Experimental Investigation of Two Test Setups on Straw Bales Used as Load-Bearing Elements of Buildings

The importance of green and sustainable materials in civil engineering is undeniable. Alongside modern practices that improve the properties of standard building materials, there are ways to revive forgotten techniques, including straw bale buildings. Straw bales are load-bearing structures, which are applied based on handed-down experience and lack standard approaches in testing, design, and application. Therefore, a goal ahead is to describe every aspect of the process in technical detail. The objective of this paper is to highlight practical ideas for testing straw bales on a hydraulic press machine and to provide a basic statistical investigation of the results obtained. Two basic series were prepared, one without a side barrier and the other with a side barrier. The reason for this was to delineate the limits of the real behaviour of the straw bale on the load bearing wall of the house. Due to the assumed slight embedment of adjacent bales, the real result were within these limits. The experimental plan, basic results, simplified correlations, and statistical evaluation are presented. Recommendations for a further testing and evaluation are provided. As expected, the results with and without the lateral barrier differ by almost 18% for the true strain.

Design and Build 3d Educational Game "Motorized Millennials" for Indonesian Teenagers

Traffic signs are one of the things road equipment which consists of symbols, numbers, letters, sentences or a combination of them serves for prohibitions, orders, warnings, and instructions for road users. The younger generation often neglects even many who do not obey the traffic rules, as a result, accidents often occur. From a research Rahmi concluded that 84.5% of students ride motorbikes to school and get 56.8% respondents and have criteria for less safe actions in two-wheeled driving and 43.3% safe criteria including driving while communicating with a mobile phone 51% (Rahmi, 2009 ). An innovation that is suitable for Indonesian youth in studying traffic signs is the game method. Because teenagers tend to like to play and learn. so the game method with game media is very suitable to be applied to make it easier for teenagers to learn about traffic signs. Therefore, the purpose of this research is one of them can attract the interest of the younger generation to be able to learn to recognize traffic signs in order to reduce accidents while driving. The data collection methods that we use in this study include: Interviews, Field Observations, Functional Requirements Analysis, System Design, System Testing, Application Testing Design. We have carried out the results of testing this educational game starting from testing all buttons, displaying questions, displaying scores, and displaying every available menu. The results of research that have been carried out are displaying menus in motorized millennial games including: first we install the apk, bring up the application icon, display the game start page starting from: how to play, start and exit.

The Influence of Floor Layering on Airborne Sound Insulation and Impact Noise Reduction: A Study on Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) Structures

The use of timber constructions recently increased. In particular, Cross Laminated Timber floors are often used in multi-story buildings. The development of standardization processes, product testing, design of details and joints, the speed of construction, and the advantages of eco-sustainability are the main reasons why these structures play a paramount role on the international building scene. However, for further developments, it is essential to investigate sound insulation properties, in order to meet the requirements of indoor comfort and comply with current building regulations. This work presents the results obtained by in field measurements developed using different sound sources (tapping machine, impact rubber ball, and airborne dodecahedral speaker) on Cross Laminated Timber floors, changing different sound insulation layering (suspended ceiling and floating floors). Results clearly show that the influence on noise reduction caused by different layering stimulated by diverse noise source is not constant and furthermore that no available analytical model is able to correctly predict Cross Laminated Timber floors acoustic performances.

Kajian Perancangan Karakter Maskot Universitas Pendidikan Mandalika

Mascot is a promotional media that is familiar in promotional media. Several companies to universities have mascots as icons that can represent higher education. UNDIKMA as a new joint-form campus has not used the media in the form of mascots for promotion. considering that NTB is a heterogeneous region with respect to ethnicity, religion, and race, so it requires a mascot as a brand ambassador for UNDIKMA. This is important because in the NTB region there is no tertiary institution that has a mascot. In the previous study, there was no study on mascot creation for universities. The purpose of this research is to design a mascot with a method approach that puts forward the target audience. While the method used is the Design Thinking Method developed by Tim Brown. Design thinking is a way to solve ambiguous and unfamiliar problems, rediscover problems in a human-centered way, brainstorm to generate multiple ideas, and take a hands-on approach. Very useful for prototyping and testing. Design thinking also includes continuous experimentation, such as sketching, prototyping, experimenting, and trying out different concepts and ideas. The target outcome of this research is to hopefully create a mascot design. In addition, it is also hoped that the output in the form of a mascot design guide line will also be successfully written. So that the application of the mascot can be correct and in accordance with the objectives expected by the designer.

Group testing can improve the cost-efficiency of prospective-retrospective biomarker studies

Background Cancer treatment is increasingly dependent on biomarkers for prognostication and treatment selection. Potential biomarkers are frequently evaluated in prospective-retrospective studies in which biomarkers are measured retrospectively on archived specimens after completion of prospective clinical trials. In light of the high costs of some assays, random sampling designs have been proposed that measure biomarkers for a random sub-sample of subjects selected on the basis of observed outcome and possibly other variables. Compared with a standard design that measures biomarkers on all subjects, a random sampling design can be cost-efficient in the sense of reducing the cost of the study substantially while achieving a reasonable level of precision. Methods For a biomarker that indicates the presence of some molecular alteration (e.g., mutation in a gene), we explore the use of a group testing strategy, which involves physically pooling specimens across subjects and assaying pooled samples for the presence of the molecular alteration of interest, for further improvement in cost-efficiency beyond random sampling. We propose simple and general approaches to estimating the prognostic and predictive values of biomarkers with group testing, and conduct simulation studies to validate the proposed estimation procedures and to assess the cost-efficiency of the group testing design in comparison to the standard and random sampling designs. Results Simulation results show that the proposed estimation procedures perform well in realistic settings and that a group testing design can have considerably higher cost-efficiency than a random sampling design. Conclusions Group testing can be used to improve the cost-efficiency of biomarker studies.

A Systematic Review on Task Design in Dynamic and Interactive Mathematics Learning Environments (DIMLEs)

Task design constitutes a growing core of research in mathematics education. In particular, task design in Dynamic and Interactive Mathematics Learning Environments (DIMLEs) has become very popular, although it remains under-researched. This study aims to systematically analyze the current state of research on task design in DIMLEs. The literature was searched through the Web of Science, and 10 articles were included in the review. Results show that the majority of research studies were undertaken in Asia, with a focus on secondary and higher education. Studies used design-based research, case study, and grounded theory. Most studies were carried out in the domain of geometry, followed by algebra and calculus. Most researchers used GeoGebra as a DIMLE. The studies used different frameworks and contributed to the literature by developing and testing design principles, problematizing task design, and extending existing frameworks. There are also some reported challenges concerning task design in DIMLEs, such as students’ negative attitudes and beliefs and being inexperienced or unfamiliar with DIMLEs. E-assessment issues also created problems, as well as students’ poor mathematical background and time-consuming activities for teachers and students. Overall, the results indicate that further studies are needed on task design in DIMLEs.

Group Testing Can Improve the Cost-Efficiency of Prospective-Retrospective Biomarker Studies

Background: Cancer treatment is increasingly dependent on biomarkers for prognostication and treatment selection. Potential biomarkers are frequently evaluated in prospective-retrospective studies in which biomarkers are measured retrospectively on archived specimens after completion of prospective clinical trials. In light of the high costs of some assays, random sampling designs have been proposed that measure biomarkers for a random sub-sample of subjects selected on the basis of observed outcome and possibly other variables. Compared with a standard design that measures biomarkers on all subjects, a random sampling design can be cost-efficient in the sense of reducing the cost of the study substantially while achieving a reasonable level of precision.Methods: For a biomarker that indicates the presence of some molecular alteration (e.g., mutation in a gene), we explore the use of a group testing strategy, which involves physically pooling specimens across subjects and assaying pooled samples for the presence of the molecular alteration of interest, for further improvement in cost-efficiency beyond random sampling. We propose simple and general approaches to estimating the prognostic and predictive values of biomarkers with group testing, and conduct simulation studies to validate the proposed estimation procedures and to assess the cost-efficiency of the group testing design in comparison to the standard and random sampling designs.Results: Simulation results show that the proposed estimation procedures perform well in realistic settings and that a group testing design can have considerably higher cost-efficiency than a random sampling design. Conclusions: Group testing can be used to improve the cost-efficiency of biomarker studies.