Meeting Review: Airborne Aerosol Inlet Workshop

Proceedings from the Airborne Aerosol Inlet Workshop are presented. The two central topics of discussion were the role of aerosols in atmospheric processes and the difficulties in characterizing aerosols. The following topics were discussed during the working sessions: airborne observations to date; identification of inlet design issues; inlet modeling needs and directions; objectives for aircraft experiments; and future laboratory and wind tunnel studies

A Survey on Visual Analytics of Social Media Data

The unprecedented availability of social media data offers substantial opportunities for data owners, system operators, solution providers, and end users to explore and understand social dynamics. However, the exponential growth in the volume, velocity, and variability of social media data prevents people from fully utilizing such data. Visual analytics, which is an emerging research direction, ha..

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 2 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division 9 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 12 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 14 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 16 Advertisements IEEE

Modeling, Visualizing, and Understanding Complex Tectonic Structures on the Surface and in the Sub-Surface

Plate tectonics is a relatively new theory with many details of plate dynamics which remain to be worked out. Moving plates can interact by divergence, lateral sliding, convergence, or collision. At a convergent plate boundary, a lithospheric slab of oceanic crust and upper mantle is subducted at a trench and dips down under a magmatic arc — either oceanic or continental. Textbooks show a static view of convergent boundaries but plate dynamics require that subduction zones and magmatic arcs must migrate with time. Therefore I develop animated models to help convey this motion. Also, convergent plate boundaries cannot continue along strike or down dip indefinitely without changing. Subduction zones change orientation and eventually terminate. They may bend and shear or tear and open a window for asthenospheric flow. Two different convergent plate boundaries are the primary focus of my studies: the Tonga subduction zone where the Pacific plate moving beneath an island arc is torn along the Samoan Island Archipelago, and the Andean subduction zone in central South America where the Nazca plate moves beneath a continental arc. I choose these zones because they exhibit tears or shears, where subduction stops, or changes dip suddenly. To examine these features I use several modeling and visualization techniques. COLLADA (COLLabrative Design Activity) models in Google Earth and Google Earth Application Programming Interface (API) are used for visualizing and teaching of plate boundary systems. The testing of COLLADA models for geoscience concepts showed positive learning gains. Kinematic models are made to study strain rates and possible methods of plate evolution. Dynamic COMSOL numerical models are created to probe temperature and flow fields in the subduction zone. Animated COLLADA models are designed for different models of subduction initiation and development for the Tonga trench for both research and educational purposes. The development of these models led to a new hypothesis of this region\u27s formation. Using these models and Google Earth materials studies in undergraduate classes tested the effectiveness of Google Earth based lab activities for enhancing student understanding of geoscience. In the central Andean subduction zone, emergent COLLADA models are made from mining GeoMapApp (http://www.geomapapp.org) and published contour data to demonstrate the unique geometry of the Nazca plate having adjacent subduction angles of 10° and 30°. This led to the research question, can theNazca plate support this geometry by shearing without tearing? A literature review shows efforts to explore this topic by means of hypocenter, teleseismic, and thermal data to have no consensus on the topic. To this end a new approach is taken to examine this region by applying the methods of kinematic and dynamic modeling to further explore this question. These different models of the Andean system lead to the conclusion that no major magmatic window could have opened between the fiat and steep subduction areas given the time and deformation mechanisms available

Physical pixels

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 48-51).The picture element, or pixel, is a conceptual unit of representation for digital information. Like all data structures of the computer, pixels are invisible and therefore require an output device to be seen. The physical unit of display, or physical pixel, can be any form that makes the pixel visible. Pixels are often represented as the electronically addressable phosphors of a video monitor, but the potential for different visualizations inspires the development of novel phenotypes. Four new systems of physical pixels are presented: Nami, Peano, the Digital Palette and 20/20 Refurbished. In each case, the combination of material, hardware and software design results in a unique visualization of computation. The chief contribution of this research is the articulation of a mode of artistic practice in which custom units of representation integrate physical and digital media to engender a new art.by Kelly Bowman Heaton.S.M

Integrating case based reasoning and geographic information systems in a planing support system: Çeşme Peninsula study

Thesis (Doctoral)--Izmir Institute of Technology, City and Regional Planning, Izmir, 2009Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 110-121)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxii, 140 leavesUrban and regional planning is experiencing fundamental changes on the use of of computer-based models in planning practice and education. However, with this increased use, .Geographic Information Systems. (GIS) or .Computer Aided Design.(CAD) alone cannot serve all of the needs of planning. Computational approaches should be modified to deal better with the imperatives of contemporary planning by using artificial intelligence techniques in city planning process.The main aim of this study is to develop an integrated .Planning Support System. (PSS) tool for supporting the planning process. In this research, .Case Based Reasoning. (CBR) .an artificial intelligence technique- and .Geographic Information Systems. (GIS) .geographic analysis, data management and visualization techniqueare used as a major PSS tools to build a .Case Based System. (CBS) for knowledge representation on an operational study. Other targets of the research are to discuss the benefits of CBR method in city planning domain and to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of this technique in a PSS. .Çeşme Peninsula. case study which applied under the desired methodology is presented as an experimental and operational stage of the thesis.This dissertation tried to find out whether an integrated model which employing CBR&GIS could support human decision making in a city planning task. While the CBS model met many of predefined goals of the thesis, both advantages and limitations have been realized from findings when applied to the complex domain such as city planning

Research and development technique for estimating airflow and diffusion parameters related to the Atmospheric Water Resources Program: final report

Period September 1969 to September 1971.CER71-72MMO-JEC-LOG20.Includes bibliographical references

Parallelization and Visual Analysis of Multidimensional Fields: Application to Ozone Production, Destruction, and Transport in Three Dimensions

The three-dimensional, spectral transport model used in the current project was first successfully integrated over climatological time scales by Dr. Guang Ping Lou for the simulation of atmospheric N2O using the United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO) 4-dimensional, assimilated wind and temperature data set. A non-parallel, FORTRAN version of this integration using a fairly simple N2O chemistry package containing only photo-chemical reactions was used to verify our initial parallel model results. The integrations reproduced the gross features of the observed stratospheric climatological N2O distributions but also simulated the structure of the stratospheric Antarctic vortex and its evolution. Subsequently, Dr. Thomas Kindler, who produced much of the parallel version of our model, enlarged the N2O model chemistry package to include N2O reactions involving O(D-1) and also introduced assimilated wind data from NASA as well as UKMO. Initially, transport calculations without chemistry were run using Carbon-14 as a non-reactive tracer gas with the result that large differences in the transport properties of the two assimilated wind data sets were apparent from the resultant Carbon-14 distributions. Subsequent calculations for N2O, including its chemistry, with the two input winds data sets with verification from UARS satellite observations have refined the transport differences between the two such that the model's steering capabilities could be used to infer the correct climatological vertical velocity fields required to support the N2O observations. During this process, it was also discovered that both the NASA and the UKMO data contained spurious values in some of the higher frequency wave components, leading to incorrect local transport calculations and ultimately affecting the large scale properties of the model's N2O distributions, particularly at tropical latitudes. Subsequent model runs with wind data that had been filtered to remove some of the high frequency components produced much more realistic N2O distributions. During the past few months, the UKMO wind data base for a complete two-year period was processed into spectral form for model use. This new version of the input transport data base now includes complete temperature fields as well as the necessary wind data. This was done to facilitate advanced chemical calculations in the parallel model which often depend upon temperature. Additional UKMO data is being added as it becomes available

CFD Simulation of Mixing And Segregation in a Tapered Fluidized Bed

Fluidization of different materials results either in a well-mixed or a segregated bed. Depending upon the operating conditions, smaller particles (floatsam) tend to rise to the bed, and larger particles (jetsam) tend to sink to the bottom of the bed. The tapered fluidized bed can be used to overcome certain draw backs of the gas-solid system because of the fact that a velocity gradient exists along the axial direction of the bed with increase in cross-sectional area. To study the dynamic characteristics of the homogenous mixture of regular and irregular particles several experiments have been carried out with varying compositions.The particle flow pattern and granule segregation in tapered fluidized bed have been studied by first fluidizing the beds of varying total mass and granule fractions and then defluidize them suddenly to freeze the composition, section the bed in layers, and determine the composition in each layer by sieving. A series of unsteady, three-fluid CFD simulations were performed using FLUENTTM 6.2. Simulation parameters viz. solution technique, grid, maximum packing fraction and operating conditions like gas velocity were each investigated for the relative effects on particle mixing and segregation. Good agreement of solid volume fraction profile was obtained between the experimental results and simulation results for regular particle