Study of lunar earthshine by photoelectric photometry Final report, 1 Nov. 1965 - 30 Sep. 1967

Design feasibility and performance of semiportable field instrument for monitoring changes in earth albedo via earthshine measurement

Software X10-UPNP Bridge

IADIS MULTI CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2008 Amsterdam, The Netherlands JULY 22 - 24, 2008In a future of smart houses where multiple heterogeneous devices will be interconnected to provide new functionalities and to ease everyday tasks, several issues will challenge the research, including interoperability and interfaces between different systems. The work presented in this paper describes a software bridge that exposes X10 devices as UPnP devices to UPnP control points, banking on the networks integration and alternatives to create mixed installations that are optimized for ease, reliability and functionality

Linking the spatial patterns of organisms and abiotic factors to ecosystem function and management: insights from semi-arid environments

Numerous theoretical and modeling studies have demonstrated the ecological significance of the spatial patterning of organisms on ecosystem functioning and dynamics. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence that quantitatively shows how changes in the spatial patterns of the organisms forming biotic communities are directly related to ecosystem structure and functioning. In this article, I review a series of experiments and observational studies conducted in semi-arid environments from Spain (degraded calcareous shrubland, steppes dominated by <i>Stipa tenacissima</i>, and gypsum shrublands) to: 1) evaluate whether the spatial patterns of the dominant biotic elements in the community are linked to ecosystem structure and functioning, and 2) test if these patterns, and those of abiotic factors, can be used to improve ecosystem restoration. In the semiarid steppes we found a significant positive relationship between the spatial pattern of the perennial plant community and: i) the water status of <i>S. tenacissima</i> and ii) perennial species richness and diversity. Experimental plantings conducted in these steppes showed that <i>S. tenacissima</i> facilitated the establishment of shrub seedlings, albeit the magnitude and direction of this effect was dependent on rainfall conditions during the first yr after planting. In the gypsum shrubland, a significant, direct relationship between the spatial pattern of the biological soil crusts and surrogates of ecosystem functioning (soil bulk density and respiration) was found. In a degraded shrubland with very low vegetation cover, the survival of an introduced population of the shrub <i>Pistacia lentiscus</i> showed marked spatial patterns, which were related to the spatial patterns of soil properties such as soil compaction and sand content. These results provide empirical evidence on the importance of spatial patterns for maintaining ecosystem structure and functioning in semi-arid ecosystems. Furthermore, they show how taking into consideration the small-scale spatial patterns of organisms and abiotic factors, their restoration can be improved

Academical and Research Wiimote Applications

IADIS MULTI CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2008 Amsterdam, The Netherlands JULY 22 - 24, 2008This paper proposes the employment of the Wii Remote controller, better known as Wiimote, as an useful tool for educators and researchers. The quick development on fields such as Wireless Sensors and Actuators Networks or Hybrid Systems, and their applications, requires engineers with a solid knowledge in these areas. To achieve this goal the Wiimote becomes a great alternative to other options due to its great variety of analog and digital components, for a very low price, and the good documentation about it existing in Internet. As will be seen in this paper, the possible academical and research uses of the Wiimote are almost endless and cover many interesting problems in control engineering

An iterative design method for Coalitional control networks with constraints on the shapley Value

9th World CongressThe International Federation of Automatic ControlCape Town, South Africa. August 24-29In this work, we introduce a new iterative design method for a coalitional control scheme for linear systems recently proposed. In this scheme, the links in the network infrastructure are enabled or disabled depending on their contribution to the overall system performance. As a consequence, the local controllers are divided dynamically into sets or coalitions that cooperate in order to attain their control tasks. The new design method allows the control system designer to include new constraints regarding the game theoretical tools of the control architecture, while optimizing the matrices that define the controller

Human-in-the-Loop Model Predictive Control of an Irrigation Canal

Until now, advanced model-based control techniques have been predominantly employed to control problems that are relatively straightforward to model. Many systems with complex dynamics or containing sophisticated sensing and actuation elements can be controlled if the corresponding mathematical models are available, even if there is uncertainty in this information. Consequently, the application of model-based control strategies has flourished in numerous areas, including industrial applications [1]-[3].Junta de Andalucía P11-TEP-812

Smart home interoperability: the DomoEsi project approach

The home automation market is characterized by the great number of systems available to the end user. The recent bubble in the building industry made the situation even worse due to the birth of new proprietary systems. The success of the digital home concept depends on the ease of integration between home automation systems and other consumer electronic equipment pre-existing in the home. In this paper the interoperability issue is addressed and the approach followed in the project DomoEsi is presented

A note on the implementation of the BFC-MSMIP algorithm in C++ by using COIN-OR as an optimization engine

The aim of this technical report is to present some detailed explanations in order to help to understand and use the algorithm Branch and Fix Coordination for solving MultiStage Mixed Integer Problems (BFC- MSMIP). We have developed an algorithmic approach implemented in a C++ experimental code that uses the optimization engine COmputational INfrastructure for Operations Research (COIN-OR) for solving the auxiliary linear and mixed 0-1 submodels. Now, we give the computational and implementational descrip- tion in order to use this open optimization software not only in the implementation of our procedure but also in similar schemes to be developed by the users.nonanticipativity constraints, cluster partitioning, COIN-OR library, branch-and-fix coordination, multi-stage stochastic mixed 0-1 programming

An Application of Cooperative Game Theory to Distributed Control

18th World CongressThe International Federation of Automatic ControlMilano (Italy) August 28 - September 2, 2011In this paper we propose to study the underlying properties of a given distributed control scheme in which a set of agents switch between different communication strategies that define which network links are used in order to regulate to the origin a set of unconstrained linear systems. The problems of how to decide the time-varying communication strategy, share the benefits/costs and detect which are the most critical links in the network are solved using tools from game theory. The proposed scheme is demonstrated through a simulation example

A parallelizable algorithmic framework for solving large scale multi-stage stochastic mixed 0-1 problems under uncertainty

Preprint submitted to Computers & Operations Researchmulti-stage stochastic mixed 0-1 optimization, nonsymmetric scenario trees, implicit and explicit nonanticipativity constraints, splitting variable and compact representations, scenario cluster partitioning