Within the last 12 months of the grant period, we had used our FTIR acquired from Bruker Optics via a DURIP grant to measure the transmission spectra of a few diatomic and triatomic molecules. As a result, we had observed distinct ro-vibrational and rotational transitions in carbon monoxide isotopic variants, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon dioxide. Furthermore, we had used the widely-tunable monochromatic THz source developed by us to measure the spectra of the same four molecules. We would like to note that the spectral measurements in the mid-IR and THz regions are essential to the accurate determination of rotational constants. Following our results, the transition frequencies measured by using two methods are quite consistent with each other. 3 1.

• Statistical testing can warn us of disturbances in measurements. • The generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) test statistic δ TS is a good indicator. • Standard ways of computing δ TS = σ −2 (r T 0 V −1 r 0 − r T aV −1 ra) are extremely numerically unstable. • We give a numerically stable method for this statistic, & the estimates of the parameter vectors. • This method works when V is singular, & has other uses. – p.2/31

Wood products and other building materials used in new residential construction in the United States, with comparison to previous studies, 2012

Documenting the environmental performance of building products is becoming widespread because of green building programs and concerns that some green-marketing claims are misleading (i.e., green-washing). Developing environmental product declarations (EPDs) based on life-cycle assessment (LCA) data is one way to provide scientific documentation. Many U.S. structural wood products have LCA-based “eco-labels ” using the ISO standard. However, the standard requires underlying life-cycle inventory (LCI) data to be recent. This study updates the gate-to-gate manufacturing LCI data for laminated veneer lumber (LVL) for the Pacific northwestern (PNW) and southeastern (SE) United States. Modeling the primary industry data for LVL through LCI analysis provides the inputs and outputs from veneer logs to LVL, starting at the forest landing. For PNW and SE, cumulative mass-allocated energy consumption associated with manufacturing LVL was found to be 5.64 and 6.87 GJ/m3, respectively, with about 25 % of the primary energy derived from wood residues. Structural wood products such as LVL used in building construction can store carbon for long periods, which is typically greater or far greater than the carbon dioxide emissions released during manufacturing. Emission data produced through modeling found that estimated biomass and fossil CO2 emissions for LVL manufacturing were 127 and 139 kg/m3 for PNW and 108 and 169 kg/m3 for SE. One

The paper describes the issues and concerns with the audio component of many of the alarm systems in common use today. The article advocates the opinion that many of the problems with alarms could be considerably reduced through application of human factors to the problem. To support this thesis many papers are cited. The article details the philosophy of alarms and their associated sounds and how they are effectively used. The article describes the issues of alarm design and human cognition with respect to urgency and priority as well as the domain of activity – such as alarms for ventilators being differentiable from alarms for cardiac monitors. Specific details on the shortcomings of the IEC 60601-1-8 standard are also described.

This study measures the occurrence and duration of specific alarms (HR, SpO2, and Resp Rate only) in a NICU and their relationship to the response of the nurses in the unit. Although this was a 22 bed unit, the study focused on a 6 patient care area where the most acute infants are treated. This study found that the high number of alarms prevents a nurse from responding to all alarms. Instead, alarms functioned more as an indicator about the patient’s status that the nurse integrated with other information to adjust their sequencing of care activities. However, in the cases where an alarm lasted longer (for more than 5 seconds) or was a rarer occurring alarm (in this study that was the respiratory alarm in comparison to the SpO2) there was a tendency for the nurse to intervene more quickly. The authors also questioned whether nurses learn to respond to alarm pattern variations between patients rather than just to an alarm. The authors concluded alarm systems must reduce the number of alarms, while assisting in sequencing of activities, noting “If alarms serve as meaningful information sources, they

Discusses problems with the current design of alarms with respect to their not being perceived due to high incidence of “false alarms ” that have “no clinical relevance. ” The approaches currently used to improve this situation are: (1) Organizational, and Behavioral, and (2) Technical The review discusses the theory of alarms and monitoring and references studies throughout. European Standards are reviewed with respect to how they classify alarm priority for various alarm types. Alarm technologies focused on as examples in the review were mostly those found in critical care monitoring environments and involved reducing threshold values when monitoring SpO2 to reduce false alarms. “Multi-parametric” approaches for reducing false alarms are discussed briefly; several studies referenced but

The article focuses on the auditory component of alarm signals in a medical environment. The authors present the problem with auditory alarm signals in the current medical environment and discuss possible solutions. The article begins with a discussion of the auditory sense as a warning signal and why auditory alarms are important but tend to be misused. Most are not designed well acoustically and do not convey meaningful information. This leads to the user ignoring alarms or turning them off thus making them ineffective. The frequency of auditory alarms is also concerning. There are a lot of them and can become annoying and tend to interfere with tasks than helping with them. The article categorizes technical problems with alarms into four areas: Alarm handling, false alarms, alarm system design and relationship between alarm sounds and their functions. Alarm handling refers to how alarms are prioritized or lack of prioritization. Low priority signals where immediate operator action is not required to prevent an adverse outcome. Due to lack of prioritization of alarms, the operator is overwhelmed with low priority signals and may miss a potentially high priority alarm event due to being annoyed, overworked and desensitized. These types of alarms need not have an auditory component to alert the

Association of Biomedical Engineering (DGBMT) of the Association for Electrical, Electronic and Information Technologies (VDE) was held on November 25th, 2009. It outlines the various problems that are currently faced with the plethora of patient monitoring alarms in the ICU environment and the effect it has on patient care, safety and treatment. It discusses the acoustic overload inhibiting convalescence of the patients, stress created for patients and staff, over-monitoring of patients which add to the alarm noise in the environment, and challenges its efficacy. The paper summarizes results of several studies conducted in the ICU setting ranging from 1986 to 2009 and shows that the alarms are not being used effectively due to reasons of insufficient training during installation, alarms being not customized to patient needs, non-standardization of equipment, user manuals being very lengthy, and the issues of liability which affect customization of the alarms. The paper then looks at possible solutions, main ones are listed below: • Intelligent alarm systems, which would validate alarms based on evaluating related parameters before alarming

The ability of nurses to quickly learn and distinguish various alarm sounds (both high and medium priority) is discussed. Nurses with and without musical knowledge and tests while the nurses are doing other tasks are included. Eight different alarms were used, and the actual patterns of the sounds used are discussed. To help better understand the melodies, mnemonics were created as an aid to learning these. Participants were tested on two days with a 6 to 11 day break in between the two. Conclusions: • Only one out of 22 could identify 100 % of the alarms • Mnemonics did not help improve accuracy of detection. • Even with the high priority alarms sounding more urgent, performance was faster and more accurate for low priority alarms. • Participants with musical training identified alarms far more accurately than those without a background in music. • When involved with other tasks, the nurse’s response to alarms was slower and less accurate.