Silicosis and coal worker's pneumoconiosis are serious occupational respiratory diseases associated with the coal mining industry and the inhalation of respirable dusts containing crystalline silica. The purpose of this study (funded by the Mine Health and Safety Council of South Africa) was to evaluate the individual contributions of underground coal mining tasks to the respirable dust and res...

In this study, an earphone-type interface named "earable TEMPO" was developed for hands-free operation, wherein the user can control the device by simply pushing the tongue against the roof of the mouth for about one second. This interface can be used to start and stop the music from a portable audio player. The earable TEMPO uses an earphone-type sensor equipped with a light emitting diode (LE...

We have studied the so-called roof collapse in soft lithography. Roof collapse is due to the adhesion between the PDMS stamp and substrate, and it may affect the quality of soft lithography. Our analysis accounts for the interactions of multiple punches and the effect of elastic mismatch between the PDMS stamp and substrate. A scaling law among the stamp modulus, punch height and spacing, and w...

A flat roof surface is known to be subjected to unusually high suction associated with a pair of vortices created under diagonally skewed wind. Prediction of the wind load and its influence on the roof system is an important engineering topic but wind tunnel testing of this situation is not easy with a scaled model. Considering the physics of wind flow for the most critical case, a possibility ...

The objectives of this study are to provide detailed information about green roof performances in the Mediterranean climate (retained volume, peak flow reduction, runoff delay) and to identify a suitable modelling approach for describing the associated hydrologic response. Data colleted during a 13 month monitoring campaign and a seasonal monitoring campaign (September to December 2008) at the ...

We conducted this animal study to demonstrate whether exposing the acetabulum in immature rabbits to extracorporeal shock waves induces bone formation in the acetabulum. Five thousand shock waves of 100 MPa each were directed, from outside, at the acetabular roof of eight immature rabbits. At each of two time points (4 and 8 weeks) after treatment, the pelvises of four rabbits were removed and ...

Development of wireless sensor network equipped with GPS for post-seismic building-wise damage identification is presented in this paper. This system is called GPS on Every Roof. Sensor node equipped with GPS antenna and receiver is installed on the top of the roof of each and every building. The position of this sensor node is measured before and after earthquake. The final goal of this system...

This paper presents a method for building roof contour extraction from digital images taken over complex urban scenes. The proposed method is based on a snakes-based energy function that represents building roof contours in digital images, which is optimized by using the dynamic programming (DP) algorithm. As most of the building roof contours are characterized by rectilinear sides intercepting...

Many strucrural engineers are surprised to learn that the In~rnotional Building Code (IBC, 2009) requires the roof structure to be engineered for standing water weight in the vicinity of the drains and scuppers regardless of roof slope. In addition, some low-slope roofs also require special attenlion for water weight and stiffness for safety against ponding failures or protection against accele...

This paper presents a method for extracting building roof contours from digital images collected over urban landscapes. The proposed method utilizes an energy function based on snakes that represents building roof contours in digital images and is optimized with a dynamic programming (DP) algorithm. Because most building roof contours are characterized by rectilinear sides that intercept at rig...