Fail Operational Controls for an Independent Metering Valve

As intelligent hydraulic systems with embedded sensors become more ubiquitous, the real or perceived reliability challenge associated with sensors must be addressed to encourage their adoption. In this paper, a fault-tolerant control strategy for an intelligent independent metering valve that allows continued operation if a sensor fails is described. The twin-spool valve example utilizes position sensors to stabilize the spool positions and eliminate hysteresis, and pressure sensors to provide digital pressure compensation, electronic load sensing, and other features. An independent metering valve has redundancy provided by four sensors working together to control the flow into and out of a single actuator. Although two sensors are needed to control the flow through a spool, the controller can be reconfigured to ensure the flow is always controlled on the spool with both sensors working. To accomplish this, the concept of cross-port pressure control is introduced that uses the faulty side of the valve to maintain constant pressure on the non-faulty side. By maintaining a constant pressure, the flow in and out of the actuator are balanced. Experimental results on the boom of a backhoe demonstrate the operation of the fault tolerant control strategy

Naturschutzmanagement in Zeiten des Klimawandels

Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Many ecosystems will undergo significant changes with dramatic effects on species distribution and biotic interaction. Species unable to move or adapt in response to climate change will face local or global extinction. Conservation management in the face of such extensive transformation is a challenging task. The thesis “Conservation management in times of climate change – Problems and solutions exemplified for the Hardangervidda National Park” analysed options available for addressing climate change in nature conservation. The main objective was the climate proofing of conservation management of endangered species in protected areas. Building on a review of different theoretical approaches a procedure for the climate proofing of conservation management was developed. This planning process was tested and verified for the Hardangervidda National Park in southern Norway. The alpine arctic plateau of the Hardangervidda harbours Europe’s largest population of wild barren ground reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) and is of particular importance for the preservation of this species. The location and its conditions make it especially sensitive to the negative effects of climate change. Consequentially, the work focused on the adaptation of reindeer management. A past to present analysis of the last four decades allowed several driving forces with major impact on the population to be identified. It could be shown that the population and its environment form a Complex Adaptive System where one driving force is rarely active in isolation. The interaction of climate related drivers with other environmental impacts is a major obstacle for the identification of simple cause-and-effect-chains. Different scenarios for climatic development until 2050 were used to identify the most likely effects on the driving forces for the population. Even though there is a wealth of information about the biology of barren ground reindeer, its reaction to climate changes is still an open question. Due to the lack of information, conservation management for future climate impacts faces major uncertainties. The development of robust conservation strategies in the face of uncertainty must be the focus of the climate proofing process. A risk management approach was used to join the scenario based impact assessment and the past to present analysis. The classification of future changes into different types of risks allowed the identification of suitable measures and no-regret strategies for conservation management in a changing climate. The rules of Adaptive Management helped to make these measures specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. The testing of a concept based in decision and planning theory on the example of the Hardangervidda reindeer population was effectively applied. Based on this experience the concept was further developed. A guideline for the climate proofing of conservation management was outlined. It joins aspects of a risk management approach to Adaptive Management. The guideline is built on seven principles for climate proofing and describes a planning process in five steps. For every step the relevant methods and data requirements are characterised. In this way an approach to climate proofing was developed that can be applied to the conservation management of endangered species.Zusammenfassung: Die Veränderung des Klimas hat dramatische Auswirkungen auf die Vielfalt und Verteilung von Tier- und Pflanzenarten auf der Erde. Diese Veränderungen bilden eine neue Herausforderung für den Schutz einzelner Arten und ihrer Lebensräume. Die vorliegende Arbeit hatte zur Aufgabe, die Handlungsmöglichkeiten des Naturschutzmanagements zum Umgang mit den Folgen des Klimawandels an einem konkreten Beispiel zu untersuchen. Sie geht der Frage nach, wie die Problematik des Klimawandels im Rahmen der Planung für den Schutz einer Art in einem Schutzgebiet adäquate Berücksichtigung finden kann. Am Beispiel des Nationalparks Hardangervidda in Südnorwegen wurde ein Planungsablauf konzipiert und getestet, der die potentiellen Wirkungen des Klimawandels berücksichtigt. Im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchung stand dabei das Management Europas größter Population wild lebender Rentiere (Rangifer tarandus tarandus). Der alpin-arktischen Hochfläche der Hardangervidda kommt für den Erhalt dieser Art eine besondere Bedeutung zu. Gleichzeitig ist das Gebiet aufgrund der Lage und der äußeren Bedingungen besonders durch die negativen Folgen des Klimawandels betroffen. Mit Hilfe einer Analyse des Habitat-Demografie-Verhältnisses konnten die Faktoren identifiziert werden, die die Bestandsentwicklung der Rentiere in der Hardangervidda in den letzten vier Jahrzehnten beeinflusst haben. Dabei war in den seltensten Fällen ein isolierter Faktor für Schwankungen der Bestandsgröße verantwortlich. Vielfach muss von einem Zusammenspiel vieler Faktoren ausgegangen werden. Die Wechselwirkungen der klimatischen Veränderungen mit anderen Umwelteinflüssen erschweren den Nachweis von Kausalbeziehungen. Es zeigt sich, dass der Bestand und seine Umwelt als pfadabhängiges komplexes System betrachtet werden müssen. Aufbauend auf der historischen Analyse wurden die Entwicklungen der Einflussfaktoren und ihrer Wechselwirkung bis zum Jahr 2050 prognostiziert. Im Gegensatz zu den physikalischen Veränderungen des Klimas stellte sich die Prognose biologischer Reaktionen als eine besondere Herausforderung dar. Selbst bei einer so gut erforschten Art wie dem Rentier ist ein erheblicher Mangel an biologischen Daten über seine klimatische Sensibilität zu verzeichnen. Der Umgang mit dem zukünftigen Klimawandel im Management der Art ist daher stark vom Handeln unter Unsicherheit geprägt. Um dies in der Planungsmethodik zu reflektieren wurde der Umgang mit der Unsicherheit in der Entscheidungsfindung in den Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung gerückt. Vor allem der Auswahl fehlertoleranter Maßnahmen, die das Risiko negativer Entwicklungen in einem breiten Spektrum realistischer Zukünfte vermindern, wurde große Bedeutung beigemessen. Mit Hilfe des Risikomanagements konnten der szenariobasierte top-down Ansatz und der bottom-up Ansatz der historischen Klimafolgenanalyse effektiv verknüpft werden. Über den Umgang mit Unsicherheiten hinaus stellt das Risikomanagement gleichzeitig als wertimplikatives und handlungsorientiertes Konzept einen Rahmen und geeignete Verfahren für die Maßnahmenentwicklung bereit. Der Test der theoretischen Überlegungen am konkreten Beispiel der Hardangervidda war geeignet, die bisher grob umrissenen Aufgaben in ihrer Konsistenz zu überprüfen und weiter auszudifferenzieren. Die so entstandene Skizze für eine klimaangepasste Naturschutzplanung geht damit deutlich über die bestehenden Richtlinien und Prinzipien hinaus und verbindet ein effizientes Risikomanagement mit den Ansätzen des Adaptiven Managements. Neben sieben Leitlinien einer klimaangepassten Naturschutzplanung wurde ein fünfstufiger Planungsablauf einschließlich einer geeigneten Methodik zur Risikobewertung für das Management einer Art ausgearbeitet

Climate Change Impact Modelling Cascade – Benefits and Limitations for Conservation Management

Model results can serve as a basis for adaptation in conservation management. They can help understanding the impact of climate change, and support the formulation of management measures. However, model results rely strongly on the quality and the resolution of the input data; they contain significant uncertainties and need to be interpreted in the context of the modelling assumptions. The perception of models and their results differs between disciplines as well as between science and practice. Part of this gap derives from the long ‘model cascade’ used for the assessment of climate related impacts on biodiversity. For this ‘model cascade’ model results from Global Climate Models are often used to drive Regional Downscaled Climate Models and are transferred to hydrological models or distribution models of plants and animals. In fact, most assessments of potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity rely on habitat modelling of plants and animals. But, only few decision makers are trained to analyse the different outcomes of climate impact modelling. If modelling is integrated into conservation management it must be based on an evaluation of the need for information in protected areas and an assessment of model use in the management process, so as to guarantee maximum usability

Climate Change Impact Modelling Cascade – Benefits and Limitations for Conservation Management

Model results can serve as a basis for adaptation in conservation management. They can help understanding the impact of climate change, and support the formulation of management measures. However, model results rely strongly on the quality and the resolution of the input data; they contain significant uncertainties and need to be interpreted in the context of the modelling assumptions. The perception of models and their results differs between disciplines as well as between science and practice. Part of this gap derives from the long ‘model cascade’ used for the assessment of climate related impacts on biodiversity. For this ‘model cascade’ model results from Global Climate Models are often used to drive Regional Downscaled Climate Models and are transferred to hydrological models or distribution models of plants and animals. In fact, most assessments of potential impacts of climate change on biodiversity rely on habitat modelling of plants and animals. But, only few decision makers are trained to analyse the different outcomes of climate impact modelling. If modelling is integrated into conservation management it must be based on an evaluation of the need for information in protected areas and an assessment of model use in the management process, so as to guarantee maximum usability

IEEE SA Industry Connections 3D Body Processing Working Group and IEEE P3141 Standard for 3D Body Processing - Part 1

Mcdonald, C.; Rannow, RK.; Pai, D.; Bullas, A.; Ballester Fernandez, A. (2020). IEEE SA Industry Connections 3D Body Processing Working Group and IEEE P3141 Standard for 3D Body Processing - Part 2. IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine. 9(6):97-99. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCE.2020.2997556S97999

Using neural and distance-based machine learning techniques in order to identify genuine and acted emotions from facial expressions

Facial expressions are part of human non-verbal communication. Automatically discriminating between genuine and acted emotion can help psychologists, judges, human-machine interface, and so on. The problems for researchers starts when there are few real emotion facial datasets available, and thus, most of experimentation for evaluation is done by using fake emotions from actors. Thus, this paper explores the problem of classifying emotions from facial expressions as genuine or acted. We propose to extract facial features from images and to classify using k-Means, k-Nearest Neighbor and Neural Network. The best results obtained presented a promising 98.6% of precision for happiness emotion and 92% for sadness emotion

Großschutzgebiete, Biodiversität und räumliche Planung

Positionen 1 Stellenwert von Großschutzgebieten in der räumlichen Planung stärken 2 Zuständigkeiten von Großschutzgebieten klarer regeln und administrative Struk-turen harmonisieren 3 Monitoring und Qualitätsmanagement von Großschutzgebieten sicherstellen 4 Neben klassischem Naturschutz mehr Prozessschutz: Dynamik in Großschutz-gebieten zulassen 5 Großschutzgebiete bundesweit einheitlich zonieren 6 Ökosystemleistungen von Großschutzgebieten stärker für Kommunikation und räumliche Planung nutzen 7 Neue Strategien für den Umgang mit aktuellen Herausforderungen wie demo-graphischem Wandel, Klimawandel und Bodenspekulation in Großschutzgebieten ent-wickel

Effects of extreme natural events on the provision of ecosystem services in a mountain environment : The importance of trail design in delivering system resilience and ecosystem service co-benefits

A continued supply of ecosystem services (ES) from a system depends on the resilience of that system to withstand shocks and perturbations. In many parts of the world, climate change is leading to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, potentially influencing ES provision. Our study of the effects of an intense rainfall event in Gorce National Park, Poland, shows: (1) the intense rainfall event impacted heavily on the supply of ES by limiting potential recreation opportunities and reducing erosion prevention; (2) these negative impacts were not only restricted to the period of the extreme event but persisted for up to several years, depending on the pre-event trail conditions and post-event management activities; (3) to restore the pre-event supply of ES, economic investments were required in the form of active repairs to trails, which, in Gorce National Park, were an order of magnitude higher than the costs of normal trail maintenance; and (4) when recreational trails were left to natural restoration, loss of biodiversity was observed, and recovery rates of ES (recreation opportunities and soil erosion prevention) were reduced in comparison to their pre-event state. We conclude that proper trail design and construction provides a good solution to avoid some of the negative impacts of extreme events on recreation, as well as offering co-benefits in terms of protecting biodiversity and enhancing the supply of regulating services such as erosion prevention