Ground deformation at Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat during 1998-2000 measured by radar interferometry and GPS

We examine the motion of the ground surface on the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat between 1998 and 2000 using radar interferometry (InSAR). To minimise the effects of variable atmospheric water vapour on the InSAR measurements we use independently-derived measurements of the radar path delay from six continuous GPS receivers. The surfaces providing a measurable inter-ferometric signal are those on pyroclastic flow deposits, mainly emplaced in 1997. Three types of surface motion can be discriminated. Firstly, the surfaces of thick, valley-filling deposits subsided at rates of 150-120 mm/year in the year after emplacement to 50-30 mm/year two years later. This must be due to contraction and settling effects during cooling. The second type is the near-field motion localised within about one kilometre of the dome. Both subsidence and uplift events are seen and though the former could be due to surface gravitational effects, the latter may reflect shallow (< 1 km) pressurisation effects within the conduit/dome. Far-field motions of the surface away from the deeply buried valleys are interpreted as crustal strains. Because the flux of magma to the surface stopped from March 1998 to November 1999 and then resumed from November 1999 through 2000, we use InSAR data from these two periods to test the crustal strain behaviour of three models of magma supply: open, depleting and unbalanced. The InSAR observations of strain gradients of 75-80 mm/year/krn uplift during the period of quiescence on the western side of the volcano are consistent with an unbalanced model in which magma supply into a crustal magma chamber continues during quiescence, raising chamber pressure that is then released upon resumption of effusion. GPS motion vectors agree qualitatively with the InSAR displacements but are of smaller magnitude. The discrepancy may be due to inaccurate compensation for atmospheric delays in the InSAR data. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

How could construction supply chain benefit from RFID/GPS integration: a knowledge management perspective

Construction materials and equipment are essential building blocks of every construction project and may account for 50-60 per cent of the total cost of construction. The rate of their utilization, on the other hand, is the element that most directly relates to a project progress. A growing concern in the industry that inadequate efficiency hinders its success could thus be accommodated by turning construction into a logistic process. Although mostly limited, recent attempts and studies show that Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) applications have significant potentials in construction. However, the aim of this research is to show that the technology itself should not only be used for automation and tracking to overcome the supply chain complexity but also as a tool to generate, record and exchange process-related knowledge among the supply chain stakeholders. This would enable all involved parties to identify and understand consequences of any forthcoming difficulties and react accordingly before they cause major disruptions in the construction process. In order to achieve this aim the study focuses on a number of methods. First of all it develops a generic understanding of how RFID technology has been used in logistic processes in industrial supply chain management. Secondly, it investigates recent applications of RFID as an information and communication technology support facility in construction logistics for the management of construction supply chain. Based on these the study develops an improved concept of a construction logistics architecture that explicitly relies on integrating RFID with the Global Positioning System (GPS). The developed conceptual model architecture shows that categorisation provided through RFID and traceability as a result of RFID/GPS integration could be used as a tool to identify, record and share potential problems and thus vastly improve knowledge management processes within the entire supply chain. The findings thus clearly show a need for future research in this area.

Application of integrated GPS and GIS technology for reducing construction waste and improving construction efficiency

This paper presents a study on applying an integrated Global Position System (GPS) and Geographacial Information System (GIS) technology to the reduction of construction waste. During the study, a prototype study is developed from automatic data capture system such as the barcoding system for construction material and equipment (M&E) management onsite, whilst the integrated GPS and GIS technology is combined to the M&E system based on the Wide Area Network (WAN). Then, a case study is conducted to demonstrate the deployment of the system. Experimental results indicate that the proposed system can minimize the amount of onsite material wastage.

Normality mining: privacy implications of behavioral profiles drawn from GPS enabled mobile phones

There is growing interest in the ways in which the location of a person can be utilized by new applications and services. Recent advances in mobile technologies have meant that the technical capability to record and transmit location data for processing is appearing in off-the-shelf handsets. This opens possibilities to profile people based on the places they visit, people they associate with, or other aspects of their complex routines determined through persistent tracking. It is possible that services offering customized information based on the results of such behavioral profiling could become commonplace. However, it may not be immediately apparent to the user that a wealth of information about them, potentially unrelated to the service, can be revealed. Further issues occur if the user agreed, while subscribing to the service, for data to be passed to third parties where it may be used to their detriment. Here, we report in detail on a short case study tracking four people, in three European member states, persistently for six weeks using mobile handsets. The GPS locations of these people have been mined to reveal places of interest and to create simple profiles. The information drawn from the profiling activity ranges from intuitive through special cases to insightful. In this paper, these results and further extensions to the technology are considered in light of European legislation to assess the privacy implications of this emerging technology.

What GPs need to know about palliative-care drugs: ketamine

This is the first in a short series of articles that focus on what GPs should consider when monitoring and prescribing specialist-initiated palliative-care drugs. This first article summarises the key issues for patients receiving ketamine.

On the determination of atmospheric water vapor from GPS measurements

Surface-based GPS measurements of zenith path delay (ZPD) can be used to derive vertically integrated water vapor (IWV) of the atmosphere. ZPD data are collected in a global network presently consisting of 160 stations as part of the International GPS Service. In the present study, ZPD data from this network are converted into IWV using observed surface pressure and mean atmospheric water vapor column temperature obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' (ECMWF) operational analyses (OA). For the 4 months of January/July 2000/2001, the GPS-derived IWV values are compared to the IWV from the ECMWF OA, with a special focus on the monthly averaged difference (bias) and the standard deviation of daily differences. This comparison shows that the GPS-derived IWV values are well suited for the validation of OA of IWV. For most GPS stations, the IWV data agree quite well with the analyzed data indicating that they are both correct at these locations. Larger differences for individual days are interpreted as errors in the analyses. A dry bias in the winter is found over central United States, Canada, and central Siberia, suggesting a systematic analysis error. Larger differences were mainly found in mountain areas. These were related to representation problems and interpolation difficulties between model height and station height. In addition, the IWV comparison can be used to identify errors or problems in the observations of ZPD. This includes errors in the data itself, e.g., erroneous outlier in the measured time series, as well as systematic errors that affect all IWV values at a specific station. Such stations were excluded from the intercomparison. Finally, long-term requirements for a GPS-based water vapor monitoring system are discussed.

What GPs need to know about palliative-care drugs : methadone

This is the second in a short series of articles that focus on what GPs should consider when monitoring and prescribing specialist‐initiated palliative‐care drugs. Here, the authors summarise the key issues around the use of methadone for pain management.

Road network and GPS tracking with data processing and quality assessment

GPS technology has been embedded into portable, low-cost electronic devices nowadays to track the movements of mobile objects. This implication has greatly impacted the transportation field by creating a novel and rich source of traffic data on the road network. Although the promise offered by GPS devices to overcome problems like underreporting, respondent fatigue, inaccuracies and other human errors in data collection is significant; the technology is still relatively new that it raises many issues for potential users. These issues tend to revolve around the following areas: reliability, data processing and the related application. This thesis aims to study the GPS tracking form the methodological, technical and practical aspects. It first evaluates the reliability of GPS based traffic data based on data from an experiment containing three different traffic modes (car, bike and bus) traveling along the road network. It then outline the general procedure for processing GPS tracking data and discuss related issues that are uncovered by using real-world GPS tracking data of 316 cars. Thirdly, it investigates the influence of road network density in finding optimal location for enhancing travel efficiency and decreasing travel cost. The results show that the geographical positioning is reliable. Velocity is slightly underestimated, whereas altitude measurements are unreliable.Post processing techniques with auxiliary information is found necessary and important when solving the inaccuracy of GPS data. The densities of the road network influence the finding of optimal locations. The influence will stabilize at a certain level and do not deteriorate when the node density is higher.

On processing GPS tracking data of car-movements in Borlänge, Sweden

The advancement of GPS technology enables GPS devices not only to be used as orientation and navigation tools, but also to track travelled routes. GPS tracking data provides essential information for a broad range of urban planning applications such as transportation routing and planning, traffic management and environmental control. This paper describes on processing the data that was collected by tracking the cars of 316 volunteers over a seven-week period. The detailed information is extracted. The processed data is further connected to the underlying road network by means of maps. Geographical maps are applied to check how the car-movements match the road network. The maps capture the complexity of the car-movements in the urban area. The results show that 90% of the trips on the plane match the road network within a tolerance.

Reliability of GPS based traffic data: an experimental evaluation

GPS tracking of mobile objects provides spatial and temporal data for a broad range of applications including traffic management and control, transportation routing and planning. Previous transport research has focused on GPS tracking data as an appealing alternative to travel diaries. Moreover, the GPS based data are gradually becoming a cornerstone for real-time traffic management. Tracking data of vehicles from GPS devices are however susceptible to measurement errors – a neglected issue in transport research. By conducting a randomized experiment, we assess the reliability of GPS based traffic data on geographical position, velocity, and altitude for three types of vehicles; bike, car, and bus. We find the geographical positioning reliable, but with an error greater than postulated by the manufacturer and a non-negligible risk for aberrant positioning. Velocity is slightly underestimated, whereas altitude measurements are unreliable.

Direito de antena como instrumento de inclusão social : concretizando um direito fundamental

o direito de antena vem, ao longo da história e especialmente atualmente, adquirindo especial relevo. Originalmente afeto ao campo político-partidário, hoje já é visto como um instrumento importante de efetividade do direito à informação, direito à manifestação do pensamento e à divulgação das idéias. Com efeito, numa sociedade multifacetada e com interesses difusos de origens e formas bastante variadas, como é o caso da maioria das sociedades contemporâneas e também é o caso do Brasil, o direito de antena mostra-se como uma possibilidade concreta de inclusão social e valorização de variados grupos, especialmente os mais vulneráveis, como, por exemplo, as minorias.

Efeito do ganho da antena nas perdas de percurso de uma ligação

O presente trabalho tem como objectivo principal a realização de um estudo do efeito do ganho das antenas nas perdas de percurso de uma ligação na banda de frequência ISM (Insdustrial Scientific and Medical) nos 2,4 GHz. Para tal, foram utilizadas 14 antenas de 7 tipos diferentes (2 monopolo, 2 colineares, 2 grelhas, 2 Yagi, 2 painéis, 2 parabólicas e 2 helicoidais) com ganhos a variar desde os 1,3 a 23 dBi. Inicialmente, obtiveram-se os parâmetros fundamentais das antenas utilizadas, nomeadamente o diagrama de radiação e o ganho. Desenvolveu-se um sistema, que permite a medição do diagrama de radiação de forma automática através de um motor passo a passo. Uma aplicação desenvolvida em ambiente Matlab realiza o controlo do motor e desenha o respectivo diagrama em tempo real. Para a realização das medições da propagação do sinal desenvolveu-se um sistema que interliga a antena receptora a um computador portátil através de um analisador de espectros. À medida que as medições são efectuadas, a atenuação do sinal em função da distância é determinada e apresentada graficamente no computador sendo, ainda, representada a atenuação esperada no espaço livre. Para isto, implementou-se uma aplicação em ambiente Matlab que faz o tratamento e representação dos dados. Tendo-se conhecimento dos parâmetros das antenas, e com o sistema de medição implementado, passou-se às medições da propagação do sinal em diferentes meios, tais como, meio sem obstáculos, meio urbano, meio florestal caracterizado por troncos no percurso de propagação e meio florestal caracterizado por folhagem no percurso de propagação. Em cada meio foram efectuadas medições para 37 combinações de antenas, com ganhos conjuntos a variar desde os 2,6 até o 46 dBi. As medições foram efectuadas com a colocação da antena emissora numa posição fixa e com o afastamento da antena receptora em intervalos de 5 metros, até os 150 metros, seguindo a linha de máxima radiação entre ambas as antenas. Ainda, para os meios sem obstáculos e florestais, foram efectuadas medições para dois ângulos em relação à linha indicada, sendo estes de 30° e 330°, respectivamente. Com base nos resultados obtidos, verificou-se um aumento da atenuação à medida que se passou para meios mais obstruídos, sendo que, para o meio sem obstáculos a atenuação aproxima-se da curva do espaço livre. No meio urbano observou-se que a atenuação aumentou ligeiramente. No entanto, esta não é muito significativa quando comparada com a atenuação no espaço livre. Por último, notou-se um grande aumento da atenuação nos meios florestais, ao nível dos troncos e da vegetação, sendo superior para esta última. Relativamente às antenas, verificou-se que existe um aumento da atenuação na medida que o ganho destas aumenta, sendo mais visível para meios com maior obstrução (florestais). Para a situação em que as antenas encontram-se com desvios de 30° e 330°, verificou-se que este aumento é mais significativo para as antenas directivas (ganhos superiores).

GPS receivers for georeferencing of spatial variability of soil attributes

A caracterização da variabilidade espacial dos atributos do solo é indispensável para subsidiar práticas agrícolas de maneira sustentável. A utilização da geoestatística para caracterizar a variabilidade espacial desses atributos, como a resistência mecânica do solo à penetração (RP) e a umidade gravimétrica do solo (UG), é, hoje, prática usual na agricultura de precisão. O resultado da análise geoestatística é dependente da densidade amostral e de outros fatores, como o método de georreferencimento utilizado. Desta forma, o presente trabalho teve como objetivo comparar dois métodos de georreferenciamento para a caracterização da variabilidade espacial da RP e da UG, bem como a correlação espacial dessas variáveis. Foi implantada uma malha amostral de 60 pontos, espaçados em 20 m. Para as medições da RP, utilizou-se de penetrógrafo eletrônico e, para a determinação da UG, utilizou-se de trado holandês (profundidade de 0,0-0,1 m). As amostras foram georreferenciadas, utilizando-se do método de Posicionamento por Ponto Simples (PPS), com de (retirar) receptor GPS de navegação, e Posicionamento Relativo Semicinemático, com receptor GPS geodésico L1. Os resultados indicaram que o georreferenciamento realizado pelo PPS não interferiu na caracterização da variabilidade espacial da RP e da UG, assim como na estrutura espacial da relação dos atributos.