Engenharia nos sertões nordestinos: o Gargalheiras, a Barragem Marechal Dutra e a comunidade de Acari, 1909-1958

In Brazil, between the late nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth, polytechnic engineers assumed an important role in discussing the establishment of a modern country. The problem of drought in northeastern Brazil gave the professionals performance, within an interventional process more mounts, the conception plans and measures for the purposeful integration of the territory afflicted. With the foundation of Inspetoria de Obras Contra as Secas (IOCS), in 1909, the actions to combat drought and would be institutionalized, them, studies performed out by technical and scientific committees would be systematically applied in the Brazilian Northeast. So, This work was central objective understand the historical process inplantation of a whole infrastructure of modern character by professional technical and their consequences within the Northeast Geographic space, in specific, in the municipality of Acari in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, in the first half of the twentieth century. The politics of the government, through technical education and scientific engineers polytechnics, would emphasize, during the twentieth century, the building of dams, and irrigation canals, wells, railways, highways, between other elements, that would soon transform the physical space-northeast, specifically, the territory acariense. These works began to contribute to the setting of man backcountry their land, promote the regular practice of agriculture even in periods of drought and, the integration, especially, economic of territory acariense the other producing regions of Rio Grande do Norte and the Northeast as well as promoting the modification of the landscape of the world backcountry. These actions functioned as elements of modernity and progress that transformed the space by favoring by favoring the formation of urban networks (urban) in this space

Dynamics of a spacecraft and normalization around Lagrangian points in the Neptune-Triton system

The problem of a spacecraft orbiting the Neptune-Triton system is presented. The new ingredients in this restricted three body problem are the Neptune oblateness and the high inclined and retrograde motion of Triton. First we present some interesting simulations showing the role played by the oblateness on a Neptune's satellite, disturbed by Triton. We also give an extensive numerical exploration in the case when the spacecraft orbits Triton, considering Sun, Neptune and its planetary oblateness as disturbers. In the plane a x I (a = semi-major axis, I = inclination), we give a plot of the stable regions where the massless body can survive for thousand of years. Retrograde and direct orbits were considered and as usual, the region of stability is much more significant for the case of direct orbit of the spacecraft (Triton's orbit is retrograde). Next we explore the dynamics in a vicinity of the Lagrangian points. The Birkhoff normalization is constructed around L-2, followed by its reduction to the center manifold. In this reduced dynamics, a convenient Poincare section shows the interplay of the Lyapunov and halo periodic orbits, Lissajous and quasi-halo tori as well as the stable and unstable manifolds of the planar Lyapunov orbit. To show the effect of the oblateness, the planar Lyapunov family emanating from the Lagrangian points and three-dimensional halo orbits are obtained by the numerical continuation method. Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of COSPAR.

A Mathematical Model for Simplifying Representations of Objects in a Geographic Information System

The study of operations on representations of objects is well documented in the realm of spatial engineering. However, the mathematical structure and formal proof of these operational phenomena are not thoroughly explored. Other works have often focused on query-based models that seek to order classes and instances of objects in the form of semantic hierarchies or graphs. In some models, nodes of graphs represent objects and are connected by edges that represent different types of coarsening operators. This work, however, studies how the coarsening operator "simplification" can manipulate partitions of finite sets, independent from objects and their attributes. Partitions that are "simplified first have a collection of elements filtered (removed), and then the remaining partition is amalgamated (some sub-collections are unified). Simplification has many interesting mathematical properties. A finite composition of simplifications can also be accomplished with some single simplification. Also, if one partition is a simplification of the other, the simplified partition is defined to be less than the other partition according to the simp relation. This relation is shown to be a partial-order relation based on simplification. Collections of partitions can not only be proven to have a partial- order structure, but also have a lattice structure and are complete. In regard to a geographic information system (GIs), partitions related to subsets of attribute domains for objects are called views. Objects belong to different views based whether or not their attribute values lie in the underlying view domain. Given a particular view, objects with their attribute n-tuple codings contained in the view are part of the actualization set on views, and objects are labeled according to the particular subset of the view in which their coding lies. Though the scope of the work does not mainly focus on queries related directly to geographic objects, it provides verification for the existence of particular views in a system with this underlying structure. Given a finite attribute domain, one can say with mathematical certainty that different views of objects are partially ordered by simplification, and every collection of views has a greatest lower bound and least upper bound, which provides the validity for exploring queries in this regard.

Engineering Temporal and Spatial Aspects in OWL using Patterns

WWW is a huge, open, heterogeneous system, however its contents data is mainly human oriented. The Semantic Web needs to assure that data is readable and “understandable” to intelligent software agents, though the use of explicit and formal semantics. Ontologies constitute a privileged artifact for capturing the semantic of the WWW data. Temporal and spatial dimensions are transversal to the generality of knowledge domains and therefore are fundamental for the reasoning process of software agents. Representing temporal/spatial evolution of concepts and their relations in OWL (W3C standard for ontologies) it is not straightforward. Although proposed several strategies to tackle this problem but there is still no formal and standard approach. This work main goal consists of development of methods/tools to support the engineering of temporal and spatial aspects in intelligent systems through the use of OWL ontologies. An existing method for ontology engineering, Fonte was used as framework for the development of this work. As main contributions of this work Fonte was re-engineered in order to: i) support the spatial dimension; ii) work with OWL Ontologies; iii) and support the application of Ontology Design Patterns. Finally, the capabilities of the proposed approach were demonstrated by engineering time and space in a demo ontology about football.

Modelling spatial decisión support systems focused on the development of a data warehouse: applying software engineering

Nowadays, organizations have plenty of data stored in DB databases, which contain invaluable information. Decision Support Systems DSS provide the support needed to manage this information and planning médium and long-term ?the modus operandi? of these organizations. Despite the growing importance of these systems, most proposals do not include its total evelopment, mostly limiting itself on the development of isolated parts, which often have serious integration problems. Hence, methodologies that include models and processes that consider every factor are necessary. This paper will try to fill this void as it proposes an approach for developing spatial DSS driven by the development of their associated Data Warehouse DW, without forgetting its other components. To the end of framing the proposal different Engineering Software focus (The Software Engineering Process and Model Driven Architecture) are used, and coupling with the DB development methodology, (and both of them adapted to DW peculiarities). Finally, an example illustrates the proposal.

The Effect of Spatial Scale on Predicting Time Series: A Study on Epidemiological System Identification

A susceptible-infective-recovered (SIR) epidemiological model based on probabilistic cellular automaton (PCA) is employed for simulating the temporal evolution of the registered cases of chickenpox in Arizona, USA, between 1994 and 2004. At each time step, every individual is in one of the states S, I, or R. The parameters of this model are the probabilities of each individual (each cell forming the PCA lattice ) passing from a state to another state. Here, the values of these probabilities are identified by using a genetic algorithm. If nonrealistic values are allowed to the parameters, the predictions present better agreement with the historical series than if they are forced to present realistic values. A discussion about how the size of the PCA lattice affects the quality of the model predictions is presented. Copyright (C) 2009 L. H. A. Monteiro et al.

Application of spatial analysis techniques to adjust for fertility trends and identify interplot competition in early stage sugarcane selection trials

Most sugarcane breeding programs in Australia use large unreplicated trials to evaluate clones in the early stages of selection. Commercial varieties that are replicated provide a method of local control of soil fertility. Although such methods may be useful in detecting broad trends in the field, variation often occurs on a much smaller scale. Methods such as spatial analysis adjust a plot for variability by using information from immediate neighbours. These techniques are routinely used to analyse cereal data in Australia and have resulted in increased accuracy and precision in the estimates of variety effects. In this paper, spatial analyses in which the variability is decomposed into local, natural, and extraneous components are applied to early selection trials in sugarcane. Interplot competition in cane yield and trend in sugar content were substantial in many of the trials and there were often large differences in the selections between the spatial and current method used by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. A joint modelling approach for tonnes sugar per hectare in response to fertility trends and interplot competition is recommended.

Spatial operators for collaborative map handling

MSC Dissertation in Computer Engineering

A plugin for spatial and thematic comparison in the cadastral domain.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Conservation GIS: Ontology and spatial reasoning for commonsense knowledge.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

Correction of spatial distortion in magnetic resonance imaging

Dissertation to Obtain the Degree of Master in Biomedical Engineering

Light responsive multilayer surfaces with controlled spatial extinction capability

Multilayer systems obtained using the Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technology have been proposed for a variety of biomedical applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. LbL assembly is a simple and highly versatile method to modify surfaces and fabricate robust and highly-ordered nanostructured coatings over almost any type of substrates and with a wide range of substances. The incorporation of polyoxometalate (POM) inorganic salts as constituents of the layers presents a possibility of promoting light-stimuli responses in LbL substrates. We propose the design of a biocompatible photo-responsive multilayer system based on a Preyssler-type POM ([NaP5W30O110]14â ) and a natural origin polymer, chitosan, using the LbL methodology. The photo-reduction properties of the POM allow the spatially controlled disruption of the assembled layers due to the weakening of the electrostatic interactions between the layers. This system has found applicability in detaching devices, such as the cell sheet technology, which may solve the drawbacks actually found in other cell treatment proposals.

Spatial analysis of the relationship between mortality from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease and drinking water hardness.

Previously published scientific papers have reported a negative correlation between drinking water hardness and cardiovascular mortality. Some ecologic and case-control studies suggest the protective effect of calcium and magnesium concentration in drinking water. In this article we present an analysis of this protective relationship in 538 municipalities of Comunidad Valenciana (Spain) from 1991-1998. We used the Spanish version of the Rapid Inquiry Facility (RIF) developed under the European Environment and Health Information System (EUROHEIS) research project. The strategy of analysis used in our study conforms to the exploratory nature of the RIF that is used as a tool to obtain quick and flexible insight into epidemiologic surveillance problems. This article describes the use of the RIF to explore possible associations between disease indicators and environmental factors. We used exposure analysis to assess the effect of both protective factors--calcium and magnesium--on mortality from cerebrovascular (ICD-9 430-438) and ischemic heart (ICD-9 410-414) diseases. This study provides statistical evidence of the relationship between mortality from cardiovascular diseases and hardness of drinking water. This relationship is stronger in cerebrovascular disease than in ischemic heart disease, is more pronounced for women than for men, and is more apparent with magnesium than with calcium concentration levels. Nevertheless, the protective nature of these two factors is not clearly established. Our results suggest the possibility of protectiveness but cannot be claimed as conclusive. The weak effects of these covariates make it difficult to separate them from the influence of socioeconomic and environmental factors. We have also performed disease mapping of standardized mortality ratios to detect clusters of municipalities with high risk. Further standardization by levels of calcium and magnesium in drinking water shows changes in the maps when we remove the effect of these covariates.

DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES OF LOCAL INFLUENCE IN SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF SOYBEAN YIELD

Modeling of spatial dependence structure, concerning geoestatistics approach, is an indispensable tool for fixing parameters that define this structure, applied on interpolation of values in places that are not sampled, by kriging techniques. However, the estimation of parameters can be greatly affected by the presence of atypical observations on sampled data. Thus, this trial aimed at using diagnostics techniques of local influence in spatial linear Gaussians models, applied at geoestatistics in order to evaluate sensitivity of maximum likelihood estimators and restrict maximum likelihood to small perturbations in these data. So, studies with simulated and experimental data were performed. Those results, obtained from the study of real data, allowed us to conclude that the presence of atypical values among the sampled data can have a strong influence on thematic maps, changing, therefore, the spatial dependence. The application of diagnostics techniques of local influence should be part of any geoestatistic analysis, ensuring that the information from thematic maps has better quality and can be used with greater security by farmers.