Atlanta Research Articles

Diverse occupancy simulation and presence sensing viability for residential thermal energy regulation: Review and false positive modeling initial findings

The technological advancement of human sensing systems in the past decade has provided a new mode through which human complexity in High Performance Buildings can be traced rather than emulated through occupancy schedules. The established medium of schedules can assist however in formulating a comprehensive understanding of these new emerging technologies from an energy simulation perspective. The aims of this paper are subsequently twofold: (1) investigate the evolution and current state of Building Performance Simulation’s occupancy schedules and assess their shortcomings with the errors, limitations and deviations of sensing technologies, and (2) evaluate the potential wide scale use of low-cost sensing technologies in thermal (heating and cooling) energy regulation. A simulation based workflow utilized occupancy schedules to measure the impact of human false sensing for the city of Atlanta. The impact ranged between 0.51–1.49% of weekly energy use per error for scanning frequencies between 10–60 min, respectively. Assessment of the national occupancy profile and inhabitant specific parameters point to critical scanning periods being situated between 10 AM–4 PM. A maximum acceptable figure of 22 errors, given a one-hour scanning frequency, was established using a 30% additional energy use benchmark which support sensing technology integration. Sensing system configurations were subsequently proposed to restrict false positive impacts. These form the basis for evaluating the feasibility of deploying such sensing systems across United States residential buildings in the near future.

Comparison Of Satellite-Correlated Crowdsourced And Geostatistical Temperature Projections For An Atlanta Heatwave Daily Snapshot: How Differences In Spatially-Variable Predictions May Be Correlated To Economic Status And Land Cover/Land Use

This study was an endeavor to compare crowdsourced-based and geostatistical modeled projected temperature within the City of Atlanta during a September 2019 snapshot tied to a heat event. This study also ventured to decipher how spatially-variable discrepancies of prediction may be correlated to economic status via zip code and land cover/land use (LC/LU). Results suggests that satellite-correlated crowdsourced and geostatistical simulated temperature in the City of Atlanta during this snapshot to decipher differences in the spatial variations of forecasts may be correlated to economic status and LC/LU and can be implemented to potentially help with urban heat management strategies.

Review of Neonatal and Infant Cranial US.

Review of Neonatal and Infant Cranial US.

Resiliency of on-demand multimodal transit systems during a pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the collapse of the public transit ridership led to significant budget deficits due to dramatic decreases in fare revenues. Additionally, public transit agencies are facing challenges of reduced vehicle capacity due to social distancing requirements, additional costs of cleaning and protective equipment, and increased downtime for vehicle cleaning. Due to these constraints on resources and budgets, many transit agencies have adopted essential service plans with reduced service hours, number of routes, or frequencies. This paper studies the resiliency during a pandemic of On-Demand Multimodal Transit Systems (ODMTS), a new generation of transit systems that combine a network of high-frequency trains and buses with on-demand shuttles to serve the first and last miles and act as feeders to the fixed network. It presents a case study for the city of Atlanta and evaluates ODMTS for multiple scenarios of depressed demand and social distancing representing various stages of the pandemic.The case study relies on an optimization pipeline that provides an end-to-end ODMTS solution by bringing together methods for demand estimation, network design, fleet sizing, and real-time dispatching. These methods are adapted to work in a multimodal setting and to satisfy practical constraints. In particular, a limit is imposed on the number of passenger transfers, and a new network design model is introduced to avoid the computational burden stemming from this constraint. Real data from the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is used to conduct the case study, and the results are evaluated with a high-fidelity simulation. The case study demonstrates how ODMTS provide a resilient solution in terms of cost, convenience, and accessibility for this wide range of scenarios.

Initial COVID-19 symptoms are not predictive of post-COVID recovery inflammatory heart disease detected by cardiac MRI

Abstract Introduction Intuitively, severity of symptoms usually correlates with severity of disease process or disease progression. In this regard, the ACC Sports and Exercise Cardiology Section proposed an algorithm for competitive athletes to assess and manage cardiac injury after COVID-19 infection based on initial symptoms. However, there are no published, evidence-based data to substantiate this approach. Purpose This study was designed to assess the correlation between symptoms at the time of initial diagnosis to post-COVID recovery cardiac symptoms and findings on a cardiac MRI study (CMR). It is hypothesized that the initial symptoms at the time of a positive COVID-19 test may not be reliable or sufficient in predicting the severity of post-COVID recovery symptoms or findings on CMR. Methods An institutional cardiac imaging database was queried for all patients with a positive COVID-19 PCR test, who subsequently underwent a CMR for post-COVID recovery cardiac symptoms. Severity of COVID-19 symptoms were assessed using a checklist of mild symptoms and more severe symptoms as defined by the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta GA. Mild symptoms included: fever/chills, cough, fatigue, body aches, headache, loss of taste/smell, sore throat, congestion, and nausea vomiting diarrhea. More severe symptoms included: shortness of breath, chest pain, and confusion. For each patient, prevalence of these symptoms was assessed at the time of initial diagnosis, and then again post-COVID recovery, just prior to the time of CMR. Inflammatory heart disease (IHD) was defined as pericarditis and/or myocarditis using the recently modified Lake Louise criteria, including T1 and T2 relaxation mapping. Results 58 patients with a positive COVID-19 PCR test were identified, who subsequently underwent a CMR study for evaluation of cardiac symptoms. 36 patients (62%) had no symptoms at the time of initial diagnosis, while 7 patients (12%) had mild symptoms. Lastly, 15 patients (26%) had more severe symptoms at the time of initial diagnosis. All CMR studies were prompted by the subsequent development of shortness of breath or chest pain. Detection rates of IHD in these 3 groups of patients is delineated in Figure 1. A chi-squared test was used to assess any statistically significant differences in the CMR detection rate of IHD based on initial symptoms. There was no significant difference in the likelihood of IHD based on initial COVID symptoms (p-value=0.856). Conclusion Forty-three of 58 patients (74%) with no/mild symptoms at the time of initial COVID-19 diagnosis developed more severe post-COVID symptoms requiring CMR. In contrast, 15 of 58 patients (26%) with more severe symptoms at the time of initial COVID-19 diagnosis had persistence of these symptoms requiring CMR. These data suggest that the severity of symptoms on initial presentation with COVID-19 does not predict post-COVID recovery symptoms or CMR findings of inflammatory heart disease. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding sources: None.

Psychological Effects of Urban Crime Gleaned from Social Media

Exposure to frequent crime incidents has been found to have a negative bearing on the well-being of city residents, even if they are not themselves a direct victim. We pursue the research question of whether naturalistic data shared on Twitter may provide a “lens” to understand changes in psychological attributes of urban communities (1) immediately following crime incidents, as well as (2) due to long-term exposure to crime. We analyze half a million Twitter posts from the City of Atlanta in 2014, where the rate of violent crime is three times of the national average. In a first study, we develop a statistical method to detect changes in social media psychological attributes in the immediate aftermath of a crime event. Second, we develop a regression model that uses historical (yearlong) crime to predict Twitter negative emotion, anxiety, anger, and sadness. We do not find significant changes in social media affect immediately following crime in Atlanta. However we do observe significant ability of historical crime to account for heightened negative emotion and anger in the future. Our findings have implications in gauging the utility of social media to infer longitudinal and population-scale patterns of urban well-being.

Disinclusion of Palatally Impacted Canines with Surgical and Photobiomodulating Action of a Diode Laser: Case Series

Background: The permanent maxillary canine is the most impacted tooth after third molars. There are many possible surgical techniques to approach impacted canines. The literature reports that high-intensity laser therapies (HILTs) can be used for opercolectomy of an impacted tooth. The aim of this study is to propose a new orthodontic-surgical approach using a laser for the disinclusion of palatally impacted canines. Methods: Nine patients presented maxillary primary canine persistence in the dental arch. Orthopanoramic X-ray and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) showed the impaction of permanent maxillary canines. Surgical exposure was performed using a diode laser (Raffaello, DMT, Lissone, Italy, 980 nm + 645 nm). No orthodontic devices were applied for impacted tooth traction. Canine movement was monitored at 1, 8, 16 weeks post-surgery with photos and a CS3500 intraoral scanner (Carestream Dental, Atlanta USA) to evaluate their autonomous eruption. Results: No complications were observed. In all the cases, complete disimpaction of the treated canines was obtained in only four months. Conclusions: Impacted canine exposure with a diode laser has many advantages if compared with traditional surgery. The pre-orthodontic exposure and autonomous eruption of impacted canines provided simplified and predictable outcomes. The absence of traction and the reduced time for orthodontic treatment increased compliance during the orthodontic alignment.

Commentary Regarding: "A Case-control Study of Major Genetic Pre-disposition Risk Alleles in Developing DDD in the Northeast US Population: Effects of Gene-gene Interactions".

The Emory Spine Center, Atlanta, GA. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Scott D. Boden, MD, The Emory Spine Center, 59 Executive Park South, Atlanta GA 30329; E-mail: [email protected]g The manuscript submitted does not contain information about medical device(s)/drug(s). No funds were received in support of this work. Relevant financial activities outside the submitted work: grants.

Correlation of Warm Season Crowdsourced Temperature with Satellite-Derived Temperature within the City of Atlanta and Its Application to Localized Prediction

This study was an attempt to correlate crowdsourced temperature with satellite-derived temperature during the warm season within the City of Atlanta of the Atlanta, Georgia (GA) metropolitan region (AMR). If crowdsourced and satellite-derived temperature examined during the evaluated warm season were found to have a significant correlation, an application to localized temperature prediction was to be addressed. Results suggests crowdsourced temperature could be more or just as accurate as official meteorological stations in simulating temperature calculated from remote sensors over a 7-year, 6-month warm season analyzing 15 imagery scenes. To see how localized variation in predicted temperatures could be visualized at the scale surrounding the City of Atlanta, regression equations were applied to scenes representing 7-monthly seasonal snapshots from April to October and based upon a mean scene temperature computed using averaged temperature values from 4 core AMR counties and the City of Atlanta. A significant finding is that mean scene temperature range between crowdsourced and official regression equations decreased incrementally from a maximum in April to a minimum in July to a maximum again during October and points toward equalized temperature readings at the localized scale during the height of the warm season when thermal anomalies are highest.

Assessing the importance of nonlinearity for aircraft emissions' impact on O3 and PM2.5

In this study we utilize the Decoupled Direct Method (HDDM-3D) as implemented in the Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) to calculate first and second order sensitivity coefficients of O 3 and PM 2.5 concentrations with respect to aviation emissions during landing and takeoff (LTO) cycles at ten individual airports; five located in regions of attainment of O 3 and PM 2.5 NAAQS: Boston Logan (BOS), Kansas City (MCI), Raleigh-Durham (RDU), Seattle-Tacoma (SEA), and Tucson (TUS); and five airports in current nonattainment areas: Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Hartsfield- Jackson Atlanta (ATL), New York John F. Kennedy (JFK), Los Angeles (LAX), and Charlotte- Douglas (CLT). We utilize these coefficients in an attainment/nonattainment emission decrease/increase analysis to determine the importance of including second order sensitivity coefficients for quantifying O 3 and PM 2.5 concentration responses to LTO aircraft emission reductions near the airport. Sensitivity coefficients help to determine distinct chemical regimes, NO X -limited versus NO X -inhibited for the case of O 3 formation, and NH 3 -rich versus NH 3 -poor for the case of PM 2.5 formation. Overall, we find that NO X LTO emissions are the largest contributor to any potential nonlinearity in O 3 and PM 2.5 formation through LTO emissions. However, when utilizing Taylor series expansions to estimate O 3 and PM 2.5 concentration responses under LTO emission perturbation scenarios, differences in responses calculated using only first order coefficients and responses calculated using both first and second order coefficients were less than 1% for LTO emission perturbations less than 100%. Hence, we find from the results in this study that first order sensitivity coefficients are sufficient for constructing accurate LTO emissions perturbation scenarios. This study also demonstrates through the analyses performed, an illustration of how HDDM-based sensitivity calculations can be used to assess sector-specific impacts on attainment designations. • Sensitivities can help to determine distinct chemical regimes. • Aircraft NOx emissions contribute most to nonlinear chemistry. • Higher order sensitivities not needed for aircraft emission reduction strategies. • Novel approach to determine emissions sector contribution to attainment designations.

Association of P-Wave Abnormalities With Sudden Cardiac and Cardiovascular Death: The ARIC Study.

Association of P-Wave Abnormalities With Sudden Cardiac and Cardiovascular Death: The ARIC Study.

Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood by Stephen Davis

Reviewed by: Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood by Stephen Davis Brian Craig Miller Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood. By Stephen Davis. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2019. Pp. xii, 503. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-88146-720-8.) John Bell Hood, a prominent Confederate general during the American Civil War, has always seemed more suited for central casting than at the head of an army. Physically attractive, Hood gained fame for his meteoric rise through the ranks of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862 and 1863 and the Army of Tennessee in 1864. Additionally, he gained notoriety among the social circles of Richmond, Virginia, during the fall of 1863, while he healed from an amputation that removed his leg only a few inches from the hip. He gained the trust of Confederate officials, from Robert E. Lee, who tasked Hood's Texans to take on numerous offensive maneuvers, to President Jefferson Davis, who gave Hood control of an army in the summer of 1864 to save the doomed city of Atlanta. In many ways, Hood seemed to be in the right place at the right time to secure his ascension through Confederate military command. Although Hood's biography has been explored on several previous occasions, author Stephen Davis, who has written extensively on the Atlanta campaign, believes a new two-volume biography of Hood is warranted because the officer deserves a fairer exploration as someone who did all he could to save the city of Atlanta. Volume 1, reviewed here, tackles Hood's childhood, his education at West Point, his service on the frontier in the 1850s, and his military command through the summer of 1864. This book's strengths are rooted in the author's exhaustive research in a cornucopia of primary sources and his strong grasp of the extensive secondary explorations of Hood's life and legacy. Additionally, Stephen Davis once again debunks wild rumors and myths about Hood, including his alleged drug and alcohol abuse that supposedly accompanied his war injuries and amputation. Unfortunately, the biography, like Hood, trips up on numerous accounts, which I will lay at the feet of both the author and his press. First, the book needs serious editing, as two chapters each run over a hundred pages in length, and the first chapter alone weighs in at 106 pages. Thus, while the biography is designed chronologically, beginning with Hood's birth in Kentucky, the unbearably lengthy chapters make it difficult to digest some new and pertinent details, from questions about where Hood had his leg amputated to questions [End Page 347] about how he ended up injured in the first place. Second, while the research is exhaustive, it is severely uneven, as some pages go by without a single citation or reference. Then, at other points, we get notes that cover several pages, with several paragraphs of information that either should be in the text itself or placed on a website for further exploration. The editors here have done a great disservice to other historians trying to glean the larger argument of the work, as many of the important elements of debate are dumped into the notes rather than made part of the text itself. When the author reaches a point of historiographical contention about Hood's career, he rarely makes his own conclusion and takes a kitchen-sink approach by laying out what every single author has said about Hood on a particular point. As the reader moves day by day and month by month through 1864, the high level of detail hides the overall significance of why Hood's failed military career matters. Finally, the author has failed to grasp the importance of the scholarship on Civil War memory, as so much of Hood's career was rooted in how he and the events surrounding him have been remembered and misremembered, and why that memory mattered so much to Hood (who took great pains to constantly correct the historical record, both during and after the war). Perhaps the author plans to take this approach in the second volume. More than likely, this review will appear after the publisher releases...

Proclus’ Theoretical Reconstructions on Plato’s Myth of Atlantis

In this article, we present a proposal for a synthetic theoretical approach of the myth of Atlantis, firstly presented by Plato in his Timaeus, and, subsequently, systematically approached by Proclus. Τhis is first and foremost a literary subject which in Proclus’ texts, involves many disciplines and causes general interest for research. The main question to deal with since Plato’s era is whether this is a myth or a true story. In our view, Proclus’ comments on the Timaeus appear to be quite important, for they constitute the most detailed and extended original source, which provides a number of interdisciplinary and interpretative approaches. In every case, four are the pillars according to Proclus for any research on the Atlantis hypothesis. Specifically, for Proclus one should approach the story from a historical, natural-scientific/geophysical, epistemological and philosophical point of view. That is to say, Syrianus’ student perspective is as synthetic as possible. Methodologically, he combines the scientific-analytical with the philosophical-synthetic and the theological-hermeneutical aspect, in order to give answers to particular questions. In this way, he aims to avoid simplistic readings and scientific dogmatism and to show a new spirit with decisive axiological judgments. In our general approach which follows we mostly attempt to show how in his commentary Proclus brings together natural sciences with ethics and politics in a frame in which the natural world appears as an authentic reflection of the metaphysical level.

Guía de atención remota para pacientes pediátricos con COVID-19

En China a finales del 2019 se puso en conocimiento esta nueva enfermedad denominada SARS-CoV-2, múltiples centros mundiales encargados de la salud pública entre ellos el Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) de Atlanta, Estados Unidos y la Orgaizacion Mundial de la Salud (OMS) publicaron diferentes clasificaciones acordes a cada grupo etáreo, dando mucha importancia a la población pediátrica, el riesgo comparativo en adultos/niños, la importancia de pruebas laboratoriales (prueba en cadena a la polimerasa (PCR) y anticuerpos), y finalmente, se discuten los tratamientos acorde al caso y la gravedad de los pacientes. Por la alta demanda de pacientes y el colapso de los sitemas de salud en todo el mundo y especialmente en los países de latinoamerica donde los sistemas de salud son muy frágiles se llegas a recurrir de herramientas técnológicas como la “Teleconsulta”, recomendada por la OMS. En el presente artículo de revisión se plantea múltiples conceptos clínicos propios de la enfermedad en niños, imágenológicos, tipo de presentación de la enfermedad incluyendo factores de riesgo. Criterios de hospitalización y tratamiento. Medidas de bioseguridad, aislamiento y supervisión médica. Y como pilar fundamental de atención la Telemedicina en la era COVID-19.

“Queer as hell media”: Affirming LGBTQ+ youth identity and building community in Metro Atlanta, Georgia

Within the United States, the American South holds the largest number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ+) people, which totals to 3.8 million (LGBTQ in 2016). Metro Atlanta is uniquely situated within the South’s geography; the City of Atlanta is hailed as a queer mecca while the suburbs and surrounding rural areas are assumed to reproduce and reinforce racist, conservative, and religious ideologies. A total of 12 qualitative interviews with LGBTQ+ youth (ages 18–26) at Kennesaw State University offer a more nuanced understanding of being LGBTQ+ in the South by shedding light on the ways they thrive, form relationships, and seek out knowledge regarding LGBTQ+ identity and experience. Findings highlight that LGBTQ+ youth utilize all forms of media to affirm their identities, create like-minded communities, and take up space as a “fuck you” to the imagined cisheteronormativity in Georgia. The article centers the voices and critiques of LGBTQ+ young people as they negotiate competing discourses of queer acceptability and inclusivity, turning to new media platforms as spaces where they can find safety, as well as curate themselves and their experiences.

A Case Study on the Hub-nodes of the Expanding Network of Korean Language: Focusing on the Atlanta Korean Education Center Newly Installed in the USA

A Case Study on the Hub-nodes of the Expanding Network of Korean Language: Focusing on the Atlanta Korean Education Center Newly Installed in the USA

Investigation of crowdshipping delivery trip production with real-world data

Crowd-shipping (CS) is an innovative logistics service that occasional and professional couriers sign up for via an online platform to deliver packages upon requests by senders. Currently the demand and supply of CS is not yet well understood, largely due to the limited real-world data. This study aims to first fill this gap by analyzing the real-world CS data from the city of Atlanta, GA between April 2015 and August 2018. We first present an overview of the real-world CS data in three aspects: (1) the CS pricing scheme; (2) the CS spatial and temporal delivery patterns; and (3) comparison of preferences between the senders’ requests and the couriers’ bids. The analysis finds that the CS service has a clear price advantage over FedEx in the same-day and express service, as well as in the large, extra large, and huge size package delivery. The data analysis also reveals considerable discrepancies between senders’ and couriers’ preferences. We then compare two classes of the state-of-the-art Deep Learning (DL) methods in their ability to predict short-term CS delivery trip production. One class captures only the temporal features, namely the Long Short-term Memory Neural Network (LSTM), the Bidirectional Long Short-term Memory Neural Network (BDLSTM), and the Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU). The other class considers both spatial and temporal features, namely Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), CNN-LSTM, and ConvLSTM. The results show that ConvLSTM has overall the best predictive performance among the six DL methods considered, proving the importance of capturing both the spatial and temporal features of the delivery trip production data, as well as the convolutional nature of the spatial and temporal features in the data.

Alla ricerca del popolo perduto. Un tentativo di (de)costruzione del mito della Sacerdotessa della luna

In this paper will be analyzed a close relationship between Priestess of the Moon , a novel by Croatian writer Milena Benini (1966-2020), and the Platonic myth of Atlantis, in light of the power exercised by archaic civilization. This work, as well as the author’s entire production, belongs to the genre that in Slavic cultures is called fantastika , an all-encompassing formula for fantasy, science fiction and horror, although in this regard Benini prefers the label of “speculative fiction”. Benini wrote the first draft of this novel in the early 1990s, in English, and started publishing it on her blog. She published the English version in 2013 and the Croatian ( Svecenica mjeseca ) in 2014. The story, that takes place in an indefinite time and clearly draws on the classical age, is the first act of a trilogy dedicated to a strong-willed woman, the young priestess Kalaide Reolis Kharaonda, endowed with superhuman powers that allow her to communicate with the goddess Matrielen. Kalaide comes into contact with Enaor, whose figure reflects various sources of inspiration: the Illyrian world, the civilization of ancient Greece, the Slavic tradition. Benini is aware of the timelessness of the myth and avoids giving the story and the characters a precise chronological position; she laid the foundations for a wide range of possibilities, prefiguring an open and epic narration, with the evolutionary profile suggested in the foreground by time and space.

Transportation networks inspired by leaf venation algorithms

Biological systems have adapted to environmental constraints and limited resource availability. In the present study, we evaluate the algorithm underlying leaf venation (LV) deployment using graph theory. We compare the traffic balance, travel and cost efficiency of simply-connected LV networks to those of the fan tree and of the spanning tree. We use a Pareto front to show that the total length of leaf venations (LVs) is close to optimal. Then we apply the LV algorithm to design transportation networks in the city of Atlanta. Results show that leaf-inspired models can perform similarly or better than computer-intensive optimization algorithms in terms of network cost and service performance, which could facilitate the design of engineering transportation networks.

Refuge city: Creating places of welcome in the suburban U.S. South

ABSTRACT Clarkston, a little town in Metropolitan Atlanta, comes bearing big city nicknames. Often called the “Ellis Island of the South” and “the most diverse square mile in the U.S.,” Clarkston is just east of the city of Atlanta and has a total population of about 12,600 with an immigrant and refugee population of around 5,900 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS, 2012–2016). It is the primary place in the state where refugees from all over the world have been resettled since approximately 1980, and as a result, it has undergone demographic changes related to several waves of resettlement in the United States, alternating between East African, Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern points of origin. The merging of those migration waves has created a “city of refugees,” and in 2014 marked Clarkston as Georgia’s most foreign-born city. This paper reviews the attractions of a small, southern, suburban town and explores the interactions of refugees with city leaders on issues of housing, public safety, and policing, as well as how local regulatory ordinances have immense impact on new American communities that cannot yet vote in local or federal elections.