Horizontal curves are a contributing factor for numerous deaths on roadways. The curve characteristics dictate the severity of the curve and require the driver to be more attentive while driving. To address this issue, advisory speeds are posted on horizontal curves to warn drivers to slow down for their safety. There are six main procedures to assign advisory speeds. This paper focuses on two of these methods, finds a connection between the two, and develops an Android Application that can be used to determine an advisory speed for a curve. In this work, a brief summary of the six existing methods for advisory speed assignment are discussed. Pros and cons are included for each for comparison purposes. Next, two of these methods are highlighted by applying them in the field. Data is collected and a relationship between them is determined. Using this relationship, an Android Application is created and the various details of the design process are described. This Application, called CurveAdvisor, allows the user to assign the appropriate advisory speed on a desired horizontal curve. An analysis is then conducted to test the effectiveness of CurveAdvisor. Results indicate that CurveAdvisor is successful in many cases. Finally, contributions and suggestions for future work are included. / Master of Science

Two experiments were designed to study efficacy and uptake and translocation of an ester formulation of triclopyr (3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinyloxyacetic acid) in four solvents, aromatic solvent, aliphatic solvent, vegetable oil, and kerosene following stem applications to red maple (Acer rubrum), white oak (Quercus alba), and Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana). Another objective was to explore correlations between efficacy and uptake and translocation. Additional objectives included examining the influence of concentration, dose, and stem diameter on efficacy and the influence of bark thickness and season of treatment on uptake and translocation. Concentration ranged from 0.25 to 1 lb a.e./gallon in the efficacy study and was 1 lb a.e./gallon in the uptake study. Dose ranged from 0.4 to 2 ml/cm of stem diameter in the efficacy study and was 0.15 ml/cm of stem diameter in the uptake study. Efficacy evaluations were made 14 months following treatment in June. C¹⁴- triclopyr was used to determine uptake and translocation. Saplings in the uptake study were harvested three weeks following treatments in February, May, and July. Aliphatic solvent, vegetable oil, and kerosene treatments resulted in excellent crown volume control, largely independent of concentration, dose, and stem diameter. Aromatic solvent gave poorer results, dependent on concentration, dose, and stem diameter, except among the maples. Herbicide uptake with the vegetable oil treatment was greatest. The other solvents provided similar levels of uptake. Uptake was greatest among the maples, the thinnest-barked species, and about equal in the oaks and pines. Discrepancies between solvent differences in the efficacy and the uptake studies may have been, in part, a consequence of smaller doses used in the uptake study along with conditions which likely promoted greater solvent evaporation than those under which the efficacy study was performed. Faster evaporation of the kerosene and aliphatic solvents may have reduced their penetration of the outer bark while slower evaporation of aromatic solvent and vegetable oil likely had less influence on their penetration. Stem diameter correlated negatively with crown volume control, despite basing dose on stem diameter, suggesting that the square of diameter, or stem volume, may be a more appropriate basis for determining doses. Uptake correlated negatively with bark thickness. Uptake did not vary significantly among seasons but translocation did. Movement to the leaves occurred following the May and July treatment but virtually none to leaves or buds following the February treatment. The high degree of sprouting which occurred among saplings in the May treatment compared with none among saplings in the July treatment would suggest that downward translocation of herbicide was greater in July. / Master of Science

M.S.

Yes / This deliberately dual perspective paper seeks to deepen our understanding of the engagement of SMEs in hosted enterprise applications in the UK. The emergence and development of the ASP sector has attracted much interest and highly optimistic forecasts for revenues. The paper starts by considering ICT adoption by SMEs in general before reviewing the provision of hosted enterprise applications in the US and UK (market perspective). The study is extended by qualitative empirical data collected by semi-structured interviews with SME users of hosted enterprise applications (user perspective) and subsequent analysis in order to develop the key findings and conclusions. From an SME user perspective the key findings to emerge from the study include: i) confirmation that ICT infrastructure was no longer a barrier to adoption, ii) the pragmatic approach taken to security issues, iii) the use of both multiple information systems and multiple service providers, iv) the financial attractiveness of the rental model and v) the intention to continue or extend the use of hosted applications. It also highlights the opportunity for gaining competitive advantage by using hosted enterprise applications to reduce costs. There are very few empirical studies of hosted applications which take deliberately market and SME user perspectives - this paper makes an important contribution in this emerging field.

Finding errors in applications has been achieved using a wide variety of techniques. Some tools instrument the application to check for program properties dynamically whereas others analyze the program statically. We use a technique that analyzes a program's execution by binary runtime instrumentation. Unlike tools that work on a particular language or an intermediate representation of a language, our approach works directly on binaries and hence it is not bound to any language. In order to instrument binaries, we use a binary instrumentation system called Pin, which provides APIs to instrument the application at runtime. We have built an infrastructure using Pin called Top that allows program entities like variables and events to be traced. Using finite automata we can check if certain events take place during the execution of the program. Top consists of a Tracing System that can trace movement of pointers to memory locations or 32-bit data values and keeps track of all their copies. It also provides an Event Framework that reports the occurrence of events such as function calls or returns. Top provides a programming interface which allows querying for particular events. The query is compiled with Top to produce a customized analysis tool, also called client. Running the analysis tool with the application, under Pin, results in events of interest being detected and reported. Using Top, we built a Memory Checker that checks for incorrect usage of dynamic memory allocation APIs and semantically incorrect accesses to dynamically allocated memory. Since we perform fine-grained checking by tracing references, our memory checker found some errors that a popular memory checker called valgrind did not. We have also built an MPI Checker which is used to check if programs use MPI's asynchronous communication primitives properly. This checker can detect errors related to illegal data buffer accesses and errors where the programmer inadvertently overwrote a handle needed to finish the processing of a request. / Master of Science

Two studies of factors affecting the programming performance of first- and second year Computer Science students were conducted. In one study students used GIL, a simple application framework, for their programming assignments in a second-semester programming course. Improvements in student performance were realized. In the other study, students submitted detailed logs of how time was spent on projects, along with their programs. Software metrics were computed on the students' source code. Correlations between student performance and the log data and software metric data were sought. No significant indicators of performance were found, even with factors that are commonly expected to indicate performance. However, results from previous research concerning variations in individual programmer performance and relationships between software metrics were obtained. / Master of Science

Yes / Cementitious composites, the most abundant human-made materials in the world, are challenged to be more sustainable, durable and cost-effective to adapt to the development of structural engineering, economy and environment. Owing to their excellent strength, toughness and durability, nano-fillers reinforced cementitious materials have attracted broad attention in civil engineering researches and applications. However, it is worth noting that nano-fillers reinforced cementitious materials achieve their proprieties by using of different industrial nano-fillers, i.e., graphenes, carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, etc. Although the properties of conventional cementitious materials are improved, the incorporation of the above nano-fillers are high cost and environmental footprint. Different from high-energy consuming carbon nanofillers, nanocellulose is one of the biomass-derived nanofillers with excellent nanometer properties, biological performances and composite effects, and it has proved to be a promising green filler to enhance the mechanical properties, durability and functional properties and lower the carbon footprint of cementitious composites. Therefore, this paper provides an overview on biomass-derived nanocellulose modified cementitious composites, mainly focusing on their fabrication, properties (early performance, mechanical performance, durability, and functional performance) and applications. It also concludes with an outline of some future opportunities and challenges in the development of biomass-derived nanocellulose modified cementitious composites.

No / There has been a significant rise in the number of applicants to nursing pre-registration courses at British universities. A large proportion of these will be healthcare assistants. This article aims to guide them through the process of applying for nurse training and preparing for a successful outcome at interview.

No

PT Hemma is a company consisting of personal trainers specializing in personal training in people's homes. They need to store information about their customers, such as personal data, training background and notes associated with each training session. Currently, this information is stored locally in spreadsheets. The spreadsheets lack a good user interface and sharing information about customers between different personal trainers is inconvenient. An alternative for PT Hemma would be to use one of the numerous medical record systems available online. However, these are considered to be either too complicated, expensive or adapted for health care rather than personal trainers. This has led to the need for PT Fysio, a simple medical record system tailored for personal trainers. PT Fysio is a lightweight medical record system, containing only the most necessary functionalities. The system is easy to navigate and information is easily found. Moreover, the system has different access levels preventing users from accessing unauthorized information. The medical record system has support for multiple simultaneous users and allows the storage of information about hundreds of customers. However, the system could be further improved by adding more features, such as customer profiles, an integrated booking system and support for using the system on a smartphone. / PT Hemma är ett företag som består av personliga tränare som specialiserar sig inom träning i kundernas hem. Deras behov inkluderar lagring av information om deras kunder, som personlig data, träningsbakgrund och anteckningar kopplade till varje träningstillfälle. I nuläget lagras informationen lokalt i kalkylblad. Kalkylbladen saknar ett bra användargränssnitt och och att dela information om kunder mellan de personliga tränarna är opraktiskt. Ett alternativ för PT Hemma skulle vara att använda ett redan existerande journalsystem som finns online. Dessa system anses vara antingen för komplicerade, dyra eller anpassade för sjukvården snarare än för personliga tränare. Detta har lett till behovet av PT Fysio, ett enkelt journalsystem anpassat för personliga tränare. PT Fysio är ett lättviktigt journalsystem som endast innehåller de mest nödvändiga funktionerna. Systemet är lätt att navigera och informationen är lättillgänglig. Dessutom har systemet olika åtkomstnivåer som förhindrar obehörig åtkomst. Journalsystemet stödjer flera samtidiga användare och kan lagra information om hundratals kunder. Systemet kan dock utvecklas ytterligare genom att lägga till fler funktioner, så som kundprofiler, ett integrerat bokningssystem och stöd för att använda systemet på mobiltelefonen.