Evaluation of climate change effects in a coastal aquifer in Morocco using a density-dependent numerical model

A density-dependent numerical groundwater model was applied to study the climate change impact in a shallow aquifer in the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, the Saidia aquifer. The stresses imposed to the model were derived from the IPCC emission scenarios and included recharge variation and sea level rise. The main effect of the climate change in the Saidia aquifer will be a decrease in renewable resources, which in the worst-case scenario may decrease to 50–60% of present-day values, due to the decline in recharge and to a reduced inflow from the adjacent Triffa aquifer. The water quality will be affected mostly in the area immediately adjacent to the seashore, where salinity may increase up to 30 g/l. Localised areas may see a decrease in salinity due to the induced freshwater recharge from Oued Moulouya River and diminished inflow from high-salinity springs

Robust fault detection for vehicle lateral dynamics: Azonotope-based set-membership approach

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting /republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other worksIn this work, a model-based fault detection layoutfor vehicle lateral dynamics system is presented. The majorfocus in this study is on the handling of model uncertainties andunknown inputs. In fact, the vehicle lateral model is affectedby several parameter variations such as longitudinal velocity,cornering stiffnesses coefficients and unknown inputs like windgust disturbances. Cornering stiffness parameters variation isconsidered to be unknown but bounded with known compactset. Their effect is addressed by generating intervals for theresiduals based on the zonotope representation of all possiblevalues. The developed fault detection procedure has been testedusing real driving data acquired from a prototype vehicle.Index Terms— Robust fault detection, interval models,zonotopes, set-membership, switched uncertain systems, LMIs,input-to-state stability, arbitrary switching.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Symmetry reduction in multiband Hamiltonians for semiconductor quantum dots: The role of interfaces and higher energy bands

The role of interfaces and higher bands on the electronic structure of embedded semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) was investigated. The term in the multiband k�p Hamiltonian that captures the effect of interface band mixing was derived starting from the microscopic theory. It was shown, analytically and numerically, that, with such a term included, the right symmetry of the QD system can be captured. It leads to splitting of otherwise degenerate energy levels of the order of several meV. The inclusion of additional higher bands beyond the ones from the standard eight-band model also leads to the reduction of symmetry from an artificially high one to the true atomistic symmetry of the system, however their quantitative effect is weaker. These results prove that the multiband k.p Hamiltonians are fully capable of describing the correct symmetry of a QD

Integrating Conflict Driven Clause Learning to Local Search

This article introduces SatHyS (SAT HYbrid Solver), a novel hybrid approach for propositional satisfiability. It combines local search and conflict driven clause learning (CDCL) scheme. Each time the local search part reaches a local minimum, the CDCL is launched. For SAT problems it behaves like a tabu list, whereas for UNSAT ones, the CDCL part tries to focus on minimum unsatisfiable sub-formula (MUS). Experimental results show good performances on many classes of SAT instances from the last SAT competitions

Global Production Increased by Spatial Heterogeneity in a Population Dynamics Model

Spatial and temporal heterogeneity are often described as important factors having a strong impact on biodiversity. The effect of heterogeneity is in most cases analyzed by the response of biotic interactions such as competition of predation. It may also modify intrinsic population properties such as growth rate. Most of the studies are theoretic since it is often difficult to manipulate spatial heterogeneity in practice. Despite the large number of studies dealing with this topics, it is still difficult to understand how the heterogeneity affects populations dynamics. On the basis of a very simple model, this paper aims to explicitly provide a simple mechanism which can explain why spatial heterogeneity may be a favorable factor for production.We consider a two patch model and a logistic growth is assumed on each patch. A general condition on the migration rates and the local subpopulation growth rates is provided under which the total carrying capacity is higher than the sum of the local carrying capacities, which is not intuitive. As we illustrate, this result is robust under stochastic perturbations

Impact du développement de l'accès à l'eau souterraine sur la dynamique d'une filière irriguée Le cas de l'oignon d'été dans le Saïs au Maroc

À l'échelle mondiale, un tiers des superficies irriguées pour l'agriculture est basé sur l'exploitation des ressources souterraines, grâce au développement fulgurant des puits et des forages. En sécurisant l'irrigation, l'accès à l'eau souterraine permet d'augmenter les rendements et les volumes de production. Il s'accompagne également d'un changement des assolements avec l'introduction de cultures à haute valeur ajoutée, comme les cultures maraîchères. Ces changements ont des conséquences, en aval, sur les filières agricoles, qui se structurent et s'organisent autour de la mise en marché des produits. Au Maroc, comme dans beaucoup de pays du Sud, ces changements rapides s'effectuent dans un contexte de forte informalité et certaines filières, quoique d'ampleur nationale, restent mal connues. C'est le cas de la filière d'oignon d'été dans le Saïs, dont la production a fortement augmenté ces dernières années, grâce à l'irrigation privée. Autour de cette production agricole se sont développées un ensemble d'activités, souvent informelles, liées notamment à la commercialisation. Cet article vise à montrer (i) comment la filière s'est organisée suite à l'explosion de l'irrigation privée et de la production, (ii) quels sont les acteurs concernés, leur rôle et leurs relations, puis (iii) quelle est la répartition des coûts et des marges bénéficiaires le long de la chaîne de production et de commercialisation. Nombreux sont ceux qui, attirés par le dynamisme économique de la région et de la filière, se lancent dans cette activité. Toutefois, l'augmentation des coûts de production et la baisse apparente des prix de vente, liée à la saturation du marché, questionnent l'avenir de ces filières, tout autant que la baisse des ressources disponibles. (Résumé d'auteur

Estrous behavior in dairy cows: identification of underlying mechanisms and gene functions

Selection in dairy cattle for a higher milk yield has coincided with declined fertility. One of the factors is reduced expression of estrous behavior. Changes in systems that regulate the estrous behavior could be manifested by altered gene expression. This literature review describes the current knowledge on mechanisms and genes involved in the regulation of estrous behavior. The endocrinological regulation of the estrous cycle in dairy cows is well described. Estradiol (E2) is assumed to be the key regulator that synchronizes endocrine and behavioral events. Other pivotal hormones are, for example, progesterone, gonadotropin releasing hormone and insulin-like growth factor-1. Interactions between the latter and E2 may play a role in the unfavorable effects of milk yield-related metabolic stress on fertility in high milk-producing dairy cows. However, a clear understanding of how endocrine mechanisms are tied to estrous behavior in cows is only starting to emerge. Recent studies on gene expression and signaling pathways in rodents and other animals contribute to our understanding of genes and mechanisms involved in estrous behavior. Studies in rodents, for example, show that estrogen-induced gene expression in specific brain areas such as the hypothalamus play an important role. Through these estrogen-induced gene expressions, E2 alters the functioning of neuronal networks that underlie estrous behavior, by affecting dendritic connections between cells, receptor populations and neurotransmitter releases. To improve the understanding of complex biological networks, like estrus regulation, and to deal with the increasing amount of genomic information that becomes available, mathematical models can be helpful. Systems biology combines physiological and genomic data with mathematical modeling. Possible applications of systems biology approaches in the field of female fertility and estrous behavior are discusse

Arabic/Latin and Machine-printed/Handwritten Word Discrimination using HOG-based Shape Descriptor

In this paper, we present an approach for Arabic and Latin script and its type identification based onHistogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG) descriptors. HOGs are first applied at word level based on writingorientation analysis. Then, they are extended to word image partitions to capture fine and discriminativedetails. Pyramid HOG are also used to study their effects on different observation levels of the image.Finally, co-occurrence matrices of HOG are performed to consider spatial information between pairs ofpixels which is not taken into account in basic HOG. A genetic algorithm is applied to select the potentialinformative features combinations which maximizes the classification accuracy. The output is a relativelyshort descriptor that provides an effective input to a Bayes-based classifier. Experimental results on a set ofwords, extracted from standard databases, show that our identification system is robust and provides goodword script and type identification: 99.07% of words are correctly classified