Adding new floors to old timber-framed buildings: An assessment of demolished and preserved courtyard houses in the historic centre of Madrid

The constructive analysis of Madrid's old timber-framed collective courtyard buildings, whether demolished, preserved intact, or enlarged, has achieved the dating of relevant case studies. New parameters established in this study set a chronology based on front sector original projects: old (1737–1788), pre-modern (1788–1847) and modern (1847–1892). The on-site inspection and archival research point to ongoing misleading construction in the historic Southern area. Some modern corralas erected on top of pre-existing buildings confirm the initial hypothesis. First dimensioning rules for new façades and the stability required in old ones before adding new storeys, maintaining the original masonry or double-layered system, are discovered. Undated buildings suggest their possible origin a la malicia and a later transformation into transitional corralas. Finally, an analysis of the demolished courtyards narrows down the dating and points to new conjectures in some preserved by showing their uneven layout, old features, and structural discordances in each sector.     

The Territorial Impact Assessment of transport: the case of the Egnatia motorway system in the cohesion potential of Southeast Europe

Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) is proposed as a critical tool in order to investigate the way policies affect spatial development and hence territorial cohesion. The paper introduces a TIA methodological model in relation to transport sector. The design of the methodological model is based on a quantitative evaluation framework that comprises a set of selected indicators applied in a cross-border area of southeast Europe, influenced by the operation of the Greek motorway system of Egnatia and its vertical axes. The indicators are grouped into three main fields of TIA, i.e. transport intermodality, polycentric spatial organization and cross-border territorial cooperation. The TIA’s indicators are approximated by quantitative analysis. The procedure concludes to an overall composite indicator measuring the ‘level of territorial cohesion’ along with some core results and the expected added value. It also highlights some key technical aspects about the routines used and proceeds to suggestions for further refinement.     

Office of Technology Assessment: History,implementation, and participatory critique

The Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), which was created by the Technology Assignment Act of 1972, was—and still remains even after its abolishment in 1995—a unique congressional agency. OTA provided members of Congress with their own means of understanding and evaluating complex science and technology matters—of which there are no shortages. It spurred an entire literature of academic research both about OTA and the idea of technology assessment more generally. Understanding the legislative history and implementation of the Technology Assessment Act is crucial not just for scholarship, though. OTA was a blueprint for institutionalizing politically accountable technology assessment. Even as technologies advance at rapid rates, OTA still offers valuable lessons that scholars and policy-makers alike ought to glean. This paper places OTA in a contemporary context of (institutionalized) technology assessment. It contributes to a better understanding of OTA's origins by tracing its lineage to a set of federal reports beginning in 1929. It then analyzes OTA's response to pragmatic implementation questions of how to strike a balance between speed, depth, scope, and temporal focus. Lastly, it uses a public values framework to critique OTA's failure to adequately incorporate participatory elements into its processes.     

Transferability of calibrated microsimulation model parameters for safety assessment using simulated conflicts

Several studies have investigated the relationship between field-measured conflicts and the conflicts obtained from micro-simulation models using the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). Results from recent studies have shown that while reasonable correlation between simulated and real traffic conflicts can be obtained especially after proper calibration, more work is still needed to confirm that simulated conflicts provide safety measures beyond what can be expected from exposure. As well, the results have emphasized that using micro-simulation model to evaluate safety without proper model calibration should be avoided. The calibration process adjusts relevant simulation parameters to maximize the correlation between field-measured and simulated conflicts.The main objective of this study is to investigate the transferability of calibrated parameters of the traffic simulation model (VISSIM) for safety analysis between different sites. The main purpose is to examine whether the calibrated parameters, when applied to other sites, give reasonable results in terms of the correlation between the field-measured and the simulated conflicts. Eighty-three hours of video data from two signalized intersections in Surrey, BC were used in this study. Automated video-based computer vision techniques were used to extract vehicle trajectories and identify field-measured rear-end conflicts. Calibrated VISSIM parameters obtained from the first intersection which maximized the correlation between simulated and field-observed conflicts were used to estimate traffic conflicts at the second intersection and to compare the results to parameters optimized specifically for the second intersection. The results show that the VISSIM parameters are generally transferable between the two locations as the transferred parameters provided better correlation between simulated and field-measured conflicts than using the default VISSIM parameters. Of the six VISSIM parameters identified as important for the safety analysis, two parameters were directly transferable, three parameters were transferable to some degree, and one parameter was not transferable.     

Real-world single image super-resolution: A brief review

Single image super-resolution (SISR), which aims to reconstruct a high-resolution (HR) image from a low-resolution (LR) observation, has been an active research topic in the area of image processing in recent decades. Particularly, deep learning-based super-resolution (SR) approaches have drawn much attention and have greatly improved the reconstruction performance on synthetic data. However, recent studies show that simulation results on synthetic data usually overestimate the capacity to super-resolve real-world images. In this context, more and more researchers devote themselves to develop SR approaches for realistic images. This article aims to make a comprehensive review on real-world single image super-resolution (RSISR). More specifically, this review covers the critical publicly available datasets and assessment metrics for RSISR, and four major categories of RSISR methods, namely the degradation modeling-based RSISR, image pairs-based RSISR, domain translation-based RSISR, and self-learning-based RSISR. Comparisons are also made among representative RSISR methods on benchmark datasets, in terms of both reconstruction quality and computational efficiency. Besides, we discuss challenges and promising research topics on RSISR.     

基于组合赋权-集对分析的煤矿煤尘爆炸危险性评价研究

针对目前煤尘爆炸危险性评价研究较少、各评价因素选择偏差较大的问题,通过分析煤尘爆炸特性,提出以煤尘可爆性危险、煤尘爆炸浓度危险、点火源危险3个必要条件为一级指标,煤质变异程度、挥发分、水分、灰分等14个二级指标,以层次分析法确定各指标的主观权重,以熵权法确定各指标的客观权重,利用乘法归一化方法对各指标的组合权重进行计算,构建集对分析-组合赋权煤尘爆炸危险性评价模型,并将该模型与已较成熟的改进FAHP模型、模糊事故树模型、灰色聚类评估体系、未确知测度评价模型一同应用于济宁某矿的煤尘爆炸危险性评价过程中,结果显示:集对分析-组合赋权评价模型、改进FAHP模型、灰色聚类评估体系评价结果为一般危险等级,模糊事故树模型的评价结果为较安全等级,集对分析-组合赋权煤尘爆炸危险性评价模型评价结果与改进FAHP模型、灰色聚类评估体系、未确知测度评价模型的评价结果一致,该模型对煤尘爆炸危险的评价具有较好的适用性。     

园林景观与周边环境视觉协调性评估仿真研究

针对当前景观评估方法存在的评估准确性差、复杂度高的问题,提出基于模糊统计的园林景观与周边环境视觉协调性评估方法。对评估指标进行初选,其中大致包含园林景观和安全协调性、园林景观和人类视觉协调性、园林景观和生态协调性三部分。根据初选结果,确定景观与周边环境在质量方面的协调性评估指标、景观与周边环境在多样完整性方面的协调性评估指标、景观与周边环境在生态适宜性方面的协调性评估指标三个一级评估指标,并将各一级评估指标划分为若干二级指标。利用模糊统计法对各个评估指标赋予权重,设定指标权重判断的相关专家集合和专家对指标权值判定的区间,通过样本落影函数表征各个集值区间组合的集值统计序列,获取各指标权重值,对其进行归一化,并利用区间方差法对权重赋值可靠程度进行校正。根据二级评估指标赋值结果得到一级评估指标赋值结果,以此构建园林景观与周边环境视觉协调性评估模型。实验结果表明,所提方法评估准确率高、复杂度低。     

Ergonomic postural assessment using a new open-source human pose estimation technology (OpenPose)

Observational ergonomic postural assessment methods have been commonly used to evaluate the risks of musculoskeletal disorders. Researchers have proposed semi-automatic methods using Kinect, known for limitations with body occlusions and non-frontal tracking. Meanwhile, new human pose estimation methods have been actively developed, and a popular open-source technology is OpenPose. This study aims to propose the OpenPose-based system for computing joint angles and RULA/REBA scores and validate against the reference motion capture system, and compare its performance to the Kinect-based system. Recordings of 10 participants performing 12 experimental tasks under different conditions: with/without body occlusions and tracked from frontal/non-frontal views were analyzed. OpenPose showed good performance under all task conditions, whereas Kinect performed significantly worse than OpenPose especially at cases with body occlusions or non-frontal tracking. The findings suggested that OpenPose could be a promising technology to measure joint angles and conduct semi-automatic ergonomic postural assessments in the real workspace where the conditions are often non-ideal.     

Comparison of OWAS,RULA and REBA for assessing potential work-related musculoskeletal disorders

This study compared three representative observational methods for assessing musculoskeletal loadings: Ovako Working Posture Analysis System (OWAS), Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA), and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). The comparison was based on 209 cases of upper-body musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) diagnosed by medical doctors. The most awkward/stressful posture in each participant's tasks was assessed using these techniques. Postural loadings were rated more highly by the RULA than by the OWAS and REBA (p < 0.01). The chi-square test and logistic regression analysis showed that only RULA grand score and action level, and REBA action level were associated with MSD work-relatedness (p < 0.01, p < 0.05, and p < 0.05, respectively). The percentage concordant values of the logistic model for the RULA grand score and action level were 52.4% and 44.8%, respectively, while the percentage concordant value for the REBA action level was 22.1%. Therefore, the RULA may be the best system for estimating the postural loads and work-relatedness of MSDs.Relevance to industryWork-related musculoskeletal disorders are the leading cause of workplace disability in the developed countries. For preventing the disorders, quantification of musculoskeletal loads is required.