Des indicateurs clés de performances pour accroître la résilience des réseaux sur trois étapes

International audienceWater distribution networks (WDNs) are critical infrastructures that should face multiple and continuous changes and adverse operative conditions (due to abnormal events) that alter their normal service provision. The main objective of a WDN is to deliver the required amount of water to the customer under a certain threshold of the desired pressure and quality. Therefore, ensuring resilience and safety of WDSs are big concerns for water utilities. Several resilience key performance indicators have been suggested to quantify and assessing WDN resilience. Regarding the objectives of resilience, water utility managers require modelling tools to be able to predict how the WDN will perform during disruptive events and understand how the system can better absorb them. Tools such as: demand-driven modelling (DDM) for sufficient pressure conditions, and pressure-driven modelling (PDM) for insufficient pressure conditions, aid to simulate WDNs performance under adverse operative conditions. This work attempts to evaluate the network resilience. The proposed approach is based on an event-driven methodology and there is considered the time when the event occurs, when it evolves, and the sequence of the events. It should be carefully selected the type of the approach (PDM or DDM) used for the hydraulic model, as well as the system performance state and the uses of resilience power-based indicators. The results are promising in order to provide to water managers with a great depth of information and support better preparedness for WDNs

Évaluation de la phase absorbante de résilience basée sur des Indicateurs de criticité pour des réseaux de distribution d'eau

International audienceWater distributions networks (WDNs) are exposed to multiple hazards, leading the network to operate under a range of critical conditions. This paper explored the relationship between the impact of anomalous events (AEs) of WDNs and the consequent palliative actions (PAs) to be implemented in the network to minimize such impact. Both AEs and PAs were assessed through a network resilience criticality index adapted to WDNs. The results were compared with those obtained from normal operating conditions with respect to the satisfaction rate of nodal demands. The proposal was evaluated by two case studies. The first corresponded to a small synthetic network and the second to a medium-size utility network. After a pipe burst event analysis, two different isolation actions were scrutinized in each of the two WDNs. The results quantify system resilience and support water utility managers in further decision-making processes. This is done through critical resilience indicators that provide information and support for better crisis preparedness (planning) and management (mitigation)

Material Stock Demographics: Cars in Great Britain.

Recent literature on material flow analysis has been focused on quantitative characterization of past material flows. Fewer analyses exist on past and prospective quantification of stocks of materials in-use. Some of these analyses explore the composition of products' stocks, but a focus on the characterization of material stocks and its relation with service delivery is often neglected. We propose the use of the methods of human demography to characterize material stocks, defined herein as stock demographics, exploring the insights that this approach could provide for the sustainable management of materials. We exemplify an application of stock demographics by characterizing the composition and service delivery of iron, steel, and aluminum stocks of cars in Great Britain, 2002-2012. The results show that in this period the stock has become heavier, it is traveling less, and it is idle for more time. The visualization of material stocks' dynamics demonstrates the pace of product replacement as a function of its usefulness and enables the formulation of policy interventions and the exploration of future trends.This work was supported by EPSRC, grant reference EP/N02351X/1.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the American Chemical Society via https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5b0501

Multi-agent simulation of hydraulic transient equations in pressurized systems

Computational modeling pervades virtually every industrial process. By using numerical representations of the behavior of elements that constitute a system it is possible to obtain efficient and safe designs. Moreover, system operation can be better defined by using such models, thus enabling greater reliability and control. In this paper the use of agents to solve the equations describing fast transients in water networks is investigated. As the simulation of hydraulic transients in pressurized systems is a naturally distributed problem, the authors argue that a multi-agent based system is very suitable for the solution of this complex engineering phenomenon. A hybrid solution is built by deploying agents to work with sets of equations describing hydraulic transient behavior in pipeline systems. The details necessary to assemble a complete and lubricated machine to model the complex phenomenon of hydraulic transients in pressurized systems are described. This research develops a platform that constitutes an efficient and versatile tool of great interest for water supply managers when analyzing water hammer effects in their networks.Izquierdo Sebastián, J.; Montalvo Arango, I.; Pérez García, R.; Ayala Cabrera, D. (2015). Multi-agent simulation of hydraulic transient equations in pressurized systems. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering. 04015071:1-14. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)CP.1943-5487.0000549S1140401507

Ultracool dwarf benchmarks with \emph{Gaia} primaries

This article has been accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We explore the potential of \emph{Gaia} for the field of benchmark ultracool/brown dwarf companions, and present the results of an initial search for metal-rich/metal-poor systems. A simulated population of resolved ultracool dwarf companions to \emph{Gaia} primary stars is generated and assessed. Of order $\sim$24,000 companions should be identifiable outside of the Galactic plane ($|b| > 10\,$deg) with large-scale ground- and space-based surveys including late M, L, T, and Y types. Our simulated companion parameter space covers $0.02 \le M/M_{\odot} \le 0.1$, $0.1 \le {\rm age/Gyr} \le 14$, and $-2.5 \le {\rm [Fe/H]} \le 0.5$, with systems required to have a false alarm probability $$0.6\, kau}\,Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

VAMOS: a Pathfinder for the HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory

VAMOS was a prototype detector built in 2011 at an altitude of 4100m a.s.l. in the state of Puebla, Mexico. The aim of VAMOS was to finalize the design, construction techniques and data acquisition system of the HAWC observatory. HAWC is an air-shower array currently under construction at the same site of VAMOS with the purpose to study the TeV sky. The VAMOS setup included six water Cherenkov detectors and two different data acquisition systems. It was in operation between October 2011 and May 2012 with an average live time of 30%. Besides the scientific verification purposes, the eight months of data were used to obtain the results presented in this paper: the detector response to the Forbush decrease of March 2012, and the analysis of possible emission, at energies above 30 GeV, for long gamma-ray bursts GRB111016B and GRB120328B.Comment: Accepted for pubblication in Astroparticle Physics Journal (20 pages, 10 figures). Corresponding authors: A.Marinelli and D.Zaboro

Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV

The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8  TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum