Factors Affecting Asphalt Pavement Density and the Effect on Long Term Pavement Performance

Quality monitoring in infrastructural design-build projects : the analysis of an audit-based monitoring system

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s (KYTC) bridge inventory is rapidly aging. As such, the Cabinet needs to identify and implement relevant preventative maintenance (PM) actions to extend the useful service lives of those structures. Maintenance actions, costs, and application interval/repair durability information have been obtained for both cyclical and condition-based bridge PM. Additionally, information rehabilitation actions were acquired from a regional Department of Transportation (DOT) survey and from other literature. As part of this study, the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers monitored a KYTC bridge washing project to assess its level of effectiveness and to identify potential improvements. Based upon these tasks, recommended guidance was provided to KYTC for use when implementing bridge PM programs. The guidance includes a discussion of critical PM activities, strategies to adopt training and work documents (i.e., special notes) for contract work, and the implementation of work standards/special operating procedures for work performed by KYTC personnel. This report also includes details on the tools and training KYTC district-level personnel will need and outlines a roadmap for conducting pilot programmatic PM work in several districts.

Le xington, in central Kentucky, is the second largest city in the state. Local government is by a mayor and council of elected representatives from twelve districts and three at-large representatives. The Department of Public Works headed by a Commissioner, who reports to the mayor and city-county council, administers the streets and roads system. The street and road network in Lexington consists of approximately 720 centerline miles. Approximately 100 miles are rural in nature and 620 miles are urban. Approximately 95 percent are bituminous surfaced roads; a majority of the remainder is constructed of portland cement concrete. Increasing costs for constructing and maintaining the street and road network was a stimulus to implement a systematic pavement and road surface management system. Available alternatives were reviewed, and it was decided to maximize in-house resources of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government. Meetings with public works officials were used to establish criteria for implementation of a management program: (a) program for visual condition survey of pavements, (b) procedure(s) to determine structural deficiencies for critical pavements identified in the visual condition survey, and (c) utilization of the above information to estimate rehabilitation strategies and their associated costs. The paper describes and documents three phases of implementation of a pavement and road surface management system. Phase I included development of a system­ wide inventory of pavements and a pavement condition rating system for both flexible and rigid pavements. Phase II dealt with the modifications to a microcomputer program to process pavement condition ratings for ranking pavements on the basis of need and also to estimate pavement maintenance and rehabilitation costs. Phase III included administrative and training activities necessary for implementation of the pavement management program. Training generally addressed three areas: (1) collection of pavement condition and distress information, (2) operation of the microcomputer program for data processing and analyses, and (3) interpretation and utilization of results of the analyses, Finally, the paper describes current research and development relating to refinements and modifications for the Lexington situation.

In Ethiopia the failure of roads are before handover period. Most roads found in Ethiopia are flexible pavements. Nowadays, the failure of surface of flexible pavement roads are common before the expected design period. For the example Bako-Nekemte road/ has become a critical issue in our country. The most common parameters that cause stress, strain and deflection of the roads are loads and pressures that come from vehicles. Moreover, modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio and thickness of each layer needs to be characterized. Further, the load magnitude, contact pressure (or load radius) and location are defined for each load (wheel) considered. Finite element method (FEM) is a numerical analysis technique to obtain the stress-strain and deflection of each pavement layers. Analytical method usually uses layers thickness, loads, elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio of the pavement materials as design parameters. The objective of this research was to study the sensitivity of the road parameters in analyzing the major causes of failure in asphalt pavement layers fatigue cracking and rutting deformation which came due to the critical tensile strains at the bottom of the asphalt layer and the critical compressive strains on the top of subgrade using the finite element method by relating the standard specification of ERA and laboratory test result. This thesis studied the analysis of stress-strain and deflection of flexible pavements using Everstress finite element method. The Ever stress program will take into account any stress dependent stiffness characteristics. This thesis dealt with ways to reduce deflections by varying the design configuration, such as increasing the HMA modulus, the base modulus, sub base modulus, the subgrade modulus and increasing thickness of each layers. Based on type of materials to use the value of elastic modulus and poison’s ratio are various in each layers, in layer 1 is varied from 1500 to 3500 MPa, in layer 2 is varied from 200 to 1000MPa, in layer 3 is varied from 100 to 250 MPa and in layer 4 is varied from 20MPa to 150MPa.

T lymphocytes are essential components of the immune system and as such are continually regulated by a variety of factors. Every step of their development, survival and function is tightly monitored to ensure their ability to recognize most foreign agents and mount adaptive immune responses during pathogenic infections, while remaining tolerant to self-antigens. Among the many factors that participate in the regulation of T cell development and function are the cytokines. Cytokines that signal through the common gamma (γ с ) chain and the Janus kinase 3 (Jak3) include IL-2, -4, -7, -9, -15, and -21 and have been implicated in the regulation of every stage in the life of a T cell. Therefore, it is not surprising that mutations in the γ с chain or Jak3 lead to a SCID condition in humans and mice. Specifically, Jak3-deficient mice are characterized by a reduction in thymic cellularity and dysregulated T cell homeostasis. They have an expansion of memory-like CD4 + mature T cells and an almost complete absence of mature CD8 + T cells. By investigating the TCR repertoire of CD4 + T cells in the thymus and spleen of Jak3 -/- mice, I deduced that the CD4 + T cell activation and expansion is TCR-specific and takes place in the periphery of the mice. After crossing Jak3-deficient mice to Bcl-2 transgenic mice I showed that the developmental block observed in Jak3 -/- mice could not be rescued by the anti-apoptotic factor, despite the fact that its expression did increase, slightly, the total numbers of developing thymocytes. The enforced expression of Bcl-2 was also not sufficient to revert the dysregulation of T cell homeostasis in Jak3 -/- mice. Finally, in order to further understand the role played by γ с cytokines during T cell function, I investigated the ability of mature Jak3 -/- CD8 + T cells to become activated and differentiate into effector cells in response to a viral infection. My results indicate that CD8 + T cells are activated and proliferate in response to a viral infection, but their survival, as well as their ability to proliferate and differentiate into effector cells are greatly impaired, resulting in the inability of Jak3-deficient mice to mount a protective response.

Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) mandates that state agencies and other entities perform compensatory mitigation when their activities impair jurisdictional waters. In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) is required to pay in-lieu fees or purchase stream mitigation credits when a roadside ditch is impaired or relocated as part of a road construction project. In-lieu fees and stream mitigation credits are costly, and ditches that have suffered degraded habitat and loss of hydrogeomorphic functionality are treated as total losses when they are impacted by construction and maintenance activities. This raises the question of whether the United States Corps of Engineers (USACE) would be receptive to alternative mitigation and monitoring practices that impose a less stringent financial burden on the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, but which still comply with CWA regulations. This report discusses methodologies used to evaluate the quality of instream and riparian habitat, Section 404 of the CWA and its implications for mitigation of lost or damaged jurisdictional ditches, and the strategies that have been used by other states to fulfill their Section 404 mitigation requirements. The authors highlight mitigation practices that depart from the norm and which place a less onerous financial burden on state transportation agencies. KYTC officials presented this report’s key findings to the USACE Louisville District Office in January 2015 in an effort to receive approval to experiment with novel restoration techniques. The USACE granted KYTC license to implement these techniques on a project-by-project basis. Before implementation on each project, the Cabinet must receive formal approval from USACE officials. Although this was not the blanket mandate that KYTC hoped for, it indicated the Louisville District is willing to study the effectiveness of alternative mitigation strategies. Despite the Cabinet’s request, USACE officials did not approve a plan to reduce post-restoration monitoring requirements. Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) researchers suggested that KYTC perform exhaustive monitoring of the performance of completed projects that used alternative mitigation techniques. Having information on the short-, medium-, and long-term performance of these sites could – if the results are promising – pave the way to the wider adoption of alternative mitigation practices and could eventually reduce the level of post-restoration monitoring required by the USACE.

This paper briefly discusses the ALICE machine background concerns and the background monitoring system. ALICE RUNNING STRATEGY ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) [1] is a general purpose detector designed to address the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC. It will allow a comprehensive study of particles produced in Pb–Pb collisions, up to the highest multiplicities anticipated at the LHC. The physics program also includes collisions with lighter ions as well as dedicated proton-nucleus runs. Regular data taking during pp runs will provide reference data for the heavy ion program and address a number of specific pp topics. The pp runs will be in parallel with the other experiments but at a reduced luminosity in IP2. In order to keep the pile-up in the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and Silicon Drift Detectors (SDD) at an acceptable level, the luminosity during pp runs has to be limited to 3 × 10 cm−2s−1, corresponding to an interaction rate of 200 kHz. At this rate we record on average 20 overlapping events. The optimal detector operation and physics performance with the TPC, i.e. no pile-up, is at 10 cm−2s−1. IMPACT OF MACHINE BACKGROUND General considerations Due to the running at reduced luminosity ALICE has the most unfavorable interaction rate over background rate ratio (at least a factor of 10 less than the high luminosity experiments). Machine background effects are alleviated by the fact that ALICE has been designed to perform tracking for up to 1000 times the pp multiplicity and the trigger reduction factors are relatively small (typically 10). So far the expected effects of the background are mainly of cumulative nature, such as radiation damage (integral dose and neutron fluences). Also the increase of the data volume has obvious negative consequences in terms of data storage and offline computing requirements. To simulate these effects ALICE has so far considered beam gas events in the experimental region IP ±20 m and beam-halo from beam-gas scattering outside the experimental regions. Input for the quartiary background caused by tertiary collimators (TCT) close to the experimental region is not yet available for IP2. In case the collimators are at the nominal settings this contribution could well be the dominant source of machine background. However, since at full beam intensity ALICE will run at high β∗ (10 m), the inner triplet will not limit the aperture of the machine. ALICE requires that for stable beams the TCTs will be put at a position at which they protect the inner triplets against accidental losses but do not produce extra losses for stable beams. Dose in central detectors The radiation environment in the experimental cavern has been simulated for the planned running scenario of the ALICE experiment (Table 1) [2]. Running with p-p, low and high mass ion–ion collisions over a ten year period has been assumed. Beam-beam and beam-gas interactions have been considered as potential radiation sources. The highest doses, up to 2.8 kGy, are expected at the location of the inner tracking system (ITS) (Table 2). The contribution from beam halo [3] amounts to ≈ 20% of the total dose. The contribution from beam-gas collisions within the experimental region has been calculated assuming a very conservative residual gas pressure of 2× 10 molecules/m. Only under these conditions a sizeable contribution of about 10% of the total dose is expected. Charged particle rates on RPCs Among the ALICE detectors, the muon trigger system is one of the most sensitive to the machine induced background. As a matter of fact, the Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) rate capability (50 − 100 Hz/cm) might be saturated by a too high background level, which might also have an impact on the detector lifetime. The fluxes of secondary charged particles through muon trigger system originating from machine induced background has been simulated [4]. The trigger background consists mainly of electrons from hadronic showers resulting in a hot spot of ≈ 60 Hz/cm located at x = 1.5 m and |y| < 1.5 m. BACKGROUND MONITORING For machine background monitoring during injection ALICE will use the beam condition monitor (BCM) and the V0 forward scintillator detectors at safe photomultiplier settings. Due to the different acceptance of the two detectors an OR of the two signals will be used. With circulating stable beams a combination of signals from BCM, V0, SPD, TPC and forward muon spectrometer will be used to obtain a normalized machine background signal. Beam condition monitors The purpose of the Beam Condition Monitor (BCM) is to detect adverse beam conditions within the ALICE experLHC Workshop on Experimental Conditions and Beam-Induced Detector Backgrounds

This study created an information base to improve decisions about the replacement or rehabilitation of historic truss bridges. During the first phase of the research, information on the history and design of the 109 bridges in the study was assembled. With the assistance of historic preservation professionals, 75 of those bridges were selected for further study for their potential for rehabilitation. During the second phase, the KTC research team, engineers from the KYTC bridge division, and 12 highway district engineers, who are responsible for the day-to-day care and maintenance of the bridges, evaluated the condition and functional context of the 75 bridges. The goal was to identify those that are good candidates for preservation through rehabilitation. The district engineers were of the opinion that only 14 of the 75 bridges needed to be replaced. However, there was an additional subset of 13 bridges that, in their opinion, present some significant obstacles to preservation related to functional inadequacy or some other problem with the bridge. The bridge engineers estimated considerably higher levels of effort to preserve these 13 bridges (an average of 7.42 on a 10 point scale) than for the 48 remaining bridges (an average of 3.82 on the 10 point scale).

Background: New oral anticoagulants (NOACs) are predicted to become the new standard treatment for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation, and may replace vitamin K antagonists (VKAs). NOACs are prescribed less than expected, even though they do not require international normalised ratio (INR) monitoring. In this study we assessed methods for INR monitoring after the introduction of NOACs a in heterogeneous sample of countries. Methods: We asked representatives of the Vasco da Gama Movement, a network of junior and future gen- eral practitioners (GPs) in Europe, and WONCA, the World Organization of Family Doctors, to describe the way INR is monitored in their respective countries. Results: Representatives of 14 countries responded. In most countries, the INR is monitored by GPs; in some countries, these patients are treated by other specialists or in specialised anticoagulation centres. In only a few countries, anticoagulated patients monitor the INR themselves. Conclusion: Our study showed several strategies for managing anticoagulation in different countries. In most countries, the INR is monitored by GPs. These consultations offer opportunities to address other is- sues, such as blood pressure control or medication adherence. These factors may be considered when de- ciding to switch patients from VKAs to NOACs.

The fatigue cracks are observed in asphalt surfaces much more than ruts. This paper deals with the influence of carbon nano-tube on the fatigue life of asphalt mixtures. These samples are made up of the slabs cut by the asphalt cutting saw. Fatigue beams contain 0, 0.3, 0.6, 0.9, 1.2, and 1.5 percent of Carbon Nano-tube. The fatigue experiment was conducted using a 4-point semi-sinusoidal loading on a flexural beam for a constant strain (600 micro-strain) at 20oC. The end of these samples, fatigue life is assumed to be when 50% reduction in the initial rigidity happens. The results show that with an increase in the percentage of carbon nano-tube in the fatigue samples, the fatigue life of asphalt mixtures and the amount of cumulative dissipated energy increase noticeably, and the rate of damage propagation is reduced. Also rut depth, Fracture Energy density, Marshall Stability, Indirect Tensile strength have been improved excellently.

The general authority of road, bridges, and land transportation (GARBLT) specify the limitation of truck loads that run on Egyptian highways. Many trucks violate these limits by loading additional weights to decrease the transportation unit cost. This behavior causes severe deterioration to the pavement. Such violating trucks are charged by eventually little penalties compared to the damage they cause to the pavement. The objectives of this study is to evaluate the effect of increasing axle load, due to overloaded trucks, on the pavement life and to estimate a critical load that makes a boundary between penalized loads and the unallowable loads by developing a relationship between the number of load repetition to failure and axle load. The research used the KENPAVE software to calculate the horizontal tensile strain occurring at the bottom of the asphalt layer and the vertical compressive strains occurring at the top the subgrade soil due to the different axle loads. The calculated strains are then utilized to estimate the number of load repetitions to failure due to fatigue cracking using the Asphalt Institute (AI) method. Finally, relationships relating the predicted numbers of load repetitions with axle load and tire pressure were developed using regression analysis. In this study, Cairo-Alexandria desert highway was used as a case study.

The discharge of industrial wastewater into surface water requires constant monitoring of the water quality to comply with specifications and quality requirements. Furthermore, it must be ensured that individual approvals for the production plants are obtained when industrial wastewater is discharged into the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). For this reason, the influent of the WWTP is continuously monitored for trace organic compounds (TrOCs). These compounds are usually determined using liquid (LC) or gas chromatographic (GC) target methods coupled to low resolution mass spectrometers. However, these methods monitor only a small part of TrOCs in wastewater. Only a limited number of compounds can be detected in a single run and many compounds are ignored in the analysis as they are not part of the target list. Thus, unknown TrOCs neither can be detected nor identified in wastewater samples using these methods, even if they are present in high concentrations. Therefore, high resolution mass spectrometers (HRMS) have become more and more common in water analysis to carry out more extensive monitoring by detecting both known and unknown compounds. Besides, in combination with a non target screening (NTS), the generated HRMS data additionally enable the identification of unknown compounds. The application of LC HRMS in NTS related to industrial wastewater data is described in this work. Sample treatment procedures and an analytical LC HRMS method are developed which enable the sensitive and reliable monitoring of TrOCs in a broad polarity range. Additionally, the development of a reliable data processing algorithm for NTS is part of this work. A large amount of data is produced in LC HRMS that cannot completely be evaluated. Thus, prioritisation methods are required, enabling data reduction. As a result, three prioritisation strategies were developed, which make it possible to extract relevant features (a combination of a particular mass to charge ratio, the associated retention time and intensity) from the data for identification. The relevance of each feature depended on the prioritisation strategy. The first prioritisation method selects these features, whose intensities followed rising or falling trends over time series measurements. As a result, influences on industrial wastewater through the different production processes in an industrial park were recognised. This method was carried out by principal component analysis (PCA) and group wise PCA (GPCA). 130 of initially 3303 detected features were prioritised in the WWTP influent samples. In addition to prioritisation, the introduced method enabled componentisation (grouping of several features into one TrOC). As proof of concept, one feature with an increasing trend over five months was identified as N methylpyrrolidone. In the second trend related prioritisation method, the time series investigations were linked to spatial trends. For this purpose, several sampling sites before and after the WWTP were sampled and analysed over five months. This allows evaluating the treatment procedure of industrial wastewater over time. Besides, site specific features were detected. In future studies, these features could serve as a fingerprint in the monitoring of the wastewater streams. In contrast to the first two, the latter prioritisation method shows a more technical approach. TrOCs, which were repeatedly detected in the influent of the WWTP by the routine monitoring, but which were initially not identified (‘known unknowns’) are prioritised and identified by an (offline) two dimensional LC coupled to two kinds of detection techniques (ultra violet detection and MS). The identification of these ‘known unknowns’ is of high interest for the operators of the WWTP. LC UV peaks from wastewater samples were fractionated manually in the first dimension and elucidated in the second dimension, the LC HRMS, by NTS. By applying this method, the analysis of only one sample fraction led to sampling purification and therefore, data reduction. As an example, the ‘known unknown’ with the retention time of 41.1 minutes and the maximum UV absorption of 240 nm in the first dimension was successfully identified as a dichlorodinitrophenol isomer. All in all, this work shows that the use of HRMS data, in combination with NTS and the application of the presented prioritisation methods, extends the monitoring of industrial wastewater and permits an evaluation of the WWTP processes. It indicates great potential for future establishment in routine monitoring.

Cold-in-place recycling (CIR) is an environmentally sustainable alternative for preservation of asphalt pavements. A major disadvantage of this practice is the lower strength of the cold-in-place mixtures. Addition of cement into this type of mixture is a method for increasing its bearing capacity. The effect of cement content on the mechanical properties of the cold-in-place recycled asphalt mixtures has been investigated in laboratory. Different percentages of cement have been added to the recycled asphalt mixtures mixed with an optimum percentage of emulsified bitumen and moisture, and the indirect tensile strength, resilient modulus, dynamic stiffness and fatigue life have been measured. Due to the problem of fabrication of beam specimens, traditionally, the fatigue behavior of cold-in-place recycled mixtures has been investigated using dynamic indirect tensile loading. In this research, a method has been developed for making fatigue beams of the mixture. It is found that the fatigue life, dynamic stiffness, indirect tensile strength and resilient modulus of the mixtures increase with increasing cement content.

Efforts to increase productivity can not be said that the human factor is not the only factor which should be observed, studied, analyzed, and repaired in the effort to increase productivity, but also other factors such as machine, equipment, raw materials, factory buildings, etc. may also affect the productivity improvement efforts remain to be considered. Quality is the customer's main factor to decide products and services. Therefore, quality is a key factor which brings business success and growth, and improves competitive position. Lean six sigma method is a method to identify and eliminate waste or activities which are not value added and analyze defect rate product approaches zero defect products. This study aims to implement lean six sigma methods in quality control with case studies of product quality bottled water cup 240 ml at the quality control process produces eleven types of disabilities. Efforts should be made to improve the quality of products, one of them by monitoring the production process control diagram. The results obtained in this study is the value of DPMO on line 1 of 546 machines produce sigma level of 4.766 and a percentage of 99.95%, which means that in a million products cup 240 ml mineral water contained 0.05% units of a product that does not fit in production line machine 1. The DPMO values on line 2 of 291 machines produce sigma level of 4.932 and a percentage of 99.97%, which means that in a million products cup 240 ml mineral water contained 0.03% units of a product that does not fit in production line machine 2. Keywords : Quality, Quality Control, Lean Six Sigma

This paper presents a novel design of a smart and efficient Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to acquire data from the shop floor in a factory. With increasing complexities in the production process, improving industrial productivity using production information systems is a challenge for all industries in the world. Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), since their introduction in the factory environment, are gaining popularity due to their ability to control and monitor production process using integrated data. However, employers/managers are still confronting with many complications in understanding huge information on the production process and reacting quickly based on such information. In this paper, we propose the design of NIRMAN Factory Information System (FIS)-A Smart MES to enable the control and monitoring of multiple factors of the production process like assembly line, personnel, quality control, safety, etc. NIRMAN FIS, a MES based on Android Smartphone, presents data about factory environment and factory operations on the manager's smartphone screen and helps him to react and take important decisions quickly and flexibly. Index Terms: Sectional Efficiency, Factory Efficiency, Assembly Line, Threshold Limit, Productivity, Morale, Factory Environment, Data Acquisition, Analysis, Automatic and Manual Control, Bluetooth, Arduino, Android, Remote Monitoring.