Integration of Constraints into Digital Building Models for Cooperative Planning Processes

The uniqueness and the long life cycle of buildings imply a dynamically modifiable building model. The technological foundation for the management of digital building models, a dynamic model management system (MMS), developed by our research group, allows to explicitly access and to modify the object model of the stored planning data. In this paper, the integration of constraints in digital building models will be shown. Constraints are conditions, which apply to the instances of domain model classes, and are defined by the user at runtime of the information system. For the expression of constraints, the Constraint Modelling Language (CML) has been developed and will be described in this paper. CML is a powerful, intuitively usable object-oriented language, which allows the expression of constraints at a high semantic level. A constrained-enabled MMS can verify, whether an instance fulfils the applying constraints. To ensure flexibility, the evaluation of constraints is not implicitly performed by the systems, but explicitly initiated by the user. A classification of constraint types and example usage scenarios are given

Orbit, clock and attitude analysis of QZS-1R

More than ten years after the launch of the first satellite of the Japanese Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS), a replenishment satellite for this spacecraft was launched into inclined geo-synchronous orbit (IGSO) in October 2021. Triple-frequency signal transmission of QZS-1R started on November 14, 2021. In the same month, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan published satellite metadata of QZS-1R including mass, center of mass coordinates, laser retro-reflector offsets, satellite antenna phase center offsets and variations, transmit power, attitude law, as well as spacecraft dimensions and optical properties. Precise orbit and clock parameters of QZS-1R are estimated with the NAPEOS software. The performance of a box-wing model derived from the satellite metadata is evaluated by day boundary discontinuities, orbit overlaps as well as Satellite Laser Ranging residuals. The analysis of the QZS-1R clock parameters estimated together with the orbits is complemented by a one-way carrier phase clock analysis of selected GNSS receivers connected to highly stable clocks in order to study also the short-term clock behavior. Like previous QZSS IGSO satellites, QZS-1R transmits the L1 Sub-meter Level Augmentation Service (SLAS) via a dedicated antenna separated about 1.2 m from the main navigation antenna. Therefore, simultaneous observations of, e.g., the L1C/A and the L1 SLAS signals allow to determine the QZS-1R attitude. Attitude estimates from a regional network of eight stations are presented and compared to the nominal attitude of the spacecraft

Recent flex power changes

The redistribution of the transmit power among different GPS signal components is called flex power, and it is implemented on modernized GPS satellites starting with Block IIR-M. The purpose of the flex power is to increase signal protection against jamming. It has been mostly active since the beginning of 2017 in different flex power modes and is visible in the carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0) observations as stepwise changes. Especially after the beginning of 2020, the flex power modes changed frequently. We summarize these changes and study their impact on differential code biases (DCBs) which is 0.3 ns on average for L1 and L2 intra-frequency DCBs. The flex power is analyzed daily using C/N0 measurements of the globally distributed GNSS observations network from January 1, 2020 until February 28, 2022. The flex power activation times are written into a dedicated block of the SINEX metadata format

Characterization and Performance Assessment of BeiDou-2 and BeiDou-3 Satellite Group Delays

Based on one year of data, a comprehensive assessment of broadcast group delays and differential code biases (DCBs) from network solutions is presented for all open BeiDou signals. Daily DCB estimates exhibit a precision of 0.1 ns, which also places a limit on long-term variations of the satellite group delays. On the other hand, the estimated DCBs show a notable dependence on the employed receivers, which causes inconsistencies at the few-nanosecond level between BeiDou-2 and BeiDou-3 satellites. Systematic satellite-specific offsets can likewise be identified in broadcast group delay values and clock offsets. These constitute the dominant contribution of the signal-in-space range error (SISRE) budget and are a limiting factor for single point positioning and timing. Use of the modernized B1C/B2a signals is therefore recommended instead of B1I/B3I. This offers a SISRE reduction from about 0.6 m to 0.45 m and also improves the consistency of precise clock and bias products derived from heterogeneous receiver networks

UTC and GNSS system time access using PPP with broadcast ephemerides

The application of precise point positioning with broadcast ephemerides (PPP-BCE) is discussed as an alternative to the established all-in-view technique for multi-GNSS time transfer. It combines the use of broadcast ephemerides with low-noise carrier-phase observations for accessing GNSS system time scales and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) with improved precision, and can be employed on stationary as well as mobile receivers in offline or real-time analyses. Using calibrated timing receivers, the method is shown to provide estimates of the GNSS-to-GNSS time offsets (XYTOs) with an accuracy at the 2 ns level. In the absence of prior calibrations, 0.5 ns consistency across different stations is achieved for GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou-3 after adjustment of systematic biases in comparison with calibrated reference stations or broadcast XYTO values. Furthermore, access to GNSS-specific UTC realizations can be obtained through predictions of the UTC offset from GNSS system time as provided in the broadcast ephemerides of individual constellations. The overall quality of the PPP-BCE-derived receiver clock offsets from UTC is assessed using calibrated receivers at various timing laboratories along with BIPM-provided UTC-UTC(k) measurements. Over the 1.5 years covered in the study, an accuracy of 1.8 ns for GPS and 2.5 ns for Galileo is demonstrated. For BeiDou, a slightly worse accuracy of 3 ns is obtained for a single timing laboratory over 9 months

Orbit determination of Sentinel-6A using the Galileo high accuracy service test signal

The High Accuracy Service (HAS) is an upcoming addition to the Galileo service portfolio that offers free correction data for precise point positioning in real-time. Beyond terrestrial and aeronautical applications, precise orbit determination (POD) of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) has been proposed as a potential use case for HAS corrections in view of their global availability. Based on HAS data collected during a test campaign in September 2021, the benefit of HAS corrections is assessed for real-time, onboard navigation as well as near real-time POD on the ground using GNSS observations of the Sentinel-6A LEO satellite. Compared to real-time POD using only broadcast ephemerides, performance improvements of about 40%, 10%, and 5% in terms of 3D position error can already be achieved for GPS-only, GPS + Galileo, and Galileo-only navigation. While Galileo processing benefits only moderately from the HAS correction data during the early tests in view of an already excellent Open Service performance, their use is highly advantageous for GPS processing and enables dual-constellation navigation with balanced contributions of both GNSSs for improved robustness. For near real-time offline POD, HAS corrections offer reduced latency or accuracy compared to established ultra-rapid GNSS orbit and clock products as well as independence from external sources

Fat Mass and Obesity-Associated Gene (FTO) in Eating Disorders: Evidence for Association of the rs9939609 Obesity Risk Allele with Bulimia nervosa and Anorexia nervosa

Objective: The common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs9939609 in the fat mass and obesity-associated gene (FTO) is associated with obesity. As genetic variants associated with weight regulation might also be implicated in the etiology of eating disorders, we evaluated whether SNP rs9939609 is associated with bulimia nervosa (BN) and anorexia nervosa (AN). Methods: Association of rs9939609 with BN and AN was assessed in 689 patients with AN, 477 patients with BN, 984 healthy non-population-based controls, and 3,951 population-based controls (KORA-S4). Based on the familial and premorbid occurrence of obesity in patients with BN, we hypothesized an association of the obesity risk A-allele with BN. Results: In accordance with our hypothesis, we observed evidence for association of the rs9939609 A-allele with BN when compared to the non-population-based controls (unadjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.142, one-sided 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.001-infinity; one-sided p = 0.049) and a trend in the population-based controls (OR = 1.124, one-sided 95% CI 0.932-infinity; one-sided p = 0.056). Interestingly, compared to both control groups, we further detected a nominal association of the rs9939609 A-allele to AN (OR = 1.181, 95% CI 1.027-1.359, two-sided p = 0.020 or OR = 1.673, 95% CI 1.101-2.541, two-sided p = 0.015,). Conclusion: Our data suggest that the obesity-predisposing FTO allele might be relevant in both AN and BN. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger GmbH, Freibur

Two New Loci for Body-Weight Regulation Identified in a Joint Analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies for Early-Onset Extreme Obesity in French and German Study Groups

Meta-analyses of population-based genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in adults have recently led to the detection of new genetic loci for obesity. Here we aimed to discover additional obesity loci in extremely obese children and adolescents. We also investigated if these results generalize by estimating the effects of these obesity loci in adults and in population-based samples including both children and adults. We jointly analysed two GWAS of 2,258 individuals and followed-up the best, according to lowest p-values, 44 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from 21 genomic regions in 3,141 individuals. After this DISCOVERY step, we explored if the findings derived from the extremely obese children and adolescents (10 SNPs from 5 genomic regions) generalized to (i) the population level and (ii) to adults by genotyping another 31,182 individuals (GENERALIZATION step). Apart from previously identified FTO, MC4R, and TMEM18, we detected two new loci for obesity: one in SDCCAG8 (serologically defined colon cancer antigen 8 gene; p = 1.85610 x 10(-8) in the DISCOVERY step) and one between TNKS (tankyrase, TRF1-interacting ankyrin-related ADP-ribose polymerase gene) and MSRA (methionine sulfoxide reductase A gene; p = 4.84 x 10(-7)), the latter finding being limited to children and adolescents as demonstrated in the GENERALIZATION step. The odds ratios for early-onset obesity were estimated at similar to 1.10 per risk allele for both loci. Interestingly, the TNKS/MSRA locus has recently been found to be associated with adult waist circumference. In summary, we have completed a meta-analysis of two GWAS which both focus on extremely obese children and adolescents and replicated our findings in a large followed-up data set. We observed that genetic variants in or near FTO, MC4R, TMEM18, SDCCAG8, and TNKS/MSRA were robustly associated with early-onset obesity. We conclude that the currently known major common variants related to obesity overlap to a substantial degree between children and adults