Search results for: Brian Regan

Authors: Samar M. Alqhtani, Suhuai Luo, Brian Regan

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Data fusion technology can be the best way to extract useful information from multiple sources of data. It has been widely applied in various applications. This paper presents a data fusion approach in multimedia data for event detection in twitter by using Dempster-Shafer evidence theory. The methodology applies a mining algorithm to detect the event. There are two types of data in the fusion. The first is features extracted from text by using the bag-ofwords method which is calculated using the term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF). The second is the visual features extracted by applying scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT). The Dempster - Shafer theory of evidence is applied in order to fuse the information from these two sources. Our experiments have indicated that comparing to the approaches using individual data source, the proposed data fusion approach can increase the prediction accuracy for event detection. The experimental result showed that the proposed method achieved a high accuracy of 0.97, comparing with 0.93 with texts only, and 0.86 with images only.

Keywords: Data fusion, Dempster-Shafer theory, data mining, event detection.

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Authors: Nuseiba M. Altarawneh, Suhuai Luo, Brian Regan, Guijin Tang

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Liver segmentation from medical images poses more challenges than analogous segmentations of other organs. This contribution introduces a liver segmentation method from a series of computer tomography images. Overall, we present a novel method for segmenting liver by coupling density matching with shape priors. Density matching signifies a tracking method which operates via maximizing the Bhattacharyya similarity measure between the photometric distribution from an estimated image region and a model photometric distribution. Density matching controls the direction of the evolution process and slows down the evolving contour in regions with weak edges. The shape prior improves the robustness of density matching and discourages the evolving contour from exceeding liver’s boundaries at regions with weak boundaries. The model is implemented using a modified distance regularized level set (DRLS) model. The experimental results show that the method achieves a satisfactory result. By comparing with the original DRLS model, it is evident that the proposed model herein is more effective in addressing the over segmentation problem. Finally, we gauge our performance of our model against matrices comprising of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity.

Keywords: Bhattacharyya distance, distance regularized level set (DRLS) model, liver segmentation, level set method.

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Authors: Hsuan-Chu Li

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We demonstrate a way to count the number of Young tableau u of shape λ = (k, k,L, k) with | λ |= lk by expanding Schur function. This result gives an answer to the question that was put out by Jenny Buontempo and Brian Hopkins.

Keywords: Young tableau, Schur function.

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Authors: A. J. Regan, F. J. Lidgey, M. Betteridge, P. Georgiou, C. Toumazou, K. Hayatleh, J. R. Dibble

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Our goal is development of an algorithm capable of predicting the directional trend of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index (S&P 500). Extensive research has been published attempting to predict different financial markets using historical data testing on an in-sample and trend basis, with many authors employing excessively complex mathematical techniques. In reviewing and evaluating these in-sample methodologies, it became evident that this approach was unable to achieve sufficiently reliable prediction performance for commercial exploitation. For these reasons, we moved to an out-ofsample strategy based on linear regression analysis of an extensive set of financial data correlated with historical closing prices of the S&P 500. We are pleased to report a directional trend accuracy of greater than 55% for tomorrow (t+1) in predicting the S&P 500.

Keywords: Financial algorithm, GPU, S&P 500, stock market prediction.

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Authors: Sunil Dehipawala, Todd Holden, E. Cheung, Robert Regan, P. Schneider, G. Tremberger Jr, D. Lieberman, T. Cheung

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The zinc and iron environments in different growth stages have been studied with EXAFS and XANES with Brookhaven Synchrotron Light Source. Tissue samples included meat, organ, vegetable, leaf, and yeast. The project studied the EXAFS and XANES of tissue samples using Zn and Fe K-edges. Duck embryo samples show that brain and intestine would contain shorter EXFAS determined Zn-N/O bond; as with the cases of fresh yeast versus reconstituted live yeast and green leaf versus yellow leaf. The XANES Fourier transform characteristic-length would be useful as a functionality index for selected types of tissue samples in various physical states. The extension to the development of functional synchrotron imaging for tissue engineering application based on spectroscopic technique is discussed.

Keywords: EXAFS, Fourier Transform, metalloproteins, XANES

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Authors: Brian P. Bloomfield, Theo Vurdubakis

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The virulent debates that have dogged research on, and the diffusion of, a wide range of technologies indicate a growing loss of confidence in what we might call, the techno-scientific endeavour to reshape the world. Utopian images of a world rendered ever more amenable to human desires are now closely shadowed by just as compelling dystopian visions of monstrosity and disaster that are nevertheless constructed from the same cultural material. The paper uses the case of the debates over developments in reproductive technology to offer some observations on the ways in which such technologies routinely become enmirred in cultural ambivalence.

Keywords: Culture, media, new reproductive technologies, society.

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Authors: Jan Rychtar, Brian Stadler

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We study how the outcome of evolutionary dynamics on graphs depends on a randomness on the graph structure. We gradually change the underlying graph from completely regular (e.g. a square lattice) to completely random. We find that the fixation probability increases as the randomness increases; nevertheless, the increase is not significant and thus the fixation probability could be estimated by the known formulas for underlying regular graphs.

Keywords: evolutionary dynamics, small-world networks

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Authors: Brian H. Marsh

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Self-propelled forage harvesters in the 850 horsepower range were tested over three years for fuel consumption, throughput and quality of chop for corn silage. Cut length had a significant effect on fuel consumption, throughput and some aspects of chop quality. Measure cut length was often different than theoretical length of cut. Where cut length was equivalent fuel consumption and throughput were equivalent across brands. Shortening cut length from 17 to 11mm increases fuel consumption 53 percent measured as Mg of silage harvested per gallon of fuel used and a 42 percent decrease in capacity as tons of fresh material per hour run time.

Keywords: Corn silage, forage harvester, fuel use, length of cut.

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Authors: Brian A. Smith, Ronald W. McClendon, Gerrit Hoogenboom

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The mitigation of crop loss due to damaging freezes requires accurate air temperature prediction models. An improved model for temperature prediction in Georgia was developed by including information on seasonality and modifying parameters of an existing artificial neural network model. Alternative models were compared by instantiating and training multiple networks for each model. The inclusion of up to 24 hours of prior weather information and inputs reflecting the day of year were among improvements that reduced average four-hour prediction error by 0.18°C compared to the prior model. Results strongly suggest model developers should instantiate and train multiple networks with different initial weights to establish appropriate model parameters.

Keywords: Time-series forecasting, weather modeling.

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Authors: Yue Wang, Jixin Ma, Brian Knight

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This paper presents a visualized computer aided case tool for non-expert, called Visual Time, for representing and reasoning about incomplete and uncertain temporal information. It is both expressive and versatile, allowing logical conjunctions and disjunctions of both absolute and relative temporal relations, such as “Before”, “Meets”, “Overlaps”, “Starts”, “During”, and “Finishes”, etc. In terms of a visualized framework, Visual Time provides a user-friendly environment for describing scenarios with rich temporal structure in natural language, which can be formatted as structured temporal phrases and modeled in terms of Temporal Relationship Diagrams (TRD). A TRD can be automatically and visually transformed into a corresponding Time Graph, supported by automatic consistency checker that derives a verdict to confirm if a given scenario is temporally consistent or inconsistent.

Keywords: Time Visualization, Uncertainty, Incompleteness, Consistency Checking.

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Authors: Vladimir Rastunkov, Jae-Eun Park, Abhijit Mitra, Brian Quanz, Steve Wood, Christopher Codella, Heather Higgins, Joseph Broz

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Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVM) have become an important tool in research and applications of quantum kernel methods. In this work we propose a boosting approach for building ensembles of QSVM models and assess performance improvement across multiple datasets. This approach is derived from the best ensemble building practices that worked well in traditional machine learning and thus should push the limits of quantum model performance even further. We find that in some cases, a single QSVM model with tuned hyperparameters is sufficient to simulate the data, while in others - an ensemble of QSVMs that are forced to do exploration of the feature space via proposed method is beneficial.

Keywords: QSVM, Quantum Support Vector Machines, quantum kernel, boosting, ensemble.

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Authors: Nitish Kumar Vaja, Oumar Barry, Brian DeJong

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Aeolian vibrations are the major cause for the failure of conductor cables. Using a Stockbridge damper reduces these vibrations and increases the life span of the conductor cable. Designing an efficient Stockbridge damper that suits the conductor cable requires a robust mathematical model with minimum assumptions. However it is not easy to analytically model the complex geometry of the messenger. Therefore an equivalent stiffness must be determined so that it can be used in the analytical model. This paper examines the bending stiffness of the cable and discusses the effect of this stiffness on the natural frequencies. The obtained equivalent stiffness compensates for the assumption of modeling the messenger as a rod. The results from the free vibration analysis of the analytical model with the equivalent stiffness is validated using the full scale finite element model of the Stockbridge damper.

Keywords: Equivalent stiffness, finite element model, free vibration response, Stockbridge damper.

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Authors: Sannikumar Patel, Brian Nolan, Markus Hofmann, Philip Owende, Kunjan Patel

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Sentiment analysis and opinion mining have become emerging topics of research in recent years but most of the work is focused on data in the English language. A comprehensive research and analysis are essential which considers multiple languages, machine translation techniques, and different classifiers. This paper presents, a comparative analysis of different approaches for multilingual sentiment analysis. These approaches are divided into two parts: one using classification of text without language translation and second using the translation of testing data to a target language, such as English, before classification. The presented research and results are useful for understanding whether machine translation should be used for multilingual sentiment analysis or building language specific sentiment classification systems is a better approach. The effects of language translation techniques, features, and accuracy of various classifiers for multilingual sentiment analysis is also discussed in this study.

Keywords: Cross-language analysis, machine learning, machine translation, sentiment analysis.

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Authors: John B. McQuillen, David F. Chao, Nancy R. Hall, Brian J. Motil, Nengli Zhang

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Future space vehicles will require the use of non-toxic, cryogenic propellants, because of the performance advantages over the toxic hypergolic propellants and also because of the environmental and handling concerns. A prototypical capillary flow liquid acquisition device (LAD) for cryogenic propellants was fabricated with a mesh screen, covering a rectangular flow channel with a cylindrical outlet tube, and was tested with liquid oxygen (LOX). In order to better understand the performance in various gravity environments and orientations with different submersion depths of the LAD, a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of LOX flow through the LAD screen channel, including horizontally and vertically submersions of the LAD channel assembly at normal gravity environment was conducted. Gravity effects on the flow field in LAD channel are inspected and analyzed through comparing the simulations.

Keywords: Liquid acquisition device, cryogenic propellants, CFD simulation, vertically submerged screen channel, gravity effects.

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Authors: Shannon M. Chance, Pamela L. Eddy, Gavin Duffy, Brian Bowe, Jen Harvey

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Educational institutions often implement policies with the intention of influencing how learning and teaching occur. Generally, such policies are not as effective as their makers would like; changing the behavior of third-level teachers proves difficult. Nevertheless, a policy instituted in 2006 at the Dublin Institute of Technology has met with success: each newly hired faculty member must have a post-graduate qualification in “Learning and Teaching" or successfully complete one within the first two years of employment. The intention is to build teachers- knowledge about student-centered pedagogies and their capacity to implement them. As a result of this policy (and associated programs that support it), positive outcomes are readily apparent. Individual teachers who have completed the programs have implemented significant change at the course and program levels. This paper introduces the policy, identifies outcomes in relation to existing theory, describes research underway, and pinpoints areas where organizational learning has occurred.

Keywords: Faculty Development, Institutional Policy, Learning and Teaching, Postgraduate Qualification, Professional Development.

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Authors: Thinh Ngo, Paul Rad, Brian Kelley

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Noise estimation is essential in today wireless systems for power control, adaptive modulation, interference suppression and quality of service. Deep learning (DL) has already been applied in the physical layer for modulation and signal classifications. Unacceptably low accuracy of less than 50% is found to undermine traditional application of DL classification for SNR prediction. In this paper, we use divide-and-conquer algorithm and classifier fusion method to simplify SNR classification and therefore enhances DL learning and prediction. Specifically, multiple CNNs are used for classification rather than a single CNN. Each CNN performs a binary classification of a single SNR with two labels: less than, greater than or equal. Together, multiple CNNs are combined to effectively classify over a range of SNR values from −20 ≤ SNR ≤ 32 dB.We use pre-trained CNNs to predict SNR over a wide range of joint channel parameters including multiple Doppler shifts (0, 60, 120 Hz), power-delay profiles, and signal-modulation types (QPSK,16QAM,64-QAM). The approach achieves individual SNR prediction accuracy of 92%, composite accuracy of 70% and prediction convergence one order of magnitude faster than that of traditional estimation.

Keywords: Classification, classifier fusion, CNN, Deep Learning, prediction, SNR.

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Authors: Brian Ceh, Alison Jackson-Holland

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Food deserts are a reality in some cities. These deserts can be described as a shortage of healthy food options within close proximity of consumers. The shortage in this case is typically facilitated by a lack of stores in an urban area that provide adequate fruit and vegetable choices. This study explores new avenues to better understand food deserts by examining modes of transportation that are available to shoppers or consumers, e.g. walking, automobile, or public transit. Further, this study is unique in that it not only explores the location of large grocery stores, but small grocery and convenience stores too. In this study, the relationship between some socio-economic indicators, such as personal income, are also explored to determine any possible association with food deserts. In addition, to help facilitate our understanding of food deserts, complex network spatial models that are built on adequate algorithms are used to investigate the possibility of food deserts in the city of Hamilton, Canada. It is found that Hamilton, Canada is adequate serviced by retailers who provide healthy food choices and that the food desert phenomena is almost absent.

Keywords: Canada, desert, food, Hamilton, stores.

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Authors: Brian J. Kozak, Joshua D. Shipman, Peng Hao Wang, Blake Shipp

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The unmanned aerial system (UAS) industry is growing at a rapid pace. This growth has increased the demand for low cost, custom made and high strength unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The area of most growth is in the area of 25 kg to 200 kg vehicles. Vehicles this size are beyond the size and scope of simple wood and fabric designs commonly found in hobbyist aircraft. These high end vehicles require stronger materials to complete their mission. Traditional aircraft construction materials such as aluminum are difficult to use without machining or advanced computer controlled tooling. However, by using general aviation composite aircraft homebuilding techniques and materials, a large scale UAV can be constructed cheaply and easily. Furthermore, these techniques could be used to easily manufacture cost made composite shapes and airfoils that would be cost prohibitive when using metals. These homebuilt aircraft techniques are being demonstrated by the researchers in the construction of a 75 kg aircraft.

Keywords: Composite aircraft, homebuilding, unmanned aerial system, unmanned aerial vehicles.

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Authors: Brian J. Thomas

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Recent changes in food retailing structure have led to the development of large supercenters in suburban areas of the United States. These changes have led some authors to suggest that there are food deserts in some urban areas, where food is difficult to access, especially for disadvantaged consumers. This study tests the food desert hypothesis by comparing the distance from food retailers to food secure and food insecure households in one urban, Midwest neighborhood. This study utilizes GIS to compare household survey respondent locations against the location of various types of area food retailers. Results of this study indicate no apparent difference between food secure and insecure households in the reported importance of distance on the decision to shop at various retailers. However, there were differences in the spatial relationship between households and retailers. Food insecure households tended to be located slightly farther from large food retailers and slightly closer to convenience stores. Furthermore, food insecure households reported traveling slightly farther to their primary food retailer. The differences between the two groups was, however, relatively small.

Keywords: Food desert, food retailer, food security, sociology.

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Authors: Brian H. Marsh, John H. Grove

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Gypsum is being applied to ameliorate subsoil acidity and to overcome the problem of very slow lime movement from surface lime applications. Reduced Crude Conversion Spent Lime (RCCSL) containing anhydrite was evaluated for use as a liming material with specific consideration given to the movement of sulfate into the acid subsoil. Agricultural lime and RCCSL were applied at 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 times the lime requirement of 6.72 Mg ha^-1 to an acid Trappist silt loam (TypicHapuldult). Corn [Zea mays (L.)]was grown following lime material application and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]was grown in the second year.Soil pH increased rapidly with the addition of the RCCSL material. Over time there was no difference in soil pH between the materials but there was with increasing rate. None of the observed changes in plant nutrient concentration had an impact on yield. Grain yield was higher for the RCCSL amended treatments in the first year but not in the second. There was a significant increase in soybean grain yield from the full lime requirement treatments over no lime.

Keywords: Soil acidity, corn, soybean, liming materials.

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Authors: Mitansha, Suzanne Wilkinson, Regan Potangaroa

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The built environment is designed, maintained, operated, and decommissioned by construction organisations, which play a significant role in providing physical resources and rebuilding infrastructures during major crises and disasters. It is evident that enhancing the resilience of construction organisations allows better responding ability and speedy recovery from disasters and acts as a boon for the nation in the face of significant disruptions. As individuals are the integral component of any organisation, hence, individual resilience is considered a critical aspect, which may boost organisational resilience of construction sector. It has been observed that individual resilience is indirectly supported by organisation’s citizenship behaviour, job performance, and career success. Not only this, it also tends to hold a directly proportional relation with job satisfaction, physical and emotional well-being affected by organisation’s work culture, whereas the resilience of organisation increases as a result of positive adaption, growth and collective learning of the employees as an entity. Moreover, indicators like situation awareness in staff and crisis related issues, effective vulnerability management, organisational leadership and culture ensured by approachable, encouraging and people-oriented leaders, are prominent for achieving organisational resilience. It, thus, becomes perceptible that both, organisational and individual resiliencies, have the potential to influence each other. Consequently, it arises a major question that how these characteristics are associated and tend to behave with respect to each other. The study, thus, aims to explore the overlapping dimensions of organisational and individual resilience to determine the impact boundaries. The research methodology of the paper would be based on systematic literature review specifically focused on the resilience of construction industry. This would provide a direct comparison of characteristics influencing individual and organisational resilience and will present the most significant indicators of individual resilience that can eventually help to enhance the resilience of construction organisations amidst any disaster or crisis.

Keywords: Construction industry, individual resilience, organisational resilience, overlapping dimension.

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Authors: Hamad N. Altalyan, Brian G. Jones, John Bradd

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A comprehensive study was conducted to examine the removal of inorganic contaminants that exist in surface and groundwater in the Illawarra and Sydney regions. The ability of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), as a generation of membrane technology, was examined using a dead-end filtration cell setup. A set of ten compounds were examined in this study that represent the significant inorganic cations and anions commonly found in contaminated surface and groundwater. The performance of MWCNT buckypaper membranes in excluding anions was found to be better than that of its cation exclusion. This phenomenon can be attributed to the Donnan exclusion mechanism (charge repulsion mechanism). Furthermore, the results revealed that phosphate recorded the highest exclusion value reaching 69.2%, whereas the lowest rejection value was for potassium where no removal occurred (0%). The reason for this is that the molecular weight of phosphate (95.0 g/mol) is greater than the molecular weight of potassium (39.10 g/mol).

Keywords: Nanotechnology, buckypaper, carbon nanotube, CNT, multi-walled carbon nanotube, MWCNT, Botany Bay, Russell Vale.

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Authors: Haitam Emhemad, Brian Agnew, David Greenwood

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Amongst the many priorities facing Libya following the 2011 uprising is the provision of a transport infrastructure that will meet the nation’s needs and not undermine its prospects for economic prosperity as with many developing economies non-technical issues such as management, planning and financing are the major barriers to the efficient and effective provision of transport infrastructure. This is particularly true in the case of the effective incorporation of sustainability criteria, and the research upon which this paper is based involves the examination of alternative ways of approaching this problem. It is probably fair to say that criteria that relate to sustainability have not, historically, featured strongly in Libya’s approach to the development of its transport infrastructure. However, the current reappraisal of how best to redevelop the country’s transport infrastructure that has been afforded by recent events may offer the opportunity to alter this. The research examines recent case studies from a number of countries to explore ways in which sustainability has been included as a criterion for planning and procurement decisions. There will also be an in-depth investigation into the Libyan planning and legislative context to examine the feasibility of the introduction of such sustainability criteria into the process of planning and procurement of Libya’s transport infrastructure.

Keywords: Libya Reconstruction, Sustainability criteria, Transport Infrastructure.

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Authors: David J. Chato, John B. McQuillen, Brian J.Motil, David F. Chao, Nengli Zhang

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In order to better understand the performance of screen channel liquid acquisition devices (LADs) in liquid oxygen (LOX), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of LOX passing through a LAD screen channel was conducted. In the simulation, the screen is taken as a 'porous jump' where the pressure drop across the screen depends on the incoming velocity and is formulated by Δp = Av + Bv2 . The CFD simulation reveals the importance of the pressure losses due to the flow entering from across the screen and impacting and merging with the channel flow and the vortices in the channel to the cumulative flow resistance. In fact, both the flow resistance of flows impact and mergence and the resistance created by vortices are much larger than the friction and dynamic pressure losses in the channel and are comparable to the flow resistance across the screen. Therefore, these resistances in the channel must be considered as part of the evaluation for the LAD channel performance. For proper operation of a LAD in LOX these resistances must be less than the bubble point pressure for the screen channel in LOX. The simulation also presents the pressure and velocity distributions within the LAD screen channel, expanding the understanding of the fluid flow characteristics within the channel.

Keywords: Liquid acquisition devices, liquid oxygen, pressure drop, vortex, bubble point, flow rate limitation.

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Authors: M. Collins, B. O’Regan, T. Cosgrove

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To determine the potential of a low cost Irish engineered timber product to replace high cost solid timber for use in bending active structures such as gridshells a single Irish engineered timber product in the form of orientated strand board (OSB) was selected. A comparative study of OSB and solid timber was carried out to determine the optimum properties that make a material suitable for use in gridshells. Three parameters were identified to be relevant in the selection of a material for gridshells. These three parameters are the strength to stiffness ratio, the flexural stiffness of commercially available sections, and the variability of material and section properties. It is shown that when comparing OSB against solid timber, OSB is a more suitable material for use in gridshells that are at the smaller end of the scale and that have tight radii of curvature. Typically, for solid timber materials, stiffness is used as an indicator for strength and engineered timber is no different. Thus, low flexural stiffness would mean low flexural strength. However, when it comes to bending active gridshells, OSB offers a significant advantage. By the addition of multiple layers, an increased section size is created, thus endowing the structure with higher stiffness and higher strength from initial low stiffness and low strength materials while still maintaining tight radii of curvature. This allows OSB to compete with solid timber on large scale gridshells. Additionally, a preliminary sustainability study using a set of sustainability indicators was carried out to determine the relative sustainability of building a large-scale gridshell in Ireland with a primary focus on economic viability but a mention is also given to social and environmental aspects. For this, the Savill garden gridshell in the UK was used as the functional unit with the sustainability of the structural roof skeleton constructed from UK larch solid timber being compared with the same structure using Irish OSB. Albeit that the advantages of using commercially available OSB in a bending active gridshell are marginal and limited to specific gridshell applications, further study into an optimised engineered timber product is merited.

Keywords: Bending active gridshells, High end timber structures, Low cost material, Sustainability.

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Authors: Trevor Kroeger, Hayden Williams, Edward Holzinger, David Coleman, Brian Haberman

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The network connectivity of medical devices is increasing at a rapid rate. Many medical devices, such as vital sign monitors, share information via wireless or wired connections. However, these connectivity options suffer from a variety of well-known limitations. Wireless connectivity, especially in the unlicensed radio frequency bands, can be disrupted. Such disruption could be due to benign reasons, such as a crowded spectrum, or to malicious intent. While wired connections are less susceptible to interference, they inhibit the mobility of the medical devices, which could be critical in a variety of scenarios. This work explores the application of Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) communication to enhance the security, performance, and mobility of medical devices in connected healthcare scenarios. A simple bridge for connected devices serves as an avenue to connect traditional medical devices to the Li-Fi network. This bridge was utilized to conduct bandwidth tests on a small Li-Fi network installed into a Mock-ICU setting with a backend enterprise network similar to that of a hospital. Mobile and stationary tests were conducted to replicate various different situations that might occur within a hospital setting. Results show that in room Li-Fi connectivity provides reasonable bandwidth and latency within a hospital like setting.

Keywords: Hospital, light fidelity, Li-Fi, medical devices, security.

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Authors: Brian H. Marsh

Abstract:

Nitrogen fertility is an important component for optimum potato yield and quality. Best management practices are necessary in regards to N applications to achieve these goals without applying excess N with may contribute to ground water contamination. Eight potato fields in the Southern San Joaquin Valley were sampled for nitrogen inputs and uptake, tuber and vine dry matter and residual soil nitrate-N. The fields had substantial soil nitrate-N prior to the potato crop. Nitrogen fertilizer was applied prior to planting and in irrigation water as needed based on in-season petiole sampling in accordance with published recommendations. Average total nitrogen uptake was 237 kg ha^-1 on 63.5 Mg ha^-1 tuber yield and nitrogen use efficiency was very good at 81 percent. Sixty-nine percent of the plant nitrogen was removed in tubers. Soil nitrate-N increased 14 percent from pre-plant to post-harvest averaged across all fields and was generally situated in the upper soil profile. Irrigation timing and amount applied did not move water into the lower profile except for a single location where nitrate also moved into the lower soil profile. Pre-plant soil analysis is important information to be used. Rotation crops having deeper rooting growth would be able to utilize nitrogen that remained in the soil profile.

Keywords: Potato, nitrogen fertilization, leaching potential, irrigation management

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Authors: Brian H. Marsh

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Nitrogen fertilizer is the most used and often the most mismanaged nutrient input. Nitrogen management has tremendous implications on crop productivity, quality and environmental stewardship. Sufficient nitrogen is needed to optimum yield and quality. Soil and in-season plant tissue testing for nitrogen status are a time consuming and expensive process. Real time sensing of plant nitrogen status can be a useful tool in managing nitrogen inputs. The objectives of this project were to assess the reliability of remotely sensed non-destructive plant nitrogen measurements compared to wet chemistry data from sampled plant tissue, develop in-season nitrogen recommendations based on remotely sensed data for improved nitrogen use efficiency and assess the potential for determining yield and quality from remotely sensed data. Very good correlations were observed between early-season remotely sensed crop nitrogen status and plant nitrogen concentrations and subsequent in-season fertilizer recommendations. The transmittance/absorbance type meters gave the most accurate readings. Early in-season fertilizer recommendation would be to apply 40 kg nitrogen per hectare plus 15 kg nitrogen per hectare for each unit difference measured with the SPAD meter between the crop and reference area or 25 kg plus 13 kg per hectare for each unit difference measured with the CCM 200. Once the crop was sufficiently fertilized meter readings became inconclusive and were of no benefit for determining nitrogen status, silage yield and quality and grain yield and protein.

Keywords: Wheat, nitrogen fertilization, chlorophyll meter.

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Authors: Brian Considine, Aonghus McNabola, John Gallagher, Prashant Kumar

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Passive air pollution control devices known as aspiration efficiency reducers (AER) have been developed using aspiration efficiency (AE) concepts. Their purpose is to reduce the concentration of particulate matter (PM) drawn into a building air handling unit (AHU) through alterations in the inlet design improving energy consumption. In this paper an examination is conducted into the effect of installing a deflector system around an AER-AHU inlet for both a forward and rear-facing orientations relative to the wind. The results of the study found that these deflectors are an effective passive control method for reducing AE at various ambient wind speeds over a range of microparticles of varying diameter. The deflector system was found to induce a large wake zone at low ambient wind speeds for a rear-facing AER-AHU, resulting in significantly lower AE in comparison to without. As the wind speed increased, both contained a wake zone but have much lower concentration gradients with the deflectors. For the forward-facing models, the deflector system at low ambient wind speed was preferred at higher Stokes numbers but there was negligible difference as the Stokes number decreased. Similarly, there was no significant difference at higher wind speeds across the Stokes number range tested. The results demonstrate that a deflector system is a viable passive control method for the reduction of ventilation energy consumption.

Keywords: Aspiration efficiency, energy, particulate matter, ventilation.

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Authors: Mohammad R. Kavian Nezhad, Carlos F. Lange, Brian A. Fleck

Abstract:

This research presents the validation study of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model developed to simulate the scalar dispersion emitted from rooftop sources around the buildings at the University of Alberta North Campus. The ANSYS CFX code was used to perform the numerical simulation of the wind regime and pollutant dispersion by solving the 3D steady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations on a building-scale high-resolution grid. The validation study was performed in two steps. First, the CFD model performance in 24 cases (eight wind directions and three wind speeds) was evaluated by comparing the predicted flow fields with the available data from the previous measurement campaign designed at the North Campus, using the standard deviation method (SDM), while the estimated results of the numerical model showed maximum average percent errors of approximately 53% and 37% for wind incidents from the North and Northwest, respectively. Good agreement with the measurements was observed for the other six directions, with an average error of less than 30%. In the second step, the reliability of the implemented turbulence model, numerical algorithm, modeling techniques, and the grid generation scheme was further evaluated using the Mock Urban Setting Test (MUST) dispersion dataset. Different statistical measures, including the fractional bias (FB), the mean geometric bias (MG), and the normalized mean square error (NMSE), were used to assess the accuracy of the predicted dispersion field. Our CFD results are in very good agreement with the field measurements.

Keywords: CFD, plume dispersion, complex urban geometry, validation study, wind flow.

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