5,927 research outputs found
The role of earth observation in an integrated deprived area mapping “system” for low-to-middle income countries
Urbanization in the global South has been accompanied by the proliferation of vast informal and marginalized urban areas that lack access to essential services and infrastructure. UN-Habitat estimates that close to a billion people currently live in these deprived and informal urban settlements, generally grouped under the term of urban slums. Two major knowledge gaps undermine the efforts to monitor progress towards the corresponding sustainable development goal (i.e., SDG 11—Sustainable Cities and Communities). First, the data available for cities worldwide is patchy and insufficient to differentiate between the diversity of urban areas with respect to their access to essential services and their specific infrastructure needs. Second, existing approaches used to map deprived areas (i.e., aggregated household data, Earth observation (EO), and community-driven data collection) are mostly siloed, and, individually, they often lack transferability and scalability and fail to include the opinions of different interest groups. In particular, EO-based-deprived area mapping approaches are mostly top-down, with very little attention given to ground information and interaction with urban communities and stakeholders. Existing top-down methods should be complemented with bottom-up approaches to produce routinely updated, accurate, and timely deprived area maps. In this review, we first assess the strengths and limitations of existing deprived area mapping methods. We then propose an Integrated Deprived Area Mapping System (IDeAMapS) framework that leverages the strengths of EO- and community-based approaches. The proposed framework offers a way forward to map deprived areas globally, routinely, and with maximum accuracy to support SDG 11 monitoring and the needs of different interest groups
NSSDC Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies for Space and Earth Science Applications, volume 1
Papers and viewgraphs from the conference are presented. This conference served as a broad forum for the discussion of a number of important issues in the field of mass storage systems. Topics include magnetic disk and tape technologies, optical disks and tape, software storage and file management systems, and experiences with the use of a large, distributed storage system. The technical presentations describe, among other things, integrated mass storage systems that are expected to be available commercially. Also included is a series of presentations from Federal Government organizations and research institutions covering their mass storage requirements for the 1990's
Caching with Unknown Popularity Profiles in Small Cell Networks
A heterogenous network is considered where the base stations (BSs), small
base stations (SBSs) and users are distributed according to independent Poisson
point processes (PPPs). We let the SBS nodes to posses high storage capacity
and are assumed to form a distributed caching network. Popular data files are
stored in the local cache of SBS, so that users can download the desired files
from one of the SBS in the vicinity subject to availability. The
offloading-loss is captured via a cost function that depends on a random
caching strategy proposed in this paper. The cost function depends on the
popularity profile, which is, in general, unknown. In this work, the popularity
profile is estimated at the BS using the available instantaneous demands from
the users in a time interval . This is then used to find an estimate
of the cost function from which the optimal random caching strategy is devised.
The main results of this work are the following: First it is shown that the
waiting time to achieve an difference between the achieved
and optimal costs is finite, provided the user density is greater than a
predefined threshold. In this case, is shown to scale as , where
is the support of the popularity profile. Secondly, a transfer
learning-based approach is proposed to obtain an estimate of the popularity
profile used to compute the empirical cost function. A condition is derived
under which the proposed transfer learning-based approach performs better than
the random caching strategy.Comment: 6 pages, Proceedings of IEEE Global Communications Conference, 201
Proceedings of the NSSDC Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies for Space and Earth Science Applications
The proceedings of the National Space Science Data Center Conference on Mass Storage Systems and Technologies for Space and Earth Science Applications held July 23 through 25, 1991 at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center are presented. The program includes a keynote address, invited technical papers, and selected technical presentations to provide a broad forum for the discussion of a number of important issues in the field of mass storage systems. Topics include magnetic disk and tape technologies, optical disk and tape, software storage and file management systems, and experiences with the use of a large, distributed storage system. The technical presentations describe integrated mass storage systems that are expected to be available commercially. Also included is a series of presentations from Federal Government organizations and research institutions covering their mass storage requirements for the 1990's
Fundamental activity constraints lead to specific interpretations of the connectome
The continuous integration of experimental data into coherent models of the
brain is an increasing challenge of modern neuroscience. Such models provide a
bridge between structure and activity, and identify the mechanisms giving rise
to experimental observations. Nevertheless, structurally realistic network
models of spiking neurons are necessarily underconstrained even if experimental
data on brain connectivity are incorporated to the best of our knowledge.
Guided by physiological observations, any model must therefore explore the
parameter ranges within the uncertainty of the data. Based on simulation
results alone, however, the mechanisms underlying stable and physiologically
realistic activity often remain obscure. We here employ a mean-field reduction
of the dynamics, which allows us to include activity constraints into the
process of model construction. We shape the phase space of a multi-scale
network model of the vision-related areas of macaque cortex by systematically
refining its connectivity. Fundamental constraints on the activity, i.e.,
prohibiting quiescence and requiring global stability, prove sufficient to
obtain realistic layer- and area-specific activity. Only small adaptations of
the structure are required, showing that the network operates close to an
instability. The procedure identifies components of the network critical to its
collective dynamics and creates hypotheses for structural data and future
experiments. The method can be applied to networks involving any neuron model
with a known gain function.Comment: J. Schuecker and M. Schmidt contributed equally to this wor
Universal Chemomechanical Design Rules for Solid-Ion Conductors to Prevent Dendrite Formation in Lithium Metal Batteries
Dendrite formation during electrodeposition while charging lithium metal
batteries compromises their safety. While high shear modulus solid-ion
conductors (SICs) have been prioritized to resolve pressure-driven
instabilities that lead to dendrite propagation and cell shorting, it is
unclear whether these or alternatives are needed to guide uniform lithium
electrodeposition, which is intrinsically density-driven. Here, we show that
SICs can be designed within a universal chemomechanical paradigm to access
either pressure-driven dendrite-blocking or density-driven dendrite-suppressing
properties, but not both. This dichotomy reflects the competing influence of
the SICs mechanical properties and partial molar volume of Li+ relative to
those of the lithium anode on plating outcomes. Within this paradigm, we
explore SICs in a previously unrecognized dendrite-suppressing regime that are
concomitantly soft, as is typical of polymer electrolytes, but feature
atypically low Li+ partial molar volume, more reminiscent of hard ceramics. Li
plating mediated by these SICs is uniform, as revealed using synchrotron hard
x-ray microtomography. As a result, cell cycle-life is extended, even when
assembled with thin Li anodes and high-voltage NMC-622 cathodes, where 20
percent of the Li inventory is reversibly cycled
A Learning-Based Approach to Caching in Heterogenous Small Cell Networks
A heterogenous network with base stations (BSs), small base stations (SBSs)
and users distributed according to independent Poisson point processes is
considered. SBS nodes are assumed to possess high storage capacity and to form
a distributed caching network. Popular files are stored in local caches of
SBSs, so that a user can download the desired files from one of the SBSs in its
vicinity. The offloading-loss is captured via a cost function that depends on
the random caching strategy proposed here. The popularity profile of cached
content is unknown and estimated using instantaneous demands from users within
a specified time interval. An estimate of the cost function is obtained from
which an optimal random caching strategy is devised. The training time to
achieve an difference between the achieved and optimal costs is
finite provided the user density is greater than a predefined threshold, and
scales as , where is the support of the popularity profile. A transfer
learning-based approach to improve this estimate is proposed. The training time
is reduced when the popularity profile is modeled using a parametric family of
distributions; the delay is independent of and scales linearly with the
dimension of the distribution parameter.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, published in IEEE Transactions on
Communications, 2016. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1504.0363
Sustainable Devices by Design: Thermal- and Plasma-Enabled Nanofabrication of Hierarchical Carbon Nanostructures for Bioelectronics and Supercapacitors
Graphene is promising to enable diverse technological advancements. However, major technical challenges arise in its fabrication and integration as active functional materials. This body of work exemplifies a host of thermal- and plasma-enabled techniques, designed to realize sustainable and controlled methodologies for nano-assembly. Importantly, these techniques may be tailored and broadly incorporated to harness the unique functional properties of graphene, and a host of other hierarchical nanomaterials. Together, these concepts may pave the realization of next-generation nanotechnologies which hold promise for a sustainable future
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