Advancing Data Collection, Management, and Analysis for Quantifying Residential Water Use via Low Cost, Open Source, Smart Metering Infrastructure

Urbanization, climate change, aging infrastructure, and the cost of delivering water to residential customers make it vital that we achieve a higher efficiency in the management of urban water resources. Understanding how water is used at the household level is vital for this objective.Water meters measure water use for billing purposes, commonly at a monthly, or coarser temporal resolutions. This is insufficient to understand where water is used (i.e., the distribution of water use across different fixtures like toilets, showers, outdoor irrigation), when water is used (i.e., identifying peaks of consumption, instantaneous or at hourly, daily, weekly intervals), the efficiency of water using fixtures, or water use behaviors across different households. Most smart meters available today are not capable of collecting data at the temporal resolutions needed to fully characterize residential water use, and managing this data represents a challenge given the rapidly increasing volume of data generated. The research in this dissertation presents low cost, open source cyberinfrastructure (datalogging and data management systems) to collect and manage high temporal resolution, residential water use data. Performance testing of the cyberinfrastructure demonstrated the scalability of the system to multiple hundreds of simultaneous data collection devices. Using this cyberinfrastructure, we conducted a case study application in the cities of Logan and Providence, Utah where we found significant variability in the temporal distribution, timing, and volumes of indoor water use. This variability can impact the design of water conservation programs, estimations and forecast of water demand, and sizing of future water infrastructure. Outdoor water use was the largest component of residential water use, yet homeowners were not significantly overwatering their landscapes. Opportunities to improve the efficiency of water using fixtures and to conserve water by promoting behavior changes exist among participants

A Low-Cost, Open Source Monitoring System for Collecting High Temporal Resolution Water Use Data on Magnetically Driven Residential Water Meters

We present a low-cost (≈$150) monitoring system for collecting high temporal resolution residential water use data without disrupting the operation of commonly available water meters. This system was designed for installation on top of analog, magnetically driven, positive displacement, residential water meters and can collect data at a variable time resolution interval. The system couples an Arduino Pro microcontroller board, a datalogging shield customized for this specific application, and a magnetometer sensor. The system was developed and calibrated at the Utah Water Research Laboratory and was deployed for testing on five single family residences in Logan and Providence, Utah, for a period of over 1 month. Battery life for the device was estimated to be over 5 weeks with continuous data collection at a 4 s time interval. Data collected using this system, under ideal installation conditions, was within 2% of the volume recorded by the register of the meter on which they were installed. Results from field deployments are presented to demonstrate the accuracy, functionality, and applicability of the system. Results indicate that the device is capable of collecting data at a temporal resolution sufficient for identifying individual water use events and analyzing water use at coarser temporal resolutions. This system is of special interest for water end use studies, future projections of residential water use, water infrastructure design, and for advancing our understanding of water use timing and behavior. The system’s hardware design and software are open source, are available for potential reuse, and can be customized for specific research needs

The Chlamydia trachomatis Type III Secretion Chaperone Slc1 Engages Multiple Early Effectors, Including TepP, a Tyrosine-phosphorylated Protein Required for the Recruitment of CrkI-II to Nascent Inclusions and Innate Immune Signaling

Chlamydia trachomatis, the causative agent of trachoma and sexually transmitted infections, employs a type III secretion (T3S) system to deliver effector proteins into host epithelial cells to establish a replicative vacuole. Aside from the phosphoprotein TARP, a Chlamydia effector that promotes actin re-arrangements, very few factors mediating bacterial entry and early inclusion establishment have been characterized. Like many T3S effectors, TARP requires a chaperone (Slc1) for efficient translocation into host cells. In this study, we defined proteins that associate with Slc1 in invasive C. trachomatis elementary bodies (EB) by immunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry. We identified Ct875, a new Slc1 client protein and T3S effector, which we renamed TepP (Translocated early phosphoprotein). We provide evidence that T3S effectors form large molecular weight complexes with Scl1 in vitro and that Slc1 enhances their T3S-dependent secretion in a heterologous Yersinia T3S system. We demonstrate that TepP is translocated early during bacterial entry into epithelial cells and is phosphorylated at tyrosine residues by host kinases. However, TepP phosphorylation occurs later than TARP, which together with the finding that Slc1 preferentially engages TARP in EBs leads us to postulate that these effectors are translocated into the host cell at different stages during C.trachomatis invasion. TepP co-immunoprecipitated with the scaffolding proteins CrkI-II during infection and Crk was recruited to EBs at entry sites where it remained associated with nascent inclusions. Importantly, C. trachomatis mutants lacking TepP failed to recruit CrkI-II to inclusions, providing genetic confirmation of a direct role for this effector in the recruitment of a host factor. Finally, endocervical epithelial cells infected with a tepP mutant showed altered expression of a subset of genes associated with innate immune responses. We propose a model wherein TepP acts downstream of TARP to recruit scaffolding proteins at entry sites to initiate and amplify signaling cascades important for the regulation of innate immune responses to Chlamydia.Fil: Chen, Yi-Shan. University of Duke; Estados UnidosFil: Bastidas, Robert J.. University of Duke; Estados UnidosFil: Saka, Hector Alex. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; Argentina. University of Duke; Estados UnidosFil: Carpenter, Victoria K.. Duke University Medical Center; . University of Duke; Estados UnidosFil: Richards, Kristian L.. Miami University; Estados UnidosFil: Plano, Gregory V.. Miami University; Estados UnidosFil: Valdivia, Raphael H.. University of Duke; Estados Unido

Inteligencia de mercados: comportamientos estratégicos sobre precios de oferta en el mercado spot eléctrico Colombiano

El mercado de energía mayorista es uno de los sectores industriales más competitivos de Colombia, y representa uno de los ejes principales en la economía del país. Este mercado ha sido objeto de estudio de varias áreas de conocimiento como la ingeniería eléctrica, economía, finanzas y otros. Aquí se presenta un análisis de los posibles comportamientos estratégicos de los principales agentes de la industria, desde la perspectiva de la inteligencia artificial orientada a la inteligencia de mercados, es decir, un trabajo multidisciplinar centrado en la explicación y emulación de la conducta inteligente y posiblemente estratégica de los agentes involucrados en la actividad de generación de energía en Colombia.The energy market is one of the most competitive Colombian industry sectors, and represents one of the main strategic focus in economy and development of the country. This market has been under study of many knowledge areas such as electric engineering, economy, financial and others. In this work, is presented an analysis of all the possible strategic behaviors of major industry players, from the basis of artificial intelligence oriented to market intelligence, that is, a multidisciplinary work focused on the explanation and emulation of intelligent behavior and possibly strategic of the actors involved in each market activities and in particular the behavior of energy-generating agents in Colombia

Ovarian maturation and haemolymphatic vitellogenin concentration of Pacific white shrimp <i>Litopenaeus vannamei</i> (Boone) fed increasing levels of total dietary lipids and HUFA

Two experiments were carried out to determine the quantitative lipid requirements for ovarian maturation of Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone) broodstock. The first experiment tested the effect of total dietary lipid (TDL) levels of 8.1%, 8.8%, 9.8% and 11.2% on the gonadosomatic index (GSI), hepatosomatic index (HSI), survival and body weight. The second experiment tested the effect of total dietary levels of highly unsaturated fatty acids (TDH) 0.6%, 1.3%, 2.0% and 2.7% on the same parameters mentioned above and on the haemolymphatic vitellogenin (vg) concentration. The GSI was higher in females fed 8.1% TDL as compared with those fed 8.8% TDL (P=0.05), and higher in females fed 8.1% and 8.8% TDL than in those fed 9.8% and 11.2% TDL. lncreasing TDH levels led to increasing levels of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) in the ovaries (r² = 0.999). However, the GSI was not affected by dietary treatments (P > 0.05). The vg concentration was higher in animals receiving 2.0% TDH as compared with those receiving 2.7% TDH. In conclusion, high TDL levels affected ovarian maturation in a negative way, why TDH levels had no pronounced effect on ovarian maturation within the range tested in this study