Better Pumps: Promoting Reliable Water Infrastructure for Everyone

Approximately 90 million people in Africa lack access to safe drinking water, despite having water infrastructure installed in their community. The India Mark II and the Afridev handpumps are among the most widely used handpumps in the world. Sadly, studies show that approximately 30% of these handpumps are non-operational due to failures of the bearings, seals, head flange, and other common components. The Better Pumps team of the Collaboratory provides engineering support for partners who are working to improve handpump sustainability. We have partnered with Tony Beers and AlignedWorks to validate a bearing test methodology for the India Mark II handpump. By modifying the loading conditions in our handpump test machine, we were able to replicate failures observed by AlignedWorks in a field trial of their bearing design. However, these modifications caused our test machine tabletop to noticeably deflect, so we made modifications to stiffen the tabletop. We partnered with Matt Schwiebert and Living Water International to test new seal designs for the India Mark II and Afridev handpumps. Seal performance data collected by the team was used to validate a new design in advance of field trials by Living Water International. We developed and performed clear cylinder testing on the seals to visualize the leak paths. A new Afridev testing apparatus is being designed to test the longevity of the Afridev bearings and seals. Test methodologies and results are reported. Funding for this work provided by The Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2022/1000/thumbnail.jp

Better Pumps: Reliable Handpump Infrastructure

Approximately 90 million people in Africa lack access to safe drinking water, despite having water infrastructure installed in their community. The India Mark II and the Afridev handpumps are among the most widely used handpumps in the world. Sadly, studies show that approximately 30% of these handpumps are non-operational due to failures of the bearings, seals, head flange, and other common components. The Better Pumps team of the Collaboratory provides engineering support for partners who are working to improve handpump sustainability. We partnered with Tony Beers and AlignedWorks to validate a bearing test methodology for the India Mark II handpump. By modifying the loading conditions in our handpump test machine, we were able to replicate failures observed by AlignedWorks in a field trial of their bearing design. We partnered with Matt Schwiebert and Living Water International to test new seal designs for the India Mark II and Afridev handpumps and to measure head flange deflections in the India Mark II handpump. Seal performance data collected by the team was used to validate a new design in advance of field trials by Living Water International. Head flange deflection data was collected for partner benchmarking of their computational analysis. Test methodologies and results are reported.https://mosaic.messiah.edu/engr2021/1000/thumbnail.jp

Pair-Instability Supernovae at the Epoch of Reionization

Pristine stars with masses between ~140 and 260 M_sun are theoretically predicted to die as pair-instability supernovae. These very massive progenitors could come from Pop III stars in the early universe. We model the light curves and spectra of pair-instability supernovae over a range of masses and envelope structures. At redshifts of reionization z >= 6, we calculate the rates and detectability of pair-instability and core collapse supernovae, and show that with the James Webb Space Telescope, it is possible to determine the contribution of Pop III and Pop II stars toward reionization by constraining the stellar initial mass function at that epoch using these supernovae. We also find the rates of Type Ia supernovae, and show that they are not rare during reionization, and can be used to probe the mass function at 4-8 M_sun. If the budget of ionizing photons was dominated by contributions from top-heavy Pop III stars, we predict that the bright end of the galaxy luminosity function will be contaminated by pair-instability supernovae.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Matches MNRAS accepted versio

A Modifier Screen for Bazooka/PAR-3 Interacting Genes in the Drosophila Embryo Epithelium

The development and homeostasis of multicellular organisms depends on sheets of epithelial cells. Bazooka (Baz; PAR-3) localizes to the apical circumference of epithelial cells and is a key hub in the protein interaction network regulating epithelial structure. We sought to identify additional proteins that function with Baz to regulate epithelial structure in the Drosophila embryo.The baz zygotic mutant cuticle phenotype could be dominantly enhanced by loss of known interaction partners. To identify additional enhancers, we screened molecularly defined chromosome 2 and 3 deficiencies. 37 deficiencies acted as strong dominant enhancers. Using deficiency mapping, bioinformatics, and available single gene mutations, we identified 17 interacting genes encoding known and predicted polarity, cytoskeletal, transmembrane, trafficking and signaling proteins. For each gene, their loss of function enhanced adherens junction defects in zygotic baz mutants during early embryogenesis. To further evaluate involvement in epithelial polarity, we generated GFP fusion proteins for 15 of the genes which had not been found to localize to the apical domain previously. We found that GFP fusion proteins for Drosophila ASAP, Arf79F, CG11210, Septin 5 and Sds22 could be recruited to the apical circumference of epithelial cells. Nine of the other proteins showed various intracellular distributions, and one was not detected.Our enhancer screen identified 17 genes that function with Baz to regulate epithelial structure in the Drosophila embryo. Our secondary localization screen indicated that some of the proteins may affect epithelial cell polarity by acting at the apical cell cortex while others may act through intracellular processes. For 13 of the 17 genes, this is the first report of a link to baz or the regulation of epithelial structure

The Intelligent Water Project: Bringing understanding to water pumps in Africa

Copyright © 2016 by SCITEPRESS - Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved. The Intelligent Water Project (IWP), born out of an effort to increase handpump reliability, measures and reports the functionality of handpumps and volume of water extracted on two-hour intervals daily. Additionally, IWP will measure groundwater levels which can be used to evaluate well yields. Data from handpumps is automatically collected and transmitted to a remote database. Once in the database, the data is analyzed and distributed to stakeholders via web and mobile applications and customizable alerts. Besides monitoring water extraction, handpump performance, and borehole health, the IWP system processes data to alert stakeholders of failure or degrading conditions (imminent failure). Coupled with appropriate field management processes, this information can lead to improved handpump availability and lowered cost of ownership. The key goal is to dramatically increase the reliability of handpumps. A secondary goal is the collection of handpump data from all IWP enabled pump sources providing a rich resource of data to enabling WASH practitioners, managers, hydrologist and donors to make more informed decisions

(No) more design patterns for multi-agent systems

A multi-agent systems (MAS) can be used to solve several problems that permeate current complex software systems design, specially distributed systems. The MAS research community has extensively studied protocols, algorithms, methodologies, and architectures to create autonomous, adaptable, robust, and scalable systems. Despite the MAS research achievements, mainstream software developers do not leverage from this knowledge. Design patterns provide a simple, although effective, mechanism to disseminate knowledge about well proven solutions for recurrent software design problems. The widespread acceptance, by the software development industry, of design patterns shows their effectiveness. Some researchers attempted to identify MAS design patterns, what is a first step towards broader acceptance of MAS solutions. However, we believe that the MAS research community needs to embrace the identification of MAS design patterns in order to spread MAS solutions to the software industry.status: publishe

Spectroscopic follow-up of a cluster candidate at z = 1.45

The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com. Copyright Blackwell Publishing DOI :10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.12433.xPeer reviewe

The Metal-poor non-Sagittarius (?) Globular Cluster NGC 5053: Orbit and Mg, Al, and Si Abundances

International audienc