The development of a land use inventory for regional planning using satellite imagery

Water quality planning in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana is reviewed in terms of use of land use data and satellite imagery. A land use inventory applicable to water quality planning and developed through computer processing of LANDSAT-1 imagery is described

Capacity Assessment of a Transmission Tower under Wind Loading

Transmission towers play a vital role in power distribution networks and are often subject to strong wind loads. Lattice tower design is often based on a linear elastic response to wind loading using methodology derived for atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) winds. A number of failures have been attributed to high intensity wind (HIW) events such as downbursts and tornadoes. This thesis investigates extreme winds on a self-supported lattice transmission tower and ultimately makes comparisons of the capacity under ABL and HIW. The force-deformation relation between the base shear and the displacement of the tip of the tower are used to represent the capacity curve of a structure under wind loading. Wind tunnel testing is used to evaluate the aerodynamic behaviour of a typical tower cross-arm section, which serves as the basis for selection of wind loading expressions for the numerical model. Recommendations are made for further investigation of lattice aerodynamics, including a more robust definition of the drag coefficient. Capacity estimates obtained using the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and nonlinear static pushover (NSP) procedures are compared, which indicate good agreement for ABL winds. The analyses consider both geometric and material nonlinearity. The NSP analysis is used to estimate the capacity of the tower under various wind profiles for the transverse and longitudinal wind directions, and it is shown that the capacity curve obtained under typical downburst scenarios can be approximately enveloped by those obtained under rectangular and ABL wind profiles. An uncertainty propagation analysis is carried out using the simple Monte Carlo technique, which shows that the coefficient of variation of the tower capacity is small compared to that associated with extreme wind load effects. Oblique wind directions are considered for ABL, rectangular and downburst wind loading, which associate critical wind speeds with direction. The resulting capacity curves are used to develop the capacity surface of the tower. It is shown that a conservative approximation of the tower capacity curve, or surface, under downburst wind is made if a fully correlated ABL wind loading profile is used as the wind load distribution

NDM-510: ANALYSIS OF SPATIALLY-VARYING WIND CHARACTERISTICS FOR DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Design wind speeds for various return periods are provided in most national design codes throughout the world (e.g., NBCC 2010, ASCE 7-10). The design wind speeds are often based on an extreme value analysis of historical data obtained from a number of meteorological stations distributed over the region of interest. However, only the extreme wind speed magnitude is typically available to the designer, which does not provide information on the directional characteristics or underlying probability distribution of the wind. These parameters of the local wind characteristics may be useful for designers of directionally-sensitive structures or for higher-order reliability-based design. This paper describes an analysis of wind records obtained from discrete meteorological stations and the methods used to develop estimates of wind speed and directionality. The trends in wind speed and direction for a set of stations are also discussed. Following this, statistical wind parameters (including wind speed and direction) can be extracted for a number of locations within the study area. These values can be subsequently used to assess the reliability of one or more point structures, or a distributed system. The results are compared with those based on a traditional Gumbel (Type I) extreme value analysis for the same set of station data

DENDRITIC CELL DIFFERENTIATION BLOCKED BY PRIMARY EFFUSION LYMPHOMA-RELEASED FACTORS IS PARTIALLY RESTORED BY INHIBITION OF P38 MAPK

To better understand the molecular mechanisms underlying the dendritic cell (DC) defects in cancer, we analyzed which signaling pathway is implicated in the abnormal monocyte differentiation into DC determined by the presence of Primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) released factors. Our results indicate that the DC, obtained in this condition, together with phenotypic abnormalities and reduced allostimulatory function, showed hyperphosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) molecules, in comparison to the DC differentiated in the absence of PEL-released factors. The inhibition of p38 MAPK but not of STAT3 phosphorylation, with specific inhibitors, was able to revert the effect of the PEL-released factors on the DC phenotype. This study suggests that p38 MAPK signaling pathway is an important contributor to the abnormal differentiation of DC in PEL

Early warning system for the prevention and control of unauthorized accesses to air navigation services infrastructures

Early warning systems are fundamental instruments for the management of critical situations since they are able to signal in advance any anomaly with respect to ordinary situations. The purpose of this paper is to present an early warning system, based on artificial neural networks, for the prevention and control of unauthorized accesses to the air navigation services infrastructure in Italy

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Realization of Coherent Optically Dense Media via Buffer-Gas Cooling

We demonstrate that buffer-gas cooling combined with laser ablation can be used to create coherent optical media with high optical depth and low Doppler broadening that offers metastable states with low collisional and motional decoherence. Demonstration of this generic technique opens pathways to coherent optics with a large variety of atoms and molecules. We use helium buffer gas to cool 87Rb atoms to below 7 K and slow atom diffusion to the walls. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in this medium allows for 50% transmission in a medium with initial OD >70 and for slow pulse propagation with large delay-bandwidth products. In the high-OD regime, we observe high-contrast spectrum oscillations due to efficient four-wave mixing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. V2: modified title, abstract, introduction, conclusion; added references; improved theoretical fit in figure 3(b); shortened slow light theory description; clarified simplicity of apparatus. Final version as published in Phys. Rev.

Learning-by-mediating. Reflexive mediation in action

This paper aims at sharing some reflections and results concerning some experiences carried out within a European interdisciplinary Erasmus+ project. The main themes are community and peer mediation, considered from the perspective of educational innovation and experimentation. Two on-line videorecorded meetings of the project are analysed to show that the process of the project and this article-writing was consistent with mediation, that emerges as a topic within a discipline, but also as a cross- disciplinary methodology. The collective construction of meaning becomes a way to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes while the participants are involved within interactive and constructive educational dynamics