Optimum mapping in an optical multiple pulse position modulation link using a maximum likelihood sequence detection scheme

The performance analysis of any multiple pulse position modulation (PPM) system is extremely time consuming because of the effects of different detection errors on the multiple PPM alphabet. In a small multiple PPM system such as (12 2)there are 64 codewords and each one can have ten possible false alarms, two possible erasures and four possible wrong-slot errors. The situation is worse if higher-order codes are considered. A novel algorithm, which reduces the time taken to predict the sensitivity of a multiple PPM system from almost 2 h of analysis to under a second, is presented. Results obtained using this method agree with those obtained using a full mathematical model. The authors also present a methodology that obtains a close to optimum mapping for any multiple PPM system. Detailed results show the effectiveness of this mapping routine.     

Challenges in using probabilistic climate change information for impact assessments: an example from the water sector

Climate change impacts and adaptation assessments have traditionally adopted a scenario-based approach, which precludes an assessment of the relative risks of particular adaptation options. Probabilistic impact assessments, especially if based on a thorough analysis of the uncertainty in an impact forecast system, enable adoption of a risk-based assessment framework. However, probabilistic impacts information is conditional and will change over time. We explore the implications of a probabilistic end-to-end risk-based framework for climate impacts assessment, using the example of water resources in the Thames River, UK. We show that a probabilistic approach provides more informative results that enable the potential risk of impacts to be quantified, but that details of the risks are dependent on the approach used in the analysis.     

An experimental design-based evaluation of sensitivities of MEPDG prediction: investigating main and interaction effects

The mechanistic–empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG) uses mechanistic–empirical models by analysing the impacts of traffic, climate, materials and pavement structure to predict performances of pavement. The MEPDG software uses a three-level hierarchical input to predict performance in terms of terminal International Roughness Index, permanent deformation, total cracking (reflective and alligator), asphalt concrete (AC) thermal fracture, AC bottom-up fatigue cracking and AC top-down fatigue cracking. However, these inputs with different levels of accuracy may have significant impact on performance prediction. This study focuses on the sensitivity of the inputs of MEPDG distresses to identify the effect of the accuracy level of inputs based on experimental design. A local sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the main effect of inputs considering them as independent variables. Interaction effects are also analysed based on random combination of the inputs. Sensitive input variables and their combinations are evaluated through a multiple regression analysis for respective distresses.     

Quantifying the safety effects of pavement friction improvements – results from a large-scale study

It is fairly well understood that there is link between pavement friction and safety, or more specifically, the probability of wet-weather skidding crashes. However, robust knowledge on the comparative quantitative effects on safety for specific treatments that improve pavement friction, which can assist pavement engineers in economically justifying and prioritising treatments, is sparse. The large-scale study on which this paper is based aimed to firm up this knowledge for a variety of low-cost treatments and road classes, using state-of-the-art methodology and substantial, high-quality data-sets. This was a retrospective study for pavement safety performance, looking back at crash data before and after treatments was implemented. Both flexible and rigid pavement treatments were analysed and crash modification factors were estimated for several target crash types and road classes. The majority of the friction improvement treatments considered under this effort are typically used for pavement preservation or minor rehabilitation purposes. Although pavement engineers recognise that these treatments generally improve safety, they are not typically installed by highway agencies explicitly for safety improvement objectives. The combined results for most treatment types confirmed nevertheless the safety benefits for wet-road crashes, with a few exceptions. For dry road crashes, there was some evidence of the deleterious effects of speed adaptation to new surfaces in that crashes increased for a few treatments on some road types.     

Development and in vitro evaluation of pH-independent release matrix tablet of weakly acidic drug valsartan using quality by design tools

Abstract

The main objective of this study was the development of pH-independent controlled release valsartan matrix tablet in Quality by design (QbD) framework. The quality target product profile (QTPP), critical quality attributes (CQAs) and critical material attributes (CMAs) were defined by science and risk-based methodologies. Potential risk factors were identified with Fishbone diagram. Following, CMAs were further investigated with a semi-quantitative risk assessment method, which has been revised with mitigated risks after development and optimization studies. According to defined critical material attributes, which one of them was determined to be the dissolution, formulation optimization study was performed by using a statistical design of experiment. Formulation variables have been identified and fixed first with a ‘One factor at a time (OFAT)’ approach. After OFAT studies, a statistical experimental design was conducted with the most critical material attributes. Statistical design space and mathematical prediction equations have been developed for dissolution and hardness, which is important to predict drug dissolution behavior. In conclusion, a pH-independent release has been achieved for weakly acidic drug valsartan with a deeper understanding of drug product quality, with the science and risk-based approaches of QbD tools.     

Calculating and addressing uncertainty for risk-based allowable outage times

This article examines the calculation and treatment of uncertainty in risk-based allowable outage times (AOTs) for operational control at nuclear power plants, where an AOT is defined as the time that a component or system is permitted to be out of service. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has explored the possibility of using a nuclear power plant's probabilistic risk assessment results to determine component or system AOTs. The analysis and results from previous work prepared for the NRC on determining risk-based AOTs are presented. As part of the discussion, the article examines the inherent uncertainty in calculating risk-based AOTs and presents the difficulties in calculating these risk-based AOTs. It is noted that care should be taken when dealing with uncertainty analysis results where a time-interval is the outcome of the analysis. In addition, potential improvements in the mechanism of calculating risk-based AOTs are suggested.     

Floating production storage and offloading systems’ cost and motion performance: A systems thinking application

Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units increasingly represent a practical and economic means for deep-water oil extraction and production. Systems thinking gives a unique opportunity to seek a balance between FPSO technical performance(s), with whole-cost; stakeholder decision-making is charged to align different fit-for-use design specification options’ that address technical-motion(s), with respective life-cycle cost analyses (LCCA). Soft system methodology allows situation based analyses over set periods-of-time by diagnosing the problem-at-hand; namely, assessing the antecedents of life-cycle cost relative to FPSO sub-component design alternatives. Alternative mooring- component comparisons for either new-build hulls or refurbished hulls represent an initial necessary consideration to facilitate extraction, production and storage of deep-water oil reserves. Coupled dynamic analysis has been performed to generate FPSO motion in six degrees of freedom using SESAM DeepC, while life-cycle cost analysis (LCAA) studies give net-present-value comparisons reflective of market conditions. A parametric study has been conducted by varying wave heights from 4 – 8 m to understand FPSO motion behavior in the presence of wind and current, as well as comparing the motions of turreted versus spread mooring design alternatives. LCCA data has been generated to compare the cost of such different mooring options/hull conditions over 10 and 25-year periods. Systems thinking has been used to explain the interaction of problem variables; resultantly this paper is able to identify explicit factors affecting the choice of FPSO configurations in terms of motion and whole-cost, toward assisting significantly with the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase of fit-for-purpose configured FPSOs, in waters off Malaysia and Australia.     

Impact of pavement conditions on crash severity

Pavement condition has been known as a key factor related to ride quality, but it is less clear how exactly pavement conditions are related to traffic crashes. The researchers used Geographic Information System (GIS) to link Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Crash Record Information System (CRIS) data and Pavement Management Information System (PMIS) data, which provided an opportunity to examine the impact of pavement conditions on traffic crashes in depth. The study analyzed the correlation between several key pavement condition ratings or scores and crash severity based on a large number of crashes in Texas between 2008 and 2009. The results in general suggested that poor pavement condition scores and ratings were associated with proportionally more severe crashes, but very poor pavement conditions were actually associated with less severe crashes. Very good pavement conditions might induce speeding behaviors and therefore could have caused more severe crashes, especially on non-freeway arterials and during favorable driving conditions. In addition, the results showed that the effects of pavement conditions on crash severity were more evident for passenger vehicles than for commercial vehicles. These results provide insights on how pavement conditions may have contributed to crashes, which may be valuable for safety improvement during pavement design and maintenance. Readers should notice that, although the study found statistically significant effects of pavement variables on crash severity, the effects were rather minor in reality as suggested by frequency analyses.     

Investigation of an optical multiple PPM link over a highly dispersive optical channel

A performance analysis of (X/Y) multiple pulse position modulation (PPM) systems, in which X denotes the number of data slots and Y the number of pulses, operating over a plastic optical fibre channel has been described. The effects of receiver noise and channel dispersion are accounted for and the manner in which the erasure, wrong-slot and false-alarm errors affect the system performance is examined. The receiver/decoder uses slope detection and a maximum likelihood sequence detector. As the analysis of any (x/y) multiple PPM system is extremely time-consuming, a novel automated solution was designed to predict the equivalent pulse code modulation (PCM) error rates of specific sequences and to simplify the task. A measure of coding quality that accounts for efficiency of coding and bandwidth expansion has also been proposed. Using this measure, original results show that a (12/6) system is the most efficient for a wide range of bandwidths.     

Analysis of traffic accidents on rural highways using Latent Class Clustering and Bayesian Networks

One of the principal objectives of traffic accident analyses is to identify key factors that affect the severity of an accident. However, with the presence of heterogeneity in the raw data used, the analysis of traffic accidents becomes difficult. In this paper, Latent Class Cluster (LCC) is used as a preliminary tool for segmentation of 3229 accidents on rural highways in Granada (Spain) between 2005 and 2008. Next, Bayesian Networks (BNs) are used to identify the main factors involved in accident severity for both, the entire database (EDB) and the clusters previously obtained by LCC. The results of these cluster-based analyses are compared with the results of a full-data analysis. The results show that the combined use of both techniques is very interesting as it reveals further information that would not have been obtained without prior segmentation of the data. BN inference is used to obtain the variables that best identify accidents with killed or seriously injured. Accident type and sight distance have been identify in all the cases analysed; other variables such as time, occupant involved or age are identified in EDB and only in one cluster; whereas variables vehicles involved, number of injuries, atmospheric factors, pavement markings and pavement width are identified only in one cluster.     

Use of a proton precession magnetometer to detect buried drums in sandy soil

A commercially available proton precession magnetometer (PPM) was used to investigate the detection of containers buried in a prescribed manner at a siThe results indicate that the PPM should be able to detect and delineate any typical dump site with predominantly steel (ferromagnetic) drums. In the uThe ease of deployment combined with the reliability, sensitivity and cost-effectiveness makes the PPM surveying a very promising nondestructive testin     

Investigation of the baseline wander effect on indoor optical wireless system employing digital pulse interval modulation [optical wireless communications]

In indoor optical wireless communication (OWC) systems, ambient lights in particular fluorescent lamps introduce a periodic interference signal, which has the potential to severely degrade link performance. One of the simplest techniques often used to mitigate the interference from artificial sources of ambient light is electrical high-pass filtering (HPF). However, HPF introduces baseline wander (BLW), which is more severe for modulation techniques that contain a significant amount of power located at DC and low frequencies. In this paper the effects of BLW on systems employing digital pulse interval modulation (DPIM) are extensively investigated. Also investigated are the effects of cut-on frequency of the HPF on the optical power requirement and power penalty for different bit rates, where results are compared with the more established techniques of on-off keying (OOK) with a non-return to zero signalling and pulse position modulation (PPM). The optimum HPF cut-on frequency, which minimises the overall power penalty, is estimated. It is shown that at high data bit rates (100 Mbps), DPIM power requirement is considerably lower (~5 dB) than OOK and similar to that of PPM.     

The effect of loading time on flexible pavement dynamic response: a finite element analysis

Dynamic response of asphalt concrete (AC) pavements under moving load is a key component for accurate prediction of flexible pavement performance. The time and temperature dependency of AC materials calls for utilizing advanced material characterization and mechanistic theories, such as viscoelasticity and stress/strain analysis. In layered elastic analysis, as implemented in the new Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG), the time dependency is accounted for by calculating the loading times at different AC layer depths. In this study, the time effect on pavement response was evaluated by means of the concept of “pseudo temperature.” With the pavement temperature measured from instrumented thermocouples, the time and temperature dependency of AC materials was integrated into one single factor, termed “effective temperature.” Via this effective temperature, pavement responses under a transient load were predicted through finite element analysis. In the finite element model, viscoelastic behavior of AC materials was characterized through relaxation moduli, while the layers with unbound granular material were assumed to be in an elastic mode. The analysis was conducted for two different AC mixtures in a simplified flexible pavement structure at two different seasons. Finite element analysis results reveal that the loading time has a more pronounced impact on pavement response in the summer for both asphalt types. The results indicate that for reasonable prediction of dynamic response in flexible pavements, the effect of the depth-dependent loading time on pavement temperature should be considered.     

Simplified procedure for pavement fatigue analyses

It is commonly understood that fatigue is often a major contributory cause of pavement cracking. How the subject of pavement fatigue should be treated in highway design and analysis has been of continuing concern to highway planners. A suitable methodology for considering pavement fatigue has been elusive due to the very large number of variables in regard to pavement composition which can be encountered in practice. The simplified approach proposed here enables the computation of fatigue factors for a given mixture by comparison with previous fatigue tests on dissimilar compositions. The fatigue factors for each variable are then combined, using the uniaxial ultimate tensile strain of the given mixture, to determine the theoretical fatigue tests on dissimilar compositions. The fatigue factors for each variable are then combined, using the uniaxial ultimate tensile strain of the given mixture, to determine the theoretical fatigue life in years. A simplified illustrative example is given to show how the procedures might be utilized. The given procedures are now of limited applicability for obtaining quantitative results because of insufficient pavement fatigue data available in the literature. The procedures and data given will however enable qualitative results to be calculated.     

Analysis of objective and subjective data using fuzzy coding and multiple correspondence analysis: principle and example in a sitting posture study

Fuzzy coding vs. crisp coding and then local coding vs. global coding is proposed to transform a quantitative scale into a category scale. Such a transformation technique is seen as the most general one to investigate either heterogeneous but quantitative variables or variables with different scale models (both quantitative and qualitative). A major point of fuzzy coding is that space modalities can be built very early in the statistical analysis process and from a discussion between several specialists. The multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is proposed to investigate a table where the data come from fuzzy coding; the table rows corresponding to the empirical situations and the columns to the space modalities of the respective variables. Two examples are considered. First, a didactic data set is designed in order to compare the principal component analysis, the MCA with crisp coding and the MCA with fuzzy coding. Second, an example about a sitting posture study is considered in order to show the possibility of achieving relationships between objective and subjective data. The empirical situations correspond to adjustment combinations of the seat, the table and the backrest; the variables are posture indicators and subjective assessments. The main result is that the subjective variables have a much more consistent evolution with the adjustments than the objective ones. Consequently, there is a poor connection between these two sets of variables. The backrest is the furniture setting with the highest influence. From the interpretation of the MCA factor planes, it is possible to find the best and the worst adjustment combinations.     

Influence of selected WMA additives on viscoelastic behaviour of asphalt mixes and pavements

Warm mix asphalt additives are effective in decreasing production, laying and compaction temperatures of asphalt mixes. However, there are still questions concerning influence of warm mix additives on properties of asphalt mixes and pavement performance. This paper presents results of the comprehensive research of viscoelastic behaviour of asphalt mixes and pavement structures with layers made with warm mix asphalt additives at high temperatures. Two additives of significantly different effects on mixes at higher temperatures were selected for analysis, namely aliphatic synthetic wax produced with the use of Fisher–Tropsch method and formulation of surfactant- based molecules (ionic and non-ionic). Viscoelastic properties of mixes with these two additives and, as a reference mix, with neat unmodified asphalt binder were determined in uniaxial compression with sinusoidal loading using Asphalt Mixture Performance Test. The viscoelastic analysis of pavement structures was performed with use of the VEROAD software and data from laboratory testing. Two different pavement structures were analysed, for light and heavy traffic. The temperature distribution in pavement structure during the hottest summer day in northern Poland in 2012 was taken into account. The model of pavement was loaded with moving wheel at different speeds. The analysis has shown that two tested warm mix additives had different effect on viscoelastic transient response at high temperatures. One of them (Fischer–Tropsch wax) evidently caused an increase in resistance of asphalt mix and pavement structure to loading at high temperature. The second additive (formulation of surfactant-based molecules) slightly reduced resistance of asphalt mix and pavement to loading at high temperatures as compared with the reference mix.     

Nondestructive evaluation of pavements using spectral analysis of surface waves in the frequency wave-number domain

The potential of using Spectral analysis of surface waves (SASW) for nondestructive testing of pavement and soil sites has been demonstrated in several publications. The usual SASW field testing and data analysis procedures and the assumption of a single propagation mode yield accurate results when there are no sharp changes in the stiffness of the site with depth. When this is not the case, however, difficulties arise in the interpretation of experimental data due to the participation of more than one mode in the wave field. In an earlier study, the multiple filter/crosscorrelation technique was suggested for analyzing multi-mode SASW signals. This technique, however, may not yield accurate results when propagation modes are closely spaced. A more general method using spectral analysis in the frequency wave-number domain is presented in this paper. Formulas are presented for determining a reasonably small number of surface measurements, and the accuracy of this method in resolving experimental dispersion curves is demonstrated for a pavement site.     

International roughness index models for HMA overlay treatment of flexible and composite pavements

Timely rehabilitation and preservation of pavement systems are imperative to minimising agency's costs and maximising benefits. Reasonable estimates of treatment life and pavement life extension can be made possible by developing reliable treatment performance models. Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development initiated a three-phased study to develop pavement treatment performance models in support of cost-effective selection of pavement treatment type and the time of treatment. As a result of the study, international roughness index (IRI) models for overlay treatment of composite and flexible pavements were developed. Various factors affecting the IRI of overlay treatment were identified. Climatic indices pertaining to Louisiana were developed which exhibited strong statistical significance along with the other variables as used in the IRI models. The developed IRI models provided good agreement between the measured and predicted IRI values with the majority of data within 5% of prediction error. The models could be used as a good pavement management tool for pavement maintenance and rehabilitation actions.     

Examining the nonparametric effect of drivers’ age in rear-end accidents through an additive logistic regression model

This study seeks to inspect the nonparametric characteristics connecting the age of the driver to the relative risk of being an at-fault vehicle, in order to discover a more precise and smooth pattern of age impact, which has commonly been neglected in past studies. Records of drivers in two-vehicle rear-end collisions are selected from the general estimates system (GES) 2011 dataset. These extracted observations in fact constitute inherently matched driver pairs under certain matching variables including weather conditions, pavement conditions and road geometry design characteristics that are shared by pairs of drivers in rear-end accidents. The introduced data structure is able to guarantee that the variance of the response variable will not depend on the matching variables and hence provides a high power of statistical modeling. The estimation results exhibit a smooth cubic spline function for examining the nonlinear relationship between the age of the driver and the log odds of being at fault in a rear-end accident. The results are presented with respect to the main effect of age, the interaction effect between age and sex, and the effects of age under different scenarios of pre-crash actions by the leading vehicle. Compared to the conventional specification in which age is categorized into several predefined groups, the proposed method is more flexible and able to produce quantitatively explicit results. First, it confirms the U-shaped pattern of the age effect, and further shows that the risks of young and old drivers change rapidly with age. Second, the interaction effects between age and sex show that female and male drivers behave differently in rear-end accidents. Third, it is found that the pattern of age impact varies according to the type of pre-crash actions exhibited by the leading vehicle.