An economical vent cover

Inexpensive formed-plastic vent cover has been developed that allows controlled purge of vent systems and also provides blowout protection. Cover can also be used in relief mode to allow normal system relief flows without disengaging from vent system. Cover consists of two parts made of plastics with varying densities to fit media used and desired pressures

Image recognition using generalized correlation

Journal ArticleThis paper investigates the use of generalized cross-correlation in pattern matching when the objects may be of one or two dimensions. Generalized correlation can be used to determine the amount of dilatation and rotation between a given template and an object, in addition to determining the relative translation. Two techniques are discussed which break this four-dimensional correlation into two two-dimensional correlations making the problem computationally feasible. The techniques were developed for a specific class of images, however they can be applied to a more general class

The City of Minas: The Founding of Belo Horizonte, Brazil and Modernity in the First Republic, 1889-1897

The foundation of Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais in 1897 represents a pivotal moment in urban planning and the search for modernity in Brazil. This thesis argues that the decision to move the capital of Minas Gerais at the outset of the First Republic and the designing of the new city encompassed an evolving vision of modernity that helped establish the planned city as a means to transport Brazil into the future. It also situates the effort to build Belo Horizonte within the wider theoretical discourse on modernity and the development of urban spaces in Brazil. The politicians in favor of the move, mudancistas, responded to the unique geo-political situation of Minas Gerais to craft a vision of the city that embraced railroads and industry and rejected Ouro Preto for its association with the colonial past. They envisioned a white space with little room for Brazil’s majority population of color that would embody the republicanism of Brazil’s future. After the decision to move the capital, Chief Engineer Aarão Reis added significant elements of Positivist thought to the vision of modernity surrounding the creation of the new capital city, Belo Horizonte. Reis sought to build a city based on mathematic rationality that would bring order to society. He echoed politicians’ rejection of Ouro Preto in his emphasis on sanitation and the prevention of unregulated development. Moreover, he intended for Belo Horizonte to be a performance of modernity that would be studied around the world

Evidence of global-scale aeolian dispersal and endemism in isolated geothermal microbial communities of Antarctica

New evidence in aerobiology challenges the assumption that geographical isolation is an effective barrier to microbial transport. However, given the uncertainty with which aerobiological organisms are recruited into existing communities, the ultimate impact of microbial dispersal is difficult to assess. To evaluate the ecological significance of global-scale microbial dispersal, molecular genetic approaches were used to examine microbial communities inhabiting fumarolic soils on Mt. Erebus, the southernmost geothermal site on Earth. There, hot, fumarolic soils provide an effective environmental filter to test the viability of organisms that have been distributed via aeolian transport over geological time. We find that cosmopolitan thermophiles dominate the surface, whereas endemic Archaea and members of poorly understood Bacterial candidate divisions dominate the immediate subsurface. These results imply that aeolian processes readily disperse viable organisms globally, where they are incorporated into pre-existing complex communities of endemic and cosmopolitan taxa

Systematic Continuum Errors in the Lyman-Alpha Forest and The Measured Temperature-Density Relation

Continuum fitting uncertainties are a major source of error in estimates of the temperature-density relation (usually parametrized as a power-law, $T \propto \Delta^{\gamma - 1}$) of the inter-galactic medium (IGM) through the flux probability distribution function (PDF) of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest. Using a simple order-of-magnitude calculation, we show that few percent-level systematic errors in the placement of the quasar continuum due to e.g. a uniform low-absorption Gunn-Peterson component, could lead to errors in $\gamma$ of order unity. This is quantified further using a simple semi-analytic model of the Lya forest flux PDF. We find that under-(over-)estimates in the continuum level can lead to a lower (higher) measured value of $\gamma$. Within current observational uncertainties, continuum biases double the error in $\gamma$ from $\sigma_{\gamma} \approx 0.1$ to $\sigma_{\gamma} \approx 0.2$ within our model. We argue that steps need to be taken to directly estimate the level of continuum bias in order to make recent claims of an inverted \tdr\ more robust.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by Ap

Focussed palmtop information access combining starfield displays and profile-based recommendations

This paper presents two palmtop applications: Taeneb CityGuide and Taeneb ConferenceGuide. Both applications are centred around Starfield displays on palmtop computers - this provides fast, dynamic access to information on a small platform. The paper describes the applications focussing on this novel palmtop information access method and on the user-profiling aspect of the CityGuide, where restaurants are recommended to users based on both the match of restaurant type to the users' observed previous interactions and the rating given by reviewers with similar observed preferences

Enhancing and visualising data on soils, land use and the environment.

End of Project ReportA computer based system was developed to produce new information, charts and map data on soils, environment and land use for environmental decision support. The process involved manipulation of data in tabular and electronic map form by combining features from digitised maps and tables to develop an information system of linked and harmonised data. This report reviews and illustrates the findings with outputs in the form of maps and tables. Maps presenting sheep census information for the years 1970- 1991 show greatly increased livestock densities, in the latter years. These changes mainly occurred in the (i) traditional drystock areas of the midlands (ii) south east arable areas and (iii) south east Connacht dry stock/sheep areas and reflect economic and structural changes arising out of Government policy and membership of the EU. Maps depicting the temporal changes in dairy livestock densities were not so dramatic; however the structural change is particularly reflected in the reduction of dairying in the Connacht/Midlands regions. The introduction of milk quotas in the 1980's accelerated the changes which had been taking place since the early 1970's. In comparison to dairy cows, the increased concentration of drystock seems to be more widely spread. High concentrations of drystock occurred in the east midlands in 1970. By 1980, the high concentration of dry cattle had spread to North and South Midlands. The density of cattle increased further in Leinster and Munster areas by 1991. In Connaught, where sheep numbers had increased markedly between 1970 and 1991, cattle numbers remained relatively static. The digitisation of detailed soil survey maps was undertaken in this project and a new soil survey map of the Lough Derg Catchment was produced using Great Soil Groups as the mapping unit. This map is included in the report.European Union Structural Funds (EAGGF