An interactive multi-entry key to the species of Megalostomis Chevrolat, with description of a new species from Paraguay (Chrysomelidae, Cryptocephalinae)

The main goal of this contribution is to release an interactive multi-entry key to all known species of the genus Megalostomis Chevrolat. This key constitutes a new tool created to aid the identification of the spe- cies of this diverse genus, which occasionally may be difficult to identify to the species-level, due to the lack of reference collections for most countries within its distribution range, and to the presence of intra- specific variation and secondary sexual characters. It is expected that this on-line key will facilitate future periodic updates, and will benefit all those persons interested in identifying these taxa. The present paper also includes the description of Megalostomis juanenrique sp. n., a new species from Paraguay. In addition, Megalostomis gigas Lacordaire, and Megalostomis robustipes Monrós are newly cited for the fauna of Para- guay. The online interactive Lucid key is available at http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/megalostomis. Offline Lucid data files in LIF and SDD formats are also available at doi: 10.3897/zookeys.425.7631. app1 and doi: 10.3897/zookeys.425.7631.app2. Fil: Agrain, Federico Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Investigaciones de las Zonas Áridas; Argentin

A study of the perceived risks, benefits and barriers to the use of SDD in adult critical care units (the SuDDICU study)

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Enabling Machine Understandable Exchange of Energy Consumption Information in Intelligent Domotic Environments

In the 21st century, all the major countries around the world are coming together to reduce the impact of energy generation and consumption on the global environment. Energy conservation and its efficient usage has become a top agenda on the desks of many governments. In the last decade, the drive to make homes automated and to deliver a better assisted living picked pace and the research into home automation systems accelerated, usually based on a centralized residential gateway. However most devised solutions fail to provide users with information about power consumption of different house appliances. The ability to collect power consumption information can lead us to have a more energy efficient society. The goal addressed in this paper is to enable residential gateways to provide the energy consumption information, in a machine understandable format, to support third party applications and services. To reach this goal, we propose a Semantic Energy Information Publishing Framework. The proposed framework publishes, for different appliances in the house, their power consumption information and other properties, in a machine understandable format. Appliance properties are exposed according to the existing semantic modeling supported by residential gateways, while instantaneous power consumption is modeled through a new modular Energy Profile ontolog

The digital data processing concepts of the LOFT mission

The Large Observatory for X-ray Timing (LOFT) is one of the five mission candidates that were considered by ESA for an M3 mission (with a launch opportunity in 2022 - 2024). LOFT features two instruments: the Large Area Detector (LAD) and the Wide Field Monitor (WFM). The LAD is a 10 m 2 -class instrument with approximately 15 times the collecting area of the largest timing mission so far (RXTE) for the first time combined with CCD-class spectral resolution. The WFM will continuously monitor the sky and recognise changes in source states, detect transient and bursting phenomena and will allow the mission to respond to this. Observing the brightest X-ray sources with the effective area of the LAD leads to enormous data rates that need to be processed on several levels, filtered and compressed in real-time already on board. The WFM data processing on the other hand puts rather low constraints on the data rate but requires algorithms to find the photon interaction location on the detector and then to deconvolve the detector image in order to obtain the sky coordinates of observed transient sources. In the following, we want to give an overview of the data handling concepts that were developed during the study phase.Comment: Proc. SPIE 9144, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2014: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 91446

The Belgian migration to SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area)

The main aim of SEPA (Single European Payment Area) is to promote financial integration in Europe, more particularly in the field of cashless payment services and payment systems. It is intended to enable all economic players (businesses, consumers and public authorities) to effect payments anywhere in the SEPA zone (the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) as easily, securely and efficiently as domestic payments. It must also be possible to execute these payments in accordance with a single regulatory framework within which all players have the same rights and obligations. To that end, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a directive on payment services in the internal market, which has to be transposed into national law by 1 November 2009. The SEPA migration is a process whereby the current national payment instruments are gradually replaced by standardised European instruments. More precisely, European instruments have been developed for credit transfers and direct debits, while a general framework has been set up for payment cards. The development of standards for these payment instruments and the organisation of the migration to SEPA were largely decided by the banking sector. For that purpose, interbank consultation bodies were set up at national and European level, and special structures were created to encourage societal dialogue concerning SEPA and its implementation. In Belgium, the organisational structures behind the SEPA migration are the “Steering Committee on the future of means of payment” and the SEPA interbank Forum. SEPA is being created in phases. The signal for the operational launch was given just over a year ago : since 28 January 2008 it has been possible to use the European transfer to effect payments anywhere in the SEPA area. The banking sector set the launch date for the European direct debit at European level : it will coincide with the date on which the payment services directive has to be transposed into national law, namely 1 November 2009. The success of the launch of the European direct debit on that date will depend mainly on a number of legal aspects, its adoption by the market, and the time taken to implement it in banks and businesses. The SEPA Card Framework is ready and has applied since 1 January 2008, but that has had little or no practical impact on the Belgian market in bank cards. Although the original plan for switching to a new payment card scheme in a single operation was abandoned, the Belgian market is technically ready for the introduction of new card payment schemes.SEPA (Single European Payment Area), payments instruments, financial integration, Payment Services Directive, banking standards

An online authoring and publishing platform for field guides and identification tools

Various implementation approaches are available for digital field guides and identification tools that are created for the web and mobile devices. The architecture of the “biowikifarm” publishing platform and some technical and social advantages of a document- and author-centric approach based on the MediaWiki open source software over custom-developed, database driven software are presented

A system approach to aircraft optimization

Mutual couplings among the mathematical models of physical phenomena and parts of a system such as an aircraft complicate the design process because each contemplated design change may have a far reaching consequence throughout the system. Techniques are outlined for computing these influences as system design derivatives useful for both judgemental and formal optimization purposes. The techniques facilitate decomposition of the design process into smaller, more manageable tasks and they form a methodology that can easily fit into existing engineering organizations and incorporate their design tools

Advanced simulation code for alpha spectrometry

A Monte Carlo code, known as AASI, is developed for simulating energy spectra in alpha spectrometry. The code documented here is a comprehensive package where all the major processes affecting the spectrum are included. A unique feature of the code is its ability to take into account coincidences between the particles emitted from the source. Simulations and measurements highlight the importance of coincidences in high-resolution alpha spectrometry. To show the validity of the simulated results, comparisons with measurements and other simulation codes are presented.Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Nucl. Instr. and Meth.