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Full-Text Articles in Other Civil and Environmental Engineering

Evaluation Of The Role Of Driver’S Knowledge Of Who Has The Right-Of-Way Contributes To Interstate On-Ramp Crashes, Deogratias Eustace, Vamsi Krishna Indupuru Dec 2007

Evaluation Of The Role Of Driver’S Knowledge Of Who Has The Right-Of-Way Contributes To Interstate On-Ramp Crashes, Deogratias Eustace, Vamsi Krishna Indupuru

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

The knowledge of drivers on who has the right-of-way between the one on mainline lanes of a freeway and the one entering the freeway through on-ramp junction lane was evaluated. In addition, drivers’ opinions on how to make the on-ramp junctions safer were collected. A survey instrument with 21 items requesting drivers’ information in regard with demographics, freeway driving experience, knowledge of right-of-way and merging practices was used for data collection. The results show that crashes are relatively rare events and for some reasons, most of them never happen but result into near misses, which can not be reported and …


Laying The Groundwork For Odor Control And Setback Estimation In Nebraska, Rick R. Stowell Jun 2007

Laying The Groundwork For Odor Control And Setback Estimation In Nebraska, Rick R. Stowell

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The goal of this field research study was to validate use of the Odor Footprint Tool (OFT) with livestock building sources in rural communities. The primary objective was to evaluate the accuracy of predictions of annoyance potential (as projected by odor concentration output data from AERMOD® - the OFT's underlying dispersion model) when compared to measures of annoyance potential made in the field. Odor assessors were trained to monitor odors around a 4,800-head finishing site in eastern Nebraska. During the summer of 2005, mobile odor assessors monitored odor levels at downwind locations. During the spring and summer of 2006, …


Analysis Of An Ion‐Selective Electrode Based Methodology For Integrated On‐The‐Go Mapping Of Soil Ph, Potassium, And Nitrate Contents, B. Sethuramasamyraja, V. I. Adamchuk, D. B. Marx, A. Dobermann, G. E. Meyer, D. D. Jones Jan 2007

Analysis Of An Ion‐Selective Electrode Based Methodology For Integrated On‐The‐Go Mapping Of Soil Ph, Potassium, And Nitrate Contents, B. Sethuramasamyraja, V. I. Adamchuk, D. B. Marx, A. Dobermann, G. E. Meyer, D. D. Jones

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Knowledge of the spatial variation of soil attributes is critical for precision agriculture. On‐the‐go soil sensors have been able to provide relatively high mapping density while assessing this variation. A new ion‐selective electrode (ISE) based approach was developed and tested for simultaneous mapping of soil pH, residual nitrate (NO3 -), and soluble potassium (K+) contents. In this article, results of laboratory experiments investigating the effects of key measurement factors on ISE performance are presented. In addition to four different soils, these factors included: soil/water ratio (SWR), quality of water used for electrode rinsing (QWR) and for …


Subsurface Characterization Using Textural Features Extracted From Gpr Data, R. S. Freeland, Lameck O. Odhiambo Jan 2007

Subsurface Characterization Using Textural Features Extracted From Gpr Data, R. S. Freeland, Lameck O. Odhiambo

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Subsurface conditions can be non-intrusively mapped by observing and grouping patterns of similarity within ground-penetrating radar (GPR) profiles. We have observed that the intricate and often visually indiscernible textural variability found within a complex GPR image possesses important parameters that help delineate regions of similar subsurface characteristics. In this study, we therefore examined the feasibility of using textural features extracted from GPR data to automate subsurface characterization. The textural features were matched to a “fingerprint” database of previous subsurface classifications of GPR textural features and the corresponding physical probings of subsurface conditions. Four textural features (energy, contrast, entropy, and homogeneity) …


Spatiotemporal Variations In Growing Season Exchanges Of Co2, H2o, And Sensible Heat In Agricultural Fields Of The Southern Great Plains, Marc L. Fischer, Dave P. Billesbach, Joseph A. Berry, William J. Riley, Margaret S. Torn Jan 2007

Spatiotemporal Variations In Growing Season Exchanges Of Co2, H2o, And Sensible Heat In Agricultural Fields Of The Southern Great Plains, Marc L. Fischer, Dave P. Billesbach, Joseph A. Berry, William J. Riley, Margaret S. Torn

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Climate, vegetation cover, and management create finescale heterogeneity in unirrigated agricultural regions, with important but not well quantified consequences for spatial and temporal variations in surface CO2, water, and heat fluxes. Eddy covariance fluxes were measured in seven agricultural fields—comprising winter wheat, pasture, and sorghum—in the U.S. Southern Great Plains (SGP) during the 2001–03 growing seasons. Land cover was the dominant source of variation in surface fluxes, with 50%–100% differences between fields planted in winter–spring versus fields planted in summer. Interannual variation was driven mainly by precipitation, which varied more than twofold between years. Peak aboveground biomass and growing season …


The Embodied Transport Energy Analysis Of Imported Wood Pellets, Aidan Duffy, Michael Conroy Jan 2007

The Embodied Transport Energy Analysis Of Imported Wood Pellets, Aidan Duffy, Michael Conroy

Conference Papers

The Irish Government has recently introduced a series of capital grants to boost the uptake of domestic wood-pellet technologies in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These have proved popular and have encouraged a significant number of people to switch from gas- and oil-fired boilers to the cleaner fuel. The demand for wood-pellets has, however, greatly exceeded the national capacity for production. The market for wood pellets elsewhere in Europe is also tight and, consequently, a large proportion of Irish pellets are sourced in Canada. This presents possible problems: the carbon emissions associated with long-distance transport may significantly offset the …