Low-Cost Rural Surface Alternatives: Demonstration Project, TR-664, 2015

The goals of this project were to implement several stabilization methods for preventing or mitigating freeze-thaw damage to granular surfaced roads and identify the most effective and economical methods for the soil and climate conditions of Iowa. Several methods and technologies identified as potentially suitable for Iowa were selected from an extensive analysis of existing literature provided with Iowa Highway Research Board (IHRB) Project TR-632. Using the selected methods, demonstration sections were constructed in Hamilton County on a heavily traveled two-mile section of granular surfaced road that required frequent maintenance during previous thawing periods. Construction procedures and costs of the demonstration sections were documented, and subsequent maintenance requirements were tabulated through two seasonal freeze-thaw periods. Extensive laboratory and field tests were performed prior to construction, as well as before and after the two seasonal freeze-thaw periods, to monitor the performance of the demonstration sections. A weather station was installed at the project site and temperature sensors were embedded in the subgrade to monitor ground temperatures up to a depth of 5 ft and determine the duration and depths of ground freezing and thawing. An economic analysis was performed using the documented construction and maintenance costs, and the estimated cumulative costs per square yard were projected over a 20-year timeframe to determine break-even periods relative to the cost of continuing current maintenance practices. Overall, the sections with biaxial geogrid or macadam base courses had the best observed freeze-thaw performance in this study. These two stabilization methods have larger initial costs and longer break-even periods than aggregate columns, but counties should also weigh the benefits of improved ride quality and savings that these solutions can provide as excellent foundations for future paving or surface upgrades.

Demonstration and Field Evaluation of Alternative Portland Cement Concrete Pavement Reinforcement Materials, Construction Report, HR-1069, 1998

The function of dowel bars is the transfer of a load across the transverse joint from one pavement slab to the adjoining slab. In the past, these transfer mechanisms have been made of steel. However, pavement damage such as loss of bonding, deterioration, hollowing, cracking and spalling start to occur when the dowels begin to corrode. A significant amount of research has been done to evaluate alternative types of materials for use in the reinforcement of concrete pavements. Initial findings have indicated that stainless steel and fiber composite materials possess properties, such as flexural strength and corrosion resistance, that are equivalent to the Department of Transportation specifications for standard steel, 1 1/2 inch diameter dowel bars. Several factors affect the load transfer of dowels; these include diameter, alignment, grouting, bonding, spacing, corrosion resistance, joint spacing, slab thickness and dowel embedment length. This research is directed at the analysis of load transfer based on material type and dowel spacing. Specifically, this research is directed at analyzing the load transfer characteristics of: (a) 8-inch verses 12-inch spacing, and (b) alternative dowel material compared to epoxy coated steel dowels, will also be analyzed. This report documents the installation of the test sections, placed in 1997. Dowel material type and location are identified. Construction observations and limitations with each dowel material are shown.

Single acquisition electrical property mapping based on relative coil sensitivities: A proof-of-concept demonstration.

PURPOSE: All methods presented to date to map both conductivity and permittivity rely on multiple acquisitions to compute quantitatively the magnitude of radiofrequency transmit fields, B1+. In this work, we propose a method to compute both conductivity and permittivity based solely on relative receive coil sensitivities ( B1-) that can be obtained in one single measurement without the need to neither explicitly perform transmit/receive phase separation nor make assumptions regarding those phases. THEORY AND METHODS: To demonstrate the validity and the noise sensitivity of our method we used electromagnetic finite differences simulations of a 16-channel transceiver array. To experimentally validate our methodology at 7 Tesla, multi compartment phantom data was acquired using a standard 32-channel receive coil system and two-dimensional (2D) and 3D gradient echo acquisition. The reconstructed electric properties were correlated to those measured using dielectric probes. RESULTS: The method was demonstrated both in simulations and in phantom data with correlations to both the modeled and bench measurements being close to identity. The noise properties were modeled and understood. CONCLUSION: The proposed methodology allows to quantitatively determine the electrical properties of a sample using any MR contrast, with the only constraint being the need to have 4 or more receive coils and high SNR. Magn Reson Med, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Priming psychic and conjuring abilities of a magic demonstration influences event interpretation and random number generation biases

Magical ideation and belief in the paranormal is considered to represent a trait-like character; people either believe in it or not. Yet, anecdotes indicate that exposure to an anomalous event can turn skeptics into believers. This transformation is likely to be accompanied by altered cognitive functioning such as impaired judgments of event likelihood. Here, we investigated whether the exposure to an anomalous event changes individuals' explicit traditional (religious) and non-traditional (e.g., paranormal) beliefs as well as cognitive biases that have previously been associated with non-traditional beliefs, e.g., repetition avoidance when producing random numbers in a mental dice task. In a classroom, 91 students saw a magic demonstration after their psychology lecture. Before the demonstration, half of the students were told that the performance was done respectively by a conjuror (magician group) or a psychic (psychic group). The instruction influenced participants' explanations of the anomalous event. Participants in the magician, as compared to the psychic group, were more likely to explain the event through conjuring abilities while the reverse was true for psychic abilities. Moreover, these explanations correlated positively with their prior traditional and non-traditional beliefs. Finally, we observed that the psychic group showed more repetition avoidance than the magician group, and this effect remained the same regardless of whether assessed before or after the magic demonstration. We conclude that pre-existing beliefs and contextual suggestions both influence people's interpretations of anomalous events and associated cognitive biases. Beliefs and associated cognitive biases are likely flexible well into adulthood and change with actual life events.

Demonstration of the effectiveness of zinc in diarrhoea of children living in Switzerland.

We designed a double-blinded randomized clinical trial of zinc (10 or 20 mg of zinc sulphate for 2-5 month-old or 6-59 month-old children, respectively, during 10 days) vs. placebo in otherwise healthy children aged 2 months to 5 years who presented with acute diarrhoea (i.e. ≥3 stools/day for less than 72 h). Eighty-seven patients (median age 14 months; range 3.1-58.3) were analysed in an intention-to-treat approach. Forty-two patients took zinc and 45 placebo. There was no difference in the duration nor in the frequency of diarrhoea, but only 5% of the zinc group still had diarrhoea at 120 h of treatment compared to 20% in the placebo group (P = 0.05). Thirty-one patients (13 zinc and 18 placebo) were available for per-protocol analyses. The median (IQR) duration of diarrhoea in zinc-treated patients was 47.5 h (18.3-72) and differed significantly from the placebo group (median 76.3; IQR 52.8-137) (P = 0.03). The frequency of diarrhoea was also lower in the zinc group (P = 0.02). CONCLUSION: zinc treatment decreases the frequency and severity of diarrhoea in children aged 2 months to 5 years living in Switzerland. However, the intention-to-treat analysis reveals compliance issues that question the proper duration of treatment and the choice of optimal pharmaceutical formulation.

Visual demonstration of the ionic strength effect in the classroom: the Debye-Hückel limiting law

The effects of ionic strength on ions in aqueous solutions are quite relevant, especially for biochemical systems, in which proteins and amino acids are involved. The teaching of this topic and more specifically, the Debye-Hückel limiting law, is central in chemistry undergraduate courses. In this work, we present a description of an experimental procedure based on the color change of aqueous solutions of bromocresol green (BCG), driven by addition of electrolyte. The contribution of charge product (z+|z-|) to the Debye-Hückel limiting law is demonstrated when the effects of NaCl and Na2SO4 on the color of BCG solutions are compared.

Demonstration Platform for Visual Quality Metrics

This thesis presents two graphical user interfaces for the project DigiQ - Fusion of Digital and Visual Print Quality, a project for computationally modeling the subjective human experience of print quality by measuring the image with certain metrics. After presenting the user interfaces, methods for reducing the computation time of several of the metrics and the image registration process required to compute the metrics, and details of their performance are given. The weighted sample method for the image registration process was able to signifigantly decrease the calculation times while resulting in some error. The random sampling method for the metrics greatly reduced calculation time while maintaining excellent accuracy, but worked with only two of the metrics.

Avalon Media System demonstration

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Methylmercury intoxication and histochemical demonstration of NADPH-diaphorase activity in the striate cortex of adult cats

The effects of methylmercury (MeHg) on histochemical demonstration of the NADPH-diaphorase (NADPH-d) activity in the striate cortex were studied in 4 adult cats. Two animals were used as control. The contaminated animals received 50 ml milk containing 0.42 µg MeHg and 100 g fish containing 0.03 µg MeHg daily for 2 months. The level of MeHg in area 17 of intoxicated animals was 3.2 µg/g wet weight brain tissue. Two cats were perfused 24 h after the last dose (group 1) and the other animals were perfused 6 months later (group 2). After microtomy, sections were processed for NADPHd histochemistry procedures using the malic enzyme method. Dendritic branch counts were performed from camera lucida drawings for control and intoxicated animals (N = 80). Average, standard deviation and Student t-test were calculated for each data group. The concentrations of mercury (Hg) in milk, fish and brain tissue were measured by acid digestion of samples, followed by reduction of total Hg in the digested sample to metallic Hg using stannous chloride followed by atomic fluorescence analysis. Only group 2 revealed a reduction of the neuropil enzyme activity and morphometric analysis showed a reduction in dendritic field area and in the number of distal dendrite branches of the NADPHd neurons in the white matter (P<0.05). These results suggest that NADPHd neurons in the white matter are more vulnerable to the long-term effects of MeHg than NADPHd neurons in the gray matter.

Immunohistochemical demonstration of TGF-ß and decorin in paracoccidioidal granulomas

Different patterns of granulomas have been observed in 6- to 8-week-old mice after ip inoculation with 5 x 10(6) yeast cells of Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. Transforming growth factor-ß (TGF-ß) is a cytokine that has been shown to participate in fibrosis and granuloma formation; its activities seem to be modulated by the small proteoglycan decorin. In the present study, TGF-ß and decorin expression in epiploon granulomas was assessed by immunohistochemistry in susceptible (B10.A) and resistant (A/J) mice after 15, 30, 120 and 150 days of P. brasiliensis ip infection. The epiploon was collected, fixed in Methacarn solution and embedded in paraffin, and 5-µm thick sections were used for immunohistochemical analysis employing the streptavidin-biotin-peroxidase technique. The former mouse strain developed fatal disease with many disseminated lesions increasing in size and number during the infection and the latter developed mild disease with the presence of encapsulated granulomas. In the epiploon, TGF-ß was present on macrophages, giant cells, lymphocytes and fibroblasts, and absent on neutrophils. It was also detected in areas of fibrosis and necrosis, as well as disperse in amorphous extracellular matrix, mostly in resistant mice. Decorin was present circumscribing macrophages and giant cells containing fungi, but absent on these cells. In both mouse strains, decorin was found at the periphery of the lesions, and markedly in milky spot granulomas. In resistant mice, positivity was found around fibrotic and necrotic areas of encapsulated and residual lesions containing lysed fungi. Decorin was found associated with thick fibers around encapsulated lesions. In susceptible mice, the size and number of lesions increased with the progression of the disease and were correlated with the weaker expression of decorin. We suggest an association of decorin with the fibrogenic process observed in paracoccidioidal granulomas.

A demonstration of educational craft : an outdoor educator's autoethnography

Ellis (2004) argues that auto ethnography is a methodology that begins with the researcher as the site of study. Employing a qualitative storytelling structure shows, instead of tells. As the audience reads, they are encouraged to relate the research to their experiences, provoking reflective knowledge development. As an outdoor educator, I began to question the nature of my craft and how it was being shaped by my personal educational philosophy. So, drawing on a reflective journal I kept while employed as an outdoor educator in 2007, three outdoor educators published narratives, and a historical review of newspaper articles about Ontario-based outdoor education, conducted an autoethnographic inquiry and built a fictional story about my craft. I exposed five faultlines or areas of ideological tension, shaping my views about outdoor education and my craft.

The Demonstration Effect of Hosting a Major Games: A Case Study of Figure Skating and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games

Developed by Hindson, Gidlow, and Peebles (1994), the trickle-down effect and more specifically, the demonstration effect, are based on the idea that performances of a host nation’s athletes will inspire the population to become active in sport. The Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games presented an opportunity for Canadian sport organizations to promote sport participation. The purpose of this study was to determine if the demonstration effect occurred in Canada, and determine the reasons why or why not. The sport of figure skating was selected. Quantitative data were collected from Skate Canada on club membership rates from 2003 to 2013. Results showed small increases in participation, however there was little change following the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Qualitative data showed that already active sport participants became more active, following these Games. The findings demonstrate that the demonstration effect occurred, however only for a select group of individuals.

Postgraduate Demonstration Skills

A PowerPoint presentation used to support a skills development session for postgraduate students who wish to act as demonstrators in lab and workshop sessions.