Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor (UMEP) : An integrated tool for city-based climate services

UMEP (Urban Multi-scale Environmental Predictor), a city-based climate service tool, combines models and tools essential for climate simulations. Applications are presented to illustrate UMEP's potential in the identification of heat waves and cold waves; the impact of green infrastructure on runoff; the effects of buildings on human thermal stress; solar energy production; and the impact of human activities on heat emissions. UMEP has broad utility for applications related to outdoor thermal comfort, wind, urban energy consumption and climate change mitigation. It includes tools to enable users to input atmospheric and surface data from multiple sources, to characterise the urban environment, to prepare meteorological data for use in cities, to undertake simulations and consider scenarios, and to compare and visualise different combinations of climate indicators. An open-source tool, UMEP is designed to be easily updated as new data and tools are developed, and to be accessible to researchers, decision-makers and practitioners. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

System-of-Systems Considerations in the Notional Development of a Metropolitan Aerial Transportation System

There are substantial future challenges related to sustaining and improving efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly transportation options for urban regions. Over the past several decades there has been a worldwide trend towards increasing urbanization of society. Accompanying this urbanization are increasing surface transportation infrastructure costs and, despite public infrastructure investments, increasing surface transportation "gridlock." In addition to this global urbanization trend, there has been a substantial increase in concern regarding energy sustainability, fossil fuel emissions, and the potential implications of global climate change. A recently completed study investigated the feasibility of an aviation solution for future urban transportation (refs. 1, 2). Such an aerial transportation system could ideally address some of the above noted concerns related to urbanization, transportation gridlock, and fossil fuel emissions (ref. 3). A metro/regional aerial transportation system could also provide enhanced transportation flexibility to accommodate extraordinary events such as surface (rail/road) transportation network disruptions and emergency/disaster relief responses

Impacts of Precipitation, Land use Land cover and Soil type on the Water Balance of Lake Chad Basin

Title from PDF of title page, viewed on March 31, 2014Dissertation advisor: Jejung LeeVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 188-194)Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Geosciences and Dept. of Civil and Mechanical Engineering. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2013Lake Chad Basin (LCB) has experienced drastic changes in land cover and poor water management practices during the last 50 years. The successive droughts in the 1970s and 1980s resulted in a decrease in surface water and groundwater resources. This problem of drought has a devastating implication on the natural resources of the Basin with great consequence on food security, poverty reduction and quality of life of the inhabitants in the LCB. Therefore, understanding the precipitation variation, land use / land cover changes and soil type must be a first step to find how they impact on the hydrological cycle in the LCB. Integrated hydrologic modeling is one of most effective approaches used for analyzing hydrologic feedbacks. A rapid process of hydrological modeling is necessary in terms of cost effectiveness and computational efficiency, but limited data availability, especially in Africa, affects the practical use of the model. A spatially distributed water balance model WetSpass is employed in this study to simulate a long-term average change of seasonal and spatial distribution of surface runoff, interception, evapotranspiration and recharge in the LCB of Africa. The model is especially suitable for studying the effect of land use/land cover change and soil type on the water regime in the LCB. Soil evaporation, transpiration and surface runoff show higher correlations with precipitation. Surface runoff account for about 50 - 70% for the built-up areas, which is 2 to 3 times higher than the runoff from the agricultural land. The annual mean interception in LCB for the period 2003 - 2010 ranges from 0 - 63 mm with the mixed forest intercepting more water than open vegetation such as grass and shrub. Also the annual mean actual evapotranspiration ranges from 60 - 400 mm, which constitute 90% of the annual precipitation (69 – 430 mm) from 2003 - 2010. The analysis also shows that the shrub and agricultural land are more sensitive to the change of precipitation for balancing of transpiration and soil evaporation. The study shows that agriculture and built-up on sand, loamy sand and sandy loam produce the highest recharge. All water balance components except recharge have high variation throughout the study period in the LCBAbstract -- List of illustrations -- List of tables -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Literature review -- Methodology -- Results -- Discussion of and verification -- Conclusions -- Appendix -- Reference

Recataloguing and reclassification projects and methods in Cape Town libraries

Includes bibliographies.Cataloguing and classification are fields of librarianship currently experiencing many alterations to long established procedures. Constant changes in both field of knowledge and in internationally standardized cataloguing rules and classification systems result in increasingly complex problems at libraries to which librarians should attempt to provide, economical solutions. A current technical problem confronting librarians is that the maintenance of a catalogue and a classified bookstock frequently results in continuous recataloguing and reclassification of retrospective titles. The knowledge that this technical problem is connnon to many libraries prompted this study of recataloguing and reclassification projects and methods in seven Cape Town libraries. An objective of this study is to examine the situation which in the necessity for recataloguing and the circumstances under which it can be undertaken as an economical proposition at a library. The aim is also to assess which aspects of a recataloguing project time-consuming and whether improvements can be implemented in the routines at libraries in order to effect a greater economy in operation

Pan-European Risk Management in SDIs

This report describes the ORCHESTRA pilot for pan-European hazard-assessment (PEUNHA). ORCHESTRA stands for Open Architecture and Spatial Data Infrastructure for Risk Management. As an Integrated Project, ORCHESTRA was partly funded by the European Commission¿s 6th framework program within the action IST-2002-2.3.2.9 Improving Risk management [IST-2002-51167]. The goal of ORCHESTRA was to design and implement the specifications for a service oriented spatial data infrastructure to improve interoperability between risk management authorities in Europe, and to improve the handling of disaster risk reduction strategies and emergency management operations. This report describes the work on a pilot for pan-European hazard-assessment, carried out during the ORCHESTRA Work Package (WP) 4.2. The focus of the pilot lies on the development of applications supporting hazard, damage and risk assessment for forest fires and floods. The report covers the application and related use cases, the platform-specific service specifications, and the prototypic implementations. It closes with lessons learned.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat

The development of an endoprosthesis for the metacarpophalangeal joint

Rheumatoid arthritis is a painful and debilitating disease which often afflicts the key joint of the hand, the metacarpophalangeal joint. In the worst cases the diseased joint has to be replaced with an artificial joint or prosthesis. The development of the Durham metacarpophalangeal prosthesis as it was taken from prototypes through to production samples, is described in this thesis. Testing of several Durham prostheses to over 70 million cycles has been carried out on a finger function simulator and consistent wear factors of the order of 0.4 x 10(^-) (^6)mm(^3)/Nm have been measured. These wear factors for the prosthesis were also significantly lower than any found previously. Production samples of the prosthesis have been manufactured together with appropriate surgical instrumentation. Tests of the prosthesis material, cross-linked polyethylene, rubbing against itself, have been undertaken on reciprocating pin on plate rigs and again show total wear factors of the order of 0.4 x lO(^-6)mm(^3)/Nm. Interestingly, it was found that pin wear was very much less than plate wear. The pin on plate tests were extended to include ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) rubbing against UHMWPE, as well as both polyethylenes against hard counterfaces and the results are reported. A new finger function simulator has been designed, manufactured and a validation test undertaken. Having written the necessary protocol, in conjunction with clinicians and the prosthesis manufacturer, ethical approval was obtained from the local research ethics committee and the Medical Devices Agency, to permit implantation of the prosthesis in human subjects. Lastly a hand strength measurement device for pre and post operation assessment of patients has been developed and manufactured

Manuel de formation à l’analyse spatiale de la diversité et de la distribution des plantes

Ce manuel de formation est destiné aux chercheurs et étudiants qui travaillent avec des données sur la biodiversité et qui souhaitent développer des compétences pour mener à bien des analyses spatiales basées sur des applications SIG (gratuites) qui mettent l’accent sur les analyses écologiques et de la biodiversité. Ces analyses offrent une meilleure compréhension de la répartition spatiale de la diversité et de la distribution des plantes, contribuant ainsi à améliorer les efforts de conservation. Le manuel de formation se concentre sur les plantes d'intérêt permettant d’améliorer les moyens de subsistance (par exemple des cultures de bases, des arbres et des plantes sauvages apparentées) et / ou celles qui sont en voie de disparition. Les analyses spatiales de la diversité inter- et intra-spécifique sont expliquées en utilisant différents types de données: présence des espècesdonnées de caractérisation morphologiquedonnées moléculaires Bien que cette formation se concentre sur la diversité végétale, la plupart des types d'analyses décrits peuvent également être appliqués à d'autres organismes tels que les animaux et les champignons. Le manuel est basé sur des exercices spécifiques, utilisant les données de projets réelles. Pour utiliser pleinement le manuel, vous aurez besoin de télécharger les données pertinentes correspondant aux exercices (énumérés ci-dessous). Télécharger les données de l'exercice en un seul fichier (qui, par décompression, crée les différents dossiers utilisés dans le manuel): Seul fichier 2.1 Importation de données d'observation 5.2 Diversité - données phénotypiques 2.2 Importation de données climatiques 5.3 Diversité - données des marqueurs moléculaires 3.1 Eléments de base 5.4 Stratégies de conservation 3.2 Exporter vers Google Earth 6.1 Niche effective 4.1 Contrôle qualité - unités administratives 6.2 Distribution potentielle 4.2 Contrôle qualité - points atypiques 6.3 Changement climatique 5.1 Diversité des espèces 6.4 Analyse des lacunes Le manuel peut être utilisé pour l'auto-apprentissage ainsi que pour des activités de formation telles que des séminaires ou des cours de courte durée sur les aspects fondamentaux de l'analyse spatiale. Pour ens savoir plus:Mapping the ecogeographic distribution of biodiversity and GIS tools for plant germplasm collector

Comparison of AVHRR, MODIS and VEGETATION for land cover mapping and drought monitoring at 1 km spatial resolution

Low spatial resolution remote sensors are one of the best data sources for large area land cover mapping and drought monitoring. This study was concerned with identifying which of the three most operational such sensors (AVHRR, MODIS, and VEGETATION), were likely to help produce the best results within the mentioned applications. A rigorous review of the sensors’ characteristics led to the hypothesis that in land cover mapping and drought monitoring applications MODIS is most likely to achieve the best results followed by VEGETATION and lastly by AVHRR. This hypothesis was tested against experimental results generated within this study. A methodology was developed allowing for unbiased relative comparison of the capacity of the sensors’ Solar Reflective Bands (SRBs) to map land cover, and was applied to data collected over the UK and Greece, for which maps were produced using data collected by each sensor over the same dates and sites, and accuracy estimated using reference data. In the majority of cases the most accurate maps were produced by MODIS data; however, there were cases when maps produced by AVHRR and particularly VEGETATION data were more accurate. Drought monitoring methodologies for low resolution data require historical Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) records extending longer than MODIS and VEGETATION operational times. Towards solving this limitation, the relationships between the sensors’ NDVI measurements over the same targets were investigated. It was found that NDVI data for one sensor could be predicted from NDVI data collected by another sensor with considerable accuracy. Consequently, MODIS and VEGETATION historical NDVI records could be extended based on past AVHRR data, and applications could be benefited by interchanging sensors for provision of NDVI data in the event of a sensor failure. These extended datasets were used to assess drought conditions over Ethiopia with the aim of using the Vegetation Productivity Indicator (VPI) methodology. The sensors’ NDVI data responsiveness to rainfall was assessed, finding MODIS NDVI data to best reflect rainfall conditions, and likely to produce more accurate VPI results. Overall the experimental results generated in this study supported the initial hypothesis.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo