An information-based traffic control in a public conveyance system: reduced clustering and enhanced efficiency

A new public conveyance model applicable to buses and trains is proposed in this paper by using stochastic cellular automaton. We have found the optimal density of vehicles, at which the average velocity becomes maximum, significantly depends on the number of stops and passengers behavior of getting on a vehicle at stops. The efficiency of the hail-and-ride system is also discussed by comparing the different behavior of passengers. Moreover, we have found that a big cluster of vehicles is divided into small clusters, by incorporating information of the number of vehicles between successive stops.Comment: 8 pages, 15 figure

Managerial Segmentation of Service Offerings in Work Commuting, MTI Report WP 12-02

Methodology to efficiently segment markets for public transportation offerings has been introduced and exemplified in an application to an urban travel corridor in which high tech companies predominate. The principal objective has been to introduce and apply multivariate methodology to efficiently identify segments of work commuters and their demographic identifiers. A set of attributes in terms of which service offerings could be defined was derived from background studies and focus groups of work commuters in the county. Adaptive choice conjoint analysis was used to derive the importance weights of these attributes in available service offering to these commuters. A two-stage clustering procedure was then used to explore the grouping of individual’s subsets into homogeneous sub-groups of the sample. These subsets are commonly a basis for differentiation in service offerings that can increase total ridership in public transportation while approximating cost neutrality in service delivery. Recursive partitioning identified interactions between demographic predictors that significantly contributed to the discrimination of segments in demographics. Implementation of the results is discussed

Energy Efficiency and Traffic Pattern Discovery for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are regularly framed by the joint effort of the expansive measure of insignificant sensor nodes, which are associated through a wireless medium. In wireless sensor organize, security is a fundamental position in well-lit of its utilization in applications like monitoring, tracking, controlling, surveillance etc. Secure correspondence is greatly critical in conveying key data precisely and on the time through asset imperative sensor nodes. In this paper, our commitment is triple. Firstly, we have outlined the system layer routing assaults on WSNs. Also, we have given a scientific categorization of secure routing protocols of WSNs. Thirdly, we have given a subjective correlation of existing secure routing protocols. This situation is practically equivalent to conveying US Mail through USPS: express sends cost more than customary sends; be that as it may, sends can be conveyed quicker. The convention additionally gives a secure message conveyance alternative to amplify the message conveyance proportion under antagonistic assaults. What's more, we likewise give quantitative secure investigation on the proposed routing convention in light of the criteria proposed. In this way, unauthenticated individual can't get to the first information. By along these lines, the convention gives a secure message conveyance alternative to augment the message conveyance proportion under ill-disposed assaults

The Use of Agricultural Robots in Orchard Management

Book chapter that summarizes recent research on agricultural robotics in orchard management, including Robotic pruning, Robotic thinning, Robotic spraying, Robotic harvesting, Robotic fruit transportation, and future trends.Comment: 22 page

Simulation and management of on-demand irrigation systems: a combined agrohydrological and remote sensing approach

Rational use of water resources in agriculture requires improvements in the efficiency of irrigation. Many irrigation systems, particularly in Mediterranean regions, have been enhanced by replacing open channel conveyance systems with pressurised pipelines. This allows to provide water on-demand. Increased demand of water for civil and industrial uses and a progressive reduction of available water resources compel a more efficient use of irrigation water. To achieve this goal irrigation managers need to understand and to monitor the processes which determine the operation of an irrigation system.In this thesis a procedure integrating the agrohydrological aspects of irrigation with hydraulic and management aspects has been developed. The procedure named SIMODIS (SImulation and Management of On-Demand Irrigation Systems) is based on the integration of different tools such as agrohydrological and hydraulic simulation models, remote sensing and GIS techniques.An irrigation system is described as a set of elementary (e.g. individual fields) connected by the pressurised conveyance system. The spatial distribution of soil water deficit in each elementary unit is computed daily by combining the soil water model SWAP with occasional satellite-based estimates of crop water requirements. A methodology has been developed to obtain spatially distributed input data for the soil water model SWAP i.e. the soil hydraulic properties and the upper and lower boundary conditions.Multispectral satellite images are used to map the crop coefficients needed for the definition of the SWAP upper boundary condition in each elementary unit of the irrigation district. Two different approaches have been proposed. The first is based on classification techniques, where clustering algorithms are applied to derive the spectral classes corresponding to different crop coefficient values. In the second approach, the crop coefficient is analytically related to the canopy variables determining the potential evapotranspiration i.e. leaf area index, surface albedo and crop height. At-surface directional spectral reflectance are used to estimate these canopy variables from which the value of crop coefficient is calculated.The spatial distribution of farmers' water demand is derived on a daily basis from the soil water deficit according to predefined irrigation scheduling criteria. Before applying this farmers' water demand distribution for the given day, the SIMODIS procedure assess whether water demand is consistent with the available amount of water resources and with the structural and operational constraints imposed by the conveyance and distribution system. For this purpose a steady-state simulation model of pipeline hydraulics is used in SIMODIS. The final distribution of farmers' water demand is then resulting from a three-tiered adaptation of irrigation schedule considering: i) the limitation of flow rate at delivery outlets, ii) the limitation of available water resources, iii) the required minimum hydraulic head at the delivery outlets.The procedure SIMODIS has been applied in the Gromola irrigation district of approximately 3000 ha in southern Italy. Measurements of irrigation volumes were used to identify the parameters driving irrigation scheduling. Irrigation efficiency indicators were calculated from the spatial distribution of actual transpiration rates and of the corresponding irrigation volumes applied. To illustrate the use of SIMODIS in support of irrigation decision making, alternative scenarios of water management were simulated and compared.The development of SIMODIS demonstrated that agrohydrological simulation models and remote sensing can be effectively combined to describe the operation of an irrigation system. These techniques have reached a sufficient degree of reliability to be transferred to practical applications. The estimation of crop coefficients by means of remote sensing techniques is of general usefulness in the definition of the upper boundary condition of distributed hydrological simulation models and it can be applied to evaluate with satisfactory accuracy the crop water requirements at regional scale. In the future new types of satellite sensors will probably allow for a more precise determination of the canopy variables, thus providing novel opportunities in the integration between agrohydrological simulation models and remote sensing techniques.</p

Secured System Layer Routing Protocols On Imperative Sensor Nodes

Sensor technology has shown tremendous development in the field of data environment like tracking and detection. The participating sensor nodes are prone to failure because of limited resources or limitations in security. The topology of the networks is highly dynamic in nature because of frequent failure of the sensor nodes. The Quality of Service (QoS) support to highly dynamic networks is one of the challenging tasks. In wireless sensor organize, security is a fundamental position in well-lit of its utilization in applications like monitoring, tracking, controlling, surveillance etc. Secure correspondence is greatly critical in conveying key data precisely and on the time through asset imperative sensor nodes. A 3 stage approach gives a secure message conveyance alternative to amplify the message conveyance proportion under antagonistic assaults. Firstly, we have outlined the system layer routing assaults on WSNs. Also, we have given a scientific categorization of secure routing protocols of WSNs. Thirdly, we have given a subjective correlation of existing secure routing protocols. The above quantitative secure investigation on the proposed routing convention in light of the criteria proposed

Microbial Ecology of Urban Sewers

Municipal sewage provides a glimpse into the health and activities of a human society. For more than a century, sewage exploration has helped expose the sources of disease outbreaks and track disease progression over time. Recent advancements in wastewater surveillance born from the COVID-19 pandemic have potential to enhance mitigation efforts against the decades-long global health crisis of microbial antibiotic resistance. However, critical knowledge gaps exist in wastewater surveillance, stemming from a lack of understanding in sewer microbial ecology. Ecology reveals trends in how communities respond and adapt to change, which has far-reaching implications for identifying effective strategies for disease control. However, with little knowledge about sewer microbial communities, including its residents, community dynamics, and functions, no baseline picture of the sewer microbiome exists. The goal of this dissertation was to characterize the sewer microbiome using an ecological approach. The specific aims were to determine if (1) microbial communities in urban wastewater exhibit seasonal patterns in assembly; (2) if seasonal community assembly is driven by environmental bacteria responding to changes in water temperature; and (3) if temperature-driven communities modulate the composition and abundance of antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater. Results show that microbes in sewers have seasonal community dynamics akin to other natural environments, and they have adapted to this stressful environment by acquiring and maintaining mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. Using only well-established methods in DNA sequencing and analyzing a wastewater dataset covering expansive temporal and spatial scales, this dissertation builds the foundation of a baseline sewer microbiome in the United States. All data collected and analyses used were made publicly available to aid standardizing methods in global strategy plans. Together, standardizing methods and sharing data related to the sewer microbiome will improve predictive models, guide interventions, and make other public health breakthroughs in wastewater surveillance

Better Site Design: A Correlation Between Quality of Water and Quality of Life

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate that Tennessee residents would likely find Better Site Design techniques more aesthetically pleasing than conventional land development approaches. Better Site Design is an approach to land development that seeks to reduce impervious cover and maintain a degree of natural vegetation on a development site. This approach has been proven to vastly support healthier water quality of nearby streams and other bodies of water. The thesis begins with an explication of the Clean Water Act that is the enabling legislation for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. This system mandates communities to incorporate protection of water quality into their operations, plans, and procedures. Better Site Design is an approach to this system that affords water quality support at the post-development stage. A description of Better Site Design is offered followed by the scientific evidence that supports the fact that it does, indeed, aid water quality. Finally, the detail of a survey developed and implemented by the author is presented. The survey depicts a graphical comparison of two approaches to land development in terms of stormwater management: the conventional approach and the Better Site Design approach. There are 12 scenarios in which the two approaches are compared. Each scenario consists of a graphical comparison of the Better Site Design technique with its conventional counterpart. Results of the survey show an overwhelming agreement with my hypothesis. Better than 90% of those surveyed showed agreement with 10 of the 12 scenarios, and at least 63% showed agreement with the other two scenarios. In all cases, the chi-square test demonstrates significance of respondents answering in agreement, considerably more than 50% of the time. Given the survey results, it is concluded that developments incorporating Better Site Design would be feasibly marketable and sellable by land developers, and would also enhance local water quality

Monopoly power and distribution in fragmented markets : the case of groundwater

Using data from Pakistan's Punjab, the authors examine monopoly power in the market for groundwater - irrigation water extracted using private tubewells - a market characterized by barriers to entry and spatial fragmentation. Simple theory predicts that tubewell owners should price-discriminate in favor of their own share tenants. And this analysis of individual groundwater transactions over an 18-month period confirms such price discrimination. And among those studied, tubewell owners and their tenants use considerably more groundwater on their plots than do other farmers. The authors also provide evidence that monopoly pricing of groundwater leads to compensating - albeit small - reallocations of canal water, which farmers exchange in a separate informal market. Despite the substantial misallocation of groundwater, a welfare analysis show that monopoly pricing has limited effects on equity and efficiency. In the long run, a policy aimed at eliminating monopoly pricing would do little to help the poorest farmers.Water and Industry,Water Resources Law,Water Conservation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Supply and Systems,Water and Industry,Water Conservation,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Drought Management,Water Use