Estimation of energy saving of commercial building by living wall and green facade in sub-tropical climate of Australia

This paper investigates energy saving potential of commercial building by living wall and green façade system using Envelope Thermal Transfer Value (ETTV) equation in Sub-tropical climate of Australia. Energy saving of four commercial buildings was quantified by applying living wall and green façade system to the west facing wall. A field experimental facility, from which temperature data of living wall system was collected, was used to quantify wall temperatures and heat gain under controlled conditions. The experimental parameters were accumulated with extensive data of existing commercial building to quantify energy saving. Based on temperature data of living wall system comprised of Australian native plants, equivalent temperature of living wall system has been computed. Then, shading coefficient of plants in green façade system has been included in mathematical equation and in graphical analysis. To minimize the air-conditioned load of commercial building, therefore to minimize the heat gain of commercial building, an analysis of building heat gain reduction by living wall and green façade system has been performed. Overall, cooling energy performance of commercial building before and after living wall and green façade system application has been examined. The quantified energy saving showed that only living wall system on opaque part of west facing wall can save 8-13 % of cooling energy consumption where as only green façade system on opaque part of west facing wall can save 9.5-18% cooling energy consumption of commercial building. Again, green façade system on fenestration system on west facing wall can save 28-35 % of cooling energy consumption where as combination of both living wall on opaque part of west facing wall and green façade on fenestration system on west facing wall can save 35-40% cooling energy consumption of commercial building in sub-tropical climate of Australia.

Effectiveness of powered hospital bed movers for reducing physiological strain and back muscle activation

Battery powered bed movers are becoming increasingly common within the hospital setting. The use of powered bed movers is believed to result in reduced physical efforts required by health care workers, which may be associated with a decreased risk of occupation related injuries. However, little work has been conducted assessing how powered bed movers impact on levels of physiological strain and muscle activation for the user. The muscular efforts associated with moving hospital beds using three different methods; manual pushing, StaminaLift Bed Mover (SBM) and Gzunda Bed Mover (GBM)were measured on six male subjects. Fourteen muscles were assessed moving a weighted hospital bed along a standardized route in an Australian hospital environment. Trunk inclination and upper spine acceleration were also quantified. Powered bed movers exhibited significantly lower muscle activation levels than manual pushing for the majority of muscles. When using the SBM, users adopted a more upright posture which was maintained while performing different tasks (e.g. turning a corner, entering a lift), while trunk inclination varied considerably for manual pushing and the GBM. The reduction in lower back muscular activation levels and the load reducing effect of a more upright posture may result in lower incidence of lower back injury.

Study of the effectiveness of outrigger system for high-rise composite buildings for cyclonic region

The demands of taller structures are becoming imperative almost everywhere in the world in addition to the challenges of material and labor cost, project time line etc. This paper conducted a study keeping in view the challenging nature of high-rise construction with no generic rules for deflection minimizations and frequency control. The effects of cyclonic wind and provision of outriggers on 28-storey, 42-storey and 57-storey are examined in this paper and certain conclusions are made which would pave way for researchers to conduct further study in this particular area of civil engineering. The results show that plan dimensions have vital impacts on structural heights. Increase of height while keeping the plan dimensions same, leads to the reduction in the lateral rigidity. To achieve required stiffness increase of bracings sizes as well as introduction of additional lateral resisting system such as belt truss and outriggers is required.

An aspect query language model based on query decomposition and high-order contextual term associations

In information retrieval (IR) research, more and more focus has been placed on optimizing a query language model by detecting and estimating the dependencies between the query and the observed terms occurring in the selected relevance feedback documents. In this paper, we propose a novel Aspect Language Modeling framework featuring term association acquisition, document segmentation, query decomposition, and an Aspect Model (AM) for parameter optimization. Through the proposed framework, we advance the theory and practice of applying high-order and context-sensitive term relationships to IR. We first decompose a query into subsets of query terms. Then we segment the relevance feedback documents into chunks using multiple sliding windows. Finally we discover the higher order term associations, that is, the terms in these chunks with high degree of association to the subsets of the query. In this process, we adopt an approach by combining the AM with the Association Rule (AR) mining. In our approach, the AM not only considers the subsets of a query as “hidden” states and estimates their prior distributions, but also evaluates the dependencies between the subsets of a query and the observed terms extracted from the chunks of feedback documents. The AR provides a reasonable initial estimation of the high-order term associations by discovering the associated rules from the document chunks. Experimental results on various TREC collections verify the effectiveness of our approach, which significantly outperforms a baseline language model and two state-of-the-art query language models namely the Relevance Model and the Information Flow model

The effectiveness of cross-lingual link discovery

This paper describes the evaluation in benchmarking the effectiveness of cross-lingual link discovery (CLLD). Cross lingual link discovery is a way of automatically finding prospective links between documents in different languages, which is particularly helpful for knowledge discovery of different language domains. A CLLD evaluation framework is proposed for system performance benchmarking. The framework includes standard document collections, evaluation metrics, and link assessment and evaluation tools. The evaluation methods described in this paper have been utilised to quantify the system performance at NTCIR-9 Crosslink task. It is shown that using the manual assessment for generating gold standard can deliver a more reliable evaluation result.

Integrated approach for HP-LNG pump diagnosis and prognostics based on health state probability estimation

This paper presents an innovative prognostics model based on health state probability estimation embedded in the closed loop diagnostic and prognostic system. To employ an appropriate classifier for health state probability estimation in the proposed prognostic model, the comparative intelligent diagnostic tests were conducted using five different classifiers applied to the progressive fault levels of three faults in HP-LNG pump. Two sets of impeller-rubbing data were employed for the prediction of pump remnant life based on estimation of discrete health state probability using an outstanding capability of SVM and a feature selection technique. The results obtained were very encouraging and showed that the proposed prognosis system has the potential to be used as an estimation tool for machine remnant life prediction in real life industrial applications.

The effect of hexagonal boron nitride additive on the effectiveness of grease-based lubrication of a steel surface

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the sliding and the vibrating fretting tests mechanism of h-BN micro-particles when used as a lubricating grease-2 additive. Design/methodology/approach: The fretting tests were conducted on steel/steel contacts using both vibrating fretting apparatus and the shaftsleeve slide fitted tester. The wear scars were characterized with profilometry. The tribological properties of grease-2 compounded with h-BN additive were also compared to those obtained for the commercial product Militec-4. Findings: The experiment showed significant differences between the results obtained from the vibrating fretting and the shaft-sleeve sliding fitted tests. Adding h-BN to the lubricant leads to a better performance in the shaft-sleeve slide regime than in the steel/steel vibrating test condition. Originality/value: The results of the experimental studies demonstrate the potential of h-BN as an additive for preventing fretting sliding, and can very useful for further application of compound grease-2 with h-BN additive in industrial equipment.

Change Point Estimation in Monitoring Survival Time

Precise identification of the time when a change in a hospital outcome has occurred enables clinical experts to search for a potential special cause more effectively. In this paper, we develop change point estimation methods for survival time of a clinical procedure in the presence of patient mix in a Bayesian framework. We apply Bayesian hierarchical models to formulate the change point where there exists a step change in the mean survival time of patients who underwent cardiac surgery. The data are right censored since the monitoring is conducted over a limited follow-up period. We capture the effect of risk factors prior to the surgery using a Weibull accelerated failure time regression model. Markov Chain Monte Carlo is used to obtain posterior distributions of the change point parameters including location and magnitude of changes and also corresponding probabilistic intervals and inferences. The performance of the Bayesian estimator is investigated through simulations and the result shows that precise estimates can be obtained when they are used in conjunction with the risk-adjusted survival time CUSUM control charts for different magnitude scenarios. The proposed estimator shows a better performance where a longer follow-up period, censoring time, is applied. In comparison with the alternative built-in CUSUM estimator, more accurate and precise estimates are obtained by the Bayesian estimator. These superiorities are enhanced when probability quantification, flexibility and generalizability of the Bayesian change point detection model are also considered.

Interlocked projects in safety competency and safety effectiveness indicators in the construction sector

Safety culture is a concept that has long been accepted in high risk industries such as aviation, nuclear industries and mining, however, considerable research is now also being undertaken within the construction sector. This paper discusses three recent interlocked projects undertaken in the Australian construction industry. The first project examined the development and implementation of a safety competency framework targeted at safety critical positions (SCP's) across first tier construction organisations. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods, the project: developed a matrix of SCP's (n=11) and safety management tasks (SMTs; n=39); mapped the process steps for their acquisition and development; detailed the knowledge, skills and behaviours required for all SMTs; and outlined potential organisational cultural outcomes from a successful implementation of the framework. The second project extended this research to develop behavioural guidelines for leaders to drive safety culture change down to second tier companies and to assist them to customise their own competency framework and implementation guidelines to match their aspirations and resources. The third interlocked project explored the use of safety effectiveness indicators (SEIs) as an industry-relevant assessment tool for reducing risk on construction sites. With direct linkages to safety competencies and SMT's, the SEIs are the next step towards an integrated safety cultural approach to safety and extend the concept of positive performance indicators (PPIs) by providing a valid, reliable, and user friendly measurement platform. Taken together, the results of the interlocked projects suggest that industry engaged collaborative safety culture research has many potential benefits for the construction industry.

Volume estimation from multiplanar 2D ultrasound images using a remote electromagnetic position and orientation sensor

A system is described for calculating volume from a sequence of multiplanar 2D ultrasound images. Ultrasound images are captured using a video digitising card (Hauppauge Win/TV card) installed in a personal computer, and regions of interest transformed into 3D space using position and orientation data obtained from an electromagnetic device (Polbemus, Fastrak). The accuracy of the system was assessed by scanning 10 water filled balloons (13-141 ml), 10 kidneys (147  200 ml) and 16 fetal livers (8  37 ml) in water using an Acuson 128XP/10 (5 MHz curvilinear probe). Volume was calculated using the ellipsoid, planimetry, tetrahedral and ray tracing methods and compared with the actual volume measured by weighing (balloons) and water displacement (kidneys and livers). The mean percentage error for the ray tracing method was 0.9 ± 2.4%, 2.7 ± 2.3%, 6.6 ± 5.4% for balloons, kidneys and livers, respectively. So far the system has been used clinically to scan fetal livers and lungs, neonate brain ventricles and adult prostate glands.

Towards a Deeper Understanding of Information Technology Governance Effectiveness : A Capabilities-Based Approach

We examine the relationship between the effectiveness of IT steering committee-driven IT governance initiatives and firm’s IT management and IT infrastructure related capabilities. We test these relationships empirically by a field survey of 216 firms. Results of this study suggest that a firms’ effectiveness of IT steering committee-driven IT governance initiatives positively relate to the level of their IT-related capabilities. We also found positive relationships between IT-related capabilities and internal process-level performance, which positively relate to improvement in customer service and firm-level performance. For researchers, we demonstrate that the resourcebased theory provides a more robust explanation of the determinants of firms IT governance initiatives. This would be ideal in evaluating other IT governance initiatives effectiveness in relation to how they contribute to building performance-differentiating IT-related capabilities. For decision makers, we hope our study has reiterated the notion that IT governance is truly a coordinated effort, embracing all levels of human resources.

In vitro estimation of foetal liver volume using ultrasound, x-ray computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging

Sixteen formalin-fixed foetal livers were scanned in vitro using a new system for estimating volume from a sequence of multiplanar 2D ultrasound images. Three different scan techniques were used (radial, parallel and slanted) and four volume estimation algorithms (ellipsoid, planimetry, tetrahedral and ray tracing). Actual liver volumes were measured by water displacement. Twelve of the sixteen livers also received x-ray computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) scans and the volumes were calculated using voxel counting and planimetry. The percentage accuracy (mean ± SD) was 5.3 ± 4.7%, −3.1 ± 9.6% and −0.03 ± 9.7% for ultrasound (radial scans, ray volumes), MR and CT (voxel counting) respectively. The new system may be useful for accurately estimating foetal liver volume in utero.

An estimation of crash risks using a log-linear model and the induced exposure technique

Prevention and safety promotion programmes. Traditionally, in-depth investigations of crash risks are conducted using exposure controlled study or case-control methodology. However, these studies need either observational data for control cases or exogenous exposure data like vehicle-kilometres travel, entry flow or product of conflicting flow for a particular traffic location, or a traffic site. These data are not readily available and often require extensive data collection effort on a system-wide basis. Aim: The objective of this research is to propose an alternative methodology to investigate crash risks of a road user group in different circumstances using readily available traffic police crash data. Methods: This study employs a combination of a log-linear model and the quasi-induced exposure technique to estimate crash risks of a road user group. While the log-linear model reveals the significant interactions and thus the prevalence of crashes of a road user group under various sets of traffic, environmental and roadway factors, the quasi-induced exposure technique estimates relative exposure of that road user in the same set of explanatory variables. Therefore, the combination of these two techniques provides relative measures of crash risks under various influences of roadway, environmental and traffic conditions. The proposed methodology has been illustrated using Brisbane motorcycle crash data of five years. Results: Interpretations of results on different combination of interactive factors show that the poor conspicuity of motorcycles is a predominant cause of motorcycle crashes. Inability of other drivers to correctly judge the speed and distance of an oncoming motorcyclist is also evident in right-of-way violation motorcycle crashes at intersections. Discussion and Conclusions: The combination of a log-linear model and the induced exposure technique is a promising methodology and can be applied to better estimate crash risks of other road users. This study also highlights the importance of considering interaction effects to better understand hazardous situations. A further study on the comparison between the proposed methodology and case-control method would be useful.

Assessing the effectiveness of the child safety net : linkage of hospital and child protection services data on ‘maltreated’ and ‘unintentionally injured' children

-International recognition of need for public health response to child maltreatment -Need for early intervention at health system level -Important role of health professionals in identifying, reporting, documenting suspician of maltreatment -Up to 10% of all children presenting at ED’s are victims and without identification, 35% reinjured and 5% die -In Qld, mandatory reporting requirement for doctors and nurses for suspected abuse or neglect