Much of the required information can be gained without taking representative samples and analyzing them in a chemistry laboratory. Non-intrusive methods can be used to provide this information on-line at the waste treatment facility. Ideally, the characterization would be done robotically, and either automatically or semi-automatically in order to improve efficiency and safety. For the FY94 Mixed Waste Operations (MWO) project, a treatable waste item is defined as a homogeneous metal object that has external radioactive or heavy metal hazardous contamination. Surface treatment of some kind would therefore be the treatment method to be investigated. The authors developed sorting and inspection requirements, and assessed viable non-intrusive techniques to meet these requirements. They selected radiography, computed tomography and X-ray fluorescence. They have characterized selected mock waste items, and determined minimum detectable amounts of materials. They have demonstrated the efficiency possible by integrating radiographic with tomographic data. Here, they developed a technique to only use radiographic data where the material is homogeneous (fast), and then switching to tomography in those areas where heterogeneity is detected (slower). They also developed a tomographic technique to quantify the volume of each component of a mixed material. This is useful for such things as determining ash content. Lastly, they have developed a document in MOSAIC, an Internet multi-media browser. This document is used to demonstrate the ability to share data and information world-wide

Chain-computerisation for interorganisational public policy implementation : A new approach to developing non-intrusive information infrastructures that improve public policy implementation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Grijpink, J.H.A.M.

1999-01-01

In two articles the author presents some key elements from his recently completed thesis about functional, non-intrusive information infrastructures for interorganisational public policy implementation. The development of these information infrastructures requires a new approach,

Three-dimensional investigation of the two-phase flow structure in a bubbly pipe flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hassan, Y.A.; Schmidl, W.D.; Ortiz-Villafuerte, J.

1997-01-01

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a non-intrusive measurement technique, which can be used to study the structure of various fluid flows. PIV is used to measure the time varying full field velocity data of a particle-seeded flow field within either a two-dimensional plane or three-dimensional volume. PIV is a very efficient measurement technique since it can obtain both qualitative and quantitative spatial information about the flow field being studied. This information can be further processed into information such as vorticity and pathlines. Other flow measurement techniques (Laser Doppler Velocimetry, Hot Wire Anemometry, etc...) only provide quantitative information at a single point. PIV can be used to study turbulence structures if a sufficient amount of data can be acquired and analyzed, and it can also be extended to study two-phase flows if both phases can be distinguished. In this study, the flow structure around a bubble rising in a pipe filled with water was studied in three-dimensions. The velocity of the rising bubble and the velocity field of the surrounding water was measured. Then the turbulence intensities and Reynolds stresses were calculated from the experimental data. (author)

Large scale applicability of a Fully Adaptive Non-Intrusive Spectral Projection technique: Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of a transient

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perkó, Zoltán; Lathouwers, Danny; Kloosterman, Jan Leen; Hagen, Tim van der

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Grid and basis adaptive Polynomial Chaos techniques are presented for S and U analysis. • Dimensionality reduction and incremental polynomial order reduce computational costs. • An unprotected loss of flow transient is investigated in a Gas Cooled Fast Reactor. • S and U analysis is performed with MC and adaptive PC methods, for 42 input parameters. • PC accurately estimates means, variances, PDFs, sensitivities and uncertainties. - Abstract: Since the early years of reactor physics the most prominent sensitivity and uncertainty (S and U) analysis methods in the nuclear community have been adjoint based techniques. While these are very effective for pure neutronics problems due to the linearity of the transport equation, they become complicated when coupled non-linear systems are involved. With the continuous increase in computational power such complicated multi-physics problems are becoming progressively tractable, hence affordable and easily applicable S and U analysis tools also have to be developed in parallel. For reactor physics problems for which adjoint methods are prohibitive Polynomial Chaos (PC) techniques offer an attractive alternative to traditional random sampling based approaches. At TU Delft such PC methods have been studied for a number of years and this paper presents a large scale application of our Fully Adaptive Non-Intrusive Spectral Projection (FANISP) algorithm for performing the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of a Gas Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR) Unprotected Loss Of Flow (ULOF) transient. The transient was simulated using the Cathare 2 code system and a fully detailed model of the GFR2400 reactor design that was investigated in the European FP7 GoFastR project. Several sources of uncertainty were taken into account amounting to an unusually high number of stochastic input parameters (42) and numerous output quantities were investigated. The results show consistently good performance of the applied adaptive PC

Development of non-intrusive monitoring techniques - ESDRED and TEM projects at Mont Terri and the Grimsel test site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Breen, B.; Johnson, M.; Frieg, B.; Blechschmidt, I.; Manukyan, E.; Marelli, S.; Maurer, H.R.

2008-01-01

, this being part of another study, funded with in the ESDRED programme. The TEM (Testing and Evaluation of Monitoring Techniques) Project at Grimsel was initiated to provide a unique opportunity for simultaneous comparison of 3 monitoring methods - wired signal transmission from the EBS, wireless data transmission using magneto-inductive techniques, and observation through non-intrusive geophysical techniques. The novelty of TEM is that the application of each of these techniques is under a realistic condition, where a bentonite barrier is emplaced in a 3.5 m diameter tunnel and isolated with an approximately 4 m long low-pH shotcrete plug. The report describes the work programmes and some of the results from the ESDRED and TEM programmes at both sites. (author)

Multifidelity, Multidisciplinary Design Under Uncertainty with Non-Intrusive Polynomial Chaos

Science.gov (United States)

West, Thomas K., IV; Gumbert, Clyde

2017-01-01

The primary objective of this work is to develop an approach for multifidelity uncertainty quantification and to lay the framework for future design under uncertainty efforts. In this study, multifidelity is used to describe both the fidelity of the modeling of the physical systems, as well as the difference in the uncertainty in each of the models. For computational efficiency, a multifidelity surrogate modeling approach based on non-intrusive polynomial chaos using the point-collocation technique is developed for the treatment of both multifidelity modeling and multifidelity uncertainty modeling. Two stochastic model problems are used to demonstrate the developed methodologies: a transonic airfoil model and multidisciplinary aircraft analysis model. The results of both showed the multifidelity modeling approach was able to predict the output uncertainty predicted by the high-fidelity model as a significant reduction in computational cost.

Raman scattering temperature measurements for water vapor in nonequilibrium dispersed two-phase flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anastasia, C.M.; Neti, S.; Smith, W.R.; Chen, J.C.

1982-09-01

The objective of this investigation was to determine the feasibility of using Raman scattering as a nonintrusive technique to measure vapor temperatures in dispersed two-phase flow. The Raman system developed for this investigation is described, including alignment of optics and optimization of the photodetector for photon pulse counting. Experimentally obtained Raman spectra are presented for the following single- and two-phase samples: liquid water, atmospheric nitrogen, superheated steam, nitrogen and water droplets in a high void fraction air/water mist, and superheated water vapor in nonequilibrium dispersed flow

TTP AL921102: An integrated geophysics program for non-intrusive characterization of mixed-waste landfill sites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hasbrouck, J.C.

1992-11-01

Chem-Nuclear Geotech, Inc. (Geotech), operating contractor for the US Department of Energy Grand Junction Projects Office, is conducting the Integrated Geophysics Program for Non-Intrusive Characterization of Mixed-Waste Landfill Sites (Technical Task Plan [TTP] AL921102). The TTP is part of the Mixed-Waste Landfill Integrated Demonstration (MWLID). The objective of this task was to demonstrate that an integrated program of surface geophysics can be used to effectively and nonintrusively characterize n-mixed-waste landfill sites. To accomplish this objective, integrated field demonstrations were conducted over two previously identified areas of interest (designated Areas A and B) within the MWLID test site at the Chemical Waste Landfill (CWL), Technical Area 3, at the Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico (Figures 1 and 2). Area A was centered roughly around the Chromic Acid and Organics Pits in the southeast-central portion of the landfill and Area B was centered around the ''60's Pits'' area in the northeast-central portion of the landfill. Pit locations were known in Area A and suspected in Area B. This progress report describes the geophysical surveys conducted by Geotech and presents preliminary displays and analyses. Volume 2 of this report contains the raw data for all the surveys conducted by Geotech for this TTP

Ultrasonic downcomer flow measurements for recirculating steam generators

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Janzen, Victor, E-mail: Victor.Janzen@cnl.ca [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Chalk River, ON, Canada K0 J 1J0 (Canada); Luloff, Brian [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Chalk River, ON, Canada K0 J 1J0 (Canada); Sedman, Ken [Nuclear Safety Analysis & Support Department, Bruce Power, Toronto, ON, Canada M5G 1X6 (Canada)

2015-08-15

Highlights: • Measuring recirculating flow in nuclear steam generators provides useful information. • Flow measurements shed light on component performance and degradation mechanisms. • Commonly used ultrasonic technology and application methods are described. • Results of measurements at several power reactors are summarized. • Potential improvements in reliability and flexibility of application are suggested. - Abstract: Measurements of downcomer flow in nuclear steam generators can provide unique fitness for service and performance indicators related to overall thermalhydraulic performance, safety related secondary-side setpoints and certain forms of degradation. This paper reviews the benefits of downcomer-flow measurements to nuclear power–plant operators, and describes methods that are commonly used. It summarizes the history and state-of-the-art of the most widely used technology, non-intrusive ultrasonic systems, including field applications at several nuclear power plants. It also describes the technical challenges that remain, and summarizes recent technical developments and future improvements.

Empirical flow parameters : a tool for hydraulic model validity

Science.gov (United States)

Asquith, William H.; Burley, Thomas E.; Cleveland, Theodore G.

2013-01-01

The objectives of this project were (1) To determine and present from existing data in Texas, relations between observed stream flow, topographic slope, mean section velocity, and other hydraulic factors, to produce charts such as Figure 1 and to produce empirical distributions of the various flow parameters to provide a methodology to "check if model results are way off!"; (2) To produce a statistical regional tool to estimate mean velocity or other selected parameters for storm flows or other conditional discharges at ungauged locations (most bridge crossings) in Texas to provide a secondary way to compare such values to a conventional hydraulic modeling approach. (3.) To present ancillary values such as Froude number, stream power, Rosgen channel classification, sinuosity, and other selected characteristics (readily determinable from existing data) to provide additional information to engineers concerned with the hydraulic-soil-foundation component of transportation infrastructure.

MPD thruster research issues, activities, strategies

Science.gov (United States)

1991-01-01

The following activities and plans in the MPD thruster development are summarized: (1) experimental and theoretical research (magnetic nozzles at present and high power levels, MPD thrusters with applied fields extending into the thrust chamber, and improved electrode performance); and (2) tools (MACH2 code for MPD and nozzle flow calculation, laser diagnostics and spectroscopy for non-intrusive measurements of flow conditions, and extension to higher power). National strategies are also outlined.

DECSERVIS-2: A tool for natural decay series mass flow simulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azzam, Saad; Suksi, Juhani; Ammann, Michael

2009-01-01

After the publication of 'DECSERVIS: a tool for radioactive decay series visualisation' we have further developed our DECSERVIS software. With the new tool DECSERVIS-2 one can simulate radioactive decay chains in open systems, i.e. when the concentrations of nuclides change also due to mass flows. Decay chains can be simulated under continuous and successive nuclide mass flow events into and out from the system and in freely determined time intervals. Simulation output for the entire decay chain (nuclide activity, mass, number of nuclides, nuclide ratios) can be presented as a function of time with various graphical presentations such as solid curve and column diagrams or animation. In this paper we introduce DECSERVIS-2 and demonstrate its use with simulation examples. DECSERVIS-2 is easy to use and has been designed with an eye on the demands of teaching.

Rule-Based Multidisciplinary Tool for Unsteady Reacting Real-Fluid Flows, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — A design and analysis computational tool is proposed for simulating unsteady reacting flows in combustor devices used in reusable launch vehicles. Key aspects...

Preliminary experimental results for a non-intrusive scheme for the detection of flaws in metal pipelines

Science.gov (United States)

Aydin, K.; Shinde, S.; Suhail, M.; Vyas, A.; Zieher, K. W.

2002-05-01

An acoustic pulse echo scheme for non-intrusive detection of flaws in metal pipelines has been investigated in the laboratory. The primary pulse is generated by a pulsed magnetic field enclosing a short section of a free pipe. The detection is by an electrostatic detector surrounding a short section of the pipe. Reflected pulses from thin areas, with a longitudinal extension of about one pipe radius and a reduction of the wall thickness of 40%, can be detected clearly.

Methodology for interpretation of fissile mass flow measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

March-Leuba, J.; Mattingly, J.K.; Mullens, J.A.

1997-01-01

This paper describes a non-intrusive measurement technique to monitor the mass flow rate of fissile material in gaseous or liquid streams. This fissile mass flow monitoring system determines the fissile mass flow rate by relying on two independent measurements: (1) a time delay along a given length of pipe, which is inversely proportional to the fissile material flow velocity, and (2) an amplitude measurement, which is proportional to the fissile concentration (e.g., grams of 235 U per length of pipe). The development of this flow monitor was first funded by DOE/NE in September 95, and initial experimental demonstration by ORNL was described in the 37th INMM meeting held in July 1996. This methodology was chosen by DOE/NE for implementation in November 1996; it has been implemented in hardware/software and is ready for installation. This paper describes the methodology used to interpret the data measured by the fissile mass flow monitoring system and the models used to simulate the transport of fission fragments from the source location to the detectors

Numerical prediction of a draft tube flow taking into account uncertain inlet conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brugiere, O; Balarac, G; Corre, C; Metais, O; Flores, E; Pleroy

2012-01-01

The swirling turbulent flow in a hydroturbine draft tube is computed with a non-intrusive uncertainty quantification (UQ) method coupled to Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) modelling in order to take into account in the numerical prediction the physical uncertainties existing on the inlet flow conditions. The proposed approach yields not only mean velocity fields to be compared with measured profiles, as is customary in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) practice, but also variance of these quantities from which error bars can be deduced on the computed profiles, thus making more significant the comparison between experiment and computation.

Numerical prediction of a draft tube flow taking into account uncertain inlet conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Brugiere, O.; Balarac, G.; Corre, C.; Metais, O.; Flores, E.; Pleroy

2012-11-01

The swirling turbulent flow in a hydroturbine draft tube is computed with a non-intrusive uncertainty quantification (UQ) method coupled to Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) modelling in order to take into account in the numerical prediction the physical uncertainties existing on the inlet flow conditions. The proposed approach yields not only mean velocity fields to be compared with measured profiles, as is customary in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) practice, but also variance of these quantities from which error bars can be deduced on the computed profiles, thus making more significant the comparison between experiment and computation.

Pressure Measurement in Supersonic Air Flow by Differential Absorptive Laser-Induced Thermal Acoustics

Science.gov (United States)

Hart, Roger C.; Herring, Gregory C.; Balla, Robert J.

2007-01-01

Nonintrusive, off-body flow barometry in Mach-2 airflow has been demonstrated in a large-scale supersonic wind tunnel using seedless laser-induced thermal acoustics (LITA). The static pressure of the gas flow is determined with a novel differential absorption measurement of the ultrasonic sound produced by the LITA pump process. Simultaneously, stream-wise velocity and static gas temperature of the same spatially-resolved sample volume were measured with this nonresonant time-averaged LITA technique. Mach number, temperature and pressure have 0.2%, 0.4%, and 4% rms agreement, respectively, in comparison with known free-stream conditions.

Non-intrusive low-rank separated approximation of high-dimensional stochastic models

KAUST Repository

Doostan, Alireza; Validi, AbdoulAhad; Iaccarino, Gianluca

2013-01-01

This work proposes a sampling-based (non-intrusive) approach within the context of low-. rank separated representations to tackle the issue of curse-of-dimensionality associated with the solution of models, e.g., PDEs/ODEs, with high-dimensional random inputs. Under some conditions discussed in details, the number of random realizations of the solution, required for a successful approximation, grows linearly with respect to the number of random inputs. The construction of the separated representation is achieved via a regularized alternating least-squares regression, together with an error indicator to estimate model parameters. The computational complexity of such a construction is quadratic in the number of random inputs. The performance of the method is investigated through its application to three numerical examples including two ODE problems with high-dimensional random inputs. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Non-intrusive low-rank separated approximation of high-dimensional stochastic models

KAUST Repository

Doostan, Alireza

2013-08-01

This work proposes a sampling-based (non-intrusive) approach within the context of low-. rank separated representations to tackle the issue of curse-of-dimensionality associated with the solution of models, e.g., PDEs/ODEs, with high-dimensional random inputs. Under some conditions discussed in details, the number of random realizations of the solution, required for a successful approximation, grows linearly with respect to the number of random inputs. The construction of the separated representation is achieved via a regularized alternating least-squares regression, together with an error indicator to estimate model parameters. The computational complexity of such a construction is quadratic in the number of random inputs. The performance of the method is investigated through its application to three numerical examples including two ODE problems with high-dimensional random inputs. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

An evaluation tool for Myofascial Adhesions in Patients after Breast Cancer (MAP-BC evaluation tool): Concurrent, face and content validity.

Science.gov (United States)

De Groef, An; Van Kampen, Marijke; Moortgat, Peter; Anthonissen, Mieke; Van den Kerckhove, Eric; Christiaens, Marie-Rose; Neven, Patrick; Geraerts, Inge; Devoogdt, Nele

2018-01-01

To investigate the concurrent, face and content validity of an evaluation tool for Myofascial Adhesions in Patients after Breast Cancer (MAP-BC evaluation tool). 1) Concurrent validity of the MAP-BC evaluation tool was investigated by exploring correlations (Spearman's rank Correlation Coefficient) between the subjective scores (0 -no adhesions to 3 -very strong adhesions) of the skin level using the MAP-BC evaluation tool and objective elasticity parameters (maximal skin extension and gross elasticity) generated by the Cutometer Dual MPA 580. Nine different examination points on and around the mastectomy scar were evaluated. 2) Face and content validity were explored by questioning therapists experienced with myofascial therapy in breast cancer patients about the comprehensibility and comprehensiveness of the MAP-BC evaluation tool. 1) Only three meaningful correlations were found on the mastectomy scar. For the most lateral examination point on the mastectomy scar a moderate negative correlation (-0.44, p = 0.01) with the maximal skin extension and a moderate positive correlation with the resistance versus ability of returning or 'gross elasticity' (0.42, p = 0.02) were found. For the middle point on the mastectomy scar an almost moderate positive correlation with gross elasticity was found as well (0.38, p = 0.04) 2) Content and face validity have been found to be good. Eighty-nine percent of the respondent found the instructions understandable and 98% found the scoring system obvious. Thirty-seven percent of the therapists suggested to add the possibility to evaluate additional anatomical locations in case of reconstructive and/or bilateral surgery. The MAP-BC evaluation tool for myofascial adhesions in breast cancer patients has good face and content validity. Evidence for good concurrent validity of the skin level was found only on the mastectomy scar itself.

Evaluating online diagnostic decision support tools for the clinical setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Pryor, Marie; White, David; Potter, Bronwyn; Traill, Roger

2012-01-01

Clinical decision support tools available at the point of care are an effective adjunct to support clinicians to make clinical decisions and improve patient outcomes. We developed a methodology and applied it to evaluate commercially available online clinical diagnostic decision support (DDS) tools for use at the point of care. We identified 11 commercially available DDS tools and assessed these against an evaluation instrument that included 6 categories; general information, content, quality control, search, clinical results and other features. We developed diagnostically challenging clinical case scenarios based on real patient experience that were commonly missed by junior medical staff. The evaluation was divided into 2 phases; an initial evaluation of all identified and accessible DDS tools conducted by the Clinical Information Access Portal (CIAP) team and a second phase that further assessed the top 3 tools identified in the initial evaluation phase. An evaluation panel consisting of senior and junior medical clinicians from NSW Health conducted the second phase. Of the eleven tools that were assessed against the evaluation instrument only 4 tools completely met the DDS definition that was adopted for this evaluation and were able to produce a differential diagnosis. From the initial phase of the evaluation 4 DDS tools scored 70% or more (maximum score 96%) for the content category, 8 tools scored 65% or more (maximum 100%) for the quality control category, 5 tools scored 65% or more (maximum 94%) for the search category, and 4 tools score 70% or more (maximum 81%) for the clinical results category. The second phase of the evaluation was focused on assessing diagnostic accuracy for the top 3 tools identified in the initial phase. Best Practice ranked highest overall against the 6 clinical case scenarios used. Overall the differentiating factor between the top 3 DDS tools was determined by diagnostic accuracy ranking, ease of use and the confidence and

PolNet: A Tool to Quantify Network-Level Cell Polarity and Blood Flow in Vascular Remodeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Bernabeu, Miguel O; Jones, Martin L; Nash, Rupert W; Pezzarossa, Anna; Coveney, Peter V; Gerhardt, Holger; Franco, Claudio A

2018-05-08

In this article, we present PolNet, an open-source software tool for the study of blood flow and cell-level biological activity during vessel morphogenesis. We provide an image acquisition, segmentation, and analysis protocol to quantify endothelial cell polarity in entire in vivo vascular networks. In combination, we use computational fluid dynamics to characterize the hemodynamics of the vascular networks under study. The tool enables, to our knowledge for the first time, a network-level analysis of polarity and flow for individual endothelial cells. To date, PolNet has proven invaluable for the study of endothelial cell polarization and migration during vascular patterning, as demonstrated by two recent publications. Additionally, the tool can be easily extended to correlate blood flow with other experimental observations at the cellular/molecular level. We release the source code of our tool under the Lesser General Public License. Copyright © 2018 Biophysical Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Investigation of cavitating flows by X-ray and optical imaging

Science.gov (United States)

Coutier-Delgosha, Olivier; Fuzier, Sylvie; Khlifa, Ilyass; Fezzaa, Kamel

2015-11-01

Hydrodynamic cavitation is the partial vaporization of high speed liquid flows. The turbulent, compressible and unsteady character of these flows makes their study unusually complex and challenging. Instabilities generated by the occurrence of cavitation have been investigated in the last years in the LML laboratory by various non-intrusive measurements including X-ray imaging (to obtain the fields of void fraction and velocity in both phases), and PIV with fluorescent particles (to obtain the velocity fields in both phases). It has been shown that cavitation is characterized by significant slip velocities between liquid and vapor, especially in the re-entrant jet area and the cavity wake. This results suggests some possible improvements in the numerical models currently used for CFD of cavitating flows. Professor at Arts et Metiers ParisTech, Director of the LML laboratory.

An evaluation of BPMN modeling tools

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Yan, Z.; Reijers, H.A.; Dijkman, R.M.; Mendling, J.; Weidlich, M.

2010-01-01

Various BPMN modeling tools are available and it is close to impossible to understand their functional differences without simply trying them out. This paper presents an evaluation framework and presents the outcomes of its application to a set of five BPMN modeling tools. We report on various

A Training Technology Evaluation Tool

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Livingston, Stephen C; Dyer, Jean L; Swinson, Diadra

2005-01-01

A Training Technology Evaluation Tool was developed to help procurers and developers of training technologies to make informed decisions and to improve the overall effectiveness of training technologies...

Evaluation of Oracle Big Data Integration Tools

OpenAIRE

Urhan, Harun; Baranowski, Zbigniew

2015-01-01

Abstract The project’s objective is evaluating Oracle’s Big Data Integration Tools. The project covers evaluation of two of Oracle’s tools, Oracle Data Integrator: Application Adapters for Hadoop to load data from Oracle Database to Hadoop and Oracle SQL Connectors for HDFS to query data stored on a Hadoop file system by using SQL statements executed on an Oracle Database.

Intuitive Visualization of Transient Flow: Towards a Full 3D Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Michel, Isabel; Schröder, Simon; Seidel, Torsten; König, Christoph

2015-04-01

Visualization of geoscientific data is a challenging task especially when targeting a non-professional audience. In particular, the graphical presentation of transient vector data can be a significant problem. With STRING Fraunhofer ITWM (Kaiserslautern, Germany) in collaboration with delta h Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (Witten, Germany) developed a commercial software for intuitive 2D visualization of 3D flow problems. Through the intuitive character of the visualization experts can more easily transport their findings to non-professional audiences. In STRING pathlets moving with the flow provide an intuition of velocity and direction of both steady-state and transient flow fields. The visualization concept is based on the Lagrangian view of the flow which means that the pathlets' movement is along the direction given by pathlines. In order to capture every detail of the flow an advanced method for intelligent, time-dependent seeding of the pathlets is implemented based on ideas of the Finite Pointset Method (FPM) originally conceived at and continuously developed by Fraunhofer ITWM. Furthermore, by the same method pathlets are removed during the visualization to avoid visual cluttering. Additional scalar flow attributes, for example concentration or potential, can either be mapped directly to the pathlets or displayed in the background of the pathlets on the 2D visualization plane. The extensive capabilities of STRING are demonstrated with the help of different applications in groundwater modeling. We will discuss the strengths and current restrictions of STRING which have surfaced during daily use of the software, for example by delta h. Although the software focusses on the graphical presentation of flow data for non-professional audiences its intuitive visualization has also proven useful to experts when investigating details of flow fields. Due to the popular reception of STRING and its limitation to 2D, the need arises for the extension to a full 3D tool

A regional-scale ecological risk framework for environmental flow evaluations

Science.gov (United States)

O'Brien, Gordon C.; Dickens, Chris; Hines, Eleanor; Wepener, Victor; Stassen, Retha; Quayle, Leo; Fouchy, Kelly; MacKenzie, James; Graham, P. Mark; Landis, Wayne G.

2018-02-01

Environmental flow (E-flow) frameworks advocate holistic, regional-scale, probabilistic E-flow assessments that consider flow and non-flow drivers of change in a socio-ecological context as best practice. Regional-scale ecological risk assessments of multiple stressors to social and ecological endpoints, which address ecosystem dynamism, have been undertaken internationally at different spatial scales using the relative-risk model since the mid-1990s. With the recent incorporation of Bayesian belief networks into the relative-risk model, a robust regional-scale ecological risk assessment approach is available that can contribute to achieving the best practice recommendations of E-flow frameworks. PROBFLO is a holistic E-flow assessment method that incorporates the relative-risk model and Bayesian belief networks (BN-RRM) into a transparent probabilistic modelling tool that addresses uncertainty explicitly. PROBFLO has been developed to evaluate the socio-ecological consequences of historical, current and future water resource use scenarios and generate E-flow requirements on regional spatial scales. The approach has been implemented in two regional-scale case studies in Africa where its flexibility and functionality has been demonstrated. In both case studies the evidence-based outcomes facilitated informed environmental management decision making, with trade-off considerations in the context of social and ecological aspirations. This paper presents the PROBFLO approach as applied to the Senqu River catchment in Lesotho and further developments and application in the Mara River catchment in Kenya and Tanzania. The 10 BN-RRM procedural steps incorporated in PROBFLO are demonstrated with examples from both case studies. PROBFLO can contribute to the adaptive management of water resources and contribute to the allocation of resources for sustainable use of resources and address protection requirements.

Expansion tunnel characterization and development of non-intrusive microwave plasma diagnostics

Science.gov (United States)

Dufrene, Aaron T.

The focus of this research is the development of non-intrusive microwave diagnostics for characterization of expansion tunnels. The main objectives of this research are to accurately characterize the LENS XX expansion tunnel facility, develop non-intrusive RF diagnostics that will work in short-duration expansion tunnel testing, and to determine plasma properties and other information that might otherwise be unknown, less accurate, intrusive, or more difficult to determine through conventional methods. Testing was completed in LENS XX, a new large-scale expansion tunnel facility at CUBRC, Inc. This facility is the largest known expansion tunnel in the world with an inner diameter of 24 inches, a 96 inch test section, and an end-to-end length of more than 240 ft. Expansion tunnels are currently the only facilities capable of generating high-enthalpy test conditions with minimal or no freestream dissociation or ionization. However, short test times and freestream noise at some conditions have limited development of these facilities. To characterize the LENS XX facility, the first step is to evaluate the facility pressure, vacuum, temperature, and other mechanical restrictions to derive a theoretical testing parameter space. Test condition maps are presented for a variety of parameters and gases based on 1D perfect gas dynamics. Test conditions well beyond 10 km/s or 50 MJ/kg are identified with minimum test times of 200 us. Additionally, a four-chamber expansion tube configuration is considered for extending the stagnation enthalpy range of the facility even further. A microwave shock speed diagnostic measures primary and secondary shock speeds accurately every 30 in. down the entire length of the facility resulting in a more accurate determination of freestream conditions required for computational comparisons. The high resolution of this measurement is used to assess shock speed attenuation as well as secondary diaphragm performance. Negligible shock attenuation is

Holographic aids for internal combustion engine flow studies

Science.gov (United States)

Regan, C.

1984-01-01

Worldwide interest in improving the fuel efficiency of internal combustion (I.C.) engines has sparked research efforts designed to learn more about the flow processes of these engines. The flow fields must be understood prior to fuel injection in order to design efficient valves, piston geometries, and fuel injectors. Knowledge of the flow field is also necessary to determine the heat transfer to combustion chamber surfaces. Computational codes can predict velocity and turbulence patterns, but experimental verification is mandatory to justify their basic assumptions. Due to their nonintrusive nature, optical methods are ideally suited to provide the necessary velocity verification data. Optical sytems such as Schlieren photography, laser velocimetry, and illuminated particle visualization are used in I.C. engines, and now their versatility is improved by employing holography. These holographically enhanced optical techniques are described with emphasis on their applications in I.C. engines.

Flow Control Device Evaluation for an Internal Flow with an Adverse Pressure Gradient

Science.gov (United States)

Jenkins, Luther N.; Gorton, Susan Althoff; Anders, Scott G.

2002-01-01

The effectiveness of several active and passive devices to control flow in an adverse pressure gradient with secondary flows present was evaluated in the 15 Inch Low Speed Tunnel at NASA Langley Research Center. In this study, passive micro vortex generators, micro bumps, and piezoelectric synthetic jets were evaluated for their flow control characteristics using surface static pressures, flow visualization, and 3D Stereo Digital Particle Image Velocimetry. Data also were acquired for synthetic jet actuators in a zero flow environment. It was found that the micro vortex generator is very effective in controlling the flow environment for an adverse pressure gradient, even in the presence of secondary vortical flow. The mechanism by which the control is effected is a re-energization of the boundary layer through flow mixing. The piezoelectric synthetic jet actuators must have sufficient velocity output to produce strong longitudinal vortices if they are to be effective for flow control. The output of these devices in a laboratory or zero flow environment will be different than the output in a flow environment. In this investigation, the output was higher in the flow environment, but the stroke cycle in the flow did not indicate a positive inflow into the synthetic jet.

A biological tool to assess flow connectivity in reference temporary streams from the Mediterranean Basin

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cid, N., E-mail: ncid@ub.edu [Grup de Recerca “Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM)”, Departament d' Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain); Verkaik, I. [Grup de Recerca “Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM)”, Departament d' Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain); García-Roger, E.M. [Grup de Recerca “Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM)”, Departament d' Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain); Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biologia Evolutiva, Universitat de València (Spain); Rieradevall, M.; Bonada, N. [Grup de Recerca “Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM)”, Departament d' Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain); Sánchez-Montoya, M.M. [Department of Ecology and Hydrology, Regional Campus of International Excellence “Campus Mare Nostrum”—University of Murcia (Spain); Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin (Germany); Gómez, R.; Suárez, M.L.; Vidal-Abarca, M.R. [Department of Ecology and Hydrology, Regional Campus of International Excellence “Campus Mare Nostrum”—University of Murcia (Spain); Demartini, D.; Buffagni, A.; Erba, S. [Instituto di Ricerca Sulle Acque (CNR-IRSA) (Italy); Karaouzas, I.; Skoulikidis, N. [Hellenic Center for Marine Research (HCMR) (Greece); Prat, N. [Grup de Recerca “Freshwater Ecology and Management (FEM)”, Departament d' Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain)

2016-01-01

Many streams in the Mediterranean Basin have temporary flow regimes. While timing for seasonal drought is predictable, they undergo strong inter-annual variability in flow intensity. This high hydrological variability and associated ecological responses challenge the ecological status assessment of temporary streams, particularly when setting reference conditions. This study examined the effects of flow connectivity in aquatic macroinvertebrates from seven reference temporary streams across the Mediterranean Basin where hydrological variability and flow conditions are well studied. We tested for the effect of flow cessation on two streamflow indices and on community composition, and, by performing random forest and classification tree analyses we identified important biological predictors for classifying the aquatic state either as flowing or disconnected pools. Flow cessation was critical for one of the streamflow indices studied and for community composition. Macroinvertebrate families found to be important for classifying the aquatic state were Hydrophilidae, Simuliidae, Hydropsychidae, Planorbiidae, Heptageniidae and Gerridae. For biological traits, trait categories associated to feeding habits, food, locomotion and substrate relation were the most important and provided more accurate predictions compared to taxonomy. A combination of selected metrics and associated thresholds based on the most important biological predictors (i.e. Bio-AS Tool) were proposed in order to assess the aquatic state in reference temporary streams, especially in the absence of hydrological data. Although further development is needed, the tool can be of particular interest for monitoring, restoration, and conservation purposes, representing an important step towards an adequate management of temporary rivers not only in the Mediterranean Basin but also in other regions vulnerable to the effects of climate change. - Highlights: • The effect of flow connectivity on macroinvertebrate

Preliminary experiments on surface flow visualization in the cryogenic wind tunnel by use of condensing or freezing gases

Science.gov (United States)

Goodyer, M. J.

1988-01-01

Cryogenic wind tunnel users must have available surface flow visualization techniques to satisfy a variety of needs. While the ideal from an aerodynamic stand would be non-intrusive, until an economical technique is developed there will be occasions when the user will be prepared to resort to an intrusive method. One such method is proposed, followed by preliminary evaluation experiments carried out in environments representative of the cryogenic nitrogen tunnel. The technique uses substances which are gases at normal temperature and pressure but liquid or solid at cryogenic temperatures. These are deposited on the model in localized regions, the patterns of the deposits and their subsequent melting or evaporation revealing details of the surface flow. The gases were chosen because of the likelihood that they will not permanently contaminate the model or tunnel. Twenty-four gases were identified as possibly suitable and four of these were tested from which it was concluded that surface flow direction can be shown by the method. Other flow details might also be detectable. The cryogenic wind tunnel used was insulated on the outside and did not show signs of contamination.

Active Learning Framework for Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jin, Xin

2016-05-16

Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) is a set of techniques that estimate the electricity usage of individual appliances from power measurements taken at a limited number of locations in a building. One of the key challenges in NILM is having too much data without class labels yet being unable to label the data manually for cost or time constraints. This paper presents an active learning framework that helps existing NILM techniques to overcome this challenge. Active learning is an advanced machine learning method that interactively queries a user for the class label information. Unlike most existing NILM systems that heuristically request user inputs, the proposed method only needs minimally sufficient information from a user to build a compact and yet highly representative load signature library. Initial results indicate the proposed method can reduce the user inputs by up to 90% while still achieving similar disaggregation performance compared to a heuristic method. Thus, the proposed method can substantially reduce the burden on the user, improve the performance of a NILM system with limited user inputs, and overcome the key market barriers to the wide adoption of NILM technologies.

Evaluation of Virtual Refrigerant Mass Flow Sensors

OpenAIRE

Kim, Woohyun; Braun, James E.

2012-01-01

Refrigerant mass flow rate is an important measurement for monitoring equipment performance and enabling fault detection and diagnostics. However, a traditional mass flow meter is expensive to purchase and install. A virtual refrigerant mass flow sensor (VRMF) uses a mathematical model to estimate flow rate using low-cost measurements and can potentially be implemented at low cost. This study evaluates three VRMFs for estimating refrigerant mass flow rate. The first model uses a compressor ma...

Modern challenges for flow investigations in model hydraulic turbines on classical test rig

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Deschênes, C; Houde, S; Aeschlimann, V; Fraser, R; Ciocan, G D

2014-01-01

The BulbT project involved several investigations of flow phenomena in different parts of a model bulb turbine installed on the test rig of Laval University Laboratory. The aim is to create a comprehensive data base in order to increase the knowledge of the flow phenomena in this type of turbines and to validate or improve numerical flow simulation strategies. This validation being based on a kinematic comparison between experimental and numerical data, the project had to overcome challenges to facilitate the use of the experimental data for that purpose. Many parameters were checked, such as the test bench repeatability, the intrusiveness of a priori non-intrusive methods, the geometry of the runner and draft tube. This paper illustrates how some of those problematic were solved

Hydrodynamics of foam flows for in situ bioremediation of DNAPL-contaminated subsurface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bouillard, J.X.; Enzien, M.; Peters, R.W.; Frank, J.; Botto, R.E.; Cody, G.

1995-01-01

In situ remediation technologies such as (1) pump-and-treat, (2) soil vacuum extraction, (3) soil flushing/washing, and (4) bioremediation are being promoted for cleanup of contaminated sites. However, these technologies are limited by flow channeling of chemical treatment agents. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the Gas Research Institute, and the Institute of Gas Technology are collaboratively investigating a new bioremediation technology using foams. The ability of a foam to block pores and limit flow bypassing makes it ideal for DNAPL remediation. The hydrodynamics of gas/liquid foam flows differ significantly from the hydrodynamics of single and multiphase nonfoaming flows. This is illustrated using a multiphase flow hydrodynamic computer model and a two-dimensional flow visualization cell. A state-of-the-art, nonintrusive, three-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging technique was developed to visualize DNAPL mobilization in three dimensions. Mechanisms to be investigated are in situ DNAPL interactions with the foam, DNAPL emulsification, DNAPL scouring by the foam, and subsequent DNAPL mobilization/redeposition in the porous media

Modernized Approach for Generating Reproducible Heterogeneity Using Transmitted-Light for Flow Visualization Experiments

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, A. A.; Holt, R. M.

2017-12-01

Image capturing in flow experiments has been used for fluid mechanics research since the early 1970s. Interactions of fluid flow between the vadose zone and permanent water table are of great interest because this zone is responsible for all recharge waters, pollutant transport and irrigation efficiency for agriculture. Griffith, et al. (2011) developed an approach where constructed reproducible "geologically realistic" sand configurations are deposited in sandfilled experimental chambers for light-transmitted flow visualization experiments. This method creates reproducible, reverse graded, layered (stratified) thin-slab sand chambers for point source experiments visualizing multiphase flow through porous media. Reverse-graded stratification of sand chambers mimic many naturally occurring sedimentary deposits. Sandfilled chambers use light as nonintrusive tools for measuring water saturation in two-dimensions (2-D). Homogeneous and heterogeneous sand configurations can be produced to visualize the complex physics of the unsaturated zone. The experimental procedure developed by Griffith, et al. (2011) was designed using now outdated and obsolete equipment. We have modernized this approach with new Parker Deadel linear actuator and programed projects/code for multiple configurations. We have also updated the Roper CCD software and image processing software with the latest in industry standards. Modernization of transmitted-light source, robotic equipment, redesigned experimental chambers, and newly developed analytical procedures have greatly reduced time and cost per experiment. We have verified the ability of the new equipment to generate reproducible heterogeneous sand-filled chambers and demonstrated the functionality of the new equipment and procedures by reproducing several gravity-driven fingering experiments conducted by Griffith (2008).

Investigation of fluid flow in various geometries related to nuclear reactor using PIV system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kansal, A.K.; Maheshwari, N.K.; Singh, R.K.; Vijayan, P.K.; Saha, D.; Singh, R.K.; Joshi, V.M.

2011-01-01

Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a non-intrusive technique for simultaneously measuring the velocities at many points in a fluid flow. The PIV system used is comprised of Nd:YAG laser source, CCD (Charged Coupled Device) camera, timing controller (to control the laser and camera) and software used for analyzing the flow velocities. Several case studies related to nuclear reactor were performed with the PIV system. Some of the cases like flow in circular tube, submerged jet, natural convection in a water pool, flow field of moderator inlet diffuser of 500 MWe Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) and fluidic flow control device (FFCD) used in advanced accumulator of Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) have been studied using PIV system. Theoretical studies have been performed and comparisons with PIV results are also given in the present studies. (author)

Operation control of fluids pumping in curved pipes during annular flow: a numerical evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T Andrade

2016-10-01

Full Text Available To generate projects which provide significant volume recovery from heavy oils reservoirs and improve existing projects, is important to develop new production and transport technologies, especially in the scenario of offshore fields. The core-flow technique is one of new technologies used in heavy oil transportation. This core-flow pattern is characterized by a water pellicle that is formed close or adjacent to the inner wall of the pipe, functioning as a lubricant. The oil flows in the center of the pipe causing a reduction in longitudinal pressure drop. In this sense, this work presents a numerical study of heavy oil annular flow (core-flow assisted by computational tool ANSYS CFX® Release 12.0. It was used a three-dimensional, transient and isothermal mathematical model considered by the mixture and turbulence - models to address the water-heavy oil two-phase flow, assuming laminar flow for oil phase and turbulent flow for water phase. Results of the pressure, velocity and volume fraction distributions of the phases and the pressure drop for different operation conditions are presented and evaluated. It was observed that the oil core flowing eccentrically in the pipe and stops of the water flux considerably increases the pressure drop in the pipe after the restart of the pump.

Detecting Human Hydrologic Alteration from Diversion Hydropower Requires Universal Flow Prediction Tools: A Proposed Framework for Flow Prediction in Poorly-gauged, Regulated Rivers

Science.gov (United States)

Kibler, K. M.; Alipour, M.

2016-12-01

Achieving the universal energy access Sustainable Development Goal will require great investment in renewable energy infrastructure in the developing world. Much growth in the renewable sector will come from new hydropower projects, including small and diversion hydropower in remote and mountainous regions. Yet, human impacts to hydrological systems from diversion hydropower are poorly described. Diversion hydropower is often implemented in ungauged rivers, thus detection of impact requires flow analysis tools suited to prediction in poorly-gauged and human-altered catchments. We conduct a comprehensive analysis of hydrologic alteration in 32 rivers developed with diversion hydropower in southwestern China. As flow data are sparse, we devise an approach for estimating streamflow during pre- and post-development periods, drawing upon a decade of research into prediction in ungauged basins. We apply a rainfall-runoff model, parameterized and forced exclusively with global-scale data, in hydrologically-similar gauged and ungauged catchments. Uncertain "soft" data are incorporated through fuzzy numbers and confidence-based weighting, and a multi-criteria objective function is applied to evaluate model performance. Testing indicates that the proposed framework returns superior performance (NSE = 0.77) as compared to models parameterized by rote calibration (NSE = 0.62). Confident that the models are providing `the right answer for the right reasons', our analysis of hydrologic alteration based on simulated flows indicates statistically significant hydrologic effects of diversion hydropower across many rivers. Mean annual flows, 7-day minimum and 7-day maximum flows decreased. Frequency and duration of flow exceeding Q25 decreased while duration of flows sustained below the Q75 increased substantially. Hydrograph rise and fall rates and flow constancy increased. The proposed methodology may be applied to improve diversion hydropower design in data-limited regions.

Evaluation of magnetic resonance velocimetry for steady flow.

Science.gov (United States)

Ku, D N; Biancheri, C L; Pettigrew, R I; Peifer, J W; Markou, C P; Engels, H

1990-11-01

Whole body magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has recently become an important diagnostic tool for cardiovascular diseases. The technique of magnetic resonance phase velocity encoding allows the quantitative measurement of velocity for an arbitrary component direction. A study was initiated to determine the ability and accuracy of MR velocimetry to measure a wide range of flow conditions including flow separation, three-dimensional secondary flow, high velocity gradients, and turbulence. A steady flow system pumped water doped with manganese chloride through a variety of test sections. Images were produced using gradient echo sequences on test sections including a straight tube, a curved tube, a smoothly converging-diverging nozzle, and an orifice. Magnetic resonance measurements of laminar and turbulent flows were depicted as cross-sectional velocity profiles. MR velocity measurements revealed such flow behavior as spatially varying velocity, recirculation and secondary flows over a wide range of conditions. Comparisons made with published experimental laser Doppler anemometry measurements and theoretical calculations for similar flow conditions revealed excellent accuracy and precision levels. The successful measurement of velocity profiles for a variety of flow conditions and geometries indicate that magnetic resonance imaging is an accurate, non-contacting velocimeter.

Detailed imaging of flowing structures at depth using microseismicity: a tool for site investigation?

Science.gov (United States)

Pytharouli, S.; Lunn, R. J.; Shipton, Z. K.

2011-12-01

Field evidence shows that faults and fractures can act as focused pathways or barriers for fluid migration. This is an important property for modern engineering problems, e.g., CO2 sequestration, geological radioactive waste disposal, geothermal energy exploitation, land reclamation and remediation. For such applications the detailed characterization of the location, orientation and hydraulic properties of existing fractures is necessary. These investigations are expensive, requiring the hire of expensive equipment (excavator or drill rigs), which incur standing charges when not in use. In addition, they only provide information for discrete sample 'windows'. Non-intrusive methods have the ability to gather information across an entire area. Methods including electrical resistivity/conductivity and ground penetrating radar (GRP), have been used as tools for site investigations. Their imaging ability is often restricted due to unfavourable on-site conditions e.g. GRP is not useful in cases where a layer of clay or reinforced concrete is present. Our research has shown that high quality seismic data can be successfully used in the detailed imaging of sub-surface structures at depth; using induced microseismicity data recorded beneath the Açu reservoir in Brazil we identified orientations and values of average permeability of open shear fractures at depths up to 2.5km. Could microseismicity also provide information on the fracture width in terms of stress drops? First results from numerical simulations showed that higher stress drop values correspond to narrower fractures. These results were consistent with geological field observations. This study highlights the great potential of using microseismicity data as a supplementary tool for site investigation. Individual large-scale shear fractures in large rock volumes cannot currently be identified by any other geophysical dataset. The resolution of the method is restricted by the detection threshold of the local

Non-intrusive gesture recognition system combining with face detection based on Hidden Markov Model

Science.gov (United States)

Jin, Jing; Wang, Yuanqing; Xu, Liujing; Cao, Liqun; Han, Lei; Zhou, Biye; Li, Minggao

2014-11-01

A non-intrusive gesture recognition human-machine interaction system is proposed in this paper. In order to solve the hand positioning problem which is a difficulty in current algorithms, face detection is used for the pre-processing to narrow the search area and find user's hand quickly and accurately. Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used for gesture recognition. A certain number of basic gesture units are trained as HMM models. At the same time, an improved 8-direction feature vector is proposed and used to quantify characteristics in order to improve the detection accuracy. The proposed system can be applied in interaction equipments without special training for users, such as household interactive television

CASH FLOW-FINANCIAL PLANNING TOOL IN THE TOURISM UNITS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Boby COSTI

2017-05-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the issue of cash-flow tool for financial planning, cash flow calculation by applying the indirect method within a company in the field of tourism. Thus, it tackled issues concerning the organization of accounting of treasury which made a presentation of the subject reflected in treasury accounting record of the existence and movement of securities placement, availability of the accounts at banks, short term bank loans and other cash values. The importance of access to information as well as more detailed and clearer leads to an upward trend of the tourism society. Standardization of definitions helps to ensure that all parties are talking of the same terms or concepts with lower or no variables. This is essential for developers and contractors in different geographical regions of the world and different countries when they discuss issues of tourism and travel.

LABORATORY EVALUATION OF AIR FLOW MEASUREMENT METHODS FOR RESIDENTIAL HVAC RETURNS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walker, Iain; Stratton, Chris

2015-02-01

This project improved the accuracy of air flow measurements used in commissioning California heating and air conditioning systems in Title 24 (Building and Appliance Efficiency Standards), thereby improving system performance and efficiency of California residences. The research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addressed the issue that typical tools used by contractors in the field to test air flows may not be accurate enough to measure return flows used in Title 24 applications. The team developed guidance on performance of current diagnostics as well as a draft test method for use in future evaluations. The series of tests performed measured air flow using a range of techniques and devices. The measured air flows were compared to reference air flow measurements using inline air flow meters built into the test apparatus. The experimental results showed that some devices had reasonable results (typical errors of 5 percent or less) but others had much bigger errors (up to 25 percent). Because manufacturers’ accuracy estimates for their equipment do not include many of the sources of error found in actual field measurements (and replicated in the laboratory testing in this study) it is essential for a test method that could be used to determine the actual uncertainty in this specific application. The study team prepared a draft test method through ASTM International to determine the uncertainty of air flow measurements at residential heating ventilation and air conditioning returns and other terminals. This test method, when finalized, can be used by the Energy Commission and other entities to specify required accuracy of measurement devices used to show compliance with standards.

Experimental investigation of a flow-induced oscillating cylinder with two degrees-of-freedom

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Someya, Satoshi; Kuwabara, Joji; Li, YanRong; Okamoto, Koji

2010-01-01

The phenomenon of flow-induced vibration of bluff bodies has been studied extensively. The vast majority of these studies have concentrated solely on one degree-of-freedom oscillation in the inline or cross-flow directions. Herein, experiments were carried out with a cylinder in a water channel with two degrees-of-freedom. The cylinder was cantilever mounted with a low natural frequency (typically 65 Hz) in the inline and cross-flow directions. The Reynolds number fell in the range 1.17 x 10 3 4 . The oscillating frequency of the cylinder and the surrounding flow were measured simultaneously using high temporal resolution particle image velocimetry (PIV), which is non-intrusive with respect to the flow and has high spatial and temporal resolutions. The vibration of the cylinder was found to be anisotropic. There was a discrepancy between the vibration frequencies in the inline and cross-flow directions, the difference being a function of reduced velocity.

Riparian Cottonwood Ecosystems and Regulated Flows in Kootenai and Yakima Sub-Basins : Volume III (Overview and Tools).

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jamieson, Bob; Braatne, Jeffrey H.

2001-10-01

Riparian vegetation and especially cottonwood and willow plant communities are dependent on normative flows and especially, spring freshette, to provide conditions for recruitment. These plant communities therefore share much in common with a range of fish species that require natural flow conditions to stimulate reproduction. We applied tools and techniques developed in other areas to assess riparian vegetation in two very different sub-basins within the Columbia Basin. Our objectives were to: Document the historic impact of human activity on alluvial floodplain areas in both sub-basins; Provide an analysis of the impacts of flow regulation on riparian vegetation in two systems with very different flow regulation systems; Demonstrate that altered spring flows will, in fact, result in recruitment to cottonwood stands, given other land uses impacts on each river and the limitations imposed by other flow requirements; and Assess the applicability of remote sensing tools for documenting the distribution and health of cottonwood stands and riparian vegetation that can be used in other sub-basins.

The tools for evaluating logistics processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michał Adamczak

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Background: The growing importance of business process approach and dynamic management is triggered by market expectations for lead time reductions and the pressure for cost cuts. An efficient process management requires measurement and assessment skills. This article is intended to present the tools used in evaluating processes and the way in which they work together under simulated conditions. Methods: The project's Authors believe that a process can be assessed by measuring its attributes: cost, time and quality. An assessment tool has been developed for each of those attributes. For costs - it could be activity based costing, for time - value stream mapping; for quality - statistical process control. Each tool allows for evaluating one of the attributes, any element in the process hierarchy. The methods presented in the paper have been supplemented with process modelling and simulation. Results: In order to show how process assessment tools are combined with process simulation the Authors show a sample process in three versions (serial, parallel and mixed. A variant simulation (using iGrafx software allows for determining the values of attributes in the entire process based on the data set for its components (activities. In the example under investigation the process variant has no impact on its quality. Process cost and time are affected. Conclusions: The tools for identifying attribute values, in combination with process modelling and simulation, can prove very beneficial when applied in business practice. In the first place they allow for evaluating a process based on the value of the attributes pertaining to its particular activities, which, on the other hand, raises the possibility of process configuration at the design stage. The solution presented in the paper can be developed further with a view to process standardization and best variant recommendation.  

Evaluating groundwater flow using passive electrical measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Voytek, E.; Revil, A.; Singha, K.

2016-12-01

Accurate quantification of groundwater flow patterns, both in magnitude and direction, is a necessary component of evaluating any hydrologic system. Groundwater flow patterns are often determined using a dense network of wells or piezometers, which can be limited due to logistical or regulatory constraints. The self-potential (SP) method, a passive geophysical technique that relies on currents generated by water movement through porous materials, is a re-emerging alternative or addition to traditional piezometer networks. Naturally generated currents can be measured as voltage differences at the ground surface using only two electrodes, or a more complex electrode array. While the association between SP measurements and groundwater flow was observed as early as 1890s, the method has seen resurgence in hydrology since the governing equations were refined in the 1980s. The method can be used to analyze hydrologic processes at various temporal and spatial scales. Here we present the results of multiple SP surveys collected a multiple scales (1 to 10s of meters). Here single SP grid surveys are used to evaluate flow patterns through artic hillslopes at a discrete point in time. Additionally, a coupled groundwater and electrical model is used to analyze multiple SP data sets to evaluate seasonal changes in groundwater flow through an alpine meadow.

Performability Modelling Tools, Evaluation Techniques and Applications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Haverkort, Boudewijn R.H.M.

1990-01-01

This thesis deals with three aspects of quantitative evaluation of fault-tolerant and distributed computer and communication systems: performability evaluation techniques, performability modelling tools, and performability modelling applications. Performability modelling is a relatively new

Evaluation of flow-induced vibration of thermometer well for JOYO

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Isozaki, Kazunori; Tomita, Naoki

1997-05-01

Sodium leak accident of MONJU was caused high cycles fatigue damage of thermometer well by flow-induced vibration. It was due to the symmetric vortex shedding which was occurred rear flow of thermometer well. So, Thermometer wells installed in primary and secondary heat transport systems of JOYO were evaluated of flow-induced vibration. Evaluation of flow-induced vibration of thermometer well was done checking of flow-induced vibration base on authorized design report for JOYO, evaluation of summary flow-induced vibration by natural frequency of thermometer well in sodium as cantilever models, and evaluation based on small velocity rule of ASME Code Section III Appendix N-1300. By this result, thermometer wells (12B piping of secondary cooling system) were not satisfied requirement to avoid flow-induced vibration by small velocity rule. Therefore, Detailed vibration characteristic analysis, water flow-induced vibration test, dumping test and evaluation of structural integrity were carried out. These results, vibration amplitude of well on the tip was 0.13 mm (vibration non-dimensional amplitude of 0.015) and peak stress of 2.9 kg/mm 2 is occurred. Thermometer wells (12B piping of secondary cooling system) which occurred peak stress by flow vibration was confirmed enough to satisfy 5.3 kg/mm 2 of design fatigue limit. (author)

Color doppler flow imaging in evaluation of uterine arterial embolization of leiomyoma with KMG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Furong; Guo Yunhuai; Liu Lifang; Liu Jianhua; Guo Yunhuai

2006-01-01

Objective: To explore the effectiveness of a new kind of embolization agent-sodium alginate(KMG), and to evaluate the clinical value of 2D color Doppler ultrasound in assessing the therapeutic effect of uterine arterial embolization (UAE) in leiomyomas. Methods: Forty nine patients with symptomatic leiomyomas were undertaken UAE with KMG for the treatment. Sonography was performed at 3-7 days before and, 1, 3, 6 months after UAE with 2D color Doppler for evaluating the 2D echograms and hemodynamics. Results: Forty nine leiomyomas were studied after UAE, showing a marked reduction in the size (35%-90%). No blood flow was demonstrated in the leiomyomas either 3-7 days or 1 month or 3 months after the procedure. The reappearance of blood flow could be seen in only one case. Conclusion: KMG is an efficient embolization agent for the treatment of symptomatic leiomyomas with UAE, and ultrasonography is a useful tool to assess the effectiveness. (authors)

A web-based non-intrusive ambient system to measure and classify activities of daily living.

Science.gov (United States)

Stucki, Reto A; Urwyler, Prabitha; Rampa, Luca; Müri, René; Mosimann, Urs P; Nef, Tobias

2014-07-21

The number of older adults in the global population is increasing. This demographic shift leads to an increasing prevalence of age-associated disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. With the progression of the disease, the risk for institutional care increases, which contrasts with the desire of most patients to stay in their home environment. Despite doctors' and caregivers' awareness of the patient's cognitive status, they are often uncertain about its consequences on activities of daily living (ADL). To provide effective care, they need to know how patients cope with ADL, in particular, the estimation of risks associated with the cognitive decline. The occurrence, performance, and duration of different ADL are important indicators of functional ability. The patient's ability to cope with these activities is traditionally assessed with questionnaires, which has disadvantages (eg, lack of reliability and sensitivity). Several groups have proposed sensor-based systems to recognize and quantify these activities in the patient's home. Combined with Web technology, these systems can inform caregivers about their patients in real-time (e.g., via smartphone). We hypothesize that a non-intrusive system, which does not use body-mounted sensors, video-based imaging, and microphone recordings would be better suited for use in dementia patients. Since it does not require patient's attention and compliance, such a system might be well accepted by patients. We present a passive, Web-based, non-intrusive, assistive technology system that recognizes and classifies ADL. The components of this novel assistive technology system were wireless sensors distributed in every room of the participant's home and a central computer unit (CCU). The environmental data were acquired for 20 days (per participant) and then stored and processed on the CCU. In consultation with medical experts, eight ADL were classified. In this study, 10 healthy participants (6 women

Liquid Crystals, PIV and IR-Photography in Selected Technical and Biomedical Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Stasiek, Jan; Jewartowski, Marcin

2017-10-01

Thermochromic liquid crystals (TLC), Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), Infrared Imaging Themography (IR) and True-Colour Digital Image Processing (TDIP) have been successfully used in non-intrusive technical, industrial and biomedical studies and applications. These four tools (based on the desktop computers) have come together during the past two decades to produce a powerful advanced experimental technique as a judgment of quality of information that cannot be obtained from any other imaging procedure. The brief summary of the history of this technique is reviewed, principal methods and tools are described and some examples are presented. With this objective, a new experimental technique have been developed and applied to the study of heat and mass transfer and for biomedical diagnosis. Automated evaluation allows determining the heat and flow visualisation and locate the area of suspicious tissue of human body.

Chimera Grid Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, William M.; Rogers, Stuart E.; Nash, Steven M.; Buning, Pieter G.; Meakin, Robert

2005-01-01

Chimera Grid Tools (CGT) is a software package for performing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis utilizing the Chimera-overset-grid method. For modeling flows with viscosity about geometrically complex bodies in relative motion, the Chimera-overset-grid method is among the most computationally cost-effective methods for obtaining accurate aerodynamic results. CGT contains a large collection of tools for generating overset grids, preparing inputs for computer programs that solve equations of flow on the grids, and post-processing of flow-solution data. The tools in CGT include grid editing tools, surface-grid-generation tools, volume-grid-generation tools, utility scripts, configuration scripts, and tools for post-processing (including generation of animated images of flows and calculating forces and moments exerted on affected bodies). One of the tools, denoted OVERGRID, is a graphical user interface (GUI) that serves to visualize the grids and flow solutions and provides central access to many other tools. The GUI facilitates the generation of grids for a new flow-field configuration. Scripts that follow the grid generation process can then be constructed to mostly automate grid generation for similar configurations. CGT is designed for use in conjunction with a computer-aided-design program that provides the geometry description of the bodies, and a flow-solver program.

Laboratory Evaluation of Air Flow Measurement Methods for Residential HVAC Returns for New Instrument Standards

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Walker, Iain [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Stratton, Chris [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2015-08-01

This project improved the accuracy of air flow measurements used in commissioning California heating and air conditioning systems in Title 24 (Building and Appliance Efficiency Standards), thereby improving system performance and efficiency of California residences. The research team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addressed the issue that typical tools used by contractors in the field to test air flows may not be accurate enough to measure return flows used in Title 24 applications. The team developed guidance on performance of current diagnostics as well as a draft test method for use in future evaluations. The study team prepared a draft test method through ASTM International to determine the uncertainty of air flow measurements at residential heating ventilation and air conditioning returns and other terminals. This test method, when finalized, can be used by the Energy Commission and other entities to specify required accuracy of measurement devices used to show compliance with standards.

SustainPro - A tool for systematic process analysis, generation and evaluation of sustainable design alternatives

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Carvalho, Ana; Matos, Henrique A.; Gani, Rafiqul

2013-01-01

the user through the necessary steps according to work-flow of the implemented methodology. At the end the design alternatives, are evaluated using environmental impact assessment tools and safety indices. The extended features of the methodology incorporate Life Cycle Assessment analysis and economic....... The software tool is based on the implementation of an extended systematic methodology for sustainable process design (Carvalho et al. 2008 and Carvalho et al. 2009). Using process information/data such as the process flowsheet, the associated mass / energy balance data and the cost data, SustainPro guides...... analysis. The application and the main features of SustainPro are illustrated through a case study of ß-Galactosidase production....

Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring of HVAC Components using Signal Unmixing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rahimpour, Alireza [University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK); Qi, Hairong [ORNL; Fugate, David L [ORNL; Kuruganti, Teja [ORNL

2015-01-01

Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning units (HVAC) are a major electrical energy consumer in buildings. Monitoring of the operation and energy consumption of HVAC would increase the awareness of building owners and maintenance service providers of the condition and quality of performance of these units, enabling conditioned-based maintenance which would help achieving higher energy efficiency. In this paper, a novel non-intrusive load monitoring method based on group constrained non-negative matrix factorization is proposed for monitoring the different components of HVAC unit by only measuring the whole building aggregated power signal. At the first level of this hierarchical approach, power consumption of the building is decomposed to energy consumption of the HVAC unit and all the other electrical devices operating in the building such as lighting and plug loads. Then, the estimated power signal of the HVAC is used for estimating the power consumption profile of the HVAC major electrical loads such as compressors, condenser fans and indoor blower. Experiments conducted on real data collected from a building testbed maintained at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) demonstrate high accuracy on the disaggregation task.

Development of a tool for evaluating multimedia for surgical education.

Science.gov (United States)

Coughlan, Jane; Morar, Sonali S

2008-09-01

Educational multimedia has been designed to provide surgical trainees with expert operative information outside of the operating theater. The effectiveness of multimedia (e.g., CD-ROMs) for learning has been a common research topic since the 1990s. To date, however, little discussion has taken place on the mechanisms to evaluate the quality of multimedia-driven teaching. This may be because of a lack of research into the development of appropriate tools for evaluating multimedia, especially for surgical education. This paper reports on a small-scale pilot and exploratory study (n = 12) that developed a tool for surgical multimedia evaluation. The validity of the developed tool was established through adaptation of an existing tool, which was reviewed using experts in surgery, usability, and education. The reliability of the developed tool was tested with surgical trainees who used it to assess a multimedia CD-ROM created for teaching basic surgical skills. The findings contribute to an understanding of surgical trainees' experience of using educational multimedia, in terms of characteristics of the learning material for interface design and content and the process of developing evaluation tools, in terms of inclusion of appropriate assessment criteria. The increasing use of multimedia in medical education necessitates the development of standardized tools for determining the quality of teaching and learning. Little research exists into the development of such tools and so the present work stimulates discussion on how to evaluate surgical training.

New modeling and experimental approaches for characterization of two-phase flow interfacial structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishii, Mamoru; Sun, Xiaodong

2004-01-01

This paper presents new experimental and modeling approaches in characterizing interfacial structures in gas-liquid two-phase flow. For the experiments, two objective approaches are developed to identify flow regimes and to obtain local interfacial structure data. First, a global measurement technique using a non-intrusive ring-type impedance void-meter and a self-organizing neural network is presented to identify the one-dimensional'' flow regimes. In the application of this measurement technique, two methods are discussed, namely, one based on the probability density function of the impedance probe measurement (PDF input method) and the other based on the sorted impedance signals, which is essentially the cumulative probability distribution function of the impedance signals (instantaneous direct signal input method). In the latter method, the identification can be made close to instantaneously since the required signals can be acquired over a very short time period. In addition, a double-sensor conductivity probe can also be used to obtain ''local'' flow regimes by using the instantaneous direct signal input method with the bubble chord length information. Furthermore, a newly designed conductivity probe with multiple double-sensor heads is proposed to obtain ''two-dimensional'' flow regimes across the flow channel. Secondly, a state-of-the-art four-sensor conductivity probe technique has been developed to obtain detailed local interfacial structure information. The four-sensor conductivity probe accommodates the double-sensor probe capability and can be applied in a wide range of flow regimes spanning from bubbly to churn-turbulent flows. The signal processing scheme is developed such that it categorizes the acquired parameters into two groups based on bubble cord length information. Furthermore, for the modeling of the interfacial structure characterization, the interfacial area transport equation proposed earlier has been studied to provide a dynamic and

An Evaluation Framework and Instrument for Evaluating e-Assessment Tools

Science.gov (United States)

Singh, Upasana Gitanjali; de Villiers, Mary Ruth

2017-01-01

e-Assessment, in the form of tools and systems that deliver and administer multiple choice questions (MCQs), is used increasingly, raising the need for evaluation and validation of such systems. This research uses literature and a series of six empirical action research studies to develop an evaluation framework of categories and criteria called…

A new tool to evaluate postgraduate training posts: the Job Evaluation Survey Tool (JEST).

Science.gov (United States)

Wall, David; Goodyear, Helen; Singh, Baldev; Whitehouse, Andrew; Hughes, Elizabeth; Howes, Jonathan

2014-10-02

Three reports in 2013 about healthcare and patient safety in the UK, namely Berwick, Francis and Keogh have highlighted the need for junior doctors' views about their training experience to be heard. In the UK, the General Medical Council (GMC) quality assures medical training programmes and requires postgraduate deaneries to undertake quality management and monitoring of all training posts in their area. The aim of this study was to develop a simple trainee questionnaire for evaluation of postgraduate training posts based on the GMC, UK standards and to look at the reliability and validity including comparison with a well-established and internationally validated tool, the Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure (PHEEM). The Job Evaluation Survey Tool (JEST), a fifteen item job evaluation questionnaire was drawn up in 2006, piloted with Foundation doctors (2007), field tested with specialist paediatric registrars (2008) and used over a three year period (2008-11) by Foundation Doctors. Statistical analyses including descriptives, reliability, correlation and factor analysis were undertaken and JEST compared with PHEEM. The JEST had a reliability of 0.91 in the pilot study of 76 Foundation doctors, 0.88 in field testing of 173 Paediatric specialist registrars and 0.91 in three years of general use in foundation training with 3367 doctors completing JEST. Correlation of JEST with PHEEM was 0.80 (p training posts.

Python tools for rapid development, calibration, and analysis of generalized groundwater-flow models

Science.gov (United States)

Starn, J. J.; Belitz, K.

2014-12-01

National-scale water-quality data sets for the United States have been available for several decades; however, groundwater models to interpret these data are available for only a small percentage of the country. Generalized models may be adequate to explain and project groundwater-quality trends at the national scale by using regional scale models (defined as watersheds at or between the HUC-6 and HUC-8 levels). Coast-to-coast data such as the National Hydrologic Dataset Plus (NHD+) make it possible to extract the basic building blocks for a model anywhere in the country. IPython notebooks have been developed to automate the creation of generalized groundwater-flow models from the NHD+. The notebook format allows rapid testing of methods for model creation, calibration, and analysis. Capabilities within the Python ecosystem greatly speed up the development and testing of algorithms. GeoPandas is used for very efficient geospatial processing. Raster processing includes the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library and image processing tools. Model creation is made possible through Flopy, a versatile input and output writer for several MODFLOW-based flow and transport model codes. Interpolation, integration, and map plotting included in the standard Python tool stack also are used, making the notebook a comprehensive platform within on to build and evaluate general models. Models with alternative boundary conditions, number of layers, and cell spacing can be tested against one another and evaluated by using water-quality data. Novel calibration criteria were developed by comparing modeled heads to land-surface and surface-water elevations. Information, such as predicted age distributions, can be extracted from general models and tested for its ability to explain water-quality trends. Groundwater ages then can be correlated with horizontal and vertical hydrologic position, a relation that can be used for statistical assessment of likely groundwater-quality conditions

Rapid assessment as an evaluation tool for polio national ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Rapid assessment as an evaluation tool for polio national immunisation days in Brong Ahafo region, Ghana. ... TM Akande, M Eshetu, G Bonsu ... Conclusion: Rapid assessment is a valuable tool for evaluation of NIDs; it enables timely intervention in covering missed children and helps in careful interpretation of the usual ...

Evaluation of English Websites on Dental Caries by Using Consumer Evaluation Tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Blizniuk, Anastasiya; Furukawa, Sayaka; Ueno, Masayuki; Kawaguchi, Yoko

2016-01-01

To evaluate the quality of patient-oriented online information about dental caries using existing consumer evaluation tools and to judge the efficacy of these tools in quality assessment. The websites for the evaluation were pooled by using two general search engines (Google and Yahoo!). The search terms were: 'dental caries', 'tooth decay' and 'tooth cavity'. Three assessment tools (LIDA, DISCERN and FRES) were used to evaluate the quality of the information in the areas of accessibility, usability, reliability and readability. In total, 77 websites were analysed. The median scores of LIDA accessibility and usability were 45.0 and 8.0, respectively, which corresponded to a medium level of quality. The median reliability scores for LIDA (12.0) and DISCERN (20.0) both corresponded to low level of quality. The readability was high with the median FRES score 59.7. The websites on caries had good accessibility, usability and readability, while reliability of the information was poor. The LIDA instrument was found to be more convenient than DISCERN and can be recommended to lay people for quick quality assessment.

Non-intrusive Packet-Layer Model for Monitoring Video Quality of IPTV Services

Science.gov (United States)

Yamagishi, Kazuhisa; Hayashi, Takanori

Developing a non-intrusive packet-layer model is required to passively monitor the quality of experience (QoE) during service. We propose a packet-layer model that can be used to estimate the video quality of IPTV using quality parameters derived from transmitted packet headers. The computational load of the model is lighter than that of the model that takes video signals and/or video-related bitstream information such as motion vectors as input. This model is applicable even if the transmitted bitstream information is encrypted because it uses transmitted packet headers rather than bitstream information. For developing the model, we conducted three extensive subjective quality assessments for different encoders and decoders (codecs), and video content. Then, we modeled the subjective video quality assessment characteristics based on objective features affected by coding and packet loss. Finally, we verified the model's validity by applying our model to unknown data sets different from training data sets used above.

The electrical self-potential method is a non-intrusive snow-hydrological sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, S. S.; Kulessa, B.; Essery, R. L. H.; Lüthi, M. P.

2015-08-01

Our ability to measure, quantify and assimilate hydrological properties and processes of snow in operational models is disproportionally poor compared to the significance of seasonal snowmelt as a global water resource and major risk factor in flood and avalanche forecasting. Encouraged by recent theoretical, modelling and laboratory work, we show here that the diurnal evolution of aerially-distributed self-potential magnitudes closely track those of bulk meltwater fluxes in melting in-situ snowpacks at Rhone and Jungfraujoch glaciers, Switzerland. Numerical modelling infers temporally-evolving liquid water contents in the snowpacks on successive days in close agreement with snow-pit measurements. Muting previous concerns, the governing physical and chemical properties of snow and meltwater became temporally invariant for modelling purposes. Because measurement procedure is straightforward and readily automated for continuous monitoring over significant spatial scales, we conclude that the self-potential geophysical method is a highly-promising non-intrusive snow-hydrological sensor for measurement practice, modelling and operational snow forecasting.

Two-phase flow measurement by pulsed neutron activation techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kehler, P.

1978-01-01

The Pulsed Neutron Activation (PNA) technique for measuring the mass flow velocity and the average density of two-phase mixtures is described. PNA equipment can be easily installed at different loops, and PNA techniques are non-intrusive and independent of flow regimes. These features of the PNA technique make it suitable for in-situ measurement of two-phase flows, and for calibration of more conventional two-phase flow measurement devices. Analytic relations governing the various PNA methods are derived. The equipment and procedures used in the first air-water flow measurement by PNA techniques are discussed, and recommendations are made for improvement of future tests. In the present test, the mass flow velocity was determined with an accuracy of 2 percent, and average densities were measured down to 0.08 g/cm 3 with an accuracy of 0.04 g/cm 3 . Both the accuracy of the mass flow velocity measurement and the lower limit of the density measurement are functions of the injected activity and of the total number of counts. By using a stronger neutron source and a larger number of detectors, the measurable density can be decreased by a factor of 12 to .007 g/cm 3 for 12.5 cm pipes, and to even lower ranges for larger pipes

The impact of engineered log jams on bed morphology, flow characteristics and habitat diversity under low flow

Science.gov (United States)

Ockelford, A.; Crabbe, E.; Crowe Curran, J.; Parsons, D. R.; Shugar, D. H.; Burr, A.; Kennedy, K.; Coe, T.

2017-12-01

Wood jams are an important and ubiquitous feature of many river channels with their number, placement and spatial configuration determining their influence on channel morphology and flow characteristics. Further, engineered log jams are increasingly being constructed to develop, restore or maintain habitat diversity for key indicator specie such as salmon. However, questions remain as to the inter relationships between the logjams, the channel morphology, the flow characteristics and the habitat diversity under low flow conditions. Four engineered and one natural logjam were analyzed over a 3km reach of the South Fork Nooksack River, North Cascades National Park, USA during the summer low flow period. Non-intrusive three-dimensional topographic surveys of the river bed morphology surrounding the logjams was collected using a shallow water multibeam system. This was combined with terrestrial laser scans of the structure of the log jams above the waterline. Co-located high resolution flow velocity data was collected using an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. Discussion concentrates on providing a quantitative understanding of the effect of logjams on reach scale morphodynamics under low flow conditions. Multivariate statistical analysis of flow and topographic data in combination with log jam morphology allow the influences of the logjam on habitat suitability for key indicator species to be quantified. Results will be framed in terms of the effectiveness of the different logjam configurations on generating and promoting habitat diversity such as to aid future design and implementation.

Non-intrusive measurement of tritium activity in waste drums by modelling a {sup 3}He leak quantified by mass spectrometry; Mesure non intrusive de l'activite de futs de dechets trities par modelisation d'une fuite {sup 3}He et sa quantification par spectrometrie de masse

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Demange, D

2002-07-03

This study deals with a new method that makes it possible to measure very low tritium quantities inside radioactive waste drums. This indirect method is based on measuring the decaying product, {sup 3}He, and requires a study of its behaviour inside the drum. Our model considers {sup 3}He as totally free and its leak through the polymeric joint of the drum as two distinct phenomena: permeation and laminar flow. The numerical simulations show that a pseudo-stationary state takes place. Thus, the {sup 3}He leak corresponds to the tritium activity inside the drum but it appears, however, that the leak peaks when the atmospheric pressure variations induce an overpressure in the drum. Nevertheless, the confinement of a drum in a tight chamber makes it possible to quantify the {sup 3}He leak. This is a non-intrusive measurement of its activity, which was experimentally checked by using reduced models, representing the drum and its confinement chamber. The drum's confinement was optimised to obtain a reproducible {sup 3}He leak measurement. The gaseous samples taken from the chamber were purified using selective adsorption onto activated charcoals at 77 K to remove the tritium and pre-concentrate the {sup 3}He. The samples were measured using a leak detector mass spectrometer. The adaptation of the signal acquisition and the optimisation of the analysis parameters made it possible to reach the stability of the external calibrations using standard gases with a {sup 3}He detection limit of 0.05 ppb. Repeated confinement of the reference drums demonstrated the accuracy of this method. The uncertainty of this non-intrusive measurement of the tritium activity in 200-liter drums is 15% and the detection limit is about 1 GBq after a 24 h confinement. These results led to the definition of an automated tool able to systematically measure the tritium activity of all storage waste drums. (authors)

Application case study of AP1000 automatic depressurization system (ADS) for reliability evaluation by GO-FLOW methodology

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hashim, Muhammad, E-mail: hashimsajid@yahoo.com; Hidekazu, Yoshikawa, E-mail: yosikawa@kib.biglobe.ne.jp; Takeshi, Matsuoka, E-mail: mats@cc.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp; Ming, Yang, E-mail: myang.heu@gmail.com

2014-10-15

Highlights: • Discussion on reasons why AP1000 equipped with ADS system comparatively to PWR. • Clarification of full and partial depressurization of reactor coolant system by ADS system. • Application case study of four stages ADS system for reliability evaluation in LBLOCA. • GO-FLOW tool is capable to evaluate dynamic reliability of passive safety systems. • Calculated ADS reliability result significantly increased dynamic reliability of PXS. - Abstract: AP1000 nuclear power plant (NPP) utilized passive means for the safety systems to ensure its safety in events of transient or severe accidents. One of the unique safety systems of AP1000 to be compared with conventional PWR is the “four stages Automatic Depressurization System (ADS)”, and ADS system originally works as an active safety system. In the present study, authors first discussed the reasons of why four stages ADS system is added in AP1000 plant to be compared with conventional PWR in the aspect of reliability. And then explained the full and partial depressurization of RCS system by four stages ADS in events of transient and loss of coolant accidents (LOCAs). Lastly, the application case study of four stages ADS system of AP1000 has been conducted in the aspect of reliability evaluation of ADS system under postulated conditions of full RCS depressurization during large break loss of a coolant accident (LBLOCA) in one of the RCS cold legs. In this case study, the reliability evaluation is made by GO-FLOW methodology to determinate the influence of ADS system in dynamic reliability of passive core cooling system (PXS) of AP1000, i.e. what will happen if ADS system fails or successfully actuate. The GO-FLOW is success-oriented reliability analysis tool and is capable to evaluating the systems reliability/unavailability alternatively to Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) and Event Tree Analysis (ETA) tools. Under these specific conditions of LBLOCA, the GO-FLOW calculated reliability results indicated

Research on the technology of detecting the SQL injection attack and non-intrusive prevention in WEB system

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Haibin

2017-05-01

Among numerous WEB security issues, SQL injection is the most notable and dangerous. In this study, characteristics and procedures of SQL injection are analyzed, and the method for detecting the SQL injection attack is illustrated. The defense resistance and remedy model of SQL injection attack is established from the perspective of non-intrusive SQL injection attack and defense. Moreover, the ability of resisting the SQL injection attack of the server has been comprehensively improved through the security strategies on operation system, IIS and database, etc.. Corresponding codes are realized. The method is well applied in the actual projects.

Development of acoustic flow instruments for solid/gas pipe flows

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sheen, S.H.; Raptis, A.C.

1986-05-01

Two nonintrusive acoustic flow sensing techniques are reported. One technique, passive in nature, simply measures the bandpassed acoustic noise level produced by particle/particle and particle/wall collisions. The noise levels, given in true RMS voltages or in autocorrelations, show a linear relationship to particle velocity but increase with solid concentration. Therefore, the passive technique requires calibration and a separate measure of solid concentration before it can be used to monitor the particle velocity. The second technique is based on the active cross-correlation principle. It measures particle velocity directly by correlating flow-related signatures at two sensing stations. The velocity data obtained by this technique are compared with measurements by a radioactive-particle time-of-flight (TOF) method. A multiplier of 1.53 is required to bring the acoustic data into agreement with the radioactive TOF result. The difference may originate from the difference in flow fields where particles are detected. The radioactive method senses particles mainly in the turbulent region and essentially measures average particle velocity across the pipe, while the acoustic technique detects particles near the pipe wall, and so measures the particle velocity in the viscous sublayer. Both techniques were tested in flows of limestone and air and 1-mm glass beads and air at the Argonne National Laboratory Solid/Gas Test Facility (SGFTF). The test matrix covered solid velocities of 20 to 30 m/s in a 2-in. pipe and solid-to-gas loading ratios of 6 to 22. 37 refs., 19 figs., 4 tabs

Computer-Based Tools for Evaluating Graphical User Interfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Moore, Loretta A.

1997-01-01

The user interface is the component of a software system that connects two very complex system: humans and computers. Each of these two systems impose certain requirements on the final product. The user is the judge of the usability and utility of the system; the computer software and hardware are the tools with which the interface is constructed. Mistakes are sometimes made in designing and developing user interfaces because the designers and developers have limited knowledge about human performance (e.g., problem solving, decision making, planning, and reasoning). Even those trained in user interface design make mistakes because they are unable to address all of the known requirements and constraints on design. Evaluation of the user inter-face is therefore a critical phase of the user interface development process. Evaluation should not be considered the final phase of design; but it should be part of an iterative design cycle with the output of evaluation being feed back into design. The goal of this research was to develop a set of computer-based tools for objectively evaluating graphical user interfaces. The research was organized into three phases. The first phase resulted in the development of an embedded evaluation tool which evaluates the usability of a graphical user interface based on a user's performance. An expert system to assist in the design and evaluation of user interfaces based upon rules and guidelines was developed during the second phase. During the final phase of the research an automatic layout tool to be used in the initial design of graphical inter- faces was developed. The research was coordinated with NASA Marshall Space Flight Center's Mission Operations Laboratory's efforts in developing onboard payload display specifications for the Space Station.

Validation of a Tool Evaluating Educational Apps for Smart Education

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Jeong-Sook; Kim, Sung-Wan

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate an evaluation tool of educational apps for smart education. Based on literature reviews, a potential model for evaluating educational apps was suggested. An evaluation tool consisting of 57 survey items was delivered to 156 students in middle and high schools. An exploratory factor analysis was…

Evaluation and selection of CASE tool for SMART OTS development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, K. O; Seo, S. M.; Seo, Y. S.; Koo, I. S.; Jang, M. H.

1999-01-01

CASE(Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool is a software that aids in software engineering activities such as requirement analysis, design, testing, configuration management, and project management. The evaluation and selection of commercial CASE tools for the specific software development project is not a easy work because the technical ability of an evaluator and the maturity of a software development organization are required. In this paper, we discuss selection strategies, characteristic survey, evaluation criteria, and the result of CASE tool selection for the development of SMART(System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) OTS(Operator Training Simulator)

Guiding Inspiratory Flow: Development of the In-Check DIAL G16, a Tool for Improving Inhaler Technique

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark Jeremy Sanders

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Portable inhalers are divisible into those that deliver medication by patient triggering (pMDIs: a gentle slow inhalation and those that use the patient’s inspiratory effort as the force for deaggregation and delivery (DPIs: a stronger deeper inspiratory effort. Patient confusion and poor technique are commonplace. The use of training tools has become standard practice, and unique amongst these is an inspiratory flow meter (In-Check which is able to simulate the resistance characteristics of different inhalers and, thereby, guide the patient to the correct effort. In-Check’s origins lie in the 1960s peak expiratory flow meters, the development of the Mini-Wright peak flow meter, and inspiratory flow assessment via the nose during the 1970s–1980s. The current device (In-Check DIAL G16 is the third iteration of the original 1998 training tool, with detailed and ongoing assessments of all common inhaler resistances (including combination and breath-actuated inhaler types summarised into resistance ranges that are preset within the device. The device works by interpolating one of six ranges with the inspiratory effort. Use of the tool has been shown to be contributory to significant improvements in asthma care and control, and it is being advocated for assessment and training in irreversible lung disease.

Conceptual framework for development of comprehensive e-health evaluation tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Khoja, Shariq; Durrani, Hammad; Scott, Richard E; Sajwani, Afroz; Piryani, Usha

2013-01-01

The main objective of this study was to develop an e-health evaluation tool based on a conceptual framework including relevant theories for evaluating use of technology in health programs. This article presents the development of an evaluation framework for e-health programs. The study was divided into three stages: Stage 1 involved a detailed literature search of different theories and concepts on evaluation of e-health, Stage 2 plotted e-health theories to identify relevant themes, and Stage 3 developed a matrix of evaluation themes and stages of e-health programs. The framework identifies and defines different stages of e-health programs and then applies evaluation theories to each of these stages for development of the evaluation tool. This framework builds on existing theories of health and technology evaluation and presents a conceptual framework for developing an e-health evaluation tool to examine and measure different factors that play a definite role in the success of e-health programs. The framework on the horizontal axis divides e-health into different stages of program implementation, while the vertical axis identifies different themes and areas of consideration for e-health evaluation. The framework helps understand various aspects of e-health programs and their impact that require evaluation at different stages of the life cycle. The study led to the development of a new and comprehensive e-health evaluation tool, named the Khoja-Durrani-Scott Framework for e-Health Evaluation.

Real time EM waves monitoring system for oil industry three phase flow measurement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Al-Hajeri, S; Wylie, S R; Shaw, A; Al-Shamma'a, A I

2009-01-01

Monitoring fluid flow in a dynamic pipeline is a significant problem in the oil industry. In order to manage oil field wells efficiently, the oil industry requires accurate on line sensors to monitor the oil, gas, and water flow in the production pipelines. This paper describes a non-intrusive sensor that is based on an EM Waves cavity resonator. It determines and monitors the percentage volumes of each phase of three phase (oil, gas, and water) in the pipeline, using the resonant frequencies shifts that occur within an electromagnetic cavity resonator. A laboratory prototype version of the sensor system was constructed, and the experimental results were compared to the simulation results which were obtained by the use of High Frequency Structure Simulation (HFSS) software package.

618-10 Burial Ground Trench Remediation and 618-10 and 618-11 Burial Ground Nonintrusive Characterization of Vertical Pipe Units Lessons Learned

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Darby, J. W.

2012-06-28

A “lessons learned” is a noteworthy practice or innovative approach that is captured and shared to promote repeat application, or an adverse work practice/experience that is captured and shared to avoid reoccurrence. This document provides the lessons learned identified by the 618-10 Burial Ground trench remediation and the 618-10 and 618-11 Burial Ground nonintrusive characterization of the vertical pipe units (VPUs).

Single-pulse measurement of density and temperature in a turbulent, supersonic flow using UV laser spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, D. G.; Mckenzie, R. L.

1992-01-01

Nonintrusive measurements of density and temperature and their turbulent fluctuation levels have been obtained in the boundary layer of an unseeded, Mach 2 wind tunnel flow. The spectroscopic technique that was used to make the measurements is based on the combination of laser-induced oxygen fluorescence and Raman scattering by oxygen and nitrogen from the same laser pulse. Results from this demonstration experiment compare favorably with previous measurements obtained in the same facility from conventional probes and an earlier spectroscopic technique.

Active, Non-Intrusive Inspection Technologies for Homeland Defense

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

James L. Jones

2003-01-01

Active, non-intrusive inspection or interrogation technologies have been used for 100 years - with the primary focus being radiographic imaging. During the last 50 years, various active interrogation systems have been investigated and most have revealed many unique and interesting capabilities and advantages that have already benefited the general public. Unfortunately, except for medical and specific industrial applications, these unique capabilities have not been widely adopted, largely due to the complexity of the technology, the overconfident reliance on passive detection systems to handle most challenges, and the unrealistic public concerns regarding radiation safety issues for a given active inspection deployment. The unique homeland security challenges facing the United States today are inviting more ''out-of-the-box'' solutions and are demanding the effective technological solutions that only active interrogation systems can provide. While revolutionary new solutions are always desired, these technology advancements are rare, and when found, usually take a long time to fully understand and implement for a given application. What's becoming more evident is that focusing on under-developed, but well-understood, active inspection technologies can provide many of the needed ''out-of-the-box'' solutions. This paper presents a brief historical overview of active interrogation. It identifies some of the major homeland defense challenges being confronted and the commercial and research technologies presently available and being pursued. Finally, the paper addresses the role of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and its partner, the Idaho Accelerator Center at Idaho State University, in promoting and developing active inspection technologies for homeland defense

A methodology for online visualization of the energy flow in a machine tool

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mohammadi, Ali; Züst, Simon; Mayr, Josef

2017-01-01

the machining process and by this increasing its energy efficiency. This study intents to propose a method which has the capability of real-time monitoring of the entire energetic flows in a CNC machine tool including motors, pumps and cooling fluid. The structure of this approach is based on categorizing...

Nuclear magnetic resonance: A new tool for the validation of multiphase multidimensional CFD codes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lemonnier, H.

2010-01-01

Turbulent transport models and data in bubbly flows are briefly reviewed since they play an important role in the modeling of boiling flows in forced convection. Shortcomings of earlier measurements of the eddy diffusivity by NMR (Lemonnier and Leblond, 2007b) are analyzed and a new procedure is presented which is now consistent with the procedure of Gatenby and Gore (1994) developed for single-phase turbulent flow characterization. The newly estimated eddy diffusivity agrees now with that previously obtained by Serizawa et al. (1975b) with a thermal method and that of the model of Sato and Sadatomi (1981). This procedure also provides the liquid velocity fluctuation RMS and the Lagrangian correlation time of velocity fluctuations. In addition, the same NMR technique provides also the area-averaged liquid velocity and void fraction. Bubbly flow data up to transition to slug flow are provided which also agree with existing drift-flux models (Ishii and Hibiki, 2006). It is finally discussed how the NMR method can be extended to local measurements and may provide a fully non-intrusive diagnostic in two-phase flows and which is not limited to bubbly flow.

Nuclear magnetic resonance: A new tool for the validation of multiphase multidimensional CFD codes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lemonnier, H., E-mail: herve.lemonnier@cea.f [DTN/SE2T, CEA/Grenoble, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9 (France)

2010-09-15

Turbulent transport models and data in bubbly flows are briefly reviewed since they play an important role in the modeling of boiling flows in forced convection. Shortcomings of earlier measurements of the eddy diffusivity by NMR (Lemonnier and Leblond, 2007b) are analyzed and a new procedure is presented which is now consistent with the procedure of Gatenby and Gore (1994) developed for single-phase turbulent flow characterization. The newly estimated eddy diffusivity agrees now with that previously obtained by Serizawa et al. (1975b) with a thermal method and that of the model of Sato and Sadatomi (1981). This procedure also provides the liquid velocity fluctuation RMS and the Lagrangian correlation time of velocity fluctuations. In addition, the same NMR technique provides also the area-averaged liquid velocity and void fraction. Bubbly flow data up to transition to slug flow are provided which also agree with existing drift-flux models (Ishii and Hibiki, 2006). It is finally discussed how the NMR method can be extended to local measurements and may provide a fully non-intrusive diagnostic in two-phase flows and which is not limited to bubbly flow.

Drag Reduction by Laser-Plasma Energy Addition in Hypersonic Flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oliveira, A. C.; Minucci, M. A. S.; Toro, P. G. P.; Chanes, J. B. Jr; Myrabo, L. N.

2008-01-01

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the drag reduction by laser-plasma energy addition in a low density Mach 7 hypersonic flow. The experiments were conducted in a shock tunnel and the optical beam of a high power pulsed CO 2 TEA laser operating with 7 J of energy and 30 MW peak power was focused to generate the plasma upstream of a hemispherical model installed in the tunnel test section. The non-intrusive schlieren optical technique was used to visualize the effects of the energy addition to hypersonic flow, from the plasma generation until the mitigation of the shock wave profile over the model surface. Aside the optical technique, a piezoelectric pressure transducer was used to measure the impact pressure at stagnation point of the hemispherical model and the pressure reduction could be observed

A biological tool to assess flow connectivity in reference temporary streams from the Mediterranean Basin.

Science.gov (United States)

Cid, N; Verkaik, I; García-Roger, E M; Rieradevall, M; Bonada, N; Sánchez-Montoya, M M; Gómez, R; Suárez, M L; Vidal-Abarca, M R; Demartini, D; Buffagni, A; Erba, S; Karaouzas, I; Skoulikidis, N; Prat, N

2016-01-01

Many streams in the Mediterranean Basin have temporary flow regimes. While timing for seasonal drought is predictable, they undergo strong inter-annual variability in flow intensity. This high hydrological variability and associated ecological responses challenge the ecological status assessment of temporary streams, particularly when setting reference conditions. This study examined the effects of flow connectivity in aquatic macroinvertebrates from seven reference temporary streams across the Mediterranean Basin where hydrological variability and flow conditions are well studied. We tested for the effect of flow cessation on two streamflow indices and on community composition, and, by performing random forest and classification tree analyses we identified important biological predictors for classifying the aquatic state either as flowing or disconnected pools. Flow cessation was critical for one of the streamflow indices studied and for community composition. Macroinvertebrate families found to be important for classifying the aquatic state were Hydrophilidae, Simuliidae, Hydropsychidae, Planorbiidae, Heptageniidae and Gerridae. For biological traits, trait categories associated to feeding habits, food, locomotion and substrate relation were the most important and provided more accurate predictions compared to taxonomy. A combination of selected metrics and associated thresholds based on the most important biological predictors (i.e. Bio-AS Tool) were proposed in order to assess the aquatic state in reference temporary streams, especially in the absence of hydrological data. Although further development is needed, the tool can be of particular interest for monitoring, restoration, and conservation purposes, representing an important step towards an adequate management of temporary rivers not only in the Mediterranean Basin but also in other regions vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Requirements for an evaluation infrastructure for reliable pervasive healthcare research

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wagner, Stefan Rahr; Toftegaard, Thomas Skjødeberg; Bertelsen, Olav W.

2012-01-01

The need for a non-intrusive evaluation infrastructure platform to support research on reliable pervasive healthcare in the unsupervised setting is analyzed and challenges and possibilities are identified. A list of requirements is presented and a solution is suggested that would allow researchers...

Experimental resource pulses influence social-network dynamics and the potential for information flow in tool-using crows.

Science.gov (United States)

St Clair, James J H; Burns, Zackory T; Bettaney, Elaine M; Morrissey, Michael B; Otis, Brian; Ryder, Thomas B; Fleischer, Robert C; James, Richard; Rutz, Christian

2015-11-03

Social-network dynamics have profound consequences for biological processes such as information flow, but are notoriously difficult to measure in the wild. We used novel transceiver technology to chart association patterns across 19 days in a wild population of the New Caledonian crow--a tool-using species that may socially learn, and culturally accumulate, tool-related information. To examine the causes and consequences of changing network topology, we manipulated the environmental availability of the crows' preferred tool-extracted prey, and simulated, in silico, the diffusion of information across field-recorded time-ordered networks. Here we show that network structure responds quickly to environmental change and that novel information can potentially spread rapidly within multi-family communities, especially when tool-use opportunities are plentiful. At the same time, we report surprisingly limited social contact between neighbouring crow communities. Such scale dependence in information-flow dynamics is likely to influence the evolution and maintenance of material cultures.

Non-intrusive measurement of tritium activity in waste drums by modelling a {sup 3}He leak quantified by mass spectrometry; Mesure non intrusive de l'activite de futs de dechets trities par modelisation d'une fuite {sup 3}He et sa quantification par spectrometrie de masse

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Demange, D

2002-07-03

This study deals with a new method that makes it possible to measure very low tritium quantities inside radioactive waste drums. This indirect method is based on measuring the decaying product, {sup 3}He, and requires a study of its behaviour inside the drum. Our model considers {sup 3}He as totally free and its leak through the polymeric joint of the drum as two distinct phenomena: permeation and laminar flow. The numerical simulations show that a pseudo-stationary state takes place. Thus, the {sup 3}He leak corresponds to the tritium activity inside the drum but it appears, however, that the leak peaks when the atmospheric pressure variations induce an overpressure in the drum. Nevertheless, the confinement of a drum in a tight chamber makes it possible to quantify the {sup 3}He leak. This is a non-intrusive measurement of its activity, which was experimentally checked by using reduced models, representing the drum and its confinement chamber. The drum's confinement was optimised to obtain a reproducible {sup 3}He leak measurement. The gaseous samples taken from the chamber were purified using selective adsorption onto activated charcoals at 77 K to remove the tritium and pre-concentrate the {sup 3}He. The samples were measured using a leak detector mass spectrometer. The adaptation of the signal acquisition and the optimisation of the analysis parameters made it possible to reach the stability of the external calibrations using standard gases with a {sup 3}He detection limit of 0.05 ppb. Repeated confinement of the reference drums demonstrated the accuracy of this method. The uncertainty of this non-intrusive measurement of the tritium activity in 200-liter drums is 15% and the detection limit is about 1 GBq after a 24 h confinement. These results led to the definition of an automated tool able to systematically measure the tritium activity of all storage waste drums. (authors)

A Textual Feedback Tool for Empowering Participants in Usability and UX Evaluations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sivaji, Ashok; Clemmensen, Torkil; Nielsen, Søren Feodor

2017-01-01

-educated, but low-status, users in UX evaluations in countries and contexts with high power distances. The proposed tool contributes to the HCI community’s pool of localized UX evaluation tools. We evaluate the tool with 40 users from two socio-economic groups in real-life UX usability evaluations setting...... in Malaysia. The results indicate that the Textual Feedback tool may help participants to give their thoughts in UX evaluation in high power distance contexts. In particular, the Textual Feedback tool helps high status females and low status males express more UX problems than they can do with traditional CTA...... alone. We found that classic concurrent think aloud UX evaluation works fine in high power contexts, but only with the addition of Textual feedback to mitigate the effects of socio-economic status in certain user groups. We suggest that future research on UX evaluation look more into how to empower...

Darcy Tools version 3.4. Verification, validation and demonstration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svensson, Urban

2010-12-01

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. A number of novel methods and features form the present version of DarcyTools. In the verification studies, these methods are evaluated by comparisons with analytical solutions for idealized situations. The five verification groups (see Table 3-1 below), thus reflect the scope of DarcyTools. The present report will focus on the Verification, Validation and Demonstration of DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods and Equations, /Svensson et al. 2010/ (Hereafter denoted Report 1). - User's Guide, /Svensson and Ferry 2010/ (Hereafter denoted Report 2)

Darcy Tools version 3.4. Verification, validation and demonstration

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svensson, Urban (Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB, Lyckeby (Sweden))

2010-12-15

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. A number of novel methods and features form the present version of DarcyTools. In the verification studies, these methods are evaluated by comparisons with analytical solutions for idealized situations. The five verification groups (see Table 3-1 below), thus reflect the scope of DarcyTools. The present report will focus on the Verification, Validation and Demonstration of DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods and Equations, /Svensson et al. 2010/ (Hereafter denoted Report 1). - User's Guide, /Svensson and Ferry 2010/ (Hereafter denoted Report 2)

A tool for safety evaluations of road improvements.

Science.gov (United States)

Peltola, Harri; Rajamäki, Riikka; Luoma, Juha

2013-11-01

Road safety impact assessments are requested in general, and the directive on road infrastructure safety management makes them compulsory for Member States of the European Union. However, there is no widely used, science-based safety evaluation tool available. We demonstrate a safety evaluation tool called TARVA. It uses EB safety predictions as the basis for selecting locations for implementing road-safety improvements and provides estimates of safety benefits of selected improvements. Comparing different road accident prediction methods, we demonstrate that the most accurate estimates are produced by EB models, followed by simple accident prediction models, the same average number of accidents for every entity and accident record only. Consequently, advanced model-based estimates should be used. Furthermore, we demonstrate regional comparisons that benefit substantially from such tools. Comparisons between districts have revealed significant differences. However, comparisons like these produce useful improvement ideas only after taking into account the differences in road characteristics between areas. Estimates on crash modification factors can be transferred from other countries but their benefit is greatly limited if the number of target accidents is not properly predicted. Our experience suggests that making predictions and evaluations using the same principle and tools will remarkably improve the quality and comparability of safety estimations. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Treatment Deployment Evaluation Tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

M. A. Rynearson; M. M. Plum

1999-01-01

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for the final disposition of legacy spent nuclear fuel (SNF). As a response, DOE's National Spent Nuclear Fuel Program (NSNFP) has been given the responsibility for the disposition of DOE-owned SNF. Many treatment technologies have been identified to treat some forms of SNF so that the resulting treated product is acceptable by the disposition site. One of these promising treatment processes is the electrometallurgical treatment (EMT) currently in development; a second is an Acid Wash Decladding process. The NSNFP has been tasked with identifying possible strategies for the deployment of these treatment processes in the event that a treatment path is deemed necessary. To support the siting studies of these strategies, economic evaluations are being performed to identify the least-cost deployment path. This model (tool) was developed to consider the full scope of costs, technical feasibility, process material disposition, and schedule attributes over the life of each deployment alternative. Using standard personal computer (PC) software, the model was developed as a comprehensive technology economic assessment tool using a Life-Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis methodology. Model development was planned as a systematic, iterative process of identifying and bounding the required activities to dispose of SNF. To support the evaluation process, activities are decomposed into lower level, easier to estimate activities. Sensitivity studies can then be performed on these activities, defining cost issues and testing results against the originally stated problem

A user's evaluation of radial flow HEPA filters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Purcell, J.A.

1992-07-01

High efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters of rectangular cross section have been used to remove particulates and the associated radioactivity from air ventilation streams since the advent of nuclear materials processing. Use of round axial flow HEPA filters is also longstanding. The advantages of radial flow filters in a circular configuration have been well demonstrated in UKAEA during the last 5--7 years. An evaluation of radial flow filters for fissile process gloveboxes reveals several substantial benefits in addition to the advantages claimed in UKAEA Facilities. The radial flow filter may be provided in a favorable geometry resulting in improved criticality safety. The filter configuration lends to in-place testing at the glovebox to exhaust duct interface. This will achieve compliance with DOE Order 6430.1A, Section 99.0.2. Preliminary testing at SRS for radial flow filters manufactured by Flanders Filters, Inc. revealed compliance in all the usual specifications for filtration efficiency, pressure differential and materials of construction. An evaluation, further detailed in this report, indicates that the radial flow HEPA filter should be considered for inclusion in new ventilation system designs

MARKET EVALUATION MODEL: TOOL FORBUSINESS DECISIONS

OpenAIRE

Porlles Loarte, José; Yenque Dedios, Julio; Lavado Soto, Aurelio

2014-01-01

In the present work the concepts of potential market and global market are analyzed as the basis for strategic decisions of market with long term perspectives, when the implantation of a business in certain geographic area is evaluated. On this conceptual frame, the methodological tool is proposed to evaluate a commercial decision, for which it is taken as reference the case from the brewing industry in Peru, considering that this industry faces in the region entrepreneurial reorderings withi...

Air traffic management evaluation tool

Science.gov (United States)

Sridhar, Banavar (Inventor); Sheth, Kapil S. (Inventor); Chatterji, Gano Broto (Inventor); Bilimoria, Karl D. (Inventor); Grabbe, Shon (Inventor); Schipper, John F. (Inventor)

2012-01-01

Methods for evaluating and implementing air traffic management tools and approaches for managing and avoiding an air traffic incident before the incident occurs. A first system receives parameters for flight plan configurations (e.g., initial fuel carried, flight route, flight route segments followed, flight altitude for a given flight route segment, aircraft velocity for each flight route segment, flight route ascent rate, flight route descent route, flight departure site, flight departure time, flight arrival time, flight destination site and/or alternate flight destination site), flight plan schedule, expected weather along each flight route segment, aircraft specifics, airspace (altitude) bounds for each flight route segment, navigational aids available. The invention provides flight plan routing and direct routing or wind optimal routing, using great circle navigation and spherical Earth geometry. The invention provides for aircraft dynamics effects, such as wind effects at each altitude, altitude changes, airspeed changes and aircraft turns to provide predictions of aircraft trajectory (and, optionally, aircraft fuel use). A second system provides several aviation applications using the first system. Several classes of potential incidents are analyzed and averted, by appropriate change en route of one or more parameters in the flight plan configuration, as provided by a conflict detection and resolution module and/or traffic flow management modules. These applications include conflict detection and resolution, miles-in trail or minutes-in-trail aircraft separation, flight arrival management, flight re-routing, weather prediction and analysis and interpolation of weather variables based upon sparse measurements. The invention combines these features to provide an aircraft monitoring system and an aircraft user system that interact and negotiate changes with each other.

Complexity Reduction of Multiphase Flows in Heterogeneous Porous Media

KAUST Repository

Ghommem, Mehdi

2015-04-22

In this paper, we apply mode decomposition and interpolatory projection methods to speed up simulations of two-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media. We propose intrusive and nonintrusive model-reduction approaches that enable a significant reduction in the size of the subsurface flow problem while capturing the behavior of the fully resolved solutions. In one approach, we use the dynamic mode decomposition. This approach does not require any modification of the reservoir simulation code but rather post-processes a set of global snapshots to identify the dynamically relevant structures associated with the flow behavior. In the second approach, we project the governing equations of the velocity and the pressure fields on the subspace spanned by their proper-orthogonal-decomposition modes. Furthermore, we use the discrete empirical interpolation method to approximate the mobility-related term in the global-system assembly and then reduce the online computational cost and make it independent of the fine grid. To show the effectiveness and usefulness of the aforementioned approaches, we consider the SPE-10 benchmark permeability field, and present a numerical example in two-phase flow. One can efficiently use the proposed model-reduction methods in the context of uncertainty quantification and production optimization.

Development and Evaluation of Computer-Based Laboratory Practical Learning Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Gandole, Y. B.

2006-01-01

Effective evaluation of educational software is a key issue for successful introduction of advanced tools in the curriculum. This paper details to developing and evaluating a tool for computer assisted learning of science laboratory courses. The process was based on the generic instructional system design model. Various categories of educational…

Evaluation of wind flow with a nacelle-mounted, continuous wave wind lidar

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Medley, John; Barker, Will; Harris, Mike

2014-01-01

Nacelle-mounted lidar is becoming widely recognized as a tool with potential for assessing power curves, understanding wind flow characteristics, and controlling turbines. As rotor diameters continue to increase, and the deployment of turbines in complex terrain becomes more widespread, knowledge...... mounted on the nacelle of a 550 kW turbine at the Risø campus of the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). Lidar measurements of wind speed and turbulence were compared against those made by anemometers on a high-quality traditional mast. Analysis showed excellent correlation between mast and Zeph...... that this is the first time that a commercially available nacelle-mounted lidar has been used to evaluate such rotor-equivalent power curves....

Agent-based modeling as a tool for program design and evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Lawlor, Jennifer A; McGirr, Sara

2017-12-01

Recently, systems thinking and systems science approaches have gained popularity in the field of evaluation; however, there has been relatively little exploration of how evaluators could use quantitative tools to assist in the implementation of systems approaches therein. The purpose of this paper is to explore potential uses of one such quantitative tool, agent-based modeling, in evaluation practice. To this end, we define agent-based modeling and offer potential uses for it in typical evaluation activities, including: engaging stakeholders, selecting an intervention, modeling program theory, setting performance targets, and interpreting evaluation results. We provide demonstrative examples from published agent-based modeling efforts both inside and outside the field of evaluation for each of the evaluative activities discussed. We further describe potential pitfalls of this tool and offer cautions for evaluators who may chose to implement it in their practice. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of the future of agent-based modeling in evaluation practice and a call for more formal exploration of this tool as well as other approaches to simulation modeling in the field. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visual Observations of Bubbly Flow in a Subchannel by using Optical Measurement Methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chang, Seok Kyu; Choo, Yeon Jun; Kim, B. D.; Song, Chul Hwa

2008-01-01

PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry) measurement technique is widely used in the experimental study on the fluid flow in many industrial fields. In the study of the subchannel mixing in a nuclear reactor, there have been many works by using optical measurement techniques and almost of these were limited to the single phase flow. But many occasions of safety issues in a nuclear power plant are in a condition of two phase flow. In an application of two phase flow in subchannels, intrusive probes i.e., a conductivity sensor or an optical sensor were generally used. But these probes cause breaks or distortions of bubbles when contact. PIV technique is one of the non-intrusive measurement methods which can avoid the problem of intrusive probes. This study presents an applicability of the PIV technique on an experimental study of a bubbly flow in the subchannel geometry. The bubble peaking in a subchannel according to the bubble sizes was demonstrated. The HSC (high speed camera) was also used to confirm the PIV measurement results

Use of Video Analysis System for Working Posture Evaluations

Science.gov (United States)

McKay, Timothy D.; Whitmore, Mihriban

1994-01-01

In a work environment, it is important to identify and quantify the relationship among work activities, working posture, and workplace design. Working posture may impact the physical comfort and well-being of individuals, as well as performance. The Posture Video Analysis Tool (PVAT) is an interactive menu and button driven software prototype written in Supercard (trademark). Human Factors analysts are provided with a predefined set of options typically associated with postural assessments and human performance issues. Once options have been selected, the program is used to evaluate working posture and dynamic tasks from video footage. PVAT has been used to evaluate postures from Orbiter missions, as well as from experimental testing of prototype glove box designs. PVAT can be used for video analysis in a number of industries, with little or no modification. It can contribute to various aspects of workplace design such as training, task allocations, procedural analyses, and hardware usability evaluations. The major advantage of the video analysis approach is the ability to gather data, non-intrusively, in restricted-access environments, such as emergency and operation rooms, contaminated areas, and control rooms. Video analysis also provides the opportunity to conduct preliminary evaluations of existing work areas.

Novel flow quantification of the carotid bulb and the common carotid artery with vector flow ultrasound

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Mads Møller; Pihl, Michael Johannes; Haugaard, Per

2014-01-01

technique transverse oscillation the blood velocities of both the axial and the transverse directions are obtained and the complexity of blood flow can be visualized. The aim of the study was to determine the technical performance and interpretation of vector concentration as a tool for estimation of flow...... (US) using a commercial vector flow ultrasound scanner (ProFocus, BK Medical, Denmark) with a linear 5 MHz transducer transverse oscillation vector flow software. CCA and CB areas were marked in one cardiac cycle from each volunteer. The complex flow was assessed by medical expert evaluation...... and by vector concentration calculation. A vortex with complex flow was found in all carotid bulbs, whereas the CCA had mainly laminar flow. The medical experts evaluated the flow to be mainly laminar in the CCA (0.82 +/- 0.14) and mainly complex (0.23 +/- 0.22) in the CB. Likewise, the estimated vector...

Assessment of nonintrusive methods for monitoring the operational readiness of solenoid-operated valves

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kryter, R.C.

1988-01-01

Solenoid-operated valves (SOVs) are being studied at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the USNRC Nuclear Plant Aging Research (NPAR) Program. The primary objective of the study is to identify and recommend methods for inspection, surveillance, and maintenance of SOVs that can ensure their operational readiness-- that is, their ability to perform required safety functions under all anticipated operating conditions. An earlier (Phase I) study described SOV failure modes and causes and identified measurable parameters that might be used to monitor the various degradations that lead to functional failure. The present (Phase II) study focuses on devising and then demonstrating the effectiveness of techniques and/or equipment with which to measure the previously identified performance parameters and thus detect and trend the progress of any degradation. Several nonintrusive techniques are currently under investigation. Recent experimental results which demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of the techniques being studied are presented. 4 refs., 6 figs., 2 tabs

An Evaluation of the Automated Cost Estimating Integrated Tools (ACEIT) System

Science.gov (United States)

1989-09-01

C~4p DTIC S ELECTE fl JAN12 19 .1R ~OF S%. B -U AN EVALUATION OF THE AUTOMATED COST ESTIMATING INTEGRATED TOOLS ( ACEIT ) SYSTEM THESIS Caroline L...Ohio go 91 022 AFIT/GCA/LSQ/89S-5 AN EVALUATION OF THE AUTOMATED COST ESTIMATING INTEGRATED TOOLS ( ACEIT ) SYSTEM THESIS Caroline L. Hanson Major, USAF...Department of Defense. AFIT/GCA/LSQ/89S-5 AN EVALUATION OF THE AUTOMATED COST ESTIMATING INTEGRATED TOOLS ( ACEIT ) SYSTEM THESIS Presented to the

Flow injection analysis: Emerging tool for laboratory automation in radiochemistry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Egorov, O.; Ruzicka, J.; Grate, J.W.; Janata, J.

1996-01-01

Automation of routine and serial assays is a common practice of modern analytical laboratory, while it is virtually nonexistent in the field of radiochemistry. Flow injection analysis (FIA) is a general solution handling methodology that has been extensively used for automation of routine assays in many areas of analytical chemistry. Reproducible automated solution handling and on-line separation capabilities are among several distinctive features that make FI a very promising, yet under utilized tool for automation in analytical radiochemistry. The potential of the technique is demonstrated through the development of an automated 90 Sr analyzer and its application in the analysis of tank waste samples from the Hanford site. Sequential injection (SI), the latest generation of FIA, is used to rapidly separate 90 Sr from interfering radionuclides and deliver separated Sr zone to a flow-through liquid scintillation detector. The separation is performed on a mini column containing Sr-specific sorbent extraction material, which selectively retains Sr under acidic conditions. The 90 Sr is eluted with water, mixed with scintillation cocktail, and sent through the flow cell of a flow through counter, where 90 Sr radioactivity is detected as a transient signal. Both peak area and peak height can be used for quantification of sample radioactivity. Alternatively, stopped flow detection can be performed to improve detection precision for low activity samples. The authors current research activities are focused on expansion of radiochemical applications of FIA methodology, with an ultimate goal of creating a set of automated methods that will cover the basic needs of radiochemical analysis at the Hanford site. The results of preliminary experiments indicate that FIA is a highly suitable technique for the automation of chemically more challenging separations, such as separation of actinide elements

Project Evaluation and Cash Flow Forecasting by Stochastic Simulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Odd A. Asbjørnsen

1983-10-01

Full Text Available The net present value of a discounted cash flow is used to evaluate projects. It is shown that the LaPlace transform of the cash flow time function is particularly useful when the cash flow profiles may be approximately described by ordinary linear differential equations in time. However, real cash flows are stochastic variables due to the stochastic nature of the disturbances during production.

Pulsed neutron measurement of single and two-phase liquid flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kehler, P.

1978-01-01

Use of radioactive tracers for flow velocity measurements is well developed and documented. Measurement techniques involving pulsed sources of fast (14 MeV) neutrons for in-situ production of tracers can be considered as extensions of the old methods. Improvements offered by these Pulsed Neutron Activation (PNA) techniques over conventional radioisotope techniques are (1) non-intrusion into the system, (2) easier introduction and better mixing of the tracer, and (3) no requirement to handle large amounts of relatively long lived radioactive materials. Just as in conventional tracer techniques, flow velocity measurements by PNA methods can be based on the transit-time or the total-count method. A very significant difference of the PNA technique from conventional methods is that the induced activity is proportional to the density of the fluid, and that PNA techniques can be used for density measurements (of two-phase flows) in addition to flow velocity measurement. Original equations were derived that relate experimental data to the mass flow velocity and the average density. The accuracy of these equations is not effected by the flow regime. Experimental results are presented for tests performed on liquid sodium loops, on air--water loops, on the EBR-II reactor and on the LOFT reactor. Current instrumentation development programs (detectors, pulsed neutron sources) are discussed

Analysis of heat and mass transfers in two-phase flow by coupling optical diagnostic techniques

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lemaitre, P.; Porcheron, E. [Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire, Saclay (France)

2008-08-15

During the course of a hypothetical accident in a nuclear power plant, spraying might be actuated to reduce static pressure in the containment. To acquire a better understanding of the heat and mass transfers between a spray and the surrounding confined gas, non-intrusive optical measurements have to be carried out simultaneously on both phases. The coupling of global rainbow refractometry with out-of-focus imaging and spontaneous Raman scattering spectroscopy allows us to calculate the local Spalding parameter B{sub M}, which is useful in describing heat transfer associated with two-phase flow. (orig.)

Analysis of heat and mass transfers in two-phase flow by coupling optical diagnostic techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lemaitre, P.; Porcheron, E.

2008-01-01

During the course of a hypothetical accident in a nuclear power plant, spraying might be actuated to reduce static pressure in the containment. To acquire a better understanding of the heat and mass transfers between a spray and the surrounding confined gas, non-intrusive optical measurements have to be carried out simultaneously on both phases. The coupling of global rainbow refractometry with out-of-focus imaging and spontaneous Raman scattering spectroscopy allows us to calculate the local Spalding parameter B M , which is useful in describing heat transfer associated with two-phase flow. (orig.)

Analysis and prediction of flow from local source in a river basin using a Neuro-fuzzy modeling tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Aqil, Muhammad; Kita, Ichiro; Yano, Akira; Nishiyama, Soichi

2007-10-01

Traditionally, the multiple linear regression technique has been one of the most widely used models in simulating hydrological time series. However, when the nonlinear phenomenon is significant, the multiple linear will fail to develop an appropriate predictive model. Recently, neuro-fuzzy systems have gained much popularity for calibrating the nonlinear relationships. This study evaluated the potential of a neuro-fuzzy system as an alternative to the traditional statistical regression technique for the purpose of predicting flow from a local source in a river basin. The effectiveness of the proposed identification technique was demonstrated through a simulation study of the river flow time series of the Citarum River in Indonesia. Furthermore, in order to provide the uncertainty associated with the estimation of river flow, a Monte Carlo simulation was performed. As a comparison, a multiple linear regression analysis that was being used by the Citarum River Authority was also examined using various statistical indices. The simulation results using 95% confidence intervals indicated that the neuro-fuzzy model consistently underestimated the magnitude of high flow while the low and medium flow magnitudes were estimated closer to the observed data. The comparison of the prediction accuracy of the neuro-fuzzy and linear regression methods indicated that the neuro-fuzzy approach was more accurate in predicting river flow dynamics. The neuro-fuzzy model was able to improve the root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) values of the multiple linear regression forecasts by about 13.52% and 10.73%, respectively. Considering its simplicity and efficiency, the neuro-fuzzy model is recommended as an alternative tool for modeling of flow dynamics in the study area.

Evaluation of flow accelerated corrosion by coupled analysis of corrosion and flow dynamics (2), flow dynamics calculations for determining mixing factors and mass transfer coefficients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Uehara, Yasushi; Uchida, Shunsuke; Naitoh, Masanori; Okada, Hidetoshi; Koshizuka, Seiichi

2009-01-01

In order to predict and mitigate flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) of carbon steel piping in PWR and BWR secondary systems, computer program packages for evaluating FAC have been developed by coupling one through three dimensional (1-3D) computational flow dynamics (CFD) models and corrosion models. To evaluate corrosive conditions, e.g., oxygen concentration and electrochemical corrosion potential (ECP) along the flow path, flow pattern and temperature in each elemental volume were obtained with 1D computational flow dynamics (CFD) codes. Precise flow turbulence and mass transfer coefficients at the structure surface were calculated with 3D CFD codes to determine wall thinning rates. One of the engineering options is application of k-ε calculation as a 3D CFD code, which has limitation of detail evaluation of flow distribution at very surface of large scale piping. A combination of k-ε calculation and wall function was proposed to evaluate precise distribution of mass transfer coefficients with reasonable CPU volume and computing time and, at the same time, reasonable accuracy. (author)

Experimental Evaluation of Electric Power Grid Visualization Tools in the EIOC

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Greitzer, Frank L.; Dauenhauer, Peter M.; Wierks, Tamara G.; Podmore, Robin; Dalton, Angela C.

2009-12-01

The present study follows an initial human factors evaluation of four electric power grid visualization tools and reports on an empirical evaluation of two of the four tools: Graphical Contingency Analysis, and Phasor State Estimator. The evaluation was conducted within specific experimental studies designed to measure the impact on decision making performance.

Flow Restoration in the Columbia River Basin: An Evaluation of a Flow Restoration Accounting Framework.

Science.gov (United States)

McCoy, Amy L; Holmes, S Rankin; Boisjolie, Brett A

2018-03-01

Securing environmental flows in support of freshwater biodiversity is an evolving field of practice. An example of a large-scale program dedicated to restoring environmental flows is the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, which has been restoring flows in dewatered tributary habitats for imperiled salmon species over the past decade. This paper discusses a four-tiered flow restoration accounting framework for tracking the implementation and impacts of water transactions as an effective tool for adaptive management. The flow restoration accounting framework provides compliance and flow accounting information to monitor transaction efficacy. We review the implementation of the flow restoration accounting framework monitoring framework to demonstrate (a) the extent of water transactions that have been implemented over the past decade, (b) the volumes of restored flow in meeting flow targets for restoring habitat for anadromous fish species, and (c) an example of aquatic habitat enhancement that resulted from Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program investments. Project results show that from 2002 to 2015, the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program has completed more than 450 water rights transactions, restoring approximately 1.59 million megaliters to date, with an additional 10.98 million megaliters of flow protected for use over the next 100 years. This has resulted in the watering of over 2414 stream kilometers within the Columbia Basin. We conclude with a discussion of the insights gained through the implementation of the flow restoration accounting framework. Understanding the approach and efficacy of a monitoring framework applied across a large river basin can be informative to emerging flow-restoration and adaptive management efforts in areas of conservation concern.

Flow Restoration in the Columbia River Basin: An Evaluation of a Flow Restoration Accounting Framework

Science.gov (United States)

McCoy, Amy L.; Holmes, S. Rankin; Boisjolie, Brett A.

2018-03-01

Securing environmental flows in support of freshwater biodiversity is an evolving field of practice. An example of a large-scale program dedicated to restoring environmental flows is the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, which has been restoring flows in dewatered tributary habitats for imperiled salmon species over the past decade. This paper discusses a four-tiered flow restoration accounting framework for tracking the implementation and impacts of water transactions as an effective tool for adaptive management. The flow restoration accounting framework provides compliance and flow accounting information to monitor transaction efficacy. We review the implementation of the flow restoration accounting framework monitoring framework to demonstrate (a) the extent of water transactions that have been implemented over the past decade, (b) the volumes of restored flow in meeting flow targets for restoring habitat for anadromous fish species, and (c) an example of aquatic habitat enhancement that resulted from Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program investments. Project results show that from 2002 to 2015, the Columbia Basin Water Transactions Program has completed more than 450 water rights transactions, restoring approximately 1.59 million megaliters to date, with an additional 10.98 million megaliters of flow protected for use over the next 100 years. This has resulted in the watering of over 2414 stream kilometers within the Columbia Basin. We conclude with a discussion of the insights gained through the implementation of the flow restoration accounting framework. Understanding the approach and efficacy of a monitoring framework applied across a large river basin can be informative to emerging flow-restoration and adaptive management efforts in areas of conservation concern.

Web-site evaluation tools: a case study in reproductive health information.

Science.gov (United States)

Aslani, Azam; Pournik, Omid; Abu-Hanna, Ameen; Eslami, Saeid

2014-01-01

Internet forms an opportunity to inform, teach, and connect professionals and patients. However, much information on Internet is incomplete, inaccurate, or misleading, and not only in the medical domain. Because of the potential for damage from misleading and inaccurate health information, many organizations and individuals have published or implemented scoring tools for evaluating the appropriateness or quality of these resources. The objective of this study is to identify and summarize scoring tools that have evaluated web-sites providing reproductive health information in order to compare them and recommend an overarching evaluation tool. We searched Ovid MEDLINE(R) (1946 to July 2013) and OVID Embase (1980 to July 2013); and included English language studies that have evaluated the quality of websites providing reproductive health information. Studies only assessing the content of websites were excluded. We identified 5 scoring tools: 1-The HON (health on the net) Code of Conduct for medical and health Web sites, 2-Silberg scores, 3-Hogne Sandvik scale, 4-Jim Kapoun's Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages, and 5-The Health Information Technology Institute (HITI) criteria. We have compared these scales and identified 14 criteria: authorship, ownership, currency, objectivity/content, transparency/source, interactivity, privacy/ethics, financial disclosure, navigability/links, complementarity, advertising policy, design, quantity, and accessibility. We integrated these criteria and introduced a new tool with 10 criteria. Website evaluation tools differ in their evaluation criteria and there is a lack of consensus about which to use; therefore, an integrated easy to use set of criteria is needed.

Evaluation of clinical information modeling tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Moreno-Conde, Alberto; Austin, Tony; Moreno-Conde, Jesús; Parra-Calderón, Carlos L; Kalra, Dipak

2016-11-01

Clinical information models are formal specifications for representing the structure and semantics of the clinical content within electronic health record systems. This research aims to define, test, and validate evaluation metrics for software tools designed to support the processes associated with the definition, management, and implementation of these models. The proposed framework builds on previous research that focused on obtaining agreement on the essential requirements in this area. A set of 50 conformance criteria were defined based on the 20 functional requirements agreed by that consensus and applied to evaluate the currently available tools. Of the 11 initiative developing tools for clinical information modeling identified, 9 were evaluated according to their performance on the evaluation metrics. Results show that functionalities related to management of data types, specifications, metadata, and terminology or ontology bindings have a good level of adoption. Improvements can be made in other areas focused on information modeling and associated processes. Other criteria related to displaying semantic relationships between concepts and communication with terminology servers had low levels of adoption. The proposed evaluation metrics were successfully tested and validated against a representative sample of existing tools. The results identify the need to improve tool support for information modeling and software development processes, especially in those areas related to governance, clinician involvement, and optimizing the technical validation of testing processes. This research confirmed the potential of these evaluation metrics to support decision makers in identifying the most appropriate tool for their organization. Los Modelos de Información Clínica son especificaciones para representar la estructura y características semánticas del contenido clínico en los sistemas de Historia Clínica Electrónica. Esta investigación define, prueba y valida

On-line automatic detection of wood pellets in pneumatically conveyed wood dust flow

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Duo; Yan, Yong; Carter, Robert M.; Gao, Lingjun; Qian, Xiangchen; Lu, Gang

2014-04-01

This paper presents a piezoelectric transducer based system for on-line automatic detection of wood pellets in wood dust flow in pneumatic conveying pipelines. The piezoelectric transducer senses non-intrusively the collisions between wood pellets and the pipe wall. Wavelet-based denoising is adopted to eliminate environmental noise and recover the collision events. Then the wood pellets are identified by sliding a time window through the denoised signal with a suitable threshold. Experiments were carried out on a laboratory test rig and on an industrial pneumatic conveying pipeline to assess the effectiveness and operability of the system.

Usability of ECT for quantitative and qualitative characterization of trickle-bed flow dynamics experiencing filtration conditions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tibirna, C.; Fortin, A. [Laval Univ., Quebec City, PQ (Canada). GIREF; Edouard, D.; Larachi, F. [Laval Univ., Quebec City, PQ (Canada). Dept. of Chemical Engineering

2006-07-01

The feasibility of using electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) as an imaging method for trickle-bed reaction processes was examined in this study. In particular, the advantages and disadvantages of using ECT to characterize the flow dynamics in a four-phase trickle bed reactor were investigated. This work was part of a larger study to extend the service life of catalyst beds used during the hydrotreatment of some oil fractions, such as Athabasca bitumen. A better understanding of the flow dynamics and clogging physics in trickle-bed reactors is needed in order to prevent clogging in the catalyst bed. This study focused on several aspects of the ECT as a non-intrusive imaging method for such processes. This paper described the experimental setup in detail. The ECT equipment allowed for up to 100 tomograms per second to be recorded. The clogging experiments lasted about 30 hours from a completely clean catalyst bed to a stable, non-filtering clogging state. A series of algorithms for ECT image reconstruction were presented. Truncated and filtered single value decomposition (SVD) and Landweber methods were found to be the most appropriate. ECT was shown to be faster and less expensive than nuclear ionizing, non-ionizing and other tomography methods. However, the main advantage of ECT was its non-intrusive attributes. It was also suggested that the complex technologies involved in ECT still require further refinement and better calibration methods. 9 refs., 5 figs.

A comparative evaluation of genome assembly reconciliation tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Alhakami, Hind; Mirebrahim, Hamid; Lonardi, Stefano

2017-05-18

The majority of eukaryotic genomes are unfinished due to the algorithmic challenges of assembling them. A variety of assembly and scaffolding tools are available, but it is not always obvious which tool or parameters to use for a specific genome size and complexity. It is, therefore, common practice to produce multiple assemblies using different assemblers and parameters, then select the best one for public release. A more compelling approach would allow one to merge multiple assemblies with the intent of producing a higher quality consensus assembly, which is the objective of assembly reconciliation. Several assembly reconciliation tools have been proposed in the literature, but their strengths and weaknesses have never been compared on a common dataset. We fill this need with this work, in which we report on an extensive comparative evaluation of several tools. Specifically, we evaluate contiguity, correctness, coverage, and the duplication ratio of the merged assembly compared to the individual assemblies provided as input. None of the tools we tested consistently improved the quality of the input GAGE and synthetic assemblies. Our experiments show an increase in contiguity in the consensus assembly when the original assemblies already have high quality. In terms of correctness, the quality of the results depends on the specific tool, as well as on the quality and the ranking of the input assemblies. In general, the number of misassemblies ranges from being comparable to the best of the input assembly to being comparable to the worst of the input assembly.

Mirage: a visible signature evaluation tool

Science.gov (United States)

Culpepper, Joanne B.; Meehan, Alaster J.; Shao, Q. T.; Richards, Noel

2017-10-01

This paper presents the Mirage visible signature evaluation tool, designed to provide a visible signature evaluation capability that will appropriately reflect the effect of scene content on the detectability of targets, providing a capability to assess visible signatures in the context of the environment. Mirage is based on a parametric evaluation of input images, assessing the value of a range of image metrics and combining them using the boosted decision tree machine learning method to produce target detectability estimates. It has been developed using experimental data from photosimulation experiments, where human observers search for vehicle targets in a variety of digital images. The images used for tool development are synthetic (computer generated) images, showing vehicles in many different scenes and exhibiting a wide variation in scene content. A preliminary validation has been performed using k-fold cross validation, where 90% of the image data set was used for training and 10% of the image data set was used for testing. The results of the k-fold validation from 200 independent tests show a prediction accuracy between Mirage predictions of detection probability and observed probability of detection of r(262) = 0:63, p Pearson correlation) and a MAE = 0:21 (mean absolute error).

[INVITED] Non-intrusive optical imaging of face to probe physiological traits in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

Samad, Manar D.; Bobzien, Jonna L.; Harrington, John W.; Iftekharuddin, Khan M.

2016-03-01

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) can impair non-verbal communication including the variety and extent of facial expressions in social and interpersonal communication. These impairments may appear as differential traits in the physiology of facial muscles of an individual with ASD when compared to a typically developing individual. The differential traits in the facial expressions as shown by facial muscle-specific changes (also known as 'facial oddity' for subjects with ASD) may be measured visually. However, this mode of measurement may not discern the subtlety in facial oddity distinctive to ASD. Earlier studies have used intrusive electrophysiological sensors on the facial skin to gauge facial muscle actions from quantitative physiological data. This study demonstrates, for the first time in the literature, novel quantitative measures for facial oddity recognition using non-intrusive facial imaging sensors such as video and 3D optical cameras. An Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved that pilot study has been conducted on a group of individuals consisting of eight participants with ASD and eight typically developing participants in a control group to capture their facial images in response to visual stimuli. The proposed computational techniques and statistical analyses reveal higher mean of actions in the facial muscles of the ASD group versus the control group. The facial muscle-specific evaluation reveals intense yet asymmetric facial responses as facial oddity in participants with ASD. This finding about the facial oddity may objectively define measurable differential markers in the facial expressions of individuals with ASD.

Uncertainty quantification tools for multiphase gas-solid flow simulations using MFIX

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fox, Rodney O. [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States); Passalacqua, Alberto [Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)

2016-02-01

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been widely studied and used in the scientific community and in the industry. Various models were proposed to solve problems in different areas. However, all models deviate from reality. Uncertainty quantification (UQ) process evaluates the overall uncertainties associated with the prediction of quantities of interest. In particular it studies the propagation of input uncertainties to the outputs of the models so that confidence intervals can be provided for the simulation results. In the present work, a non-intrusive quadrature-based uncertainty quantification (QBUQ) approach is proposed. The probability distribution function (PDF) of the system response can be then reconstructed using extended quadrature method of moments (EQMOM) and extended conditional quadrature method of moments (ECQMOM). The report first explains the theory of QBUQ approach, including methods to generate samples for problems with single or multiple uncertain input parameters, low order statistics, and required number of samples. Then methods for univariate PDF reconstruction (EQMOM) and multivariate PDF reconstruction (ECQMOM) are explained. The implementation of QBUQ approach into the open-source CFD code MFIX is discussed next. At last, QBUQ approach is demonstrated in several applications. The method is first applied to two examples: a developing flow in a channel with uncertain viscosity, and an oblique shock problem with uncertain upstream Mach number. The error in the prediction of the moment response is studied as a function of the number of samples, and the accuracy of the moments required to reconstruct the PDF of the system response is discussed. The QBUQ approach is then demonstrated by considering a bubbling fluidized bed as example application. The mean particle size is assumed to be the uncertain input parameter. The system is simulated with a standard two-fluid model with kinetic theory closures for the particulate phase implemented into

Supportive Noninvasive Tool for the Diagnosis of Breast Cancer Using a Thermographic Camera as Sensor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Antonio Garduño-Ramón

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Breast cancer is the leading disease in incidence and mortality among women in developing countries. The opportune diagnosis of this disease strengthens the survival index. Mammography application is limited by age and periodicity. Temperature is a physical magnitude that can be measured by using multiple sensing techniques. IR (infrared thermography using commercial cameras is gaining relevance in industrial and medical applications because it is a non-invasive and non-intrusive technology. Asymmetrical temperature in certain human body zones is associated with cancer. In this paper, an IR thermographic sensor is applied for breast cancer detection. This work includes an automatic breast segmentation methodology, to spot the hottest regions in thermograms using the morphological watershed operator to help the experts locate the tumor. A protocol for thermogram acquisition considering the required time to achieve a thermal stabilization is also proposed. Breast thermograms are evaluated as thermal matrices, instead of gray scale or false color images, increasing the certainty of the provided diagnosis. The proposed tool was validated using the Database for Mastology Research and tested in a voluntary group of 454 women of different ages and cancer stages with good results, leading to the possibility of being used as a supportive tool to detect breast cancer and angiogenesis cases.

Cement bond evaluation method in horizontal wells using segmented bond tool

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Ruolong; He, Li

2018-06-01

Most of the existing cement evaluation technologies suffer from tool eccentralization due to gravity in highly deviated wells and horizontal wells. This paper proposes a correction method to lessen the effects of tool eccentralization on evaluation results of cement bond using segmented bond tool, which has an omnidirectional sonic transmitter and eight segmented receivers evenly arranged around the tool 2 ft from the transmitter. Using 3-D finite difference parallel numerical simulation method, we investigate the logging responses of centred and eccentred segmented bond tool in a variety of bond conditions. From the numerical results, we find that the tool eccentricity and channel azimuth can be estimated from measured sector amplitude. The average of the sector amplitude when the tool is eccentred can be corrected to the one when the tool is centred. Then the corrected amplitude will be used to calculate the channel size. The proposed method is applied to both synthetic and field data. For synthetic data, it turns out that this method can estimate the tool eccentricity with small error and the bond map is improved after correction. For field data, the tool eccentricity has a good agreement with the measured well deviation angle. Though this method still suffers from the low accuracy of calculating channel azimuth, the credibility of corrected bond map is improved especially in horizontal wells. It gives us a choice to evaluate the bond condition for horizontal wells using existing logging tool. The numerical results in this paper can provide aids for understanding measurements of segmented tool in both vertical and horizontal wells.

Construction of estimated flow- and load-duration curves for Kentucky using the Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER)

Science.gov (United States)

Unthank, Michael D.; Newson, Jeremy K.; Williamson, Tanja N.; Nelson, Hugh L.

2012-01-01

Flow- and load-duration curves were constructed from the model outputs of the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Availability Tool for Environmental Resources (WATER) application for streams in Kentucky. The WATER application was designed to access multiple geospatial datasets to generate more than 60 years of statistically based streamflow data for Kentucky. The WATER application enables a user to graphically select a site on a stream and generate an estimated hydrograph and flow-duration curve for the watershed upstream of that point. The flow-duration curves are constructed by calculating the exceedance probability of the modeled daily streamflows. User-defined water-quality criteria and (or) sampling results can be loaded into the WATER application to construct load-duration curves that are based on the modeled streamflow results. Estimates of flow and streamflow statistics were derived from TOPographically Based Hydrological MODEL (TOPMODEL) simulations in the WATER application. A modified TOPMODEL code, SDP-TOPMODEL (Sinkhole Drainage Process-TOPMODEL) was used to simulate daily mean discharges over the period of record for 5 karst and 5 non-karst watersheds in Kentucky in order to verify the calibrated model. A statistical evaluation of the model's verification simulations show that calibration criteria, established by previous WATER application reports, were met thus insuring the model's ability to provide acceptably accurate estimates of discharge at gaged and ungaged sites throughout Kentucky. Flow-duration curves are constructed in the WATER application by calculating the exceedence probability of the modeled daily flow values. The flow-duration intervals are expressed as a percentage, with zero corresponding to the highest stream discharge in the streamflow record. Load-duration curves are constructed by applying the loading equation (Load = Flow*Water-quality criterion) at each flow interval.

User-friendly Tool for Power Flow Analysis and Distributed Generation Optimisation in Radial Distribution Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. F. Akorede

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The intent of power distribution companies (DISCOs is to deliver electric power to their customers in an efficient and reliable manner – with minimal energy loss cost. One major way to minimise power loss on a given power system is to install distributed generation (DG units on the distribution networks. However, to maximise benefits, it is highly crucial for a DISCO to ensure that these DG units are of optimal size and sited in the best locations on the network. This paper gives an overview of a software package developed in this study, called Power System Analysis and DG Optimisation Tool (PFADOT. The main purpose of the graphical user interface-based package is to guide a DISCO in finding the optimal size and location for DG placement in radial distribution networks. The package, which is also suitable for load flow analysis, employs the GUI feature of MATLAB. Three objective functions are formulated into a single optimisation problem and solved with fuzzy genetic algorithm to simultaneously obtain DG optimal size and location. The accuracy and reliability of the developed tool was validated using several radial test systems, and the results obtained are evaluated against the existing similar package cited in the literature, which are impressive and computationally efficient.

Smartphone-based evaluations of clinical placements—a useful complement to web-based evaluation tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jesper Hessius

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Web-based questionnaires are currently the standard method for course evaluations. The high rate of smartphone adoption in Sweden makes possible a range of new uses, including course evaluation. This study examines the potential advantages and disadvantages of using a smartphone app as a complement to web-based course evaluationsystems. Methods: An iPhone app for course evaluations was developed and interfaced to an existing web-based tool. Evaluations submitted using the app were compared with those submitted using the web between August 2012 and June 2013, at the Faculty of Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden. Results: At the time of the study, 49% of the students were judged to own iPhones. Over the course of the study, 3,340 evaluations were submitted, of which 22.8% were submitted using the app. The median of mean scores in the submitted evaluations was 4.50 for the app (with an interquartile range of 3.70-5.20 and 4.60 (3.70-5.20 for the web (P=0.24. The proportion of evaluations that included a free-text comment was 50.5% for the app and 49.9% for the web (P=0.80. Conclusion: An app introduced as a complement to a web-based course evaluation system met with rapid adoption. We found no difference in the frequency of free-text comments or in the evaluation scores. Apps appear to be promising tools for course evaluations. web-based course evaluation system met with rapid adoption. We found no difference in the frequency of free-text comments or in the evaluation scores. Apps appear to be promising tools for course evaluations.

Smartphone-based evaluations of clinical placements-a useful complement to web-based evaluation tools.

Science.gov (United States)

Hessius, Jesper; Johansson, Jakob

2015-01-01

Web-based questionnaires are currently the standard method for course evaluations. The high rate of smartphone adoption in Sweden makes possible a range of new uses, including course evaluation. This study examines the potential advantages and disadvantages of using a smartphone app as a complement to web-based course evaluationsystems. An iPhone app for course evaluations was developed and interfaced to an existing web-based tool. Evaluations submitted using the app were compared with those submitted using the web between August 2012 and June 2013, at the Faculty of Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden. At the time of the study, 49% of the students were judged to own iPhones. Over the course of the study, 3,340 evaluations were submitted, of which 22.8% were submitted using the app. The median of mean scores in the submitted evaluations was 4.50 for the app (with an interquartile range of 3.70-5.20) and 4.60 (3.70-5.20) for the web (P=0.24). The proportion of evaluations that included a free-text comment was 50.5% for the app and 49.9% for the web (P=0.80). An app introduced as a complement to a web-based course evaluation system met with rapid adoption. We found no difference in the frequency of free-text comments or in the evaluation scores. Apps appear to be promising tools for course evaluations. web-based course evaluation system met with rapid adoption. We found no difference in the frequency of free-text comments or in the evaluation scores. Apps appear to be promising tools for course evaluations.

Evaluating an holistic assessment tool for palliative care practice.

Science.gov (United States)

McIlfatrick, Sonja; Hasson, Felicity

2014-04-01

To evaluate a holistic assessment tool for palliative care practice. This included identifying patients' needs using the holistic tool and exploring the usability, applicability and barriers and facilitators towards implementation in practice. The delivery of effective holistic palliative care requires a careful assessment of the patients' needs and circumstances. Whilst holistic assessment of palliative care needs is advocated, questions exist around the appropriateness of tools to assist this process. Mixed-method research design. Data collection involved an analysis of piloted holistic assessments undertaken using the tool (n = 132) and two focus groups with healthcare professionals (n = 10). The tool enabled health professionals to identify and gain an understanding of the needs of the patients, specifically in relation to the physical healthcare needs. Differences, however, between the analysis of the tool documentation and focus group responses were identified in particular areas. For example, 59 (68·8%) respondents had discussed preferred priorities of care with the patient; however, focus group comments revealed participants had concerns around this. Similarly, whilst over half of responses (n = 50; 57·5%) had considered a prognostic clinical indicator for the patient as an action, focus group results indicated questions around healthcare professionals' knowledge and perceived usefulness of such indicators. Positive aspects of the tool were that it was easy to understand and captured the needs of individuals. Negative aspects of the tool were that it was repetitive and the experience of assessors required consideration. The tool evaluation identified questions regarding holistic assessment in palliative care practice and the importance of communication. A holistic assessment tool can support patient assessment and identification of patients' needs in the 'real world' of palliative care practice, but the 'tool' is merely an aid to assist professionals to

Classes evaluation: Methods and tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Grabiński Tadeusz

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This study presents a method, tools, course and results of foreign language classes evaluation conducted in the summer semester 2012/2013 in the Andrzej Frycz - Modrzewski Krakow University. Because a new evaluation procedure has been implemented at the University, the former method - based on paper forms filled in by the students - was abandoned. On the surveyanyplace.com website, a free account has been registered and the form of the evaluation questionnaire has been inserted. This coverage presents results of a taxometric analysis aimed at checking the degree of mutual correspondence (correlation between certain criteria and instancing a graphic presentation of the evaluation results in a multidimensional perspective. In order to classify the grading criteria, the Ward's agglomerative method, along with Euclidean metric as a measure of criteria similarity, have been used. Calculations have been made with the use of Statistica package. Results of the questionnaire show that foreign language teaching at the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University is conducted professionally and on a high factual level.

The use of IFIM for evaluating effects of a flow alternative on fish habitat in a river system with competing water demands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miller, W.J.; Chadwick, J.W.; Canton, S.P.; Conklin, D.J. Jr.; Chrisp, E.Y.

1991-01-01

This paper reports on the Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM) which was used to evaluate instream fish habitat in the Platte River in central Nebraska. The IFIM analysis presented herein incorporates water temperature modeling and water quality, fish species composition and distribution, physical habitat data and 43 years of flow records. The Platte River system has competing water demands from hydropower, agricultural irrigation, municipal uses, recreation and most recently from recommended instream flows for fish and wildlife resources. IFIM was the tool used to develop the data base required for a comprehensive instream flow analysis of the system. When compared to the baseline flow regime, and alternative flow regime significantly increased modelled fish habitat area during critical periods of the year. The time series results demonstrated that the flow alternative would be beneficial to the existing fish resources, while still providing water for power production and irrigation

The development of a post occupancy evaluation tool for primary schools: learner comfort assessment tool (LCAT)

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Motsatsi, L

2015-12-01

Full Text Available in order to facilitate teaching and learning. The aim of this study was to develop a Post Occupational Evaluation (POE) tool to assess learner comfort in relation to indoor environmental quality in the classroom. The development of POE tool followed a...

Nonintrusive Load Monitoring Based on Advanced Deep Learning and Novel Signature

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jihyun Kim

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Monitoring electricity consumption in the home is an important way to help reduce energy usage. Nonintrusive Load Monitoring (NILM is existing technique which helps us monitor electricity consumption effectively and costly. NILM is a promising approach to obtain estimates of the electrical power consumption of individual appliances from aggregate measurements of voltage and/or current in the distribution system. Among the previous studies, Hidden Markov Model (HMM based models have been studied very much. However, increasing appliances, multistate of appliances, and similar power consumption of appliances are three big issues in NILM recently. In this paper, we address these problems through providing our contributions as follows. First, we proposed state-of-the-art energy disaggregation based on Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network (LSTM-RNN model and additional advanced deep learning. Second, we proposed a novel signature to improve classification performance of the proposed model in multistate appliance case. We applied the proposed model on two datasets such as UK-DALE and REDD. Via our experimental results, we have confirmed that our model outperforms the advanced model. Thus, we show that our combination between advanced deep learning and novel signature can be a robust solution to overcome NILM’s issues and improve the performance of load identification.

Multivariate exploration of non-intrusive load monitoring via spatiotemporal pattern network

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liu, Chao; Akintayo, Adedotun; Jiang, Zhanhong; Henze, Gregor P.; Sarkar, Soumik

2018-02-01

Non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) of electrical demand for the purpose of identifying load components has thus far mostly been studied using univariate data, e.g., using only whole building electricity consumption time series to identify a certain type of end-use such as lighting load. However, using additional variables in the form of multivariate time series data may provide more information in terms of extracting distinguishable features in the context of energy disaggregation. In this work, a novel probabilistic graphical modeling approach, namely the spatiotemporal pattern network (STPN) is proposed for energy disaggregation using multivariate time-series data. The STPN framework is shown to be capable of handling diverse types of multivariate time-series to improve the energy disaggregation performance. The technique outperforms the state of the art factorial hidden Markov models (FHMM) and combinatorial optimization (CO) techniques in multiple real-life test cases. Furthermore, based on two homes' aggregate electric consumption data, a similarity metric is defined for the energy disaggregation of one home using a trained model based on the other home (i.e., out-of-sample case). The proposed similarity metric allows us to enhance scalability via learning supervised models for a few homes and deploying such models to many other similar but unmodeled homes with significantly high disaggregation accuracy.

Cargo container inspection test program at ARPA's Nonintrusive Inspection Technology Testbed

Science.gov (United States)

Volberding, Roy W.; Khan, Siraj M.

1994-10-01

An x-ray-based cargo inspection system test program is being conducted at the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA)-sponsored Nonintrusive Inspection Technology Testbed (NITT) located in the Port of Tacoma, Washington. The test program seeks to determine the performance that can be expected from a dual, high-energy x-ray cargo inspection system when inspecting ISO cargo containers. This paper describes an intensive, three-month, system test involving two independent test groups, one representing the criminal smuggling element and the other representing the law enforcement community. The first group, the `Red Team', prepares ISO containers for inspection at an off-site facility. An algorithm randomly selects and indicates the positions and preparation of cargoes within a container. The prepared container is dispatched to the NITT for inspection by the `Blue Team'. After in-gate processing, it is queued for examination. The Blue Team inspects the container and decides whether or not to pass the container. The shipment undergoes out-gate processing and returns to the Red Team. The results of the inspection are recorded for subsequent analysis. The test process, including its governing protocol, the cargoes, container preparation, the examination and results available at the time of submission are presented.

New CFD tools to evaluate nasal airflow.

Science.gov (United States)

Burgos, M A; Sanmiguel-Rojas, E; Del Pino, C; Sevilla-García, M A; Esteban-Ortega, F

2017-08-01

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a mathematical tool to analyse airflow. As currently CFD is not a usual tool for rhinologists, a group of engineers in collaboration with experts in Rhinology have developed a very intuitive CFD software. The program MECOMLAND ® only required snapshots from the patient's cross-sectional (tomographic) images, being the output those results originated by CFD, such as airflow distributions, velocity profiles, pressure, temperature, or wall shear stress. This is useful complementary information to cover diagnosis, prognosis, or follow-up of nasal pathologies based on quantitative magnitudes linked to airflow. In addition, the user-friendly environment NOSELAND ® helps the medical assessment significantly in the post-processing phase with dynamic reports using a 3D endoscopic view. Specialists in Rhinology have been asked for a more intuitive, simple, powerful CFD software to offer more quality and precision in their work to evaluate the nasal airflow. We present MECOMLAND ® and NOSELAND ® which have all the expected characteristics to fulfil this demand and offer a proper assessment with the maximum of quality plus safety for the patient. These programs represent a non-invasive, low-cost (as the CT scan is already performed in every patient) alternative for the functional study of the difficult rhinologic case. To validate the software, we studied two groups of patients from the Ear Nose Throat clinic, a first group with normal noses and a second group presenting septal deviations. Wall shear stresses are lower in the cases of normal noses in comparison with those for septal deviation. Besides, velocity field distributions, pressure drop between nasopharynx and the ambient, and flow rates in each nostril were different among the nasal cavities in the two groups. These software modules open up a promising future to simulate the nasal airflow behaviour in virtual surgery intervention scenarios under different pressure or

Resiliency Evaluation, Assessment and Contingency Tools, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Resiliency Evaluation, Assessment and Contingency Tools (REACT) Achieving resiliency in any system requires capabilities that are beyond the boundaries of currently...

Gas discharge visualization: an imaging and modeling tool for medical biometrics.

Science.gov (United States)

Kostyuk, Nataliya; Cole, Phyadragren; Meghanathan, Natarajan; Isokpehi, Raphael D; Cohly, Hari H P

2011-01-01

The need for automated identification of a disease makes the issue of medical biometrics very current in our society. Not all biometric tools available provide real-time feedback. We introduce gas discharge visualization (GDV) technique as one of the biometric tools that have the potential to identify deviations from the normal functional state at early stages and in real time. GDV is a nonintrusive technique to capture the physiological and psychoemotional status of a person and the functional status of different organs and organ systems through the electrophotonic emissions of fingertips placed on the surface of an impulse analyzer. This paper first introduces biometrics and its different types and then specifically focuses on medical biometrics and the potential applications of GDV in medical biometrics. We also present our previous experience with GDV in the research regarding autism and the potential use of GDV in combination with computer science for the potential development of biological pattern/biomarker for different kinds of health abnormalities including cancer and mental diseases.

Assessment of SOAP note evaluation tools in colleges and schools of pharmacy.

Science.gov (United States)

Sando, Karen R; Skoy, Elizabeth; Bradley, Courtney; Frenzel, Jeanne; Kirwin, Jennifer; Urteaga, Elizabeth

2017-07-01

To describe current methods used to assess SOAP notes in colleges and schools of pharmacy. Members of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Laboratory Instructors Special Interest Group were invited to share assessment tools for SOAP notes. Content of submissions was evaluated to characterize overall qualities and how the tools assessed subjective, objective, assessment, and plan information. Thirty-nine assessment tools from 25 schools were evaluated. Twenty-nine (74%) of the tools were rubrics and ten (26%) were checklists. All rubrics included analytic scoring elements, while two (7%) were mixed with holistic and analytic scoring elements. A majority of the rubrics (35%) used a four-item rating scale. Substantial variability existed in how tools evaluated subjective and objective sections. All tools included problem identification in the assessment section. Other assessment items included goals (82%) and rationale (69%). Seventy-seven percent assessed drug therapy; however, only 33% assessed non-drug therapy. Other plan items included education (59%) and follow-up (90%). There is a great deal of variation in the specific elements used to evaluate SOAP notes in colleges and schools of pharmacy. Improved consistency in assessment methods to evaluate SOAP notes may better prepare students to produce standardized documentation when entering practice. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Non-intrusive measurements of frictional forces between micro-spheres and flat surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Wei-Hsun; Daraio, Chiara; Daraio's Group Team

2014-03-01

We report a novel, optical pump-probe experimental setup to study micro-friction phenomena between micro-particles and a flat surface. We present a case study of stainless steel microspheres, of diameter near 250 μm, in contact with different surfaces of variable roughness. In these experiments, the contact area between the particles and the substrates is only a few nanometers wide. To excite the particles, we deliver an impulse using a pulsed, high-power laser. The reaction force resulting from the surface ablation induced by the laser imparts a controlled initial velocity to the target particle. This initial velocity can be varied between 10-5 to 1 m/s. We investigate the vibrating and rolling motions of the micro-particles by detecting their velocity and displacement with a laser vibrometer and a high-speed microscope camera. We calculate the effective Hamaker constant from the vibrating motion of a particle, and study its relation to the substrate's surface roughness. We analyze the relation between rolling friction and the minimum momentum required to break surface bonding forces. This non-contact and non-intrusive technique could be employed to study a variety of contact and tribology problems at the microscale.

DarcyTools, Version 2.1. Verification and validation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svensson, Urban

2004-03-01

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. A number of novel methods and features form the present version of DarcyTools. In the verification studies, these methods are evaluated by comparisons with analytical solutions for idealized situations. The five verification groups, thus reflect the main areas of recent developments. The present report will focus on the Verification and Validation of DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods, Equations and Demo Simulations. - User's Guide. The objective of this report is to compile all verification and validation studies that have been carried out so far. After some brief introductory sections, all cases will be reported in Appendix A (verification cases) and Appendix B (validation cases)

DarcyTools, Version 2.1. Verification and validation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svensson, Urban [Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB, Norrkoeping (Sweden)

2004-03-01

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. A number of novel methods and features form the present version of DarcyTools. In the verification studies, these methods are evaluated by comparisons with analytical solutions for idealized situations. The five verification groups, thus reflect the main areas of recent developments. The present report will focus on the Verification and Validation of DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods, Equations and Demo Simulations. - User's Guide. The objective of this report is to compile all verification and validation studies that have been carried out so far. After some brief introductory sections, all cases will be reported in Appendix A (verification cases) and Appendix B (validation cases)

Value based building renovation - A tool for decision-making and evaluation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Per Anker; Maslesa, Esmir

2015-01-01

Research on the barriers for building renovation in Denmark has revealed that an important obstacle is a lack of simple and holistic tools that can assist stakeholders in prioritisation and decision-making during the early stages of building renovation projects. The purpose of this article...... is to present a tool - RENO-EVALUE, which can be used as decision support for sustainable renovation projects, and for evaluation, during and after building renovations. The tool is a result from the European Eracobuild project ACES - "A concept for promotion of sustainable retrofitting and renovation in early...... stages". This article presents the main result of a work package concerning benefits of renovation. RENO-EVALUE has been developed from four case studies on renovation projects in Denmark, tested and validated on the cases and in a Delphi study. The tool is value based by focusing on the different...

Examples of detection of water flow by oxygen activation on pulsed neutron logs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

de Rosset, W.H.M.

1986-01-01

Upward flow of water in cased wellbores may be detected with pulsed neutron capture (PNC) and gamma ray (GR) tools. Water entering tubing, casing and flowing behind pipe may similarly be evaluated qualitatively. Gamma ray background anomalies in PNC data and elevation of GR tool response occur when water is flowing above threshold velocities and volumes. The technique requires logging the well under static and flow conditions or logging at different tools speeds in a flowing well. Oxygen activation results in increased gamma ray count rates at each detector. PNC far detector and GR well log curves from each log run (flowing well, static well) are overlain. The increases for each curve are offset from the point of water entry by a distance similar to tool source-detector spacing. These offsets in gamma increase are 15-20 ft. higher for the GR than for the PNC far detector and distinguish oxygen activation due to flowing water from common hot spots. The amount of gamma ray increase is controlled by the velocity of upward flow of water past the tool, the amount of water flowing, and the distance of the flow from the tool. Prior planning is important to gain usable information in flowing wells. The upward relative velocity imposes maximal and minimal tool speeds to produce significant gamma increases, and tool speed must be adjusted to optimize gamma changes. Use of the technique to answer actual production problems is illustrated with examples. Insight was gained which led to the correction of the problem in each case

Investigation of non-premixed flame combustion characters in GO2/GH2 shear coaxial injectors using non-intrusive optical diagnostics

Science.gov (United States)

Dai, Jian; Yu, NanJia; Cai, GuoBiao

2015-12-01

Single-element combustor experiments are conducted for three shear coaxial geometry configuration injectors by using gaseous oxygen and gaseous hydrogen (GO2/GH2) as propellants. During the combustion process, several spatially and timeresolved non-intrusive optical techniques, such as OH planar laser induced fluorescence (PLIF), high speed imaging, and infrared imaging, are simultaneously employed to observe the OH radical concentration distribution, flame fluctuations, and temperature fields. The results demonstrate that the turbulent flow phenomenon of non-premixed flame exhibits a remarkable periodicity, and the mixing ratio becomes a crucial factor to influence the combustion flame length. The high speed and infrared images have a consistent temperature field trend. As for the OH-PLIF images, an intuitionistic local flame structure is revealed by single-shot instantaneous images. Furthermore, the means and standard deviations of OH radical intensity are acquired to provide statistical information regarding the flame, which may be helpful for validation of numerical simulations in future. Parameters of structure configurations, such as impinging angle and oxygen post thickness, play an important role in the reaction zone distribution. Based on a successful flame contour extraction method assembled with non-linear anisotropic diffusive filtering and variational level-set, it is possible to implement a fractal analysis to describe the fractal characteristics of the non-premixed flame contour. As a result, the flame front cannot be regarded as a fractal object. However, this turbulent process presents a self-similarity characteristic.

An energy estimation framework for event-based methods in Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Giri, Suman; Bergés, Mario

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Energy estimation is NILM has not yet accounted for complexity of appliance models. • We present a data-driven framework for appliance modeling in supervised NILM. • We test the framework on 3 houses and report average accuracies of 5.9–22.4%. • Appliance models facilitate the estimation of energy consumed by the appliance. - Abstract: Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) is a set of techniques used to estimate the electricity consumed by individual appliances in a building from measurements of the total electrical consumption. Most commonly, NILM works by first attributing any significant change in the total power consumption (also known as an event) to a specific load and subsequently using these attributions (i.e. the labels for the events) to estimate energy for each load. For this last step, most published work in the field makes simplifying assumptions to make the problem more tractable. In this paper, we present a framework for creating appliance models based on classification labels and aggregate power measurements that can help to relax many of these assumptions. Our framework automatically builds models for appliances to perform energy estimation. The model relies on feature extraction, clustering via affinity propagation, perturbation of extracted states to ensure that they mimic appliance behavior, creation of finite state models, correction of any errors in classification that might violate the model, and estimation of energy based on corrected labels. We evaluate our framework on 3 houses from standard datasets in the field and show that the framework can learn data-driven models based on event labels and use that to estimate energy with lower error margins (e.g., 1.1–42.3%) than when using the heuristic models used by others

Performance Evaluation of Java Based Object Relational Mapping Tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shoaib Mahmood Bhatti

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Object persistency is the hot issue in the form of ORM (Object Relational Mapping tools in industry as developers use these tools during software development. This paper presents the performance evaluation of Java based ORM tools. For this purpose, Hibernate, Ebean and TopLinkhave been selected as the ORM tools which are popular and open source. Their performance has been measured from execution point of view. The results show that ORM tools are the good option for the developers considering the system throughput in shorter setbacks and they can be used efficiently and effectively for performing mapping of the objects into the relational dominated world of database, thus creating a hope for a better and well dominated future of this technology.

Flow measurements in a model centrifugal pump by 3-D PIV

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, H; Xu, H R; Liu, C

2012-01-01

PIV (Particle Image Velocimetry), as an non-intrusive flow measurements technology, is widely used to investigate the flow fields in many areas. 3-D (three Dimensional) PIV has seldom been used to measure flow field in rotational impeller of centrifugal pump due to the difficulty of calibration in samll space. In this article, a specially manufactured water tank was used to perform the calibration for 3-D PIV measurement. The instantaneous absolute velocity in one impeller passage was obtained by merging of three sub zones and the relative velocity was acquired by velocity decomposition. The result shows that, when the pump runs at the condition of design flow rate, the radial component velocity W r appears a concave distribution except the condition of R=45 mm. With the increase of radius, the circumference location of the minimum radial component velocity W r moves from the pressure side to the suction side. At the same time, the tangential component velocity W θ on the suction side decreases gradually with the increase of radius, while the component on the pressure side increases gradually. The secondary flow in different radius section has also been shown. At last, the error of PIV measurements was analyzed, which shows that the test results are accurate and the measured data is reliable.

A GIS-based Computational Tool for Multidimensional Flow Velocity by Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, D; Winkler, M; Muste, M

2015-01-01

Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) provide efficient and reliable flow measurements compared to other tools for characteristics of the riverine environments. In addition to originally targeted discharge measurements, ADCPs are increasingly utilized to assess river flow characteristics. The newly developed VMS (Velocity Mapping Software) aims at providing an efficient process for quality assurance, mapping velocity vectors for visualization and facilitating comparison with physical and numerical model results. VMS was designed to provide efficient and smooth work flows for processing groups of transects. The software allows the user to select group of files and subsequently to conduct statistical and graphical quality assurance on the files as a group or individually as appropriate. VMS also enables spatial averaging in horizontal and vertical plane for ADCP data in a single or multiple transects over the same or consecutive cross sections. The analysis results are displayed in numerical and graphical formats. (paper)

Using an evaluative tool to develop effective mathscasts

Science.gov (United States)

Galligan, Linda; Hobohm, Carola; Peake, Katherine

2017-09-01

This study is situated in a course designed for both on-campus and online pre-service and in-service teachers, where student-created mathscasts provide a way for university lecturers to assess students' quality of teaching, and understanding of mathematics. Teachers and pre-service teachers, in a university course with 90% online enrolment, were asked to create mathscasts to explain mathematics concepts at middle school level. This paper describes the process of developing and refining a tool for the creation and evaluation of quality student-produced mathscasts. The study then investigates the usefulness of the tool within the context of pedagogy and mathematical understanding. Despite an abundance of mathscasts already available on the web, there is merit in creating mathscasts, not only as a tool for teaching, but also as a means of learning by doing. The premise for creating student-produced mathscasts was to capture the creators' mathematical understanding and pedagogical approach to teaching a mathematical concept, which were then peer-assessed and graded. The analysis included surveys, practice mathscasts with peer- and self-reviews, and students' final assessed mathscasts. The results indicate that the use of the evaluative tool resulted in an improvement in quality of student-created mathscasts and critiques thereof. The paper concludes with a discussion on future directions of student-produced mathscasts.

Machine tool evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lunsford, B.E.

1976-01-01

Continued improvement in numerical control (NC) units and the mechanical components used in the construction of today's machine tools, necessitate the use of more precise instrumentation to calibrate and determine the capabilities of these systems. It is now necessary to calibrate most tape-control lathes to a tool-path positioning accuracy of +-300 microinches in the full slide travel and, on some special turning and boring machines, a capability of +-100 microinches must be achieved. The use of a laser interferometer to determine tool-path capabilities is described

Tabletop exercise as a tool of evaluating physical protection system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuzawa, Reina

2014-01-01

Evaluation of designed and implemented physical protection system (PPS) is essential for ensuring the effectiveness of PPS. In Japan, nuclear facility operators, which are required to assess performance of PPS, have conducted performance test of PPS element and periodical trainings as well as annual PPS exercise with relevant agencies. In addition to these practical or field efforts, non-field tool for evaluating PPS effectiveness such as tabletop exercise (TTX) can be utilized as it is applied in the USA and other countries. This paper discusses the potential advantage of TTX as an evaluation tool of PPS effectiveness, looking at the characterizations of TTX in comparison to field evaluations, and potential cases where operator would get benefit from TTX especially. (author)

Construction and Validation of a Holistic Education School Evaluation Tool Using Montessori Erdkinder Principles

Science.gov (United States)

Setari, Anthony Philip

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study was to construct a holistic education school evaluation tool using Montessori Erdkinder principles, and begin the validation process of examining the proposed tool. This study addresses a vital need in the holistic education community for a school evaluation tool. The tool construction process included using Erdkinder…

[An evaluation of a new Dutch suicide prevention tool (KEHR); datadriven evaluation and learning].

Science.gov (United States)

de Groot, M H; de Winter, R F P; van der Plas, W; Kerkhof, A J F M

2016-01-01

Multidisciplinary evaluation of suicide cases effectively decreases the suicide rate in mental health care. A new suicide prevention tool (KEHR) can be used in this connection. KEHR has been developed on the basis of the Dutch multidisciplinary practice guideline on the assessment and treatment of suicidal behaviour. The guideline can serve as a frame of reference for the multidisciplinary evaluation of suicide cases. KEHR aims to provide professionals with a better method for preventing suicide. To describe and evaluate the recently developed KEHR strategy for reducing the number of suicide cases in mental health care. Naturalistic and observational study. In the course of a year 22 out of 23 suicide cases that had occurred in the pilot institution were evaluated with the help of the KEHR system. Outcomes were discussed with members of multidisciplinary teams. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in the evaluation process. Professionals from the main disciplines involved were very willing to use the new tool and were prepared to reflect on their views on the outcomes. The professionals were ready to learn from the suicide cases. Data collected with the tool provided information that can be used to improve guideline adherence. However, the use of KEHR did not lead automatically to the formulation of adjustments and improvements relating to suicidal patients. A specific procedure for improving individual and team performance needs to be developed and tested thoroughly. KEHR is a promising strategy for improving and enhancing the guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of suicidal behaviour of patients in mental health care. Special procedures need to be developed and studied in order to implement the improvements deemed necessary as a result of the pilot study. The KEHR tool (in the Dutch language) is accessible to mental health care workers after online registration (www.mijnkehr.nl).

Resident Load Influence Analysis Method for Price Based on Non-intrusive Load Monitoring and Decomposition Data

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Wenqian; Zeng, Bo; Yang, Zhou; Li, Gang

2018-01-01

In the non-invasive load monitoring mode, the load decomposition can reflect the running state of each load, which will help the user reduce unnecessary energy costs. With the demand side management measures of time of using price, a resident load influence analysis method for time of using price (TOU) based on non-intrusive load monitoring data are proposed in the paper. Relying on the current signal of the resident load classification, the user equipment type, and different time series of self-elasticity and cross-elasticity of the situation could be obtained. Through the actual household load data test with the impact of TOU, part of the equipment will be transferred to the working hours, and users in the peak price of electricity has been reduced, and in the electricity at the time of the increase Electrical equipment, with a certain regularity.

ASPECT (Automated System-level Performance Evaluation and Characterization Tool), Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — SSCI has developed a suite of SAA tools and an analysis capability referred to as ASPECT (Automated System-level Performance Evaluation and Characterization Tool)....

Complexity reduction of multi-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media

KAUST Repository

Ghommem, Mehdi

2013-01-01

In this paper, we apply mode decomposition and interpolatory projection methods to speed up simulations of two-phase flows in highly heterogeneous porous media. We propose intrusive and non-intrusive model reduction approaches that enable a significant reduction in the dimension of the flow problem size while capturing the behavior of the fully-resolved solutions. In one approach, we employ the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) and the discrete empirical interpolation method (DEIM). This approach does not require any modification of the reservoir simulation code but rather postprocesses a set of global snapshots to identify the dynamically-relevant structures associated with the flow behavior. In a second approach, we project the governing equations of the velocity and the pressure fields on the subspace spanned by their proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) modes. Furthermore, we use DEIM to approximate the mobility related term in the global system assembly and then reduce the online computational cost and make it independent of the fine grid. To show the effectiveness and usefulness of the aforementioned approaches, we consider the SPE 10 benchmark permeability field and present a variety of numerical examples of two-phase flow and transport. The proposed model reduction methods can be efficiently used when performing uncertainty quantification or optimization studies and history matching.

Evaluating the Utility of Web-Based Consumer Support Tools Using Rough Sets

Science.gov (United States)

Maciag, Timothy; Hepting, Daryl H.; Slezak, Dominik; Hilderman, Robert J.

On the Web, many popular e-commerce sites provide consumers with decision support tools to assist them in their commerce-related decision-making. Many consumers will rank the utility of these tools quite highly. Data obtained from web usage mining analyses, which may provide knowledge about a user's online experiences, could help indicate the utility of these tools. This type of analysis could provide insight into whether provided tools are adequately assisting consumers in conducting their online shopping activities or if new or additional enhancements need consideration. Although some research in this regard has been described in previous literature, there is still much that can be done. The authors of this paper hypothesize that a measurement of consumer decision accuracy, i.e. a measurement preferences, could help indicate the utility of these tools. This paper describes a procedure developed towards this goal using elements of rough set theory. The authors evaluated the procedure using two support tools, one based on a tool developed by the US-EPA and the other developed by one of the authors called cogito. Results from the evaluation did provide interesting insights on the utility of both support tools. Although it was shown that the cogito tool obtained slightly higher decision accuracy, both tools could be improved from additional enhancements. Details of the procedure developed and results obtained from the evaluation will be provided. Opportunities for future work are also discussed.

Walkability Explorer. An Evaluation and Design Support Tool for Walkability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ivan Blečić

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Walkability Explorer is a software tool for the evaluation of urban walkability which, we argue, is an important aspect of the quality of life in cities. Many conventional approaches to the assessment of quality of life measure the distribution, density and distances of different opportunities in space. But distance is not all there is. To reason in terms of urban capabilities of people we should also take into account the quality of pedestrian accessibility and of urban opportunities offered by the city. The software tool we present in this paper is an user-friendly implementation of such an evaluation approach to walkability. It includes several GIS and analysis features, and is interoperable with other standard GIS and data-analysis tools.

An Electronic Competency-Based Evaluation Tool for Assessing Humanitarian Competencies in a Simulated Exercise.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, Andrea B; Hulme, Jennifer M; Nugus, Peter; Cranmer, Hilarie H; Coutu, Melanie; Johnson, Kirsten

2017-06-01

The evaluation tool was first derived from the formerly Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies' (CBHA; United Kingdom), now "Start Network's," Core Humanitarian Competency Framework and formatted in an electronic data capture tool that allowed for offline evaluation. During a 3-day humanitarian simulation event, participants in teams of eight to 10 were evaluated individually at multiple injects by trained evaluators. Participants were assessed on five competencies and a global rating scale. Participants evaluated both themselves and their team members using the same tool at the end of the simulation exercise (SimEx). All participants (63) were evaluated. A total of 1,008 individual evaluations were completed. There were 90 (9.0%) missing evaluations. All 63 participants also evaluated themselves and each of their teammates using the same tool. Self-evaluation scores were significantly lower than peer-evaluations, which were significantly lower than evaluators' assessments. Participants with a medical degree, and those with humanitarian work experience of one month or more, scored significantly higher on all competencies assessed by evaluators compared to other participants. Participants with prior humanitarian experience scored higher on competencies regarding operating safely and working effectively as a team member. This study presents a novel electronic evaluation tool to assess individual performance in five of six globally recognized humanitarian competency domains in a 3-day humanitarian SimEx. The evaluation tool provides a standardized approach to the assessment of humanitarian competencies that cannot be evaluated through knowledge-based testing in a classroom setting. When combined with testing knowledge-based competencies, this presents an approach to a comprehensive competency-based assessment that provides an objective measurement of competency with respect to the competencies listed in the Framework. There is an opportunity to advance the use of

Evaluating ocular blood flow

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jyotsna Maram

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Studies have shown that vascular impairment plays an important role in the etiology and pathogenesis of various ocular diseases including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal venous occlusive disease. Thus, qualitative and quantitative assessment of ocular blood flow (BF is a topic of interest for early disease detection, diagnosis, and management. Owing to the rapid improvement in technology, there are several invasive and noninvasive techniques available for evaluating ocular BF, with each of these techniques having their own limitations and advantages. This article reviews these important techniques, with a particular focus on Doppler Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (OCT and OCT-angiography.

Digital Discernment: An E-Commerce Web Site Evaluation Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Sigman, Betsy Page; Boston, Brian J.

2013-01-01

Students entering the business workforce today may well share some responsibility for developing, revising, or evaluating their company's Web site. They may lack the experience, however, to critique their employer's Web presence effectively. The purpose of developing Digital Discernment, an e-commerce Web site evaluation tool, was to prepare…

Evaluation of a Microbial Sensor as a Tool for Antimicrobial Activity Test of Cosmetic Preservatives.

Science.gov (United States)

Gomyo, Hideyuki; Ookawa, Masaki; Oshibuchi, Kota; Sugamura, Yuriko; Hosokawa, Masahito; Shionoiri, Nozomi; Maeda, Yoshiaki; Matsunaga, Tadashi; Tanaka, Tsuyoshi

2015-01-01

For high-throughput screening of novel cosmetic preservatives, a rapid and simple assay to evaluate the antimicrobial activities should be developed because the conventional agar dilution method is time-consuming and labor-intensive. To address this issue, we evaluated a microbial sensor as a tool for rapid antimicrobial activity testing. The sensor consists of an oxygen electrode and a filter membrane that holds the test microorganisms, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. The antimicrobial activity of the tested cosmetic preservative was evaluated by measuring the current increases corresponding to the decreases in oxygen consumption in the microbial respiration. The current increases detected by the sensor showed positive correlation to the concentrations of two commercially used preservatives, chlorphenesin and 2-phenoxyethanol. The same tendency was also observed when a model cosmetic product was used as a preservative solvent, indicating the feasibility in practical use. Furthermore, the microbial sensor and microfluidic flow-cell was assembled to achieve sequential measurements. The sensor system presented in this study could be useful in large-scale screening experiments.

Experimental determination of heat transfer in a Poiseuille-Rayleigh-Bénard flow

Science.gov (United States)

Taher, R.; Abid, C.

2018-05-01

This paper deals with an experimental study of heat transfer in a Poiseuille-Rayleigh-Bénard flow. This situation corresponds to a mixed convection phenomenon in a horizontal rectangular channel uniformly heated from below. Flow visualisation and temperature measurements were achieved in order to describe the flow regimes and heat transfer behaviour. The classical measurement techniques such employing thermocouples give local measurement on one hand and on other hand they often disturb the flow. As the flow is three-dimensional, these techniques are not efficient. In order to not disturb the flow, a non-intrusive method is used for thermal measurement. The Planar laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) was implemented to determine thermal fields in the fluid. Experiments conducted for various Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers allow to determine the heat transfer and thus to propose correlation for Nusselt number for a mixed convection flow in Poiseuille-Rayleigh-Bénard configuration. First a description of the use of this technique in water flow is presented and then the obtained results for various Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers allow to propose a correlation for the Nusselt number for such configuration of mixed convection. The comparison between the obtained heat transfer and the pure forced convection one confirms the well-known result that the convective heat transfer is greatly enhanced in mixed convection. Indeed, secondary flow induced by buoyant forces contributes to the refreshment of thermal boundary layers and so acts like mixers, which significantly enhances heat transfer.

A Framework for the Evaluation of CASE Tool Learnability in Educational Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Senapathi, Mali

2005-01-01

The aim of the research is to derive a framework for the evaluation of Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tool learnability in educational environments. Drawing from the literature of Human Computer Interaction and educational research, a framework for evaluating CASE tool learnability in educational environments is derived. The two main…

Darcy Tools version 3.4. User's Guide

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Svensson, Urban; Ferry, Michel

2010-12-01

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. DarcyTools is developed by a collaborative effort by SKB (The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company ), MFRDC (Michel Ferry RandD Consulting) and CFE AB (Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB). It builds upon earlier development of groundwater models, carried out by CFE during the last twenty years. In the earlier work the CFD code PHOENICS (Spalding 1981) was used as an equation solver. DarcyTools is based on a solver called MIGAL (Ferry 2002). It has however been carefully evaluated that the two solvers produce very similar solutions and the earlier work is thus still valid as a background for DarcyTools. The present report will focus on the software that constitutes DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods and Equations. (Svensson et al. 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 1). - Verification, Validation and Demonstration (Svensson 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 2). Two basic approaches in groundwater modelling can be identified; in one we define grid cell conductivities (sometimes called the continuum porous-medium (CPM) approach, i.e. Jackson et al. 2000), in the other we calculate the flow through the fracture network directly (DFN approach). Both approaches have their merits and drawbacks, which however will not be discussed here (for a discussion, see Sahimi 1995). In DarcyTools the two approaches are combined, meaning that we first generate a fracture network and then represent the network as grid cell properties. Further background information is given in the two reports mentioned

Darcy Tools version 3.4. User's Guide

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svensson, Urban [Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB, Lyckeby (Sweden); Ferry, Michel [MFRDC, Orvault (France)

2010-12-15

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. DarcyTools is developed by a collaborative effort by SKB (The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company ), MFRDC (Michel Ferry RandD Consulting) and CFE AB (Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB). It builds upon earlier development of groundwater models, carried out by CFE during the last twenty years. In the earlier work the CFD code PHOENICS (Spalding 1981) was used as an equation solver. DarcyTools is based on a solver called MIGAL (Ferry 2002). It has however been carefully evaluated that the two solvers produce very similar solutions and the earlier work is thus still valid as a background for DarcyTools. The present report will focus on the software that constitutes DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods and Equations. (Svensson et al. 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 1). - Verification, Validation and Demonstration (Svensson 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 2). Two basic approaches in groundwater modelling can be identified; in one we define grid cell conductivities (sometimes called the continuum porous-medium (CPM) approach, i.e. Jackson et al. 2000), in the other we calculate the flow through the fracture network directly (DFN approach). Both approaches have their merits and drawbacks, which however will not be discussed here (for a discussion, see Sahimi 1995). In DarcyTools the two approaches are combined, meaning that we first generate a fracture network and then represent the network as grid cell properties. Further background information is given in the two reports mentioned

Contextualising Water Use in Residential Settings: A Survey of Non-Intrusive Techniques and Approaches

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Carboni

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Water monitoring in households is important to ensure the sustainability of fresh water reserves on our planet. It provides stakeholders with the statistics required to formulate optimal strategies in residential water management. However, this should not be prohibitive and appliance-level water monitoring cannot practically be achieved by deploying sensors on every faucet or water-consuming device of interest due to the higher hardware costs and complexity, not to mention the risk of accidental leakages that can derive from the extra plumbing needed. Machine learning and data mining techniques are promising techniques to analyse monitored data to obtain non-intrusive water usage disaggregation. This is because they can discern water usage from the aggregated data acquired from a single point of observation. This paper provides an overview of water usage disaggregation systems and related techniques adopted for water event classification. The state-of-the art of algorithms and testbeds used for fixture recognition are reviewed and a discussion on the prominent challenges and future research are also included.

Evaluation of Pushback Decision-Support Tool Concept for Charlotte Douglas International Airport Ramp Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Hayashi, Miwa; Hoang, Ty; Jung, Yoon C.; Malik, Waqar; Lee, Hanbong; Dulchinos, Victoria L.

2015-01-01

This paper proposes a new departure pushback decision-support tool (DST) for airport ramp-tower controllers. It is based on NASA's Spot and Runway Departure Advisor (SARDA) collaborative decision-making concept, except with the modification that the gate releases now are controlled by tactical pushback (or gate-hold) advisories instead of strategic pre-assignments of target pushback times to individual departure flights. The proposed ramp DST relies on data exchange with the airport traffic control tower (ATCT) to coordinate pushbacks with the ATCT's flow-management intentions under current operational constraints, such as Traffic Management Initiative constraints. Airlines would benefit in reduced taxi delay and fuel burn. The concept was evaluated in a human-in-the-loop simulation experiment with current ramp-tower controllers at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport as participants. The results showed that the tool helped reduce taxi time by one minute per flight and overall departure flight fuel consumption by 10-12% without reducing runway throughput. Expect Departure Clearance Time (EDCT) conformance also was improved when advisories were provided. These benefits were attained without increasing the ramp-tower controllers' workload. Additionally, the advisories reduced the ATCT controllers' workload.

Developing a practical evaluation tool for preceptor use.

Science.gov (United States)

Walsh, Catherine M; Seldomridge, Lisa A; Badros, Karen K

2008-01-01

After years of dissatisfaction with existing instruments, a tool for preceptors to evaluate an undergraduate student's clinical performance was developed, with preceptors' input in its construction. A 2-year pilot evaluation revealed notable problems including excessively high preceptor ratings and significant disparities between faculty and preceptor ratings. Further revisions were made, reducing indicators to those which the preceptors can actually evaluate on an everyday basis and developing a rubric. Additional recommendations to bolster the quality of ratings are improving orientation and guidance of preceptors and modifying procedures for giving feedback.

Analysis of multiphase flows using dual-energy gamma densitometry and neural networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bishop, C.M.; James, G.D.

1993-01-01

Dual-energy gamma densitometry offers a powerful technique for the non-intrusive analysis of multiphase flows. By employing multiple beam lines, information on the phase configuration can be obtained. Once the configuration is known, it then becomes possible in principle to determine the phase fractions. In practice, however, the extraction of the phase fractions from the densitometer data is complicated by the wide variety of phase configurations which can arise, and by the considerable difficulties of modelling multiphase flows. In this paper we show that neural network techniques provide a powerful approach to the analysis of data from dual-energy gamma densitometers, allowing both the phase configuration and the phase fractions to be determined with high accuracy, whilst avoiding the uncertainties associated with modelling. The technique is well suited to the determination of oil, water and gas fractions in multiphase oil pipelines. Results from linear and non-linear network models are compared, and a new technique for validating the network output is described. (orig.)

Quantitative dynamic reliability evaluation of AP1000 passive safety systems by using FMEA and GO-FLOW methodology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hashim Muhammad; Yoshikawa, Hidekazu; Matsuoka, Takeshi; Yang Ming

2014-01-01

The passive safety systems utilized in advanced pressurized water reactor (PWR) design such as AP1000 should be more reliable than that of active safety systems of conventional PWR by less possible opportunities of hardware failures and human errors (less human intervention). The objectives of present study are to evaluate the dynamic reliability of AP1000 plant in order to check the effectiveness of passive safety systems by comparing the reliability-related issues with that of active safety systems in the event of the big accidents. How should the dynamic reliability of passive safety systems properly evaluated? And then what will be the comparison of reliability results of AP1000 passive safety systems with the active safety systems of conventional PWR. For this purpose, a single loop model of AP1000 passive core cooling system (PXS) and passive containment cooling system (PCCS) are assumed separately for quantitative reliability evaluation. The transient behaviors of these passive safety systems are taken under the large break loss-of-coolant accident in the cold leg. The analysis is made by utilizing the qualitative method failure mode and effect analysis in order to identify the potential failure mode and success-oriented reliability analysis tool called GO-FLOW for quantitative reliability evaluation. The GO-FLOW analysis has been conducted separately for PXS and PCCS systems under the same accident. The analysis results show that reliability of AP1000 passive safety systems (PXS and PCCS) is increased due to redundancies and diversity of passive safety subsystems and components, and four stages automatic depressurization system is the key subsystem for successful actuation of PXS and PCCS system. The reliability results of PCCS system of AP1000 are more reliable than that of the containment spray system of conventional PWR. And also GO-FLOW method can be utilized for reliability evaluation of passive safety systems. (author)

A tool to estimate bar patterns and flow conditions in estuaries when limited data is available

Science.gov (United States)

Leuven, J.; Verhoeve, S.; Bruijns, A. J.; Selakovic, S.; van Dijk, W. M.; Kleinhans, M. G.

2017-12-01

The effects of human interventions, natural evolution of estuaries and rising sea-level on food security and flood safety are largely unknown. In addition, ecologists require quantified habitat area to study future evolution of estuaries, but they lack predictive capability of bathymetry and hydrodynamics. For example, crucial input required for ecological models are values of intertidal area, inundation time, peak flow velocities and salinity. While numerical models can reproduce these spatial patterns, their computational times are long and for each case a new model must be developed. Therefore, we developed a comprehensive set of relations that accurately predict the hydrodynamics and the patterns of channels and bars, using a combination of the empirical relations derived from approximately 50 estuaries and theory for bars and estuaries. The first step is to predict local tidal prisms, which is the tidal prism that flows through a given cross-section. Second, the channel geometry is predicted from tidal prism and hydraulic geometry relations. Subsequently, typical flow velocities can be estimated from the channel geometry and tidal prism. Then, an ideal estuary shape is fitted to the measured planform: the deviation from the ideal shape, which is defined as the excess width, gives a measure of the locations where tidal bars form and their summed width (Leuven et al., 2017). From excess width, typical hypsometries can be predicted per cross-section. In the last step, flow velocities are calculated for the full range of occurring depths and salinity is calculated based on the estuary shape. Here, we will present a prototype tool that predicts equilibrium bar patterns and typical flow conditions. The tool is easy to use because the only input required is the estuary outline and tidal amplitude. Therefore it can be used by policy makers and researchers from multiple disciplines, such as ecologists, geologists and hydrologists, for example for paleogeographic

Evaluation Tools of nanomaterials environmental impact

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barberio, Grazia; Scalbi, Simona; Buttol, Patrizia; Masoni, Paolo; Righi, Serena

2015-01-01

Nanotechnology show an increasing spread thanks to the special properties of nanomaterials (NM). Knowledge of the NM behavior and interactions with the environment and human health is still insufficient to assess the impact of the NM. A multidisciplinary, multidimensional and systemic such as that of the life cycle (Life Cycle Thinking - LCT), applied through the tool Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), is essential in environmental sustainability assessment of technologies, with some limitations that can be overcome through integration with other instruments such as, for example, non-linear models, analysis of flows of material, Risk Assessment (RA). This article offers a detailed analysis of the state and the main problems related to the application of LCA and RA to NM both separately and in combined use; They will then discuss the strategies and integrations needed to overcome the limitations of both methods and obtain robust assessments of the impacts on health and the environment [it

The Vicinity of Program Documentation Tools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nørmark, Kurt

between program development tools.  In the central part of the paper we introduce a mapping of documentation flow between program development tools.  In addition we discuss a set of locally developed tools which is related to program documentation.  The use of test cases as examples in an interface......Program documentation plays a vital role in almost all programming processes.  Program documentation flows between separate tools of a modularized environment, and in between the components of an integrated development environment as well.  In this paper we discuss the flow of program documentation...... documentation tool is a noteworthy and valuable contribution to the documentation flow.  As an additional contribution we identify several circular relationships which illustrate feedback of documentation to the program editor from other tools in the development environment....

IEA-Task 31 WAKEBENCH: Towards a protocol for wind farm flow model evaluation. Part 1: Flow-over-terrain models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rodrigo, Javier Sanz; Gancarski, Pawel; Arroyo, Roberto Chavez

2014-01-01

The IEA Task 31 Wakebench is setting up a framework for the evaluation of wind farm flow models operating at microscale level. The framework consists on a model evaluation protocol integrated on a web-based portal for model benchmarking (www.windbench.net). This paper provides an overview...... of the building-block validation approach applied to flow-over-terrain models, including best practices for the benchmarking and data processing procedures for the analysis and qualification of validation datasets from wind resource assessment campaigns. A hierarchy of test cases has been proposed for flow...

Design for Motivation: Evaluation of a Design Tool

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimitra Chasanidou

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Design for motivation constitutes a design practice that focuses on the activation of human motives to perform an action. There is an increasing need to design motivational and engaging mechanisms for voluntary systems, such as innovation platforms, where user participation is a key target. When designing for motivation, a challenge of the early design phases is the selection of appropriate design tool and strategy. The current work presents a design tool, namely DEMO (DEsign for MOtivation, and evaluates its design process. The tool provides multidisciplinary teams with a user-centred, structured method to ideate and ultimately develop a consistent design plan to engage the users of innovation platforms. The evaluation study analysed the tool’s contribution to the design of motivational innovation platforms, utilising three data collection methods: a protocol analysis, interviews and questionnaires. The results discuss the experiences of 32 users with the development of motivation concepts, the group and the user activities, as well as their creativity aspects. Structured processes and the use of artefacts were found to be productive practices in the early design phases. The results also highlight the importance of multidisciplinary and user-centred teams that can enhance collaboration and communication during the design processes.

Flow Cytometry Method as a Diagnostic Tool for Pleural Fluid Involvement in a Patient with Multiple Myeloma

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muzaffer Keklik

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Multiple myeloma is a malignant proliferation of plasma cells that mainly affects bone marrow. Pleural effusions secondary to pleural myelomatous involvement have rarely been reported in the literature. As it is rarely detected, we aimed to report a case in which pleural effusion of a multiple myeloma was confirmed as true myelomatous involvement by flow cytometry method. A 52-years old man presented to our clinic with chest and back pain lasting for 3 months. On the chest radiography, pleural fluid was detected in left hemithorax. Pleural fluid flow cytometry was performed. In the flow cytometry, CD56, CD38 and CD138 found to be positive, while CD19 was negative. True myelomatous pleural effusions are very uncommon, with fewer than 100 cases reported worldwide. Flow cytometry is a potentially useful diagnostic tool for clinical practice. We presented our case; as it has been rarely reported, although flow cytometer is a simple method for detection of pleural fluid involvement in multiple myeloma.

EVALUATION TOOL OF CLIMATE POTENTIAL FOR VENTILATIVE COOLING

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Belleri, Annamaria; Psomas, Theofanis Ch.; Heiselberg, Per Kvols

2015-01-01

. Within IEA Annex 62 project, national experts are working on the development of a climate evaluation tool, which aims at assessing the potential of ventilative cooling by taking into account also building envelope thermal properties, internal gains and ventilation needs. The analysis is based on a single......-zone thermal model applied to user-input climatic data on hourly basis. The tool identifies the percentage of hours when natural ventilation can be exploited to assure minimum air change rates required by state of the art research, standards and regulations and the percentage of hours when direct ventilative...

Feasibility of permeation grouting for constructing subsurface barriers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dwyer, B.P.

1994-04-01

Efforts are being made to devise technologies that provide interim containment of waste sites while final remediation alternatives are developed. Permeation grouting, a technique used extensively in the civil and mining engineering industry has been investigated as a method for emplacing a subsurface containment barrier beneath existing waste sites. Conceptually an underlying barrier is placed by injecting grout into the formation at less than fracturing pressure from a series of directionally drilled boreholes beneath the waste site. This study evaluated the penetration and performance characteristics in varying soil conditions of four different grout materials (two microfine cements, mineral wax, and sodium silicate) at a field scale. Field testing consisted of grout injection via sleeve (tube-a'-manchette) pipe into both vertical and horizontal borehole configurations at the Mixed Waste Landfill Integrated Demonstration site at Sandia National Laboratories. Prior to, during, and after grout injection non-intrusive geophysical techniques were used to map grout flow. Following the tests, the site was excavated to reveal details of the grout permeation, and grouted soil samples were cored for laboratory characterization. The non-intrusive and intrusive grout mapping showed preferential flow patterns, i.e., the grout tended to follow the path of least resistance. Preliminary testing indicates that permeation grouting is a feasible method for emplacing a low permeability subsurface barrier in the semi-arid unconsolidated alluvial soils common to the Southwest. Despite the success of this project, difficulties in predicting grout flow in heterogeneous soils and non-intrusive methods for imaging grout location and continuity are issues that need more attention

Non-intrusive load monitoring based on low frequency active power measurements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chinthaka Dinesh

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM method for residential appliances based on active power signal is presented. This method works effectively with a single active power measurement taken at a low sampling rate (1 s. The proposed method utilizes the Karhunen Loéve (KL expansion to decompose windows of active power signals into subspace components in order to construct a unique set of features, referred to as signatures, from individual and aggregated active power signals. Similar signal windows were clustered in to one group prior to feature extraction. The clustering was performed using a modified mean shift algorithm. After the feature extraction, energy levels of signal windows and power levels of subspace components were utilized to reduce the number of possible appliance combinations and their energy level combinations. Then, the turned on appliance combination and the energy contribution from individual appliances were determined through the Maximum a Posteriori (MAP estimation. Finally, the proposed method was modified to adaptively accommodate the usage patterns of appliances at each residence. The proposed NILM method was validated using data from two public databases: tracebase and reference energy disaggregation data set (REDD. The presented results demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to accurately identify and disaggregate individual energy contributions of turned on appliance combinations in real households. Furthermore, the results emphasise the importance of clustering and the integration of the usage behaviour pattern in the proposed NILM method for real households.

Rectification of Image Velocity Results (RIVeR): A simple and user-friendly toolbox for large scale water surface Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV)

Science.gov (United States)

Patalano, Antoine; García, Carlos Marcelo; Rodríguez, Andrés

2017-12-01

LSPIV (Large Scale Particle Image Velocimetry) and LSPTV (Large Scale Particle Tracking Velocimetry) are used as relatively low-cost and non-intrusive techniques for water-surface velocity analysis and flow discharge measurements in rivers or large-scale hydraulic models. This paper describes a methodology based on state-of-the-art tools (for example, that apply classical PIV/PTV analysis) resulting in large-scale surface-flow characterization according to the first operational version of the RIVeR (Rectification of Image Velocity Results). RIVeR is developed in Matlab and is designed to be user-friendly. RIVeR processes large-scale water-surface characterization such as velocity fields or individual trajectories of floating tracers. This work describes the wide range of application of the techniques for comparing measured surface flows in hydraulic physical models to flow discharge estimates for a wide range of flow events in rivers (for example, low and high flows).

A Tool for the Automated Design and Evaluation of Habitat Interior Layouts

Science.gov (United States)

Simon, Matthew A.; Wilhite, Alan W.

2013-01-01

The objective of space habitat design is to minimize mass and system size while providing adequate space for all necessary equipment and a functional layout that supports crew health and productivity. Unfortunately, development and evaluation of interior layouts is often ignored during conceptual design because of the subjectivity and long times required using current evaluation methods (e.g., human-in-the-loop mockup tests and in-depth CAD evaluations). Early, more objective assessment could prevent expensive design changes that may increase vehicle mass and compromise functionality. This paper describes a new interior design evaluation method to enable early, structured consideration of habitat interior layouts. This interior layout evaluation method features a comprehensive list of quantifiable habitat layout evaluation criteria, automatic methods to measure these criteria from a geometry model, and application of systems engineering tools and numerical methods to construct a multi-objective value function measuring the overall habitat layout performance. In addition to a detailed description of this method, a C++/OpenGL software tool which has been developed to implement this method is also discussed. This tool leverages geometry modeling coupled with collision detection techniques to identify favorable layouts subject to multiple constraints and objectives (e.g., minimize mass, maximize contiguous habitable volume, maximize task performance, and minimize crew safety risks). Finally, a few habitat layout evaluation examples are described to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method and tool to influence habitat design.

RF sensor for multiphase flow measurement through an oil pipeline

Science.gov (United States)

Wylie, S. R.; Shaw, A.; Al-Shamma'a, A. I.

2006-08-01

We have developed, in conjunction with Solartron ISA, an electromagnetic cavity resonator based sensor for multiphase flow measurement through an oil pipeline. This sensor is non-intrusive and transmits low power (10 mW) radio frequencies (RF) in the range of 100-350 MHz and detects the pipeline contents using resonant peaks captured instantaneously. The multiple resonances from each captured RF spectrum are analysed to determine the phase fractions in the pipeline. An industrial version of the sensor for a 102 mm (4 inch) diameter pipe has been constructed and results from this sensor are compared to those given by simulations performed using the electromagnetic high frequency structure simulator software package HFSS. This paper was presented at the 13th International Conference on Sensors and held in Chatham, Kent, on 6-7 September 2005.

New tools for evaluating LQAS survey designs.

Science.gov (United States)

Hund, Lauren

2014-02-15

Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) surveys have become increasingly popular in global health care applications. Incorporating Bayesian ideas into LQAS survey design, such as using reasonable prior beliefs about the distribution of an indicator, can improve the selection of design parameters and decision rules. In this paper, a joint frequentist and Bayesian framework is proposed for evaluating LQAS classification accuracy and informing survey design parameters. Simple software tools are provided for calculating the positive and negative predictive value of a design with respect to an underlying coverage distribution and the selected design parameters. These tools are illustrated using a data example from two consecutive LQAS surveys measuring Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) preparation. Using the survey tools, the dependence of classification accuracy on benchmark selection and the width of the 'grey region' are clarified in the context of ORS preparation across seven supervision areas. Following the completion of an LQAS survey, estimation of the distribution of coverage across areas facilitates quantifying classification accuracy and can help guide intervention decisions.

An evaluation of automated GIS tools for delineating karst sinkholes and closed depressions from 1-meter LIDAR-derived digital elevation data

Science.gov (United States)

Doctor, Daniel H.; Young, John A.

2013-01-01

LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) surveys of karst terrains provide high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) that are particularly useful for mapping sinkholes. In this study, we used automated processing tools within ArcGIS (v. 10.0) operating on a 1.0 m resolution LiDAR DEM in order to delineate sinkholes and closed depressions in the Boyce 7.5 minute quadrangle located in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The results derived from the use of the automated tools were then compared with depressions manually delineated by a geologist. Manual delineation of closed depressions was conducted using a combination of 1.0 m DEM hillshade, slopeshade, aerial imagery, and Topographic Position Index (TPI) rasters. The most effective means of visualizing depressions in the GIS was using an overlay of the partially transparent TPI raster atop the slopeshade raster at 1.0 m resolution. Manually identified depressions were subsequently checked using aerial imagery to screen for false positives, and targeted ground-truthing was undertaken in the field. The automated tools that were utilized include the routines in ArcHydro Tools (v. 2.0) for prescreening, evaluating, and selecting sinks and depressions as well as thresholding, grouping, and assessing depressions from the TPI raster. Results showed that the automated delineation of sinks and depressions within the ArcHydro tools was highly dependent upon pre-conditioning of the DEM to produce "hydrologically correct" surface flow routes. Using stream vectors obtained from the National Hydrologic Dataset alone to condition the flow routing was not sufficient to produce a suitable drainage network, and numerous artificial depressions were generated where roads, railways, or other manmade structures acted as flow barriers in the elevation model. Additional conditioning of the DEM with drainage paths across these barriers was required prior to automated 2delineation of sinks and depressions. In regions where the DEM

Evaluation of Linked Data tools for Learning Analytics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Drachsler, Hendrik; Herder, Eelco; d'Aquin, Mathieu; Dietze, Stefan

2013-01-01

Drachsler, H., Herder, E., d'Aquin, M., & Dietze, S. (2013, 8-12 April). Evaluation of Linked Data tools for Learning Analytics. Presentation given in the tutorial on 'Using Linked Data for Learning Analytics' at LAK2013, the Third Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge, Leuven, Belgium.

Azimuthally acoustic logging tool to evaluate cementing quality

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu, Junqiang; Ju, Xiaodong; Qiao, Wenxiao; Men, Baiyong; Wang, Ruijia; Wu, Jinping

2014-01-01

An azimuthally sensitive acoustic bond tool (AABT) uses a phased arc array transmitter that can provide directionally focused radiation. The acoustic sonde consists of a phased arc array transmitter and two monopole receivers, the spaces from the transmitter being 0.91 m and 1.52 m, respectively. The transmitter includes eight transducer sub-units. By controlling the high-voltage firing signal phase for each transmitter, the radiation energy of the phased arc array transducer can be focused in a single direction. Compared with conventional monopole and dipole transmitters, the new transmitter provides cement quality evaluation with azimuthal sensitivity, which is not possible with conventional cement bond log/variable density log tools. Laboratory measurements indicate that the directivity curves for the phased arc array and those computed theoretically are consistent and show good agreement. We acquire measurements from a laboratory cistern and from the field to validate the reliability and applicability of the AABT. Results indicate that the AABT accurately evaluates the azimuthal cement quality of case-cement interfaces by imaging the amplitude of the first-arrival wave. This tool visualizes the size, position and orientation of channeling and holes. In the case of good case-cement bonding, the AABT also evaluates the azimuthal cementing quality of the cement formation interface by imaging the amplitude of formation waves. (paper)

Automated planning target volume generation: an evaluation pitting a computer-based tool against human experts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ketting, Case H.; Austin-Seymour, Mary; Kalet, Ira; Jacky, Jon; Kromhout-Schiro, Sharon; Hummel, Sharon; Unger, Jonathan; Fagan, Lawrence M.; Griffin, Tom

1997-01-01

Purpose: Software tools are seeing increased use in three-dimensional treatment planning. However, the development of these tools frequently omits careful evaluation before placing them in clinical use. This study demonstrates the application of a rigorous evaluation methodology using blinded peer review to an automated software tool that produces ICRU-50 planning target volumes (PTVs). Methods and Materials: Seven physicians from three different institutions involved in three-dimensional treatment planning participated in the evaluation. Four physicians drew partial PTVs on nine test cases, consisting of four nasopharynx and five lung primaries. Using the same information provided to the human experts, the computer tool generated PTVs for comparison. The remaining three physicians, designated evaluators, individually reviewed the PTVs for acceptability. To exclude bias, the evaluators were blinded to the source (human or computer) of the PTVs they reviewed. Their scorings of the PTVs were statistically examined to determine if the computer tool performed as well as the human experts. Results: The computer tool was as successful as the human experts in generating PTVs. Failures were primarily attributable to insufficient margins around the clinical target volume and to encroachment upon critical structures. In a qualitative analysis, the human and computer experts displayed similar types and distributions of errors. Conclusions: Rigorous evaluation of computer-based radiotherapy tools requires comparison to current practice and can reveal areas for improvement before the tool enters clinical practice

Human Factors Evaluation of Advanced Electric Power Grid Visualization Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Greitzer, Frank L.; Dauenhauer, Peter M.; Wierks, Tamara G.; Podmore, Robin

2009-04-01

This report describes initial human factors evaluation of four visualization tools (Graphical Contingency Analysis, Force Directed Graphs, Phasor State Estimator and Mode Meter/ Mode Shapes) developed by PNNL, and proposed test plans that may be implemented to evaluate their utility in scenario-based experiments.

The use of current risk analysis tools evaluated towards preventing external domino accidents

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Reniers, Genserik L L; Dullaert, W.; Ale, B. J.M.; Soudan, K.

Risk analysis is an essential tool for company safety policy. Risk analysis consists of identifying and evaluating all possible risks. The efficiency of risk analysis tools depends on the rigueur of identifying and evaluating all possible risks. The diversity in risk analysis procedures is such that

Optimizing the ASC WAN: evaluating network performance tools for comparing transport protocols.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lydick, Christopher L.

2007-07-01

The Advanced Simulation & Computing Wide Area Network (ASC WAN), which is a high delay-bandwidth network connection between US Department of Energy National Laboratories, is constantly being examined and evaluated for efficiency. One of the current transport-layer protocols which is used, TCP, was developed for traffic demands which are different from that on the ASC WAN. The Stream Control Transport Protocol (SCTP), on the other hand, has shown characteristics which make it more appealing to networks such as these. Most important, before considering a replacement for TCP on any network, a testing tool that performs well against certain criteria needs to be found. In order to try to find such a tool, two popular networking tools (Netperf v.2.4.3 & v.2.4.6 (OpenSS7 STREAMS), and Iperf v.2.0.6) were tested. These tools implement both TCP and SCTP and were evaluated using four metrics: (1) How effectively can the tool reach a throughput near the bandwidth? (2) How much of the CPU does the tool utilize during operation? (3) Is the tool freely and widely available? And, (4) Is the tool actively developed? Following the analysis of those tools, this paper goes further into explaining some recommendations and ideas for future work.

Pulmonary scanning: quantitative evaluation of pulmonary arterial flow

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Papaleo Netto, M; Fujioka, T [Sao Paulo Univ. (Brazil). Faculdade de Medicina; Dias Neto, A; Carvalho, N [Sao Paulo Univ. (Brazil). Centro de Medicina Nuclear

1974-01-01

From ten normal subjects of both sexes, the quantitative regional blood flow of the pulmonary artery was evaluated using scanning with macroaggregated radio-iodinated (/sup 131/I) albumin. It was possible to conclude that: the digital recording of data (counts/cm/sup 2/), from any particular area of interest, is the best method for this evaluation; the lung, even being a thick organ, can be well studied by quantitative scanning, since its structure doesn't hinder the passage of radiations because it is covered only by the thoracic wall; scanning can be used to evaluate regional perfusion of the pulmonary artery, based on the proportionality between density of aggregates and blood flux in the different areas; the concentration of macroaggregates on the lung's superior section never reaches more than 40% of the radioactivity of the whole lung; there is no significant difference between left and right lungs, concerning the relationship between radioactivity on the superior section and the total area and quantitative analysis of pulmonary artery flow by means of scanning is a possible, reliable, and safe technique, without distress for the patient.

Pulmonary scanning: quantitative evaluation of pulmonary arterial flow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Papaleo Netto, M.; Fujioka, T.; Dias Neto, A.; Carvalho, N.

1974-01-01

From ten normal subjects of both sexes, the quantitative regional blood flow of the pulmonary artery was evaluated using scanning with macroaggregated radio-iodinated ( 131 I) albumin. It was possible to conclude that: the digital recording of data (counts/cm 2 ), from any particular area of interest, is the best method for this evaluation; the lung, even being a thick organ, can be well studied by quantitative scanning, since its structure doesn't hinder the passage of radiations because it is covered only by the thoracic wall; scanning can be used to evaluate regional perfusion of the pulmonary artery, based on the proportionality between density of aggregates and blood flux in the different areas; the concentration of macroaggregates on the lung's superior section never reaches more than 40% of the radioactivity of the whole lung; there is no significant difference between left and right lungs, concerning the relationship between radioactivity on the superior section and the total area and quantitative analysis of pulmonary artery flow by means of scanning is a possible, reliable and safe technique, without distress for the patient [pt

iSELF : an internet-tool for self-evaluation and learner feedback

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Theunissen, N.C.M.; Stubbé, H.E.

2011-01-01

This paper describes the development of the iSELF: an Internet-tool for Self-Evaluation and Learner Feedback to stimulate self-directed learning in ubiquitous learning environments. In ubiquitous learning, learners follow their own trails of interest, scaffolded by coaches, peers and tools for

Contact pressure measurement in hand tool evaluation studies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuijt-Evers, L.F.M.; Bosch, T.

2006-01-01

In hand tool evaluation studies, several objective measurements are used. Grip force distribution and grip force are important as they give feedback about the force which has to be performed with the hand on the handle. A measurement technique -which is related to grip force measurement- is contact

Targeting malnutrition. Isotopic tools for evaluating nutrition worldwide

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kinley, D. III

1996-07-01

This booklet provides a brief description of pioneering IAEA-supported work to evaluate vitamin A and iron deficiencies, bone disease, undernutrition and obesity and the special nutritional requirements of pregnant and lactating women and their children. And while it shows that the role of the Agency remains highly specialized, to develop and transfer nuclear-based evaluation tools, each of these areas of applied research aims at improving the scientific foundations for broader national food and nutrition-related development policies and programmes

Targeting malnutrition. Isotopic tools for evaluating nutrition worldwide

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kinley, D III [ed.

1996-07-01

This booklet provides a brief description of pioneering IAEA-supported work to evaluate vitamin A and iron deficiencies, bone disease, undernutrition and obesity and the special nutritional requirements of pregnant and lactating women and their children. And while it shows that the role of the Agency remains highly specialized, to develop and transfer nuclear-based evaluation tools, each of these areas of applied research aims at improving the scientific foundations for broader national food and nutrition-related development policies and programmes.

Improving sustainability during hospital design and operation a multidisciplinary evaluation tool

CERN Document Server

Bottero, Marta; Buffoli, Maddalena; Lettieri, Emanuele

2015-01-01

This book describes the Sustainable High Quality Healthcare (SustHealth) project, which had the goal of developing an original multidisciplinary evaluation tool that can be applied to assess and improve hospitals’ overall sustainability. The comprehensive nature of the appraisal offered by this tool exceeds the scope of most current rating systems, which typically permit a thorough evaluation of relevant environmental factors when designing a new building but fail to consider social and economic impacts of the design phase or the performance of the hospital’s operational structure in these fields. The multidisciplinary evaluation system was developed, from its very inception through to its testing, by following a scientific experimental method in which a global perspective was constantly maintained, as opposed to a focus only on specific technical issues. Application of the SustHealth rating tool to a currently functioning hospital, or one under design, will identify weaknesses and guide users to potentia...

Developing a consumer evaluation tool of weight control strategy advertisements on the Internet.

Science.gov (United States)

Luevorasirikul, Kanokrat; Gray, Nicola J; Anderson, Claire W

2008-06-01

To develop two evaluation tools for weight loss and weight gain advertisements on the Internet in order to help consumers to evaluate the quality of information within these advertisements. One hundred websites identified by Internet search engines for weight loss and weight gain strategies (50 websites each) were evaluated using two specific scoring instruments, developed by adapting questions from the 'DISCERN' tool and reviewing all related weight control guidelines and advertising regulations. The validity and reliability of the adapted tools were tested. Our evaluation tools rated the information from most websites as poor quality (70%). In the case of weight loss strategies, statements about rapid (18%) and permanent (28%) weight loss caused concern as well as lack of sensible advice about dieting and a lack of product warnings (84%). Safety concerns relating to weight gain products were the lack of warnings about side effects in products containing steroids and creatine (92%). The adapted tools exhibited acceptable validity and reliability. Quality of information within weight control advertisements on the Internet was generally poor. Problems of false claims, little advice on healthy ways to modify weight and few warnings on side effects have been highlighted in this study.

Modeling Tools for Drilling, Reservoir Navigation, and Formation Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sushant Dutta

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The oil and gas industry routinely uses borehole tools for measuring or logging rock and fluid properties of geologic formations to locate hydrocarbons and maximize their production. Pore fluids in formations of interest are usually hydrocarbons or water. Resistivity logging is based on the fact that oil and gas have a substantially higher resistivity than water. The first resistivity log was acquired in 1927, and resistivity logging is still the foremost measurement used for drilling and evaluation. However, the acquisition and interpretation of resistivity logging data has grown in complexity over the years. Resistivity logging tools operate in a wide range of frequencies (from DC to GHz and encounter extremely high (several orders of magnitude conductivity contrast between the metal mandrel of the tool and the geologic formation. Typical challenges include arbitrary angles of tool inclination, full tensor electric and magnetic field measurements, and interpretation of complicated anisotropic formation properties. These challenges combine to form some of the most intractable computational electromagnetic problems in the world. Reliable, fast, and convenient numerical modeling of logging tool responses is critical for tool design, sensor optimization, virtual prototyping, and log data inversion. This spectrum of applications necessitates both depth and breadth of modeling software—from blazing fast one-dimensional (1-D modeling codes to advanced threedimensional (3-D modeling software, and from in-house developed codes to commercial modeling packages. In this paper, with the help of several examples, we demonstrate our approach for using different modeling software to address different drilling and evaluation applications. In one example, fast 1-D modeling provides proactive geosteering information from a deep-reading azimuthal propagation resistivity measurement. In the second example, a 3-D model with multiple vertical resistive fractures

The Electrical Self-Potential Method as a Non-Intrusive Snow-Hydrological Sensor

Science.gov (United States)

Kulessa, B.; Thompson, S. S.; Luethi, M. P.; Essery, R.

2015-12-01

Building on growing momentum in the application of geophysical techniques to snow problems and, specifically, on new theory and an electrical geophysical snow hydrological model published recently; we demonstrate for the first time that the electrical self-potential geophysical technique can sense in-situ bulk meltwater fluxes. This has broad and immediate implications for snow measurement practice, modelling and operational snow forecasting. Our ability to measure, quantify and assimilate hydrological properties and processes of snow in operational models is disproportionally poor compared to the significance of seasonal snowmelt as a global water resource and major risk factor in flood and avalanche forecasting. Encouraged by recent theoretical, modelling and laboratory work, we show here that the diurnal evolution of aerially-distributed self-potential magnitudes closely track those of bulk meltwater fluxes in melting in-situ snowpacks at Rhone and Jungfraujoch glaciers, Switzerland. Numerical modelling infers temporally-evolving liquid water contents in the snowpacks on successive days in close agreement with snow-pit measurements. Muting previous concerns, the governing physical and chemical properties of snow and meltwater became temporally invariant for modelling purposes. Because measurement procedure is straightforward and readily automated for continuous monitoring over significant spatial scales, we conclude that the self-potential geophysical method is a highly-promising non-intrusive snow-hydrological sensor for measurement practice, modelling and operational snow forecasting.

A Novel Tool for High-Throughput Screening of Granulocyte-Specific Antibodies Using the Automated Flow Cytometric Granulocyte Immunofluorescence Test (Flow-GIFT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuan Duc Nguyen

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI is a severe complication related with blood transfusion. TRALI has usually been associated with antibodies against leukocytes. The flow cytometric granulocyte immunofluorescence test (Flow-GIFT has been introduced for routine use when investigating patients and healthy blood donors. Here we describe a novel tool in the automation of the Flow-GIFT that enables a rapid screening of blood donations. We analyzed 440 sera from healthy female blood donors for the presence of granulocyte antibodies. As positive controls, 12 sera with known antibodies against anti-HNA-1a, -b, -2a; and -3a were additionally investigated. Whole-blood samples from HNA-typed donors were collected and the test cells isolated using cell sedimentation in a Ficoll density gradient. Subsequently, leukocytes were incubated with the respective serum and binding of antibodies was detected using FITC-conjugated antihuman antibody. 7-AAD was used to exclude dead cells. Pipetting steps were automated using the Biomek NXp Multichannel Automation Workstation. All samples were prepared in the 96-deep well plates and analyzed by flow cytometry. The standard granulocyte immunofluorescence test (GIFT and granulocyte agglutination test (GAT were also performed as reference methods. Sixteen sera were positive in the automated Flow-GIFT, while five of these sera were negative in the standard GIFT (anti—HNA 3a, n = 3; anti—HNA-1b, n = 1 and GAT (anti—HNA-2a, n = 1. The automated Flow-GIFT was able to detect all granulocyte antibodies, which could be only detected in GIFT in combination with GAT. In serial dilution tests, the automated Flow-GIFT detected the antibodies at higher dilutions than the reference methods GIFT and GAT. The Flow-GIFT proved to be feasible for automation. This novel high-throughput system allows an effective antigranulocyte antibody detection in a large donor population in order to prevent TRALI due to transfusion of

A novel tool for high-throughput screening of granulocyte-specific antibodies using the automated flow cytometric granulocyte immunofluorescence test (Flow-GIFT).

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Xuan Duc; Dengler, Thomas; Schulz-Linkholt, Monika; Klüter, Harald

2011-02-03

Transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI) is a severe complication related with blood transfusion. TRALI has usually been associated with antibodies against leukocytes. The flow cytometric granulocyte immunofluorescence test (Flow-GIFT) has been introduced for routine use when investigating patients and healthy blood donors. Here we describe a novel tool in the automation of the Flow-GIFT that enables a rapid screening of blood donations. We analyzed 440 sera from healthy female blood donors for the presence of granulocyte antibodies. As positive controls, 12 sera with known antibodies against anti-HNA-1a, -b, -2a; and -3a were additionally investigated. Whole-blood samples from HNA-typed donors were collected and the test cells isolated using cell sedimentation in a Ficoll density gradient. Subsequently, leukocytes were incubated with the respective serum and binding of antibodies was detected using FITC-conjugated antihuman antibody. 7-AAD was used to exclude dead cells. Pipetting steps were automated using the Biomek NXp Multichannel Automation Workstation. All samples were prepared in the 96-deep well plates and analyzed by flow cytometry. The standard granulocyte immunofluorescence test (GIFT) and granulocyte agglutination test (GAT) were also performed as reference methods. Sixteen sera were positive in the automated Flow-GIFT, while five of these sera were negative in the standard GIFT (anti-HNA 3a, n = 3; anti-HNA-1b, n = 1) and GAT (anti-HNA-2a, n = 1). The automated Flow-GIFT was able to detect all granulocyte antibodies, which could be only detected in GIFT in combination with GAT. In serial dilution tests, the automated Flow-GIFT detected the antibodies at higher dilutions than the reference methods GIFT and GAT. The Flow-GIFT proved to be feasible for automation. This novel high-throughput system allows an effective antigranulocyte antibody detection in a large donor population in order to prevent TRALI due to transfusion of blood products.

Isotope specific arbitrary material flow meter

Science.gov (United States)

Barty, Christopher P. J.; Post, John C.; Jones, Edwin

2016-10-25

A laser-based mono-energetic gamma-ray source is used to provide non-destructive and non-intrusive, quantitative determination of the absolute amount of a specific isotope contained within pipe as part of a moving fluid or quasi-fluid material stream.

Open source tools for ATR development and performance evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Baumann, James M.; Dilsavor, Ronald L.; Stubbles, James; Mossing, John C.

2002-07-01

Early in almost every engineering project, a decision must be made about tools; should I buy off-the-shelf tools or should I develop my own. Either choice can involve significant cost and risk. Off-the-shelf tools may be readily available, but they can be expensive to purchase and to maintain licenses, and may not be flexible enough to satisfy all project requirements. On the other hand, developing new tools permits great flexibility, but it can be time- (and budget-) consuming, and the end product still may not work as intended. Open source software has the advantages of both approaches without many of the pitfalls. This paper examines the concept of open source software, including its history, unique culture, and informal yet closely followed conventions. These characteristics influence the quality and quantity of software available, and ultimately its suitability for serious ATR development work. We give an example where Python, an open source scripting language, and OpenEV, a viewing and analysis tool for geospatial data, have been incorporated into ATR performance evaluation projects. While this case highlights the successful use of open source tools, we also offer important insight into risks associated with this approach.

General practice ethnicity data: evaluation of a tool

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Neuwelt P

2014-03-01

Full Text Available INTRODUCTION: There is evidence that the collection of ethnicity data in New Zealand primary care is variable and that data recording in practices does not always align with the procedures outlined in the Ethnicity Data Protocols for the Health and Disability Sector. In 2010, The Ministry of Health funded the development of a tool to audit the collection of ethnicity data in primary care. The aim of this study was to pilot the Ethnicity Data Audit Tool (EAT in general practice. The goal was to evaluate the tool and identify recommendations for its improvement. METHODS: Eight general practices in the Waitemata District Health Board region participated in the EAT pilot. Feedback about the pilot process was gathered by questionnaires and interviews, to gain an understanding of practices’ experiences in using the tool. Questionnaire and interview data were analysed using a simple analytical framework and a general inductive method. FINDINGS: General practice receptionists, practice managers and general practitioners participated in the pilot. Participants found the pilot process challenging but enlightening. The majority felt that the EAT was a useful quality improvement tool for handling patient ethnicity data. Larger practices were the most positive about the tool. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that, with minor improvements to the toolkit, the EAT has the potential to lead to significant improvements in the quality of ethnicity data collection and recording in New Zealand general practices. Other system-level factors also need to be addressed.

New tools for evaluating LQAS survey designs

OpenAIRE

Hund, Lauren

2014-01-01

Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) surveys have become increasingly popular in global health care applications. Incorporating Bayesian ideas into LQAS survey design, such as using reasonable prior beliefs about the distribution of an indicator, can improve the selection of design parameters and decision rules. In this paper, a joint frequentist and Bayesian framework is proposed for evaluating LQAS classification accuracy and informing survey design parameters. Simple software tools are pr...

A Thermo-Hydraulic Tool for Automatic Virtual Hazop Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pugi L.

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Development of complex lubrication systems in the Oil&Gas industry has reached high levels of competitiveness in terms of requested performances and reliability. In particular, the use of HazOp (acronym of Hazard and Operability analysis represents a decisive factor to evaluate safety and reliability of plants. The HazOp analysis is a structured and systematic examination of a planned or existing operation in order to identify and evaluate problems that may represent risks to personnel or equipment. In particular, P&ID schemes (acronym of Piping and Instrument Diagram according to regulation in force ISO 14617 are used to evaluate the design of the plant in order to increase its safety and reliability in different operating conditions. The use of a simulation tool can drastically increase speed, efficiency and reliability of the design process. In this work, a tool, called TTH lib (acronym of Transient Thermal Hydraulic Library for the 1-D simulation of thermal hydraulic plants is presented. The proposed tool is applied to the analysis of safety relevant components of compressor and pumping units, such as lubrication circuits. Opposed to the known commercial products, TTH lib has been customized in order to ease simulation of complex interactions with digital logic components and plant controllers including their sensors and measurement systems. In particular, the proposed tool is optimized for fixed step execution and fast prototyping of Real Time code both for testing and production purposes. TTH lib can be used as a standard SimScape-Simulink library of components optimized and specifically designed in accordance with the P&ID definitions. Finally, an automatic code generation procedure has been developed, so TTH simulation models can be directly assembled from the P&ID schemes and technical documentation including detailed informations of sensor and measurement system.

Uncertainty Quantification of Turbulence Model Closure Coefficients for Transonic Wall-Bounded Flows

Science.gov (United States)

Schaefer, John; West, Thomas; Hosder, Serhat; Rumsey, Christopher; Carlson, Jan-Renee; Kleb, William

2015-01-01

The goal of this work was to quantify the uncertainty and sensitivity of commonly used turbulence models in Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes codes due to uncertainty in the values of closure coefficients for transonic, wall-bounded flows and to rank the contribution of each coefficient to uncertainty in various output flow quantities of interest. Specifically, uncertainty quantification of turbulence model closure coefficients was performed for transonic flow over an axisymmetric bump at zero degrees angle of attack and the RAE 2822 transonic airfoil at a lift coefficient of 0.744. Three turbulence models were considered: the Spalart-Allmaras Model, Wilcox (2006) k-w Model, and the Menter Shear-Stress Trans- port Model. The FUN3D code developed by NASA Langley Research Center was used as the flow solver. The uncertainty quantification analysis employed stochastic expansions based on non-intrusive polynomial chaos as an efficient means of uncertainty propagation. Several integrated and point-quantities are considered as uncertain outputs for both CFD problems. All closure coefficients were treated as epistemic uncertain variables represented with intervals. Sobol indices were used to rank the relative contributions of each closure coefficient to the total uncertainty in the output quantities of interest. This study identified a number of closure coefficients for each turbulence model for which more information will reduce the amount of uncertainty in the output significantly for transonic, wall-bounded flows.

Hydrodynamics of gas-liquid slug flow along vertical pipes in turbulent regime-An experimental study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mayor, T.S.; Ferreira, V.; Pinto, A.M.F.R. [Centro de Estudos de Fenomenos de Transporte, Departamento de Engenharia Quimica, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 4200-465 Porto (Portugal); Campos, J.B.L.M. [Centro de Estudos de Fenomenos de Transporte, Departamento de Engenharia Quimica, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias 4200-465 Porto (Portugal)], E-mail: jmc@fe.up.pt

2008-08-15

An experimental study on free-bubbling gas-liquid (air-water) vertical slug flow was developed using a non-intrusive image analysis technique. The flow pattern in the near-wake of the bubbles and in the main liquid between bubbles was turbulent. A single correlation for the bubble-to-bubble interaction is proposed, relating the trailing bubble velocity to the length of the liquid slug ahead of the bubble. The proposed correlation is shown to be independent of column diameter, column vertical coordinate, superficial liquid and gas velocities and the velocity and length of the leading bubble. Frequency distribution curves, averages, modes and standard deviations are reported, for distributions of bubble velocity, bubble length and liquid slug length, for each experimental condition studied. Good agreement was found between theoretical predictions and experimental results regarding the upward velocity of undisturbed bubbles, in a 0.032 m internal diameter column. A considerable discrepancy was found, though, for a 0.052 m internal diameter column. The acquired experimental data are crucial for the development and validation of a robust slug flow simulator.

Hydrodynamics of gas-liquid slug flow along vertical pipes in turbulent regime-An experimental study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mayor, T.S.; Ferreira, V.; Pinto, A.M.F.R.; Campos, J.B.L.M.

2008-01-01

An experimental study on free-bubbling gas-liquid (air-water) vertical slug flow was developed using a non-intrusive image analysis technique. The flow pattern in the near-wake of the bubbles and in the main liquid between bubbles was turbulent. A single correlation for the bubble-to-bubble interaction is proposed, relating the trailing bubble velocity to the length of the liquid slug ahead of the bubble. The proposed correlation is shown to be independent of column diameter, column vertical coordinate, superficial liquid and gas velocities and the velocity and length of the leading bubble. Frequency distribution curves, averages, modes and standard deviations are reported, for distributions of bubble velocity, bubble length and liquid slug length, for each experimental condition studied. Good agreement was found between theoretical predictions and experimental results regarding the upward velocity of undisturbed bubbles, in a 0.032 m internal diameter column. A considerable discrepancy was found, though, for a 0.052 m internal diameter column. The acquired experimental data are crucial for the development and validation of a robust slug flow simulator

Evaluation of the FAA Advanced Flow Control Procedures.

Science.gov (United States)

1972-01-01

The report is an evaluation of the present FAA Advanced Flow Control Procedures (AFCP), based on data gathered from its implementation on February 5, 1971 and on a fast-time digital simulation of traffic feeding into the NY airports on that day. The ...

Adverse Condition and Critical Event Prediction in Cranfield Multiphase Flow Facility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Egedorf, Søren; Shaker, Hamid Reza

2017-01-01

, or even to the environment. To cope with these, adverse condition and critical event prediction plays an important role. Adverse Condition and Critical Event Prediction Toolbox (ACCEPT) is a tool which has been recently developed by NASA to allow for a timely prediction of an adverse event, with low false...... alarm and missed detection rates. While ACCEPT has shown to be an effective tool in some applications, its performance has not yet been evaluated on practical well-known benchmark examples. In this paper, ACCEPT is used for adverse condition and critical event prediction in a multiphase flow facility....... Cranfield multiphase flow facility is known to be an interesting benchmark which has been used to evaluate different methods from statistical process monitoring. In order to allow for the data from the flow facility to be used in ACCEPT, methods such as Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), PCA-and CVA...

Using Crossflow for Flow Measurements and Flow Analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gurevich, A.; Chudnovsky, L.; Lopeza, A. [Advanced Measurement and Analysis Group Inc., Ontario (Canada); Park, M. H. [Sungjin Nuclear Engineering Co., Ltd., Gyeongju (Korea, Republic of)

2016-10-15

Ultrasonic Cross Correlation Flow Measurements are based on a flow measurement method that is based on measuring the transport time of turbulent structures. The cross correlation flow meter CROSSFLOW is designed and manufactured by Advanced Measurement and Analysis Group Inc. (AMAG), and is used around the world for various flow measurements. Particularly, CROSSFLOW has been used for boiler feedwater flow measurements, including Measurement Uncertainty Recovery (MUR) reactor power uprate in 14 nuclear reactors in the United States and in Europe. More than 100 CROSSFLOW transducers are currently installed in CANDU reactors around the world, including Wolsung NPP in Korea, for flow verification in ShutDown System (SDS) channels. Other CROSSFLOW applications include reactor coolant gross flow measurements, reactor channel flow measurements in all channels in CANDU reactors, boiler blowdown flow measurement, and service water flow measurement. Cross correlation flow measurement is a robust ultrasonic flow measurement tool used in nuclear power plants around the world for various applications. Mathematical modeling of the CROSSFLOW agrees well with laboratory test results and can be used as a tool in determining the effect of flow conditions on CROSSFLOW output and on designing and optimizing laboratory testing, in order to ensure traceability of field flow measurements to laboratory testing within desirable uncertainty.

CFD Validation and Flow Control of RAE-M2129 S-Duct Diffuser Using CREATETM-AV Kestrel Simulation Tools

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pooneh Aref

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The flow physics modeling and validation of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE subsonic intake Model 2129 (M2129 are presented. This intake has an 18 inches long S duct with a 5.4 inches offset, an external and an internal lip, forward and rear extended ducts, and a center-positioned bullet before the outlet. Steady-state and unsteady experimental data are available for this duct. The measurements include engine face conditions (pressure recovery, static pressure to free-stream total pressure ratio, and distortion coefficient at the worst 60 ∘ sector or DC60, as well as wall static pressure data along the duct. The intake has been modeled with HPCMP CREATE TM -AV Kestrel simulation tools. The validation results are presented including the effects of turbulence models on predictions. In general, very good agreement (difference errors are less than 6% was found between predictions and measurements. Secondary flow at the first bend and a region of flow separation are predicted at the starboard wall with an averaged DC60 coefficient of 0.2945 at the engine face. Next, a passive and an active flow control method are computationally investigated. The passive one uses vane-type vortex generators and the active one has synthetic jet actuators. The results show that considered passive and active flow control methods reduce the distortion coefficient at the engine face and the worst 60 ∘ sector to 0.1361 and 0.0881, respectively. The flow control performance trends agree with those obtained in experiments as well. These results give confidence to apply the Kestrel simulation tools for the intake design studies of new and unconventional vehicles and hence to reduce the uncertainties during their flight testing.

Simulating nailfold capillaroscopy sequences to evaluate algorithms for blood flow estimation.

Science.gov (United States)

Tresadern, P A; Berks, M; Murray, A K; Dinsdale, G; Taylor, C J; Herrick, A L

2013-01-01

The effects of systemic sclerosis (SSc)--a disease of the connective tissue causing blood flow problems that can require amputation of the fingers--can be observed indirectly by imaging the capillaries at the nailfold, though taking quantitative measures such as blood flow to diagnose the disease and monitor its progression is not easy. Optical flow algorithms may be applied, though without ground truth (i.e. known blood flow) it is hard to evaluate their accuracy. We propose an image model that generates realistic capillaroscopy videos with known flow, and use this model to quantify the effect of flow rate, cell density and contrast (among others) on estimated flow. This resource will help researchers to design systems that are robust under real-world conditions.

Evaluation of Phosphorus Site Assessment Tools: Lessons from the USA.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharpley, Andrew; Kleinman, Peter; Baffaut, Claire; Beegle, Doug; Bolster, Carl; Collick, Amy; Easton, Zachary; Lory, John; Nelson, Nathan; Osmond, Deanna; Radcliffe, David; Veith, Tamie; Weld, Jennifer

2017-11-01

Critical source area identification through phosphorus (P) site assessment is a fundamental part of modern nutrient management planning in the United States, yet there has been only sparse testing of the many versions of the P Index that now exist. Each P site assessment tool was developed to be applicable across a range of field conditions found in a given geographic area, making evaluation extremely difficult. In general, evaluation with in-field monitoring data has been limited, focusing primarily on corroborating manure and fertilizer "source" factors. Thus, a multiregional effort (Chesapeake Bay, Heartland, and Southern States) was undertaken to evaluate P Indices using a combination of limited field data, as well as output from simulation models (i.e., Agricultural Policy Environmental eXtender, Annual P Loss Estimator, Soil and Water Assessment Tool [SWAT], and Texas Best Management Practice Evaluation Tool [TBET]) to compare against P Index ratings. These comparisons show promise for advancing the weighting and formulation of qualitative P Index components but require careful vetting of the simulation models. Differences among regional conclusions highlight model strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Southern States region found that, although models could simulate the effects of nutrient management on P runoff, they often more accurately predicted hydrology than total P loads. Furthermore, SWAT and TBET overpredicted particulate P and underpredicted dissolved P, resulting in correct total P predictions but for the wrong reasons. Experience in the United States supports expanded regional approaches to P site assessment, assuming closely coordinated efforts that engage science, policy, and implementation communities, but limited scientific validity exists for uniform national P site assessment tools at the present time. Copyright © by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, Inc.

Flow status of three transboundary rivers in Northern Greece as a tool for hydro-diplomacy

Science.gov (United States)

Hatzigiannakis, Eyaggelos; Hatzispiroglou, Ioannis; Arampatzis, Georgios; Ilia, Andreas; Pantelakis, Dimitrios; Filintas, Agathos; Panagopoulos, Andreas

2015-04-01

The aim of this paper is to examine how the river flow monitoring consists a tool for hydro-diplomacy. Management of transboundary catchments and the demand of common water resources, often comprise the cause of conflicts and tension threatening the peaceful coexistence of nations. The Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EU sets a base for water management contributing to common approaches, common goals, common principles as well as providing new definitions and measures for Europe's water resources. In northern Greece the main renewable resources are "imported" (over 25% of its water reserves) and for this reason the implementation of continuous flow measurements throughout the year is necessary, even though difficult to achieve. This paper focuses on the three largest transboundary rivers in Northern Greece. Axios and Strymonas river flow across the region of Central Macedonia in Northern Greece. Axios flows from FYROM to Greece, and Strymonas from Bulgaria to Greece. Nestos river flows from Bulgaria to Greece. The Greek part is in the region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace in Northern Greece. Significant productive agricultural areas around these rivers are irrigated from them so they are very important for the local society. Measurements of the river flow velocity and the flow depth have been made at bridges. The frequency of the measurements is roughly monthly, because it is expected a significant change in the depth flow and discharge. A series of continuously flow measure-ments were performed during 2013 and 2014 using flowmeters (Valeport and OTT type). The cross-section characteristics, the river flow velocity of segments and the mean water flow velocity and discharge total profile were measured and calculated re-spectively. Measurements are conducted in the framework of the national water resources monitoring network, which is realised in compliance to the Water Framework Directive under the supervision and coordination of the Hellenic Ministry for the

Design of Friction Stir Welding Tool for Avoiding Root Flaws.

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Shude; Xing, Jingwei; Yue, Yumei; Ma, Yinan; Zhang, Liguo; Gao, Shuangsheng

2013-12-12

In order to improve material flow behavior during friction stir welding and avoid root flaws of weld, a tool with a half-screw pin and a tool with a tapered-flute pin are suggested. The effect of flute geometry in tool pins on material flow velocity is investigated by the software ANSYS FLUENT. Numerical simulation results show that high material flow velocity appears near the rotational tool and material flow velocity rapidly decreases with the increase of distance away from the axis of the tool. Maximum material flow velocity by the tool with the tapered-flute pin appears at the beginning position of flute and the velocity decreases with the increase of flow length in flute. From the view of increasing the flow velocity of material near the bottom of the workpiece or in the middle of workpiece, the tool with the half-screw pin and the tool with the tapered-flute pin are both better than the conventional tool.

Evaluation of flow accelerated corrosion by coupled analysis of corrosion and flow dynamics (1), major features of coupled analysis and application for evaluation of wall thinning rate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Naitoh, Masanori; Uchida, Shunsuke; Okada, Hidetoshi; Uehara, Yasushi; Koshizuka, Seiichi

2009-01-01

Six calculation steps have been prepared for predicting flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) occurrence and evaluating wall thinning rate. (1) Flow pattern and temperature in each elemental volume along the flow path are obtained with a 1D plant system code, (2) Corrosive conditions, e.g., oxygen concentration and electrochemical corrosion potential (ECP) along the flow path are calculated with a hydrazine-oxygen reaction code, (3) Precise flow patterns and mass transfer coefficients at the structure surface are calculated with a 3D CFD code, (4) Danger zones are evaluated by combining major FAC parameters, (5) Wall thinning rates are calculated with the coupled models of static electrochemical analysis and dynamic double oxide layer analysis at the identified danger zone, and then, (6) Residual life and effects of countermeasures can be evaluated. Anodic and cathodic current densities and ECPs were calculated with the static electrochemistry model, and ferrous ion release rate determined by the anodic current density was used as input for the dynamic double oxide layer model. Thickness of the oxide film and its characteristics determined by the dynamic double oxide layer model were used for the electrochemistry model to determine the resistances of cathodic current from the bulk to the surface and anodic current from the surface to the bulk. The calculated results of the coupled models had been compared with the data measured at operating Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) plants and it was demonstrated that the calculated results had good agreements with the measured ones. 6 step-evaluation procedures for liquid droplet impingement (LDI) were also proposed. (author)

Development and Evaluation of Secure Socket Layer Visualization Tool with Packet Capturing Function

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arai Masayuki

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Secure Socket Layer (SSL has become a fundamental technology that secures browser-processed personal details sent to the server. As a result, communication and computer engineers are advised to learn the protocol. However, understanding SSL is very difficult because of its intricate communication procedure. To solve this problem, we developed a visualization tool for understanding SSL. This paper describes the design, implementation methods, and evaluation of the tool. The evaluation results show that the visualization tool is effective for learning SSL.

Nuclear Science References as a Tool for Data Evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Winchell, D.F.

2005-01-01

For several decades, the Nuclear Science References database has been maintained as a tool for data evaluators and for the wider pure and applied research community. This contribution will describe the database and recent developments in web-based access

Lagrangian Flow Network: a new tool to evaluate connectivity and understand the structural complexity of marine populations

Science.gov (United States)

Rossi, V.; Dubois, M.; Ser-Giacomi, E.; Monroy, P.; Lopez, C.; Hernandez-Garcia, E.

2016-02-01

Assessing the spatial structure and dynamics of marine populations is still a major challenge for ecologists. The necessity to manage marine resources from a large-scale perspective and considering the whole ecosystem is now recognized but the absence of appropriate tools to address these objectives limits the implementation of globally pertinent conservation planning. Inspired from Network Theory, we present a new methodological framework called Lagrangian Flow Network which allows a systematic characterization of multi-scale dispersal and connectivity of early life history stages of marine organisms. The network is constructed by subdividing the basin into an ensemble of equal-area subregions which are interconnected through the transport of propagules by ocean currents. The present version allows the identification of hydrodynamical provinces and the computation of various connectivity proxies measuring retention and exchange of larvae. Due to our spatial discretization and subsequent network representation, as well as our Lagrangian approach, further methodological improvements are handily accessible. These future developments include a parametrization of habitat patchiness, the implementation of realistic larval traits and the consideration of abiotic variables (e.g. temperature, salinity, planktonic resources...) and their effects on larval production and survival. While the model is potentially tunable to any species whose biological traits and ecological preferences are precisely known, it can also be used in a more generic configuration by efficient computing and analysis of a large number of experiments with relevant ecological parameters. It permits a better characterization of population connectivity at multiple scales and it informs its ecological and managerial interpretations.

A new flow-diverter(the FloWise): In vivo evaluation in an elastase-induced rabbit aneurysm model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Byung Moon; Kim, Dong Joon; Kim, Dong Ik [Severance Hospital, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2016-02-15

We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a newly developed, partially retrievable flow-diverter (the FloWise) in an elastase-induced rabbit aneurysm model. We developed a partially retrievable flow diverter composed of 48 strands of Nitinol and platinum wire. The FloWise is compatible with any microcatheter of 0.027-inch inner diameter, and is retrievable up to 70% deployment. The efficacy and safety of the FloWise were evaluated in the elastase-induced rabbit aneurysm model. The rate of technical success (full coverage of aneurysm neck) and assessment of aneurysm occlusion and stent patency was conducted by angiograms and histologic examinations at the 1-month, 3-month, and 6-month follow-up. The patency of small arterial branches (intercostal or lumbar arteries) covered by the FloWise were also assessed in the 5 subjects. We attempted FloWise insertion in a total of 32 aneurysm models. FloWise placement was successful in 31 subjects (96.9%). Two stents (6.2%) were occluded at the 3-month follow-up, but there was no evidence of in-stent stenosis in other subjects. All stented aneurysms showed progressive occlusion: grade I (complete aneurysm occlusion) in 44.4% and grade II (aneurysm occlusion > 90%) in 55.6% at 1 month; grade I in 90% and II in 10% at 3 months; and grade I in 90% and II in 10% at 6 months. All small arterial branches covered by the FloWise remained patent. A newly developed, partially retrievable flow-diverter seems to be a safe and effective tool of aneurysm occlusion, as evaluated in the rabbit aneurysm model.

Evaluation of the flow-accelerated corrosion downstream of an orifice. 1. Measurements and numerical analysis of flow field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Utanohara, Yoichi; Nagaya, Yukinori; Nakamura, Akira; Murase, Michio

2008-01-01

In this study, in order to evaluate the effects of flow field on corrosion rate due to flow accelerated corrosion (FAC), an orifice flow was measured and calculated. The diameter of pipe is 50 mm and that of the orifice is 24.3 mm, and flow velocity in a water loop was set at 2.41 m/s. Flow field was measured by laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV), and compared with a calculation for the same flow conditions. Measurements of wall shear stress downstream of the orifice was also planed. The calculated velocity distribution of standard k-□ agreed qualitatively with PIV data and quantitatively with LDV data. Instantaneous flow field measured by PIV showed vortices around the jet from the orifice and some of them reached near the pipe wall. (author)

Reliable tool life measurements in turning - an application to cutting fluid efficiency evaluation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axinte, Dragos A.; Belluco, Walter; De Chiffre, Leonardo

2001-01-01

The paper proposes a method to obtain reliable measurements of tool life in turning, discussing some aspects related to experimental procedure and measurement accuracy. The method (i) allows and experimental determination of the extended Taylor's equation, with a limited set of experiments and (ii......) provides efficiency evaluation. Six cutting oils, five of which formulated from vegetable basestock, were evaluated in turning. Experiments were run in a range of cutting parameters. according to a 2, 3-1 factorial design, machining AISI 316L stainless steel with coated carbide tools. Tool life...

International Trade Modelling Using Open Flow Networks: A Flow-Distance Based Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Bin; Zhang, Jiang; Li, Yixiao; Zheng, Qiuhua; Li, Xingsen

2015-01-01

This paper models and analyzes international trade flows using open flow networks (OFNs) with the approaches of flow distances, which provide a novel perspective and effective tools for the study of international trade. We discuss the establishment of OFNs of international trade from two coupled viewpoints: the viewpoint of trading commodity flow and that of money flow. Based on the novel model with flow distance approaches, meaningful insights are gained. First, by introducing the concepts of trade trophic levels and niches, countries' roles and positions in the global supply chains (or value-added chains) can be evaluated quantitatively. We find that the distributions of trading "trophic levels" have the similar clustering pattern for different types of commodities, and summarize some regularities between money flow and commodity flow viewpoints. Second, we find that active and competitive countries trade a wide spectrum of products, while inactive and underdeveloped countries trade a limited variety of products. Besides, some abnormal countries import many types of goods, which the vast majority of countries do not need to import. Third, harmonic node centrality is proposed and we find the phenomenon of centrality stratification. All the results illustrate the usefulness of the model of OFNs with its network approaches for investigating international trade flows.

An evaluation about the tools of doses calculation and future needs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thomassin, A.; Merle-Szeremeta, A.

1999-01-01

The purpose of this communication is to give an image of the situation in tools for doses calculation, and to look to the future. The Institute of Protection and Nuclear Safety, with its mission of dosimetric impact evaluation of any radioactive release or radioactive contamination is led to use numerous calculation tools. It appeared useful to take the stock of the situation on tools used at the I.P.S.N. but also out of the I.P.S.N.. (N.C.)

''A Parallel Adaptive Simulation Tool for Two Phase Steady State Reacting Flows in Industrial Boilers and Furnaces''; FINAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Michael J. Bockelie

2002-01-01

This DOE SBIR Phase II final report summarizes research that has been performed to develop a parallel adaptive tool for modeling steady, two phase turbulent reacting flow. The target applications for the new tool are full scale, fossil-fuel fired boilers and furnaces such as those used in the electric utility industry, chemical process industry and mineral/metal process industry. The type of analyses to be performed on these systems are engineering calculations to evaluate the impact on overall furnace performance due to operational, process or equipment changes. To develop a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of an industrial scale furnace requires a carefully designed grid that will capture all of the large and small scale features of the flowfield. Industrial systems are quite large, usually measured in tens of feet, but contain numerous burners, air injection ports, flames and localized behavior with dimensions that are measured in inches or fractions of inches. To create an accurate computational model of such systems requires capturing length scales within the flow field that span several orders of magnitude. In addition, to create an industrially useful model, the grid can not contain too many grid points - the model must be able to execute on an inexpensive desktop PC in a matter of days. An adaptive mesh provides a convenient means to create a grid that can capture both fine flow field detail within a very large domain with a ''reasonable'' number of grid points. However, the use of an adaptive mesh requires the development of a new flow solver. To create the new simulation tool, we have combined existing reacting CFD modeling software with new software based on emerging block structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) technologies developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Specifically, we combined: -physical models, modeling expertise, and software from existing combustion simulation codes used by Reaction Engineering International

Disposal systems evaluations and tool development : Engineered Barrier System (EBS) evaluation.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rutqvist, Jonny (LBNL); Liu, Hui-Hai (LBNL); Steefel, Carl I. (LBNL); Serrano de Caro, M. A. (LLNL); Caporuscio, Florie Andre (LANL); Birkholzer, Jens T. (LBNL); Blink, James A. (LLNL); Sutton, Mark A. (LLNL); Xu, Hongwu (LANL); Buscheck, Thomas A. (LLNL); Levy, Schon S. (LANL); Tsang, Chin-Fu (LBNL); Sonnenthal, Eric (LBNL); Halsey, William G. (LLNL); Jove-Colon, Carlos F.; Wolery, Thomas J. (LLNL)

2011-01-01

Key components of the nuclear fuel cycle are short-term storage and long-term disposal of nuclear waste. The latter encompasses the immobilization of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and radioactive waste streams generated by various phases of the nuclear fuel cycle, and the safe and permanent disposition of these waste forms in geological repository environments. The engineered barrier system (EBS) plays a very important role in the long-term isolation of nuclear waste in geological repository environments. EBS concepts and their interactions with the natural barrier are inherently important to the long-term performance assessment of the safety case where nuclear waste disposition needs to be evaluated for time periods of up to one million years. Making the safety case needed in the decision-making process for the recommendation and the eventual embracement of a disposal system concept requires a multi-faceted integration of knowledge and evidence-gathering to demonstrate the required confidence level in a deep geological disposal site and to evaluate long-term repository performance. The focus of this report is the following: (1) Evaluation of EBS in long-term disposal systems in deep geologic environments with emphasis on the multi-barrier concept; (2) Evaluation of key parameters in the characterization of EBS performance; (3) Identification of key knowledge gaps and uncertainties; and (4) Evaluation of tools and modeling approaches for EBS processes and performance. The above topics will be evaluated through the analysis of the following: (1) Overview of EBS concepts for various NW disposal systems; (2) Natural and man-made analogs, room chemistry, hydrochemistry of deep subsurface environments, and EBS material stability in near-field environments; (3) Reactive Transport and Coupled Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) processes in EBS; and (4) Thermal analysis toolkit, metallic barrier degradation mode survey, and development of a Disposal Systems

Disposal systems evaluations and tool development: Engineered Barrier System (EBS) evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rutqvist, Jonny; Liu, Hui-Hai; Steefel, Carl I.; Serrano de Caro, M.A.; Caporuscio, Florie Andre; Birkholzer, Jens T.; Blink, James A.; Sutton, Mark A.; Xu, Hongwu; Buscheck, Thomas A.; Levy, Schon S.; Tsang, Chin-Fu; Sonnenthal, Eric; Halsey, William G.; Jove-Colon, Carlos F.; Wolery, Thomas J.

2011-01-01

Key components of the nuclear fuel cycle are short-term storage and long-term disposal of nuclear waste. The latter encompasses the immobilization of used nuclear fuel (UNF) and radioactive waste streams generated by various phases of the nuclear fuel cycle, and the safe and permanent disposition of these waste forms in geological repository environments. The engineered barrier system (EBS) plays a very important role in the long-term isolation of nuclear waste in geological repository environments. EBS concepts and their interactions with the natural barrier are inherently important to the long-term performance assessment of the safety case where nuclear waste disposition needs to be evaluated for time periods of up to one million years. Making the safety case needed in the decision-making process for the recommendation and the eventual embracement of a disposal system concept requires a multi-faceted integration of knowledge and evidence-gathering to demonstrate the required confidence level in a deep geological disposal site and to evaluate long-term repository performance. The focus of this report is the following: (1) Evaluation of EBS in long-term disposal systems in deep geologic environments with emphasis on the multi-barrier concept; (2) Evaluation of key parameters in the characterization of EBS performance; (3) Identification of key knowledge gaps and uncertainties; and (4) Evaluation of tools and modeling approaches for EBS processes and performance. The above topics will be evaluated through the analysis of the following: (1) Overview of EBS concepts for various NW disposal systems; (2) Natural and man-made analogs, room chemistry, hydrochemistry of deep subsurface environments, and EBS material stability in near-field environments; (3) Reactive Transport and Coupled Thermal-Hydrological-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) processes in EBS; and (4) Thermal analysis toolkit, metallic barrier degradation mode survey, and development of a Disposal Systems

Content Validation and Evaluation of an Endovascular Teamwork Assessment Tool.

Science.gov (United States)

Hull, L; Bicknell, C; Patel, K; Vyas, R; Van Herzeele, I; Sevdalis, N; Rudarakanchana, N

2016-07-01

To modify, content validate, and evaluate a teamwork assessment tool for use in endovascular surgery. A multistage, multimethod study was conducted. Stage 1 included expert review and modification of the existing Observational Teamwork Assessment for Surgery (OTAS) tool. Stage 2 included identification of additional exemplar behaviours contributing to effective teamwork and enhanced patient safety in endovascular surgery (using real-time observation, focus groups, and semistructured interviews of multidisciplinary teams). Stage 3 included content validation of exemplar behaviours using expert consensus according to established psychometric recommendations and evaluation of structure, content, feasibility, and usability of the Endovascular Observational Teamwork Assessment Tool (Endo-OTAS) by an expert multidisciplinary panel. Stage 4 included final team expert review of exemplars. OTAS core team behaviours were maintained (communication, coordination, cooperation, leadership team monitoring). Of the 114 OTAS behavioural exemplars, 19 were modified, four removed, and 39 additional endovascular-specific behaviours identified. Content validation of these 153 exemplar behaviours showed that 113/153 (73.9%) reached the predetermined Item-Content Validity Index rating for teamwork and/or patient safety. After expert team review, 140/153 (91.5%) exemplars were deemed to warrant inclusion in the tool. More than 90% of the expert panel agreed that Endo-OTAS is an appropriate teamwork assessment tool with observable behaviours. Some concerns were noted about the time required to conduct observations and provide performance feedback. Endo-OTAS is a novel teamwork assessment tool, with evidence for content validity and relevance to endovascular teams. Endo-OTAS enables systematic objective assessment of the quality of team performance during endovascular procedures. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

GO-FLOW methodology. Basic concept and integrated analysis framework for its applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuoka, Takeshi

2010-01-01

GO-FLOW methodology is a success oriented system analysis technique, and is capable of evaluating a large system with complex operational sequences. Recently an integrated analysis framework of the GO-FLOW has been developed for the safety evaluation of elevator systems by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Japanese Government. This paper describes (a) an Overview of the GO-FLOW methodology, (b) Procedure of treating a phased mission problem, (c) Common cause failure analysis, (d) Uncertainty analysis, and (e) Integrated analysis framework. The GO-FLOW methodology is a valuable and useful tool for system reliability analysis and has a wide range of applications. (author)

A heuristic evaluation of the Facebook's advertising tool beacon

OpenAIRE

Jamal, A; Cole, M

2009-01-01

Interface usability is critical to the successful adoption of information systems. The aim of this study is to evaluate interface of Facebook's advertising tool Beacon by using privacy heuristics [4]. Beacon represents an interesting case study because of the negative media and user backlash it received. The findings of heuristic evaluation suggest violation of privacy heuristics [4]. Here, analysis identified concerns about user choice and consent, integrity and security of data, and awarene...

Darcy Tools version 3.4. User's Guide

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Svensson, Urban (Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB, Lyckeby (Sweden)); Ferry, Michel (MFRDC, Orvault (France))

2010-12-15

DarcyTools is a computer code for simulation of flow and transport in porous and/or fractured media. The fractured media in mind is a fractured rock and the porous media the soil cover on the top of the rock; it is hence groundwater flows, which is the class of flows in mind. DarcyTools is developed by a collaborative effort by SKB (The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company ), MFRDC (Michel Ferry RandD Consulting) and CFE AB (Computer-aided Fluid Engineering AB). It builds upon earlier development of groundwater models, carried out by CFE during the last twenty years. In the earlier work the CFD code PHOENICS (Spalding 1981) was used as an equation solver. DarcyTools is based on a solver called MIGAL (Ferry 2002). It has however been carefully evaluated that the two solvers produce very similar solutions and the earlier work is thus still valid as a background for DarcyTools. The present report will focus on the software that constitutes DarcyTools. Two accompanying reports cover other aspects: - Concepts, Methods and Equations. (Svensson et al. 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 1). - Verification, Validation and Demonstration (Svensson 2010) (Hereafter denoted Report 2). Two basic approaches in groundwater modelling can be identified; in one we define grid cell conductivities (sometimes called the continuum porous-medium (CPM) approach, i.e. Jackson et al. 2000), in the other we calculate the flow through the fracture network directly (DFN approach). Both approaches have their merits and drawbacks, which however will not be discussed here (for a discussion, see Sahimi 1995). In DarcyTools the two approaches are combined, meaning that we first generate a fracture network and then represent the network as grid cell properties. Further background information is given in the two reports mentioned

Evaluation of Accordance of Magnetic Resonance Volumetric and Flow Measurements in Determining Ventricular Stroke Volume in Cardiac Patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeltsch, M.; Ranft, S.; Klass, O.; Aschoff, A.J.; Hoffmann, M.H.K.

2008-01-01

Background: Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has become an established noninvasive method for evaluating ventricular function utilizing three-dimensional volumetry. Postprocessing of volumetric measurements is still tedious and time consuming. Stroke volumes obtained by flow quantification across the aortic root or pulmonary trunk could be utilized to increase both speed of workflow and accuracy. Purpose: To assess accuracy of stroke volume quantification using MR volumetric imaging compared to flow quantification in patients with various cardiac diseases. Strategies for the augmentation of accuracy in clinical routine were deduced. Material and Methods: 78 patients with various cardiac diseases -excluding intra- or extracardiac shunts, regurgitant valvular defects, or heart rhythm disturbance -underwent cardiac function analysis with flow measurements across the aortic root and cine imaging of the left ventricle. Forty-six patients additionally underwent flow measurements in the pulmonary trunk and cine imaging of the right ventricle. Results: Left ventricular stroke volume (LVSV) and stroke volume of the aortic root (SVAo) correlated with r=0.97, and Bland-Altman analysis showed a mean difference of 0.11 ml and a standard error of estimation (SEE) of 4.31 ml. Ninety-two percent of the data were within the 95% limits of agreement. Right ventricular stroke volume (RVSV) and stroke volume of the pulmonary trunk (SVP) correlated with a factor of r=0.86, and mean difference in the Bland-Altman analysis was fixed at -2.62 ml (SEE 8.47 ml). For RVSV and SVP, we calculated r=0.82, and Bland-Altman analysis revealed a mean difference of 1.27 ml (SEE 9.89 ml). LVSV and RVSV correlated closely, with r=0.91 and a mean difference of 2.79 ml (SEE 7.17 ml). SVAo and SVP correlated with r=0.95 and a mean difference of 0.50 ml (SEE 5.56 ml). Conclusion: Flow quantification can be used as a guidance tool, providing accurate and reproducible stroke volumes of both

An evaluation of the usefulness of cash flow ratios to predict financial distress

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. Jooste

2007-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose: With the introduction of the cash flow statement it became an integral part of financial reporting. A need arose to develop ratios for the effective evaluation of cash flow information. This article investigates cash flow ratios suggested by various researchers and suggests a list of ratios with the potential to predict financial failure. Design: The cash flow ratios suggested by researchers, from as early as 1966, are investigated and eight cash flow ratios selected for inclusion in an analysis to predict financial failure. Ten failed entities are selected for a cash flow evaluation by means of the selected ratios for five years prior to failure. For a comparison, non-failed entities in similar sectors are selected and also evaluated by means of the cash flow ratios. The mean values of each ratio, for each year prior to failure, were then calculated and the means of the failed entities were compared to the non-failed entities. Findings: The comparison revealed that cash flow ratios have predictive value with the cash flow to total debt identified as the best indicator of failure. It was also determined that, although failed entities have lower cash flows than non-failed entities, they also had smaller reserves of liquid assets. Furthermore, they have less capacity to meet debt obligations and they tend to incur more debt. The ratios of the failed entities were unstable and fluctuated from one year to the next. Finally, bankruptcy could be predicted three years prior to financial failure. Implications: Income statement and balance sheet ratios are not enough to measure liquidity. An entity can have positive liquidity ratios and increasing profits, yet have serious cash flow problems. Ratios developed from the cash flow statement should supplement traditional accrual-based ratios to provide additional information on the financial strengths and weaknesses of an entity .

A Comparative Evaluation of the Flow and Compaction ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Patrick Erah

study was to evaluate the suitability of α-cellulose obtained from waste paper as a direct compression excipient. Method: The flow and compaction ... The continuous search for affordable locally available pharmaceutical raw .... and irregular primary particle. These features of the latter could result to formation of bridges and.

Evaluating Use of Environmental Flows to Aerate Streams by Modelling the Counterfactual Case

Science.gov (United States)

Stewardson, Michael J.; Skinner, Dominic

2018-03-01

This paper evaluates an experimental environmental flow manipulation by modeling the counterfactual case that no environmental flow was applied. This is an alternate approach to evaluating the effect of an environmental flow intervention when a before-after or control-impact comparison is not possible. In this case, the flow manipulation is a minimum flow designed to prevent hypoxia in a weir on the low-gradient Broken Creek in south-eastern Australia. At low flows, low reaeration rates and high respiration rates associated with elevated organic matter loading in the weir pool can lead to a decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations with adverse consequences both for water chemistry and aquatic biota. Using a one dimensional oxygen balance model fitted to field measurements, this paper demonstrates that increased flow leads to increases in reaeration rates, presumably because of enhanced turbulence and hence mixing in the surface layers. By comparing the observed dissolved oxygen levels with the modeled counterfactual case, we show that the environmental flow was effective in preventing hypoxia.

A new tool for the evaluation of the analytical procedure: Green Analytical Procedure Index.

Science.gov (United States)

Płotka-Wasylka, J

2018-05-01

A new means for assessing analytical protocols relating to green analytical chemistry attributes has been developed. The new tool, called GAPI (Green Analytical Procedure Index), evaluates the green character of an entire analytical methodology, from sample collection to final determination, and was created using such tools as the National Environmental Methods Index (NEMI) or Analytical Eco-Scale to provide not only general but also qualitative information. In GAPI, a specific symbol with five pentagrams can be used to evaluate and quantify the environmental impact involved in each step of an analytical methodology, mainly from green through yellow to red depicting low, medium to high impact, respectively. The proposed tool was used to evaluate analytical procedures applied in the determination of biogenic amines in wine samples, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon determination by EPA methods. GAPI tool not only provides an immediately perceptible perspective to the user/reader but also offers exhaustive information on evaluated procedures. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evaluating probability measures related to subsurface flow and transport

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cawlfield, J.D.

1991-01-01

Probabilistic modeling approaches are being used increasingly in order to carry out quantified risk analysis and to evaluate the uncertainty existing in subsurface flow and transport analyses. The work presented in this paper addresses three issues: comparison of common probabilistic modeling techniques, recent results regarding the sensitivity of probability measures to likely changes in the uncertain variables for transport in porous media, and a discussion of some questions regarding fundamental modeling philosophy within a probabilistic framework. Recent results indicate that uncertainty regarding average flow velocity controls the probabilistic outcome, while uncertainty in the dispersivity and diffusion coefficient does not seem very important. Uncertainty of reaction terms is important only at early times in the transport process. Questions are posed regarding (1) the inclusion of macrodispersion in a probabilistic analysis, (2) statistics of flow velocity and (3) the notion of an ultimate probability measure for subsurface flow analyses

Formation of a Methodological Approach to Evaluating the State of Management of Enterprise Flow Processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dzobko Iryna P.

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The formation of a methodological approach to evaluating management of the state of enterprise flow processes has been considered. Proceeding from the developed and presented in literary sources theoretical propositions on organization of management of enterprise flow processes, the hypothesis of the study is correlation of quantitative and qualitative evaluations of management effectiveness and formation of the integral index on their basis. The article presents stages of implementation of a methodological approach to evaluating the state of management of enterprise flow processes, which implies indicating the components, their characteristics and methods of research. The composition of indicators, on the basis of which it is possible to evaluate effectiveness of management of enterprise flow processes, has been determined. Grouping of such indicators based on the flow nature of enterprise processes has been performed. The grouping of indicators is justified by a pairwise determination of canonical correlations between the selected groups (the obtained high correlation coefficients confirmed the author’s systematization of indicators. It is shown that a specificity of the formation of a methodological approach to evaluating the state of management of enterprise flow processes requires expansion in the direction of aggregation of the results and determination of factors that influence effectiveness of flow processes management. The article carries out such aggregation using the factor analysis. Distribution of a set of objects into different classes according to the results of the cluster analysis has been presented. To obtain an integral estimation of effectiveness of flow processes management, the taxonomic index of a multidimensional object has been built. A peculiarity of the formed methodological approach to evaluating the state of management of enterprise flow processes is in the matrix correlation of integral indicators calculated on

Evaluation of flow hood measurements for residential register flows; TOPICAL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Walker, I.S.; Wray, C.P.; Dickerhoff, D.J.; Sherman, M.H.

2001-01-01

Flow measurement at residential registers using flow hoods is becoming more common. These measurements are used to determine if the HVAC system is providing adequate comfort, appropriate flow over heat exchangers and in estimates of system energy losses. These HVAC system performance metrics are determined by using register measurements to find out if individual rooms are getting the correct airflow, and in estimates of total air handler flow and duct air leakage. The work discussed in this paper shows that commercially available flow hoods are poor at measuring flows in residential systems. There is also evidence in this and other studies that flow hoods can have significant errors even when used on the non-residential systems they were originally developed for. The measurement uncertainties arise from poor calibrations and the sensitivity of exiting flow hoods to non-uniformity of flows entering the device. The errors are usually large-on the order of 20% of measured flow, which is unacceptably high for most applications. Active flow hoods that have flow measurement devices that are insensitive to the entering airflow pattern were found to be clearly superior to commercially available flow hoods. In addition, it is clear that current calibration procedures for flow hoods may not take into account any field application problems and a new flow hood measurement standard should be developed to address this issue

Influence of Nitrogen Flow Rate on Friction Coefficient and Surface Roughness of TiN Coatings Deposited on Tool Steel Using Arc Method

Science.gov (United States)

Hamzah, Esah; Ourdjini, Ali; Ali, Mubarak; Akhter, Parvez; Hj. Mohd Toff, Mohd Radzi; Abdul Hamid, Mansor

In the present study, the effect of various N2 gas flow rates on friction coefficient and surface roughness of TiN-coated D2 tool steel was examined by a commercially available cathodic arc physical vapor deposition (CAPVD) technique. A Pin-on-Disc test was carried out to study the Coefficient of friction (COF) versus sliding distance. A surface roughness tester measured the surface roughness parameters. The minimum values for the COF and surface roughness were recorded at a N2 gas flow rate of 200 sccm. The increase in the COF and surface roughness at a N2 gas flow rate of 100 sccm was mainly attributed to an increase in both size and number of titanium particles, whereas the increase at 300 sccm was attributed to a larger number of growth defects generated during the coating process. These ideas make it possible to optimize the coating properties as a function of N2 gas flow rate for specific applications, e.g. cutting tools for automobiles, aircraft, and various mechanical parts.

A Comparative Evaluation of the Flow and Compaction ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Purpose: Alpha-cellulose obtained as pulp from fibrous plant materials has found use in the pharmaceutical industry as a disintegrant and direct compression diluent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the suitability of α-cellulose obtained from waste paper as a direct compression excipient. Method: The flow and ...

Particle image velocimetry measurement of complex flow structures in the diffuser and spherical casing of a reactor coolant pump

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yongchao Zhang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Understanding of turbulent flow in the reactor coolant pump (RCP is a premise of the optimal design of the RCP. Flow structures in the RCP, in view of the specially devised spherical casing, are more complicated than those associated with conventional pumps. Hitherto, knowledge of the flow characteristics of the RCP has been far from sufficient. Research into the nonintrusive measurement of the internal flow of the RCP has rarely been reported. In the present study, flow measurement using particle image velocimetry is implemented to reveal flow features of the RCP model. Velocity and vorticity distributions in the diffuser and spherical casing are obtained. The results illuminate the complexity of the flows in the RCP. Near the lower end of the discharge nozzle, three-dimensional swirling flows and flow separation are evident. In the diffuser, the imparity of the velocity profile with respect to different axial cross sections is verified, and the velocity increases gradually from the shroud to the hub. In the casing, velocity distribution is nonuniform over the circumferential direction. Vortices shed consistently from the diffuser blade trailing edge. The experimental results lend sound support for the optimal design of the RCP and provide validation of relevant numerical algorithms. Keywords: Diffuser, Flow Structures, Particle Image Velocimetry, Reactor Coolant Pump, Spherical Casing, Velocity Distribution

Uncertainty analysis and flow measurements in an experimental mock-up of a molten salt reactor concept

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yamaji, Bogdan; Aszodi, Attila [Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary). Inst. of Nuclear Techniques

2016-09-15

In the paper measurement results from the experimental modelling of a molten salt reactor concept will be presented along with detailed uncertainty analysis of the experimental system. Non-intrusive flow measurements are carried out on the scaled and segmented mock-up of a homogeneous, single region molten salt fast reactor concept. Uncertainty assessment of the particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurement system applied with the scaled and segmented model is presented in detail. The analysis covers the error sources of the measurement system (laser, recording camera, etc.) and the specific conditions (de-warping of measurement planes) originating in the geometry of the investigated domain. Effect of sample size in the ensemble averaged PIV measurements is discussed as well. An additional two-loop-operation mode is also presented and the analysis of the measurement results confirm that without enhancement nominal and other operation conditions will lead to strong unfavourable separation in the core flow. It implies that use of internal flow distribution structures will be necessary for the optimisation of the core coolant flow. Preliminary CFD calculations are presented to help the design of a perforated plate located above the inlet region. The purpose of the perforated plate is to reduce recirculation near the cylindrical wall and enhance the uniformity of the core flow distribution.

In vivo evaluation of femoral blood flow measured with magnetic resonance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henriksen, O; Ståhlberg, F; Thomsen, C

1989-01-01

, corrected for the T2 decay of non-flowing blood was used to calculate the blood flow. As a reference, the blood flow in the femoral artery was measured simultaneously with an invasive indicator dilution technique. T2 of non-flowing blood was measured in vivo in popliteal veins during regional circulatory...... arrest. The mean T2 of non-flowing blood was found to be 105 +/- 31 ms. The femoral blood flow ranged between 0 and 643 ml/min measured with MRI and between 280 and 531 ml/min measured by the indicator dilution technique. There was thus poor agreement between the two methods. The results indicate......Quantitative measurements of blood flow based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using conventional multiple spin echo sequences were evaluated in vivo in healthy young volunteers. Blood flow was measured using MRI in the femoral vein. The initial slope of the multiple spin echo decay curve...

Integrating intrusive and nonintrusive characterization methods to achieve a conceptual site model for the SLDA FUSRAP site

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Durham, L.A.; Peterson, J.M.; Frothingham, D.G.; Frederick, W.T.; Lenart, W.

2008-01-01

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is addressing radiological contamination following Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) requirements at the Shallow Land Disposal Area (SLDA) site, which is a radiologically contaminated property that is part of the Formerly utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). The SLDA is an 18-hectare (44-acre) site in Parks township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, about 37 kilometers (23 miles) east-northeast of Pittsburgh. According to historical record, radioactive wastes were disposed of at the SLDA in a series of trenches by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Company (NUMEC) in the 1960s. The wastes originated from the nearby Apollo nuclear fuel fabrication facility, which began operations under NUMEC in the late 1950s and fabricated enriched uranium into naval reactor fuel elements. It is believed that the waste materials were buried in a series of pits constructed adjacent to one another in accordance with an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) regulation that has since been rescinded. A CERCLA remedial investigation/feasibility study (RI/FS) process was completed for the SLDA site, and the results of the human health risk assessment indicated that the radiologically contaminated wastes could pose a risk to human health in the future. There are no historical records that provide the exact location of these pits. However, based on geophysical survey results conducted in the 1980s, these pits were defined by geophysical anomalies and were depicted on historical site drawings as trenches. At the SLDA site, a combination of investigative methods and tools was used in the RI/FS and site characterization activities. The SLDA site provides an excellent example of how historical documents and data, historical aerial photo analysis, physical sampling, and nonintrusive geophysical and gamma walkover surveys were used in combination to reduce the uncertainty in the location of the trenches. The

Development of two-group interfacial area transport equation for confined flow-2. Model evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun, Xiaodong; Kim, Seungjin; Ishii, Mamoru; Beus, Stephen G.

2003-01-01

The bubble interaction mechanisms have been analytically modeled in the first paper of this series to provide mechanistic constitutive relations for the two-group interfacial area transport equation (IATE), which was proposed to dynamically solve the interfacial area concentration in the two-fluid model. This paper presents the evaluation approach and results of the two-group IATE based on available experimental data obtained in confined flow, namely, 11 data sets in or near bubbly flow and 13 sets in cap-turbulent and churn-turbulent flow. The two-group IATE is evaluated in steady state, one-dimensional form. Also, since the experiments were performed under adiabatic, air-water two-phase flow conditions, the phase change effect is omitted in the evaluation. To account for the inter-group bubble transport, the void fraction transport equation for Group-2 bubbles is also used to predict the void fraction for Group-2 bubbles. Agreement between the data and the model predictions is reasonably good and the average relative difference for the total interfacial area concentration between the 24 data sets and predictions is within 7%. The model evaluation demonstrates the capability of the two-group IATE focused on the current confined flow to predict the interfacial area concentration over a wide range of flow regimes. (author)

[A quality evaluation tableau for health institutions: an educational tool].

Science.gov (United States)

Moll, Marie Christine; Decavel, Frédérique; Merlet, Christine

2009-09-01

For a few years, health institutions have had to comply with the certification and the need to establish the new governance. Thanks to the accreditation version 2 (obtained in 2005), the elaboration of the hospital project (adopted in October, 2006) and the organization in poles since 2006, the quality oriented management became a priority axis at the University Hospital of Angers. The strategic adaptation to quality requirements leads to develop the hospital management, more especially at the level of the clinical, medico technical and administrative poles. The elements of the hospital project including the part about the quality, risk and evaluation aim at being adapted by every pole according to the level of its project. This adaptation which is imposed to each pole manager requires a practical and educational accompaniment allowing at the same time to realize a diagnosis of the progress of the quality approach, a measure of the impact of the global impregnation within the institution and a comparison between pole. A eight axis dashboard with criteria and a user guide were developed from certification ISO 9001, the EFQM manual and the certification manual version 2 of the Healthcare High Authorities. The criteria are transcribed in an EXCEL grid ready to use. Succeeding in estimating your own quality system means that you demonstrate the maturity of the quality approach. The results of this evaluation confirmed those of the certification. The dashboard is a management structuring tool at the service of the multidisciplinary team. Two considerations emerge from these results: First of all, for the hospital top management, the axes to be improved emerge as a priority to determine and target the next annual action plans. The results also allow to support the auto evaluation for the certification version 2010 planned in January of the same year. It is a pragmatic tool which allows auto evaluation and comparison to estimate the pole performances. It is a strategic

Variability of building environmental assessment tools on evaluating carbon emissions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ng, S. Thomas, E-mail: tstng@hkucc.hku.hk; Chen Yuan, E-mail: chenyuan4@gmail.com; Wong, James M.W., E-mail: jmwwong@hku.hk

2013-01-15

With an increasing importance of sustainability in construction, more and more clients and designers employ building environmental assessment (BEA) tools to evaluate the environmental friendliness of their building facilities, and one important aspect of evaluation in the BEA models is the assessment of carbon emissions. However, in the absence of any agreed framework for carbon auditing and benchmarking, the results generated by the BEA tools might vary significantly which could lead to confusion or misinterpretation on the carbon performance of a building. This study thus aims to unveil the properties of and the standard imposed by the current BEA models on evaluating the life cycle carbon emissions. The analyses cover the (i) weighting of energy efficiency and emission levels among various environmental performance indicators; (ii) building life cycle stages in which carbon is taken into consideration; (iii) objectiveness of assessment; (iv) baseline set for carbon assessment; (v) mechanism for benchmarking the emission level; and (v) limitations of the carbon assessment approaches. Results indicate that the current BEA schemes focus primarily on operational carbon instead of the emissions generated throughout the entire building life cycle. Besides, the baseline and benchmark for carbon evaluation vary significantly among the BEA tools based on the analytical results of a hypothetical building. The findings point to the needs for a more transparent framework for carbon auditing and benchmarking in BEA modeling. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Carbon emission evaluation in building environmental assessment schemes are studied. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Simulative carbon emission is modeled for building environmental assessment schemes. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Carbon assessments focus primarily on operational stage instead of entire lifecycle. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Baseline and benchmark of carbon assessment vary greatly among BEA

Variability of building environmental assessment tools on evaluating carbon emissions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ng, S. Thomas; Chen Yuan; Wong, James M.W.

2013-01-01

With an increasing importance of sustainability in construction, more and more clients and designers employ building environmental assessment (BEA) tools to evaluate the environmental friendliness of their building facilities, and one important aspect of evaluation in the BEA models is the assessment of carbon emissions. However, in the absence of any agreed framework for carbon auditing and benchmarking, the results generated by the BEA tools might vary significantly which could lead to confusion or misinterpretation on the carbon performance of a building. This study thus aims to unveil the properties of and the standard imposed by the current BEA models on evaluating the life cycle carbon emissions. The analyses cover the (i) weighting of energy efficiency and emission levels among various environmental performance indicators; (ii) building life cycle stages in which carbon is taken into consideration; (iii) objectiveness of assessment; (iv) baseline set for carbon assessment; (v) mechanism for benchmarking the emission level; and (v) limitations of the carbon assessment approaches. Results indicate that the current BEA schemes focus primarily on operational carbon instead of the emissions generated throughout the entire building life cycle. Besides, the baseline and benchmark for carbon evaluation vary significantly among the BEA tools based on the analytical results of a hypothetical building. The findings point to the needs for a more transparent framework for carbon auditing and benchmarking in BEA modeling. - Highlights: ► Carbon emission evaluation in building environmental assessment schemes are studied. ► Simulative carbon emission is modeled for building environmental assessment schemes. ► Carbon assessments focus primarily on operational stage instead of entire lifecycle. ► Baseline and benchmark of carbon assessment vary greatly among BEA schemes. ► A more transparent and comprehensive framework for carbon assessment is required.

Dynamic Characterization of a Low Cost Microwave Water-Cut Sensor in a Flow Loop

KAUST Repository

Karimi, Muhammad Akram

2017-03-31

Inline precise measurement of water fraction in oil (i.e. water-cut [WC]) finds numerous applications in oil and gas industry. This paper presents the characterization of an extremely low cost, completely non-intrusive and full range microwave water-cut sensor based upon pipe conformable microwave T-resonator. A 10″ microwave stub based T-resonator has been implemented directly on the pipe surface whose resonance frequency changes in the frequency band of 90MHz–190MHz (111%) with changing water fraction in oil. The designed sensor is capable of detecting even small changes in WC with a resolution of 0.07% at low WC and 0.5% WC at high WC. The performance of the microwave WC sensor has been tested in an in-house flow loop. The proposed WC sensor has been characterized over full water-cut range (0%–100%) not only in vertical but also in horizontal orientation. The sensor has shown predictable response in both orientations with huge frequency shift. Moreover, flow rate effect has also been investigated on the proposed WC sensor’s performance and it has been found that the sensor’s repeatability is within 2.5% WC for variable flow rates.

Real-Time Recognition Non-Intrusive Electrical Appliance Monitoring Algorithm for a Residential Building Energy Management System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kofi Afrifa Agyeman

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The concern of energy price hikes and the impact of climate change because of energy generation and usage forms the basis for residential building energy conservation. Existing energy meters do not provide much information about the energy usage of the individual appliance apart from its power rating. The detection of the appliance energy usage will not only help in energy conservation, but also facilitate the demand response (DR market participation as well as being one way of building energy conservation. However, energy usage by individual appliance is quite difficult to estimate. This paper proposes a novel approach: an unsupervised disaggregation method, which is a variant of the hidden Markov model (HMM, to detect an appliance and its operation state based on practicable measurable parameters from the household energy meter. Performing experiments in a practical environment validates our proposed method. Our results show that our model can provide appliance detection and power usage information in a non-intrusive manner, which is ideal for enabling power conservation efforts and participation in the demand response market.

The Evaluation and Application Plan Report for the Development of Nuclear Power Plant DCS Using CASE Tools

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, B.Y.; Moon, H.J.; Yoon, M.H.; Lee, Y.K. [Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Taejon (Korea)

2000-06-01

This report contains the evaluation and application plan report for the development of nuclear power plant DCS using CASE tools. In this report, the necessity of using CASE tools is considered and a available CASE environment is suggested. And, also according to the IEEE Std 1209 Recommended Practice for Evaluation and Selection of CASE Tools, their functional and economical evaluation about available commercial CASE tools is performed and described. (author). 6 figs., 3 tabs.

CANDU channel flow verification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mazalu, N.; Negut, Gh.

1997-01-01

The purpose of this evaluation was to obtain accurate information on each channel flow that enables us to assess precisely the level of reactor thermal power and, for reasons of safety, to establish which channel is boiling. In order to assess the channel flow parameters, computer simulations were done with the NUCIRC code and the results were checked by measurements. The complete channel flow measurements were made in the zero power cold condition. In hot conditions there were made flow measurements using the Shut Down System 1 (SDS 1) flow devices from 0.1 % F.P. up to 100 % F.P. The NUCIRC prediction for CANDU channel flows and the measurements by Ultrasonic Flow Meter at zero power cold conditions and SDS 1 flow channel measurements at different reactor power levels showed an acceptable agreement. The 100 % F.P. average errors for channel flow of R, shows that suitable NUCIRC flow assessment can be made. So, it can be done a fair prediction of the reactor power distribution. NUCIRC can predict accurately the onset of boiling and helps to warn at the possible power instabilities at high powers or it can detect the flow blockages. The thermal hydraulic analyst has in NUCIRC a suitable tool to do accurate predictions for the thermal hydraulic parameters for different steady state power levels which subsequently leads to an optimal CANDU reactor operation. (authors)

Application of GRACE to the Evaluation of an Ice Flow Model of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Science.gov (United States)

Schlegel, N.; Wiese, D. N.; Watkins, M. M.; Larour, E. Y.; Box, J. E.; Fettweis, X.; van den Broeke, M. R.; Morlighem, M.; Boening, C.; Seroussi, H. L.

2014-12-01

Quantifying Greenland's future contribution to sea level rise is a challenging task and requires accurate estimates of ice flow sensitivity to climate change. Transient ice flow models are promising tools for estimating future ice sheet behavior. However, confidence in these types of future projections is low, especially because evaluation of model historical runs is so challenging due to the scarcity of continental-wide data for validation. For more than a decade, NASA's GRACE has continuously acquired time-variable measurements of the Earth's gravity field and has provided unprecedented surveillance of mass balance of the ice sheets, offering an opportunity for ice sheet model evaluation. Here, we take advantage of a new high-resolution (~300 km) monthly mascon solution for the purpose of mass balance comparison with an independent, historical ice flow model simulation using the Ice Sheet System Model (ISSM). The comparison highlights which regions of the ice sheet differ most from GRACE. Investigation of regional differences in trends and seasonal amplitudes between simulations forced with three different Regional Climate Model (RCM)-based estimates of surface mass balance (SMB) allows us to make conclusions about the relative contributions of various error sources in the model hindcast. This study constitutes the first regional comparison of GRACE data and an ice sheet model. Conclusions will aid in the improvement of RCM SMB estimates as well as ice sheet simulation estimates of present and future rates of sea level rise. This work was performed at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Cryosphere Program and President's and Director's Fund Program.

High accuracy acoustic relative humidity measurement in duct flow with air.

Science.gov (United States)

van Schaik, Wilhelm; Grooten, Mart; Wernaart, Twan; van der Geld, Cees

2010-01-01

An acoustic relative humidity sensor for air-steam mixtures in duct flow is designed and tested. Theory, construction, calibration, considerations on dynamic response and results are presented. The measurement device is capable of measuring line averaged values of gas velocity, temperature and relative humidity (RH) instantaneously, by applying two ultrasonic transducers and an array of four temperature sensors. Measurement ranges are: gas velocity of 0-12 m/s with an error of ± 0.13 m/s, temperature 0-100 °C with an error of ± 0.07 °C and relative humidity 0-100% with accuracy better than 2 % RH above 50 °C. Main advantage over conventional humidity sensors is the high sensitivity at high RH at temperatures exceeding 50 °C, with accuracy increasing with increasing temperature. The sensors are non-intrusive and resist highly humid environments.

Evaluating the Financial Flows of Bessel Processes by Using Spectral Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Burtnyak Ivan V.

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The article solves the two-parameter task of evaluating the intensity of diffuse Bessel processes by the methods of spectral theory. In particular, barriers for cost of options, where the derivative of financial flows turns into zero, have been considered, and a task for the two-barrier option has been solved, which corresponds to Bessel process. A Green’s function has been built for the diffusion Bessel process of the two-barrier option, decomposed according to the first-type system of Bessel functions. The barriers are taken in such a way that the derivative of financial flow in terms of price is turned to zero, i.e. there are the points where flow can acquire extreme values. On the basis of Green’s function, the value of securities has been calculated. It is handier to use similar barriers when monitoring a stock market. The Green’s function for this task, which represents the probability of spreading the option price, is represented through the Fourier series. This provides an opportunity to evaluate the intensity of financial flows in stock markets.

Evaluation of the flow-accelerated corrosion downstream of an orifice. 2. Measurement of corrosion rate and evaluation on the effects of the flow field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nagaya, Yukinori; Utanohara, Yoichi; Nakamura, Akira; Murase, Michio

2008-01-01

In this study, in order to evaluate the effects of flow field on corrosion rate due to flow accelerated corrosion (FAC), a corrosion rate downstream of an orifice was measured using the electric resistance method. The diameter of the pipe is 50 mm and that of the orifice is 24.3 mm, and flow velocity of the experimental loop was set at 5m/s, and the temperature of water was controlled within ±1 at 150deg-C. There were no significant circumferential difference in measured corrosion rate, and the maximum corrosion rate was observed at 1D or 2D downstream from the orifice. The ratios of the measured corrosion rate and the calculated wall shear stress at the 1D downstream from the orifice to the value at upstream under well developed flow agreed well. (author)

Focus groups: a useful tool for curriculum evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Frasier, P Y; Slatt, L; Kowlowitz, V; Kollisch, D O; Mintzer, M

1997-01-01

Focus group interviews have been used extensively in health services program planning, health education, and curriculum planning. However, with the exception of a few reports describing the use of focus groups for a basic science course evaluation and a clerkship's impact on medical students, the potential of focus groups as a tool for curriculum evaluation has not been explored. Focus groups are a valid stand-alone evaluation process, but they are most often used in combination with other quantitative and qualitative methods. Focus groups rely heavily on group interaction, combining elements of individual interviews and participant observation. This article compares the focus group interview with both quantitative and qualitative methods; discusses when to use focus group interviews; outlines a protocol for conducting focus groups, including a comparison of various styles of qualitative data analysis; and offers a case study, in which focus groups evaluated the effectiveness of a pilot preclinical curriculum.

An improved algorithm of image processing technique for film thickness measurement in a horizontal stratified gas-liquid two-phase flow

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kuntoro, Hadiyan Yusuf, E-mail: hadiyan.y.kuntoro@mail.ugm.ac.id; Majid, Akmal Irfan; Deendarlianto, E-mail: deendarlianto@ugm.ac.id [Center for Energy Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Sekip K-1A Kampus UGM, Yogyakarta 55281 (Indonesia); Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Gadjah Mada University, Jalan Grafika 2, Yogyakarta 55281 (Indonesia); Hudaya, Akhmad Zidni; Dinaryanto, Okto [Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Gadjah Mada University, Jalan Grafika 2, Yogyakarta 55281 (Indonesia)

2016-06-03

Due to the importance of the two-phase flow researches for the industrial safety analysis, many researchers developed various methods and techniques to study the two-phase flow phenomena on the industrial cases, such as in the chemical, petroleum and nuclear industries cases. One of the developing methods and techniques is image processing technique. This technique is widely used in the two-phase flow researches due to the non-intrusive capability to process a lot of visualization data which are contain many complexities. Moreover, this technique allows to capture direct-visual information data of the flow which are difficult to be captured by other methods and techniques. The main objective of this paper is to present an improved algorithm of image processing technique from the preceding algorithm for the stratified flow cases. The present algorithm can measure the film thickness (h{sub L}) of stratified flow as well as the geometrical properties of the interfacial waves with lower processing time and random-access memory (RAM) usage than the preceding algorithm. Also, the measurement results are aimed to develop a high quality database of stratified flow which is scanty. In the present work, the measurement results had a satisfactory agreement with the previous works.

Microparticle tracking velocimetry as a tool for microfluidic flow measurements

Science.gov (United States)

Salipante, Paul; Hudson, Steven D.; Schmidt, James W.; Wright, John D.

2017-07-01

The accurate measurement of flows in microfluidic channels is important for commercial and research applications. We compare the accuracy of flow measurement techniques over a wide range flows. Flow measurements made using holographic microparticle tracking velocimetry (µPTV) and a gravimetric flow standard over the range of 0.5-100 nL/s agree within 0.25%, well within the uncertainty of the two flow systems. Two commercial thermal flow sensors were used as the intermediaries (transfer standards) between the two flow measurement systems. The gravimetric flow standard was used to calibrate the thermal flow sensors by measuring the rate of change of the mass of liquid in a beaker on a micro-balance as it fills. The holographic µPTV flow measurements were made in a rectangular channel and the flow was seeded with 1 µm diameter polystyrene spheres. The volumetric flow was calculated using the Hagen-Pouiseille solution for a rectangular channel. The uncertainty of both flow measurement systems is given. For the gravimetric standard, relative uncertainty increased for decreasing flows due to surface tension forces between the pipette carrying the flow and the free surface of the liquid in the beaker. The uncertainty of the holographic µPTV measurements did not vary significantly over the measured flow range, and thus comparatively are especially useful at low flow velocities.

Development and evaluation of a patient-centred measurement tool for surgeons' non-technical skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Yule, J; Hill, K; Yule, S

2018-06-01

Non-technical skills are essential for safe and effective surgery. Several tools to assess surgeons' non-technical skills from the clinician's perspective have been developed. However, a reliable measurement tool using a patient-centred approach does not currently exist. The aim of this study was to translate the existing Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons (NOTSS) tool into a patient-centred evaluation tool. Data were gathered from four cohorts of patients using an iterative four-stage mixed-methods research design. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were performed to establish the psychometric properties of the tool, focusing on validity, reliability, usability and parsimony. Some 534 patients were recruited to the study. A total of 24 patient-centred non-technical skill items were developed in stage 1, and reduced to nine items in stage 2 using exploratory factor analysis. In stage 3, confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated that these nine items each loaded on to one of three factors, with excellent internal consistency: decision-making, leadership, and communication and teamwork. In stage 4, validity testing established that the new tool was independent of physician empathy and predictive of surgical quality. Surgical leadership emerged as the most dominant skill that patients could recognize and evaluate. A novel nine-item assessment tool has been developed. The Patients' Evaluation of Non-Technical Skills (PENTS) tool allows valid and reliable measurement of surgeons' non-technical skills from the patient perspective. © 2018 BJS Society Ltd Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Compressibility, turbulence and high speed flow

CERN Document Server

Gatski, Thomas B

2009-01-01

This book introduces the reader to the field of compressible turbulence and compressible turbulent flows across a broad speed range through a unique complimentary treatment of both the theoretical foundations and the measurement and analysis tools currently used. For the computation of turbulent compressible flows, current methods of averaging and filtering are presented so that the reader is exposed to a consistent development of applicable equation sets for both the mean or resolved fields as well as the transport equations for the turbulent stress field. For the measurement of turbulent compressible flows, current techniques ranging from hot-wire anemometry to PIV are evaluated and limitations assessed. Characterizing dynamic features of free shear flows, including jets, mixing layers and wakes, and wall-bounded flows, including shock-turbulence and shock boundary-layer interactions, obtained from computations, experiments and simulations are discussed. Key features: * Describes prediction methodologies in...

In vivo evaluation of femoral blood flow measured with magnetic resonance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Henriksen, O.; Staahlberg, F.; Thomsen, C.; Moegelvang, J.; Persson, B.; Lund Univ.

1989-01-01

Quantitative measurements of blood flow based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using conventional multiple spin echo sequences were evaluated in vivo in healthy young volunteers. Blood flow was measured using MRI in the femoral vein. The initial slope of the multiple spin echo decay curve, corrected for the T2 decay of non-flowing blood was used to calculate the blood flow. As a reference, the blood flow in the femoral artery was measured simultaneously with an invasive indicator dilution technique. T2 of non-flowing blood was measured in vivo in popliteal veins during regional circulatory arrest. The mean T2 of non-flowing blood was found to be 105±31 ms. The femoral blood flow ranged between 0 and 643 ml/min measured with MRI and between 280 and 531 ml/min measured by the indicator dilution technique. There was thus poor agreement between the two methods. The results indicate that in vivo blood flow measurements made with MRI based on wash-out effects, commonly used in multiple spin echo imaging, do not give reliable absolute values for blood flow in the femoral artery or vein. (orig.)

Numerical Evaluation of Averaging BDFT(bidirectional flow tube) Flow Meter on Applicability in the Fouling Condition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, J. P.; Jeong, J. H.; Yuna, B. J.; Jerng, D. W.

2013-01-01

The results show that the averaging BDFT is a promising flow meter for the accurate measurement of flow rates in the fouling condition of the NPPs. A new instrumentation, an averaging BDFT, was proposed to measure the accurate flow rate under corrosion environment. In this study, to validate the applicability of the averaging BDFT on the fouling conditions, flow analyses using the CFD code were performed. Analyses results show that this averaging BDFT does not lose the measuring performance even under the corrosion environment. Therefore, it is expected that the averaging BDFT can replace the type flow meters for the feedwater pipe of steam generator of NPPs. Most of the NPPs adopt pressure difference type flow meters such as venturi and orifice meters for the measurement of feedwater flow rates to calculate reactor thermal power. However, corrosion products in the feedwater deposits on the flow meter as operating time goes. These effects lead to severe errors in the flow indication and then determination of reactor thermal power. The averaging BDFT has a potentiality to minimize this problem. Therefore, it is expected that the averaging BDFT can replace the type venturi meters for the feedwater pipe of steam generator of NPPs. The present work compares the amplification factor, K, based on CFD calculation against the K obtained from experiments in order to confirm whether a CFD code can be applicable to the evaluation of characteristic for the averaging BDFT. In addition to this, the simulations to take into account of fouling effect are also carried out by rough wall option

Quantitative Evaluation of Heavy Duty Machine Tools Remanufacturing Based on Modified Catastrophe Progression Method

Science.gov (United States)

shunhe, Li; jianhua, Rao; lin, Gui; weimin, Zhang; degang, Liu

2017-11-01

The result of remanufacturing evaluation is the basis for judging whether the heavy duty machine tool can remanufacture in the EOL stage of the machine tool lifecycle management.The objectivity and accuracy of evaluation is the key to the evaluation method.In this paper, the catastrophe progression method is introduced into the quantitative evaluation of heavy duty machine tools’ remanufacturing,and the results are modified by the comprehensive adjustment method,which makes the evaluation results accord with the standard of human conventional thinking.Using the catastrophe progression method to establish the heavy duty machine tools’ quantitative evaluation model,to evaluate the retired TK6916 type CNC floor milling-boring machine’s remanufacturing.The evaluation process is simple,high quantification,the result is objective.

Local and integral ulrasonic gauges for two-phase flow instrumentation in nuclear reactor and safety technology. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chochlov, V.N.; Duncev, A.V.; Ivanov, V.V.; Kontelev, V.V.; Melnikov, V.I.; Stoppel, L.K.; Prasser, H.M.; Zippe, W.; Zschau, J.; Zboray, R.

2000-11-01

The present project was executed in the frame of a co-operation agreement between FZR and the scientific group of Prof. Melnikov of the technical University of Nishny Novgorod (TUNN) in the Russian Federation. It is part of the Federal Government's programme for the provision of advice for Eastern Europe on the building up of democracy and social market economy (TRANSFORM Programme). New methods of two-phase flow instrumentation were developed: Intrusive wave-guide probes can be used for local void fraction measurements. The new ultrasonic mesh sensors allow a fast two-phase flow visualisation with about 250 frames per second. Experiments carried out at the test loop in Rossendorf, but also the tests at the DESIRE facility in Delft have shown that both local wave-guide probes and ultrasonic mesh sensors can be successfully applied under the conditions of high pressure and temperature steam-water mixture, as well as in organic liquids and refrigerants. Furthermore, non-intrusive wave-guide sensors as well as density sensors based on the measurement of the wave propagation velocity in wave-guides immersed into the measuring liquid were developed and tested. In the present stage of the development, the non-intrusive sensors can rather be used for a qualitative gas respectively level detection than for void fraction measurements. The wave-guide density sensor was successfully demonstrated that it is able to measure densities of single-phase liquids. It requires further development of the electronic circuitry. The main innovation was achieved by the development of the ultrasonic mesh sensor, the resoluting capability of which is comparable to methods like electrical wire-mesh sensors and ultra-fast X-ray tomography, while the device itself is robust and low expensive. (orig.) [de

Video imaging measurement of interfacial wave velocity in air-water flow through a horizontal elbow

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Wazzan, Amir; Than, Cheok F.; Moghavvemi, Mahmoud; Yew, Chia W.

2001-10-01

Two-phase flow in pipelines containing elbows represents a common situation in the oil and gas industries. This study deals with the stratified flow regime between the gas and liquid phase through an elbow. It is of interest to study the change in wave characteristics by measuring the wave velocity and wavelength at the inlet and outlet of the elbow. The experiments were performed under concurrent air-water stratified flow in a horizontal transparent polycarbonate pipe of 0.05m diameter and superficial air and water velocities up to 8.97 and 0.0778 m/s respectively. A non-intrusive video imaging technique was applied to capture the waves. For image analysis, a frame by frame direct overlapping method was used to detect for pulsating flow and a pixel shifting method based on the detection of minimum values in the overlap function was used to determine wave velocity and wavelength. Under superficial gas velocity of less than 4.44 m/s, the results suggest a regular pulsating outflow produced by the elbow. At higher gas velocities, more random pulsation was found and the emergence of localized interfacial waves was detected. Wave velocities measured by this technique were found to produce satisfactory agreement with direct measurements.

An integrated study to evaluate debris flow hazard in alpine environment

Science.gov (United States)

Tiranti, Davide; Crema, Stefano; Cavalli, Marco; Deangeli, Chiara

2018-05-01

Debris flows are among the most dangerous natural processes affecting the alpine environment due to their magnitude (volume of transported material) and the long runout. The presence of structures and infrastructures on alluvial fans can lead to severe problems in terms of interactions between debris flows and human activities. Risk mitigation in these areas requires identifying the magnitude, triggers, and propagation of debris flows. Here, we propose an integrated methodology to characterize these phenomena. The methodology consists of three complementary procedures. Firstly, we adopt a classification method based on the propensity of the catchment bedrocks to produce clayey-grained material. The classification allows us to identify the most likely rheology of the process. Secondly, we calculate a sediment connectivity index to estimate the topographic control on the possible coupling between the sediment source areas and the catchment channel network. This step allows for the assessment of the debris supply, which is most likely available for the channelized processes. Finally, with the data obtained in the previous steps, we modelled the propagation and depositional pattern of debris flows with a 3D code based on Cellular Automata. The results of the numerical runs allow us to identify the depositional patterns and the areas potentially involved in the flow processes. This integrated methodology is applied to a test-bed catchment located in Northwestern Alps. The results indicate that this approach can be regarded as a useful tool to estimate debris flow related potential hazard scenarios in an alpine environment in an expeditious way without possessing an exhaustive knowledge of the investigated catchment, including data on historical debris flow events.

An Integrated Study to Evaluate Debris Flow Hazard in Alpine Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Tiranti

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Debris flows are among the most dangerous natural processes affecting the alpine environment due to their magnitude (volume of transported material and the long runout. The presence of structures and infrastructures on alluvial fans can lead to severe problems in terms of interactions between debris flows and human activities. Risk mitigation in these areas requires identifying the magnitude, triggers, and propagation of debris flows. Here, we propose an integrated methodology to characterize these phenomena. The methodology consists of three complementary procedures. Firstly, we adopt a classification method based on the propensity of the catchment bedrocks to produce clayey-grained material. The classification allows us to identify the most likely rheology of the process. Secondly, we calculate a sediment connectivity index to estimate the topographic control on the possible coupling between the sediment source areas and the catchment channel network. This step allows for the assessment of the debris supply, which is most likely available for the channelized processes. Finally, with the data obtained in the previous steps, we modeled the propagation and depositional pattern of debris flows with a 3D code based on Cellular Automata. The results of the numerical runs allow us to identify the depositional patterns and the areas potentially involved in the flow processes. This integrated methodology is applied to a test-bed catchment located in Northwestern Alps. The results indicate that this approach can be regarded as a useful tool to estimate debris flow related potential hazard scenarios in an alpine environment in an expeditious way without possessing an exhaustive knowledge of the investigated catchment, including data on historical debris flow events.

Development, Evaluation, and Validation of Environmental Assessment Tools to Evaluate the College Nutrition Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Freedman, Marjorie R.

2010-01-01

Objective: To develop, evaluate, and validate 2 nutrition environment assessment tools (surveys), for specific use in combating overweight on college/university campuses. Participants and Methods: Invitations to complete surveys were e-mailed to food service and health center directors at 47 universities, Winter 2008. Overall response rate was…

Debris flow early warning systems in Norway: organization and tools

Science.gov (United States)

Kleivane, I.; Colleuille, H.; Haugen, L. E.; Alve Glad, P.; Devoli, G.

2012-04-01

In Norway, shallow slides and debris flows occur as a combination of high-intensity precipitation, snowmelt, high groundwater level and saturated soil. Many events have occurred in the last decades and are often associated with (or related to) floods events, especially in the Southern of Norway, causing significant damages to roads, railway lines, buildings, and other infrastructures (i.e November 2000; August 2003; September 2005; November 2005; Mai 2008; June and Desember 2011). Since 1989 the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) has had an operational 24 hour flood forecasting system for the entire country. From 2009 NVE is also responsible to assist regions and municipalities in the prevention of disasters posed by landslides and snow avalanches. Besides assisting the municipalities through implementation of digital landslides inventories, susceptibility and hazard mapping, areal planning, preparation of guidelines, realization of mitigation measures and helping during emergencies, NVE is developing a regional scale debris flow warning system that use hydrological models that are already available in the flood warning systems. It is well known that the application of rainfall thresholds is not sufficient to evaluate the hazard for debris flows and shallow slides, and soil moisture conditions play a crucial role in the triggering conditions. The information on simulated soil and groundwater conditions and water supply (rain and snowmelt) based on weather forecast, have proved to be useful variables that indicate the potential occurrence of debris flows and shallow slides. Forecasts of runoff and freezing-thawing are also valuable information. The early warning system is using real-time measurements (Discharge; Groundwater level; Soil water content and soil temperature; Snow water equivalent; Meteorological data) and model simulations (a spatially distributed version of the HBV-model and an adapted version of 1-D soil water and energy balance

A Self-Evaluation Tool for Development of Maintenance Personnel's Competences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piirto, A.; Paajanen, P.; Kantola, J.; Vanharanta, H.

2007-01-01

performance indicators is used in the planning process of future actions. In this paper is a new kind of web-based self-evaluation tool is presented, which can be used as a performance indicator to support maintenance personnel's competence development. The self-evaluation tool comprises those competences which are important in maintenance personnel's work. Some of these competences are generic, while others are differentiating. The self-evaluation tool utilizes linguistics and is based on fuzzy logic. When using the self-evaluation tool, maintenance personnel evaluate their perceived current reality at work and the vision they have for the future. This difference between personal vision and current reality is called creative tension. The self-evaluation tool has been used in a case study, where a number of sixteen mechanical maintenance personnel working at TVO made the self-evaluation. Some examples of the results of this case study are also presented in this paper. In conclusion: For a nuclear power plant operator, it is crucial to guarantee the safe and economic operation of the power plant as well as to look after the general acceptability of nuclear power. As to human resources management, this requires continuous maintenance and enhancement of the performance of the individuals and organisation. Systematic initial and continuing training programmes are needed to maintain the technical and managerial skills and know-how at a high level. Sufficient technical skills and know-how are natural prerequisites for excellence in human performance. Systematic initial and continuing training programmes are needed to maintain those at a high level. The development of the training programmes has earlier been based on interviews, course feedback and questionnaires. Individual's training needs do not always meet the needs of an enterprise and this deviation must be resolved in the organisation. The self-evaluation tool can be used to enhance the training programmes according to

Green and sustainable remediation (GSR) evaluation: framework, standards, and tool. A case study in Taiwan.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Wen-Yen; Hung, Weiteng; Vu, Chi Thanh; Chen, Wei-Ting; Lai, Jhih-Wei; Lin, Chitsan

2016-11-01

Taiwan has a large number of poorly managed contaminated sites in need of remediation. This study proposes a framework, a set of standards, and a spreadsheet-based evaluation tool for implementing green and sustainable principles into remediation projects and evaluating the projects from this perspective. We performed a case study to understand how the framework would be applied. For the case study, we used a spreadsheet-based evaluation tool (SEFA) and performed field scale cultivation tests on a site contaminated with total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPHs). The site was divided into two lots: one treated by chemical oxidation and the other by bioremediation. We evaluated five core elements of green and sustainable remediation (GSR): energy, air, water resources, materials and wastes, and land and ecosystem. The proposed evaluation tool and field scale cultivation test were found to efficiently assess the effectiveness of the two remediation alternatives. The framework and related tools proposed herein can potentially be used to support decisions about the remediation of contaminated sites taking into account engineering management, cost effectiveness, and social reconciliation.

Developing tools to link environmental flows science and its practice in Sri Lanka

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Eriyagma

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The term "Environmental Flows (EF" may be defined as "the quantity, timing and quality of water flows required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the human livelihoods and well-being that depend on these ecosystems". It may be regarded as "water for nature" or "environmental demand" similar to crop water requirements, industrial or domestic water demand. The practice of EF is still limited to a few developed countries such as Australia, South Africa and the UK. In many developing countries EF is rarely considered in water resources planning and is often deemed "unimportant". Sri Lanka, being a developing country, is no exception to this general rule. Although the country underwent an extensive irrigation/water resources development phase during the 1960s through to the 1980s, the concept of EF was hardly considered. However, as Sri Lanka's water resources are being exploited more and more for human usage, ecologists, water practitioners and policymakers alike have realized the importance of EF in sustaining not only freshwater and estuarine ecosystems, but also their services to humans. Hence estimation of EF has been made mandatory in environmental impact assessments (EIAs of all large development projects involving river regulation/water abstraction. Considering EF is especially vital under the rapid urbanization and infrastructure development phase that dawned after the end of the war in the North and the East of the country in 2009. This paper details simple tools (including a software package which is under development and methods that may be used for coarse scale estimation of EF at/near monitored locations on major rivers of Sri Lanka, along with example applications to two locations on River Mahaweli. It is hoped that these tools will help bridge the gap between EF science and its practice in Sri Lanka and other developing countries.

Nonintrusive tools to detect salts contamination in masonry: case study of Fontaine-Chaalis church

Science.gov (United States)

Giovannacci, David; Brissaud, Didier; Mertz, Jean-Didier; Mouhoubi, Kamel; Bodnar, Jean-Luc

2017-07-01

Such developments come from conservation experts in the community of cultural heritage - encompassing artworks, museum artifacts or historical monuments - for less intrusive and non-destructive tools to gain information about the subject. Increasingly the demand is for information regarding internal structures and indications of life histories and behaviors of an object. As it is well known, the deterioration due to the capillary rise of water through the walls is a very widespread problem. In this paper, a study of Stimulated Infrared thermography and Evanescent-Field Dielectrometry was applied to a non-destructive mapping, in situ, and in a semi-quantitative way the distribution of water, salt and the structural deterioration induced in a wall of the 13th century of the abbey's church of Chaalis. Complementarity of the both techniques will be underlined. The Stimulated Infra-Red Thermography (SIRT) is a contact free technique and allows the detection of plaster layers delamination of masonry. Evanescent-Field Dielectrometry (EFD) is a recent diagnostic method based on dielectric spectroscopy at microwave frequency. The measuring instrument is a portable resonant microwave device for mapping the water content and salinity on flat surface up to a depth of 2-3 cm in real time, in a non-destructive way. The method detects the water content and salt concentration in frescoes and walls by estimating the dielectric properties of tested porous materials that is viewed as a "binary" dielectric mixture consisting of bulk material and water, by the contrast between the dielectric constant of a dry material and water. According to the resolution of the optics, the SIRT has a less lateral resolution and more limited in depth, but it is easy to implement and can be used on-site, like in scaffolding conditions. Moreover, this technique gives an overview at a larger scale (metric) than EFD (centimetric).

Inflation Features of the Distal Pahoehoe Portion of the 1859 Mauna Loa Flow, Hawaii; Implications for Evaluating Planetary Lava Flows

Science.gov (United States)

Zimbelman, J. R.; Garry, W. B.; Bleacher, Jacob E.; Crumpler, L S.

2011-01-01

The 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, resulted in the longest subaerial lava flow on the Big Island. Detailed descriptions were made of the eruption both from ships and following hikes by groups of observers; the first three weeks of the eruption produced an `a`a flow that reached the ocean, and the following 10 months produced a pahoehoe flow that also eventually reached the ocean. The distal portion of the 1859 pahoehoe flow component includes many distinctive features indicative of flow inflation. Field work was conducted on the distal 1859 pahoehoe flow during 2/09 and 3/10, which allowed us to document several inflation features, in or-der evaluate how well inflated landforms might be detected in remote sensing data of lava flows on other planets.

LeatherNet: an evaluation as a mission planning and briefing tool

OpenAIRE

Hague, Tracy R.

1996-01-01

Information Technology Management The author evaluates LeatherNet, a Distributed Interactive Simulation compliant, virtual simulation system being developed by the Advanced Research Projects Agency to demonstrate Modeling and Simulation(M&S) technologies and to partially fulfill the U. S. Marine Corps M&S goals. The research focuses on evaluation of LeatherNet as a mission planning and briefing tool for Marine infantry company commanders, staff, and subordinate leaders. Evaluation is based...

Using FlowLab, an educational computational fluid dynamics tool, to perform a comparative study of turbulence models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parihar, A.; Kulkarni, A.; Stern, F.; Xing, T.; Moeykens, S.

2005-01-01

Flow over an Ahmed body is a key benchmark case for validating the complex turbulent flow field around vehicles. In spite of the simple geometry, the flow field around an Ahmed body retains critical features of real, external vehicular flow. The present study is an attempt to implement such a real life example into the course curriculum for undergraduate engineers. FlowLab, which is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool developed by Fluent Inc. for use in engineering education, allows students to conduct interactive application studies. This paper presents a synopsis of FlowLab, a description of one FlowLab exercise, and an overview of the educational experience gained by students through using FlowLab, which is understood through student surveys and examinations. FlowLab-based CFD exercises were implemented into 57:020 Mechanics of Fluids and Transport Processes and 58:160 Intermediate Mechanics of Fluids courses at the University of Iowa in the fall of 2004, although this report focuses only on experiences with the Ahmed body exercise, which was used only in the intermediate-level fluids class, 58:160. This exercise was developed under National Science Foundation funding by the authors of this paper. The focus of this study does not include validating the various turbulence models used for the Ahmed body simulation, because a two-dimensional simplification was applied. With the two-dimensional simplification, students may setup, run, and post process this model in a 50 minute class period using a single-CPU PC, as required for the 58:160 class at the University of Iowa. It is educational for students to understand the implication of a two- dimensional approximation for essentially a three-dimensional flow field, along with the consequent variation in both qualitative and quantitative results. Additionally, through this exercise, students may realize that the choice of the respective turbulence model will affect simulation prediction. (author)

A CIS (Clinical Information System) Quality Evaluation Tool for Nursing Care Services

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Seon Ah

2010-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop a tool to evaluate the quality of a clinical information system (CIS) conceived by nurses and conduct a pilot test with the developed tool as an initial assessment. CIS quality is required for successful implementation in information technology (IT) environments. The study started with the realization that…

The entropy concept. A powerful tool for multiphase flow analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kolev, Nikolay Ivanov

2007-01-01

This work summarizes the system of partial differential equations describing multiphase, multi-component flows in arbitrary geometry including porous structures with arbitrary thermal and mechanical interactions among the fields and between each field and the structure. Each of the fluids is designed as a universal mixture of miscible and immiscible component. The system contains the rigorously derived entropy equations which are used instead of the primitive form of the energy conservation. Based on well established mathematical theorems the equations are local volume and time averaged. The so called volume conservation equation allowing establishing close coupling between pressure and density changes of all of the participating velocity fields is presented. It replaces one of the mass conservation equations. The system is solved within the computer code system IVA together with large number of constitutive relationships for closing it in arbitrary geometry. The extensive validation on many hundreds of simple- and complex experiments, including the many industrial applications, demonstrates the versatility and the power of this analytical tool for designing complex processes in the industry and analyzing complex processes in the nature. (author)

Two-phase flow characteristics analysis code: MINCS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watanabe, Tadashi; Hirano, Masashi; Akimoto, Masayuki; Tanabe, Fumiya; Kohsaka, Atsuo.

1992-03-01

Two-phase flow characteristics analysis code: MINCS (Modularized and INtegrated Code System) has been developed to provide a computational tool for analyzing two-phase flow phenomena in one-dimensional ducts. In MINCS, nine types of two-phase flow models-from a basic two-fluid nonequilibrium (2V2T) model to a simple homogeneous equilibrium (1V1T) model-can be used under the same numerical solution method. The numerical technique is based on the implicit finite difference method to enhance the numerical stability. The code structure is highly modularized, so that new constitutive relations and correlations can be easily implemented into the code and hence evaluated. A flow pattern can be fixed regardless of flow conditions, and state equations or steam tables can be selected. It is, therefore, easy to calculate physical or numerical benchmark problems. (author)

Evaluation of flow volume and flow patterns in the patent false lumen of chronic aortic dissections using velocity-encoded cine magnetic resonance imaging

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Inoue, Toshihisa; Watanabe, Shigeru; Sakurada, Hideki; Ono, Katsuhiro; Urano, Miharu; Hijikata, Yasuyoshi; Saito, Isao; Masuda, Yoshiaki [Chiba Univ. (Japan). School of Medicine

2000-10-01

In 21 patients with chronic aortic dissections and proven patent false lumens, the flow volume and flow patterns in the patent false lumens was evaluated using velocity-encoded cine magnetic resonance imaging (VENC-MRI) and the relationship between the flow characteristics and aortic enlargement was retrospectively examined. Flow patterns in the false lumen were divided into 3 groups: pattern A with primarily antegrade flow (n=6), pattern R with primarily retrograde flow (n=3), and pattern B with bidirectional flow (n=12). In group A, the rate of flow volume in the false lumen compared to the total flow volume in true and false lumens (%TFV) and the average rate of enlargement of the maximum diameter of the dissected aorta per year ({delta}D) were significantly greater than in groups R and B (%TFV: 74.1{+-}0.07 vs 15.2{+-}0.03 vs 11.8{+-}0.04, p<0.01; {delta}D: 3.62{+-}0.82 vs 0 vs 0.58{+-}0.15 mm/year, p<0.05, respectively). There was a significant correlation between %TFV and {delta}D (r=0.79, p<0.0001). Evaluation of flow volume and flow patterns in the patent false lumen using VENC-MRI may be useful for predicting enlargement of the dissected aorta. (author)

Fluid Flow Technology that Measures Up

Science.gov (United States)

2004-01-01

From 1994 to 1996, NASA s Marshall Space Flight Center conducted a Center Director's Discretionary Fund research effort to apply artificial intelligence technologies to the health management of plant equipment and space propulsion systems. Through this effort, NASA established a business relationship with Quality Monitoring and Control (QMC), of Kingwood, Texas, to provide hardware modeling and artificial intelligence tools. Very detailed and accurate Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) analysis and algorithms were jointly created, which identified several missing, critical instrumentation needs for adequately evaluating the engine health status. One of the missing instruments was a liquid oxygen (LOX) flow measurement. This instrument was missing since the original SSME included a LOX turbine flow meter that failed during a ground test, resulting in considerable damage for NASA. New balanced flow meter technology addresses this need with robust, safe, and accurate flow metering hardware.

Evaluation of IOM personal sampler at different flow rates.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Yue; Cheng, Yung-Sung

2010-02-01

The Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) personal sampler is usually operated at a flow rate of 2.0 L/min, the rate at which it was designed and calibrated, for sampling the inhalable mass fraction of airborne particles in occupational environments. In an environment of low aerosol concentrations only small amounts of material are collected, and that may not be sufficient for analysis. Recently, a new sampling pump with a flow rate up to 15 L/min became available for personal samplers, with the potential of operating at higher flow rates. The flow rate of a Leland Legacy sampling pump, which operates at high flow rates, was evaluated and calibrated, and its maximum flow was found to be 10.6 L/min. IOM samplers were placed on a mannequin, and sampling was conducted in a large aerosol wind tunnel at wind speeds of 0.56 and 2.22 m/s. Monodisperse aerosols of oleic acid tagged with sodium fluorescein in the size range of 2 to 100 microm were used in the test. The IOM samplers were operated at flow rates of 2.0 and 10.6 L/min. Results showed that the IOM samplers mounted in the front of the mannequin had a higher sampling efficiency than those mounted at the side and back, regardless of the wind speed and flow rate. For the wind speed of 0.56 m/s, the direction-averaged (the average value of all orientations facing the wind direction) sampling efficiency of the samplers operated at 2.0 L/min was slightly higher than that of 10.6 L/min. For the wind speed of 2.22 m/s, the sampling efficiencies at both flow rates were similar for particles < 60 microm. The results also show that the IOM's sampling efficiency at these two different flow rates follows the inhalable mass curve for particles in the size range of 2 to 20 microm. The test results indicate that the IOM sampler can be used at higher flow rates.

Measurement of air distribution and void fraction of an upwards air–water flow using electrical resistance tomography and a wire-mesh sensor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Olerni, Claudio; Jia, Jiabin; Wang, Mi

2013-01-01

Measurements on an upwards air–water flow are reported that were obtained simultaneously with a dual-plane electrical resistance tomograph (ERT) and a wire-mesh sensor (WMS). The ultimate measurement target of both ERT and WMS is the same, the electrical conductivity of the medium. The ERT is a non-intrusive device whereas the WMS requires a net of wires that physically crosses the flow. This paper presents comparisons between the results obtained simultaneously from the ERT and the WMS for evaluation and calibration of the ERT. The length of the vertical testing pipeline section is 3 m with an internal diameter of 50 mm. Two distinct sets of air–water flow rate scenarios, bubble and slug regimes, were produced in the experiments. The fast impedance camera ERT recorded the data at an approximate time resolution of 896 frames per second (fps) per plane in contrast with the 1024 fps of the wire-mesh sensor WMS200. The set-up of the experiment was based on well established knowledge of air–water upwards flow, particularly the specific flow regimes and wall peak effects. The local air void fraction profiles and the overall air void fraction were produced from two systems to establish consistency for comparison of the data accuracy. Conventional bulk flow measurements in air mass and electromagnetic flow metering, as well as pressure and temperature, were employed, which brought the necessary calibration to the flow measurements. The results show that the profiles generated from the two systems have a certain level of inconsistency, particularly in a wall peak and a core peak from the ERT and WMS respectively, whereas the two tomography instruments achieve good agreement on the overall air void fraction for bubble flow. For slug flow, when the void fraction is over 30%, the ERT underestimates the void fraction, but a linear relation between ERT and WMS is still observed. (paper)