scholarly journals Support tools to predict the critical structural condition of uninspected pipes for case studies of Germany and Colombia

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-802 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Hernández ◽  
Nicolas Caradot ◽  
Hauke Sonnenberg ◽  
Pascale Rouault ◽  
Andrés Torres
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Structural Condition ◽  
Strategic Investment ◽  
Sewer Pipes ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Deviation Analysis ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Characteristics

Abstract Several deterioration models have been used to predict the structural condition of sewer pipes, and some have been applied in different cities in the world. However, each one of these models has not been proved simultaneously for case studies with different characteristics (topographic conditions, soil uses, demographic growth, utilities' service operation and city's dynamic) and the use of their predictions have not been analyzed to support different management objectives. Therefore, the objective of this work was to assess the prediction results of two models (based on Logistic Regression and Random Forest (RF) methods), which previously have been identified as successful in other experiences, for two different case studies (a city in Colombia and a city in Germany). The prediction assessment was carried out by three analysis techniques (Positive Likelihood Rate (PLR) index, performance curve and deviation analysis). According to the results, we found that: (i) the model based on RF was the one that could be useful as a support tool in the sewer asset management of both case studies; (ii) for the German city, the prediction results could be useful for designing strategic investment plans in order to know the number of pipes that the utility should rehabilitate each year; and (iii) for the Colombian city, the predictions are appropriate to make decisions concerning inspection or rehabilitation plans, since the probability of identifying the sewer's assets in critical condition (C4) correctly (according to the analysis of the sample of the 10% of sewers with the highest probability to be in this condition) is around 63% and could be 83% if the stakeholders also consider in these plans the misclassification of those pipes in a bad structural condition (C3).

A Decision Support Tool for Wastewater Catchment Management

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.E. Walters ◽  
D. Savic ◽  
R.J. Hocking
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Sewage Treatment ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Clean Water ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
South West

The water industry over the years has primarily focussed on upgrading and investing in clean water provision. However, as research into the science and management of clean water services has progressed rapidly, wastewater provision and services has been slower. Focus, though, is now shifting within Industry and Research into wastewater services. The water regulator, Ofwat, for England and Wales demands the Sewerage Undertakers demonstrate efficient management of wastewater systems in order to obtain funding for Capital Investment projects. South West Water, a Water Service Provider and Sewerage Undertaker located in the South West of England, identified a need gap in their asset management strategies for wastewater catchments. This paper will introduce the production of a Decision Support Tool, DST, to help SWW proactively manage their Wastewater Catchments, examining Sewage Treatment Works, Pumping Stations and Networks. The paper will discuss some concepts within the DST, its production, testing and a brief case study. The DST provides a framework for prioritising catchments to optimise investment choices and actions. The Tool ranks catchments utilising Compromise Programming, CP, as well as AHP Pair-wise comparisons for preference weights. The DST incorporates Asset models, a Whole life Costing Module, as well as a Decay and Intervention Module.

Democracy and Political Culture

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social System ◽  
Political System ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of

This book is an examination of Britain as a democratic society; what it means to describe it as such; and how we can attempt such an examination. The book does this via a number of ‘case-studies’ which approach the subject in different ways: J.M. Keynes and his analysis of British social structures; the political career of Harold Nicolson and his understanding of democratic politics; the novels of A.J. Cronin, especially The Citadel, and what they tell us about the definition of democracy in the interwar years. The book also investigates the evolution of the British party political system until the present day and attempts to suggest why it has become so apparently unstable. There are also two chapters on sport as representative of the British social system as a whole as well as the ways in which the British influenced the sporting systems of other countries. The book has a marked comparative theme, including one chapter which compares British and Australian political cultures and which shows British democracy in a somewhat different light from the one usually shone on it. The concluding chapter brings together the overall argument.

scholarly journals Gemini Principles-Based Digital Twin Maturity Model for Asset Management

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8224
Author(s):  
Long Chen ◽  
Xiang Xie ◽  
Qiuchen Lu ◽  
Ajith Kumar Parlikad ◽  
Michael Pitt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Maturity Model ◽  
Maturity Models ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
Project Level

Various maturity models have been developed for understanding the diffusion and implementation of new technologies/approaches. However, we find that existing maturity models fail to understand the implementation of emerging digital twin technique comprehensively and quantitatively. This research aims to develop an innovative maturity model for measuring digital twin maturity for asset management. This model is established based on Gemini Principles to form a systematic view of digital twin development and implementation. Within this maturity model, three main dimensions consisting of nine sub-dimensions have been defined firstly, which were further articulated by 27 rubrics. Then, a questionnaire survey with 40 experts involved is designed and conducted to examine these rubrics. This model is finally illustrated and validated by two case studies in Shanghai and Cambridge. The results show that the digital twin maturity model is effective to qualitatively evaluate and compare the maturity of digital twin implementation at the project level. It can also initiate the roadmap for improving the performance of digital twin supported asset management.

scholarly journals Assessing Environmental Factors within the One Health Approach

Medicina ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 240
Author(s):  
Sarah Humboldt-Dachroeden ◽  
Alberto Mantovani
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
One Health ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Aflatoxin M1 ◽  
First Case ◽  
Italian Regions ◽  
Environmental Component ◽  
Environmental Considerations ◽  
The One

Background: One Health is a comprehensive and multisectoral approach to assess and examine the health of animals, humans and the environment. However, while the One Health approach gains increasing momentum, its practical application meets hindrances. This paper investigates the environmental pillar of the One Health approach, using two case studies to highlight the integration of environmental considerations. The first case study pertains to the Danish monitoring and surveillance programme for antimicrobial resistance, DANMAP. The second case illustrates the occurrence of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in milk in dairy-producing ruminants in Italian regions. Method: A scientific literature search was conducted in PubMed and Web of Science to locate articles informing the two cases. Grey literature was gathered to describe the cases as well as their contexts. Results: 19 articles and 10 reports were reviewed and informed the two cases. The cases show how the environmental component influences the apparent impacts for human and animal health. The DANMAP highlights the two approaches One Health and farm to fork. The literature provides information on the comprehensiveness of the DANMAP, but highlights some shortcomings in terms of environmental considerations. The AFM1 case, the milk metabolite of the carcinogenic mycotoxin aflatoxin B1, shows that dairy products are heavily impacted by changes of the climate as well as by economic drivers. Conclusions: The two cases show that environmental conditions directly influence the onset and diffusion of hazardous factors. Climate change, treatment of soils, water and standards in slaughterhouses as well as farms can have a great impact on the health of animals, humans and the environment. Hence, it is important to include environmental considerations, for example, via engaging environmental experts and sharing data. Further case studies will help to better define the roles of environment in One Health scenarios.

scholarly journals Ethnic Hatred and Universal Benevolence: Ethnicity and Loyalty in Precolonial Myanmar, and Britain

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-338
Author(s):  
Victor Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Pressures ◽  
Legal Equality ◽  
The One

AbstractInsisting on a radical divide between post-1750 ideologies in Europe and earlier political thought in both Europe and Asia, modernist scholars of nationalism have called attention, quite justifiably, to European nationalisms’ unique focus on popular sovereignty, legal equality, territorial fixity, and the primacy of secular over universal religious loyalties. Yet this essay argues that nationalism also shared basic developmental and expressive features with political thought in pre-1750 Europe as well as in rimland—that is to say outlying—sectors of Asia. Polities in Western Europe and rimland Asia were all protected against Inner Asian occupation, all enjoyed relatively cohesive local geographies, and all experienced economic and social pressures to integration that were not only sustained but surprisingly synchronized throughout the second millennium. In Western Europe and rimland Asia each major state came to identify with a named ethnicity, specific artifacts became badges of inclusion, and central ethnicity expanded and grew more standardized. Using Myanmar and pre-1750 England/Britain as case studies, this essay reconstructs these centuries-long similarities in process and form between “political ethnicity,” on the one hand, and modern nationalism, on the other. Finally, however, this essay explores cultural and material answers to the obvious question: if political ethnicities in Myanmar and pre-1750 England/Britain were indeed comparable, why did the latter realm alone generate recognizable expressions of nationalism? As such, this essay both strengthens and weakens claims for European exceptionalism.

Human Rights as Land Rights in the Pacific

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D'Arcy May
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Human Community ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
West Papua ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
The One

Do human rights in their conventional, Western understanding really meet the needs of Pacific peoples? This article argues that land rights are a better clue to those needs. In Aboriginal Australia, Fiji, West Papua and Papua New Guinea, case studies show that people's relationship to land is religious and implicitly theological. The article therefore suggests that rights to land need to be supplemented by rights of the land extending to the earth as the home of the one human community and nature as the matrix of all life.

Application of The QFD-fuzzy-SERVQUAL Methodology as a Quality Planning Tool at the Surgical Centre of a Public Teaching Hospital

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurandir Barreto Galdino Junior ◽  
Hélio Roberto Hékis ◽  
José Alfredo Ferreira Costa ◽  
Íon Garcia Mascarenhas de Andrade ◽  
Eric Lucas dos Santos Cabral ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fuzzy Logic ◽  
Teaching Hospital ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Public Hospitals ◽  
Support Tool ◽  
Quality Planning ◽  
Scarcity Of Resources ◽  
Social Importance

Abstract Background: In Brazil, many public hospitals face constant problems related to high demand vis-à-vis an overall scarcity of resources, which hinders the operations of different sectors such as the surgical centre, as it is considered one of the most relevant pillars for the proper hospital functioning, due to its complexity, criticality as well as economic and social importance. Proper asset management based on well-founded decisions is, therefore, a sine-qua-non condition for addressing such demands. However, subjectivity and other difficulties present in decisions make the management of hospital resources a constant challenge.Methods: Thus, the present work proposes the application of a hybrid approach, formed by the QFD tools, fuzzy logic and SERVQUAL as a decision support tool for the quality planning of the surgical centre of the Onofre Lopes Teaching Hospital (Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes - HUOL). To accomplish such objective, it was necessary to discover and analyse the main needs of the medical team working in the operating room, through the application of the SERVQUAL questionnaire, associated with fuzzy logic. Results: Then, the most relevant deficiencies were transformed into entries for the QFD-fuzzy, where they were translated into project requirements. Soon after, the analysis of the existing relationships between the inputs and these requirements was carried out, generating the ranking of actions with the greatest impact on the improvement of the surgical centre overall quality. Conclusions: As a result, it was found that the proposed methodology can optimize the decision process to which hospital managers are submitted, improving the surgical centre operation efficiency.

Policy and Practice: An Overview

1990 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
David K. Cohen ◽  
Deborah Loewenberg Ball
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Early Report ◽  
State Policies ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
School Practices ◽  
The One

Policymakers in the U. S. have been trying to change schools and school practices for years. Though studies of such policies raise doubts about their effects, the last decade has seen an unprecedented increase in state policies designed to change instructional practice. One of the boldest and most comprehensive of these has been undertaken in California, where state policymakers have launched an ambitious effort to improve teaching and learning in schools. We offer an early report on California's reforms, focusing on mathematics. State officials have been promoting substantial changes in instruction designed to deepen students' mathematical understanding, to enhance their appreciation of mathematics and to improve their capacity to reason mathematically. If successful, these reforms would be a sharp departure from existing classroom practice, which attends chiefly to computational skills. The research reported here focuses on teachers' early responses to the state's efforts to change mathematics instruction. The case studies of five teachers highlight a key dilemma in such ambitious reforms. On the one hand, teachers are seen as the root of the problem: their instruction is mechanical, often boring, and superficial. On the other hand, teachers are cast as the key agents of improvement because students will not learn the new mathematics that policymakers intend unless teachers learn that math and teach it. But how can teachers teach a mathematics that they never learned, in ways they never experienced? That is the question explored in this special issue.

scholarly journals Lumped damage mechanics as a diagnosis tool of reinforced concrete structures in service: case studies of a former bridge arch and a balcony slab

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (58) ◽  
pp. 21-32
Author(s):  
Rafael Cunha ◽  
Camila Vieira ◽  
David Amorim
Keyword(s):  
Reinforced Concrete ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Damage Mechanics ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Concrete Structures ◽  
Structural Condition ◽  
Numerical Analyses ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Reinforced Concrete Structures ◽  
Diagnosis Tool

Reinforced concrete structures may need repair in order to ensure the designed durability. Such necessity vary in cause and effect, but the structural diagnosis serves as the basis for adopting intervention measures. The assessment of the structural condition usually is made in loco, but sometimes numerical analyses are required as a low cost and effective preliminary diagnosis. In general, numerical analyses use hundreds or thousands of finite elements and nonlinear theories that are not often used in engineering practice. As an alternative, lumped damage mechanics (LDM) uses key concepts of classic fracture and damage mechanics in plastic hinges throughout well-known quantities such as ultimate moment and cracking moment. Such theory describes the concrete cracking by a damage variable, which can be used as a diagnosis criterion. Therefore, this paper presents LDM as a diagnosis tool to analyse actual structures. The case studies presented in this paper are a former bridge arch tested in China and a balcony that collapsed in Brazil. The results show that LDM numerical response of those structures are quite close to laboratory observations (former bridge arch) and in loco measurements (balcony).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document