A Method for siting and prioritizing the removal of derelict vessels in Florida Coastal Waters: test applications in the Florida Keys

Increased boating activities and new waterfront developments have contributed an estimated 3,000 dismantled, abandoned, junked, wrecked, derelict vessels to Florida coastal waters. This report outlines a method of siting and prioritizing derelict vessel removal using the Florida Keys as a test area. The data base was information on 240 vessels, obtained from Florida Marine Patrol files. Vessel location was plotted on 1:250,000 regional and 1:5,000 and 1:12,000 site maps. Type of vessel, length, hull material, engine, fuel tanks, overall condition, afloat and submerged characteristics, and accessibility, were used to derive parametric site indices of removal priority and removal difficulty. Results indicate 59 top priority cases which should be the focus of immediate clean up efforts in the Florida Keys. Half of these cases are rated low to moderate in removal difficulty; the remainder are difficult to remove. Removal difficulty is a surrogate for removal cost: low difficulty -low cost, high difficulty - high cost. The rating scheme offers coastal planners options of focusing removal operations either on (1) specific areas with clusters of high priority derelict vessels or on (2) selected targeted derelicts at various, specific locations. (PDF has 59 pages.

The potential impact on Florida-based marina and boating industries of a post-embargo Cuba: an analysis of geographic, physical, policy and industry trends

The information in this Technical Paper addresses the future of the US-Cuban marina and recreational boating industries from the geographic, physical, policy making and economic perspectives for a post-embargo Cuba. Each individual paper builds on the presentations made at the workshop, the information obtained in the subsequent trip to Cuba and presents in detailed form information which we hope is useful to all readers. (147pp.

Rendimientos del cultivo de colza en Mendoza con distintos regímenes de riego en períodos no críticos

Actualmente existe interés en el cultivo de colza (Brassica napus) para la obtención de biodiesel porque sus semillas contienen hasta un 50% de su peso en materia grasa. Desde hace un tiempo, debido a la producción de biocombustibles, el cultivo cobró impulso, como bioenergético, dado que cumple con todos los requisitos de calidad, de acuerdo al estándar europeo (Körbitz, 1999). Si bien en Argentina la producción de aceites vegetales se hace exclusivamente basándose en cultivos estivales, la colza se presenta como una interesante alternativa de producción invernal para una amplia zona. En Argentina, a partir del año 2010 debe usarse en el gasoil un mínimo de 5% de biodiesel. Por esa razón consideramos importante realizar esta experiencia en colza. Al ser un cultivo de ciclo inverno-primaveral, el uso del recurso hídrico no compite con los principales cultivos de la región que en su gran mayoría son de ciclo primavero estival. Mendoza es de clima árido, donde los cultivos solo prosperan bajo riego y como es sabido, el agua es un recurso escaso. Esto nos motivó a cuantificar sus necesidades hídricas totales y también a determinar el manejo óptimo del riego en cuanto a láminas y momentos de aplicación, a fin de maximizar la ecuación producción por m 3 de agua aplicada. Encontramos importante determinar y cuantificar esos “ahorros de agua" que se puedan realizar durante la fase o período no crítico al estrés hídrico, sin que esto produzca disminuciones en el rendimiento. Se propuso analizar durante dos años la respuesta del cultivo al riego diferenciado, aplicándo 4 diferentes tratamientos durante el período no sensible, reponiéndose en todos los casos durante el período crítico el 100% de la demanda evapotranspirativa. Los períodos no sensibles son: Fase nº 1: Plántula, Roseta y Elongación y Fase nº 3 de endurecimiento de grano a cosecha. Esta experiencia se llevó a cabo en los dos predios que posee la Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias. (Bermejo y Luján ambos sitios ubicados dentro del oasis norte. Mendoza, Argentina) La variedad utilizada fue: SW 2836, variedad de tipo primaveral, ciclo corto. Los tratamientos fueron los siguientes: T0 en donde se aplicó el 100 % de las necesidades hídricas del cultivo y luego tres tratamientos denominados T1, T2 y T3 en los que se aplicó respectivamente el 125, 75 y 50 % de las mismas. También se cuantificaron los rendimientos en semilla y aceite que se obtuvieron con distintos manejos del riego en cuanto a láminas y momentos de aplicación, para determinar el manejo que maximice la ecuación Kg de semilla y/o aceite por m 3 de agua aplicada. Es importante destacar que en esta experiencia contamos con estudiantes avanzados de la carrera de agronomía, como así también con personal de campo de las fincas de la facultad.Fil: Antonini, C. A. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias AgrariasFil: Barros, R. A. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agraria

Wave simulation for the design of an innovative quay wall: the case of Vlorë Harbour

Sea states and environmental conditions are basic data for the design of marine structures. Hindcasted wave data have been applied here with the aim of identifying the proper design conditions for an innovative quay wall concept. In this paper, the results of a computational fluid dynamics model are used to optimise the new absorbing quay wall of Vlorë Harbour (Republic of Albania) and define the design loads under extreme wave conditions. The design wave states at the harbour entrance have been estimated analysing 31 years of hindcasted wave data simulated through the application of WaveWatch III. Due to the particular geography and topography of the Bay of Vlorë, wave conditions generated from the north-west are transferred to the harbour entrance with the application of a 2-D spectral wave module, whereas southern wave states, which are also the most critical for the port structures, are defined by means of a wave generation model, according to the available wind measurements. Finally, the identified extreme events have been used, through the NewWave approach, as boundary conditions for the numerical analysis of the interaction between the quay wall and the extreme events. The results show that the proposed method, based on numerical modelling at different scales from macro to meso and to micro, allows for the identification of the best site-specific solutions, also for a location devoid of any wave measurement. In this light, the objectives of the paper are two-fold. First, they show the application of sea condition estimations through the use of wave hindcasted data in order to properly define the design wave conditions for a new harbour structure. Second, they present a new approach for investigating an innovative absorbing quay wall based on CFD modelling and the NewWave theory

Current and novel infusion therapies for patients with Parkinson's disease

Advanced Parkinson’s disease is characterized by periods of poor mobility, dyskinesia and progressive decline in functional independence of the affected person despite the manipulation of levodopa doses and the introduction of supplemental therapies such as catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitors, monoamine oxidase-B inhibitors and dopamine agonists. The implementation of drug delivery systems allows to bypass problems related to irregular and often unpredictable intestinal absorption of oral levodopa, which significantly affects its bioavailability and contributes to the development and persistence of motor complications. Subcutaneous apomorphine and levodopa/carbidopa jejunal infusion systems have been available for many years and their efficacy is confirmed by randomized studies and long-term experience in many centers worldwide. Recently, a new formulation of levodopa/carbidopa infusion gel that includes the catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor Entacapone has been introduced to the market. The use of entacapone allows to reduce total daily dose of administered levodopa. Two different soluble formulations of levodopa/carbidopa (ND0612 and ABBV-951) have completed clinical development, and both can ensure subcutaneous delivery by a portable pump infusion system. ABBV-951 uses a foslevodopa/foscarbidopa formulation, both prodrugs to improve absorption and tolerability. Both systems provide effective improvement of motor complications and are likely to expand the therapeutic options in advanced patients. Future efforts should focus on the earlier detection of patients who are candidates for device-aided therapies, increasing appropriate referral and broadening the availability of these treatments globally

Differential neuropsychological profiles in Parkinsonian patients with or without vascular lesions.

The purpose of this study is to compare the neuropsychological profile of patients affected by parkinsonism and vascular lesions to that in patients with PD alone (PD) and to evaluate whether the brain vascular lesion load is associated with neuropsychological variables. Thirty-six nondemented patients with parkinsonism were divided into 3 groups of 12 patients each, according to both clinical history and the presence of brain vascular lesions and/or dopaminergic denervation as revealed by magnetic resonance and dopamine transporter imaging, respectively. The first group had vascular lesions without dopaminergic denervation (VP group); the second group had vascular lesions and dopaminergic denervation (DD) (VP+DD group); and the third group consisted of patients with dopaminergic denervation (PD group) without vascular lesions. All patients underwent neurological and neuropsychological assessments. The groups differed in disease duration, age at onset, and cerebrovascular risk factors. The VP and VP+DD groups performed worse than the PD group on frontal/executive tasks. Regardless of the presence of dopaminergic denervation, cerebrovascular lesions in hemispheric white matter, basal ganglia, and cerebellum have an important effect in determining early onset and severity of cognitive impairment in patients with parkinsonism

Mixed integral-differential skin-effect models for PEEC electromagnetic solver

Efficient modeling of the broadband skin-effect for conducting 3D shapes is a challenging issue for the solution of large electromagnetic problems. The inclusion of such models in an EM solver can be very costly in compute time and memory requirements. Several properties of a model are desirable for the solution of practical problems such as the broadband frequency domain or the time domain applicability. In this paper, we present a model which meets some of these challenges and which is suitable for the PEEC solution method. © 2011 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE 20th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS 2011), San Jose, CA., 23-26 October 2011. In Proceedings of IEEE 20th EPEPS, 2011, p. 177-18

Frontal and subcortical contribution to visual hallucinations in dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s disease

Objectives. Visual hallucinations (VH) are common in Lewy body disease (LBD), and have been associated with cognitive and structural brain alterations. Evidence so far concerns mainly Parkinson’s disease (PD), but little is known about symptom-specific pathophysiological mechanisms across the LBD spectrum, especially related to the presence of dementia. The aim of the present pilot study was to investigate the neuroanatomical, and neuropsychological characteristics related to VH in two forms of LBD, namely dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and PD without dementia. Methods. Whole brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analyses on 3D MRI acquired structural brain scans, and neuropsychological testing were performed on 28 clinically diagnosed DLB (11 with VH, 17 NVH), and 24 PD (9 with VH, and 15 NVH) patients. In order to assess differences in grey matter (GM) regional volumes, and cognitive performance, hallucinating patients for each group were compared with corresponding non-hallucinating ones. Results. DLB patients with VH presented significantly worse visual attention deficits compared to those without, which persisted even when controlling for visual perception. Whole brain VBM analysis revealed decreased GM volume in DLB with VH in the right superior and medial frontal gyri, putamen, caudate nucleus and insula. Subcortical regional volumes were also significantly associated with visual attention performance. Hallucinating PD patients, instead, presented more severe executive dysfunction, but VBM showed no volumetric differences between the two PD subgroups. Post hoc region of interest analyses revealed striatal GM loss in PD with VH. Conclusion. Frontal and striatal GM atrophy may contribute to the emergence of VH in DLB, which may be fostered by the more severe attention deficits. Striatal GM loss and executive dysfunction, instead, appeared to underlie VH in PD without dementia

Urban commoning in a civic social network: the case study of FirstLife

The integration of ICTs in the urban management is increasing at all levels of public administrations in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness of public services, but their role is still instrumental rather than drive a change toward a more collaborative local governance. On the other hand, there is a raising expectation of the civil society to participate in decision making processes and contribute in defining local policies about sensitive topics. These purposes are often addressed by using or creating community digital tools designed for a specific contextual scope, resulting in a deep fragmentation of information about civic initiatives and social innovation projects and a lack of continuous communication among urban stakeholders even working in the same area. The challenge is to design an ICT solution to refactor the current practices of cooperation between private and public sector and support a real change in the city management processes from the local to the territorial level. In this contribution, we present the development of FirstLife, a map-based civic social network, designed to represent the complex environment of the city through geo-referenced time framed crowdsourced data about urban entities as events, places, groups, initiatives, projects, stories, news, etc. The main goals of the platform are to support the action of multiple stakeholders in alternative processes of co-management of common or shared resources, as for instance public spaces, green areas and buildings hosting collective institutions, to enable the co-production of services based on a reform of local administrative protocols toward the We-government model, and to empower mixed local networks. The development of FirstLife followed a participatory action design research methodology involving several stakeholders among associations, local authorities and institutions, businesses and the University in the city of Turin in the last two years. The participatory process started from the requirement elicitation, and continued with the collection of applicative scenarios based on the context analysis of internal/external relations of groups of stakeholders and the balancing of their goals in a common platform. Then, the co-design of features has been undertaken in the stakeholders’ working environments to model the platform functionalities on the real processes and practices defining social acceptable technological solutions, ready to be adopted by institutional and civic organizations. The platform has been tested-in-use in multiple living labs and pilot projects, experimenting a number of use patterns representing the common actions in the city carried out by public or private actors. These activities have been integrated in an iterative development cycle that brought so far at four progressively improved versions of FirstLife, from a map-based tool to share georeferenced information to a common workbench for multiple stakeholders acting in the same area (from the neighbourhood to the city level) where open groups can self-organize initiatives and cooperate with others. The result of this process is a digital space for urban commoning practices,reflecting the organization of society in individuals and structured public and private entities, the spatial framework of their actions and the temporal development of city transformations and initiatives