On site flotation for recovering polluted aquatic systems: is it a feasible solution for a Brazilian urban river?

Pinheiros River (Brazil) plays a pivotal role in supplying water to Billings Reservoir, which presents multiple uses (human drinking, energy generation, irrigation, navigation, fishing and leisure) An intense monitoring program was performed during the years 2007 and 2008 to find out whether on site flotation is a feasible solution or not for improving the water quality of this urban river, attenuating the pollutants load caused by the water pumping to the reservoir (approximately 10 m(3)s(-1)) The monitoring of 18 variables (13,429 laboratorial analysis during the period of 490 days), suggested that despite the convenience of the on site approach for water treatment, especially for rivers located in fully urbanized areas, the flotation system is not enough itself to recover Pinheiros River water quality, given the several constraints that apply Total phosphorus removal was high in percentage terms (about 90%), although the remaining concentrations were not so low (mean of 0 05 mg L(-1)) The removal efficiency of some variables was insufficient, leading to high final mean concentrations of metals [e g aluminium (0 29 mg L(-1)), chromium (0 02 mg L(-1)) and iron (1 1 mg L(-1))] as well as nitrogen-ammonia (25 8 mg L(-1)) and total suspended solids (18 mg L(-1)) in the treated water

ANALYSIS & STUDY OF AI TECHNIQUES FORAUTOMATIC CONDITION MONITORING OFRAILWAY TRACK INFRASTRUCTURE : Artificial Intelligence Techniques

Since the last decade the problem of surface inspection has been receiving great attention from the scientific community, the quality control and the maintenance of products are key points in several industrial applications.The railway associations spent much money to check the railway infrastructure. The railway infrastructure is a particular field in which the periodical surface inspection can help the operator to prevent critical situations. The maintenance and monitoring of this infrastructure is an important aspect for railway association.That is why the surface inspection of railway also makes importance to the railroad authority to investigate track components, identify problems and finding out the way that how to solve these problems. In railway industry, usually the problems find in railway sleepers, overhead, fastener, rail head, switching and crossing and in ballast section as well. In this thesis work, I have reviewed some research papers based on AI techniques together with NDT techniques which are able to collect data from the test object without making any damage. The research works which I have reviewed and demonstrated that by adopting the AI based system, it is almost possible to solve all the problems and this system is very much reliable and efficient for diagnose problems of this transportation domain. I have reviewed solutions provided by different companies based on AI techniques, their products and reviewed some white papers provided by some of those companies. AI based techniques likemachine vision, stereo vision, laser based techniques and neural network are used in most cases to solve the problems which are performed by the railway engineers.The problems in railway handled by the AI based techniques performed by NDT approach which is a very broad, interdisciplinary field that plays a critical role in assuring that structural components and systems perform their function in a reliable and cost effective fashion. The NDT approach ensures the uniformity, quality and serviceability of materials without causing any damage of that materials is being tested. This testing methods use some way to test product like, Visual and Optical testing, Radiography, Magnetic particle testing, Ultrasonic testing, Penetrate testing, electro mechanic testing and acoustic emission testing etc. The inspection procedure has done periodically because of better maintenance. This inspection procedure done by the railway engineers manually with the aid of AI based techniques.The main idea of thesis work is to demonstrate how the problems can be reduced of thistransportation area based on the works done by different researchers and companies. And I have also provided some ideas and comments according to those works and trying to provide some proposal to use better inspection method where it is needed.The scope of this thesis work is automatic interpretation of data from NDT, with the goal of detecting flaws accurately and efficiently. AI techniques such as neural networks, machine vision, knowledge-based systems and fuzzy logic were applied to a wide spectrum of problems in this area. Another scope is to provide an insight into possible research methods concerning railway sleeper, fastener, ballast and overhead inspection by automatic interpretation of data.In this thesis work, I have discussed about problems which are arise in railway sleepers,fastener, and overhead and ballasted track. For this reason I have reviewed some research papers related with these areas and demonstrated how their systems works and the results of those systems. After all the demonstrations were taking place of the advantages of using AI techniques in contrast with those manual systems exist previously.This work aims to summarize the findings of a large number of research papers deploying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques for the automatic interpretation of data from nondestructive testing (NDT). Problems in rail transport domain are mainly discussed in this work. The overall work of this paper goes to the inspection of railway sleepers, fastener, ballast and overhead.

Monitoring results of combined pellet and solar heating system

In this study the monitoring results of prototype installation of a recently developed solar combisystem have been evaluated. The system, that uses a water jacketed pellet stove as auxiliary heater, was installed in a single family house in Borlänge/Sweden. In order to allow an evaluation under realistic conditions the system has been monitored for a time period of one year. From the measurements of the system it could be seen that it is important that the pellet stove has a sufficient buffer store volume to minimize cycling. The measurements showed also that the stove gives a lower share of the produced heat to the water loop than measured under stationary conditions. The solar system works as expected and covers the heat demand during the summer and a part of the heat demand during spring and autumn. Potential for optimization exists for the parasitic electricity demand. The system consumes 680 kWh per year for pumps, valves and controllers which is more than 4% of the total primary heating energy demand.

Tourism and Arctic Observation Systems : exploring the relationships

The Arctic is affected by global environmental change and also by diverse interests from many economic sectors and industries. Over the last decade, various actors have attempted to explore the options for setting up integrated and comprehensive trans-boundary systems for monitoring and observing these impacts. These Arctic Observation Systems (AOS) contribute to the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of environmental change and responsible social and economic development in the Arctic. The aim of this article is to identify the two-way relationship between AOS and tourism. On the one hand, tourism activities account for diverse changes across a broad spectrum of impact fields. On the other hand, due to its multiple and diverse agents and far-reaching activities, tourism is also well-positioned to collect observational data and participate as an actor in monitoring activities. To accomplish our goals, we provide an inventory of tourism-embedded issues and concerns of interest to AOS from a range of destinations in the circumpolar Arctic region, including Alaska, Arctic Canada, Iceland, Svalbard, the mainland European Arctic and Russia. The article also draws comparisons with the situation in Antarctica. On the basis of a collective analysis provided by members of the International Polar Tourism Research Network from across the polar regions, we conclude that the potential role for tourism in the development and implementation of AOS is significant and has been overlooked.

Monitoring vegetation on railway embankments : supporting maintenance decisions

The national railway administrations in Scandinavia, Germany, and Austria mainly resort to manual inspections to control vegetation growth along railway embankments. Manually inspecting railways is slow and time consuming. A more worrying aspect concerns the fact that human observers are often unable to estimate the true cover of vegetation on railway embankments. Further human observers often tend to disagree with each other when more than one observer is engaged for inspection. Lack of proper techniques to identify the true cover of vegetation even result in the excess usage of herbicides; seriously harming the environment and threating the ecology. Hence work in this study has investigated aspects relevant to human variationand agreement to be able to report better inspection routines. This was studied by mainly carrying out two separate yet relevant investigations.First, thirteen observers were separately asked to estimate the vegetation cover in nine imagesacquired (in nadir view) over the railway tracks. All such estimates were compared relatively and an analysis of variance resulted in a significant difference on the observers’ cover estimates (p<0.05). Bearing in difference between the observers, a second follow-up field-study on the railway tracks was initiated and properly investigated. Two railway segments (strata) representingdifferent levels of vegetationwere carefully selected. Five sample plots (each covering an area of one-by-one meter) were randomizedfrom each stratumalong the rails from the aforementioned segments and ten images were acquired in nadir view. Further three observers (with knowledge in the railway maintenance domain) were separately asked to estimate the plant cover by visually examining theplots. Again an analysis of variance resulted in a significant difference on the observers’ cover estimates (p<0.05) confirming the result from the first investigation.The differences in observations are compared against a computer vision algorithm which detects the "true" cover of vegetation in a given image. The true cover is defined as the amount of greenish pixels in each image as detected by the computer vision algorithm. Results achieved through comparison strongly indicate that inconsistency is prevalent among the estimates reported by the observers. Hence, an automated approach reporting the use of computer vision is suggested, thus transferring the manual inspections into objective monitored inspections

Monitoring and Explanation of Contract Execution: A Case Study in the Aerospace Domain

In the domain of aerospace aftermarkets, which often has long supply chains that feed into the maintenance of aircraft, contracts are used to establish agreements between aircraft operators and maintenance suppliers. However, violations at the bottom of the supply chain (part suppliers) can easily cascade to the top (aircraft operators), making it difficult to determine the source of the violation, and seek to address it. In this context, we have developed a global monitoring architecture that ensures the detection of norm violations and generates explanations for the origin of violations. In this paper, we describe the implementation and deployment of a global monitor in the aerospace domain of [8] and show how it generates explanations for violations within the maintenance supply chain. We show how these explanations can be used not only to detect violations at runtime, but also to uncover potential problems in contracts before their deployment, thus improving them.

Case studies for contract-based systems

Of the ways in which agent behaviour can be regulated in a multiagent system, electronic contracting – based on explicit representation of different parties' responsibilities, and the agreement of all parties to them – has significant potential for modern industrial applications. Based on this assumption, the CONTRACT project aims to develop and apply electronic contracting and contract-based monitoring and verification techniques in real world applications. This paper presents results from the initial phase of the project, which focused on requirements solicitation and analysis. Specifically, we survey four use cases from diverse industrial applications, examine how they can benefit from an agent-based electronic contracting infrastructure and outline the technical requirements that would be placed on such an infrastructure. We present the designed CONTRACT architecture and describe how it may fulfil these requirements. In addition to motivating our work on the contract-based infrastructure, the paper aims to provide a much needed community resource in terms of use case themselves and to provide a clear commercial context for the development of work on contract-based system.

On Real-Time Monitoring And Control For Efficient Management Of Drinking Water Networks: Barcelona Case Study

Drinking water utilities in urban areas are focused on finding smart solutions facing new challenges in their real-time operation because of limited water resources, intensive energy requirements, a growing population, a costly and ageing infrastructure, increasingly stringent regulations, and increased attention towards the environmental impact of water use. Such challenges force water managers to monitor and control not only water supply and distribution, but also consumer demand. This paper presents and discusses novel methodologies and procedures towards an integrated water resource management system based on advanced ICT technologies of automation and telecommunications for largely improving the efficiency of drinking water networks (DWN) in terms of water use, energy consumption, water loss minimization, and water quality guarantees. In particular, the paper addresses the first results of the European project EFFINET (FP7-ICT2011-8-318556) devoted to the monitoring and control of the DWN in Barcelona (Spain). Results are split in two levels according to different management objectives: (i) the monitoring level is concerned with all the aspects involved in the observation of the current state of a system and the detection/diagnosis of abnormal situations. It is achieved through sensors and communications technology, together with mathematical models; (ii) the control level is concerned with computing the best suitable and admissible control strategies for network actuators as to optimize a given set of operational goals related to the performance of the overall system. This level covers the network control (optimal management of water and energy) and the demand management (smart metering, efficient supply). The consideration of the Barcelona DWN as the case study will allow to prove the general applicability of the proposed integrated ICT solutions and their effectiveness in the management of DWN, with considerable savings of electricity costs and reduced water loss while ensuring the high European standards of water quality to citizens.

A Diagnostic Assessment Of Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization For Water Resources Systems

This study contributes a rigorous diagnostic assessment of state-of-the-art multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) and highlights key advances that the water resources field can exploit to better discover the critical tradeoffs constraining our systems. This study provides the most comprehensive diagnostic assessment of MOEAs for water resources to date, exploiting more than 100,000 MOEA runs and trillions of design evaluations. The diagnostic assessment measures the effectiveness, efficiency, reliability, and controllability of ten benchmark MOEAs for a representative suite of water resources applications addressing rainfall-runoff calibration, long-term groundwater monitoring (LTM), and risk-based water supply portfolio planning. The suite of problems encompasses a range of challenging problem properties including (1) many-objective formulations with 4 or more objectives, (2) multi-modality (or false optima), (3) nonlinearity, (4) discreteness, (5) severe constraints, (6) stochastic objectives, and (7) non-separability (also called epistasis). The applications are representative of the dominant problem classes that have shaped the history of MOEAs in water resources and that will be dominant foci in the future. Recommendations are provided for which modern MOEAs should serve as tools and benchmarks in the future water resources literature.

AC Biosusceptometry as a Tool for Monitoring the Gastrointestinal Transit of Multiparticulate Drug Delivery System

Drug delivery systems based on natural polysaccharides, such as chitosan (CS) and pectin (PC), rather than on synthetic polymers, have been widely studied. Some reasons for that are low toxicity and costs and high biodegradability of the formers. A multiparticulate system based on CS and PC was developed in our laboratories, including the addition of an enteric polymer, cellulose acetate phtalate (CAP). Such improvement promoted stronger gastric and enteric resistances, as assessed in vitro, making the systems more selective to enzymatic degradation in the colon. Although in vitro dissolution tests can simulate some properties concerning the gastrointestinal transit (GT), collaborating to characterize the systems behavior in the biological fluids, frequently they do not result in satisfactory in vitro/in vivo correlations. The objective of this work was to follow in vivo the GT of the particles developed by means of AC biosusceptometry (ACB), a non-invasive and of low cost methodology. The particles containing ferrite in powder form were prepared by complex coacervation using an ideal 3:1:1 mass ratio for PC:CS:CAP. The magnetic particles were administered to healthy volunteers by oral route. The GT was monitored by using multi-sensor ACB system and the signal acquisition was performed every IS min until the colonic region was reached. By means of ACB technique, it was possible to acquiring images generated by the magnetic particles within the whole gastrointestinal tract including the colonic region. Variable particles transit times were observed among the volunteers, but without interference on the mapping of the particles until the colonic region. The particles were able to produce magnetic field strong enough to generate signals adequate for mapping the particles. The results suggest that integral particles reached the colon, after they resisted against gastric and enteric media. Studies associating transit time and in vivo drug release are in development in order to confirm the efficiency of the systems.

A framework for monitoring and runtime recovery of web service-based applications

Service provisioning is a challenging research area for the design and implementation of autonomic service-oriented software systems. It includes automated QoS management for such systems and their applications. Monitoring, Diagnosis and Repair are three key features of QoS management. This work presents a self-healing Web service-based framework that manages QoS degradation at runtime. Our approach is based on proxies. Proxies act on meta-level communications and extend the HTTP envelope of the exchanged messages with QoS-related parameter values. QoS Data are filtered over time and analysed using statistical functions and the Hidden Markov Model. Detected QoS degradations are handled with proxies. We experienced our framework using an orchestrated electronic shop application (FoodShop).

Time-domain analysis of piezoelectric impedance-based structural health monitoring using multilevel wavelet decomposition

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Transducer Loading Effect on the Performance of PZT-Based SHM Systems

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Sizing PZT Transducers in Impedance-Based Structural Health Monitoring

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Optimal Frequency Range Selection for PZT Transducers in Impedance-Based SHM Systems

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)