Using nano-technology materials in the asphalt pavement industry is new compared with Portland cement concrete. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of nano-silica modification on some properties of a penetration grade asphalt cement and a typical asphalt concrete. 60/70 penetration grade bitumen was modified with different percentages of nano-silica (i.e. 1, 3 and 5%,...

A recent queueing-based modelling methodology of RAID systems compared the mean disk access times of the two most common variants, RAID0-1 and RAID5, as well as a multi-RAID system in which they coexist. Accesses to multiple disks occur concurrently for each logical (user) request and complete only when every disk involved has completed. The models therefore needed to estimate the mean value of...

BACKGROUND The present study investigated the changes in swimming speeds and sex differences for elite male and female swimmers competing in 5 km, 10 km and 25 km open-water FINA World Cup races held between 2000 and 2012. METHODS The changes in swimming speeds and sex differences across years were analysed using linear, non-linear, and multi-level regression analyses for the annual fastest a...

BACKGROUND The purpose of the present study was to analyse potential changes in performance of elite breaststroke swimmers competing at national and international level and to compare to elite freestyle swimming performance. METHODS Temporal trends in performance of elite breaststroke swimmers were analysed from records of the Swiss Swimming Federation and the FINA (Fédération Internationale ...

Sport is recognized as playing a relevant societal role to promote education, health, intercultural dialogue, and the individual development, regardless of an individual's gender, race, age, ability, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background. Yet, it was not until the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London that every country's delegation included a female co...

Tandem’s Data Mining Server (DMS) is a parallel data engine designed to enable data mining tools to store, access and analyse high volumes of data very efficiently. In contrast to traditional database management systems, data structures are optimized for analysis and pattern recognition, rather than for accessing individual rows. The data stored in DMS tables are encoded automatically, so the r...

The IMMEX (Interactive Multi-Media Exercises) Web-based problem set platform enables the online delivery of complex, multimedia simulations, the rapid collection of student performance data, and has already been used in several genetic simulations. The next step is the use of these data to understand and improve student learning in a formative manner. This article describes the development of p...

UNLABELLED Studies on nonelite distance runners suggest that men are more likely than women to slow their pace in a marathon. PURPOSE This study determined the reliability of the sex difference in pacing across many marathons and after adjusting women's performances by 12% to address men's greater maximal oxygen uptake and also incorporating information on racing experience. METHODS Data we...

Freeblock scheduling replaces a disk drive’s rotational latency delays with useful background media transfers, potentially allowing background disk I/O to occur with no impact on foreground service times. To do so, a freeblock scheduler must be able to very accurately predict the service time components of any given disk request — the necessary accuracy was not previously considered achievable ...