Water for the Wayuu: Procurement and maximization of a limited resource among indigenous pastoralists on the Guajira Peninsula of northern Colombia

For the Wayuu of the Guajira Peninsula of northern Colombia, water procurement has historically been challenging. The ancestral territory of this indigenous pastoral society is windy and arid, with low rainfall, high temperatures and an absence of perennial rivers or streams. In the past, the Wayuu adapted to these environmental conditions by practicing transhumance during the prolonged dry seasons, digging spring wells and artificial ponds and by following guiding principles for water usage. Since the 1930s, the government has made efforts to build additional wind-powered wells and ponds for a growing native population. Notwithstanding, these water solutions have only partly met the necessities; public water sources are limited or unreliable and few attempts are made to generate safe drinking water. Furthermore, the ubiquitous practice of animal husbandry places added pressure on existing sources; livestock consume more water than the human populations in the areas visited. Rapid assessments in four Wayuu areas on the peninsula were conducted by the author and an interdisciplinary team working for the Cerrejón Foundation for Water in La Guajira from 2010 to 2013. The assessments were part of a larger pilot project to design and implement a sustainability plan for reservoir-based water supply systems in the region. This study brings cultural practices and local knowledge to the forefront as key elements for the success of water works and other development projects carried out in Wayuu territory.

Implementação de uma arquitetura fuzzy neural em hardware com treinamento online

Computational Intelligence Methods have been expanding to industrial applications motivated by their ability to solve problems in engineering. Therefore, the embedded systems follow the same idea of using computational intelligence tools embedded on machines. There are several works in the area of embedded systems and intelligent systems. However, there are a few papers that have joined both areas. The aim of this study was to implement an adaptive fuzzy neural hardware with online training embedded on Field Programmable Gate Array – FPGA. The system adaptation can occur during the execution of a given application, aiming online performance improvement. The proposed system architecture is modular, allowing different configurations of fuzzy neural network topologies with online training. The proposed system was applied to: mathematical function interpolation, pattern classification and selfcompensation of industrial sensors. The proposed system achieves satisfactory performance in both tasks. The experiments results shows the advantages and disadvantages of online training in hardware when performed in parallel and sequentially ways. The sequentially training method provides economy in FPGA area, however, increases the complexity of architecture actions. The parallel training method achieves high performance and reduced processing time, the pipeline technique is used to increase the proposed architecture performance. The study development was based on available tools for FPGA circuits.

Documentation of glaciers and mountain chains in the Nordvestfjord of Scorsby Sound (East Greenland, July 2016) by landscape photography during Maria S. Merian cruise MSM56

From the 12th until the 17th of July 2016, research vessel Maria S. Merian entered the Nordvestfjord of Scorsby Sound (East Greenland) as part of research cruise MSM56, "Ecological chemistry in Arctic fjords". A large variety of chemical and biological parameters of fjord and meltwater were measured during this cruise to characterize biogeochemical fluxes in arctic fjords. The photo documentation described here was a side project. It was started when we were close to the Daugaard-Jensen glacier at the end of the Nordvestfjord and realized that not many people have seen this area before and photos available for scientists are probably rare. These pictures shall help to document climate and landscape changes in a remote area of East Greenland. Pictures were taken with a Panasonic Lumix G6 equipped with either a 14-42 or 45-150 objective (zoom factor available in jpg metadata). Polarizer filters were used on both objectives. The time between taking the pictures and writing down the coordinates was maximally one minute but usually shorter. The uncertainty in position is therefore small as we were steaming slowly most of the time the pictures were taken (i.e. below 5 knots). I assume the uncertainty is in most cases below 200 m radius of the noted position. I did not check the direction I directed the camera to with a compass at the beginning. Hence, the direction that was noted is an approximation based on the navigation map and the positioning of the ship. The uncertainty was probably around +/- 40° but initially (pictures 1-17) perhaps even higher as this documentation was a spontaneous idea and it took some time to get the orientation right. It should be easy, however, to find the location of the mountains and glaciers when being on the respective positions because the mountains have a quite characteristic shape. In a later stage of this documentation, I took pictures from the bridge and used the gyros to approximate the direction the camera was pointed at. Here the uncertainty was much lower (i.e. +/- 20° or better). Directions approximated with the help of gyros have degree values in the overview table. The ship data provided in the MSM56 cruise report will contain all kinds of sensor data from Maria S. Merian sensor setup. This data can also be used to further constrain the position the pictures were taken because the exact time a photo was shot is noted in the metadata of the .jpg photo file. The shipboard clock was set on UTC. It was 57 minutes and 45 seconds behind the time in the camera. For example 12:57:45 on the camera was 12:00:00 UTC on the ship. All pictures provided here can be used for scientific purposes. In case of usage in presentations etc. please acknowledge RV Maria S. Merian (MSM56) and Lennart T. Bach as author. Please inform me and ask for reprint permission in case you want to use the pictures for scientific publications. I would like to thank all participants and the crew of Maria S. Merian Cruise 56 (MSM56, Ecological chemistry in Arctic fjords).

Quantifying wind and pressure effects on trace gas fluxes across the soil–atmosphere interface

Acknowledgements. We would like to acknowledge the manufacturers of the inner toroid: Mark Bentley and Steve Howarth from the University of York, Dept. of Biology, mechanical and electronics workshops respectively. Furthermore, we would like to acknowledge the Forestry Commission for access and aid at Wheldrake Forest, Mike Bailey and Natural Resources Wales for access and assistance at Cors Fochno, and Norrie Russell and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for access and aid at Forsinard. We would also like to thank Graham Hambley, James Robinson, and Elizabeth Donkin for equipment preparation and sampling. Phil Ineson is thanked for the loan of essential equipment, site suggestions, and accessible power supply. Funding was provided by the University of York, Dept. of Biology, and by a grant to YAT by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H01182X/1).

Electropermanent magnetic anchoring for surgery and endoscopy

The use of magnets for anchoring of instrumentation in minimally invasive surgery and endoscopy has become of increased interest in recent years. Permanent magnets have significant advantages over electromagnets for these applications; larger anchoring and retraction force for comparable size and volume without the need for any external power supply. However, permanent magnets represent a potential hazard in the operating field where inadvertent attraction to surgical instrumentation is often undesirable. The current work proposes an interesting hybrid approach which marries the high forces of permanent magnets with the control of electromagnetic technology including the ability to turn the magnet OFF when necessary. This is achieved through the use of an electropermanent magnet, which is designed for surgical retraction across the abdominal and gastric walls. Our electropermanent magnet, which is hand-held and does not require continuous power, is designed with a center lumen which may be used for trocar or needle insertion. The device in this application has been demonstrated successfully in the porcine model where coupling between an intraluminal ring magnet and our electropermanent magnet facilitated guided insertion of an 18 Fr Tuohy needle for guidewire placement. Subsequent investigations have demonstrated the ability to control the coupling distance of the system alleviating shortcomings with current methods of magnetic coupling due to variation in transabdominal wall thicknesses. With further refinement, the magnet may find application in the anchoring of endoscopic and surgical instrumentation for minimally invasive interventions in the gastrointestinal tract.

New Frontiers in Energy-Efficient Computing

Energy-efficient computing remains a critical challenge across the wide range of future data-processing engines — from ultra-low-power embedded systems to servers, mainframes, and supercomputers. In addition, the advent of cloud and mobile computing as well as the explosion of IoT technologies have created new research challenges in the already complex, multidimensional space of modern and future computer systems. These new research challenges led to the establishment of the IEEE Rebooting Computing Initiative, which specifically addresses novel low-power solutions and technologies as one of the main areas of concern.With this in mind, we thought it timely to survey the state of the art of energy-efficient computing.

Noncollinear Polarization Gating of Attosecond Pulse Trains in the Relativistic Regime

High order harmonics generated at relativistic intensities have long been recognized as a route to the most powerful extreme ultraviolet pulses. Reliably generating isolated attosecond pulses requires gating to only a single dominant optical cycle, but techniques developed for lower power lasers have not been readily transferable. We present a novel method to temporally gate attosecond pulse trains by combining noncollinear and polarization gating. This scheme uses a split beam configuration which allows pulse gating to be implemented at the high beam fluence typical of multi-TW to PW class laser systems. Scalings for the gate width demonstrate that isolated attosecond pulses are possible even for modest pulse durations achievable for existing and planned future ultrashort high-power laser systems. Experimental results demonstrating the spectral effects of temporal gating on harmonic spectra generated by a relativistic laser plasma interaction are shown.

Simulation and analysis of an emergency lowering system for crane applications

An emergency lowering system for use in safety critical crane applications is discussed. The system is used to safely lower the payload of a crane in case of an electric blackout. The system is based on a backup power source, which is used to operate the crane while the regular supply is not available. The system enables both horizontal and vertical movements of the crane. Two different configurations for building the system are described, one with an uninterruptible power source (UPS) or a diesel generator connected in parallel to the crane’s power supply and one with a customized energy storage connected to the intermediate DC-link in the crane. In order to be able to size the backup power source, the power required during emergency lowering needs to be understood. A simulation model is used to study and optimize the power used during emergency lowering. The simulation model and optimizations are verified in a test hoist. Simulation results are presented with non-optimized and optimized controls for two example applications: a paper roll crane and a steel mill ladle crane. The optimizations are found to significantly reduce the required power for the crane movements during emergency lowering.

Analysis of Ultrasonic Techniques for the Characterization of Microfiltration Polymeric Membranes

The use of polymeric membranes is extremely important in several industries such as nuclear, biotechnology, chemical and pharmaceutical. In the nuclear area, for instance, systems based on membrane separation technologies are currently being used in the treatment of radioactive liquid effluent, and new technologies using membranes are being developed at a great rate. The knowledge of the physical characteristics of these membranes, such as, pore size and the pore size distribution, is very important to the membranes separation processes. Only after these characteristics are known is it possible to determine the type and to choose a particular membrane for a specific application. In this work, two ultrasonic non destructive techniques were used to determine the porosity of membranes: pulse echo and transmission. A 25 MHz immersion transducer was used. Ultrasonic signals were acquired, for both techniques, after the ultrasonic waves passed through a microfiltration polymeric membrane of pore size of 0.45 μm and thickness of 180 μm. After the emitted ultrasonic signal crossed the membrane, the received signal brought several information on the influence of the membrane porosity in the standard signal of the ultrasonic wave. The ultrasonic signals were acquired in the time domain and changed to the frequency domain by application of the Fourier Fast Transform (FFT), thus generating the material frequency spectrum. For the pulse echo technique, the ultrasonic spectrum frequency changed after the ultrasonic wave crossed the membrane. With the transmission technique there was only a displacement of the ultrasonic signal at the time domain.

Driving Flows in Laboratory Astrophysical Plasma Jets: The Mochi.LabJet Experiment

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Avaliação da eficiência do sistema de abastecimento de água da APA

A água é um recurso essencial e escasso, como tal, é necessário encontrar medidas que permitam o seu uso de modo sustentável e garantam a proteção do meio ambiente. Devido a esta crescente preocupação assiste-se a um movimento legislativo, nacional e internacional, no sentido de garantir o desenvolvimento sustentável. Surge assim, a Diretiva Quadro da Água e a Lei da Água, que é complementada com legislação diversa. Como elemento constituinte do ciclo urbano da água, os Sistemas de Abastecimento têm sofrido evoluções nem sempre adequadas. É neste contexto que, em Portugal, nascem as diversas ferramentas para a melhoria da gestão dos recursos hídricos. As Entidades Gestoras têm como finalidade a gestão eficiente do bem água, e dispõe de dois importantes instrumentos, o Programa Nacional para o Uso Eficiente da Água e o Guia para o “controlo de perdas de água em sistemas públicos de adução e distribuição”(ERSAR). Esta Gestão passa, não só pela abordagem da problemática das perdas de água, reais e aparentes, como também pela análise do comportamento que origina o desperdício. A APA, enquanto entidade gestora, procura maximizar a eficiência do seu sistema de abastecimento, para tal, foram aplicadas as ferramentas propostas pelo ERSAR. Concluindo-se que este sistema tem um total de perdas de água de 34%, devendo-se estas perdas essencialmente ao envelhecido parque de contadores e perdas nos ramais de distribuição (teórico). As perdas comerciais representam cerca de 69%, o que revela que os volumes de água não faturados (medidos ou não) são muito elevados. Por outro lado, a realização do cálculo do Balanço Hídrico e dos índices de desempenho permitem classificar a performance do sistema de abastecimento e compará-la com os seus objetivos de gestão. Atendendo ao volume de água perdido nos ramais, foram efetuadas medições noturnas, verificando-se que no Porto de Pesca Costeira existe um volume de água escoado não justificado. Neste sentido, elaborou-se um plano de ação para aumentar a eficiência do sistema, ou seja, reduzir as perdas totais de 34% para 15%.

State of Iowa Public Drinking Water Program 2015 Annual Compliance Report, June 2016

This report contains information about Iowa's public drinking water program for the calendar year 2015. Included in the report are descriptions of Iowa's systems, monitoring and reporting requirements of the systems, and violations incurred during the year. This report meets the federal Safe Drinking Water Act's requirement of an annual report on violations of national primary drinking water regulations by public water supply systems in Iowa.

Planeamento e execução de estruturas para abastecimento em linhas de montagem numa empresa do ramo automóvel

O presente trabalho foi desenvolvido na empresa Renault CACIA e tem como fundamento a implementação de um fluxo de abastecimento com 4 horas de autonomia em todas as linhas de montagem no departamento de fabricação de componentes mecânicos. No entanto, estas linhas deverão ter condições para poder armazenar esse abastecimento, pelo que terão de ser implementadas estruturas que o suportem. Com o objetivo de eliminar o excesso de stock existente na linha de montagem de bombas de óleo, a mais crítica da instalação, e as atividades que não acrescentam valor ao produto final, organizar o espaço disponível, melhorar as condições ergonómicas, propõem-se soluções que serão uma mais-valia para as empresas de fabricação. Durante o desenvolvimento do trabalho foi realizado um estudo aprofundado da linha de montagem e dos problemas existentes no processo de abastecimento e, posteriormente, foi determinada a quantidade necessária de embalagens de componentes para a autonomia requerida. Recorreu-se à ferramenta CAD 3D, Solidworks®, para o planeamento das estruturas, e ao software de simulação Arena®, para testar o funcionamento da linha de montagem com a implementação das estruturas para abastecimento. Verificaram-se melhorias conseguidas através da implementação das soluções sugeridas. A linha de montagem ficou mais organizada e arrumada, tendo-se reduzido cerca de 86,96% de stock global existente. Associado a este, existiam atividades realizadas pelo operador de montagem que não acrescentavam valor ao produto final, tendo-se obtido um incremento da produção na ordem de 1%.

Teoria de carteiras e a alocação de parques eólicos offshore

The consumption of energy on the planet is currently based on fossil fuels. They are responsible for adverse effects on the environment. Renewables propose solutions for this scenario, but must face issues related to the capacity of the power supply. Wind energy offshore emerging as a promising alternative. The speed and stability are greater winds over oceans, but the variability of these may cause inconvenience to the generation of electric power fluctuations. To reduce this, a combination of wind farms geographically distributed was proposed. The greater the distance between them, the lower the correlation between the wind velocity, increasing the likelihood that together achieve more stable power system with less fluctuations in power generation. The efficient use of production capacity of the wind park however, depends on their distribution in marine environments. The objective of this research was to analyze the optimal allocation of wind farms offshore on the east coast of the U.S. by Modern Portfolio Theory. The Modern Portfolio Theory was used so that the process of building portfolios of wind energy offshore contemplate the particularity of intermittency of wind, through calculations of return and risk of the production of wind farms. The research was conducted with 25.934 observations of energy produced by wind farms 11 hypothetical offshore, from the installation of 01 simulated ocean turbine with a capacity of 5 MW. The data show hourly time resolution and covers the period between January 1, 1998 until December 31, 2002. Through the Matlab R software, six were calculated minimum variance portfolios, each for a period of time distinct. Given the inequality of the variability of wind over time, set up four strategies rebalancing to evaluate the performance of the related portfolios, which enabled us to identify the most beneficial to the stability of the wind energy production offshore. The results showed that the production of wind energy for 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 should be considered by the portfolio weights calculated for the same periods, respectively. Energy data for 2002 should use the weights derived from the portfolio calculated in the previous time period. Finally, the production of wind energy in the period 1998-2002 should also be weighted by 1/11. It follows therefore that the portfolios found failed to show reduced levels of variability when compared to the individual production of wind farms hypothetical offshore

Implementação de um plano de segurança de águas num hospital

Dissertação de Natureza Científica para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Civil