The discrete dynamics of small-scale spatial events: agent-based models of mobility in carnivals and street parades

Small-scale spatial events are situations in which elements or objects vary in such away that temporal dynamics is intrinsic to their representation and explanation. Someof the clearest examples involve local movement from conventional traffic modelingto disaster evacuation where congestion, crowding, panic, and related safety issue arekey features of such events. We propose that such events can be simulated using newvariants of pedestrian model, which embody ideas about how behavior emerges fromthe accumulated interactions between small-scale objects. We present a model inwhich the event space is first explored by agents using ?swarm intelligence?. Armedwith information about the space, agents then move in an unobstructed fashion to theevent. Congestion and problems over safety are then resolved through introducingcontrols in an iterative fashion and rerunning the model until a ?safe solution? isreached. The model has been developed to simulate the effect of changing the route ofthe Notting Hill Carnival, an annual event held in west central London over 2 days inAugust each year. One of the key issues in using such simulation is how the processof modeling interacts with those who manage and control the event. As such, thischanges the nature of the modeling problem from one where control and optimizationis external to the model to one where this is intrinsic to the simulation

Small unmanned airborne systems to support oil and gas pipeline monitoring and mapping

Acknowledgments We thank Johan Havelaar, Aeryon Labs Inc., AeronVironment Inc. and Aeronautics Inc. for kindly permitting the use of materials in Fig. 1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

System and method of self-properties for an autonomous and automatic computer environment

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided through which in some embodiments self health/urgency data and environment health/urgency data may be transmitted externally from an autonomic element. Other embodiments may include transmitting the self health/urgency data and environment health/urgency data together on a regular basis similar to the lub-dub of a heartbeat. Yet other embodiments may include a method for managing a system based on the functioning state and operating status of the system, wherein the method may include processing received signals from the system indicative of the functioning state and the operating status to obtain an analysis of the condition of the system, generating one or more stay alive signals based on the functioning status and the operating state of the system, transmitting the stay-alive signal, transmitting self health/urgency data, and transmitting environment health/urgency data. Still other embodiments may include an autonomic element that includes a self monitor, a self adjuster, an environment monitor, and an autonomic manager

Autonomic and Apoptotic, Aeronautical and Aerospace Systems, and Controlling Scientific Data Generated Therefrom

A self-managing system that uses autonomy and autonomicity is provided with the self-* property of autopoiesis (self-creation). In the event of an agent in the system self-destructing, autopoiesis auto-generates a replacement. A self-esteem reward scheme is also provided and can be used for autonomic agents, based on their performance and trust. Art agent with greater self-esteem may clone at a greater rate compared to the rate of an agent with lower self-esteem. A self-managing system is provided for a high volume of distributed autonomic/self-managing mobile agents, and autonomic adhesion is used to attract similar agents together or to repel dissimilar agents from an event horizon. An apoptotic system is also provided that accords an "expiry date" to data and digital objects, for example, that are available on the internet, which finds usefulness not only in general but also for controlling the loaning and use of space scientific data

Systems, methods and apparatus for quiesence of autonomic systems with self action

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided in which an autonomic unit or element is quiesced. A quiesce component of an autonomic unit can cause the autonomic unit to self-destruct if a stay-alive reprieve signal is not received after a predetermined time

Broadband Tissue Mimicking Phantoms and a Patch Resonator for Evaluating Noninvasive Monitoring of Blood Glucose Levels

(c) 2014 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.This post-acceptance version of the paper is essentially complete, but may differ from the official copy of record, which can be found at the following web location (subscription required to access full paper): http://dx.doi.org/10/1109/TAP.2014.2313139

Development and evaluation of a prototype global volcano surveillance system utilizing the ERTS-1 satellite data collection system

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Share the Sky: Concepts and Technologies That Will Shape Future Airspace Use

The airspace challenge for the United States is to protect national sovereignty and ensure the safety and security of those on the ground and in the air, while at the same time ensuring the efficiency of flight, reducing the costs involved, protecting the environment, and protecting the freedom of access to the airspace. Many visions of the future NAS hold a relatively near-term perspective, focusing on existing uses of the airspace and assuming that new uses will make up a small fraction of total use. In the longer term, the skies will be filled with diverse and amazing new air vehicles filling our societal needs. Anticipated new vehicles include autonomous air vehicles acting both independently and in coordinated groups, unpiloted cargo carriers, and large numbers of personal air vehicles and small-scale point-to-point transports. These vehicles will enable new capabilities that have the potential to increase societal mobility, transport freight at lower cost and with lower environmental impact, improve the study of the Earth s atmosphere and ecosystem, and increase societal safety and security by improving or drastically lowering the cost of critical services such as firefighting, emergency medical evacuation, search and rescue, border and neighborhood surveillance, and the inspection of our infrastructure. To ensure that uses of the airspace can continue to grow for the benefit of all, a new paradigm for operations is needed: equitably and safely sharing the airspace. This paper is an examination of such a vision, concentrating on the operations of all types of air vehicles and future uses of the National Airspace. Attributes of a long-term future airspace system are provided, emerging operations technologies are described, and initial steps in research and development are recommended

Characterizing freshwater macroinvertebrates of Bangladesh using metagenetic techniques

The degradation of freshwater ecosystems has become a global concern, in particular, the critical conditions of rivers in Bangladesh demand a monitoring programme through the assessment of bioindicator organisms. Macroinvertebrates as prominent bioindicators are widely used for assessing the health of aquatic ecosystems. Recent technological advances have enabled routine assessment with the genomic characterization of macroinvertebrates using different metagenetic techniques such as DNA barcoding for individual specimen identification, metabarcoding for multi-species identification of bulk samples and mitochondrial metagenomics for extraction of mitogenomes from mixed samples. In this thesis, I commence by generating Cytochrome Oxidase subunit (COI) barcodes for Bangladeshi freshwater macroinvertebrates belonging to the Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera, Coleoptera, Hemiptera, Odonata, Diptera, Gastropoda and Bivalvia. These barcodes can be used as a DNA reference library for species identification in metabarcoding of macroinvertebrates. I also aim for exploring complete mitogenomes from selected macroinvertebrates using a mitochondrial metagenomic pipeline. I carry out phylogenetic analysis with protein-coding genes that reveals the evolutionary relationship of Bangladeshi macroinvertebrate lineages and also support deeper level identification of barcodes placing them into the phylogenetic tree (chapter 2). In chapter 3, I assess some methodological aspects of the metabarcoding pipeline required for diversity estimation from complex bulk samples of macroinvertebrates in large-scale biomonitoring programmes. These include preparation of bulk macroinvertebrate samples, optimization of the procedure of homogenization of samples required for DNA extraction, strategies for DNA pooling from these extracts, choice of robust universal primers, and viable OTU clustering for reliable diversity estimation. The results have implications for the optimization and standardization of these steps in metabarcoding of freshwater macroinvertebrates. In chapter 4, I apply the metabarcoding technique to establish the macroinvertebrate diversity and impact of various types of anthropogenic disturbances on the freshwater macroinvertebrates in highland and lowland rivers. The results document high diversity, local endemicity and pronounced responses to disturbance in largely unexplored but threatened habitats of Bangladesh. My investigations manifest the viability of metagenetic techniques for applied conservation management as a step towards building a biomonitoring system in freshwater ecosystems globally.Open Acces