Technical Code Research Articles

船上計測におけるＮＯｘ排出値の簡易評価手法

The NOx Technical Code under the MARPOL 73/78 Convention ANNEX 6 specifies the NOx emission limits and has determined the direct measurement and monitoring method for the on-board NOx verification procedure. But the monitoring method might not have been established yet, since it is reported that some results of NOx emission values measured on board exceed the 15% allowance even in the case of engines with certification. Since there are several constraints in the measurements on board, the uncertainty is enhanced comparing to the measurements at a shop-test. In this report an alternative index is proposed to reduce the uncertainty and simplify the on-board measurement. The index is named as NOx 13 that is normalized with oxygen concentrations and contains the correction factor for humidity and temperature. The NOx emission value, NOx [g/kWh], is theoretically correlated to the NOx13 as in the following expression and the correlation is experimentally confirmed.NOx [g/kWh] = α1×α2× be [g/kWh] × N0x13 [ppm]α1, α2; constant, be [g/kWh] ; specific fuel consumption

Congress Once Again Averts Physician Payment Cuts in Last-Minute Fix

Congress Once Again Averts Physician Payment Cuts in Last-Minute Fix

Experimental study and spring-component modelling of extended end-plate joints in fire

In order to investigate the fire-resistant capacity of extended end-plate joints, an experimental study was performed by using a furnace on four full-scale specimens made with H-shaped steel. The failure characteristics and failure modes of the extended end-plate joint specimens in fire were obtained from the experiment. The influence of rib stiffeners and depth of end-plates on fire-resistant capacity of the joints was found by comparing the capacity of the joints with and without rib stiffeners and different depths of end-plate. In addition, this paper also describes a spring-component model employed for predicting the behaviour of extended endplate bare-steel joints at elevated temperature. The components of a joint are considered to consist of spring components with predefined mechanical properties, i.e. stiffness and strength. The response of the joints subjected to elevated temperature can be predicted by assembling components, the stiffness and strength of which are assumed to degrade with increasing temperatures based on the recommendations presented in the Chinese Technical Code on Fire Safety of Steel Building Structure. It is demonstrated that the results from the model agree with experimental data quite well.

The use of GIS to evaluate and map extreme maximum and minimum temperatures in Spain

AbstractSpanish building legislation has recently changed and now requires an updated and restructured Technical Building Code which is in accordance with European directives. The norm contained in this Code is based on studies of extreme values for climatic elements such as temperature, precipitation and wind. Revised maps of extreme values for climatic elements with a 50‐year recurrence interval are required. Here, extreme maximum and minimum temperature maps for Spain are evaluated and mapped by means of geographical information technology. The data are extracted from the historical database held by the Spanish Meteorological Institute. Daily extreme temperatures from 1,181 stations with records going back more than 30 years have been used. The maximum and minimum temperatures are determined as 50‐year mean recurrence interval values. To obtain these values, a Gumbel distribution is fitted to the extreme annual values extracted from the database. Spatial interpolation in a regular 5 km×5 km grid of the annual maximum temperature is made by ordinary kriging. Meanwhile, for the annual minimum temperature a residual kriging has been applied due to its strong dependence on altitude. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Distortional Buckling of Cold-Formed Steel Members

Cold-formed steel members are widely employed in steel construction because they are lighter and more economical than traditional hot-rolled ones. Nowadays, the easy availability and accessible cost of high-strength low-alloy steels, weathering steels, and zinc-coated steels have led to members with high width/thickness ratios, rendering them even more susceptible to local buckling and to another buckling mode called distortional buckling, affecting mainly members with edge stiffeners (lipped channels, Z sections, hat, rack, etc.). Hence, current versions of technical codes for cold-formed steel design have warned about the importance of this phenomenon, outlining procedures to evaluate member strength based on distortional buckling, e.g., the simplified model of the Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4600 proposed by Lau and Hancock, also adopted by the Brazilian Standard NBR 14762. In this study, an analysis is made about lipped channels under compression and bending, comparing the results obtained ...

The role of law in the governance of the internet

When it comes to governing the Internet, the law has powerful competitors, be it technical code, social norms or private governance. This is no coincidence, given the profound challenges to governance by law. The Internet is global, libertarian, egalitarian, evolving rapidly and largely devoid of social context. None of this is insurmountable, but the challenges call for an exercise in reinventing Internet governance by law.

Senders, Receivers and Deceivers: How Liar Codes Put Noise Back on the Diagram of Transmission

Senders, Receivers and Deceivers: How Liar Codes Put Noise Back on the Diagram of Transmission

La normativa y la reglamentación en la mejora de la calidad en la construcción y su relación con la innovación

This article attempts to present a personal reflection on the role of modern building legislation, analyzing its objectives, approach to structure and requirements in connection with the increasingly necessary opening to global markets. In Spain, the recent experience in the preparation of the new Technical Building Code has served to establish a new facilitiesoriented focus that has been applied in the most advanced countries where such reforms are underway.

Standards for transport and storage components established by the Atomic Energy Society of Japan and the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers

AbstractThe Atomic Energy Society of Japan (AESJ) and the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) have been developing technical standards and codes for the nuclear industry to complement statutory standards, which were revised into prescriptions for performance as of June 1997. As part of a series of standards and guidelines for the safe design and safety assessment of nuclear facilities prepared by the AESJ Standards Committee, two standards for shipping casks and two standards for spent nuclear fuel storage facilities have been developed. Structural design and construction codes for power generation facilities including nuclear powered facilities have been established by the JSME Power Generation Code Committee, which has published two codes for spent nuclear fuel storage facilities. The above standards and codes are expected to be the basis for licensing documents for fuel cycle transport and interim storage facilities for spent fuel, which will be in operation in Japan by 2010. In this paper the...

Universal Design and Orphan Technology: Do We Need Both?

Implementation of Universal Design (UD) and availability of Orphan Technology (OT) have been recognized as challenges to governments and the marketplace, but indispensable to the realization of full citizenship for people with disabilities. The social dimensions of UD and OT have rarely been explored. This article selectively borrows from a transformational theory of technology (Feenberg, 2002) to explore technology transformation by assistive technology change agents. Change agents may harness the transformation potential of technology by involvement with factors internal to technology development such as design, technical codes and standards in order to realize the implementation of UD and availability of OT. They may also harness technology's potential by involvement in factors external to technology development such as attitudes, education, markets, and government incentives and mandates.

The Technical Codes of Online Education

This article addresses an impasse in debates about online education in university education. One side presents a story of the progressive development of technology as it is applied to the organisation of higher education, leading to pedagogical advances and to the new forms of administration required for the realisation of the technology's full potentials, both pedagogical and economic. The other side views online education as a lever of neoliberal reform that extends to the university a capitalism that is now digital, global, and knowledge-based. Both sides of the debate share the same underlying philosophy of technology, according to which technology is a fait accompli with which the university must comply or which it must reject out of hand in defence of traditional academic values and priorities. The authors argue that critical theory of technology offers a way to redress this impasse by providing a philosophical orientation capable of widening the debate over online education and university restructuring through its emphasis on the dynamics of technological design and development as social and political processes. They examine the case of an early experiment in educational computer conferencing, drawing significant conclusions from it about methodology and policy in the online education debate.

Important nonIEEE standards

This paper presents a brief overview of the scope and revision of standards outside IEEE that are very important to our society. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) sponsors standards NFPA 70, 70B, and 70E and various other standards. Our Society has formal relationships (liaisons) to the technical committees that revise these standards through the Standards Association-Standards Coordinating Committee (SCC) 18. SCC 18 reviews and coordinates the recommendations of IEEE technical committees to establish the IEEE consensus position for the voting members on NFPA technical committees and code making panels.

Four mechanisms for adaptable systems: a meta‐level approach to building a software product line

AbstractMeta‐level architectures combined with domain‐specific languages serve as a powerful tool to build and maintain a software product line: Meta‐level architectures lead to adaptable software systems. Executable descriptions capture expert knowledge.We have developed a meta‐level architecture for a software product line of legal expert systems. Four meta‐level mechanisms support both variability and evolution of the product line. Domain analysis had shown that separation of expert knowledge from technical code was essential. Descriptions written in domain‐specific languages reside in the meta level, and serve as specification, code, and documentation. Technical code finds its place in interpreting machines in the base level.We discuss how meta‐level architectures influence the qualities of software product lines and how properties and patterns of the problem space can guide the design of domain‐specific languages. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Technical Codes of Online Education

This article addresses an impasse in debates about online education in university education. One side presents a story of the progressive development of technology as it is applied to the organisation of higher education, leading to pedagogical advances and to the new forms of administration required for the realisation of the technology's full potentials, both pedagogical and economic. The other side views online education as a lever of neoliberal reform that extends to the university a capitalism that is now digital, global, and knowledge-based. Both sides of the debate share the same underlying philosophy of technology, according to which technology is a fait accompli with which the university must comply or which it must reject out of hand in defence of traditional academic values and priorities. The authors argue that critical theory of technology offers a way to redress this impasse by providing a philosophical orientation capable of widening the debate over online education and university restructu...

Substantiation of a lower estimate for the bunker inventory: Comment on “Updated emissions from ocean shipping” by James J. Corbett and Horst W. Koehler

Substantiation of a lower estimate for the bunker inventory: Comment on “Updated emissions from ocean shipping” by James J. Corbett and Horst W. Koehler

Overview on materials R&D activities in Japan towards ITER construction and operation

This paper presents an overview of ITER-supporting materials R&D activities and major achievements in Japan during the period from the Co-ordinated Technical Activities to date. In view of the completed engineering design of ITER during the Engineering Design Activities period, R&D efforts since then have been focused on: those for reduction of component fabrication cost; those in support of domestic preparations of a structural technical code for construction; and those necessary for operation, and been extended to component-level testing rather than pure material testing. They cover materials R&D for in-vessel components, vacuum vessel, cryogenic steels of superconducting magnets and diagnostics components. Major achievements in each R&D area are highlighted and their impact or implication to the design, construction and operation of ITER is presented.

Damage and Vulnerability Assessment of Churches after the 2002 Molise, Italy, Earthquake

The 2002 Molise, Italy, earthquake sequence shocked the Italian public because it killed school children, but it also highlighted the fact that seismic vulnerability of historic masonry buildings has increased because of reinforcement work that has been done in the last 50 years. Replacing the original wooden roof structure with new reinforced concrete or steel elements, inserting reinforced concrete tie-beams in the masonry and new reinforced concrete floors, and using reinforced concrete jacketing on the shear walls are all widely used interventions. However, they lead to increased seismic force (because of greater weight) and to deformations incompatible with the masonry walls. The authors present results of an extensive survey of damage resulting from recent Italian seismic events (with particular reference to the Molise earthquake). We evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of some retrofitting methods in the hope that these findings will be taken into account in technical codes.

The Reflexivity between ICTs and Business Culture: Applying

This study compares how workers in Norway and the United States use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Our data—72 in-depth interviews of advanced ICT users – were coded, analyzed, and placed into Hofstede’s four dimensional framework (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, and masculinity). We proposed that ICT use comparisons between the two countries are congruent to Hofstede’s findings. We find partial support for these propositions. As expected, Norway and the US are similar on two dimensions (power distance and uncertainty avoidance), but contrary to expectations, they are also similar on the two dimensions where we expected differences (individualism and masculinity). We suggest possible explanations for these findings, including our focus on an expert-user subculture, external triggering events, and technical codes inscribed in Internet applications and software.

Parental Mediation of Preschool Children's Television Viewing

This study examines parental mediation of preschool children's television viewing. Becker's (1981) theory of parent-child relations is used to frame mediation in terms of parenting resources. A survey of 129 parents of preschool children (ages 1-5) reveals that when resources are in highest demand, attitudes toward television are a factor in deciding whether television mediation will benefit children. Demographic variables, parents' attitudes about television, and parents' involvement with children all significantly predicted restrictive and instructive mediation. The findings are discussed in light of young Children's needs for mediation as a guide to television's novel set of technical and cultural codes.

Technical Code Issues of ITER Vacuum Vessel and Their Resolutions

The ITER vacuum vessel is a double-walled torus with large-sized quadrilateral ports needed to provide quite a high degree of vacuum for deutrium-tritium fusion reaction. Access to the outside of vacuum vessel is limited during assembly welding, because it is installed after assembled with surrounding toroidal field coils. From the radiological safety aspect, the vacuum vessel functions as a physical barrier to enclose radioactive materials. Therefore, construction of the vacuum vessel needs application of newly developed technologies on design, fabrication and examination. The technologies include design approach by finite element analysis, and partial penetration T welded joints to join ribs to outer shell. Several issues have to be resolved for applying those technologies to the vacuum vessel. This paper describes several newly developed technologies and key issues for such applications.