Report of the BOBLME fishing capacity workshop, Phuket, Thailand, 12-13 January, 2015

The workshop focused on capacity utilisation estimation using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess the fishing capacity of fleets.

Marine pollution and water quality monitoring in Myanmar: assessment and bridging capacity needs

This study looked at improving knowledge base capacity and enhance capacity to address marine pollution and water quality monitoring issues in Myanmar. Significant capacity needs were identified and a follow up plan presented.

Report of the SocMon capacity development workshop for the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem countries in South Asia, St Martin's Island, Bangladesh, 2-11 January, 2015

Socio-economic Monitoring (SocMon) is an approach and set of tools for conducting socio-economic monitoring of changes in coastal communities. Planned outputs of the workshop included: training of local staff i SocMon methodologies; draft a SocMon report for St. Martin's Island; a workplan for implementing the SocMon; a communication strategy; and key inputs to a regional SocMon strategy

Report of the SocMon capacity development workshop for the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem countries in South Asia, Vidathaltivu, Northern Province, Sri Lanka, 3-11 March, 2015

This Socioeconomic Monitoring (SocMon) training workshop was coordinated by the Small Fisher Federation of Lanka (SFFL). Planned outputs included: participants from Mannar trained in SocMon methodologies; draft SocMon reports fro Vidathaltivu; a workplan for Mannar; a communication strategy for Vidathaltivu/ Mannar; and key inputs to a regional SocMon strategy

Report of the final workshop on education, capacity development and monitoring in support of Bar Reef Marine Sanctuary (BRMS) management, Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka, 23 May, 2015

Objectives of the workshop included: presentation of research to stakeholders; briefing of stakeholders on project objectives, contents and activities; to get stakeholder perceptions and suggestions.

Compact holographic optical interconnections using nematic liquid crystal spatial light modulators

In a fibre-optic communication network, the wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) technique enables an expansion of the data-carrying capacity of optical fibres. This can be achieved by transmitting different channels on a single optical fibre, with each channel modulating a different wavelength. In order to access and manipulate these channels at a node of the network, a compact holographic optical switch is designed, modelled, and constructed. The structure of such a switch consists of a series of optical components which are used to collimate the beam from the input, de-multiplex each individual wavelength into separated channels, manipulate the separated channels, and reshape the beam to the output. A spatial light modulator (SLM) is crucial in this system, offering control and flexibility at the channel manipulation stage, and providing the ability to redirect light into the desired output fibre. This is achieved by the use of a 2-D analogue phase computer generated hologram (CGH) based on liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) technology. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Increased capacity per unit-cost by oversampling

It is demonstrated that doubling the sampling rate recovers some of the loss in capacity incurred on the bandlimited Gaussian channel with a one-bit output quantizer. © 2010 IEEE.

Multipath channels of unbounded capacity

The capacity of discrete-time, noncoherent, multipath fading channels is considered. It is shown that if the variances of the path gains decay faster than exponentially, then capacity is unbounded in the transmit power. © 2008 IEEE.

Electricity Storage Using a Thermal Storage Scheme

The increasing use of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation, many of which have an unpredictably intermittent nature, will inevitably lead to a greater demand for large-scale electricity storage schemes. For example, the expanding fraction of electricity produced by wind turbines will require either backup or storage capacity to cover extended periods of wind lull. This paper describes a recently proposed storage scheme, referred to here as Pumped Thermal Storage (PTS), and which is based on "sensible heat" storage in large thermal reservoirs. During the charging phase, the system effectively operates as a high temperature-ratio heat pump, extracting heat from a cold reservoir and delivering heat to a hot one. In the discharge phase the processes are reversed and it operates as a heat engine. The round- trip efficiency is limited only by process irreversibilities (as opposed to Second Law limitations on the coefficient of performance and the thermal efficiency of the heat pump and heat engine respectively). PTS is currently being developed in both France and England. In both cases, the schemes operate on the Joule-Brayton (gas turbine) cycle, using argon as the working fluid. However, the French scheme proposes the use of turbomachinery for compression and expansion, whereas for that being developed in England reciprocating devices are proposed. The current paper focuses on the impact of the various process irreversibilities on the thermodynamic round-trip efficiency of the scheme. Consideration is given to compression and expansion losses and pressure losses (in pipe-work, valves and thermal reservoirs); heat transfer related irreversibility in the thermal reservoirs is discussed but not included in the analysis. Results are presented demonstrating how the various loss parameters and operating conditions influence the overall performance.