Case studies of outdoor testing and analysis of building components

The construction and development of the PASSYS/PASLINK outdoor test cells were funded by the European Commission, with the objective of providing high-quality test environments for quantifying the performance of passive solar building components. Over the years since the original test cells were commissioned, the initial concept for outdoor testing has been extended to include other test cell types. Significant improvements have been made to the experimental procedures and analysis techniques, and a broad range of components has been tested. This paper describes representative experiments that have been conducted using these highly controlled outdoor test environments, indicates some of the related analysis, and shows the type of information that can be obtained from such tests. It demonstrates the way in which component performance can be ascertained in the realistic external environment. The case studies chosen range from building component tests within EC research projects to commercial tests, and from conventional building components to novel integrated facade systems. They also include a large range of passive and active components. Each case study summarises the test component, the purpose of the test, details of the test configuration (period of test, instrumentation, etc.), results and analysis, and associated modelling and monitoring where appropriate. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the advantages and limitations of the test cells for the various component types

Deep learning for automated river-level monitoring through river camera images: an approach based on water segmentation and transfer learning

River level estimation is a critical task required for the understanding of flood events, and is often complicated by the scarcity of available data. Recent studies have proposed to take advantage of large networks of river camera images to estimate the river levels, but currently, the utility of this approach remains limited as it requires a large amount of manual intervention (ground topographic surveys and water image annotation). We develop an approach using an automated water semantic segmentation method to ease the process of river level estimation from river camera images. Our method is based on the application of a transfer learning methodology to deep semantic neural networks designed for water segmentation. Using datasets of image series extracted from four river cameras and manually annotated for the observation of a flood event on the Severn and Avon rivers, UK (21 November - 5 December 2012), we show that this algorithm is able to automate the annotation process with an accuracy greater than 91%. Then, we apply our approach to year-long image series from the same cameras observing the Severn and Avon (from 1 June 2019 to 31 May 2020) and compare the results with nearby river-gauge measurements. Given the high correlation (Pearson's Correlation Coefficient >0.94) between these results and the river-gauge measurements, it is clear that our approach to automation of the water segmentation on river camera images could allow for straightforward, inexpensive observation of flood events, especially at ungauged locations

Internet of animals : characterisation of LoRa sub-GHz off-body wireless channel in dairy barns

Advances in wireless sensor technologies and MEMS have made it possible to automatically monitor the health status of dairy cows using Internet of things (IoT) and wireless body area networks. Since on-cow measuring devices are energy constrained, a proper characterisation of the off-body wireless channel between the on-cow sensor nodes and the back-end base station is required for an optimised deployment of these networks in barns. In this Letter, the long range (LoRa) off-body wireless channel has been characterised at 868 MHz, a typical IoT frequency. Both path loss and temporal fading were investigated using LoRa motes. Based on this characterisation, network planning and energy consumption optimisation of the on-body nodes could be performed, which enables the deployment of reliable dairy cow monitoring systems

Reduction of Mycobacterium avium ssp. paratuberculosis in colostrum : development and validation of 2 methods, one based on curdling and one based on centrifugation

The aim of this study was to develop and validate 2 protocols (for use on-farm and at a central location) for the reduction of Mycobacterium. avium ssp. paratuberculosis (MAP) in colostrum while preserving beneficial immunoglobulins (IgG). The on-farm protocol was based on curdling of the colostrum, where the IgG remain in the whey and the MAP bacteria are trapped in the curd. First, the colostrum was diluted with water (2 volumes colostrum to 1 volume water) and 2% rennet was added. After incubation (1 11 at 32 degrees C), the curd was cut and incubated again, after which whey and curd were separated using a cheesecloth. The curd was removed and milk powder was added to the whey. Approximately 1 log reduction in MAP counts was achieved. A reduction in total proteins and IgG was observed due to initial dilution of the colostrum. After curd formation, more than 95% of the immunoglobulins remained in the whey fraction. The semi-industrial protocol was based on centrifugation, which causes MAP to precipitate, while the IgG remain in the supernatant. This protocol was first developed in the laboratory. The colostrum was diluted with skimmed colostrum (2 volumes colostrum to 1 volume skimmed colostrum), then skimmed and centrifuged (at 15,600 x g for 30 min at room temperature). We observed on average 1.5 log reduction in the MAP counts and a limited reduction in proteins and IgG in the supernatant. To obtain a semi-industrial protocol, dairy pilot appliances were evaluated and the following changes were applied to the protocol: after 2:1 dilution as above, the colostrum was skimmed and subsequently clarified, after which the cream was heat treated and added to the supernatant. To investigate the effect of the colostrum treatment on the nutritional value and palatability of the colostrum and the IgG transfer, an animal experiment was conducted with 24 calves. Six received the dam's colostrum, 6 were given untreated purchased colostrum (control), and 2 groups of 6 calves received colostrum treated according to both of the above-mentioned methods. No significant differences were found between the test groups and the dam's colostrum group in terms of animal health, IgG uptake in the blood serum, milk; or forage uptake. Two protocols to reduce MAP in colostrum (for use on-farm or at a central location) were developed. Both methods preserve the vital IgG

Cell arrest and cell death in mammalian preimplantation development

The causes, modes, biological role and prospective significance of cell death in preimplantation development in humans and other mammals are still poorly understood. Early bovine embryos represent a very attractive experimental model for the investigation of this fundamental and important issue. To obtain reference data on the temporal and spatial occurrence of cell death in early bovine embryogenesis, three-dimensionally preserved embryos of different ages and stages of development up to hatched blastocysts were examined in toto by confocal laser scanning microscopy. In parallel, transcript abundance profiles for selected apoptosis-related genes were analyzed by real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Our study documents that in vitro as well as in vivo, the first four cleavage cycles are prone to a high failure rate including different types of permanent cell cycle arrest and subsequent non-apoptotic blastomere death. In vitro produced and in vivo derived blastocysts showed a significant incidence of cell death in the inner cell mass (ICM), but only in part with morphological features of apoptosis. Importantly, transcripts for CASP3, CASP9, CASP8 and FAS/FASLG were not detectable or found at very low abundances. In vitro and in vivo, errors and failures of the first and the next three cleavage divisions frequently cause immediate embryo death or lead to aberrant subsequent development, and are the main source of developmental heterogeneity. A substantial occurrence of cell death in the ICM even in fast developing blastocysts strongly suggests a regular developmentally controlled elimination of cells, while the nature and mechanisms of ICM cell death are unclear. Morphological findings as well as transcript levels measured for important apoptosis-related genes are in conflict with the view that classical caspase-mediated apoptosis is the major cause of cell death in early bovine development

Calibration of NOMAD on ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter: Part 2 – The Limb, Nadir and Occultation (LNO) channel

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery (NOMAD) instrument is a 3-channel spectrometer suite on the ESA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. Since April 2018, when the nominal science mission began, it has been measuring the constituents of the Martian atmosphere. NOMAD contains three separate spectrometers, two of which operate in the infrared: the Solar Occultation (SO) channel makes only solar occultation observations, and therefore has the best resolving power (∼20,000) and a wider spectral region covering 2.2–4.3 ​μm. The Limb, Nadir and Occultation (LNO) channel covers the 2.2–3.8 ​μm spectral region and can operate in limb, nadir or solar occultation pointing modes. The Ultraviolet–VISible (UVIS) channel operates in the UV–visible region, from 200 to 650 ​nm, and can measure in limb, nadir or solar occultation modes like LNO. The LNO channel has a lower resolving power (∼10,000) than the SO channel, but is still typically an order of magnitude better than previous instruments orbiting Mars. The channel primarily operates in nadir-viewing mode, pointing directly down to the surface to measure the narrow atmospheric molecular absorption lines, clouds and surface features in the reflected sunlight. From the depth and position of the observed atmospheric absorption lines, the constituents of the Martian atmosphere and their column densities can be derived, leading to new insights into the processes that govern their distribution and transport. Surface properties can also be derived from nadir observations by observing the shape of the spectral continuum. Many calibration measurements were made prior to launch, on the voyage to Mars, and continue to be made in-flight during the science phase of the mission. This work, part 2, addresses the aspects of the LNO channel calibration that are not covered elsewhere, namely: the LNO ground calibration setup, the LNO occultation and nadir boresight pointing vectors, LNO detector characterisation and nadir/limb illumination pattern, instrument temperature effects, and finally the radiometric calibration of the LNO channel. An accompanying paper, part 1 (Thomas et al., 2021, this issue), addresses similar aspects for SO, the other infrared channel in NOMAD. A further accompanying paper (Cruz-Mermy et al., 2021, this issue) investigated the LNO radiometric calibration in more detail, approaching the work from a theoretical perspective. The two calibrations agree with each other to within 3%, validating each calibration method. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.This project acknowledges funding by the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), with the financial and contractual coordination by the ESA Prodex Office (PEA 4000103401, 4000121493), by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MCIU) and by European funds under grants PGC2018-101836-B-I00 and ESP2017-87143-R (MINECO/FEDER), as well as by the UK Space Agency through grants ST/V002295/1, ST/V005332/1 and ST/S00145X/1 and ST/R001405/1 and Italian Space Agency through grant 2018-2-HH.0. This work was supported by the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS under grant number 30442502 (ET_HOME). The IAA/CSIC team acknowledges financial support from the State Agency for Research of the Spanish MCIU through the ‘Center of Excellence Severo Ochoa’ award for the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (SEV-2017-0709). SR thanks BELSPO for the FED-tWIN funding (Prf-2019-077 - RT-MOLEXO)