Real-world Need Research Articles

Reset to Zero and Specify Active Safety Systems according to Real-World Needs

Emergency brake assist, adaptive cruise control, and alternative instantiations of intelligent vehicle control systems aspire to support the driver in controlling the vehicle and alleviate the incidents that would lead to collisions and injury. This paper resets to zero and based on data from the on-the-spot accident study challenges the capability of active safety systems to aim at the sources of longitudinal control failures. The road user interactions file from 3,024 road accidents in Thames Valley and Nottinghamshire in U.K. was analyzed. Interactions where “failure to stop” or “sudden braking” is the precipitating factor are analyzed and the main contributory factors are identified. Some of those factors are addressed by current and coming technologies—such as low road friction, excessive speed, and close following, but other common ones are significantly neglected—such as distraction, failure to judge other person’s path, failure to look, and “look, but did not see” instances.

Translating stones: a corpus-based linguistic and lexicographic study in specialized terminology

This study originated from the real-world need to provide a lexicographic reference work for the specialized field of stone processing. Very little is available on this specific niche of the lexicon. This contribution will offer lexicographers and terminologists a first insight into the identification and designation of materials, activities, and processes related to the quarrying and processing of stones. The study was conducted on the data collected to build a pair of comparable corpora, each containing a variety of texts – from brochures to technical specifications – in one of the source languages investigated: English and Italian. The methodology employed derives from the report on a Council of Europe project (see International Journal of Lexicography vol. 9, n. 3, 1996). To advance the inquiry, a number of term candidates were identified – based on the frequency and keyword lists generated from the corpora – and analysed in their contexts of use to eventually formulate hypotheses of equivalence in both languages. This work is the result of the growing convergence of different approaches to meaning, all harnessing corpus evidence.

Further properties and new applications of the nested Dirichlet distribution

Recently, Ng et al. (2009) studied a new family of distributions, namely the nested Dirichlet distributions. This family includes the traditional Dirichlet distribution as a special member and can be adopted to analyze incomplete categorical data. However, other important aspects of the family, such as marginal and conditional distributions and related properties are not yet available in the literature. Moreover, diverse applications of the family to the real world need to be further explored. In this paper, we first obtain the marginal and conditional distributions and other related properties of the nested Dirichlet distribution. We then present new applications of the family in fitting competing-risks model, analyzing incomplete categorical data and evaluating cancer diagnosis tests. Three real data involving failure times of radio transmitter receivers, attitude toward the death penalty and ultrasound ratings for breast cancer metastasis are provided.

Striving for consistency in a national assessment: the challenges of applying a reference-condition approach at a continental scale

One of the biggest challenges when conducting a continental-scale assessment of streams is setting appropriate expectations for the assessed sites. The challenge occurs for 2 reasons: 1) tremendous natural environmental heterogeneity exists within a continental landscape and 2) reference sites vary in quality both across and within major regions of the continent. We describe the process used to set expectations for the multimetric index of biotic integrity (MIBI) and observed/expected (O/E) indices generated from predictive models used to assess stream condition for the US Wadeable Streams Assessment (WSA). The assessment was based on a reference-site approach, in which the least-disturbed sites in each region of the US were used to establish benchmarks for assessing the condition of macroinvertebrate assemblages at other sites. Reference sites were compiled by filtering WSA sample sites for disturbance using a series of abiotic variables. Additional reference sites were needed and were obtained from other state, university, and federal monitoring programs. This pool of potential reference sites was then assessed for uniformity in site quality and comparability of macroinvertebrate sample data. Ultimately, 1625 sites were used to set reference expectations for the WSA. Reference-site data were used to help define 9 large ecoregions that minimized the naturally occurring variation in macroinvertebrate assemblages associated with continental-wide differences in biogeography. These ecoregions were used as a basis for developing MIBI and O/E indices and for reporting results. A least-disturbed definition of reference condition was used nationally, but we suspect that the quality of the best extant sites in ecoregions, such as the Northern Plains and Temperate Plains, was lower than that of sites in other ecoregions. For the MIBI assessment, we used a simple modeling approach to adjust scores in ecoregions where gradients in reference-site quality could be demonstrated conclusively. The WSA provided an unparalleled opportunity to push the limits of our conceptual and technical understanding of how to best apply a reference-condition approach to a real-world need. Our hope is that we have learned enough from this exercise to improve the technical quality of the next round of national assessments.

ETEM Issues and Opportunities for Dynamic In-situ Experiments

Abstract Many dynamic processes do not occur in nature, science or industry in a typical TEM high (and sometimes not so high) vacuum environment. Dynamic in-situ data related to the real world need to be obtained under Controlled conditions of gas/vapor/liquid environment and temperature. In the ETEM (Environmental Transmission Electron Microscope), the specimen - but nothing much else - is shared between the chemical reactor on the horizontal axis and the vertical microscope column (Fig.1). The original Philips CM30 column is highly modified with pressure limiting apertures around the beam and multiple stages of differential pumping (Fig.2).

A GDSS based approach for the assessment of customer needs in industrial markets

Need assessment is a critical success factor of product development in all companies; developing the right product requires an accurate understanding of customer needs. All available information about customer needs should be carefully assessed in the early phases of product development. In this paper we study the usefulness and usability of a Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) in the assessment of customers’ needs in industrial companies. We studied two real-world need assessment cases carried out in cooperation with a Finnish telecommunications company. These cases focused on the assessment of the lead users’ needs for new types of applications based on wireless technologies. GDSS technology offered many benefits for promoting the assessment of industrial customer needs. These case experiences will be described more profoundly in this paper.

Methodology for Estimating Transfer of Training Functions

This paper describes a methodology for estimating the percent of transfer of training from a simulator to a real system. The methodology is not a substitute for calculating actual transfer of training when a simulator is available and there is an opportunity to conduct evaluations of a control group and experimental groups of students. Its purpose is to provide an estimate of the training value of a proposed simulator. While the methodology has been used, validation data will not be available until a simulator is fabricated and an experiment is conducted. The sample data used for heuristic presentation has been created for use in this paper, and the situation calling for a simulator does not necessarily reflect a real-world need.