There is a need for efficient bridge evaluation procedures. A considerable number of existing bridges in the United States require repair and/or replacement. Accurate estimate of the current strength and the remaining life time is essential for optimum distribution of the available limited resources. The major parameters which determine the structural performance are random variables. Statistic...

Article history: Received: 22.10.2013 Received in revised form: 4.12.2013 Accepted: 6.12.2013 Reliability assessment is of primary importance in designing and planning distribution systems that operate in an economical manner with minimal interruption of customer loads. Distributed generation (DG) units are subject to failures as all other generation units, the random behavior of these units mu...

The increasing use of computers for saving valuable data imposes stringent reliability constraints on storage systems. Reliability improvement via use of redundancy is a common practice. As the disk capacity improves, advanced techniques such as disk scrubbing are being employed to proactively fix latent sector errors. These techniques utilize the disk idle time for reliability improvement. How...

With ongoing smart grid activities, there are a number of active demonstration projects in different parts of the USA. In the northwest, a demonstration project is being implemented by Avista Utilities to improve the reliability and efficiency of the distribution system. This project includes automated management of the distribution system and bi-directional communication capabilities between t...

This paper presents the correlation between the reliability and the weather scenario of Bangladesh Power System (BPS). Reliability of the power system is one of the major features of power quality. The variation of electrical demand above its base value is its common characteristic. The weather dependent variation of demand, especially where the weather is severe in nature, requires a significa...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Exercise capacity is impaired at a younger age in CKD patients than in the general population. This study examined the reliability of the Duke Activity Status Index (DASI) questionnaire as a measure of exercise capacity in medically stable adults with stage 3-4 CKD (estimated GFR [eGFR], 15-59 ml/min per 1.73 m(2)). DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS Peak ...

BACKGROUND Measurements of chest wall circumference are commonly used by physical therapists in clinical practice in order to determine chest wall mobility. However, the variability in the method for measuring this has not been reported previously among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. OBJECTIVE To analyze the reliability and accuracy of chest wall mobility measurements an...

Conventional error correction codes (ECCs), such as the commonly used BCH code, have become increasingly inadequate for solid state drives (SSDs) as the capacity of NAND flash memory continues to increase and its reliability continues to degrade. It is highly desirable to deploy a much more powerful ECC, such as lowdensity parity-check (LDPC) code, to significantly improve the reliability of SS...

Long term demand for freight movements in North America is expected to increase dramatically in the coming decades. The railroads are poised to take on this additional traffic assuming the capacity is available. Measuring the capacity of these rail lines is complicated by the interrelationships between asset utilization, reliability, and throughput. There is not a single metric that captures th...

The main objective of this project is to develop a generic framework which will set the basis for achieving more consistent system reliability assessments. The main steps involved in a system reliability assessment, together with the key technical and philosophical issues, will be identified and examined. Their interrelations and relative significance will be assessed in order to link them toge...