Cascading blackouts on a bulk power transmission system are potentially catastrophic events with a large impact on society characterized by a sequence of line trips and load shed. One spectacular example of a cascading blackout is the August 2003 blackout in North America that affected 50 million people. We propose using branching processes to model the line tripping and load shed behavior of c...

The size effect on the nominal strength of a floating ice plate subjected to a vertical uniform line load is analyzed. The cracks produced by the load, which are parallel to the load line, are treated as softening inelastic hinges. The problem is one dimensional in the direction normal to the load line, equivalent to a beam on elastic foundation provided by buoyancy of ice in water. The softeni...

OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was evaluation of work conditions in a pasta manufacturing plant, including: physical and psychological load and factors of material work environment. The main aim was determination of the level of employees' exposure to our dust. METHODS Studies of work conditions were conducted in a our processing plant in the Lublin region at the workplace of an automat...

BACKGROUND Myanmar has a high burden of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and second-line antiretroviral treatment (ART) has been available since 2008 in the public health sector. However, there have been no published data about the outcomes of such patients until now. OBJECTIVE To assess the treatment and programmatic outcomes and factors associated with unfavorable outcomes (treatment fail...

Construction of railway embankments on loose beds without using any methods of soil improvement (e.g. stone columns in silt and clay beds, deep soil mixing method, jet grouting and also using micropiles individually or in groups form) leads to  reduction of embankment slope gradient, which significantly increases the volume of soil operation. Generally, micropile as a reinforcing element with t...

Many demand-response schemes fail because they inconvenience consumers or add unnecessary costs [1], [2]. When participating in a typical scheme, consumer may be subjected to invasive control systems, communication data collection. These can quickly lose their novelty and annoy customers by curtailing availability of appliances, such as electric water heaters air conditioners This paper demonst...