Comparing the carbon costs and benefits of low-resource solar nowcasting

Solar PV yield nowcasting is used to help anticipate peaks and troughs in demand to support grid integration. This paper compares multiple low-resource approaches to nowcasting solar PV yield, using a dataset of UK satellite imagery and solar PV energy readings over a 1 to 4-hour time range. The paper also estimates the carbon emissions generated and averted by deploying models, and finds that even small models that could be deployable in low-resource settings may have a benefit several orders of magnitude greater than its carbon cost. The paper also examines prediction errors and the activations in a CNN

Analysis of Emission Source Microscopy Through Simulation

In 2016, a method of resolving an electric field radiation source by sampling in the far field was published. The result of this publication was a device, deemed the Emission Source Microscope (ESM). Following these developments, this paper presents a comparison and validation study between results created with an ESM, and a simulated environment which is designed to mimic the operation of a physical ESM. From the developmental process of this study, this paper addresses the issues that arise in Emission Source Microscopy and present best practices associated with application. This paper concludes with a study of this assertion by creating a simulation environment that compares ESM performance using two antennas of differing gain and beamwidth characteristics.Electrical Engineerin

Way Down in Birmingham / music by Harold Dixon; words by Erwin F. and Jacob L. Kleine

Cover: drawing of a Caucasian male boarding a train, as an African American male loads his luggage; Publisher: Dixon-Lane Pub. Co. (Chicago)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_c/1164/thumbnail.jp

Effects of resveratrol on development of three lepidopteran species varying in diet breadth

The polyphenolic stilbene resveratrol is a plant secondary compound associated with antioxidant and anti-pathogen functions. Knowledge of these functions prompted longevity and development studies on many different model organisms, including several insect species. Results from these studies have been inconsistent across species; these inconsistencies may reflect the fact that many of these model organisms do not encounter resveratrol in their natural diets. In this study, I examined the effects of resveratrol on growth and development of three species of lepidopterans: the navel orangeworm Amyelois transitella (Pyralidae), a nut-feeding generalist with several hostplants that produce resveratrol, the cabbage looper Trichoplusia ni (Noctuidae), a polyphagous folivore that rarely encounters the compound in its host plants, and the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta (Sphingidae), an oligophagous folivore that feeds almost exclusively on species in the Solanaceae, some of which produce resveratrol in fruits but not in leaves. Two strains of A. transitella that differ in their recent ecological exposure to resveratrol were compared—a wild-caught strain from fig orchards and a laboratory strain originally collected in almond orchards and maintained for multiple generations on a semi-defined artificial diet. Growth and development of these species and strains were assayed with artificial diets containing concentrations of resveratrol based on ecologically relevant levels. Although the diet containing the highest concentration of resveratrol tested (70µg/g) led to lower pupal weights of M. sexta compared to all other diets, no other adverse or beneficial impacts of resveratrol were detected in any other assays. In contrast with previous studies documenting beneficial effects of resveratrol in two model insect species, neither larval survival nor adult lifespan was enhanced in any of the species in this study

Unmanned aerial vehicle-to-wearables (UAV2W) indoor radio propagation channel measurements and modeling

In this paper, off-body ultra-wide band (UWB) channel characterization and modeling are presented between an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a human subject. The wearable antenna was patched at nine different body locations on a human subject during the experiment campaign. The prime objective of this work was to study and evaluate the distance and frequency dependent path loss factors for different bandwidths corresponding to various carrier frequencies, and also look into the time dispersion properties of such unmanned aerial vehicle-to-wearables (UAV2W) system. The environment under consideration was an indoor warehouse with highly conductive metallic walls and roof. Best fit statistical analysis using Akaike Information Criteria revealed that the Log-normal distribution is the best fit distribution to model the UWB fading statistics. The study in this paper will set up a road map for future UAV2W studies to develop enhanced retail and remote health-care monitoring/diagnostic systems

Microbial acetone oxidation in coastal seawater

Acetone is an important oxygenated volatile organic compound (OVOC) in the troposphere where it influences the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. However, the air-sea flux is not well quantified, in part due to a lack of knowledge regarding which processes control oceanic concentrations, and, specifically whether microbial oxidation to CO2 represents a significant loss process. We demonstrate that 14C labeled acetone can be used to determine microbial oxidation to 14CO2. Linear microbial rates of acetone oxidation to CO2 were observed for between 0.75-3.5 h at a seasonally eutrophic coastal station located in the western English Channel (L4). A kinetic experiment in summer at station L4 gave a Vmax of 4.1 pmol L-1 h-1, with a Km constant of 54 pM. We then used this technique to obtain microbial acetone loss rates ranging between 1.2 and 42 pmol L-1 h-1.(monthly averages) over an annual cycle at L4, with maximum rates observed during winter months. The biological turnover time of acetone (in situ concentration divided by microbial oxidation rate) in surface waters varied from ~3 days in February 2011, when in situ concentrations were 3 ± 1 nM, to >240 days in June 2011, when concentrations were more than twofold higher at 7.5 ± 0.7 nM. These relatively low marine microbial acetone oxidation rates, when normalized to in situ concentrations, suggest that marine microbes preferentially utilize other OVOCs such as methanol and acetaldehyde. © 2014 Dixon, Beale, Sargeant, Tarran and Nightingale