468 research outputs found
Vaccine hesitancy in Pakistan is growing: here’s how it can be tackled
No full textSince the start of the pandemic, Pakistanis have become less likely to say they will accept a COVID vaccine. Saher Asad (Lahore University of Management Sciences), Javaeria Qureshi (University of Illinois at Chicago), Mariam Raheem (Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan – CERP), Taimur Shah (CERP), and Basit Zafar (University of Michigan) looks at the findings of a new survey into vaccine hesitancy and suggests how the government could overcome it
Use of machine learning for rate adaptation in MPEG-DASH for quality of experience improvement
No full textDynamic adaptive video streaming over HTTP (DASH) has been developed as one of the most suitable technologies for the transmission of live and on-demand audio and video content over any IP network. In this work, we propose a machine learning-based method for selecting the optimal target quality, in terms of bitrate, for video streaming through an MPEG-DASH server. The proposed method takes into consideration both the bandwidth availability and the client’s buffer state, as well as the bitrate of each video segment, in order to choose the best available quality/bitrate. The primary purpose of using machine learning for the adaptation is to let clients know/learn about the environment in a supervised manner. By doing this, the efficiency of the rate adaptation can be improved, thus leading to better requests for video representations. Run-time complexity would be minimized, thus improving QoE. The experimental evaluation of the proposed approach showed that the optimal target quality could be predicted with an accuracy of 79%, demonstrating its potential
2020 cessation campaign final evaluation report
No full textprepared for Oregon Health Authority, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention ; prepared by Nicole Cerra, Koko Wadeson, Caroline Qureshi, RMC Research Corporation.Title from PDF cover (viewed on October 18, 2021).This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes.Mode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection.Text in English
Containerization: For Over-the-Air Programming of Field Deployed Internet-of-Energy Based on Cost Effective LPWAN
No full textContainerization is widely investigated as a secure and lightweight virtualization solution. They have outclassed the traditional virtual machines (VMs) architecture in the cloud because of having built-in capabilities to provide platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to the edge devices. Containers consume less hardware resource, scalable and provide faster patch times, thus they have been suggested as a solution for more practical and real-time virtualization resource in energy utilities. Containers can be used as a replacement for VMs because the main feature of the modern cloud architecture, i.e. workloads are able to utilize shared hardware resources that are provided across all data-center nodes for any purpose. This article reviews the implementation architecture of the containers for energy sector applications, i.e. next-generation substation automation systems. Moreover, we analysed the power consumed by the edge devices, based on the low power wide area network (LPWAN), for over-the-air programming through containers. In addition, we studied the success factors of containers, by considering specific used-cases and explain the benefits of using containers over traditional VMs
Behaviour of Shear Wall Models with Circular Wall Openings
No full textTitle: Behaviour of Shear Wall Models with Circular Wall Openings, Author: Aejaz A. Qureshi, Location: ThodeThis thesis describes the development of a technique to build small scale shear wall building models containing circular wall-openings without floors, using a suitable concrete mortar. Tests were conducted to study the behaviour of such models under lateral static loads. The behaviour of these models is compared with those containing no wall openings. The test and analytical results as predicted by Vlasov's theory are compared to investigate the effect of such openings in shear wall models. Analysis of the problem is also attempted using Rosman's shear connection approach.ThesisMaster of Engineering (ME
Crusade, Crisis, and Statecraft in Latin Christendom: The Case of Fulk V of Anjou (1090-1143)
No full textUniversity of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. June 2017. Major: History. Advisors: Kathryn Reyerson, Michael Lower. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 537 pages.Traditionally, scholars approached early crusading as a hermetically sealed phenomenon, whose Eastern Mediterranean locus of activity had no enduring impact on the political culture of western Europe. Recent studies have demonstrated this assumption to be untenable. However, in assuming cross-regional and/or diachronic approaches, these studies could not fully consider how crusading realities shaped and, in turn, were shaped by the historically contingent concerns of individual rulers embedded within specific contexts. This dissertation is a case study that illuminates how crusading informed the rulership and ruling identity of a prince who was prominent in twelfth-century landscapes of change: Fulk V, count of the western French principality of Anjou (r. 1109-1129) and monarch of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (r. 1131-1143). Treating his reign as count, this project demonstrates that, for Fulk, the crusading phenomenon was neither a substrate nor an overlay, but rather, a central determinant of his rulership in Anjou, transforming his performance of just governance. To rule effectively within the political-social environment of crusading, Count Fulk V of Anjou had to engage in a process of reformulating and systematizing administrative, material, and discursive strategies of governance that had previously been used only inconsistently. Drawing upon a wide array of archival and published Latin sources, I demonstrate that these crusade-inspired reforms of rulership included: the creation of an apparatus of bureaucratic functionaries who enforced justice at the local level as living extensions of the prince’s office; the routinization of charter production as a means of affirming re-centralized public authority; the collaborative exercise of power by male and female actors in elite kin-groups; and, selective building campaigns to articulate power through material representation. The resulting body of formalized practices yielded an administrative praxis of governance that helped establish the conceptual and logistical groundwork for the subsequent emergence of the medieval European state under Fulk’s continental successors. Fulk's comital reign offers, thus, a unique but neglected opportunity to illuminate how crusading revolutionized rulership in the western tradition. This dissertation concludes with a comprehensive cataloging and diplomatic analysis of Fulk’s 124 surviving pre-royal acta/acts, many of which have hitherto been unknown to scholars.Qureshi, Basit Hammad. (2017). Crusade, Crisis, and Statecraft in Latin Christendom: The Case of Fulk V of Anjou (1090-1143). Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/206404
Modeling ingress losses into a horizontal landfill gas well: Reconciling 2D turbulent flow and quasi-1D approximation
No full textThis document details on the steps that the author has followed to try to incorporate turbulent ingress head losses with the Darcian flow head loss through porous media in a horizontal landfill gas well to produce a model for calculating the head loss characteristics across the gas well for efficient extraction of landfill gas[2]. The horizontal well is a pipe with equidistant apertures penetrating the length of a landfill, with a vacuum inducing pump at the outlet and the far end blocked. The well is supported by a thin lamina of gravel and drains a cylindrical volume of gas generating medium around it. In [2], a quasi-1D model for this system was developed and implemented in MATLAB/Octave, but a computational study in COMSOL [1] has shown that the quasi-1D construction overlooks the highly localized turbulent structures at the ingress apertures. The purpose of the current project was to attempt to incorporate these local head losses into the quasi-1D model.Mitacs Globalink Internshiplandfill gas flowhorizontal wellporous medium flowhead lossturbulent flo
Developmental Surveillance and Screening Practices By Pediatric Primary Care Providers
No full textThis study used a survey approach to investigate current developmental surveillance and developmental screening practices by pediatric primary care providers in a diverse New Jersey county. A total of 217 providers were contacted with a final sample size of 57 pediatric primary care respondents from 13 different municipalities. Most providers (73.7%) began developmental surveillance at the first non-hospital health supervision visit, usually at ages three to five days of life. About half (51.8%) of responding providers did surveillance and/or screening at all health encounters, while the remaining providers (48.2%) did surveillance and/or screening at only well child visits. The majority (63.6%) of providers report using a formal tool for developmental screening. There was variation in the particular developmental tool used for screening which included the use of both standardized formal and non-standardized, informal tools. Disparities in practice were associated with the patient’s type of insurance, age at surveillance and/or screening initiation, and the time frame of surveillance and screening. Implications for early intervention practice are discussed.Do not know embargo policyPeer reviewe
Optimizing Hadoop Scheduling in Single-Board-Computer-Based Heterogeneous Clusters
No full textSingle-board computers (SBCs) are emerging as an efficient and economical solution for fog and edge computing, providing localized big data processing with lower energy consumption. Newer and faster SBCs deliver improved performance while still maintaining a compact form factor and cost-effectiveness. In recent times, researchers have addressed scheduling issues in Hadoop-based SBC clusters. Despite their potential, traditional Hadoop configurations struggle to optimize performance in heterogeneous SBC clusters due to disparities in computing resources. Consequently, we propose modifications to the scheduling mechanism to address these challenges. In this paper, we leverage the use of node labels introduced in Hadoop 3+ and define a Frugality Index that categorizes and labels SBC nodes based on their physical capabilities, such as CPU, memory, disk space, etc. Next, an adaptive configuration policy modifies the native fair scheduling policy by dynamically adjusting resource allocation in response to workload and cluster conditions. Furthermore, the proposed frugal configuration policy considers prioritizing the reduced tasks based on the Frugality Index to maximize parallelism. To evaluate our proposal, we construct a 13-node SBC cluster and conduct empirical evaluation using the Hadoop CPU and IO intensive microbenchmarks. The results demonstrate significant performance improvements compared to native Hadoop FIFO and capacity schedulers, with execution times 56% and 22% faster than the best_cap and best_fifo scenarios. Our findings underscore the effectiveness of our approach in managing the heterogeneous nature of SBC clusters and optimizing performance across various hardware configurations
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