Specific requirements for MRE foundation analysis

PublishedMarine Renewable Energy (MRE) systems involve single or arrays of devices that are secured to the seafloor via foundations and/or anchors. These MRE devices will transmit long-term cyclic loads to the seafloor sediment or rock, which may affect seafloor material properties and hence the overall physical performance of the MRE system. The response of seafloor sediments or rock formations is uncertain for the novel MRE systems and especially large arrays of 10s to >1000s of devices. This report summarizes critical inputs and tools for the design and analysis of foundations, anchors, and the response of the seafloor materials. Followed by an introduction in Section 1, Section 2 reviews the offshore structure and MRE literature to highlight current approaches and needed inputs for assessing interactions between foundations or anchors and seafloor materials, including potential environmental impacts. Section 3 addresses relevant marine geological settings that control key geotechnical engineering properties. Data collection activities are described, including in-situ site surveys and laboratory testing. Section 4 considers the unique interactions between MRE systems and seafloor materials, particularly cyclic loading and sediment response. Section 5 describes analytical and numerical tools and associated inputs for the design process of MRE foundations and anchors. Constitutive models are key to simulating sediment response and thus are discussed in detail. Important summary tables relate key variables of geology, geotechnical parameters, foundation or anchor type, and quantitative assessment tools including numerical analysis. Section 5 also addresses the incorporation of the geotechnical analysis into system-level tools to support decision making for MRE arrays. Section 6 presents conclusions and recommendations for future work.European Commission’s 7th Framework; Grant agreement number: 60859

Consumer Perception Studies on the Safety of Food Packaging - Final Report of WP7 of the EU Project "Foodmigrosure" QLK1-CT2002-2390

Between March 2003 and September 2006 the FOODMIGROSURE project, contract number QLK-CT2002-2390, was carried out by 9 European project partners with the intention to develop an ¿into-food¿ migration model tool which should enable prediction of mass transfer of constituents from plastics food contact materials into foodstuffs in support of calculations/estimations of the exposure of consumers towards food packaging constituents. A further objective was to investigate the social acceptance of migration modelling versus chemical measurements, and its implications for exposure estimation. This was achieved by several approaches including focus group (as qualitative approach), and questionnaires with a large polling bas as quantitative approach from citizens. A test trial was run on consumer associations and the experiment was then conducted on citizens during a JRC Open Day. Questionnaires and comments were colleted for 700 units which represented about 1400 visitors to the food contact activities. In the last phase, a more specific technical questionnaire was directed to end-user of modelling, which was mailed to a variety of stakeholders such as National Reference Laboratories, commercial laboratories, industries, EFSA, CEN members etc. Globally, people in the overwhelming majority -both for the questionnaire approach and for the focus group approach- felt reassured regarding the safety of packaging simply from the fact that they did not previously know that such research and controls existed. Many citizens also clearly expressed the wish to have this type of research much more visible at the level of both consumer associations and consumers themselves. The responses were echoing quite interestingly between the different approaches directed at consumers/citizens. Although obtained by completely different methodologies, both focus groups and quantitative citizen polling questionnaires showed many similarities even in the specifics. There is a fundamental trust from the public in the scientists to distinguish and understand safety issues. The consumer wants sincerely to be approached and informed by scientists for this reason and is also ready to favour new approaches such as migration modelling if it can be an additional tool for better consumer protection. The benefits of packaging are recognised, and the presence of migrants is considered similarly to the presence of food additives in foods. Modelling is viewed as a additional helping tool to assist the scientist as first and foremost raison d¿être, and was found to have its strongest value as pointing the worst cases that could occur. The consumers or citizens made no mention of environmental or worker health effects benefits. However, the consumer especially in the context of the focus group remarked justly that one needs to be sure that at the root for use of these models are experimental data which demonstrate the applicability of the model.JRC.I.5-Nanobioscience

Bridging Vision and Dynamic Legged Locomotion

Legged robots have demonstrated remarkable advances regarding robustness and versatility in the past decades. The questions that need to be addressed in this field are increasingly focusing on reasoning about the environment and autonomy rather than locomotion only. To answer some of these questions visual information is essential. If a robot has information about the terrain it can plan and take preventive actions against potential risks. However, building a model of the terrain is often computationally costly, mainly because of the dense nature of visual data. On top of the mapping problem, robots need feasible body trajectories and contact sequences to traverse the terrain safely, which may also require heavy computations. This computational cost has limited the use of visual feedback to contexts that guarantee (quasi-) static stability, or resort to planning schemes where contact sequences and body trajectories are computed before starting to execute motions. In this thesis we propose a set of algorithms that reduces the gap between visual processing and dynamic locomotion. We use machine learning to speed up visual data processing and model predictive control to achieve locomotion robustness. In particular, we devise a novel foothold adaptation strategy that uses a map of the terrain built from on-board vision sensors. This map is sent to a foothold classifier based on a convolutional neural network that allows the robot to adjust the landing position of the feet in a fast and continuous fashion. We then use the convolutional neural network-based classifier to provide safe future contact sequences to a model predictive controller that optimizes target ground reaction forces in order to track a desired center of mass trajectory. We perform simulations and experiments on the hydraulic quadruped robots HyQ and HyQReal. For all experiments the contact sequences, the foothold adaptations, the control inputs and the map are computed and processed entirely on-board. The various tests show that the robot is able to leverage the visual terrain information to handle complex scenarios in a safe, robust and reliable manner

NASA/ESA CV-990 Spacelab Simulation (ASSESS 2)

To test the validity of the ARC approach to Spacelab, several missions simulating aspects of Spacelab operations have been conducted as part of the ASSESS Program. Each mission was designed to evaluate potential Shuttle/Spacelab concepts in increasing detail. For this mission, emphasis was placed on development and exercise of management techniques planned for Spacelab using management participants from NASA and ESA who have responsibilities for Spacelab 1 which will be launched in 1980

Untethered Learning: A Mixed Methods Study of Mobilized Adventure Learning

textMobile technologies now afford unprecedented opportunities, resources, and possibilities for learning. Among them, is the opportunity for students to engage in hands-on, out-of-classroom learning activities such as Adventure Learning. Since 2007, Adventure Learning has developed as an educational framework for using information and communication technologies to connect learners with expeditionary teams where video-based communication provides a sense of adventure for learners. The study was conducted in a public high school where an Environmental Science teacher used mobile learning technologies to create Adventure Learning projects where students participated both fin the classroom and as members of an “expeditionary team.” It was also intended to examine both the benefits and challenges in implementing ubiquitous mobile technologies in the field, combined with the use of student-centered pedagogies in their classrooms. The major questions of the study asked how did a teacher leverage mobilized Adventure Learning to design learning activities? And how did active participation in a mobilized Adventure Learning project affect student interest in the subject of Environmental Science? The study involved examining the ways the teacher leveraged the affordances of mobile technologies to create a hands-on, collaborative, and Adventure Learning environments outside of the classroom. The hands-on learning activities were designed to enable students to gather first-hand information related to environmental science. Subjects in the study included a high school Environmental Science teacher along with 104 participating students. Using a mixed methods approach, qualitative data were gathered through observations of learning activities, interviews and focus groups and artifacts. Quantitative data were gathered through surveys administered to the students before and after the treatment. The results indicated that, contrary to the teacher’s expectations, students indicated a preference for learning through book and lecture rather than hands-on discovery of information in both pre and post treatment surveys. Results of the study also demonstrated differences in learning preference relating to percentage of students participating in field-based, hands-on learning activities or in lecture-book classroom learning activities. Recommendations for future research and for educational practice are offered. Limitations of the study include the small sample size and short time duration of the study.Curriculum and Instructio

Methods for Quantifying Power Characteristics and Chronic Patterns of Use Behavior of Electronic Vaping Products

Background: The complexity and variety of inhaled tobacco products have increased significantly with the introduction of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS). Product characteristics and human behavior are the main factors affecting products\u27 emissions, consumption, and health effects. Combining the understanding of these two factors informs the next generation of regulations of these products. Quantifying use patterns helps health care professionals provide informed treatment of users addicted to nicotine and tobacco products. The literature lacks comprehensive studies to characterize ENDS hardware and operation, such as heating element resistance, battery performance, power, and thermal management. Human behavior is measured as use topography, a temporal signal of the interaction between the user\u27s mouth and the product. Traditional analysis of use topography focused on short-term puff dynamics, and overlooks extended session dynamics. The literature lacks the appropriate parameters and tools to quantify session dynamics over a long duration (i.e. days, weeks, months). Method and validation: This dissertation focuses on two aims: The first aim is to design methods to characterize the hardware and operation of modern ENDS devices and test their effects on ENDS performance. Parts of ENDS devices are repurposed to produce product-specific testing apparatus of effective coil resistance for several ENDS products. The effects of manufacturing variation in coil resistance on coil lifetime and Total Particulate Matter (TPM) are measured for one of the most popular pod-style ENDS. A method for dynamic measurement of electrical signals in modern ENDS is presented and validated for ENDS power management characterization. The second aim is to design and validate algorithms for quantifying chronic use topographies associated with inhaled tobacco products. The quantifying tool is designed based on autocorrelation to quantify chronic topography parameters including session period, and session duration as random distributions. These distributions provide insights into session topography dynamics over a day, a week, a month, and longer. Results: Significant variations in coil resistance were observed within and between brands such as the difference of 0.593 [Ω] (p \u3c 0.001) between JUUL and Vuse ALTO. The mean resistance and standard deviation of the coil assemblies was shown to be μ= 1.031 (σ= 0.067) [Ω] for Vuse ALTO and μ= 1.624 (σ= 0.033)[Ω] for JUUL. The variation in coil resistance between products and within products can have significant impacts on aerosol emissions. Dynamic measurement of power in Vuse ALTO showed that voltage is delivered to the coil as pulses of ~119.5 Hz with duty cycles of 0.3 - 0.6 which found to be correlated with the energy and change in temperature in coil. The mass of the generated aerosol per puff was correlated with the energy per puff. Quantifying session topography method successfully worked with puff period, session period and session duration with mean absolute percentage error of 1.18 [%], 2.92 [%], 12.59 [%] respectively. The method showed resiliency to session dynamic variation with accepted percentage of 99.98 [%], 92.39 [%], and 76.21 [%] for puff period, session period and session duration respectively. The method appears sufficiently valid and robust for analysis of natural environment human subject behavioral studies of tobacco product use. Conclusions: The absence of e-liquid in the pod is an important factor in causing coil failure. Small bits of the degraded coil could be potentially introduced to the aerosol. Energy is an important, if not the most important, contributor to the yield generated form an ENDS. A method was demonstrated to dynamically measure coil temperature based on temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR). It was also shown that coil temperature can be controlled by the ENDS by changing the energy delivered to the coil per pulse which is intern controlled by duty cycle of the pulses using the PWM algorithm. The quantifying session topography method provides high value in investigating the effects of user environment such as a day of week on session dynamics. It also demonstrated an example of using the method for quantifying how product characteristics such as e-liquid flavors and nicotine concentration may moderate use behavior