Pump schedules optimisation with pressure aspects in complex large-scale water distribution systems

This paper considers optimisation of pump and valve schedules in complex large-scale water distribution networks (WDN), taking into account pressure aspects such as minimum service pressure and pressuredependent leakage. An optimisation model is automatically generated in the GAMS language from a hydraulic model in the EPANET format and from additional files describing operational constraints, electricity tariffs and pump station configurations. The paper describes in details how each hydraulic component is modelled. To reduce the size of the optimisation problem the full hydraulic model is simplified using module reduction algorithm, while retaining the nonlinear characteristics of the model. Subsequently, a nonlinear programming solver CONOPT is used to solve the optimisation model, which is in the form of Nonlinear Programming with Discontinuous Derivatives (DNLP). The results produced by CONOPT are processed further by heuristic algorithms to generate integer solution. The proposed approached was tested on a large-scale WDN model provided in the EPANET format. The considered WDN included complex structures and interactions between pump stations . Solving of several scenarios considering different horizons, time steps, operational constraints, demand levels and topological changes demonstrated ability of the approach to automatically generate and solve optimisation problems for a variety of requirements

Modelling and simulation of water distribution systems with quantised state system methods

The work in this paper describes a study of quantised state systems in order to formulate a new framework within which water distribution systems can be modelled and simulated. In contrast to the classic time-slicing simulators, depending on the numerical integration algorithms, the quantisation of system states would allow accounting for the iscontinuities exhibited by control elements in a more efficient manner, and thereby, offer a significant increase in speed of the simulation of water network models.The proposed approach is evaluated on a case study and compared against the results obtained from the Epanet2 simulator and OpenModelica

Online Simplification of Water Distribution Network Models

This paper presents an implementation of the simplification algorithm of water distribution network (WDN) models for the purpose of inclusion to the online optimisation strategy for the energy and leakage management in WDN, formulated within a model predictive control framework. The advantage of the online model reduction is adaptation to abnormal situations and structural changes in a network. The implementation was carried out with the utilisation of nowadays parallel programing techniques to distribute the simplification tasks across multiple CPU treads. This resulted in significant reduction of the computational time required for the simplification process of the large–scale WDN models. The authors also highlighted a problem of the energy distribution when the reduced and original models were compared

Analysis of clinical outcomes according to original treatment groups 16 years after the pivotal IFNB-1b trial

BACKGROUND: Evidence for efficacy of disease-modifying drugs in multiple sclerosis (MS) comes from trials of short duration. We report results from a 16 y, retrospective follow-up of the pivotal interferon beta-1b (IFNB-1b) study. METHODS: The 372 trial patients were randomly assigned to placebo (n=123), IFNB-1b 50 microg (n=125) or IFNB-1b 250 microg (n=124) subcutaneously every other day for at least 2 y. Some remained randomised for up to 5 y but, subsequently, patients received treatment according to physicians' discretion. Patients were re-contacted and asked to participate. Efficacy related measures included MRI parameters, relapse rate, the Expanded Disability Status Scale, the Multiple Sclerosis Functional Composite Measure and conversion to secondary progressive MS. RESULTS: Of the 88.2% (328/372) of patients who were identified, 69.9% (260/372) had available case report forms. No differences in outcome between original randomisation groups could be discerned using standard disability and MRI measures. However, mortality rates among patients originally treated with IFNB-1b were lower than in the original placebo group (18.3% (20/109) for placebo versus 8.3% (9/108) for IFNB-1b 50 microg and 5.4% (6/111) for IFNB-1b 250 microg). CONCLUSIONS: The original treatment assignment could not be shown to influence standard assessments of long-term efficacy. On-study behaviour of patients was influenced by factors that could not be controlled with the sacrifice of randomisation and blinding. Mortality was higher in patients originally assigned to placebo than those who had received IFNB-1b 50 microg or 250 microg. The dataset provides important resources to explore early predictors of long-term outcome

Analysis of the implementation of telematic tools for data management of passenger traffic dynamics in the Bus Rapid Transit system

This article briefly describes the transport system of the Republic of Ecuador and, in particular, the organization of the route network of urban passenger transport in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The features of the organization and management of transportation of passengers on the main routes of urban passenger transport of Quito are determined by the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system. We revise possible ways of improving the management and control of urban passenger transport in Quito by using telematics tools and systems. We propose that the main direction of improvement is to introduce tools for assessing the dynamics of passenger traffic in real time through the use of telematics. In comparison with traditional systems, the peculiarity of the approach proposed is the use of telematics equipment and special sensors for calculating the number of incoming/outgoing passengers from the vehicle, which are installed directly in the doors of the pavilions of the bus stops of the BRT system routes. The goal of this approach is to reduce the cost of telematics equipment and normalize the occupancy inside transport vehicles, which is one of the service level indicators

Designer diatom episomes delivered by bacterial conjugation.

Eukaryotic microalgae hold great promise for the bioproduction of fuels and higher value chemicals. However, compared with model genetic organisms such as Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae, characterization of the complex biology and biochemistry of algae and strain improvement has been hampered by the inefficient genetic tools. To date, many algal species are transformable only via particle bombardment, and the introduced DNA is integrated randomly into the nuclear genome. Here we describe the first nuclear episomal vector for diatoms and a plasmid delivery method via conjugation from Escherichia coli to the diatoms Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Thalassiosira pseudonana. We identify a yeast-derived sequence that enables stable episome replication in these diatoms even in the absence of antibiotic selection and show that episomes are maintained as closed circles at copy number equivalent to native chromosomes. This highly efficient genetic system facilitates high-throughput functional characterization of algal genes and accelerates molecular phytoplankton research

Fanny Copeland and the geographical imagination

Raised in Scotland, married and divorced in the English south, an adopted Slovene, Fanny Copeland (1872 – 1970) occupied the intersection of a number of complex spatial and temporal conjunctures. A Slavophile, she played a part in the formation of what subsequently became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that emerged from the First World War. Living in Ljubljana, she facilitated the first ‘foreign visit’ (in 1932) of the newly formed Le Play Society (a precursor of the Institute of British Geographers) and guided its studies of Solčava (a then ‘remote’ Alpine valley system) which, led by Dudley Stamp and commended by Halford Mackinder, were subsequently hailed as a model for regional studies elsewhere. Arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Italy during the Second World War, she eventually returned to a socialist Yugoslavia, a celebrated figure. An accomplished musician, linguist, and mountaineer, she became an authority on (and populist for) the Julian Alps and was instrumental in the establishment of the Triglav National Park. Copeland’s role as participant observer (and protagonist) enriches our understanding of the particularities of her time and place and illuminates some inter-war relationships within G/geography, inside and outside the academy, suggesting their relative autonomy in the production of geographical knowledge

Benchmarking implementations of functional languages with ‘Pseudoknot', a float-intensive benchmark

Over 25 implementations of different functional languages are benchmarked using the same program, a floating-point intensive application taken from molecular biology. The principal aspects studied are compile time and execution time for the various implementations that were benchmarked. An important consideration is how the program can be modified and tuned to obtain maximal performance on each language implementation. With few exceptions, the compilers take a significant amount of time to compile this program, though most compilers were faster than the then current GNU C compiler (GCC version 2.5.8). Compilers that generate C or Lisp are often slower than those that generate native code directly: the cost of compiling the intermediate form is normally a large fraction of the total compilation time. There is no clear distinction between the runtime performance of eager and lazy implementations when appropriate annotations are used: lazy implementations have clearly come of age when it comes to implementing largely strict applications, such as the Pseudoknot program. The speed of C can be approached by some implementations, but to achieve this performance, special measures such as strictness annotations are required by non-strict implementations. The benchmark results have to be interpreted with care. Firstly, a benchmark based on a single program cannot cover a wide spectrum of ‘typical' applications. Secondly, the compilers vary in the kind and level of optimisations offered, so the effort required to obtain an optimal version of the program is similarly varie

A Gene's Ability to Buffer Variation Is Predicted by Its Fitness Contribution and Genetic Interactions

BACKGROUND: Many single-gene knockouts result in increased phenotypic (e.g., morphological) variability among the mutant's offspring. This has been interpreted as an intrinsic ability of genes to buffer genetic and environmental variation. A phenotypic capacitor is a gene that appears to mask phenotypic variation: when knocked out, the offspring shows more variability than the wild type. Theory predicts that this phenotypic potential should be correlated with a gene's knockout fitness and its number of negative genetic interactions. Based on experimentally measured phenotypic capacity, it was suggested that knockout fitness was unimportant, but that phenotypic capacitors tend to be hubs in genetic and physical interaction networks. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We re-analyse the available experimental data in a combined model, which includes knockout fitness and network parameters as well as expression level and protein length as predictors of phenotypic potential. Contrary to previous conclusions, we find that the strongest predictor is in fact haploid knockout fitness (responsible for 9% of the variation in phenotypic potential), with an additional contribution from the genetic interaction network (5%); once these two factors are taken into account, protein-protein interactions do not make any additional contribution to the variation in phenotypic potential. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We conclude that phenotypic potential is not a mysterious "emergent" property of cellular networks. Instead, it is very simply determined by the overall fitness reduction of the organism (which in its compromised state can no longer compensate for multiple factors that contribute to phenotypic variation), and by the number (and presumably nature) of genetic interactions of the knocked-out gene. In this light, Hsp90, the prototypical phenotypic capacitor, may not be representative: typical phenotypic capacitors are not direct "buffers" of variation, but are simply genes encoding central cellular functions

Homogenization of the long-term global ozonesonde records

Póster presentado en: WMO Technical Conference on Meteorological and Environmental Instruments and Methods of Observation celebrada del 10 al 13 de octubre de 2022 en París