Laboratory performance evaluation of CIR-emulsion and its comparison against CIR-foam test results from Phase III, TR-578

Currently, no standard mix design procedure is available for CIR-emulsion in Iowa. The CIR-foam mix design process developed during the previous phase is applied for CIR-emulsion mixtures with varying emulsified asphalt contents. Dynamic modulus test, dynamic creep test, static creep test and raveling test were conducted to evaluate the short- and long-term performance of CIR-emulsion mixtures at various testing temperatures and loading conditions. A potential benefit of this research is a better understanding of CIR-emulsion material properties in comparison with those of CIR-foam material that would allow for the selection of the most appropriate CIR technology and the type and amount of the optimum stabilization material. Dynamic modulus, flow number and flow time of CIR-emulsion mixtures using CSS-1h were generally higher than those of HFMS-2p. Flow number and flow time of CIR-emulsion using RAP materials from Story County was higher than those from Clayton County. Flow number and flow time of CIR-emulsion with 0.5% emulsified asphalt was higher than CIR-emulsion with 1.0% or 1.5%. Raveling loss of CIR-emulsion with 1.5% emulsified was significantly less than those with 0.5% and 1.0%. Test results in terms of dynamic modulus, flow number, flow time and raveling loss of CIR-foam mixtures are generally better than those of CIR-emulsion mixtures. Given the limited RAP sources used for this study, it is recommended that the CIR-emulsion mix design procedure should be validated against several RAP sources and emulsion types.

Impact of Routine Fractional Flow Reserve Evaluation During Coronary Angiography on Management Strategy and Clinical Outcome: One-Year Results of the POST-IT.

Penetration of fractional flow reserve (FFR) in clinical practice varies extensively, and the applicability of results from randomized trials is understudied. We describe the extent to which the information gained from routine FFR affects patient management strategy and clinical outcome. METHODS AND RESULTS: Nonselected patients undergoing coronary angiography, in which at least 1 lesion was interrogated by FFR, were prospectively enrolled in a multicenter registry. FFR-driven change in management strategy (medical therapy, revascularization, or additional stress imaging) was assessed per-lesion and per-patient, and the agreement between final and initial strategies was recorded. Cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or unplanned revascularization (MACE) at 1 year was recorded. A total of 1293 lesions were evaluated in 918 patients (mean FFR, 0.81±0.1). Management plan changed in 406 patients (44.2%) and 584 lesions (45.2%). One-year MACE was 6.9%; patients in whom all lesions were deferred had a lower MACE rate (5.3%) than those with at least 1 lesion revascularized (7.3%) or left untreated despite FFR≤0.80 (13.6%; log-rank P=0.014). At the lesion level, deferral of those with an FFR≤0.80 was associated with a 3.1-fold increase in the hazard of cardiovascular death/myocardial infarction/target lesion revascularization (P=0.012). Independent predictors of target lesion revascularization in the deferred lesions were proximal location of the lesion, B2/C type and FFR. CONCLUSIONS: Routine FFR assessment of coronary lesions safely changes management strategy in almost half of the cases. Also, it accurately identifies patients and lesions with a low likelihood of events, in which revascularization can be safely deferred, as opposed to those at high risk when ischemic lesions are left untreated, thus confirming results from randomized trials.

Inequities in energy-balance related behaviours and family environmental determinants in European children: baseline results of the prospective EPHE evaluation study

BACKGROUND:Tackling inequalities in overweight, obesity and related determinants has become a top priority for the European research and policy agendas. Although it has been established that such inequalities accumulate from early childhood onward, they have not been studied extensively in children. The current article discusses the results of an explorative analysis for the identification of inequalities in behaviours and their determinants between groups with high and low socio-economic status. METHODS: This study is part of the Epode for the Promotion of Health Equity (EPHE) evaluation study, the overall aim of which is to assess the impact and sustainability of EPODE methodology to diminish inequalities in childhood obesity and overweight. Seven community-based programmes from different European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Portugal, Romania, The Netherlands) participate in the EPHE study. In each of the communities, children aged 6-8 years participated, resulting in a total sample of 1266 children and their families. A parental self-administrated questionnaire was disseminated in order to assess the socio-economic status of the household, selected energy balance-related behaviours (1. fruit and vegetable consumption; 2. soft drink/ fruit juices and water consumption; 3. screen time and 4. sleep duration) of the children and associated family environmental determinants. The Mann-Whitney U test and Pearson's chi-square test were used to test differences between the low and high education groups. The country-specific median was chosen as the cut-off point to determine the educational level, given the different average educational level in every country. RESULTS: Children with mothers of relatively high educational level consumed fruits and vegetables more frequently than their peers of low socio-economic status. The latter group of children had a higher intake of fruit juices and/or soft drinks and had higher screen time. Parental rules and home availability were consistently different between the two socio-economic groups in our study in all countries. However we did not find a common pattern for all behaviours and the variability across the countries was large. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings are indicative of socio-economic inequalities in our samples, although the variability across the countries was large. The effectiveness of interventions aimed at chancing parental rules and behaviour on health inequalities should be studied.

Aligning supplier evaluation with manufacturing competitive priorities. Results of an international survey in manufacturing and assembly industries

The aim of our research is to investigate a company’s purchasing and manufacturing competitive priorities jointly in order to uncover any relationships between them and also their effect on the supply chain tools implemented by the company. We assume that the supplier selection criteria of the companies reflect the true goals of the purchasing function and we take the purchasing function’s point of view to examine the aforementioned relationships. We use a multinational database for our empirical analysis which contains almost 700 companies from 20 countries and data that were acquired in 2009. We identified four different clusters which reflect a different level of supply chain tool implementation.

Selection indices and multivariate analysis show similar results in the evaluation of growth and carcass traits in beef cattle.

2016

Response and damage evaluation of reinforced concrete frames subjected to blast loading

Bomb attacks carried out by terrorists, targeting high occupancy buildings, have become increasingly common in recent times. Large numbers of casualties and property damage result from overpressure of the blast followed by failing of structural elements. Understanding the blast response of multi-storey buildings and evaluating their remaining life have therefore become important. Response and damage analysis of single structural components, such as columns or slabs, to explosive loads have been examined in the literature, but the studies on blast response and damage analysis of structural frames in multi-storey buildings is limited and this is necessary for assessing the vulnerability of them. This paper investigates the blast response and damage evaluation of reinforced concrete (RC) frames, designed for normal gravity loads, in order to evaluate their remaining life. Numerical modelling and analysis were carried out using the explicit finite element software, LS DYNA. The modelling and analysis takes into consideration reinforcement details together and material performance under higher strain rates. Damage indices for columns are calculated based on their residual and original capacities. Numerical results generated in the can be used to identify relationships between the blast load parameters and the column damage. Damage index curve will provide a simple means for assessing the damage to a typical multi-storey building RC frame under an external bomb circumstance.

Evaluation of functional performance in commercial buildings

This report fully summarises a project designed to enhance commercial real estate performance within both operational and investment contexts through the development of a model aimed at supporting improved decision-making. The model is based on a risk adjusted discounted cash flow, providing a valuable toolkit for building managers, owners, and potential investors for evaluating individual building performance in terms of financial, social and environmental criteria over the complete life-cycle of the asset. The ‘triple bottom line’ approach to the evaluation of commercial property has much significance for the administrators of public property portfolios in particular. It also has applications more generally for the wider real estate industry given that the advent of ‘green’ construction requires new methods for evaluating both new and existing building stocks. The research is unique in that it focuses on the accuracy of the input variables required for the model. These key variables were largely determined by market-based research and an extensive literature review, and have been fine-tuned with extensive testing. In essence, the project has considered probability-based risk analysis techniques that required market-based assessment. The projections listed in the partner engineers’ building audit reports of the four case study buildings were fed into the property evaluation model developed by the research team. The results are strongly consistent with previously existing, less robust evaluation techniques. And importantly, this model pioneers an approach for taking full account of the triple bottom line, establishing a benchmark for related research to follow. The project’s industry partners expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the project outcomes at a recent demonstration seminar. The project in its existing form has not been geared towards commercial applications but it is anticipated that QDPW and other industry partners will benefit greatly by using this tool for the performance evaluation of property assets. The project met the objectives of the original proposal as well as all the specified milestones. The project has been completed within budget and on time. This research project has achieved the objective by establishing research foci on the model structure, the key input variable identification, the drivers of the relevant property markets, the determinants of the key variables (Research Engine no.1), the examination of risk measurement, the incorporation of risk simulation exercises (Research Engine no.2), the importance of both environmental and social factors and, finally the impact of the triple bottom line measures on the asset (Research Engine no. 3).

Evaluation of separation management algorithms in Class G airspace

Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in support of government applications has already seen significant growth and the potential for use of UAVs in commercial applications is expected to rapidly expand in the near future. However, the issue remains on how such automated or operator-controlled aircraft can be safely integrated into current airspace. If the goal of integration is to be realized, issues regarding safe separation in densely populated airspace must be investigated. This paper investigates automated separation management concepts in uncontrolled airspace that may help prepare for an expected growth of UAVs in Class G airspace. Not only are such investigations helpful for the UAV integration issue, the automated separation management concepts investigated by the authors can also be useful for the development of new or improved Air Traffic Control services in remote regions without any existing infrastructure. The paper will also provide an overview of the Smart Skies program and discuss the corresponding Smart Skies research and development effort to evaluate aircraft separation management algorithms using simulations involving realworld data communication channels, and verified against actual flight trials. This paper presents results from a unique flight test concept that uses real-time flight test data from Australia over existing commercial communication channels to a control center in Seattle for real-time separation management of actual and simulated aircraft. The paper also assesses the performance of an automated aircraft separation manager.

Final report: stage 1 : results

This research project aims to improve economic, social and environmental sustainability of the pre-cast concrete and construction and demolition waste supply chains through the development, trial and evaluation of an innovative supply chain management strategy. The long-term goals are to improve competitive behaviour and market sector performance and improve business process efficiency and effectiveness of public sector program delivery by influencing policy development, changing organisational behaviour and implementation development to achieve more economic, social and environmental sustainable markets.

Trust and strong ties in the selection and evaluation of business advisors by small firms

Principal Topic A small firm is unlikely to possess internally the full range of knowledge and skills that it requires or could benefit from for the development of its business. The ability to acquire suitable external expertise - defined as knowledge or competence that is rare in the firm and acquired from the outside - when needed thus becomes a competitive factor in itself. Access to external expertise enables the firm to focus on its core competencies and removes the necessity to internalize every skill and competence. However, research on how small firms access external expertise is still scarce. The present study contributes to this under-developed discussion by analysing the role of trust and strong ties in the small firm's selection and evaluation of sources of external expertise (henceforth referred to as the 'business advisor' or 'advisor'). Granovetter (1973, 1361) defines the strength of a network tie as 'a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding) and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie'. Strong ties in the context of the present investigation refer to sources of external expertise who are well known to the owner-manager, and who may be either informal (e.g., family, friends) or professional advisors (e.g., consultants, enterprise support officers, accountants or solicitors). Previous research has suggested that strong and weak ties have different fortes and the choice of business advisors could thus be critical to business performance) While previous research results suggest that small businesses favour previously well known business advisors, prior studies have also pointed out that an excessive reliance on a network of well known actors might hamper business development, as the range of expertise available through strong ties is limited. But are owner-managers of small businesses aware of this limitation and does it matter to them? Or does working with a well-known advisor compensate for it? Hence, our research model first examines the impact of the strength of tie on the business advisor's perceived performance. Next, we ask what encourages a small business owner-manager to seek advice from a strong tie. A recent exploratory study by Welter and Kautonen (2005) drew attention to the central role of trust in this context. However, while their study found support for the general proposition that trust plays an important role in the choice of advisors, how trust and its different dimensions actually affect this choice remained ambiguous. The present paper develops this discussion by considering the impact of the different dimensions of perceived trustworthiness, defined as benevolence, integrity and ability, on the strength of tie. Further, we suggest that the dimensions of perceived trustworthiness relevant in the choice of a strong tie vary between professional and informal advisors. Methodology/Key Propositions Our propositions are examined empirically based on survey data comprising 153 Finnish small businesses. The data are analysed utilizing the partial least squares (PLS) approach to structural equation modelling with SmartPLS 2.0. Being non-parametric, the PLS algorithm is particularly well-suited to analysing small datasets with non-normally distributed variables. Results and Implications The path model shows that the stronger the tie, the more positively the advisor's performance is perceived. Hypothesis 1, that strong ties will be associated with higher perceptions of performance is clearly supported. Benevolence is clearly the most significant predictor of the choice of a strong tie for external expertise. While ability also reaches a moderate level of statistical significance, integrity does not have a statistically significant impact on the choice of a strong tie. Hence, we found support for two out of three independent variables included in Hypothesis 2. Path coefficients differed between the professional and informal advisor subsamples. The results of the exploratory group comparison show that Hypothesis 3a regarding ability being associated with strong ties more pronouncedly when choosing a professional advisor was not supported. Hypothesis 3b arguing that benevolence is more strongly associated with strong ties in the context of choosing an informal advisor received some support because the path coefficient in the informal advisor subsample was much larger than in the professional advisor subsample. Hypothesis 3c postulating that integrity would be more strongly associated with strong ties in the choice of a professional advisor was supported. Integrity is the most important dimension of trustworthiness in this context. However, integrity is of no concern, or even negative, when using strong ties to choose an informal advisor. The findings of this study have practical relevance to the enterprise support community. First of all, given that the strength of tie has a significant positive impact on the advisor's perceived performance, this implies that small business owners appreciate working with advisors in long-term relationships. Therefore, advisors are well advised to invest into relationship building and maintenance in their work with small firms. Secondly, the results show that, especially in the context of professional advisors, the advisor's perceived integrity and benevolence weigh more than ability. This again emphasizes the need to invest time and effort into building a personal relationship with the owner-manager, rather than merely maintaining a professional image and credentials. Finally, this study demonstrates that the dimensions of perceived trustworthiness are orthogonal with different effects on the strength of tie and ultimately perceived performance. This means that entrepreneurs and advisors should consider the specific dimensions of ability, benevolence and integrity, rather than rely on general perceptions of trustworthiness in their advice relationships.

Evaluation of polycaprolactone scaffold degradation for 6 months in vitro and in vivo

The use of polycaprolactone (PCL) as a biomaterial, especially in the fields of drug delivery and tissue engineering, has enjoyed significant growth. Understanding how such a device or scaffold eventually degrades in vivo is paramount as the defect site regenerates and remodels. Degradation studies of three-dimensional PCL and PCL-based composite scaffolds were conducted in vitro (in phosphate buffered saline) and in vivo (rabbit model). Results up to 6 months are reported. All samples recorded virtually no molecular weight changes after 6 months, with a maximum mass loss of only about 7% from the PCL-composite scaffolds degraded in vivo, and a minimum of 1% from PCL scaffolds. Overall, crystallinity increased slightly because of the effects of polymer recrystallization. This was also a contributory factor for the observed stiffness increment in some of the samples, while only the PCL-composite scaffold registered a decrease. Histological examination of the in vivo samples revealed good biocompatibility, with no adverse host tissue reactions up to 6 months. Preliminary results of medical-grade PCL scaffolds, which were implanted for 2 years in a critical-sized rabbit calvarial defect site, are also reported here and support our scaffold design goal for gradual and late molecular weight decreases combined with excellent long-term biocompatibility and bone regeneration. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res 90A: 906-919, 2009

Property Education : an evaluation of how well undergraduate property students are prepared for commencing their careers

The evolution of property education to adapt to the changing business environment requires changes to course content, method of delivery and assessment. Many universities have a special interest in understanding how the students transition in and transition out of the property programs. The impact of the first year student experience is often easier to assess through students’ progression in the course and performance in their intermediate and advanced units. However, the students’ success in transitioning from university student to property professional is often more difficult to determine. In an environment where many property students commence their professional careers while still completing their undergraduate property qualification, a survey of current final year students was undertaken to identify the students’ perception of their level of preparedness for entry into the professional world. This study has also been informed by feedback received from and informal discussions held with industry representative bodies, alumni and senior members of professional organisations. The QUT UD40 Bachelor of Urban Development, Property Economics course has been designed to achieve graduate capabilities in core technical skills and generic professional skills which are required by property professionals. The results of this study were that some units in the program were perceived to provide direct preparation for students commencing their professional careers whilst the impact of other units was less tangible. Valuable feedback received during the study included an assessment of the relevance of many multi-disciplinary units, the appropriateness of the programming of units within the course and the appropriateness of repetition of content during the course. The further research question arises as to how universities can better assist students in the transition to the professional environment when frequently this occurs prior to completion of the property course.

An evaluation of brief correspondence programs for problem drinkers

The provision of accessible and cost-effective treatment to a large number of problem drinkers is a significant challenge to health services. Previous data suggest that a correspondence intervention may assist in these efforts. We recruited 277 people with alcohol abuse problems and randomly allocated them to immediate cognitive behavioral treatment by correspondence (ICBT), 2 months in a waiting list (WL2-CBT), self-monitoring (SM2-CBT), or extended self-monitoring (SM6-CBT). Everyone received correspondence CBT after the control period. Over 2 months later, no drop in alcohol intake occurred in the waiting list, and CBT had a greater impact than SM. No further gains from SM were seen after 2 months. Effects of CBT were well maintained and were equivalent, whether it was received immediately or after 2 to 6 months of self-monitoring. Weekly alcohol intake fell 48% from pretreatment to 18.6 alcohol units at 12 months. Our results confirmed that correspondence CBT for alcohol abuse was accessible and effective for people with low physical dependence.