Urban land cover change detection analysis and modeling spatio-temporal Growth dynamics using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: A case study of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Mass Conservation Enhancement of Free Boundary Mesolevel Flows during LCM Processes of Composites Manufacturing

Undesirable void formation during the injection phase of the liquid composite moulding process can be understood as a consequence of the non-uniformity of the flow front progression, caused by the dual porosity of the fibre perform. Therefore the best examination of the void formation physics can be provided by a mesolevel analysis, where the characteristic dimension is given by the fibre tow diameter. In mesolevel analysis, liquid impregnation along two different scales; inside fibre tows and within the open spaces between them; must be considered and the coupling between these flow regimes must be addressed. In such case, it is extremely important to account correctly for the surface tension effects, which can be modelled as capillary pressure applied at the flow front. Numerical implementation of such boundary conditions leads to ill-posing of the problem, in terms of the weak classical as well as stabilized formulation. As a consequence, there is an error in mass conservation accumulated especially along the free flow front. This contribution presents a numerical procedure, which was formulated and implemented in the existing Free Boundary Program in order to significantly reduce this error.

Numerical Method to Predict Void Formation during The Liquid Composite Molding Process

Void formation during the injection phase of the liquid composite molding process can be explained as a consequence of the non-uniformity of the flow front progression. This is due to the dual porosity within the fiber perform (spacing between the fiber tows is much larger than between the fibers within in a tow) and therefore the best explanation can be provided by a mesolevel analysis, where the characteristic dimension is given by the fiber tow diameter of the order of millimeters. In mesolevel analysis, liquid impregnation along two different scales; inside fiber tows and within the open spaces between the fiber tows must be considered and the coupling between the flow regimes must be addressed. In such cases, it is extremely important to account correctly for the surface tension effects, which can be modeled as capillary pressure applied at the flow front. Numerical implementation of such boundary conditions leads to illposing of the problem, in terms of the weak classical as well as stabilized formulation. As a consequence, there is an error in mass conservation accumulated especially along the free flow front. A numerical procedure was formulated and is implemented in an existing Free Boundary Program to reduce this error significantly.

C&SIG na delimitação da estrutura ecológica municipal: aplicação ao município de Cascais

Trabalho de projecto apresentada como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciência e Sistemas de Informação Geográfica.

Environmental quality of life index incorporationg MCA & GIS : case study Lisbon Metropolitan Area, Portugal

The study of Quality of Life (Qol) has been conducted on various scales throughout the years with focus on assessing overall quality of living amongst citizens. The main focus in these studies have been on economic factors, with the purpose of creating a Quality of Life Index (QLI).When it comes down to narrowing the focus to the environment and factors like Urban Green Spaces (UGS) and air quality the topic gets more focused on pointing out how each alternative meets this certain criteria. With the benefits of UGS and a healthy environment in focus a new Environmental Quality of Life Index (EQLI) will be proposed by incorporating Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Working with MCA on complex environmental problems and incorporating it with GIS is a challenging but rewarding task, and has proven to be an efficient approach among environmental scientists. Background information on three MCA methods will be shown: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Regime Analysis and PROMETHEE. A survey based on a previous study conducted on the status of UGS within European cities was sent to 18 municipalities in the study area. The survey consists of evaluating the current status of UGS as well as planning and management of UGS with in municipalities for the purpose of getting criteria material for the selected MCA method. The current situation of UGS is assessed with use of GIS software and change detection is done on a 10 year period using NDVI index for comparison purposes to one of the criteria in the MCA. To add to the criteria, interpolation of nitrogen dioxide levels was performed with ordinary kriging and the results transformed into indicator values. The final outcome is an EQLI map with indicators of environmentally attractive municipalities with ranking based on predefinedMCA criteria using PROMETHEE I pairwise comparison and PROMETHEE II complete ranking of alternatives. The proposed methodology is applied to Lisbon’s Metropolitan Area, Portugal.

Urban deforestation and urban development

This paper has developed a model of a single forest owner operating with perfect foresight in a dynamic open-city environment that allows for switching between alternative competing land uses (forest and urban use) at some point in the future. The model also incorporates external values of an even-aged standing forest in addition to the value of timber when it is harvested. Timber is exploited based on a multiple rotation model a la Faustmann with clear-cut harvesting. In contrast to previous models, our alternative land use to forest land is endogenous. Within this framework, we study the problem of the private owner as well as that of the social planner, when choosing the time to harvest, the time to convert land and the intensity of development. We also examine the extent to which the two-way linkage between urban development and forest management practices (timber production and provision of forest amenities) contributes to economic efficiency and improvements in non-market forest benefits. Finally, we consider policy options available to a regulator seeking to achieve improvements in efficiency including anti-sprawl policies (impact fees and density controls) and forest policies such a yield tax. Numerical simulations illustrate our analytical results.

Safe reuse of treated urban wastewater in Praia, Cape Verde: a case study

Dissertação para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia e Gestão da Água

Reconceptualising public spaces of (IN)equality: sensing and creating layers of visibility

Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Geografia e Planeamento Territorial - Especialidade: Geografia Humana

Identifying the urban communities of New York City using bikeshare data from NYC citibike

This study identifies a measure of the cultural importance of an area within a city. It does so by making use of origindestination trip data and the bike stations of the bike share system in New York City as a proxy to study the city. Rarely is movement in the city studied at such a small scale. The change in strength of the similarity of movement between each station is studied. It is the first study to provide this measure of importance for every point in the system. This measure is then related to the characteristics which make for vibrant city communities, namely highly mixed land use types. It reveals that the spatial pattern of important areas remains constant over differing time periods. Communities are then characterised by the land uses surrounding these stations with high measures of importance. Finally it identifies the areas of global cultural importance alongside the areas of local importance to the city.

Children, space, and the urban street: an ethnomathematics posture

Dissertation presented for the PhD Degree in Education Science – Curricular Theory and Science Teaching, by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia

Urban land use change analysis and modelling: a case study of Setubal-Sesimbra, Portugal

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Urban change monitoring using GIS and remote sensing tools in Kathmandu valley (Nepal)

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

Avaliação de software em open source para a gestão da Biblioteca UNL no Campus de Caparica

O presente trabalho parte da caracterização da Biblioteca UNL para desenvolver um estudo de avaliação dos principais Sistemas Integrados de Gestão de Bibliotecas (SIGB) em open source. Os SIGB são utilizados na automatização dos processos de trabalho das bibliotecas, através de diversos módulos funcionais e opções de configuração, e permitem a interoperabilidade através de normas e protocolos. O open source define-se como abordagem para o desenvolvimento e distribuição de software baseada no livre acesso ao código fonte, estando assim em oposição ao conceito de software proprietário. A Biblioteca UNL é caracterizada através da sua organização, dos seus espaços e recursos, dos seus processos de gestão documental e da infraestrutura tecnológica subjacente. O open source é abordado a partir da sua contextualização histórica, da organização dos seus projectos, das vantagens e inconvenientes para as instituições e do desenvolvimento e adopção de SIGB open source.

Low-power 6-bit 1-GS/s two-channel pipeline ADC with open-loop amplification using amplifiers with local-feedback

IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems, pp. 2258 – 2261, Seattle, EUA

Geography of the Information Society

All every day activities take place in space. And it is upon this that all information and knowledge revolve. The latter are the key elements in the organisation of territories. Their creation, use and distribution should therefore occur in a balanced way throughout the whole territory in order to allow all individuals to participate in an egalitarian society, in which the flow of knowledge can take precedence over the flow of interests. The information society depends, to a large extent, on the technological capacity to disseminate information and, consequently, the knowledge throughout territory, thereby creating conditions which allow a more balanced development, from the both the social and economic points of view thus avoiding the existence of info-exclusion territories. Internet should therefore be considered more than a mere technology, given that its importance goes well beyond the frontiers of culture and society. It is already a part of daily life and of the new forms of thinking and transmitting information, thus making it a basic necessity essential, for a full socio-economic development. Its role as a platform of creation and distribution of content is regarded as an indispensable element for education in today’s society, since it makes information a much more easily acquired benefit.”…in the same way that the new technologies of generation and distribution of energy allowed factories and large companies to establish themselves as the organisational bases of industrial society, so the internet today constitutes the technological base of the organisational form that characterises the Information Era: the network” (CASTELLS, 2004:15). The changes taking place today in regional and urban structures are increasingly more evident due to a combination of factors such as faster means of transport, more efficient telecommunications and other cheaper and more advanced technologies of information and knowledge. Although their impact on society is obvious, society itself also has a strong influence on the evolution of these technologies. And although physical distance has lost much of the responsibility it had towards explaining particular phenomena of the economy and of society, other aspects such as telecommunications, new forms of mobility, the networks of innovation, the internet, cyberspace, etc., have become more important, and are the subject of study and profound analysis. The science of geographical information, allows, in a much more rigorous way, the analysis of problems thus integrating in a much more balanced way, the concepts of place, of space and of time. Among the traditional disciplines that have already found their place in this process of research and analysis, we can give special attention to a geography of new spaces, which, while not being a geography of ‘innovation’, nor of the ‘Internet’, nor even ‘virtual’, which can be defined as one of the ‘Information Society’, encompassing not only the technological aspects but also including a socio-economic approach. According to the last European statistical data, Portugal shows a deficit in terms of information and knowledge dissemination among its European partners. Some of the causes are very well identified - low levels of scholarship, weak investments on innovation and R&D (both private and public sector) - but others seem to be hidden behind socio-economical and technological factors. So, the justification of Portugal as the case study appeared naturally, on a difficult quest to find the major causes to territorial asymmetries. The substantial amount of data needed for this work was very difficult to obtain and for the islands of Madeira and Azores was insufficient, so only Continental Portugal was considered for this study. In an effort to understand the various aspects of the Geography of the Information Society and bearing in mind the increasing generalised use of information technologies together with the range of technologies available for the dissemination of information, it is important to: (i) Reflect on the geography of the new socio-technological spaces. (ii) Evaluate the potential for the dissemination of information and knowledge through the selection of variables that allow us to determine the dynamic of a given territory or region; (iii) Define a Geography of the Information Society in Continental Portugal.