Computational analysis of the behavior of atmospheric pollution due to demographic, structural factors, vehicular flow and commerce activities

According to the latest assessments made by the world health organization (WHO2016), the atmospheric pollution (air), has become one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the world, with a steep growth of respiratory diseases, increase in lung cancer, ocular complications, and dermis diseases [1,2,3]. Currently, there are governments which still underestimate investments in environmental care, turning their countries into only consumers and predators of the ecosystem [1,2,3]. Worldwide, several cities have been implementing different regional strategies to decrease environmental pollution, however, these actions have not been effective enough and significant indices of contamination and emergency declarations persist [1,2,3]. Medellín is one of the cities most affected by polluting gases in Latin America due to the high growth of construction sector, high vehicular flow, increase in commerce, besides a little assertive planting trees system, among other reasons [1,2,3]. With the purpose of providing new researching elements which benefit the improvement of air quality in the cities of the world, it is pretended to mathematically model and computationally implement the behavior of the flow of air, e.g., in zones in the city of Medellín to determine the extent of pollution by tightness, impact of current architectural designs, vehicular transport, high commerce flow, and confinement in the public transport system. The simulations allowed to identify spotlights of particulate tightness caused by architectural designs of the city which do not benefit air flow. Also, recirculating gases were observed in different zones of the city. This research can offer greater knowledge around the incidence of pollution generated by structures and architecture. Likewise, these studies can contribute to a better urban, structural and ecological reordering in cities, the implementation of an assertive arborization system, and the possibility to orientate effective strategies over cleaning (purification) and contaminant extracting systems

Combination of DROOL rules and Protégé knowledge bases in the ONTO-H annotation tool

ONTO-H is a semi-automatic collaborative tool for the semantic annotation of documents, built as a Protégé 3.0 tab plug-in. Among its multiple functionalities aimed at easing the document annotation process, ONTO-H uses a rule-based system to create cascading annotations out from a single drag and drop operation from a part of a document into an already existing concept or instance of the domain ontology being used for annotation. It also gives support to the detection of name conflicts and instance duplications in the creation of the annotations. The rule system runs on top of the open source rule engine DROOLS and is connected to the domain ontology used for annotation by means of an ad-hoc programmed Java proxy

Electrostatic internal energy using the method of images

For several configurations of charges in the presence of conductors, the method of images permits us to obtain some observables associated with such a configuration by replacing the conductors with some image charges. However, simple inspection shows that the potential energy associated with both systems does not coincide. Nevertheless, it can be shown that for a system of a grounded or neutral conductor and a distribution of charges outside, the external potential energy associated with the real charge distribution embedded in the field generated by the set of image charges is twice the value of the internal potential energy associated with the original system. This assertion is valid for any size and shape of the conductor, and regardless of the configuration of images required. In addition, even in the case in which the conductor is not grounded nor neutral, it is still possible to calculate the internal potential energy of the original configuration through the method of images. These results show that the method of images could also be useful for calculations of the internal potential energy of the original system.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. New discussions added. Minor change

Contribution à l'analyse du cheminement du mercure dans les poissons des réservoirs hydroélectriques du Moyen-Nord québécois

La vaste majorité des modèles d'accumulation du mercure dans les poissons est orientée vers des applications dans des milieux naturels non perturbés ne prenant pas compte des caractéristiques propres aux réservoirs nouvellement créés et leur influence sur les processus de bioaccumulation du mercure. C'est ce qui a déterminé les objectifs du travail entrepris ici : Préciser les caractéristiques de l'évolution temporelle de la teneur en mercure chez des poissons représentatifs des espèces piscivores et non piscivores vivant dans un réservoir hydroélectrique nouvellement créé dont les conditions environnementales sont significativement différentes d'un milieu aquatique naturel non perturbé. Évaluer la capacité des modèles courants dans la littérature à bien représenter l'évolution de la masse corporelle et de la charge corporelle en mercure des poissons d'un réservoir hydroélectrique nouvellement créé et d'apporter le cas échéant, les modifications nécessaires permettant le calcul adéquat de la teneur en mercure dans ces poissons. Le grand corégone (Coregonus clupeaformis) fut choisi à titre de poisson non piscivore et le grand brochet (Esox lucius) à titre de poisson piscivore. L'analyse des données du réservoir Robert-Bourassa par cohorte de poissons a permis de caractériser la dynamique de l'évolution temporelle de la masse corporelle et de la teneur en mercure des poissons nés une même année dans le réservoir (i.e ayant subit, toute leur vie durant, les conditions environnementales changeantes d'une année à l'autre). Cela a permis de constater, chez les deux espèces des poissons considérées, une différence très significative entre la masse corporelle ainsi que dans la teneur en mercure avant et après la mise en eau du réservoir. L'utilisation de relations bioénergétiques a permis de relier l'évolution de la masse corporelle des poissons non piscivores à la disponibilité de la ressource alimentaire dans le réservoir en fonction de l'âge du réservoir. Ces résultats sont cohérents avec le phénomène rapporté pour l'enrichissement en matières organiques du milieu aquatique les premières années après la mise en eau mais également avec le phénomène antagoniste d'attrition des sols ennoyés.Abstract: Many applications of mercury bioaccumulation models to fish have been done in natural lakes for which they were first derived. These models were also used for reservoirs without taking explicitly into account the Specific environmental conditions known to exist in a newly created reservoir and which would exert a definite influence on the accumulation of mercury in fish. These were the reasons setting the objectives of the study reported here and which were: (1) To analyse characteristics of mercury concentration with time of non-piscivorous and piscivorous fish from data originating from an hydroelectric reservoir which reflected environmental conditions far from the ones observed in natural unperturbed lakes. (2) To evaluate the capacity of bioenergetic and mercury accumulation models, currently used for predicting evolution of fish mass and mercury burden in fish with time, to describe accurately the data available, and to make the necessary adjustments to the models, as seem fit, to ensure more accurate calculations. Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) was chosen as the typical non piscivorous fish and Northern pike (Esox lucius) as the typical piscivorous fish in the Robert-Bourassa reservoir. Analysis of fish data by fish cohorts has permitted to characterise fish mass and mercury concentration in fish cohorts with time from the time they were born (i.e. having experienced all their life the evolving environmental conditions of the reservoir from year to year). For both fish species, very significant differences were observed in fish mass and mercury concentration in fish with time between fish in the reservoir and fish in the natural settings before flooding. Fish mass data as a function of fish age, used as an input to the bioenergetic model, permitted the calculation of the parameter of the model reflecting food availability with time. The results were coherent with the reported increase in organic matter available to fish in a newly created reservoir. They were also coherent with the antagonistic phenomenon of erosion of flooded soils with time. Accordingly, fish mercury burden (fish mass x mercury concentration in fish) as a function of fish age, used as an input to the bioaccumulation model, permitted the calculation of the fish food diet mercury concentration as a function of time since flooding of the reservoir. Available data from fish stomach content for both species has permitted to characterise the nature of the food components of the fish diet and the relative proportion of these components in the diet. For the whitefish, the major food groups considered were plankton, insects and benthos. For Northern pike, the diet was composed of non-piscivorous fish and piscivorous fish (surpredation). The results have shown the failure of the current version of the bioaccumulation model to produce accurate estimate of the fish diet mercury concentration. However, modifications made to the model, coherent with known physical phenomena, produced very satisfactory results when compared to available data

Quantum point contact conductance in NINS junctions

The effect of an insulating barrier located at a distance $a$ from a NS quantum point contact is analyzed in this work. The Bogoliubov de Gennes equations are solved for NINS junctions (S: anysotropic superconductor, I: insulator and N: normal metal), where the NIN region is a quantum wire. For $a\neq0$, bound states and resonances in the differential conductance are predicted. These resonances depend on the symmetry of the pair potential, the strength of the insulating barrier and $a$. Our results show that in a NINS quantum point contact the number of resonances vary with the symmetry of the order parameter. This is to be contrasted with the results for the NINS junction, in which only the position of the resonances changes with the symmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 5 Figures, RevTex

Strain relaxation in small adsorbate islands: O on W(110)

The stress-induced lattice changes in a p(1x2) ordered oxygen layer on W(110) are measured by low-energy electron diffraction. We have observed that small oxygen islands show a mismatch with the underlying lattice. Our results indicate that along [1-10] the average mismatch scales inversely with the island size as 1/L for all oxygen coverages up to 0.5 ML, while along [001] it is significant only for the smallest oxygen islands and scales as a higher power of the inverse island size. The behaviour along [1-10] is described by a one-dimensional finite-size Frenkel-Kontorova model. Using this model, together with calculated force constants, we make a quantitative estimate for the change of surface-stress upon oxygen adsorption. The result is consistent with our ab-initio calculations, which give a relative compressive stress of -4.72 N/m along [1-10] and a minute relative tensile stress of 0.15 N/m along [001]. The scaling along [001] is qualitatively explained as an effect induced by the lattice relaxation in the [1-10] direction.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Making ARPES Measurements on Corrugated Monolayer Crystals: Suspended Exfoliated Single-Crystal Graphene

Free-standing exfoliated monolayer graphene is an ultra-thin flexible membrane, which exhibits out of plane deformation or corrugation. In this paper, a technique is described to measure the band structure of such free-standing graphene by angle-resolved photoemission. Our results show that photoelectron coherence is limited by the crystal corrugation. However, by combining surface morphology measurements of the graphene roughness with angle-resolved photoemission, energy dependent quasiparticle lifetime and bandstructure measurements can be extracted. Our measurements rely on our development of an analytical formulation for relating the crystal corrugation to the photoemission linewidth. Our ARPES measurements show that, despite significant deviation from planarity of the crystal, the electronic structure of exfoliated suspended graphene is nearly that of ideal, undoped graphene; we measure the Dirac point to be within 25 meV of $E_F$ . Further, we show that suspended graphene behaves as a marginal Fermi-liquid, with a quasiparticle lifetime which scales as $(E - E_F)^{-1}$; comparison with other graphene and graphite data is discussed

Magnetism in nanometer-thick magnetite

The oldest known magnetic material, magnetite, is of current interest for use in spintronics as a thin film. An open question is how thin can magnetite films be and still retain the robust ferrimagnetism required for many applications. We have grown one-nanometer-thick magnetite crystals and characterized them in situ by electron and photoelectron microscopies including selected-area x-ray circular dichroism. Well-defined magnetic patterns are observed in individual nano-crystals up to at least 520 K, establishing the retention of ferrimagnetism in magnetite two-unit-cells thick.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

A Solanum lycopersicum × Solanum pimpinellifolium Linkage Map of Tomato Displaying Genomic Locations of R-Genes, RGAs, and Candidate Resistance/Defense-Response ESTs

We have identified an accession (LA2093) within the tomato wild species Solanum pimpinellifolium with many desirable characteristics, including biotic and abiotic stress tolerance and good fruit quality. To utilize the full genetic potential of LA2093 in tomato breeding, we have developed a linkage map based on an F2 population of a cross between LA2093 and a tomato breeding line, using 115 RFLP, 94 EST, and 41 RGA markers. The map spanned 1002.4 cM of the 12 tomato chromosomes with an average marker distance of 4.0 cM. The length of the map and linear order of the markers were in good agreement with the published maps of tomato. The ESTs were chosen based on their sequence similarities with known resistance or defense-response genes, signal-transduction factors, transcriptional regulators, and genes encoding pathogenesis-related proteins. Locations of several ESTs and RGAs coincided with locations of several known tomato resistance genes and quantitative resistance loci (QRLs), suggesting that candidate-gene approach may be effective in identifying and mapping new R genes. This map will be useful for marker-assisted exploitation of desirable traits in LA2093 and other S. pimpinellifolium accessions, and possibly for utilization of genetic variation within S. lycopersicum