A comparison of leaf-spring with aircushion trailer suspensions in the transport environment

Packaging engineers need to be able to accurately determine the forces present in the shipping environment in order to protect packaged goods. The purpose of this study was to determine the vertical vibration levels measured in three separate truck-trailer suspension systems; conventional leaf-spring, conventional air-ride and damaged air-ride. The main conclusion reached in this study is that the air-ride suspension when maintained gives lower power density (PD) levels on all road surfaces studied. A damaged air-ride suspension and leaf-spring suspension are very similar in response frequencies, although the damaged air-ride produces higher vibration levels at lower frequencies.     

Community OR — Five Years of Organised Activities and Beyond

What has become known as Community Operational Research has been around in the UK for many years. The election of Jonathan Rosenhead as President of the UK OR Society in 1986–87 was the catalyst for bringing together and expanding activities which had been carried out largely by individuals working in isolation on a voluntary basis. The following five years have seen the establishment of the Community OR Unit at Northern College, the Centre for Community OR at Hull University and the Community OR Network, which supports the activities of volunteer OR workers across the UK. This paper reviews the range and types of work which have been undertaken by various practitioners. An assessment of the success of community OR is made and a number of issues which have arisen are discussed. Finally, given the diverse nature of community OR, its practice and practitioners, there is some discussion about the future of the area.     

Comparative analysis of urban reflectance and surface temperature

Urban environmental conditions are strongly dependent on the biophysical properties and radiant thermal field of the land cover elements in the urban mosaic. Observations of urban reflectance and surface temperature provide valuable constraints on the physical properties that are determinants of mass and energy fluxes in the urban environment. Consistencies in the covariation of surface temperature with reflectance properties can be parameterized to represent characteristics of the surface energy flux associated with different land covers and physical conditions. Linear mixture models can accurately represent Landsat ETM+ reflectances as fractions of generic spectral endmembers that correspond to land surface materials with distinct physical properties. Modeling heterogeneous land cover as mixtures of rock and/or soil Substrate, Vegetation and non-reflective Dark surface (SVD) generic endmembers makes it possible to quantify the dependence of aggregate surface temperature on the relative abundance of each physical component of the land cover, thereby distinguishing the effects of vegetation abundance, soil exposure, albedo and shadowing. Comparing these covariations in a wide variety of urban settings and physical environments provides a more robust indication of the global variability in these parameter spaces than could be inferred from a single study area. A comparative analysis of 24 urban areas and their non-urban peripheries illustrates the variability in the urban thermal fields and its dependence on biophysical land surface components. Contrary to expectation, moderate resolution intra-urban variations in surface temperature are generally as large as regional surface heat island signatures in these urban areas. Many of the non-temperate urban areas did not have surface heat island signatures at all. However, the multivariate distributions of surface temperature and generic endmember fractions reveal consistent patterns of thermal fraction covariation resulting from land cover characteristics. The Thermal-Vegetation (TV) fraction space illustrates the considerable variability in the well-known inverse correlation between surface temperature and vegetation fraction at moderate (< 100 m) spatial resolutions. The Thermal-Substrate (TS) fraction space reveals energetic thresholds where competing effects of albedo, illumination and soil moisture determine the covariation of maximum and minimum temperature with illuminated substrate fraction. The dark surface endmember fraction represents a fundamental ambiguity in the radiance signal because it can correspond to either absorptive (e.g. low albedo asphalt), transmissive (e.g. deep clear water) or shadowed (e.g. tree canopy shadow) surfaces. However, in areas where dark surface composition can be inferred from spatial context, the different responses of these surfaces may still allow them to be distinguished in the thermal fraction space.     

A Composite Index of Compliance for Chronic In‐Center Hemodialysis Patients

We developed a composite compliance index as the sum of the compliance scores for interdialytic weight gain (IDWG), pre‐dialysis serum potassium and phosphorus concentrations (each scored from zero to 3, with 3 indicating the poorest compliance), and skipping hemodialysis sessions (scored from zero to 9, with 9 indicating the poorest compliance). We used this composite score to prospectively evaluate compliance in 25 prevalent hemodialysis patients over a period of 1 year. We then followed these patients for another 3.5 years. The patients studied were divided into two groups: group A (poor compliance) consisted of 9 subjects with composite score ≥ 9 (13.2 ± 3.2); group B (better compliance) consisted of 16 subjects with composite score < 9 (4.7 ± 1.8). Age, duration of hemodialysis, and frequency of diabetes mellitus did not differ between the groups. Group A contained higher fractions of subjects with history of alcoholism (66.7% vs 12.5%, p = 0.010), other substance addiction (44.4% vs 0%, p = 0.010), and severe psychosocial problems (88.9% vs 18.8%, p = 0.002). Mean survival from the beginning of observation, estimated by actuarial life‐table survival analysis, was 1.19 years in group A and 2.60 years in group B (p = 0.0265). A composite compliance index incorporating domains indicating adherence to diet, medications, and dialysis schedule identified other behavioral problems in poorly compliant patients. Hemodialysis patients characterized by this composite index as poorly compliant had shortened survival.     

Thirty years later: Attitudes toward the employment of older workers.

Replicated W. K. Kirchner and M. D. Dunnette's (see record 1955-03161-001) study on attitudes toward older workers with 71 male and 5 female hourly employees (aged 18–61 yrs) and 22 male supervisors (aged 27–63 yrs) of a nonunion manufacturing plant. Ss completed a questionnaire that was nearly identical to the one administered in the Kirchner and Dunnette study. Results are similar to those obtained in the earlier study: Hourly workers held more positive attitudes toward older employees than did supervisors, and attitude score correlated strongly with the age of hourly workers but not with the age of supervisors. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Optimizing the design of railway tank cars to minimize accident-caused releases

The design of vehicles transporting hazardous materials has important public safety and economic implications. Conventional wisdom among industry and government has held that a thicker tank on railroad tank cars and trucks reduces risk. However, a thicker tank increases vehicle weight and thus leads to an increase in the number of shipments required to transport the same amount of product and consequently greater exposure to accidents. In this research we develop a model that analyzes the tradeoff between increased damage resistance and greater exposure to accidents in which the objective function is minimization of the probability of release. The model accounts for the reduction in tank car release probability as a function of tank thickness, and the increased exposure to accidents that occurs due to the increased number of shipments needed for the heavier car. Three variables affecting this optimal thickness are considered in this paper: the volumetric capacity of the tank, the probability of release from other, non-tank sources, and the weight capacity of the car. Sensitivity analyses using the model indicate that for any particular configuration of tank car there is an optimal thickness. This optimal thickness is affected by several factors and there is no single optimum for all tank cars.     

Factor structure of the SOCRATES in a clinical sample of adolescents.

This study investigated the Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale (SOCRATES: W. R. Miller & J. S. Tonigan, 1996) in adolescents presenting for treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). The participants were 80 males and 43 females (mean age=16.8 years) who presented for AUD treatment (95.1% outpatient, 4.9% inpatient). Participants completed assessments at baseline and 1 year and provided information on alcohol use and related variables monthly between these 2 assessments. Principal-components and confirmatory factor analyses of the baseline SOCRATES identified 2 factors, Taking Steps and Recognition, which showed good internal consistency and concurrent and predictive evidence of validity. The results were interpreted as supporting the use of the SOCRATES with clinical samples of adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of Energy Expenditure in Elite Athletes Using MEMS-Based Triaxial Accelerometers

Fitness development and performance assessment of elite athletes requires an understanding of many physiological factors, many of these are direct and indirect measures of athlete energy expenditure. Many methods are physiological factor assessments and require the athlete to be constrained by laboratory equipment or periodic interruption of activity to take measurements such as blood samples are required to be taken. This paper presents a method that is entirely ambulatory and noninvasive, using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers. The commonly used output of commercial accelerometer-based devices (known as "counts") cannot discriminate activity intensity for the activities of interest. This, in conjunction with variability in output from different systems and lack of commonality across manufacturers, limits the usefulness of commercial devices. This paper identifies anthropometric and kinematic sources of inter-athlete variability in accelerometer output, leading to an alternate energy expenditure estimator based mainly on step frequency modified by anthropometric measures. This energy expenditure estimator is more robust and not influenced by many sources of variability that affect the currently used estimator. In this system, low-power signal processing was implemented to extract both the energy estimator and other information of physiological and statistical interest