Comments on hydrographic and topographic LIDAR acquisition and merging with multibeam sounding data acquired in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary

In April 2005, a SHOALS 1000T LIDAR system was used as an efficient alternative for safely acquiring data to describe the existing conditions of nearshore bathymetry and the intertidal zone over an approximately 40.7 km2 (11.8 nm2) portion of hazardous coastline within the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS). Data were logged from 1,593 km (860 nm) of track lines in just over 21 hours of flight time. Several islands and offshore rocks were also surveyed, and over 24,000 geo-referenced digital still photos were captured to assist with data cleaning and QA/QC. The 1 kHz bathymetry laser obtained a maximum water depth of 22.2 meters. Floating kelp beds, breaking surf lines and turbid water were all challenges to the survey. Although sea state was favorable for this time of the year, recent heavy rainfall and a persistent low-lying layer of fog reduced acquisition productivity. The existence of a completed VDatum model covering this same geographic region permitted the LIDAR data to be vertically transformed and merged with existing shallow water multibeam data and referenced to the mean lower low water (MLLW) tidal datum. Analysis of a multibeam bathymetry-LIDAR difference surface containing over 44,000 samples indicated surface deviations from –24.3 to 8.48 meters, with a mean difference of –0.967 meters, and standard deviation of 1.762 meters. Errors in data cleaning and false detections due to interference from surf, kelp, and turbidity likely account for the larger surface separations, while the remaining general surface difference trend could partially be attributed to a more dense data set, and shoal-biased cleaning, binning and gridding associated with the multibeam data for maintaining conservative least depths important for charting dangers to navigation. (PDF contains 27 pages.)

Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary Area to be Avoided (ATBA) Education and Monitoring Program

The National Marine Sanctuaries Act (16 U.S.C. 1431, as amended) gives the Secretary of Commerce the authority to designate discrete areas of the marine environment as National Marine Sanctuaries and provides the authority to promulgate regulations to provide for the conservation and management of these marine areas. The waters of the Outer Washington Coast were recognized for their high natural resource and human use values and placed on the National Marine Sanctuary Program Site Evaluation List in 1983. In 1988, Congress directed NOAA to designate the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (Pub. L. 100-627). The Sanctuary, designated in May 1994, worked with the U.S. Coast Guard to request the International Maritime Organization designate an Area to be Avoided (ATBA) on the Olympic Coast. The IMO defines an ATBA as "a routeing measure comprising an area within defined limits in which either navigation is particularly hazardous or it is exceptionally important to avoid casualties and which should be avoided by all ships, or certain classes of ships" (IMO, 1991). This ATBA was adopted in December 1994 by the Maritime Safety Committee of the IMO, “in order to reduce the risk of marine casualty and resulting pollution and damage to the environment of the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary”, (IMO, 1994). The ATBA went into effect in June 1995 and advises operators of vessels carrying petroleum and/or hazardous materials to maintain a 25-mile buffer from the coast. Since that time, Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) has created an education and monitoring program with the goal of ensuring the successful implementation of the ATBA. The Sanctuary enlisted the aid of the U.S. and Canadian coast guards, and the marine industry to educate mariners about the ATBA and to use existing radar data to monitor compliance. Sanctuary monitoring efforts have targeted education on tank vessels observed transiting the ATBA. OCNMS's monitoring efforts allow quantitative evaluation of this voluntary measure. Finally, the tools developed to monitor the ATBA are also used for the more general purpose of monitoring vessel traffic within the Sanctuary. While the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary does not currently regulate vessel traffic, such regulations are within the scope of the Sanctuary’s Final Environmental Impact Statement/Management Plan. Sanctuary staff participate in ongoing maritime and environmental safety initiatives and continually seek opportunities to mitigate risks from marine shipping.(PDF contains 44 pages.)

Plasma-Arc Technology For The Thermal Treatment Of Chemical Wastes

Plasma-arc technology was developed to dispose of chemical wastes from a chemical plant by the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS-IMECH). A pilot plant system with this technology was constructed to destroy two types of chemical wastes. The system included shredding, mixing, and feeding subsystems, a plasma-arc reactor of 150 kW, an off-gas burning subsystem, and a scrubbing subsystem. The additives (CaO, SiO2, and Fe) were added into the reactor to form vitrified slag and capture the hazardous elements. The molten slag was quickly quenched to form an amorphous glassy structure. A direct current (DC) experimental facility of 30kW with plasma-arc technology was also set up to study the pyrolysis process in the laboratory, and the experimental results showed the cooling speed is the most important factor for good vitrified structure of the slag. According to previous tests, the destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) for these chemical wastes was more than 99.999%, and the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) concentration in the solid residues was in the range of 1.28 to 12.9mg/kg, which is far below the Chinese national emission limit for the hazardous wastes. A simplified electromagneto model for numerical simulation was developed to predict the temperature and velocity fields. This model can make satisfactory maximum temperature and velocity distributions in the arc region, as well as the results by the magneto hydrodynamic approach.

Deciding to evacuate: Gathering the information to make this important decision

When hazardous storms threaten coastal communities, people need information to decide how to respond to this potential emergency. NOAA and NC Sea Grant are funding a two-year project (Risk Perceptions and Emergency Communication Effectiveness in Coastal Zones) to learn how residents, government officials, businesses and other organizations are informed and use information regarding hurricane and tropical storms. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Sensor networks for geospatial event detection - theory and applications

This thesis presents theories, analyses, and algorithms for detecting and estimating parameters of geospatial events with today's large, noisy sensor networks. A geospatial event is initiated by a significant change in the state of points in a region in a 3-D space over an interval of time. After the event is initiated it may change the state of points over larger regions and longer periods of time. Networked sensing is a typical approach for geospatial event detection. In contrast to traditional sensor networks comprised of a small number of high quality (and expensive) sensors, trends in personal computing devices and consumer electronics have made it possible to build large, dense networks at a low cost. The changes in sensor capability, network composition, and system constraints call for new models and algorithms suited to the opportunities and challenges of the new generation of sensor networks. This thesis offers a single unifying model and a Bayesian framework for analyzing different types of geospatial events in such noisy sensor networks. It presents algorithms and theories for estimating the speed and accuracy of detecting geospatial events as a function of parameters from both the underlying geospatial system and the sensor network. Furthermore, the thesis addresses network scalability issues by presenting rigorous scalable algorithms for data aggregation for detection. These studies provide insights to the design of networked sensing systems for detecting geospatial events. In addition to providing an overarching framework, this thesis presents theories and experimental results for two very different geospatial problems: detecting earthquakes and hazardous radiation. The general framework is applied to these specific problems, and predictions based on the theories are validated against measurements of systems in the laboratory and in the field.

Cidades secas, vidas secas: A trajetória das águas e sua regulamentação no Rio de Janeiro sob uma perspectiva urbano-ambiental

Esta tese analisará a distribuição das águas na cidade do Rio de Janeiro considerando os elementos sociais, jurídicos, políticos, e seus reflexos no direito urbano e ambiental. Nesse aspecto referenciará as medidas de regulação e de organização da estrutura urbana, desde a formação da cidade até os dias atuais, assim como as consequências da exclusão e da ausência das políticas urbanas equitativas. No início, as ocupações irregulares, se distantes do centro e dos bairros elitizados, não despertavam maiores demandas do poder público, porém com o aumento das periferias e as ocupações próximas aos bairros formais, inúmeras medidas adotadas optaram pela remoção, contenção e a destruição dos espaços sem apresentar uma solução, agravando os problemas urbanos. Tais problemas, reconhecidamente sociais, passam a ser denominados urbanos e ambientais, gerando uma complexa criminalização dos moradores das periferias. As intervenções nos espaços são legalizadas pelo instrumento jurídico, as residências suburbanas são classificadas como ilegais e, por consequência, os recursos que deveriam atender a todos na cidade são direcionados apenas para cidade legalizada, criando a celeuma da desigualdade. Assim, amontoados em barracos precários, sem abastecimento de água, energia, esgoto e coleta de lixo, as periferias multiplicam as diversas formas de violência, uma vez que o direito não socorre esses moradores que, abandonados pela lei, vivem a escassez das águas e a especulação dos serviços ilegais de abastecimento. A crise do abastecimento não é causada pelas populações mais empobrecidas, mas pelo mercado que se apropria da maior parte desses recursos, dentro do sistema de uma lógica capitalista, e exclui aqueles que não podem pagar pelo abastecimento regular. Nesse sentido, este trabalho entende que o direito, ainda que tenha se tornado regulatório pode assumir um caráter revolucionário e transformador em que o direito das águas seja um direito da comunidade, por isso, um bem público não estatal, por fim objetiva esse trabalho estudar as leis das águas dentro do paradigma da solidariedade hídrica.

Bioestímulo e bioaumento na remediação de solo contaminado com óleo lubrificante usado escala piloto

O óleo lubrificante mineral é amplamente utilizado no cenário mundial no funcionamento de máquinas e motores. No entanto, o ciclo de vida deste petro-derivado resulta na geração de um resíduo (óleo lubrificante usado), o qual é nocivo ao meio ambiente quando não descartado adequadamente ou reciclado. No Brasil, apesar das normas que tratam especificamente do armazenamento, recolhimento e destino de óleo lubrificante usado, grande parte do mesmo ainda é despejado diretamente no meio ambiente, sem qualquer tratamento, sendo de grande importância estudos que visem o entendimento dos processos e o desenvolvimento de tecnologias de remediação de áreas contaminadas por esse resíduo. O objetivo geral do presente trabalho foi conduzir estudos de tratabilidade de solo arenoso contaminado experimentalmente com 5% (m m-1 seco) de óleo lubrificante usado, através de duas diferentes estratégias de biorremediação: bioestímulo e bioaumento. Foram conduzidos dois experimentos. No primeiro, foi avaliada a atividade microbiana aeróbia na biodegradação do OLU através do método respirométrico de Bartha. No segundo, foram montados três biorreatores de fase sólida simulando biopilhas estáticas com aeração forçada, cada um contendo 125 kg de solo e 5% (m m-1 seco) de óleo lubrificante automotivo usado, os quais receberam como tratamento: bioestímulo por ajuste de pH e umidade (BIOSca); bioestímulo por ajuste de pH e umidade associado ao bioaumento com a adição de composto maduro (BIOA1ca) ; e bioestímulo por ajuste de pH e umidade associado ao bioaumento com a adição de composto jovem (BIOA2ca). Foram também montados três biorreatores de bancada simulando biopilhas estáticas sem aeração forçada, cada um contendo 3 kg de solo e 5% (m m-1) do mesmo contaminante, sendo que o primeiro continha solo sem contaminação - CONTsa, o segundo, solo contaminado com ajuste de pH BIOSsa e o terceiro, solo contaminado com adição de 0,3% de azida sódica - ABIOsa. Os tratamentos foram avaliados pela remoção de hidrocarbonetos totais de petróleo (HTPs) e após 120 dias de experimento obteve-se remoções de HTPs de 84,75%, 99,99% e 99,99%, com BIOS, BIOA1 e BIOA2, respectivamente, demonstrando que a estratégia de bioestímulo associada ao bioaumento foram promissoras na remediação do solo contaminado pelo óleo lubrificante usado. Os tratamentos que receberam composto (BIOA1 e BIOA2) não apresentaram diferenças quanto à remoção de HTPs, evidenciando que a fase de maturação dos compostos não apresentou influência na eficiência do processo. No entanto, verificou-se uma eficiência nos tratamentos que receberam composto quando comparado ao tratamento sem adição de composto

Different patterns of uptake and depuration of cadmium by periphyton community and a grazer species (Physa sp.): A mesocosm evalution

Widespread pollution by heavy metals generated by various industries has serious adverse effects on human health and the environment. Cadmium is a heavy metal recognised as one of the most hazardous environmental pollutants. It is a non-essential and non-beneficial element to organisms, causing toxicity and other deleterious effects on various components of the aquatic environment. The ability of algal periphyton to concentrate cadmium from fresh water is well known. Moreover, periphyton communities are able to accumulate large amounts of cadmium despite its low concentration in fresh water. Many researchers use algal periphyton as an indicator of water quality in aquatic environments. In the present study, the authors ask two basic questions: Does cadmium accumulate along a food chain consisting of the periphyton community and a grazer species (Physa sp.) under semi-natural conditions provided by artificial streams? If not, which one can better indicate the water quality?

Quantum squeezing of motion in a mechanical resonator

Quantum mechanics places limits on the minimum energy of a harmonic oscillator via the ever-present "zero-point" fluctuations of the quantum ground state. Through squeezing, however, it is possible to decrease the noise of a single motional quadrature below the zero-point level as long as noise is added to the orthogonal quadrature. While squeezing below the quantum noise level was achieved decades ago with light, quantum squeezing of the motion of a mechanical resonator is a more difficult prospect due to the large thermal occupations of megahertz-frequency mechanical devices even at typical dilution refrigerator temperatures of ~ 10 mK.

Kronwald, Marquardt, and Clerk (2013) propose a method of squeezing a single quadrature of mechanical motion below the level of its zero-point fluctuations, even when the mechanics starts out with a large thermal occupation. The scheme operates under the framework of cavity optomechanics, where an optical or microwave cavity is coupled to the mechanics in order to control and read out the mechanical state. In the proposal, two pump tones are applied to the cavity, each detuned from the cavity resonance by the mechanical frequency. The pump tones establish and couple the mechanics to a squeezed reservoir, producing arbitrarily-large, steady-state squeezing of the mechanical motion. In this dissertation, I describe two experiments related to the implementation of this proposal in an electromechanical system. I also expand on the theory presented in Kronwald et. al. to include the effects of squeezing in the presence of classical microwave noise, and without assumptions of perfect alignment of the pump frequencies.

In the first experiment, we produce a squeezed thermal state using the method of Kronwald et. al.. We perform back-action evading measurements of the mechanical squeezed state in order to probe the noise in both quadratures of the mechanics. Using this method, we detect single-quadrature fluctuations at the level of 1.09 +/- 0.06 times the quantum zero-point motion.

In the second experiment, we measure the spectral noise of the microwave cavity in the presence of the squeezing tones and fit a full model to the spectrum in order to deduce a quadrature variance of 0.80 +/- 0.03 times the zero-point level. These measurements provide the first evidence of quantum squeezing of motion in a mechanical resonator.

Avaliação de diferentes estratégias de biorremediação de solo argiloso contaminado por óleo em biorreator de fase semi-sólida

A prática da troca de óleo lubrificante usado, particularmente óleos automotivos, representa um grave problema ambiental em função de sua natureza perigosa, do manuseio incorreto e do descarte indiscriminado no meio ambiente. A investigação quanto à remediação de áreas contaminadas por esse resíduo torna-se necessária, particularmente para solo de natureza argilosa. O presente estudo teve por objetivo avaliar a biorremediação de um solo argiloso contaminado por óleo lubrificante utilizando biorreatores de fase semi-sólida. Frascos tipo Erlenmeyer, contendo 20 g de solo contaminado com 3% (m/m) de óleo lubrificante, em triplicata, foram mantidos em temperatura e agitação constantes, segundo as seguintes estratégias de tratamento: (i) Bioestímulo com ajuste de nutrientes (BIOE); (ii) Bioaumento com adição de inóculo microbiano aclimatado (BIOA); (iii) Bioestímulo e adição de surfactante sintético Tween-80 (BIOES); (iv) Bioaumento, bioestímulo e surfactante sintético Tween-80 (BIOAS) e (iv) controle, com água destilada purificada (CONT). A eficiência de remoção do contaminante foi avaliada após 68 dias de tratamento por análises de evolução de CO2, redução de COT, decaimento de HTP, de n-alcanos e frações de hidrocarbonetos saturados, aromáticos e compostos polares. O tratamento BIOAS resultou na maior produção de CO2 acumulada (1247,0 mg.20g-1 de solo) seguida pelo tratamento BIOES (1077,6 mg.20g-1 de solo). Ao final do experimento, todos os tratamentos reduziram significativamente os teores de HTPs quando comparados ao controle (11,14,2%). Os tratamentos BIOAS e BIOES não apresentaram diferenças significativas quanto à redução de HTPs (42,03,7% e 37,46,3%, respectivamente). Tanto o bioestímulo quanto o bioaumento mostraram-se estratégias com potencial para aumentar a eficácia da biorremediação de solos argilosos, sendo que a adição de surfactante foi o fator mais importante, tendo aumentado significativamente a capacidade de remoção em ambas as estratégias. O uso de biorreatores em fase semi-sólida na biorremediação de solo argiloso contaminado com óleo lubrificante mostrou-se bastante promissor e tal estratégia pode ser aplicada em escala imediatamente superior

Quantum Electromechanics with Two Tone Drive

In the field of mechanics, it is a long standing goal to measure quantum behavior in ever larger and more massive objects. It may now seem like an obvious conclusion, but until recently it was not clear whether a macroscopic mechanical resonator -- built up from nearly 10¹³ atoms -- could be fully described as an ideal quantum harmonic oscillator. With recent advances in the fields of opto- and electro-mechanics, such systems offer a unique advantage in probing the quantum noise properties of macroscopic electrical and mechanical devices, properties that ultimately stem from Heisenberg's uncertainty relations. Given the rapid progress in device capabilities, landmark results of quantum optics are now being extended into the regime of macroscopic mechanics.

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe three experiments -- motional sideband asymmetry, back-action evasion (BAE) detection, and mechanical squeezing -- that are directly related to the topic of measuring quantum noise with mechanical detection. These measurements all share three pertinent features: they explore quantum noise properties in a macroscopic electromechanical device driven by a minimum of two microwave drive tones, hence the title of this work: "Quantum electromechanics with two tone drive".

In the following, we will first introduce a quantum input-output framework that we use to model the electromechanical interaction and capture subtleties related to interpreting different microwave noise detection techniques. Next, we will discuss the fabrication and measurement details that we use to cool and probe these devices with coherent and incoherent microwave drive signals. Having developed our tools for signal modeling and detection, we explore the three-wave mixing interaction between the microwave and mechanical modes, whereby mechanical motion generates motional sidebands corresponding to up-down frequency conversions of microwave photons. Because of quantum vacuum noise, the rates of these processes are expected to be unequal. We will discuss the measurement and interpretation of this asymmetric motional noise in a electromechanical device cooled near the ground state of motion.

Next, we consider an overlapped two tone pump configuration that produces a time-modulated electromechanical interaction. By careful control of this drive field, we report a quantum non-demolition (QND) measurement of a single motional quadrature. Incorporating a second pair of drive tones, we directly measure the measurement back-action associated with both classical and quantum noise of the microwave cavity. Lastly, we slightly modify our drive scheme to generate quantum squeezing in a macroscopic mechanical resonator. Here, we will focus on data analysis techniques that we use to estimate the quadrature occupations. We incorporate Bayesian spectrum fitting and parameter estimation that serve as powerful tools for incorporating many known sources of measurement and fit error that are unavoidable in such work.