Linking Locations: Storytelling with Pervasive Technology

With online location-aware smart phones in more and more pockets, storytelling is moving to the streets. Simultaneously, an increasing abundance of Linked Data is being made available, complete with geographical information. In this paper, we review the state of the art and suggest approaches to, and issues with, a storytelling system that combines these two technologies

Alien Registration- Hooper, Mary Martha (Eastport, Washington County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/1387/thumbnail.jp

Payload/orbiter contamination control requirement study, volume 2, exhibit A

The computer printout data generated during the Payload/Orbiter Contamination Control Requirement Study are presented. The computer listings of the input surface data matrices, the viewfactor data matrices, and the geometric relationship data matrices for the three orbiter/spacelab configurations analyzed in this study are given. These configurations have been broken up into the geometrical surfaces and nodes necessary to define the principal critical surfaces whether they are contaminant sources, experimental surfaces, or operational surfaces. A numbering scheme was established based upon nodal numbers that relates the various spacelab surfaces to a specific surface material or function. This numbering system was developed for the spacelab configurations such that future extension to a surface mapping capability could be developed as required

Push-Pull: Chemical ecology-based integrated pest management technology

Lepidopterous stemborers, and parasitic striga weeds belonging to the family Orobanchaceae, attack cereal crops in sub-Saharan Africa causing severe yield losses. The smallholder farmers are resource constrained and unable to afford expensive chemicals for crop protection. The push–pull technology, a chemical ecology- based cropping system, is developed for integrated pest and weed management in cereal–livestock farming systems. Appropriate plants were selected that naturally emit signaling chemicals (semiochemicals). Plants highly attractive for stemborer egg laying were selected and employed as trap crops (pull), to draw pests away from the main crop. Plants that repelled stemborer females were selected as intercrops (push). The stemborers are attracted to the trap plant, and are repelled from the main cereal crop using a repellent intercrop (push). Root exudates of leguminous repellent intercrops also effectively control the parasitic striga weed through an allelopathic mechanism. Their root exudates contain flavonoid compounds some of which stimulate germination of Striga hermonthica seeds, such as Uncinanone B, and others that dramatically inhibit their attachment to host roots, such as Uncinanone C and a number of di-C-glycosylflavones (di-CGFs), resulting in suicidal germination. The intercrop also improves soil fertility through nitrogen fixation, natural mulching, improved biomass, and control of erosion. Both companion plants provide high value animal fodder, facilitating milk production and diversifying farmers’ income sources. The technology is appropriate to smallholder mixed cropping systems in Africa. Adopted by about 125,000 farmers to date in eastern Africa, it effectively addresses major production constraints, significantly increases maize yields, and is economical as it is based on locally available plants, not expensive external inputs

Removing singular refractive indices with sculpted surfaces

Open Access JournalThe advent of Transformation Optics established the link between geometry and material properties, and has resulted in a degree of control over electromagnetic fields that was previously impossible. For waves confined to a surface it is known that there is a simpler, but related, geometrical equivalence between the surface shape and the refractive index, and here we demonstrate that conventional devices possessing a singularity - that is, the requirement of an infinite refractive index - can be realised for waves confined to an appropriately sculpted surface. In particular, we redesign three singular omnidirectional devices: the Eaton lens, the generalized Maxwell Fish-Eye, and the invisible sphere. Our designs perfectly reproduce the behaviour of these singular devices, and can be achieved with simple isotropic media of low refractive index contrast.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC

Applying the natural capital approach to decision making for the marine environment

The aspirations for natural capital and ecosystem service approaches to support environmental decision-making have not been fully realised in terms of their actual application in policy and management contexts. Application of the natural capital approach requires a range of methods, which as yet have not been fully tested in the context of decision making for the marine environment. It is unlikely that existing methodologies, which were developed for terrestrial systems and are based on land cover assessment approaches, will ever be feasible in the marine context at the national scale. Land cover approaches are also fundamentally insufficient for the marine environment because they do not take account of the water column, the significant interconnections between spatially disparate components, or the highly dynamic nature of the marine ecosystem, for example the high spatial mobility of many species. Data gaps have been a significant impediment to progress, so alternative methods that use proxies for quality information as well as the opportunities for remote sensing should be explored further. Greater effort to develop methodologies specifically for the marine environment is required, which should be interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral, coherent across policy areas, and applicable across a range of contexts

Scribing Method for Carbon Perovskite Solar Modules

The fully printable carbon triple-mesoscopic perovskite solar cell (C-PSC) has already demonstrated good efficiency and long-term stability, opening the possibility of lab-to-fab transition. Modules based on C-PSC architecture have been reported and, at present, are achieved through the accurate registration of each of the patterned layers using screen-printing. Modules based on this approach were reported with geometric fill factor (g-FF) as high as 70%. Another approach to create the interconnects, the so-called scribing method, was reported to achieve more than 90% g-FF for architectures based on evaporated metal contacts, i.e., without a carbon counter electrode. Here, for the first time, we adopt the scribing method to selectively remove materials within a C-PSC. This approach allowed a deep and selective scribe to open an aperture from the transparent electrode through all the layers, including the blocking layer, enabling a direct contact between the electrodes in the interconnects. In this work, a systematic study of the interconnection area between cells is discussed, showing the key role of the FTO/carbon contact. Furthermore, a module on 10 × 10 cm2 substrate with the optimised design showing efficiency over 10% is also demonstrated