A roadmap for China to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve a 20% share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy by 2030

As part of its Paris Agreement commitment, China pledged to peak carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions around 2030, striving to peak earlier, and to increase the non-fossil share of primary energy to 20% by 2030. Yet by the end of 2017, China emitted 28% of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions, 76% of which were from coal use. How China can reinvent its energy economy cost-effectively while still achieving its commitments was the focus of a three-year joint research project completed in September 2016. Overall, this analysis found that if China follows a pathway in which it aggressively adopts all cost-effective energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction technologies while also aggressively moving away from fossil fuels to renewable and other non-fossil resources, it is possible to not only meet its Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments, but also to reduce its 2050 CO2 emissions to a level that is 42% below the country's 2010 CO2 emissions. While numerous barriers exist that will need to be addressed through effective policies and programs in order to realize these potential energy use and emissions reductions, there are also significant local environmental (e.g., air quality), national and global environmental (e.g., mitigation of climate change), human health, and other unquantified benefits that will be realized if this pathway is pursued in China

Towards the use of unmanned aerial systems for providing sustainable services in smart cities

La sostenibilidad está en el centro de muchos campos de aplicación en los que el uso de los sistemas aéreos no tripulados (SUA) es cada vez más importante (por ejemplo, la agricultura, la detección y predicción de incendios, la vigilancia ambiental, la cartografía, etc.). Sin embargo, su uso y evolución están muy condicionados por el campo de aplicación específico para el que están diseñados y, por lo tanto, no pueden ser fácilmente reutilizados entre los diferentes campos de aplicación. Desde este punto de vista, al no ser polivalentes, podemos decir que no son totalmente sostenibles. Teniendo esto en cuenta, el objetivo de este trabajo es doble: por un lado, identificar el conjunto de características que debe proporcionar un UAS para ser considerado sostenible y demostrar que no hay ningún UAS que satisfaga todas estas características; por otra parte, presentar una arquitectura abierta y sostenible de los UAS que pueda utilizarse para construir UAS a petición para proporcionar las características necesarias en cada campo de aplicación. Dado que esta arquitectura se basa principalmente en la adaptabilidad del software y el hardware, contribuye a la sostenibilidad técnica de las ciudades.Sustainability is at the heart of many application fields where the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is becoming more and more important (e.g., agriculture, fire detection and prediction, environmental surveillance, mapping, etc.). However, their usage and evolution are highly conditioned by the specific application field they are designed for, and thus, they cannot be easily reused among different application fields. From this point of view, being that they are not multipurpose, we can say that they are not fully sustainable. Bearing this in mind, the objective of this paper is two-fold: on the one hand, to identify the whole set of features that must be provided by a UAS to be considered sustainable and to show that there is no UAS satisfying all these features; on the other hand, to present an open and sustainable UAS architecture that may be used to build UAS on demand to provide the features needed in each application field. Since this architecture is mainly based on software and hardware adaptability, it contributes to the technical sustainability of cities.• Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad y Fondos FEDER. Proyecto TIN2015-69957-R (I+D+i) • Junta de Extremadura y Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional. Ayuda GR15098 y IB16055 • Parcialmente financiado por Interreg V-A España-Portugal (POCTEP) 2014-2020 program. Proyecto 0045-4IE-4-PpeerReviewe

Mind Control Robotic Arm: Augmentative and Alternative Communication in the Classroom Environment

In recent years, technological advancements have greatly benefited the field of prosthetics. A large number of disabled people depend on prosthetics because they are an important technology. In order to provide augmentative and alternative methods of communication to these disabled people with various neuromuscular disorders, we must make sure they are provided with appropriate equipment to express themselves. Different types of arms are evaluated under robotic technology in terms of resistance, usability, flexibility, cost, and potential (such as robotic, surgical, bionic, prosthetic, and static arms). The main problems with these techniques are their high cost, the difficulty of installing and maintaining them, and the possibility of requiring surgery may arise. As a result, this paper is going to provide a description of the idea for combining an EEG controlled smart prosthetic arm with a smart robotic hand. An electrode headset is used to capture the signals from the robotic hand in order to control the device. Creating a robot arm that can help disabled people lead a more independent life is the main objective of this paper

Design and performance evaluation of smart dissemination of emergence messages in vehicular ad-hoc networks

The growing demand to improve road safety and optimize road traffic has generated great interest in vehicular ad-hoc network (VANETs). Serious traffic accidents can cause financial losses, physical disability, and even death. However, if drivers were informed about the danger in advance through a warning message, this would give drivers enough time to react appropriately to the situation. There are many approaches that can prevent car accidents, and VANETs have been conceived as an excellent solution to improve road safety, through the use of a variety of applications enabled by vehicle communications. The key objective of this research is to achieve information dissemination from a vehicle to other vehicles around that migth be interested in receiving the content. We focus on the network layer and application layer protocols, which are discussed and developed as a protocol over the respective access technologies. We primarily present the research results of our proposals, and also provide a comprehensive review of existing challenges and solutions in data dissemination in VANETs. Our proposals include the design of three dissemination protocols compatible with the IEEE 802.11p standards for road safety applications. These dissemination protocols can be differentiated by their application trigger condition and the broadcast scheme. All three dissemination protocols have been implemented in the simulator VEINS to perform several large-scale experiments. The results of the experiments have shown that all three dissemination protocols are able to cope with an increasing number of vehicles in large scale scenarios without sufering a noticeable loss in performance. Finally, we have investigated solutions to increase the driver's privacy because VANETs can also introduce some location privacy risk by periodically broadcast beacon messages that include the vehicle's position. We evaluate the performance of the privacy schemes, described the experiments and discussed the results.La creixent demanda per millorar la seguretat viària i optimitzar el trànsit viari ha generat gran interès en les xarxes vehiculars ad-hoc (VANETs). Els accidents de trànsit greus poden causar pèrdues financeres, discapacitat física i fins i tot la mort. No obstant això, si els conductors van ser informats per endavant sobre el perill a través d’un missatge d’advertència, això donaria als conductors el temps suficient per reaccionar de manera apropiada a la situació. Hi ha molts enfocaments que poden prevenir accidents automobilístics, i les VANETs s’han concebut com una excel·lent solució per millorar la seguretat viària, a través de l’ús d’una varietat d’aplicacions habilitades per les comunicacions vehiculars. L’objectiu principal d’aquesta investigació és aconseguir la disseminació de la informació des d’un vehicle a altres vehicles que estiguin interessats en rebre el contingut. Ens enfoquem en la capa de xarxa i els protocols de capa d’aplicació, que es discuteixen i desenvolupen com un protocol sobre les respectives tecnologies d'accés. Principalment vam presentar els resultats d’investigació de les nostres propostes, i també provem una revisió exhaustiva dels desafiaments i solucions existents en la disseminació de dades en les VANETs. Les nostres propostes inclouen el disseny de tres protocols de disseminació compatibles amb els estàndards IEEE 802.11p per a aplicacions de seguretat viària. Aquests protocols de disseminació es poden diferenciar per la condició d’activació de l’aplicació i l’esquema de difusió. Els tres protocols de disseminació s’han implementat en el simulador VEINS per a realitzar diversos experiments a gran escala. Els resultats dels experiments han demostrat que els tres protocols de disseminació són capaços de fer front a un nombre creixent de vehicles en escenaris de gran escala sense patir una pèrdua notable en el rendiment. Finalment, hem investigat solucions per augmentar la privacitat del conductor perquè les VANETs també poden introduir algun risc de privacitat de la ubicació mitjanant missatges beacon emesos periòdicament que inclouen la posició dels vehicles. Avaluem l’acompliment dels esquemes de privacitat, descrivim els experiments i discutim els resultats.Postprint (published version

Carbon Free Boston: Social equity report 2019

OVERVIEW: In January 2019, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission released its Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report, identifying potential options for the City of Boston to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The report found that reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 requires three mutually-reinforcing strategies in key sectors: 1) deepen energy efficiency while reducing energy demand, 2) electrify activity to the fullest practical extent, and 3) use fuels and electricity that are 100 percent free of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Summary Report detailed the ways in which these technical strategies will transform Boston’s physical infrastructure, including its buildings, energy supply, transportation, and waste management systems. The Summary Report also highlighted that it is how these strategies are designed and implemented that matter most in ensuring an effective and equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Equity concerns exist for every option the City has to reduce GHG emissions. The services provided by each sector are not experienced equally across Boston’s communities. Low-income families and families of color are more likely to live in residences that are in poor physical condition, leading to high utility bills, unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments, and high GHG emissions.1 Those same families face greater exposure to harmful outdoor air pollution compared to others. The access and reliability of public transportation is disproportionately worse in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, and large swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods, from East Boston to Mattapan, do not have ready access to the city’s bike network. Income inequality is a growing national issue and is particularly acute in Boston, which consistently ranks among the highest US cities in regards to income disparities. With the release of Imagine Boston 2030, Mayor Walsh committed to make Boston more equitable, affordable, connected, and resilient. The Summary Report outlined the broad strokes of how action to reach carbon neutrality intersects with equity. A just transition to carbon neutrality improves environmental quality for all Bostonians, prioritizes socially vulnerable populations, seeks to redress current and past injustice, and creates economic and social opportunities for all. This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon neutrality, framed around three guiding principles: 1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences, 2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens, and 3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Electronic Imaging & the Visual Arts. EVA 2013 Florence

Important Information Technology topics are presented: multimedia systems, data-bases, protection of data, access to the content. Particular reference is reserved to digital images (2D, 3D) regarding Cultural Institutions (Museums, Libraries, Palace – Monuments, Archaeological Sites). The main parts of the Conference Proceedings regard: Strategic Issues, EC Projects and Related Networks & Initiatives, International Forum on “Culture & Technology”, 2D – 3D Technologies & Applications, Virtual Galleries – Museums and Related Initiatives, Access to the Culture Information. Three Workshops are related to: International Cooperation, Innovation and Enterprise, Creative Industries and Cultural Tourism

Collaborative geographic visualization

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão e Sistemas AmbientaisThe present document is a revision of essential references to take into account when developing ubiquitous Geographical Information Systems (GIS) with collaborative visualization purposes. Its chapters focus, respectively, on general principles of GIS, its multimedia components and ubiquitous practices; geo-referenced information visualization and its graphical components of virtual and augmented reality; collaborative environments, its technological requirements, architectural specificities, and models for collective information management; and some final considerations about the future and challenges of collaborative visualization of GIS in ubiquitous environment

Inclusivity insights:two urban development projects in Johannesburg

Johannesburg, which is South Africa’s largest city and economic center, is still influenced by patterns of inequality of the past. Although spatial transformation has been rapid since 1994, spatial divisions along class lines are still prevalent long after the apartheid era. This is despite the fact that societal values such as inclusivity, spatial justice and equal access to resources have become the core goals of Johannesburg’s spatial and urban development. This is particularly true when addressing housing, public open spaces, transport and social infrastructure embedded in a suitable land-use mix. However, despite the adoption of numerous policies by government, this research indicates that even recent urban development projects such as Fleurhof and Waterfall are falling short in delivering those objectives. Based on a case study analysis, we show that significant disfunctionalities become evident when evaluating these two projects, despite their meeting relevant indicators of spatial inclusion on paper. Tensions are identified between theoretical approaches and the implementation of societally relevant policy goals. These include inclusivity and spatial justice by mostly privatized provision of housing and services, and deficiencies in public maintenance of infrastructure. The research reveals, that ‘ticking-the-boxes’ behavior on policy and project level does not produce equitable, inclusive neighborhoods and urban spatial patterns, but rather reproduces spatial inequalities of the past. If these policies are to result in real spatial change and improvement in the lives of Johannesburg residents, a more proactive approach by the public sector at different levels will be necessary