Lessons from the extremes in the case of urban planning

The presentation aims to highlight the case of Delhi as a reference to reflect on urban planning in general and in the case of Lisbon Metropolitan Area. In fact, the extremes, the edges, offer important insights to understand other realities and dynamics through the identification of players, forces and movements that might be not so evidenced in more ‘conventional’ cases. New Delhi is the second largest megacity in the world with a population of 25 million inhabitants. Its metropolitan area is under severe vulnerabilities due to the lack of control of planning instruments on urban transformations. Planning efforts seem to have been used by diverse processes and actors under distinct historical moments, namely colonization, state control over land and nowadays capitalism and globalization dynamics. This leaded to the advent of an insurgent urbanism, where a network of vulnerabilities as settled in time. The presentation establishes this nexus by revisiting key urban transformations in Delhi relating them with planning options that have emerged in distinct socioeconomic, cultural and political contexts. Secondly some considerations will be made on how contemporary concepts such as ‘sustainability’, ‘resilience’, ‘participative governance’ or ‘smart cities’ are being framed, perceived and applied under the context of current urban planning instruments, polices and research. It seems that these narratives are serving as a mean to achieve specific goals by different drivers and actors. Thirdly it is intended to highlight the importance of these examples as key triggers for a deep rethinking on concepts and practices in urban planning field today, namely in the case of Lisbon Metropolitan Area, keeping a critical distance from hegemonic normative views and looking closer at the distinct meanings, power relations, unbalances that surround them according to the diverse scientific, politic, social, economic drivers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Energy loss mechanism for suspended micro- and nanoresonators due to the Casimir force

A so far not considered energy loss mechanism in suspended micro- and nanoresonators due to noncontact acoustical energy loss is investigated theoretically. The mechanism consists on the conversion of the mechanical energy from the vibratory motion of the resonator into acoustic waves on large nearby structures, such as the substrate, due to the coupling between the resonator and those structures resulting from the Casimir force acting over the separation gaps. Analytical expressions for the resulting quality factor Q for cantilever and bridge micro- and nanoresonators in close proximity to an underlying substrate are derived and the relevance of the mechanism is investigated, demonstrating its importance when nanometric gaps are involved

Pré-diagnóstico participativo de agroecossistemas dos Assentamentos Paiolzinho e Tamarineiro II.

Durante os meses de junho e julho de 2002, a Embrapa Pantanal, em parceria com a Comissão Pastoral da Terra - CPT, realizou um pré-diagnóstico dos agroecossistemas dos assentamentos Paiolzinho e Tamarineiro II, contando com o envolvimento e participação de duas associações de produtores destes assentamentos. Os objetivos deste trabalho estavam concentrados na identificação dos principais aspectos relacionados com a vida e o trabalho das famílias de agricultores assentados no município de Corumbá-MS, mediante a utilização da metodologia do Diagnóstico Rural Participativo de Agroecossistemas - DRPA, no intuito de se criar condições potenciais para o planejamento de ações que favoreçam o desenvolvimento integrado e sustentável local. Neste sentido, o pré-diagnóstico visava a busca de informações necessárias para a geração e viabilização de soluções tecnológicas resultantes da interação entre o conhecimento técnico dos pesquisadores e demais atores sociais envolvidos neste processo e o conhecimento informal dos agricultores assentados.bitstream/item/81188/1/DOC45.pd

Correlation-Strength Driven Anderson Metal-Insulator Transition

The possibility of driving an Anderson metal-insulator transition in the presence of scale-free disorder by changing the correlation exponent is numerically investigated. We calculate the localization length for quasi-one-dimensional systems at fixed energy and fixed disorder strength using a standard transfer matrix method. From a finite-size scaling analysis we extract the critical correlation exponent and the critical exponent characterizing the phase transition.Comment: 3 pages; 2 figure

Fertirrigação: injetores.

Bomba injetora; Venturi; Tubos de Pitot; Tanques de fertilizantes.bitstream/CNPAT-2010/11926/1/It-007.pd

Engineering model transformations with transML

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10270-011-0211-2Model transformation is one of the pillars of model-driven engineering (MDE). The increasing complexity of systems and modelling languages has dramatically raised the complexity and size of model transformations as well. Even though many transformation languages and tools have been proposed in the last few years, most of them are directed to the implementation phase of transformation development. In this way, even though transformations should be built using sound engineering principles—just like any other kind of software—there is currently a lack of cohesive support for the other phases of the transformation development, like requirements, analysis, design and testing. In this paper, we propose a unified family of languages to cover the life cycle of transformation development enabling the engineering of transformations. Moreover, following an MDE approach, we provide tools to partially automate the progressive refinement of models between the different phases and the generation of code for several transformation implementation languages.This work has been sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation with project METEORIC (TIN2008-02081), and by the R&D program of the Community of Madrid with projects “e-Madrid" (S2009/TIC-1650). Parts of this work were done during the research stays of Esther and Juan at the University of York, with financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (grant refs. JC2009-00015, PR2009-0019 and PR2008-0185)

New XMM-Newton observation of the Phoenix cluster: properties of the cool core

(Abridged) We present a spectral analysis of a deep (220 ks) XMM-Newton observation of the Phoenix cluster (SPT-CL J2344-4243), which we also combine with Chandra archival ACIS-I data. We extract CCD and RGS X-ray spectra from the core region to search for the signature of cold gas, and constrain the mass deposition rate in the cooling flow which is thought to be responsible of the massive star formation episode observed in the BCG. We find an average mass deposition rate of $\dot M = 620 (-190 +200)_{stat} (-50 +150)_{syst} M_\odot$/yr in the temperature range 0.3-3.0 keV from MOS data. A temperature-resolved analysis shows that a significant amount of gas is deposited only above 1.8 keV, while upper limits of the order of hundreds of $M_\odot$/yr can be put in the 0.3-1.8 keV temperature range. From pn data we obtain $\dot M = 210 (-80 +85)_{stat} ( -35 +60)_{syst} M_\odot$/yr, and the upper limits from the temperature-resolved analysis are typically a factor of 3 lower than MOS data. In the RGS spectrum, no line emission from ionization states below Fe XXIII is seen above $12 \AA$, and the amount of gas cooling below $\sim 3$ keV has a best-fit value $\dot M = 122_{-122}^{+343}$ $M_{\odot}$/yr. In addition, our analysis of the FIR SED of the BCG based on Herschel data provides $SFR = (530 \pm 50) M_\odot$/yr, significantly lower than previous estimates by a factor 1.5. Current data are able to firmly identify substantial amount of cooling gas only above 1.8 keV in the core of the Phoenix cluster. While MOS data analysis is consistent with values as high as $\dot M \sim 1000$ within $1 \sigma$, pn data provide $\dot M < 500 M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ at $3\sigma$ c.l. at temperature below 1.8 keV. At present, this discrepancy cannot be explained on the basis of known calibration uncertainties or other sources of statistical noise.Comment: A&A in press, typos corrected, revised text according to published versio

Critical cities. Learning from extreme urban contexts, paths for sustainable urban planning in New Delhi and beyond

New Delhi is the second largest megacity in the world, housing around 26 million inhabitants, it’s also a city of extremes.1 Uneven growth and social segregation, massive urbanization, environmental threats, lack of public services, infrastructural weaknesses are a daily routine, and not some future dystopian scenario. 2 According to Delhi Master Plan (2021), only 24% of the population lives in considered legal areas, with the remaining 76% of the population inhabiting unauthorized areas, with poor access to basic services such as house, water, electricity, health or education. 3 The majority of urban population seems to have been forgotten across time or doomed to social-spatial exclusion, enunciating an outstanding gap between planning practice and the dynamics and needs of the city. We may question whether the perpetuation of this gap hasn’t been always embedded in planning and policy practice, constituting an echo of political, economic, institutional and scientific ‘influences’ ? from the West to the East or a mirror of the Indian fragmented society. 4 Three urban planning moments will be revisited in this paper, corresponding also to specific historical contexts, urban models, polices and regulations: Colonial planning driven by the interests of the British empire; modernist planning motivated by post-independence democracy; and, more recently, what one may venture to categorize as neoliberal planning, boosted by economic structural adjustments in the 90’s.56 It’s intended to demonstrate the nexus between the exercise of planning and police making and the growing detachment between a ‘planned city’ and an ‘unplanned city’, with its extreme consequences and risks. Finally, the paper presents some concluding remarks on the importance to critically analyse the permeability of concepts, models and practices to external influences, and how urban planning field may be undermined and/or undermining the solving of urban challenges around the World. This paper presents preliminary results of a research exchange at the Centre for the Study of Science Policy, Jawarlal Nehru University (New Delhi) under the European Marie Currie project "Crossing Borders. Knowledge, Innovation and Technology transfer across borders". Main results are based on literature review, consultation of planning/policy tools and the analysis of a set of interviews conducted to researchers from several disciplinary fields and to public institutions related to urban planning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio