NEW TRENDS IN GIS AND BIM FOR FACILITY MANAGEMENT IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Most of the state bureaus and ministries in the Czech Republic are located in the capital city Prague. The buildings are situated mostly in historical part of the city, where are high demands on compliance with the cultural heritage laws. Currently, the buildings are in unsatisfactory building conditions, their maintenance is expensive and due to complicated legislation and political processes the buildings are in a state of “permanent repairs”. More than twenty years our company operates and co-develops GIS/BIM application for facility management of administrative buildings in the Czech Republic. The main topics of this contribution is to present our general experiences in GIS and BIM development which is based on our concrete cases dealt with Czech ministries, to present basic legislation requirements in Czech facility management and to evaluate current trends in the field of GIS and BIM for facility management in the Czech Republic in response to other official state registries

Antigenic Protein In Microgravity-Grown Human Mixed Mullerian Tumor (LN1) Cells Preserved In RNA Stabilizing Agent

Cells treated with RNAlater(TradeMark) have previously been shown to contain antigenic proteins that can be visualized using Western blot analysis. These proteins seem to be stable for several months when stored in RNA stabilizer at 4 C. Antigenic protein can be recovered from cells that have been processed using an Ambion RNAqueous(Registered TradeMark) kit to remove RNA. In this set of experiments, human mixed Mullerian tumor (LN1) cells grown on the International Space Station during Expedition 3 were examined for antigenic stability after removal of RNA. The cells were stored for three months in RNAlater(TradeMark) and RNA was extracted. The RNA filtrate Containing the protein was precipitated, washed, and suspended in buffer containing sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS). Samples containing equal concentrations of protein were loaded onto SDS-polyacrylamide gels. Proteins were separated by electrophoresis and transferred by Western blot to polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane. The Western blots were stained with an enhanced chemiluminescent ECL(Registered TradeMark)Plus detection kit (Amersham) and scanned using a Storm 840 gel image analyzer (Amersham, Molecular Dynamics). ImageQuant(Registered TradeMark)a software was used to quantify the densities of the protein bands. The ground control and flight LN1 cell samples showed a similar staining pattern over time with antibodies to vimentin, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, and epithelial membrane antigens

USAGE OF PHOTOGRAMMETRIC PROCESSING OF THERMAL IMAGES FOR CIVIL ENGINEERS

In climate conditions of the Czech Republic is getting more important to carry out thermal inspection during documentation and inventory of buildings. Capturing and photogrammetric processing of thermal images requires special photogrammetric approaches especially because of low thermal image resolution. Part of this paper is focused on photogrammetric processing of thermal images using different methods with different 2D and 3D results which help civil engineers and architects better interpretation of thermal imaging. Those results are presented on chosen test objects. Photogrammetric results are also analysed in terms of geometric accuracy. The importance of integration of 2D and 3D results to GIS and BIM for facility management is discussed in final part of the paper

Proteomic Retrieval from Nucleic Acid Depleted Space-Flown Human Cells

Compared to experiments utilizing humans in microgravity, cell-based approaches to questions about subsystems of the human system afford multiple advantages, such as crew safety and the ability to achieve statistical significance. To maximize the science return from flight samples, an optimized method was developed to recover protein from samples depleted of nucleic acid. This technique allows multiple analyses on a single cellular sample and when applied to future cellular investigations could accelerate solutions to significant biomedical barriers to human space exploration. Cell cultures grown in American Fluoroseal bags were treated with an RNA stabilizing agent (RNAlater - Ambion), which enabled both RNA and immunoreactive protein analyses. RNA was purified using an RNAqueous(registered TradeMark) kit (Ambion) and the remaining RNA free supernatant was precipitated with 5% trichloroacetic acid. The precipitate was dissolved in SDS running buffer and tested for protein content using a bicinchoninic acid assay (1) (Sigma). Equal loads of protein were placed on SDS-PAGE gels and either stained with CyproOrange (Amersham) or transferred using Western Blotting techniques (2,3,4). Protein recovered from RNAlater-treated cells and stained with protein stain, was measured using Imagequant volume measurements for rectangles of equal size. BSA treated in this way gave quantitative data over the protein range used (Fig 1). Human renal cortical epithelial (HRCE) cells (5,6,7) grown onboard the International Space Station (ISS) during Increment 3 and in ground control cultures exhibited similar immunoreactivity profiles for antibodies to the Vitamin D receptor (VDR) (Fig 2), the beta isoform of protein kinase C (PKC ) (Fig 3), and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (Fig 4). Parallel immunohistochemical studies on formalin-fixed flight and ground control cultures also showed positive immunostaining for VDR and other biomarkers (Fig 5). These results are consistent with data from additional antigenic recovery experiments performed on human Mullerian tumor cells cultured in microgravity (8)

A minimal model of an autonomous thermal motor

We consider a model of a Brownian motor composed of two coupled overdamped degrees of freedom moving in periodic potentials and driven by two heat reservoirs. This model exhibits a spontaneous breaking of symmetry and gives rise to directed transport in the case of a non- vanishing interparticle interaction strength. For strong coupling between the particles we derive an expression for the propagation velocity valid for arbitrary periodic potentials. In the limit of strong coupling the model is equivalent to the B\"uttiker-Landauer model [1-3] for a single particle diffusing in an environment with position dependent temperature. By using numerical calculations of the Fokker-Planck equation and simulations of the Langevin equations we study the model for arbitrary coupling, retrieving many features of the strong coupling limit. In particular, directed transport emerges even for symmetric potentials. For distinct heat reservoirs the heat currents are well-defined quantities allowing a study of the motor efficiency. We show that the optimal working regime occurs for moderate coupling. Finally, we introduce a model with discrete phase space which captures the essential features of the continuous model, can be solved in the limit of weak coupling, and exhibits a larger efficiency than the continuous counterpart.Comment: Revised version. Extended discussion on the discrete model. To appear in EP

Energetics and performance of a microscopic heat engine based on exact calculations of work and heat distributions

We investigate a microscopic motor based on an externally controlled two-level system. One cycle of the motor operation consists of two strokes. Within each stroke, the two-level system is in contact with a given thermal bath and its energy levels are driven with a constant rate. The time evolution of the occupation probabilities of the two states are controlled by one rate equation and represent the system's response with respect to the external driving. We give the exact solution of the rate equation for the limit cycle and discuss the emerging thermodynamics: the work done on the environment, the heat exchanged with the baths, the entropy production, the motor's efficiency, and the power output. Furthermore we introduce an augmented stochastic process which reflects, at a given time, both the occupation probabilities for the two states and the time spent in the individual states during the previous evolution. The exact calculation of the evolution operator for the augmented process allows us to discuss in detail the probability density for the performed work during the limit cycle. In the strongly irreversible regime, the density exhibits important qualitative differences with respect to the more common Gaussian shape in the regime of weak irreversibility.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

Analysis of landrace cultivation in Europe: A means to support in situ conservation of crop diversity

During the last century, the progressive substitution of landraces with modern, high yielding varieties, led to a dramatic reduction of in situ conserved crop diversity in Europe. Nowadays there is limited and scattered information on where landraces are cultivated. To fill this gap and lay the groundwork for a regional landrace in situ conservation strategy, information on more than 19,335 geo-referenced landrace cultivation sites were collated from 14 European countries. According to collected data, landraces of 141 herbaceous and 48 tree species are cultivated across Europe: Italy (107 species), Greece (93), Portugal (45) and Spain (44) hold the highest numbers. Common bean, onion, tomato, potato and apple are the species of main interest in the covered countries. As from collected data, about 19.8% of landrace cultivation sites are in protected areas of the Natura 2000 network. We also got evidence that 16.7% and 19.3% of conservation varieties of agricultural species and vegetables are currently cultivated, respectively. Results of the GIS analysis allowed the identification of 1261 cells (25 km × 25 km) including all the cultivation sites, distributed across all European biogeographical regions. Data of this study constitute the largest ever produced database of in situ-maintained landraces and the first attempt to create an inventory for the entire Europe. The availability of such resource will serve for better planning of actions and development of policies to protect landraces and foster their use

Conformal mappings versus other power series methods for solving ordinary differential equations: illustration on anharmonic oscillators

The simplicity and the efficiency of a quasi-analytical method for solving nonlinear ordinary differential equations (ODE), is illustrated on the study of anharmonic oscillators (AO) with a potential $V(x) =\beta x^{2}+x^{2m}$ ($m>0$). The method [Nucl. Phys. B801, 296 (2008)], applies a priori to any ODE with two-point boundaries (one being located at infinity), the solution of which has singularities in the complex plane of the independent variable $x$. A conformal mapping of a suitably chosen angular sector of the complex plane of $x$ upon the unit disc centered at the origin makes convergent the transformed Taylor series of the generic solution so that the boundary condition at infinity can be easily imposed. In principle, this constraint, when applied on the logarithmic-derivative of the wave function, determines the eigenvalues to an arbitrary level of accuracy. In practice, for $\beta \geq 0$ or slightly negative, the accuracy of the results obtained is astonishingly large with regards to the modest computing power used. It is explained why the efficiency of the method decreases as $\beta$ is more and more negative. Various aspects of the method and comparisons with some seemingly similar methods, based also on expressing the solution as a Taylor series, are shortly reviewed, presented and discussed.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures, 8 table