Structural Response of Nuclear Containment Shield Buildings with Construction Openings

Steam generator replacement at nuclear power plants requires large construction openings in nuclear containment structures. This study examines the effects of such openings placed in a 61?cm (2?ft) thick dome of a shield building. The dome is cast in two layers, and the limiting cases of the two layers acting as one and the lower layer carrying the entire load are considered. Without openings, the stresses due to dead load in the structure are very low when compared to the material strength. With openings, the loads are easily redistributed around the opening, and the maximum stresses for the conservative case are between three and four and one-half times larger than in the original structure with no openings. The extent of the affected area around the holes is relatively small. Smooth corners in the openings are necessary to avoid high local stress concentrations.     

Introducing Students to Professional Practice in Civil Engineering

This paper describes a module that was introduced into a civil engineering degree program with the help of professional engineers. The aim was to develop a bridge between the world of learning and professional practice by putting students in the role of consulting engineers working with industry to produce a feasible solution to a real inquiry from a client. The module is placed in context by comparing the goals of accredited civil engineering programs in the United Kingdom and America, by describing how it is linked to the degree program and by explaining the matrix developed to identify the skills the students needed to demonstrate their ability to practice as professional engineers. Details of the module are given with examples of student work and feedback.     

An Information Security Strategy for Networkable Devices

Networkable Windows-based operating system devices present information security challenges to both vendors and users of such devices. This article highlights some of those threats and offers measures to improve the link between a firm's business strategy, its operational activities, and its information security strategy.     

Ab<Emphasis Type="Italic"> initio</Emphasis> investigation of boron diffusion paths in germanium

Boron is observed to diffuse very slowly in germanium, as opposed to its behaviour in silicon where it exhibits Transient Enhanced Diffusion effects in implanted samples. As a result of this slow diffusion, boron is a very stable dopant, allowing devices to be created with very well-defined doping regions. To understand this superior performance, calculations were performed on a variety of boron diffusion paths, within vacancy and interstitial mediated methods. It was found that the vacancy mediated diffusion which is associated with the fast diffusion of many other species in germanium exhibits a total barrier of 5.8 eV. Interstitial-mediated diffusion had a total barrier for migration of 3.4 eV in the neutral and singly negative charge states, 3.2 eV for the positive charge state, but a formation barrier of 4.1 eV. Thus the barrier for interstitial-mediated diffusion is dominated by the formation energy of the self-interstitial.     

Perceptual Temporal Quality Metric for Compressed Video

This paper presents a metric to quantify frame loss according to the impact on perceived temporal quality. This metric particularly aims at measuring the temporal quality degradation caused by both regular and irregular frame loss. Experimental results with subjective viewing demonstrate high performance on prediction of perceptual temporal quality.     

Dialogical Argument as an Interface to Complex Debates

The Magtalo prototype environment harnesses dialogue protocols to support flexible, intuitive interaction with data in complex, contentious domains and provides mechanisms for eliciting structured knowledge. Magtalo represents the first example of an implemented online system that uses a closely specified argument-based dialogue protocol combined with a rich language for representing monologic argument to provide a tool for intuitive user exploration of a disagreement space. This approach also enables the expansion of argument resources through knowledge elicitation, which is structured by the argument dialogue protocol. The continuing aim of our research is to use advances in argumentation theory to push the practice of argumentation technology in providing tools and interfaces that have wide appeal.