Development of In-Situ Detection Methods for Materials-Related Distress (MRD) in Concrete Pavements, July 2003

The purpose of this research was to summarize existing nondestructive test methods that have the potential to be used to detect materials-related distress (MRD) in concrete pavements. The various nondestructive test methods were then subjected to selection criteria that helped to reduce the size of the list so that specific techniques could be investigated in more detail. The main test methods that were determined to be applicable to this study included two stress-wave propagation techniques (impact-echo and spectral analysis of surface waves techniques), infrared thermography, ground penetrating radar (GPR), and visual inspection. The GPR technique was selected for a preliminary round of “proof of concept” trials. GPR surveys were carried out over a variety of portland cement concrete pavements for this study using two different systems. One of the systems was a state-of-the-art GPR system that allowed data to be collected at highway speeds. The other system was a less sophisticated system that was commercially available. Surveys conducted with both sets of equipment have produced test results capable of identifying subsurface distress in two of the three sites that exhibited internal cracking due to MRD. Both systems failed to detect distress in a single pavement that exhibited extensive cracking. Both systems correctly indicated that the control pavement exhibited negligible evidence of distress. The initial positive results presented here indicate that a more thorough study (incorporating refinements to the system, data collection, and analysis) is needed. Improvements in the results will be dependent upon defining the optimum number and arrangement of GPR antennas to detect the most common problems in Iowa pavements. In addition, refining highfrequency antenna response characteristics will be a crucial step toward providing an optimum GPR system for detecting materialsrelated distress.

Hyperactivity and attention problems in a Swiss sample of school-aged children: effects of school achievement, child gender, and informants.

OBJECTIVE: The sensitivity and tolerance regarding ADHD symptoms obviously differ from one culture to another and according to the informants (parents, teachers, or children). This stimulates the comparison of data across informants and countries. METHOD: Parents and teachers of more than 1,000 school-aged Swiss children (5 to 17 years old) fill in Conners's questionnaires on ADHD. Children who are older than 10 years old also fill in a self-report questionnaire. Results are compared to data from a North American sample. RESULTS: Swiss parents and teachers tend to report more ADHD symptoms than American parents and teachers as far as the oldest groups of children are concerned. Interactions are evidenced between school achievement, child gender, and informants. A relatively low rate of agreement between informants is found. CONCLUSION: These results strengthen the importance to take into account all informants in the pediatric and the child psychiatry clinic, as well as in the epidemiological studies.

Field Experiments of Current Concrete Pavement Surface Characteristics Practices: Iowa Data Collection and Analysis, December 2005

One of the most important issues in portland cement concrete pavement research today is surface characteristics. The issue is one of balancing surface texture construction with the need for durability, skid resistance, and noise reduction. The National Concrete Pavement Technology Center at Iowa State University, in conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration, American Concrete Pavement Association, International Grinding and Grooving Association, Iowa Highway Research Board, and other states, have entered into a three-part National Surface Characteristics Program to resolve the balancing problem. As a portion of Part 2, this report documents the construction of 18 separate pavement surfaces for use in the first level of testing for the national project. It identifies the testing to be done and the limitations observed in the construction process. The results of the actual tests will be included in the subsequent national study reports.

Catalogue d'une très belle collection de tableaux comprenant des oeuvres remarquables des principaux maîtres des école anglaise, école française ancienne et moderne, école flamande et hollandaise dont la vente aura lieu... le lundi 27 et mardi 28 avril 1874... / [expert] Durand-Ruel

[Vente (Art). 1874-04-27 - 1874-04-28. Paris]

On Certain Greedoid Polyhedra, Partially Indexable Scheduling Problems, and Extended Restless Bandit Allocation Indices

We present a polyhedral framework for establishing general structural properties on optimal solutions of stochastic scheduling problems, where multiple job classes vie for service resources: the existence of an optimal priority policy in a given family, characterized by a greedoid (whose feasible class subsets may receive higher priority), where optimal priorities are determined by class-ranking indices, under restricted linear performance objectives (partial indexability). This framework extends that of Bertsimas and Niño-Mora (1996), which explained the optimality of priority-index policies under all linear objectives (general indexability). We show that, if performance measures satisfy partial conservation laws (with respect to the greedoid), which extend previous generalized conservation laws, then the problem admits a strong LP relaxation over a so-called extended greedoid polytope, which has strong structural and algorithmic properties. We present an adaptive-greedy algorithm (which extends Klimov's) taking as input the linear objective coefficients, which (1) determines whether the optimal LP solution is achievable by a policy in the given family; and (2) if so, computes a set of class-ranking indices that characterize optimal priority policies in the family. In the special case of project scheduling, we show that, under additional conditions, the optimal indices can be computed separately for each project (index decomposition). We further apply the framework to the important restless bandit model (two-action Markov decision chains), obtaining new index policies, that extend Whittle's (1988), and simple sufficient conditions for their validity. These results highlight the power of polyhedral methods (the so-called achievable region approach) in dynamic and stochastic optimization.

Marseille. Collection de copies et de documents originaux concernant l'histoire de Marseille. Collection Mortreuil sur Marseille vol. 12 : Corps religieux (Préfecture des Bouches du Rhône. Archives de l’église d’Arcoules, du monastère de Saint Sauveur et des Grands Trinitaires de Marseille. Actes antérieurs au XIV e siècle. A.M. 1855.)

Copie manuscrite de documents d’archives : F. 1-91. Archives de l’Eglise d’Arcoules de Marseille. F. 92-104. Augustins. F. 105-149. Archives des Dominicains (precheurs) de Marseille. F. 150-153. Abbaye de l’Huveaune, prémontrés. F. 154-178. Frères Mineurs. F. 179-180. La Major. F. 181 -184. St Carmat. F. 185-186. St Etienne des îles Ratoneau. F. 187-191. St Jacques de Corrégie. F. 192-193. St Laurent. F. 194-195. Prieuré de St Lazare. F. 196-199. St Martin F. 200-206. St Michel et St Etienne du Plan. F. 207 -379. Archives du monastère de Saint Sauveur de Marseille. F. 381-387. Sainte Claire. F. 388-391. N.D. de Syon. F. 392 459. Archives des Grands Trinitaires de Marseille.

Marseille. Collection de copies et de documents originaux concernant l'histoire de Marseille. Collection Mortreuil sur Marseille vol. 32 : Appendice. Pièces originales et autres.

Le manuscrit est composé de différentes pièces originales ou copies (actes, plans, cadastre...) datant du XIIe au XVIe siècle. On trouve à l’encre rouge le numéro de la pièce à l’intérieur de l’ouvrage ainsi qu’un renvoi aux volumes précédents qu’illustre le document.

Marseille. Collection de copies et de documents originaux concernant l'histoire de Marseille. Collection Mortreuil sur Marseille vol. 33 : Pièces originales I (13 janvier 1218-1324).

Le manuscrit est composé de différents documents originaux datant de 1217 à 1324. La date est signalée au crayon (XIXe s.)