Assessing groundwater-surface water interaction and groundwater discharge in a contaminated site in an industrial, sub-urbanized area

in Davis, G. B.; Johntson, C. D.; Trefry, M. G. (Eds.) Groundwater Quality 2007 Securing Groundwater Quality in Urban and Industrial Environments (2007)

Assessing heat stress effects on production traits of Holsteins in a temperate region

in Book of abstracts of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production (2012)

Assessing IT Innovations in US State Governments: a research framework

Poster (2011, August)

Assessing Quality of Origin-Destination Matrices Derived from Activity and Travel Surveys: Results from a Monte Carlo Experiment

in Proceedings of the 89th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (DVD-ROM) (2010)

To support policy makers combating travel-related externalities, quality data is required for the design and management of transportation systems and policies. To this end, large amounts of money have ... [more ▼]

To support policy makers combating travel-related externalities, quality data is required for the design and management of transportation systems and policies. To this end, large amounts of money have been spent on collecting household and person-based data. The main objective of this paper is to assess the quality of origin-destination matrices derived from household activity/travel surveys. To this purpose, a Monte Carlo experiment is set up to estimate the precision of OD-matrices given different sampling rates. The Belgian 2001 census data, containing work/school-related travel information for all 10,296,350 residents, are used for the experiment. For different sampling rates, 2000 random stratified samples are drawn. For each sample, three origin-destination-matrices are composed: one at municipality level, one at district level, and one at provincial level. The correspondence between the samples and the population is assessed by using the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) and a censored version of the MAPE (MCAPE). The results show that no accurate OD-matrices can be directly derived from these surveys. Only when half of the population is queried, an acceptable OD-matrix is obtained at provincial level. Therefore, it is recommended to use additional information to better grasp the behavioral realism underlying destination choices and to collect information about particular origin-destination pairs by means of vehicle intercept surveys. In addition, the results suggest using the MCAPE next to traditional criteria to examine dissimilarities between different OD matrices. An important avenue for further research is the investigation of the effect of sampling proportions on travel demand model outcomes. [less ▲]

Assessing structure potential in soil and water conservation: monitoring top soil hydrology from micro to field scale.

in Wollesen de Jonge, Lis; Moldrup, Per; Lindblad Vendelboe, Anders (Eds.) 1st international conference and exploratory workshop on soil architecture and physico-chemical functions "CESAR" (2010)

Soil structure is a key parameter influencing erosion and water transfers. This paper describes an experiment that covers different aspects of soil structure. Three tillage systems are tested: reduced ... [more ▼]

Soil structure is a key parameter influencing erosion and water transfers. This paper describes an experiment that covers different aspects of soil structure. Three tillage systems are tested: reduced tillage, and two ploughing systems. At micro-scale, analyses are tomography which study images to determine porosity characteristics (connectivity, size, number…) and pF curves where total available water and effective porosity are deducted. At field scale, soil losses and runoff are collected and measured after rainfall simulation on plots for the different tillage systems. The comparison of the results for both scales shows the links between phenomenons at those scales. [less ▲]

Assessing the Accuracy of Simulation Model for Septoria Leaf Blotch Disease Progress on Winter Wheat.

in Plant Disease (2009), 93

A mechanistic model, PROCULTURE, for assessing the development of each of the last five leaf layers and the progress of Septoria leaf blotch, caused by Septoria tritici (teleomorph Mycosphaerella ... [more ▼]

A mechanistic model, PROCULTURE, for assessing the development of each of the last five leaf layers and the progress of Septoria leaf blotch, caused by Septoria tritici (teleomorph Mycosphaerella graminicola), has been applied on susceptible and weakly susceptible winter wheat (Triticum aestivum) cultivars in two locations (Everlange and Reuland) in Luxembourg over a 3-year period (2000 to 2002). A double performance assessment of PROCULTURE was conducted in this study. First, the capability of PROCULTURE to correctly simulate S. tritici incidence was checked. Second, the model's ability to accurately estimate disease severity was assessed on the basis of the difference between simulated and observed levels of disease development at each leaf layer. The model accurately predicted disease occurrence in the 2000 and 2002 seasons, on susceptible and semi-susceptible cultivars, with a probability of detection (POD) exceeding 0.90. However, in 2001, even though the POD never fell below 0.90, the false alarm ratio (FAR) was too high to consider the simulations satisfactory. Concerning the evaluation of disease severity modeling, statistical tests revealed accurate simulations performed by PROCULTURE for susceptible cultivars in 2000 and 2002. By contrast, for weakly susceptible cultivars, the model overestimated disease severity, especially for the upper leaves, for the same period. [less ▲]

Assessing the causes inducing lengthening of hospital stays by means of the Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol.

in Health Policy (2011)

OBJECTIVES: The objective is to evaluate the use of the Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (AEP) as a screening tool for determining the causes of the non-justified days to help hospitals to decrease the ... [more ▼]

OBJECTIVES: The objective is to evaluate the use of the Appropriateness Evaluation Protocol (AEP) as a screening tool for determining the causes of the non-justified days to help hospitals to decrease the length of stay while preserving the quality of care. METHODS: Three successive cross-sectional surveys were conducted from 2003 till 2005, in 23 Belgian hospitals. During this period, 10921 days were audited by means of the AEP. This study is focused on adult acute non-intensive care units. The appropriateness of each day of the sample was assessed, and for those considered as inappropriate, the reasons explaining the prolongation of the stay were investigated. RESULTS: The proportion of inappropriate days was 24.61%. There is a high variability across specialties and hospitals. Regarding inappropriate days, the analysis of causes of prolongation, globally, by bed index or by hospital, indicated clearly internal and external factors that lengthen stays. The most frequent reasons are waits for an examination (22%) and the lack of extra-hospital structures (31%). CONCLUSIONS: The use of AEP as a tool of internal audit to measure the proportion of non-justified days and their causes turns out to be possible and the obtained results has provided some accurate and useful information for the participating, and allowed them to take concrete decisions which lead to shrinking of the length of hospital stay. [less ▲]

Assessing the effect of the CLPG mutation on the microRNA catalog of skeletal muscle using high-throughput sequencing.

in Genome Research (2010), 20(12), 1651-62

The callipyge phenotype is a monogenic muscular hypertrophy that is only expressed in heterozygous sheep receiving the CLPG mutation from their sire. The wild-type phenotype of CLPG/CLPG animals is ... [more ▼]

The callipyge phenotype is a monogenic muscular hypertrophy that is only expressed in heterozygous sheep receiving the CLPG mutation from their sire. The wild-type phenotype of CLPG/CLPG animals is thought to result from translational inhibition of paternally expressed DLK1 transcripts by maternally expressed miRNAs. To identify the miRNA responsible for this trans effect, we used high-throughput sequencing to exhaustively catalog miRNAs expressed in skeletal muscle of sheep of the four CLPG genotypes. We have identified 747 miRNA species of which 110 map to the DLK1-GTL2 or callipyge domain. We demonstrate that the latter are imprinted and preferentially expressed from the maternal allele. We show that the CLPG mutation affects their level of expression in cis ( approximately 3.2-fold increase) as well as in trans ( approximately 1.8-fold increase). In CLPG/CLPG animals, miRNAs from the DLK1-GTL2 domain account for approximately 20% of miRNAs in skeletal muscle. We show that the CLPG genotype affects the levels of A-to-I editing of at least five pri-miRNAs of the DLK1-GTL2 domain, but that levels of editing of mature miRNAs are always minor. We present suggestive evidence that the miRNAs from the domain target the ORF of DLK1, thereby causing the trans inhibition underlying polar overdominance. We highlight the limitations of high-throughput sequencing for digital gene expression profiling as a result of biased and inconsistent amplification of specific miRNAs. [less ▲]

Assessing the environmental potential of carbon dioxide utilization: A graphical targeting approach

in Computer Aided Chemical Engineering (2012)

Assessing the geographic resolution of exhaustive tabulation for geolocating Internet hosts

in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (2008, April 29)

Geolocation of Internet hosts relies mainly on exhaustive tabulation techniques. Those techniques consist in building a database, that keeps the mapping between IP blocks and a geographic location ... [more ▼]

Geolocation of Internet hosts relies mainly on exhaustive tabulation techniques. Those techniques consist in building a database, that keeps the mapping between IP blocks and a geographic location. Relying on a single location for a whole IP block requires using a coarse enough geographic resolution. As this geographic resolution is not made explicit in databases, we try in this paper to better understand it by comparing the location estimates of databases with a well-established active measurements-based geolocation technique. We show that the geographic resolution of geolocation databases is far coarser than the resolution provided by active measurements for individual IP addresses. Given the lack of information in databases about the expected location error within each IP block, one cannot havemuch confidence in the accuracy of their location estimates. Geolocation databases should either provide information about the expected accuracy of the location estimates within each block, or reveal information about how their location estimates have been built, unless databases have to be trusted blindly. [less ▲]