Buried Time Capsule and Plaque

The buried time capsule and plaque. The Annual FIU Student Leadership Summit is held each February on the Biscayne Bay Campus. The Summit is a one-day conference for current student leaders. The Summit offers our students the opportunity to learn from the vast expertise of our faculty and administrators, to share their leadership experiences with each other and to establish a network of support and cooperation within the university. On Feb. 2, 2013, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of holding the Student Leadership Summit. In honor of this occasion, we buried a time capsule containing materials from the day as well as messages from participants to the participants of 2023 when the time capsule is to be opened.

Effects of real -time captioning and sign language interpreting on the learning of college students who are deaf or hard of hearing

College personnel are required to provide accommodations for students who are deaf and hard of hearing (D/HoH), but few empirical studies have been conducted on D/HoH students as they learn under the various accommodation conditions (sign language interpreting, SLI, real-time captioning, RTC, and both). Guided by the experiences of students who are D/HoH at Miami-Dade College (MDC) who requested RTC in addition to SLI as accommodations, the researcher adopted Merten’s transformative-emancipatory theoretical framework that values perceptions and voice of students who are D/HoH. A mixed methods design addressed two research questions: Did student learning differ for each accommodation? What did students experience while learning through accommodations? Participants included 30 students who were D/HoH (60% women). They represented MDC’s majority minority population: 10% White (non-Hispanic), 20% Black (non-Hispanic, including Haitian/Caribbean), 67% Hispanic, and 3% other. Hearing loss, ranged from severe-profound (70%) to mild-moderate (30%). All were able to communicate with American Sign Language: Learning was measured while students who were D/HoH viewed three lectures under three accommodation conditions (SLI, RTC, SLI+RTC). The learning measure was defined as the difference in pre- and post-test scores on tests of the content presented in the lectures. Using repeated measure ANOVA and ANCOVA, confounding variables of fluency in American Sign Language and literacy skills were treated as covariates. Perceptions were obtained through interviews and verbal protocol analysis that were signed, videotaped, transcribed, coded, and examined for common themes and metacognitive strategies. No statistically significant differences were found among the three accommodations on the learning measure. Students who were D/HoH expressed thoughts about five different aspects of their learning while they viewed lectures: (a) comprehending the information, (b) feeling a part of the classroom environment, (c) past experiences with an accommodation, (d) individual preferences for an accommodation, (e) suggestions for improving an accommodation. They exhibited three metacognitive strategies: (a) constructing knowledge, (b) monitoring comprehension, and (c) evaluating information. No patterns were found in the types of metacognitive strategies used for any particular accommodation. The researcher offers recommendations for flexible applications of the standard accommodations used with students who are D/HoH.

Time trends and predictors of initiation for cigarette and waterpipe smoking among Jordanian school children: Irbid, 2008-2011

Smoking prevalence among adolescents in the Middle East remains high while rates of smoking have been declining among adolescents elsewhere. The aims of this research were to (1) describe patterns of cigarette and waterpipe (WP) smoking, (2) identify determinants of WP smoking initiation, and (3) identify determinants of cigarette smoking initiation in a cohort of Jordanian school children. ^ Among this cohort of school children in Irbid, Jordan, (age ≈ 12.6 at baseline) the first aim (N=1,781) described time trends in smoking behavior, age at initiation, and changes in frequency of smoking from 2008–2011 (grades 7–10). The second aim (N=1,243) identified determinants of WP initiation among WP-naïve students; and the third aim (N=1,454) identified determinants of cigarette smoking initiation among cigarette naïve participants. Determinants of initiation were assessed with generalized mixed models. All analyses were stratified by gender. ^ Baseline prevalence of current smoking (cigarettes or WP) for boys and girls was 22.9% and 8.7% respectively. Prevalence of ever- and current- any smoking, cigarette smoking, WP smoking, and dual cigarette/WP smoking was higher in boys than girls each year (p<0.001). At all time points, prevalence of WP smoking was higher than that of cigarette smoking (p<0.001) for both boys and girls. WP initiation was documented in 39% of boys and 28% of girls. Cigarette initiation was documented in 37% of boys and 24% of girls. Determinants of WP initiation included ever-cigarette smoking, low WP refusal self-efficacy, intention to smoke, and having teachers and friends who smoke WP. Determinants of cigarette smoking initiation included ever-WP smoking, low cigarette refusal self-efficacy, intention to start smoking cigarettes, and having friends and family who smoke.^ These studies reveal intensive smoking patterns at early ages among Jordanian youth in Irbid, characterized by a predominance of WP smoking. WP may be a vehicle for tobacco dependence and subsequent cigarette uptake. The sizeable incidence of WP and cigarette initiation among students of both sexes points to a need for culturally relevant smoking prevention interventions. Gender-specific factors, refusal skills, and smoking cessation of both WP and cigarettes for youth and their parents/teachers would be important components of such initiatives. ^

Time, Cost, and Environmental Impact Analysis for Sustainable Design at Multiple Building Levels

Construction projects are complex endeavors that require the involvement of different professional disciplines in order to meet various project objectives that are often conflicting. The level of complexity and the multi-objective nature of construction projects lend themselves to collaborative design and construction such as integrated project delivery (IPD), in which relevant disciplines work together during project conception, design and construction. Traditionally, the main objectives of construction projects have been to build in the least amount of time with the lowest cost possible, thus the inherent and well-established relationship between cost and time has been the focus of many studies. The importance of being able to effectively model relationships among multiple objectives in building construction has been emphasized in a wide range of research. In general, the trade-off relationship between time and cost is well understood and there is ample research on the subject. However, despite sustainable building designs, relationships between time and environmental impact, as well as cost and environmental impact, have not been fully investigated. The objectives of this research were mainly to analyze and identify relationships of time, cost, and environmental impact, in terms of CO2 emissions, at different levels of a building: material level, component level, and building level, at the pre-use phase, including manufacturing and construction, and the relationships of life cycle cost and life cycle CO2 emissions at the usage phase. Additionally, this research aimed to develop a robust simulation-based multi-objective decision-support tool, called SimulEICon, which took construction data uncertainty into account, and was capable of incorporating life cycle assessment information to the decision-making process. The findings of this research supported the trade-off relationship between time and cost at different building levels. Moreover, the time and CO2 emissions relationship presented trade-off behavior at the pre-use phase. The results of the relationship between cost and CO2 emissions were interestingly proportional at the pre-use phase. The same pattern continually presented after the construction to the usage phase. Understanding the relationships between those objectives is a key in successfully planning and designing environmentally sustainable construction projects.

Freeway Travel Time Estimation and Prediction Using Dynamic Neural Networks

Providing transportation system operators and travelers with accurate travel time information allows them to make more informed decisions, yielding benefits for individual travelers and for the entire transportation system. Most existing advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) and advanced traffic management systems (ATMS) use instantaneous travel time values estimated based on the current measurements, assuming that traffic conditions remain constant in the near future. For more effective applications, it has been proposed that ATIS and ATMS should use travel times predicted for short-term future conditions rather than instantaneous travel times measured or estimated for current conditions. This dissertation research investigates short-term freeway travel time prediction using Dynamic Neural Networks (DNN) based on traffic detector data collected by radar traffic detectors installed along a freeway corridor. DNN comprises a class of neural networks that are particularly suitable for predicting variables like travel time, but has not been adequately investigated for this purpose. Before this investigation, it was necessary to identifying methods for data imputation to account for missing data usually encountered when collecting data using traffic detectors. It was also necessary to identify a method to estimate the travel time on the freeway corridor based on data collected using point traffic detectors. A new travel time estimation method referred to as the Piecewise Constant Acceleration Based (PCAB) method was developed and compared with other methods reported in the literatures. The results show that one of the simple travel time estimation methods (the average speed method) can work as well as the PCAB method, and both of them out-perform other methods. This study also compared the travel time prediction performance of three different DNN topologies with different memory setups. The results show that one DNN topology (the time-delay neural networks) out-performs the other two DNN topologies for the investigated prediction problem. This topology also performs slightly better than the simple multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network topology that has been used in a number of previous studies for travel time prediction.

Application of time series and Kalman filtering for structural health monitoring of a bridge

Peer reviewed

Orbitally tuned time scale and astronomical forcing in the middle Eocene to early Oligocene determined on ODP and IODP sediment cores

Deciphering the driving mechanisms of Earth system processes, including the climate dynamics expressed as paleoceanographic events, requires a complete, continuous, and high-resolution stratigraphy that is very accurately dated. In this study, we construct a robust astronomically calibrated age model for the middle Eocene to early Oligocene interval (31-43 Ma) in order to permit more detailed study of the exceptional climatic events that occurred during this time, including the Middle Eocene Climate Optimum and the Eocene/Oligocene transition. A goal of this effort is to accurately date the middle Eocene to early Oligocene composite section cored during the Pacific Equatorial Age Transect (PEAT, IODP Exp. 320/321). The stratigraphic framework for the new time scale is based on the identification of the stable long eccentricity cycle in published and new high-resolution records encompassing bulk and benthic stable isotope, calibrated XRF core scanning, and magnetostratigraphic data from ODP Sites 171B-1052, 189-1172, 199-1218, and 207-1260 as well as IODP Sites 320-U1333, and -U1334 spanning magnetic polarity Chrons C12n to C20n. Subsequently we applied orbital tuning of the records to the La2011 orbital solution. The resulting new time scale revises and refines the existing orbitally tuned age model and the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale from 31 to 43 Ma. Our newly defined absolute age for the Eocene/Oligocene boundary validates the astronomical tuned age of 33.89 Ma identified at the Massignano (Italy) global stratotype section and point. Our compilation of geochemical records of climate-controlled variability in sedimentation through the middle-to-late Eocene and early Oligocene demonstrates strong power in the eccentricity band that is readily tuned to the latest astronomical solution. Obliquity driven cyclicity is only apparent during very long eccentricity cycle minima around 35.5 Ma, 38.3 Ma and 40.1 Ma.

Holocene precipitation change in different monsoon sub-regions (time-slices and transient data) simulated by different global climate models, with links to model results

The recently proposed global monsoon hypothesis interprets monsoon systems as part of one global-scale atmospheric overturning circulation, implying a connection between the regional monsoon systems and an in-phase behaviour of all northern hemispheric monsoons on annual timescales (Trenberth et al., 2000). Whether this concept can be applied to past climates and variability on longer timescales is still under debate, because the monsoon systems exhibit different regional characteristics such as different seasonality (i.e. onset, peak, and withdrawal). To investigate the interconnection of different monsoon systems during the pre-industrial Holocene, five transient global climate model simulations have been analysed with respect to the rainfall trend and variability in different sub-domains of the Afro-Asian monsoon region. Our analysis suggests that on millennial timescales with varying orbital forcing, the monsoons do not behave as a tightly connected global system. According to the models, the Indian and North African monsoons are coupled, showing similar rainfall trend and moderate correlation in rainfall variability in all models. The East Asian monsoon changes independently during the Holocene. The dissimilarities in the seasonality of the monsoon sub-systems lead to a stronger response of the North African and Indian monsoon systems to the Holocene insolation forcing than of the East Asian monsoon and affect the seasonal distribution of Holocene rainfall variations. Within the Indian and North African monsoon domain, precipitation solely changes during the summer months, showing a decreasing Holocene precipitation trend. In the East Asian monsoon region, the precipitation signal is determined by an increasing precipitation trend during spring and a decreasing precipitation change during summer, partly balancing each other. A synthesis of reconstructions and the model results do not reveal an impact of the different seasonality on the timing of the Holocene rainfall optimum in the different sub-monsoon systems. They rather indicate locally inhomogeneous rainfall changes and show, that single palaeo-records should not be used to characterise the rainfall change and monsoon evolution for entire monsoon sub-systems.

Supporting the Model-Driven Development of Real-time Embedded Systems with Run-Time Monitoring and Animation via Highly Customizable Code Generation

This paper presents a vision that allows the combined use of model-driven engineering, run-time monitoring, and animation for the development and analysis of components in real-time embedded systems. Key building block in the tool environment supporting this vision is a highly-customizable code generation process. Customization is performed via a configuration specification which describes the ways in which input is provided to the component, the ways in which run-time execution information can be observed, and how these observations drive animation tools. The environment is envisioned to be suitable for different activities ranging from quality assurance to supporting certification, teaching, and outreach and will be built exclusively with open source tools to increase impact. A preliminary prototype implementation is described.

Assessment of the cortisol awakening response: Real-time analysis and curvilinear effects of sample timing inaccuracy

The cortisol awakening response (CAR) is typically measured in the domestic setting. Moderate sample timing inaccuracy has been shown to result in erroneous CAR estimates and such inaccuracy has been shown partially to explain inconsistency in the CAR literature. The need for more reliable measurement of the CAR has recently been highlighted in expert consensus guidelines where it was pointed out that less than 6% of published studies provided electronic-monitoring of saliva sampling time in the post-awakening period. Analyses of a merged data-set of published studies from our laboratory are presented. To qualify for selection, both time of awakening and collection of the first sample must have been verified by electronic-monitoring and sampling commenced within 15 min of awakening. Participants (n = 128) were young (median age of 20 years) and healthy. Cortisol values were determined in the 45 min post-awakening period on 215 sampling days. On 127 days, delay between verified awakening and collection of the first sample was less than 3 min (‘no delay’ group); on 45 days there was a delay of 4–6 min (‘short delay’ group); on 43 days the delay was 7–15 min (‘moderate delay’ group). Cortisol values for verified sampling times accurately mapped on to the typical post-awakening cortisol growth curve, regardless of whether sampling deviated from desired protocol timings. This provides support for incorporating rather than excluding delayed data (up to 15 min) in CAR analyses. For this population the fitted cortisol growth curve equation predicted a mean cortisol awakening level of 6 nmols/l (±1 for 95% CI) and a mean CAR rise of 6 nmols/l (±2 for 95% CI). We also modelled the relationship between real delay and CAR magnitude, when the CAR is calculated erroneously by incorrectly assuming adherence to protocol time. Findings supported a curvilinear hypothesis in relation to effects of sample delay on the CAR. Short delays of 4–6 min between awakening and commencement of saliva sampling resulted an overestimated CAR. Moderate delays of 7–15 min were associated with an underestimated CAR. Findings emphasize the need to employ electronic-monitoring of sampling accuracy when measuring the CAR in the domestic setting.

Threat Analysis of BlackEnergy Malware for Synchrophasor based Real-time Control and Monitoring in Smart Grid

The BlackEnergy malware targeting critical infrastructures has a long history. It evolved over time from a simple DDoS platform to a quite sophisticated plug-in based malware. The plug-in architecture has a persistent malware core with easily installable attack specific modules for DDoS, spamming, info-stealing, remote access, boot-sector formatting etc. BlackEnergy has been involved in several high profile cyber physical attacks including the recent Ukraine power grid attack in December 2015. This paper investigates the evolution of BlackEnergy and its cyber attack capabilities. It presents a basic cyber attack model used by BlackEnergy for targeting industrial control systems. In particular, the paper analyzes cyber threats of BlackEnergy for synchrophasor based systems which are used for real-time control and monitoring functionalities in smart grid. Several BlackEnergy based attack scenarios have been investigated by exploiting the vulnerabilities in two widely used synchrophasor communication standards: (i) IEEE C37.118 and (ii) IEC 61850-90-5. Specifically, the paper addresses reconnaissance, DDoS, man-in-the-middle and replay/reflection attacks on IEEE C37.118 and IEC 61850-90-5. Further, the paper also investigates protection strategies for detection and prevention of BlackEnergy based cyber physical attacks.

I/Q imbalance in two-way AF relaying: Power allocation and performance analysis

We investigate the performance of dual-hop two-way amplify-and-forward (AF) relaying in the presence of inphase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI) at the relay node. In particular, the effective signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at both sources is derived. These SINRs are used to design an instantaneous power allocation scheme, which maximizes the minimum SINR of the two sources under a total transmit power constraint. The solution to this optimization problem is analytically determined and used to evaluate the outage probability (OP) of the considered two-way AF relaying system. Both analytical and numerical results show that IQI can create fundamental performance limits on two-way relaying, which cannot be avoided by simply improving the channel conditions.

Effects of time-controlled and continuous grazing on total herbage mass and ground cover

Grazing practices in rangelands are increasingly recognized as a management tool for environmental protection in addition to livestock production. Long term continuous grazing has been largely documented to reduce pasture productivity and decline the protective layer of soil surface affecting environmental protection. Time-controlled rotational grazing (TC grazing) as an alternative to continuous grazing is considered to reduce such negative effects and provides pasture with a higher amount of vegetation securing food for animals and conserving environment. To research on how the grazing system affects herbage and above ground organic materials compared with continuous grazing, the study was conducted in a sub-tropical region of Australia from 2001 to 2006. The overall results showed that herbage mass under TC grazing increased to 140% in 2006 compared with the first records taken in 2001. The outcomes were even higher (150%) when the soil is deeper and the slope is gentle. In line with the results of herbage mass, ground cover under TC grazing achieved significant higher percentages than continuous grazing in all the years of the study. Ground cover under TC grazing increased from 54% in 2003 to 73%, 82%, and 89% in 2004, 2005, and 2006, respectively, despite the fact that after the high yielding year of 2004 herbage mass declined to around 2.5 ton ha^(−1) in 2005 and 2006. Under continuous grazing however there was no significant increase over time comparable to TC grazing neither in herbage mass nor in ground cover. The successful outcome is largely attributed to the flexible nature of the management in which grazing frequency, durations and the rest periods were efficiently controlled. Such flexibility of animal presence on pastures could result in higher water retention and soil moisture condition promoting above ground organic material.

Study Of Water Flowrate Using Time Transient And Cross-Correlation Techniques With 82br Radiotracer

This paper aims to determinate the water flowrate using Time Transient and Cross-Correlation techniques. The detection system uses two NaI(Tl) detectors adequately positioned on the outside of pipe and a gamma-ray source (82Br radiotracer). The water flowrate measurements using Time Transient and Cross-Correlation techniques were compared to invasive conventional measurements of the flowmeter previously installed in pipeline. Discrepancies between Time Transient and Cross-Correlation techniques flowrate values were found to be less than 3% in relation to conventional ones.