13,568 research outputs found
The water footprint assessment manual: setting the global standard
This book contains the global standard for \u27water footprint assessment\u27 as developed and maintained by the Water Footprint Network (WFN). It covers a comprehensive set of definitions and methods for water footprint accounting. It shows how water footprints are calculated for individual processes and products, as well as for consumers, nations and businesses. It also includes methods for water footprint sustainability assessment and a library of water footprint response options. A shared standard on definitions and calculation methods is crucial given the rapidly growing interest in companies and governments to use water footprint accounts as a basis for formulating sustainable water strategies and policies
The Hyper Suprime-Cam Software Pipeline
In this paper, we describe the optical imaging data processing pipeline
developed for the Subaru Telescope's Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) instrument. The
HSC Pipeline builds on the prototype pipeline being developed by the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope's Data Management system, adding customizations for
HSC, large-scale processing capabilities, and novel algorithms that have since
been reincorporated into the LSST codebase. While designed primarily to reduce
HSC Subaru Strategic Program (SSP) data, it is also the recommended pipeline
for reducing general-observer HSC data. The HSC pipeline includes high level
processing steps that generate coadded images and science-ready catalogs as
well as low-level detrending and image characterizations.Comment: 39 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Publications of the
Astronomical Society of Japa
Recommended from our members
Emissions of organic carbon and methane from petroleum and dairy operations in California's San Joaquin Valley
Petroleum and dairy operations are prominent sources of gas-phase organic compounds in California's San Joaquin Valley. It is essential to understand the emissions and air quality impacts of these relatively understudied sources, especially for oil/gas operations in light of increasing US production. Ground site measurements in Bakersfield and regional aircraft measurements of reactive gas-phase organic compounds and methane were part of the CalNex (California Research at the Nexus of Air Quality and Climate Change) project to determine the sources contributing to regional gas-phase organic carbon emissions. Using a combination of near-source and downwind data, we assess the composition and magnitude of emissions, and provide average source profiles. To examine the spatial distribution of emissions in the San Joaquin Valley, we developed a statistical modeling method using ground-based data and the FLEXPART-WRF transport and meteorological model. We present evidence for large sources of paraffinic hydrocarbons from petroleum operations and oxygenated compounds from dairy (and other cattle) operations. In addition to the small straight-chain alkanes typically associated with petroleum operations, we observed a wide range of branched and cyclic alkanes, most of which have limited previous in situ measurements or characterization in petroleum operation emissions. Observed dairy emissions were dominated by ethanol, methanol, acetic acid, and methane. Dairy operations were responsible for the vast majority of methane emissions in the San Joaquin Valley; observations of methane were well correlated with non-vehicular ethanol, and multiple assessments of the spatial distribution of emissions in the San Joaquin Valley highlight the dominance of dairy operations for methane emissions. The petroleum operations source profile was developed using the composition of non-methane hydrocarbons in unrefined natural gas associated with crude oil. The observed source profile is consistent with fugitive emissions of condensate during storage or processing of associated gas following extraction and methane separation. Aircraft observations of concentration hotspots near oil wells and dairies are consistent with the statistical source footprint determined via our FLEXPART-WRF-based modeling method and ground-based data. We quantitatively compared our observations at Bakersfield to the California Air Resources Board emission inventory and find consistency for relative emission rates of reactive organic gases between the aforementioned sources and motor vehicles in the region. We estimate that petroleum and dairy operations each comprised 22% of anthropogenic non-methane organic carbon at Bakersfield and were each responsible for 8-13% of potential precursors to ozone. Yet, their direct impacts as potential secondary organic aerosol (SOA) precursors were estimated to be minor for the source profiles observed in the San Joaquin Valley
The Footprint Database and Web Services of the Herschel Space Observatory
Data from the Herschel Space Observatory is freely available to the public
but no uniformly processed catalogue of the observations has been published so
far. To date, the Herschel Science Archive does not contain the exact sky
coverage (footprint) of individual observations and supports search for
measurements based on bounding circles only. Drawing on previous experience in
implementing footprint databases, we built the Herschel Footprint Database and
Web Services for the Herschel Space Observatory to provide efficient search
capabilities for typical astronomical queries. The database was designed with
the following main goals in mind: (a) provide a unified data model for
meta-data of all instruments and observational modes, (b) quickly find
observations covering a selected object and its neighbourhood, (c) quickly find
every observation in a larger area of the sky, (d) allow for finding solar
system objects crossing observation fields. As a first step, we developed a
unified data model of observations of all three Herschel instruments for all
pointing and instrument modes. Then, using telescope pointing information and
observational meta-data, we compiled a database of footprints. As opposed to
methods using pixellation of the sphere, we represent sky coverage in an exact
geometric form allowing for precise area calculations. For easier handling of
Herschel observation footprints with rather complex shapes, two algorithms were
implemented to reduce the outline. Furthermore, a new visualisation tool to
plot footprints with various spherical projections was developed. Indexing of
the footprints using Hierarchical Triangular Mesh makes it possible to quickly
find observations based on sky coverage, time and meta-data. The database is
accessible via a web site (http://herschel.vo.elte.hu) and also as a set of
REST web service functions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronom
Applying Deep Machine Learning for psycho-demographic profiling of Internet users using O.C.E.A.N. model of personality
In the modern era, each Internet user leaves enormous amounts of auxiliary
digital residuals (footprints) by using a variety of on-line services. All this
data is already collected and stored for many years. In recent works, it was
demonstrated that it's possible to apply simple machine learning methods to
analyze collected digital footprints and to create psycho-demographic profiles
of individuals. However, while these works clearly demonstrated the
applicability of machine learning methods for such an analysis, created simple
prediction models still lacks accuracy necessary to be successfully applied for
practical needs. We have assumed that using advanced deep machine learning
methods may considerably increase the accuracy of predictions. We started with
simple machine learning methods to estimate basic prediction performance and
moved further by applying advanced methods based on shallow and deep neural
networks. Then we compared prediction power of studied models and made
conclusions about its performance. Finally, we made hypotheses how prediction
accuracy can be further improved. As result of this work, we provide full
source code used in the experiments for all interested researchers and
practitioners in corresponding GitHub repository. We believe that applying deep
machine learning for psycho-demographic profiling may have an enormous impact
on the society (for good or worse) and provides means for Artificial
Intelligence (AI) systems to better understand humans by creating their
psychological profiles. Thus AI agents may achieve the human-like ability to
participate in conversation (communication) flow by anticipating human
opponents' reactions, expectations, and behavior
The blue water footprint of electricity from hydropower
Hydropower accounts for about 16% of the world's electricity supply. It has been debated whether hydroelectric generation is merely an in-stream water user or whether it also consumes water. In this paper we provide scientific support for the argument that hydroelectric generation is in most cases a significant water consumer. The study assesses the blue water footprint of hydroelectricity – the water evaporated from manmade reservoirs to produce electric energy – for 35 selected sites. The aggregated blue water footprint of the selected hydropower plants is 90 Gm3 yr−1, which is equivalent to 10% of the blue water footprint of global crop production in the year 2000. The total blue water footprint of hydroelectric generation in the world must be considerably larger if one considers the fact that this study covers only 8% of the global installed hydroelectric capacity. Hydroelectric generation is thus a significant water consumer. The average water footprint of the selected hydropower plants is 68 m3 GJ−1. Great differences in water footprint among hydropower plants exist, due to differences in climate in the places where the plants are situated, but more importantly as a result of large differences in the area flooded per unit of installed hydroelectric capacity. We recommend that water footprint assessment is added as a component in evaluations of newly proposed hydropower plants as well as in the evaluation of existing hydroelectric dams, so that the consequences of the water footprint of hydroelectric generation on downstream environmental flows and other water users can be evaluate
- …