Cost effective maintenance of pavement sections requires timely preventive maintenance and planned rehabilitation treatments. Knowledge of the increase in condition due to application of treatment and the loss of condition after treatment are essential when deciding the maintenance and rehabilitation treatments. Any error in formulating these values can cause significant changes in recommendations provided. Many researchers have developed pavement performance prediction models; however, less research has been done on the impact of treatment actions on the condition of a pavement section after treatments. The objective of the research is to develop equations, using deterministic empirical method, that predict the increase in pavement condition and rate of decrease in pavement condition after treatment actions with respect to pavement condition just before the treatment. The equations are developed for different treatments and different functional class, and surface type combination to quantify the impact of the treatment for the use in pavement management system. These equations can be used to quantify the effects of different treatments for the use in pavement management system. Numerical illustration is presented using the data from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission-Pavement Management System software developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) located in Oakland, California. A relation is observed between increase in pavement condition and pavement condition just before treatment for different treatments and different functional class and surface type combination. Hence the equations to determine the trend in increase in pavement condition for different treatments and different functional class and surface type combination are developed. For rate of decrease in pavement condition, due to large variability in the data the loss of pavement condition per year could not be related to pavement condition just before treatment. Hence the equations to determine the trend in loss in pavement condition after treatment could not be developed. The developed equations can be efficiently used to predict increase in pavement condition due to application of the treatment and the loss of pavement condition after treatment.

IM-MS is a 2-D technique which provides separations based on ion shape (ion-neutral collision cross-section, Ω) and mass (m/z ratio). Ion structures can be deduced from the measured collision cross-section (Ωmeas) by calculating the collision cross-sections (Ωcalc) of candidates generated by molecular dynamics (MD) and compared with the experiment results. A database of Ωs for singly-charged peptide ions is presented. Standard proteins are digested using different enzymes (trypsin, chymotrypsin and pepsin), resulting in peptides that differ in amino acid composition. The majority (63%) of the peptide ion correlates well with the globular structures, but some exhibit Ωs that are significantly larger or smaller than the average correlation. Of the peptide ions having larger Ωs, approximately 71% are derived from trypsin digestion and most of the peptide ions that have smaller Ωs are derived from pepsin digestion (90%). We use computational simulations and clustering methods to assign backbone conformations for singly-protonated ions of the model peptide (NH2-Met-Ile-Phe-Ala-Gly-Ile-Lys-COOH) formed by both MALDI and ESI and compare the structures of MIFAGIK derivatives to test the ‘sensitivity’ of the cluster analysis method. Cluster analysis suggests that [MIFAGIK + H]+ ions formed by MALDI have a predominantly turn structure even though the low energy ions prefer partial helical conformers. Although the ions formed by ESI have Ωs that are different from those formed by MALDI, the results of cluster analysis indicate that the ions backbone structures are similar. Chemical modifications (N-acetyl, methylester, as well as addition of Boc or Fmoc groups) of MIFAGIK alter the distribution of various conformers, the most dramatic changes are observed for the [M + Na]+ ion, which show a strong preference for random coil conformers owing to the strong solvation by the backbone amide groups. Ωmeas of oligodeoxynucleotides in different length have been measured in both positive and negative modes. For a given molecular weight and charge state, Ωmeas of the oligodeoxynucleotide ions are smaller than those of the peptides, indicating their different packing efficiency. A novel generalized non-Boltzman sampling MD has been utilized to investigate the gas-phase ion conformations of dGGATC based on the free energy values. Theory predicts only one low-energy conformer for the zwitterionic form of dGGATC- while dGGATC+ ions have several stable conformers in both canonical and zwitterionic form in the gas phase, in good agreement with the experiment.

Les réactions induites par des nucléons dans le domaine d'énergie entre 20-200 MeV font depuis longtemps l'objet d'études intensives. Les processus d'évaporation et de pré-équilibre dans ces réactions ont une contribution importante à la section efficace de production. Plusieurs approches théoriques ont été proposées afin de l'expliquer et leur pouvoir prédictif doit être vérifié. Les résultats expérimentaux présentés dans ce travail représentent le seul ensemble complet de mesure pour des réactions du type (n, Xn) dans ce domaine d'énergie.<br />Réalisées au laboratoire TSL à Uppsala (Suède), les expériences ont eu comme objectif la mesure des sections efficaces doublement différentielles de production de neutrons dans des réactions induites par des neutrons de 96 MeV sur des cibles de Fe et de Pb, pour la première fois avec un seuil en énergie de 2 MeV et dans un domaine angulaire important (15°-98°). La détection des neutrons a été effectuée en utilisant deux dispositifs expérimentaux indépendants, DECOI&DEMON et CLODIA&SCANDAL, afin de couvrir tout le domaine d'énergie (2-100 MeV). Des sections efficaces doublement différentielles nous avons extrait les distributions angulaires, les distributions en énergie ainsi que les sections efficaces totales de production inélastiques.<br />Les résultats obtenus ont été comparés avec les prédictions données par deux des codes les plus utilisés, GEANT3 et MCNPX, ainsi qu'avec le modèle de simulation microscopique DYWAN choisi pour son originalité dans le traitement des réactions nucléon-noyau.

Thesis (M.S.)--East Carolina University, 2009. / Presented to the faculty of the Department of Physics. Advisor: Michael Dingfelder. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Apr. 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis--Ph. D., University of Hong Kong, 1983.

I Sverige kan VKR (varmformade konstruktionsrör) vara 15-23 % dyrare än KKR (kallformade konstruktions­rör) av samma tvärsnittsstorlek. Trots detta lägre pris på KKR har det upp­skattats att i Svensk stål­byggnation används endast 5 % KKR, av det totala användandet av VKR och KKR. I detta examensarbete har det först undersökts vilka skillnader i egenskaper som finns mellan VKR och KKR. Därefter beräknas prisdifferensen mellan de två profiltyperna när de utsätts för en centrisk tryckkraft under likadana förhållanden. Målet är att ta reda på vilket som är det mest ekonomiskt lönsamma alternativet i valet mellan VKR och KKR. Tryckkraftskapaciteten med hänsyn till knäckning för alla profilstorlekar i Tibnor konstruktions­tabeller har beräknats för varje möjlig kombination av tio olika längder mellan 1 till 10 m, tio olika laster mellan 100 till 1000 kN och två olika upplagsförhållanden, ledad i båda ändarna eller fast inspänd i båda ändarna. De KKR‑ respektive VKR-profiler med lägst pris, som håller för lasten, har jämförts och prisdifferensen mellan dessa redovisas genom att ange hur många procent dyrare, eller billigare, VKR är i jämförelse med KKR. I 80 % av mätningarna vid ledad infästning i båda ändarna blev KKR det mest ekonomiskt lönsamma alternativet. Samma siffra blev 86 % för fast inspänd i båda ändarna. Den genomsnittliga pris­differensen hamnade på 10-11 % med ett spridningsmått på 8-12 %. Detta leder till slutsatsen att ett användande av enbart KKR kan resultera i be­sparingar på ca 10‑11 % i stålkostnader, jämfört med att enbart använda VKR. Utifrån pris­differensernas variation dras därefter slutsatsen att det inte finns några tendenser på att VKR eller KKR är mer lönsam än den andra inom något specifikt längd- eller lastintervall. Rekommendationen är att i första hand optimera och använda den profiltyp som är mest lönsam för rådande förhållanden. Om en optimering inte är möjlig blir istället rekommendationen att använda KKR. / In Sweden, hot formed rectangular hollow sections (HFRHS) can be 15-23 % more expensive than cold formed rectangular hollow sections (CFRHS) of the same section size. Although the price on CFRHS is lower, estimations reveals that   - from the total use of HFRHS and CFRHS in Swedish steel buildings - CFRHS is only utilized by less than 5 % compared to 95 % HFRHS. This study began by examining the differences between these two types of steel. The price difference between the two processed metal types was then calculated when both of them were subjected to a centric compressive force under the same conditions. The purpose was to compare prices and find out which one is the most economically feasible, offering a more profitable choice between HFRHS or CFRHS. The design buckling resistance of all the section sizes in Tibnor kon­­struktions­tabeller was calculated for every possible combination out of ten different lengths between 1 m and 10 m, ten different loadings between 100 kN and 1000 kN and two different support conditions being pinned at both ends and fixed at both ends. The sections sizes of CFRHS and HFRHS that withstood the loading and held the lowest prices were compared by calculating the price difference as per­centage increment or decrement between the two types of hollow sections. In 80 % of the cases, when pinned at both ends, CFRHS showed to be the most economically feasible alternative. When fixed at both ends the same number was 86 %. The average price difference was 10-11 %, showing an absolute deviation of approximately 8‑12 %. These findings conclude that using only CFRHS can result in savings of 10‑11 % from reduced costs of steel, compared to only using HFRHS. From the observed variation of the price differences another conclusion is drawn that there aren’t any tendencies showing HFRHS or CFRHS to be more economically feasible than the other in a specific interval of length or loading. The recommendation is to optimize and use the type of steel that is the most economically feasible under the current circumstances. If an optimization isn’t possible then the recommendation is to use CFRHS.

When parallel applications do not fully utilize the cores that are available to them they are missing the opportunity to have better performance. Sometimes threads have to wait for other threads. I call the code segments that make other threads wait bottlenecks. Examples of these bottlenecks include contended critical sections, threads arriving late to barriers and the slowest stage of a pipelined program. Other times all threads are running but some of them, which I call lagging threads, are making less progress, setting the stage to become bottlenecks. My thesis proposes identifying the code segments that are more critical for performance and efficiently accelerating them using faster cores, by either migrating execution to large cores of an Asymmetric Chip Multi-Processor (ACMP) or executing locally on DVFS-accelerated cores. The key contribution of this dissertation is a Utility of Acceleration metric that combines a measure of the acceleration for each code segment with a measure of its criticality. This metric enables meaningful comparisons to decide which bottlenecks or lagging threads to accelerate with each of the available acceleration mechanisms. My evaluation shows significant performance improvement for single multithreaded applications and sets of multiple single- and multi-threaded applications, and also reduction in energy-delay product due to the efficient utilization of the available acceleration mechanisms. / text

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / Physics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

For a power series which converges in some neighborhood of the origin in the complex plane, the zeros of its partial sums often behave in a controlled manner. We give an overview of some of the major results in the study of this phenomenon in the past century, focusing on recent developments which build on the theme of asymptotic analysis. Inspired by this work, we study the asymptotic behavior of the zeros of partial sums of power series for entire functions defined by exponential integrals of a certain type. Most of the zeros of the n'th partial sum travel outwards from the origin at a rate comparable to n, so we rescale the variable by n and explicitly calculate the limit curves of these normalized zeros. We discover that the zeros' asymptotic behavior depends on the order of the critical points of the integrand in the aforementioned exponential integral. / 62+x pages, 24 figures