261 research outputs found
Intention-Aware Routing to Minimise Delays at Electric Vehicle Charging Stations
No full textEn-route charging stations allow electric vehicles to greatly extend their range. However, as a full charge takes a considerable amount of time, there may be significant waiting times at peak hours. To address this problem, we propose a novel navigation system, which communicates its intentions (i.e., routing policies) to other drivers. Using these intentions, our system accurately predicts congestion at charging stations and suggests the most efficient route to its user. We achieve this by extending existing time-dependent stochastic routing algorithms to include the battery's state of charge and charging stations. Furthermore, we describe a novel technique for combining historical information with agent intentions to predict the queues at charging stations. Through simulations we show that our system leads to a significant increase in utility compared to existing approaches that do not explicitly model waiting times or use intentions, in some cases reducing waiting times by over 80% and achieving near-optimal overall journey times.Software and Computer TechnologyElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Renal failure and leukocytosis are predictors of a complicated course of clostridium difficile infection if measured on day of diagnosis
No full textNonsevere Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) and severe CDI, which carries a higher risk than nonsevere CDI for treatment failure and CDI recurrence, are difficult to distinguish at the time of diagnosis. To investigate the prognostic value of 3 markers of severe CDI suggested by recent guidelines (fever, leukocytosis, and renal failure), we used the database of 2 randomized controlled trials, which contained information for 1105 patients with CDI. Leukocytosis (risk ratio [RR], 2.29; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.63–3.21) and renal failure (RR, 2.52; 95% CI, 1.82–3.50) were associated with treatment failure. Fever, although associated with treatment failure (RR, 2.45; 95% CI, 1.07–5.61), was rare. Renal failure was the only significant predictor of recurrence (RR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.05–2.02). Different timing of measurements of leukocyte count and serum creatinine level around the CDI diagnosis led to a different severity classification in many cases. In conclusion, both leukocytosis and renal failure are useful predictors, although timing of measurement is important
Artificial intelligence techniques for conflict resolution
No full textConflict resolution is essential to obtain cooperation in many scenarios such as politics and business, as well as our day to day life. The importance of conflict resolution has driven research in many fields like anthropology, social science, psychology, mathematics, biology and, more recently, in artificial intelligence. Computer science and artificial intelligence have, in turn, been inspired by theories and techniques from these disciplines, which has led to a variety of computational models and approaches, such as automated negotiation, group decision making, argumentation, preference aggregation, and human-machine interaction. To bring together the different research strands and disciplines in conflict resolution, the Workshop on Conflict Resolution in Decision Making (COREDEMA) was organized. This special issue benefited from the workshop series, and consists of significantly extended and revised selected papers from the ECAI 2016 COREDEMA workshop, as well as completely new contributions
Moyo Vol. I N 2
No full textJDB. The Bradys On Sex: Any Excuse to Talk About Marsha . 1.
Shaver, Anne. One View From Lesbos . 2.
Harmless, Heather. In Sex Lies Inequality . 3.
Anonymous. Mom and Dad, I Was Raped: The Account of One Anonymous Denison Woman . 4.
Cockrell, Kim. When Ebony & Ivory Consumate: Interracial Sex .
Perry, Christian. The State\u27s Permission? . 8.
Benboe, Daniel. Fact or Fiction? 8.
Gerding, Dale N. STDs: Are You At Risk? . 9.
Smith, N. Confessions of A Nymphomaniac . 10.
Dunham, Trey. “Sex and God”. 15.
Fore, Kevin. Straight Talk on Homosexuality . 16.
Sherman, Nancy. Sex, Booze, and the Swedish Bikini Team . 19.
Wetterqvist, Christoffer. Tall, Blond, and Beautiful: Sex from a Swedish perspective . 20.
Moore, Sheryn. AIDS & College . 21.
Benboe, Daniel. Lover\u27s Dilema . 21.
Ransdell, Lisa. Burnout and the Good Fight: Fourteen years in the Anti-Rape Movement . 22
Predictors of death after Clostridium difficile infection: a report on 128 strain-typed cases from a teaching hospital in the UK
No full textWe assessed the relationship between strain type, clinical factors, and outcome in 128 patients with Clostridium difficile infection. Strain type was not associated with any outcome measure. On multivariate analysis, ischemic heart disease and hypoalbuminemia predicted death. Metronidazole treatment in severe disease was associated with a higher rate of treatment failure and death
Toe stability of rubble-mound breakwaters
No full textThis Master Thesis contains a study on the stability of the toe structure of rubble-mound breakwaters based on small scale model tests performed in the large wave flume of the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics of the Faculty of Civil Engineering of Delft University of Technology. In this report the study of Gerding (1993) on the stability of toe structures was continued. This has been done according to the design relation suggested by Gerding. In his tests the density of the stone was not varied, although it is a parameter in the formula. The main purpose of the study at hand was to check the validity of the density in the Gerding-relation: therefore the stone mass density ?s in this research was varied: namely 1900, 2550 and 2850 kg/m3, respectively the materials brick, porphyry and basalt. Only one cross section of a rubble mound breakwater with various toe structures was investigated. The existing knowledge and the influence of all governing parameters is reviewed. The main variables were toe height, Zt, water depth in front of the toe hm, water depth above the toe, ht, wave height, Hs, nominal stone diameters, Dn50 and stone mass density ?s. Variation of the wave steepness wasnt of influence on the toe stability, because the range of values of the surf similarity parameter was such that the reflection coefficient was almost constant. Existing knowledge is presented from which an analysis of the influence of the parameters involved followed. The tests are described and then the result of the measurements is analyzed. The data showed too much scatter and therefore elaborated to one damage level Nod=0.5 (start of damage). The influence of the relative density of the stone, Δ, was reproduced in the Gerding-relation in the right way, because different stone mass densities gave similar results for Hs/ΔDn50 as a function of ht/Dn50. The design curve by Gerding be used for the design of toe structures, albeit that the designer must not forget the influence of hm which is not mentioned in this relation. In the present study the same trend is found but the values from the present study show a higher stability of the structure than with the suggested relation of Gerding, which is more conservative. Computations of toe stability were performed according to Shields and to Rance & Warren to get an analysis on analytical grounds, because empirically found results dont necessarily have to be right. Only the computations according to Rance & Warren could fit the results of the measurements with addition of a small amplification factor. The parameter of the local water depth in front of the toe structure, hm, had still an influence on the relation found between Hs/ΔDn50 and ht/Dn50; this followed both from the tests and the computations. So it is risky to use the design curve for all hm. The working-out of the computations must be improved and more experiments are needed to enlarge the knowledge of the influence of hm and to simulate the measurements more accurate. Differences have been found between this study and the research of Gerding. The damage estimated was on the average two times smaller than the damage Gerding had determined. The reason why this happened is still unknown. It is therefore recommended to perform further research to explain why this difference occurs. More insight into toe stability may be found when the velocity distribution over the water depth in front of the toe structure is better defined and when the influence of the shape of the foreshore and of the reflection on the structure on toe stability would be taken into account.Civil Engineering and Geoscience
Intention-aware routing of electric vehicles
No full textThis paper introduces a novel intention-aware routing system (IARS) for electric vehicles. This system enables vehicles to compute a routing policy that minimizes their expected journey time while considering the policies, or intentions, of other vehicles. Considering such intentions is critical for electric vehicles, which may need to recharge en route and face potentially significant queueing times if other vehicles choose the same charging stations. To address this, the computed routing policy takes into consideration predicted queueing times at the stations, which are derived from the current intentions of other electric vehicles. The efficacy of IARS is demonstrated through simulations using realistic settings based on real data from The Netherlands, including charging station locations, road networks, historical travel times, and journey origin–destination pairs. In these settings, IARS is compared with a number of state-of-the-art benchmark routing algorithms and achieves significantly lower average journey times. In some cases, IARS leads to an over 80% improvement in waiting times at charging stations and a more than 50% reduction in overall journey times
Stability of toe and slope structures of rubble mound breakwaters
No full textExisting stability relationships for toe and slope structures of rubble mound breakwaters (e.g. by Gerding and Van der Meer) are empirical and do not give a clear insight in the actual physical processes near the structure. In this research an attempt is made to enlarge this insight and to derive new stability relationships in which this insight is incorporated. This study consists of two parts. The first part contains an extended analysis into the stability oftoe structures based on former experiments, carried out by Gerding and Docters van Leeuwen. Also computations are made to see, whether the one-dimensional numerical flow model ODIFLOCS can be used to determine the stability of a toe structure. The second part of this study handles the stability of slope structures. In this part, it is investigated whether the model ODIFLOCS, in combination with simple stability criteria, can be used for calculating the stability of a rubble mound slope structure.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Infect Dis Clin North Am
No full textThis article describes the global changes in Clostridium difficile epidemiology since the late twentieth century and into the twenty-first century when the new epidemic strain BI/NAP1/027 emerged. The article provides an overview of how understanding of C difficile epidemiology has rapidly evolved since its initial association with colitis in 1974. It also discusses how C difficile has spread across the globe, the role of asymptomatic carriers in disease transmission, the increased recognition of C difficile outside health care settings, the changes in epidemiology of C difficile infection in children, and the risk factors for disease.CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States
Online mechanism design for scheduling non-preemptive jobs under uncertain supply and demand
No full textWe design new algorithms for the problem of allocating uncertain flexible, and multi-unit demand online given uncertain supply, in order to maximise social welfare. The algorithms can be seen as extensions of the expectation and consensus algorithms from the domain of online scheduling. The problem is especially relevant to the future smart grid, where uncertain output from renewable generators and conventional supply need to be integrated and matched to flexible, non-preemptive demand. To deal with uncertain supply and demand, the algorithms generate multiple scenarios which can then be solved offline. Furthermore, we use a novel method of reweighting the scenarios based on their likelihood whenever new information about supply becomes available. An additional improvement allows the selection of multiple non-preemptive jobs at the same time. Finally, our main contribution is a novel online mechanism based on these extensions, where it is in the agents' best interest to truthfully reveal their preferences. The experimental evaluation of the extended algorithms and different variants of the mechanism show that both achieve more than 85% of the offline optimal economic efficiency. Importantly, the mechanism yields comparable efficiency, while, in contrast to the algorithms, it allows for strategic agents
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