Propuesta para la restauración de los efectos ambientales del casco urbano de Armero, Tolima causado por el desastre natural de 1985

Armero fue un municipio con grandes posibilidades de crecimiento agroindustrial, donde la principal actividad era la agricultura combinada en algunos casos con ganadería y demás renglones pecuarios. Su población era de más de 25.000 habitantes y contaba con todos los servicios públicos básicos. El 13 de Noviembre de 1985 el área de todo el municipio fue arrasada por un movimiento masivo de lodo, que en un corto tiempo sepulto la población y toda la infraestructura. La depositación se llevo a cabo por etapas sucesivas que dieron lugar al acomodamiento de diferentes capas sobre los suelos existentes generando un desastre de orden natural a nivel social, económico y ecológico de la región. Con base en los estudios existentes de suelos, aguas y sucesión vegetal de la zona; se elaboró una propuesta para la restauración ambiental y ecológica del área urbana, destruida por los efectos causados por este evento y buscar alternativas para la restauración natural del áreaArmero was a municipality with big possibilities of agroindustrial growth, where the main activity was the agriculture combined in some cases with cattle raising and other cattle lines. Their population was of more than 25.000 inhabitants and I/you/he/she had all the basic public services. November 13 1985 the area of the whole municipality was razed by a massive movement of mud that I bury the population and the whole infrastructure in a short time. The deposit you carry out for successive stages that gave place to the accommodation of different layers on the existent floors generating a disaster of natural order at social, economic and ecological level of the region. With base in the existent studies of floors, waters and vegetable succession of the area; a proposal was elaborated for the environmental and ecological restoration of the urban area, destroyed by the effects caused by this event and to look for alternatives for the natural restoration of the are

Dissecting the origin of the submillimeter emission in nearby galaxies with Herschel and LABOCA

We model the infrared to submillimeter spectral energy distribution of 11 nearby galaxies of the KINGFISH sample using Spitzer and Herschel data and compare model extrapolations at 870um (using different fitting techniques) with LABOCA 870um observations. We investigate how the differences between predictions and observations vary with model assumptions or environment. At global scales, we find that modified blackbody models using realistic cold emissivity indices (beta_c=2 or 1.5) are able to reproduce the 870um observed emission within the uncertainties for most of the sample. Low values (beta_c<1.3) would be required in NGC0337, NGC1512 and NGC7793. At local scales, we observe a systematic 870um excess when using beta_=2.0. The beta_c=1.5 or the Draine and Li (2007) models can reconcile predictions with observations in part of the disks. Some of the remaining excesses occur towards the centres and can be partly or fully accounted for by non-dust contributions such as CO(3-2) or, to a lesser extent, free-free or synchrotron emission. In three non-barred galaxies, the remaining excesses rather occur in the disk outskirts. This could be a sign of a flattening of the submm slope (and decrease of the effective emissivity index) with radius in these objects.Comment: 31 pages (including appendix), 7 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Continuously Moving Mechanical Sprinkler Systems

Most sprinkler systems apply water while the lateral and sprinkler are stationary. Mechanisation of farm operations as labor costs in- crease, together with the shortage of labor for moving portable laterals and sprinklers, has resulted in improved and increased use of continuously moving mechanical sprinkler systems. These systems are characterised by laterals and sprinklers that remain connected to the main pipeline, but continuously move while applying water. The three major types of continuously moving sprinkler systems are: 1. Circular center-pivot. 2. Straight moving lateral. and 3. Travelers. Chapter II, pages 20-23, gives additional information on these systems. The stationary sprinkler systems apply water at a relatively constant hourly rate, while the moving system's application rates begin at zero, increase to a maximum, and then decrease to zero again as the moving system passes over a location. Figure II-1 shows a possible application rate curve for a continuously moving system

Thermoplastic Pipe (Chapter IV)

Pipelines for conducting water are one of the fundamental componnents of sprinkler irrigation systems. The materials used in the manufacture of irrigation pipe listed in Chapter II are steel, asbestos-cement, aluminum, and plastic. Plastic is the newest material being used and information on its capabilities and limitations is necessary for its proper use. Plastic is a man-made organic polymer. There are numerous kinds of plastics, but four major ones are used in pipe manufacture. These are: Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) Polyethylene (PE) Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) Polybutylene (PB) Of these, only poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) and polyethylene (PE) are presently used to any great extent in sprinkler irrigation

The emission by dust and stars of nearby galaxies in the Herschel KINGFISH survey

Using new far-infrared imaging from the Herschel Space Observatory with ancillary data from ultraviolet (UV) to submillimeter wavelengths, we estimate the total emission from dust and stars of 62 nearby galaxies in the KINGFISH survey in a way that is as empirical and model independent as possible. We collect and exploit these data in order to measure from the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) precisely how much stellar radiation is intercepted and re-radiated by dust, and how this quantity varies with galaxy properties. By including SPIRE data, we are more sensitive to emission from cold dust grains than previous analyses at shorter wavelengths, allowing for more accurate estimates of dust temperatures and masses. The dust/stellar flux ratio, which we measure by integrating the SEDs, has a range of nearly three decades (from 10(-2.2) to 10(0.5)). The inclusion of SPIRE data shows that estimates based on data not reaching these far-IR wavelengths are biased low by 17% on average. We find that the dust/stellar flux ratio varies with morphology and total infrared (IR) luminosity, with dwarf galaxies having faint luminosities, spirals having relatively high dust/stellar ratios and IR luminosities, and some early types having low dust/stellar ratios. We also find that dust/stellar flux ratios are related to gas-phase metallicity ((log(f(dust)/f(*)) over bar) = -0.66 +/- 0.08 and -0.22 +/- 0.12 for metal-poor and intermediate-metallicity galaxies, respectively), while the dust/stellar mass ratios are less so (differing by approximate to 0.2 dex); the more metal-rich galaxies span a much wider range of the flux ratios. In addition, the substantial scatter between dust/stellar flux and dust/stellar mass indicates that the former is a poor proxy of the latter. Comparing the dust/stellar flux ratios and dust temperatures, we also show that early types tend to have slightly warmer temperatures (by up to 5 K) than spiral galaxies, which may be due to more intense interstellar radiation fields, or possibly to different dust grain compositions. Finally, we show that early types and early-type spirals have a strong correlation between the dust/stellar flux ratio and specific star formation rate, which suggests that the relatively bright far-IR emission of some of these galaxies is due to ongoing (if limited) star formation as well as to the radiation field from older stars, which is heating the dust grains

Investigating the Presence of 500 μm Submillimeter Excess Emission in Local Star Forming Galaxies

Submillimeter excess emission has been reported at 500 μm in a handful of local galaxies, and previous studies suggest that it could be correlated with metal abundance. We investigate the presence of an excess submillimeter emission at 500 μm for a sample of 20 galaxies from the Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: a Far Infrared Survey with Herschel (KINGFISH) that span a range of morphologies and metallicities (12 + log (O/H) = 7.8-8.7). We probe the far-infrared (IR) emission using images from the Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel Space Observatory in the wavelength range 24-500 μm. We model the far-IR peak of the dust emission with a two-temperature modified blackbody and measure excess of the 500 μm photometry relative to that predicted by our model. We compare the submillimeter excess, where present, with global galaxy metallicity and, where available, resolved metallicity measurements. We do not find any correlation between the 500 μm excess and metallicity. A few individual sources do show excess (10%-20%) at 500 μm; conversely, for other sources, the model overpredicts the measured 500 μm flux density by as much as 20%, creating a 500 μm "deficit." None of our sources has an excess larger than the calculated 1σ uncertainty, leading us to conclude that there is no substantial excess at submillimeter wavelengths at or shorter than 500 μm in our sample. Our results differ from previous studies detecting 500 μm excess in KINGFISH galaxies largely due to new, improved photometry used in this study

A far-IR view of the starburst driven superwind in NGC 2146

NGC 2146, a nearby luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG), presents evidence for outflows along the disk minor axis in all gas phases (ionized, neutral atomic and molecular). We present an analysis of the multi-phase starburst driven superwind in the central 5 kpc as traced in spatially resolved spectral line observations, using far-IR Herschel PACS spectroscopy, to probe the effects on the atomic and ionized gas, and optical integral field spectroscopy to examine the ionized gas through diagnostic line ratios. We observe an increased ~250 km/s velocity dispersion in the [OI] 63 micron, [OIII] 88 micron, [NII] 122 micron and [CII] 158 micron fine-structure lines that is spatially coincident with high excitation gas above and below the disk. We model this with a slow ~200 km/s shock and trace the superwind to the edge of our field of view 2.5 kpc above the disk. We present new SOFIA 37 micron observations to explore the warm dust distribution, and detect no clear dust entrainment in the outflow. The stellar kinematics appear decoupled from the regular disk rotation seen in all gas phases, consistent with a recent merger event disrupting the system. We consider the role of the superwind in the evolution of NGC 2146 and speculate on the evolutionary future of the system. Our observations of NGC 2146 in the far-IR allow an unobscured view of the wind, crucial for tracing the superwind to the launching region at the disk center, and provide a local analog for future ALMA observations of outflows in high redshift systems.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Neuromorphic Vision Based Multivehicle Detection and Tracking for Intelligent Transportation System

Neuromorphic vision sensor is a new passive sensing modality and a frameless sensor with a number of advantages over traditional cameras. Instead of wastefully sending entire images at fixed frame rate, neuromorphic vision sensor only transmits the local pixel-level changes caused by the movement in a scene"jats:italic" at the time they occur"/jats:italic". This results in advantageous characteristics, in terms of low energy consumption, high dynamic range, sparse event stream, and low response latency, which can be very useful in intelligent perception systems for modern intelligent transportation system (ITS) that requires efficient wireless data communication and low power embedded computing resources. In this paper, we propose the first neuromorphic vision based multivehicle detection and tracking system in ITS. The performance of the system is evaluated with a dataset recorded by a neuromorphic vision sensor mounted on a highway bridge. We performed a preliminary multivehicle tracking-by-clustering study using three classical clustering approaches and four tracking approaches. Our experiment results indicate that, by making full use of the low latency and sparse event stream, we could easily integrate an online tracking-by-clustering system running at a high frame rate, which far exceeds the real-time capabilities of traditional frame-based cameras. If the accuracy is prioritized, the tracking task can also be performed robustly at a relatively high rate with different combinations of algorithms. We also provide our dataset and evaluation approaches serving as the first neuromorphic benchmark in ITS and hopefully can motivate further research on neuromorphic vision sensors for ITS solutions. Document type: Articl

Detailed Decomposition of Galaxy Images. II. Beyond Axisymmetric Models

We present a two-dimensional (2-D) fitting algorithm (GALFIT, Version 3) with new capabilities to study the structural components of galaxies and other astronomical objects in digital images. Our technique improves on previous 2-D fitting algorithms by allowing for irregular, curved, logarithmic and power-law spirals, ring and truncated shapes in otherwise traditional parametric functions like the Sersic, Moffat, King, Ferrer, etc., profiles. One can mix and match these new shape features freely, with or without constraints, apply them to an arbitrary number of model components and of numerous profile types, so as to produce realistic-looking galaxy model images. Yet, despite the potential for extreme complexity, the meaning of the key parameters like the Sersic index, effective radius or luminosity remain intuitive and essentially unchanged. The new features have an interesting potential for use to quantify the degree of asymmetry of galaxies, to quantify low surface brightness tidal features beneath and beyond luminous galaxies, to allow more realistic decompositions of galaxy subcomponents in the presence of strong rings and spiral arms, and to enable ways to gauge the uncertainties when decomposing galaxy subcomponents. We illustrate these new features by way of several case studies that display various levels of complexity.Comment: 41 pages, 22 figures, AJ accepted. Minor changes. Full resolution version of this paper is available at: http://users.obs.carnegiescience.edu/peng/work/galfit/galfit3.pd

Herschel Far-Infrared and Sub-millimeter Photometry for the KINGFISH Sample of Nearby Galaxies

New far-infrared and sub-millimeter photometry from the Herschel Space Observatory is presented for 61 nearby galaxies from the Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: A Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel (KINGFISH) sample. The spatially-integrated fluxes are largely consistent with expectations based on Spitzer far-infrared photometry and extrapolations to longer wavelengths using popular dust emission models. Dwarf irregular galaxies are notable exceptions, as already noted by other authors, as their 500um emission shows evidence for a sub-millimeter excess. In addition, the fraction of dust heating attributed to intense radiation fields associated with photo-dissociation regions is found to be (21+/-4)% larger when Herschel data are included in the analysis. Dust masses obtained from the dust emission models of Draine & Li are found to be on average nearly a factor of two higher than those based on single-temperature modified blackbodies, as single blackbody curves do not capture the full range of dust temperatures inherent to any galaxy. The discrepancy is largest for galaxies exhibiting the coolest far-infrared colors.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap