The effect of artificial night light on the abundance of nocturnal birds

Urbanisation is increasing rapidly, impacting on a broad range of species. The proliferation of electric light has transformed the night time environment; however, our understanding on the effects of artificial night lighting on fauna, including nocturnal birds, is extremely limited. The aim ofthis research was to determine whether artificial night light affected the abundance of nocturnal birds. Spotlighting surveys were undertaken in Research Park, Melbourne, Victoria, along three 300 m transects. Each transect was surveyed five times during three light treatments: when lights were on, 20 minutes after lights were turned off and when lights were absent, over a period often nights. A total of 123 nocturnal birds was detected during survey nights. Two species were recorded - the Southern Boobook Ninox novaeseelandiae and the Tawny Frogmouth Podargus strigoides. The Tawny Frogmouth was detected along all three transects (n=121); however, the Southern Boobook was detected along one transect only (n=2). None of the light treatments had a significant effect on bird abundance. Neither did location, habitat or the combined effects of light treatments, location and habitat. The results of this research will contribute to a growing body of knowledge and support future conservation activities for species in areas undergoing urbanisation. {The Victorian Naturalist 127 (5) 2010, 192-195).

Stabilisation of brown coal fly ash using geopolymers

This research explores geopolymer technology as a means of stabilising fly ash from power stations. By controlling the synthesis process, geopolymeric materials incorporating fly ash were synthesised. Successful stabilisation of strontium and barium was achieved, though attributed to side reactions. The geopolymer did not contribute significantly to stabilisation of fly ash.

Hybrid cooling system for water conservation in conventional power stations

This thesis proposes the concept of a hybrid cooling system to minimise water consumption in thermal power stations. It identifies that a significant amount of water can be potentially saved by the proposed system. Additional energy input requirements were less than previous approaches considered.

Power plant cooling technologies : hybrid cooling systems can save water

In addition to water saving, the hybrid cooling concept presented in this book also has the potential to improve energy efficiency and possibly reduce CO2 emission by recovering and upgrading the 'waste' energy from the cooling water stream.Yilmaz and Kouzani are at Deakin Uni, Hessami is at Monash Uni, Hu is at Uni of Adelaide.

The emergence of battery electric vehicles : A NZ manufacturing opportunity?

Personal passenger transport faces several challenges in the coming decades: depletion of cheap oil reserves, increasing congestion, localised pollution, the need for reduced carbon emissions and the long term goal of sustainability. One way of solving some of these problems could be to introduce comfortable, energy efficient, battery electric vehicles.

Currently, hybrid vehicles have been presented as a means to reducing the transportation related oil demand. New developments in materials and technologies have made them, cleaner and safer as well as more fuel efficient. However, hybrids will only prolong the use of oil until alternatively fuelled vehicles are developed.

One long term alternative is the battery electric vehicle (BEV). A BEV designed to be light, aerodynamic with high efficiency drive train and latest battery technology would have a performance comparable to a typical internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV). Recent developments in virtual engineering, rapid prototyping and advanced manufacturing might enable low-cost development of niche market BEV’s designed and built in New Zealand for export markets.

This work examines the collaborative development of a twin seat BEV using new materials and latest technologies by the University of Waikato’s Engineering Department and a group of NZ and foreign companies. The car will be used to research the potential of BEVs and will also compete in the Commuter Class of the World Solar Challenge in 2007.

Effects of electric fields on pollen rupture

RATIONALE: To determine whether the potential for previous termpollennext term fragmentation is increased during thunderstorms by exploring the previous termeffectsnext term of previous termelectricnext termprevious termfieldsnext term, with magnitude as found in the outdoor environment.

METHODS: Fresh previous termpollennext term grains were collected from bermudagrass flowers. A light microscope was modified with the addition of an previous termelectricnext termprevious termfieldnext term generated from a DC source (0-20 V) that was applied to the stage. Water was added to test for previous termpollennext termprevious termrupturenext term and to assess previous termpollennext term viability.

RESULTS: Bermuda grass previous termpollennext term did not previous termrupturenext term within 1 h of contact with water. Only after exposure to an previous termelectricnext termprevious termfieldnext term did Bermudagrass previous termpollennext term show a considerable amount of rupturing immediately upon immersion in water. The higher the voltage the previous termpollennext term is exposed to before coming into contact with water, the higher the percentage of previous termrupturenext term of the previous termpollennext term. previous termElectricnext termprevious termfieldsnext term, generated in the laboratory and of magnitude found during thunderstorms, affected the previous termpollennext term after as little as a 5 s exposure. The highest percentage of previous termrupturenext term occurred after exposures of at least 10 s: 80% previous termrupturenext term occurred after 10 s exposure at 10kVolts/m. This previous termeffectnext term is sustained for at least 15 min.

CONCLUSIONS: Thunderstorm regularly generate previous termelectricnext termprevious termfieldsnext term up to 5 kV/m in strength, and can reach 10kV/m, and cover several km in distance. The magnitude of the previous termelectricnext termprevious termfieldsnext term that affects the previous termpollennext term grains in the laboratory is low enough to be commonly found in the outdoor environment during thunderstorms. These previous termelectricnext termprevious termfields prime previous termpollen grains for more rapid release of allergenic particles.

Plane wave scattering by a spherical di-electric particle in motion : a relativistic extension of the Mie theory

Light scattering from small spherical particles has applications in a vast number of disciplines including astrophysics, meteorology optics and particle sizing. Mie theory provides an exact analytical characterization of plane wave scattering from spherical dielectric objects. There exist many variants of the Mie theory where fundamental assumptions of the theory has been relaxed to make generalizations. Notable such extensions are generalized Mie theory where plane waves are replaced by optical beams, scattering from lossy particles, scattering from layered particles or shells and scattering of partially coherent (non-classical) light. However, no work has yet been reported in the literature on modifications required to account for scattering when the particle or the source is in motion relative to each other. This is an important problem where many applications can be found in disciplines involving moving particle size characterization. In this paper we propose a novel approach, using special relativity, to address this problem by extending the standard Mie theory for scattering by a particle in motion with a constant speed, which may be very low, moderate or comparable to the speed of light. The proposed technique involves transforming the scattering problem to a reference frame co-moving with the particle, then applying the Mie theory in that frame and transforming the scattered field back to the reference frame of the observer.

Intelligent energy management for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles : the role of ITS infrastructure in vehicle electrification

The desire to reduce carbon emissions due to transportation sources has led over the past decade to the development of new propulsion technologies, focused on vehicle electrification (including hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles). These propulsion technologies, along with advances in telecommunication and computing power, have the potential of making passenger and commercial vehicles more energy efficient and environment friendly. In particular, energy management algorithms are an integral part of plug-in vehicles and are very important for achieving the performance benefits. The optimal performance of energy management algorithms depends strongly on the ability to forecast energy demand from the vehicle. Information available about environment (temperature, humidity, wind, road grade, etc.) and traffic (traffic density, traffic lights, etc.), is very important in operating a vehicle at optimal efficiency. This article outlines some current technologies that can help achieving this optimum efficiency goal. In addition to information available from telematic and geographical information systems, knowledge of projected vehicle charging demand on the power grid is necessary to build an intelligent energy management controller for future plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles. The impact of charging millions of vehicles from the power grid could be significant, in the form of increased loading of power plants, transmission and distribution lines, emissions and economics (information are given and discussed for the US case). Therefore, this effect should be considered in an intelligent way by controlling/scheduling the charging through a communication based distributed control.

Energy saving in electric heater of carbon fiber stabilization oven

Carbon fiber is an advanced material with high tensile strength and modulus, ideally suited for light weight applications. Carbon fiber properties are directly dependent on all aspects of production, especially the process step of thermal stabilization. Stabilization is considered to be one of the most critical process steps. Moreover, the stabilization process is the most energy consuming, time consuming and costly step. As oxidation is an exothermic process, constant airflow to uniformly remove heat from all tows across the towband is indispensable. Our approach is to develop an intelligent computational system that can construct an optimal Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution. In this study, an electrical heater has been designed by CFD modeling and intelligently controlled. The model results show that the uniform airflow and minimum turbulence kinetic energy can be achieved by combining intelligent system technology with CFD analysis strategy.

Static output feedback frequency stabilization of time-delay power systems with coordinated electric vehicles state of charge control

In this paper, for the first time, electric vehicles are used for both the primary and secondary frequency controls to support power plants to rapidly suppress fluctuations in the system frequency due to load disturbances. Via networked control and wide-area communication infrastructures, multiple interval time-varying delays exist in the communication channels between the control center, power plant, and an aggregation of electric vehicles. By coordinating batteries’ state of charge control, the behaviors of the vehicle owners and the uncertainties imposed by the changes of the batteries’ state of charge are taken intoconsideration. A power system model incorporating multiple time-varying delays and uncertainties is first proposed. Then, a robust static output feedback frequency controller is designed to guarantee the resulting closed-loop system stable with an H∞ attenuation level. By utilizing a novel integral inequality, namely refined-Jensen inequality, and an improved reciprocally convex combination, the design conditions are formulated in terms of tractable linear matrix inequalities which can be efficiently solved by various computational tools. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is verified by extensive simulations.