Nationwide buildings energy research enabled through an integrated data intensive

Modern workflow systems can enable scientists to run ensemble simulations at unprecedented scales and levels of complexity, allowing them to study system sizes previously impossible to achieve. However as a result of these new capabilities the science teams suddenly also face unprecedented data volumes that they are unable to analyze with their existing tools and methodologies in a timely fashion. In this paper we describe the ongoing development work to create an integrated data intensive scientific workflow and analysis environment that offers researchers the ability to easily create and execute complex simulation studies and provides them with different scalable methods to analyze the resulting data volumes. The capabilities of the new environment are demonstrated on a use case that focuses on building energy modeling. As part of the PNNL research initiative PRIMA (Platform for Regional Integrated Modeling and Analysis) the team performed an initial 3-year study of building energy demands for the US Eastern Interconnect domain. They are now planning to extend to predict the demand for the complete century. In the 3-year study the team simulated 2000 individual building types for 100 independent climate similar regions (600 000 individual runs) raising their data demands from a few MBs to 400 GB for the 3-year study.     

英伦记忆——英国SanctumSoho酒店

当英伦元素撞上上世纪七八十年代的传奇重金属乐队Iron Maiden（铁娘子）的摇滚激情，会产生怎样的化学反应？     

Self-reports of aberrant behaviour on the roads: errors and violations in a sample of Greek drivers

Recent studies have shown that unsafe driver acts can be classified into two distinct categories (i.e.. errors and violations) entailing different measures for reducing road traffic accidents. A survey of over 1,400 drivers in Greece is reported in which a variety of aberrant driving behaviours have been identified. The present study has confirmed the results of earlier studies in the driving populations of Britain. Australia and Sweden that errors and violations are the major determinants in the factor structure of aberrant behaviours. Three types of violations were identified including, highway code-, aggressive- and parking-violations (or situational violations). Mistakes and lapses were two major forms of errors. The factor analysis identified another two classes of behaviour that could not be accounted for very well by the error-violation distinction. One class of behaviours referred to a state of low preparedness and negligence while the other class referred to communication errors and 'social disregard' for the other road users. Each class of behaviour was found to have different demographic correlates. Finally, accident liability was predicted by self-reported tendency to commit highway-code violations, but not by tendency to make errors due to failures of judgement (i.e.. mistakes) or lapses. Aggressive violations were significantly related to involvement in speeding convictions and law-breaking whilst highway-code violations were related to speeding convictions only.     

A Brief Actuarial Assessment for the Prediction of Wife Assault Recidivism: The Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment.

An actuarial assessment to predict male-to-female marital violence was constructed from a pool of potential predictors in a sample of 589 offenders identified in police records and followed up for an average of almost 5 years. Archival information in several domains (offender characteristics, domestic violence history, nondomestic criminal history, relationship characteristics, victim characteristics, index offense) and recidivism were subjected to setwise and stepwise logistic regression. The resulting 13-item scale, the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA), showed a large effect size in predicting new assaults against legal or common-law wives or ex-wives (Cohen's d = 1.1, relative operating characteristic area = .77) and was associated with number and severity of new assaults and time until recidivism. Cross-validation and comparisons with other instruments are also reported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Novel magnetite-silica nanocomposite (Fe3O4-SBA-15) particles for DNA binding and gene delivery aided by a magnet array

Novel magnetite-silica nanocomposite particles were prepared using SBA-15 nanoporous silica as template. Magnetite nanoparticles were impregnated into the nanopore array of the silica template through thermal decomposition of iron(III) acetylacetonate, Fe(AcAc)3 at 200 degrees C. These composite particles were characterized using TEM, XRD and SQUID magnetometry. The TEM images showed that the size of composite particles was around 500 nm and the particles retained the nanoporous array of SBA-15. The formation of magnetite nanoparticles was confirmed by the powder XRD study. These composite particles also exhibited ferrimagnetic properties. By coating with short chain polyethyleneimine (PEI), these particles are capable of binding DNA molecules for gene delivery and transfection. With an external magnetic field, the transfection efficiency was shown to have an increase of around 15%. The results indicated that these composite nanoparticles may be further developed as a new tool for nanomagnetic gene transfection.     

Statistical analysis of major accidents in petrochemical industry notified to the major accident reporting system (MARS)

The European major accident reporting system (MARS) was created within the framework of European Union (EU) directive 82/501, the so-called "SEVESO" directive, and in order to register all the major industrial accidents notified to the European Union authorities from the member states. Statistical analysis of these accidents offers significant data to the understanding and prevention of industrial accidents. This paper makes an analysis of some characteristics of major accidents in the petrochemical sector included in MARS. The statistical analysis focused on the main categorization fields of the MARS short reports and additionally a refinement of the immediate causes of major accidents with focus on the organizational factors was attempted through the details provided in the full reports of the database.     

Ecological change associated with historic industrial activity in the St. Lawrence River at Cornwall,ON: A paleo-ecotoxicological assessment using subfossil chironomid assemblages

Twentieth-century historic industrial activity in Cornwall, ON loaded high amounts of metals and metalloids to the St. Lawrence River. Despite industrial improvements and the eventual closure of point-source polluters, sedimentary contamination in the Cornwall waterfront remains above provincial guidelines, causing concern for ecosystem management. We analysed chironomid (Order: Diptera) subfossils from modern-day surface-sediment samples and a sediment core from the Cornwall waterfront in order to better understand historic pollution impacts and potential recovery. Modern-day chironomid assemblages were diverse (48 genera, >70 species) and overall assemblage structure was weakly related to sedimentary zinc concentrations, with Procladius, Paratanytarsus, and Ablabesmyia identified as zinc-tolerant and Rheotanytarsus, Polypedilum and Paratendipes identified as zinc-sensitive. The sediment core showed peak total mercury (THg) concentrations were an order of magnitude higher than in modern-day surface sediments. In sections of the core below 10 cm in depth, THg concentrations were high (~30–50 µg/g) and chironomids were nearly absent from the record. Above 10 cm (c. 1980) THg concentrations decreased and chironomid taxa returned in low abundances. Subsequent intervals displayed an increase in diversity, abundance, and the relative abundance of metal-sensitive taxa. This study provides evidence of ecological change which co-occurs with Cornwall’s historic industrial activity and indicates progress toward related ecological goals identified in the current management strategy.     

On the decoupling of position and force controllers in constrained robotic tasks

In hybrid control of robot manipulators separate controllers are designed for force and position errors control. Controllers are designed either in task or joint space and their outputs combine to provide input torque to the manipulator. Position and force controllers performance in a constrained robotic task is affected by their interaction to a degree dependent on the controller's ability to reject disturbances. Ideally, decoupling of the two control loops is desired to achieve the best performance in position and force directions. In this article, analysis of control loop interactions is performed for contact and noncontact phases, and controller design requirements are developed to achieve maximum decoupling. Design requirements involve output subspace of each controller leading to control discontinuities for contact and noncontact phases. In the noncontact phase, satisfaction of design requirements leads to a fully linearized and decoupled system. When in contact with the constraining surface, design requirements eliminate disturbances in the force loop, but minimize disturbances in the position loop to an extent dependent on force loop performance. Known hybrid control schemes analysis is performed to reveal existence of control loop interactions in these schemes. Confirmation of theoretical analysis is done through simulation of a three revolute planar manipulator. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.