Effectiveness of safety belt warning and interlock systems. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Evaluation of warning and information systems. Part II, commercial radio advisories. Final report.

Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C.

Continuous monitoring of reservoir water quality: The Wivenhoe Project

The Lake Wivenhoe Integrated Wireless Sensor Network is conceptually similar to traditional SCADA monitoring and control approaches. However, it is applied in an open system using wireless devices to monitor processes that affect water quality at both a high spatial and temporal frequency. This monitoring assists scientists to better understand drivers of key processes that influence water quality and provide the operators with an early warning system if below standard water enters the reservoir. Both of these aspects improve the safety and efficient delivery of drinking water to the end users.

Is Early Warning Effective for the Improvement of Problem Solving and Project Performance?

Since the first launch of the new engineering contract (NEC) in 1993, early warning of problems has been widely recognized as an important approach of proactive management during a construction or engineering project. Is early warning really effective for the improvement of problem solving and project performance? This is a research question that still lacks a good answer. For this reason, an empirical investigation was made in the United Kingdom (U.K.) to answer the question. This study adopts a combination of literature review, expert interview, and questionnaire survey. Nearly 100 questionnaire responses were collected from the U.K. construction industry, based on which the use of early warning under different forms of contract is compared in this paper. Problem solving and project performance are further compared between the projects using early warning and the projects not using early warning. The comparison provides clear evidence for the significant effect of early warning on problem solving and project performance in terms of time, cost, and quality. Subsequently, an input-process-output model is developed in this paper to explore the relationship among early warning, problem solving, and project
performance. All these help construction researchers and practitioners to better understand the role of early warning in ensuring project success.

Optimal sensor placement and measurement of wind for water quality studies in urban reservoirs

We collaborate with environmental scientists to study the hydrodynamics and water quality in an urban district, where the surface wind distribution is an essential input but undergoes high spatial and temporal variations due to the complex urban landform created by surrounding buildings. In this work, we study an optimal sensor placement scheme to measure the wind distribution over a large urban reservoir with a limited number of wind sensors. Unlike existing sensor placement solutions that assume Gaussian process of target phenomena, this study measures the wind which inherently exhibits strong non-Gaussian yearly distribution. By leveraging the local monsoon characteristics of wind, we segment a year into different monsoon seasons which follow a unique distribution respectively. We also use computational fluid dynamics to learn the spatial correlation of wind in the presence of surrounding buildings. The output of sensor placement is a set of the most informative locations to deploy the wind sensors, based on the readings of which we can accurately predict the wind over the entire reservoir surface in real time. 10 wind sensors are finally deployed around or on the water surface of an urban reservoir. The in-field measurement results of more than 3 months suggest that the proposed sensor placement and spatial prediction approach provides accurate wind measurement which outperforms the state-of-the-art Gaussian model based or interpolation based approaches.

Sensor placement and measurement of wind for water quality studies in urban reservoirs

We study the water quality in an urban district, where the surface wind distribution is an essential input but undergoes high spatial and temporal variations due to the impact of surrounding buildings. In this work, we develop an optimal sensor placement scheme to measure the wind distribution over a large urban reservoir using a limited number of wind sensors. Unlike existing solutions that assume Gaussian process of target phenomena, this study measures the wind that inherently exhibits strong non-Gaussian yearly distribution. By leveraging the local monsoon characteristics of wind, we segment a year into different monsoon seasons that follow a unique distribution respectively. We also use computational fluid dynamics to learn the spatial correlation of wind. The output of sensor placement is a set of the most informative locations to deploy the wind sensors, based on the readings of which we can accurately predict the wind over the entire reservoir in real time. Ten wind sensors are deployed. The in-field measurement results of more than 3 months suggest that the proposed sensor placement and spatial prediction scheme provides accurate wind measurement that outperforms the state-of-the-art Gaussian model based on interpolation-based approaches.

Water Quality Variability in a Bioswell and Concrete Drainage Pipe, Southwest Lincoln, Nebraska

Abstract The goal of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of bioswells in protecting water quality from urban runoff. The hypothesis tested in this project is that water in bioswells improves water quality. Water quality in both a bioswell and an underground concrete lined ditch, both containing ground and surface water, were tested for certain water quality parameters. These parameters consisted of: Dissolved Oxygen, pH, water temperature, weather temperature, Total Dissolved Solids, Specific Conductivity, Alkalinity, Total Dissolved Carbon, Chemical Oxygen Demand, and depth and width of the sampling site. An additional contaminant that was looked at was motor oil. This was measured by comparing Total Organic Carbon with Chemical Oxygen Demand. A variety of different methods to measure the water quality parameters were utilized. The concrete site had more stable readings, but much higher water temperatures. However, the bioswell water is mainly from surface water runoff, and the underground concrete lined pipe is from underground water, so the two cannot be directly compared. The bioswell had high readings, especially pertaining to Oxygen Demand, Total Organic Carbon, and Specific Conductivity in early test dates. But, these readings improved as they were filtered though the bioswell. As plant activity increased and the weather began to warm up there were more stable readings. It is concluded that bioswells are an effective way to reduce problems associated with urban runoff pertaining to certain water quality parameters.

Effective Surface Water Quality Policies: A Contrast of Policies in the United States and the European Union

The United States and the European Union each have their own policy approach to protect surface water quality. Both policy approaches are similar in many ways. Both rely heavily on command and control. However, there are differences in the application of the details. Both the U.S. and E.U. began current efforts to protect surface water quality in the 1970s, yet quality continues to less than desired in both places. Both have reduced point source pollutants but have had difficulty controlling non-point source pollutants even though policies have been in place for many decades. The successes and failures of the two policies are studied in this project to determine which aspects of both policies will best protect surface water quality in an increasingly complex future.