State-of-the-Art Report on Systems Analysis Methods for Resolution of Conflicts in Water Resources Management

Water is an important factor in conflicts among stakeholders at the local, regional, and even international level. Water conflicts have taken many forms, but they almost always arise from the fact that the freshwater resources of the world are not partitioned to match the political borders, nor are they evenly distributed in space and time. Two or more countries share the watersheds of 261 major rivers and nearly half of the land area of the wo rld is in international river basins. Water has been used as a military and political goal. Water has been a weapon of war. Water systems have been targets during the war. A role of systems approach has been investigated in this report as an approach for resolution of conflicts over water. A review of systems approach provides some basic knowledge of tools and techniques as they apply to water management and conflict resolution. Report provides a classification and description of water conflicts by addressing issues of scale, integrated water management and the role of stakeholders. Four large-scale examples are selected to illustrate the application of systems approach to water conflicts: (a) hydropower development in Canada; (b) multipurpose use of Danube river in Europe; (c) international water conflict between USA and Canada; and (d) Aral See in Asia. Water conflict resolution process involves various sources of uncertainty. One section of the report provides some examples of systems tools that can be used to address objective and subjective uncertainties with special emphasis on the utility of the fuzzy set theory. Systems analysis is known to be driven by the development of computer technology. Last section of the report provides one view of the future and systems tools that will be used for water resources management. Role of the virtual databases, computer and communication networks is investigated in the context of water conflicts and their resolution.https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wrrr/1005/thumbnail.jp

Conflict Resolution Support System: A Software for the Resolution of Conflicts in Water Resource Management

Water is an important factor in conflicts among stakeholders at the local, regional, and international level. Water conflicts have taken many forms, but they almost always arise from the fact that the freshwater resources of the world are not partitioned to match the political borders, nor are they evenly distributed in space and time. Sharing a limited water resource by several stakeholders can create conflicts among them when their requirements exceed availability. In such situations, water allocation based on a traditional optimization or simulation modeling may not resolve the dispute among them due to the lack of their participation in the solution process. Direct involvement of the stakeholders in the conflict resolution process provides for a better understanding of the conflict and offers a significant opportunity for its resolution. A systemic approach has been taken in this research to approach resolution of conflicts over water. By helping stakeholders to explore and resolve the underlying structural causes of conflict our approach offers a significant opportunity for its resolution. We define the five main functional activities for assisting the conflict resolution process as: (i) communication; (ii) problem formulation; (iii) data gathering and information generation; (iv) information sharing; and (v) evaluation of consequences. A computerized technical support is developed in the form of the Conflict Resolution Support System (CRSS) for implementation of a systemic approach to water conflicts. The CRSS includes computational modules necessary to resolve conflicts resulting from water shortages in irrigation, drinking water supply, and hydropower generation and flood control. Its principal components include an artificial intelligence-based communication system, a database management system, and a model base management system. The use of CRSS is demonstrated through its application to three types of water sharing conflicts. The CRSS is developed as a tool to assist a conflict resolution process and a tool for training stakeholders in the conflict resolution process.https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wrrr/1006/thumbnail.jp

Modifying the photodetachment near a metal surface by a weak electric field

We show the photodetachment cross sections of H near a metal surface can be modified using a weak static electric field. The modification is possible because the oscillatory part of the cross section near a metal surface is directly connected with the transit-time and the action of the detached-electron closed-orbit which can be changed systematically by varying the static electric field strength. Photodetachment cross sections for various photon energies and electric field values are calculated and displayed.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Risk assessment of non-native fishes in the Balkans Region using FISK, the invasiveness screening tool for non-native freshwater fishes

A high level of freshwater fish endemism in the Balkans Region emphasizes the need for non-native species risk assessments to inform management and control measures, with pre-screening tools, such as the Fish Invasiveness Screening Kit (FISK) providing a useful first step. Applied to 43 non-native and translocated freshwater fishes in four Balkan countries, FISK reliably discriminated between invasive and non-invasive species, with a calibration threshold value of 9.5 distinguishing between species of medium and high risk sensu lato of becoming invasive. Twelve of the 43 species were assessed by scientists from two or more Balkan countries, and the remaining 31 species by a single assessor. Using the 9.5 threshold, three species were classed as low risk, 10 as medium risk, and 30 as high risk, with the latter category comprised of 26 moderately high risk, three high risk, and one very high risk species. Confidence levels in the assessments were relatively constant for all species, indicating concordance amongst assessors

STRING v11: protein-protein association networks with increased coverage, supporting functional discovery in genome-wide experimental datasets

Proteins and their functional interactions form the backbone of the cellular machinery. Their connectivity network needs to be considered for the full understanding of biological phenomena, but the available information on protein-protein associations is incomplete and exhibits varying levels of annotation granularity and reliability. The STRING database aims to collect, score and integrate all publicly available sources of protein-protein interaction information, and to complement these with computational predictions. Its goal is to achieve a comprehensive and objective global network, including direct (physical) as well as indirect (functional) interactions. The latest version of STRING (11.0) more than doubles the number of organisms it covers, to 5090. The most important new feature is an option to upload entire, genome-wide datasets as input, allowing users to visualize subsets as interaction networks and to perform gene-set enrichment analysis on the entire input. For the enrichment analysis, STRING implements well-known classification systems such as Gene Ontology and KEGG, but also offers additional, new classification systems based on high-throughput text-mining as well as on a hierarchical clustering of the association network itself. The STRING resource is available online at https://string-db.org/

Use cases for obstacle detection and track intrusion detection systems in the context of new generation of railway traffic management systems

In this paper, the concept of Obstacle Detection and Track Intrusion Detection (OD&TID) systems related to the operation of trains is introduced, along with a potential concept for such a system. The main focus of the work presented here is the identification and description of system requirements and Use Cases (UC), their detailed classification, including general UCs for mainline railway and UCs specific to freight, as well as an analysis of the UCs and of the method used. The identified UCs have been organised with respect to the mode of operation, Grade of Automation (GoA), and operating conditions. The UCs were further analysed in different UC scenarios, including the pre-conditions, system response, actions made by OD&TID and associated systems and the post use conditions of the scenarios. The priority for implementation and complexity of each UC are discussed with respect to the probability of scenario occurrence and required interfaces. This work has been carried out as part of the process to evaluate implementation constraints, risks and requirements, and the operational scenarios of the OD&TID developed within the EU-funded Shift2Rail project SMART2, which aims to design and develop a prototype OD&TID system

STRING v10: protein-protein interaction networks, integrated over the tree of life

The many functional partnerships and interactions that occur between proteins are at the core of cellular processing and their systematic characterization helps to provide context in molecular systems biology. However, known and predicted interactions are scattered over multiple resources, and the available data exhibit notable differences in terms of quality and completeness. The STRING database (http://string-db.org) aims to provide a critical assessment and integration of protein-protein interactions, including direct (physical) as well as indirect (functional) associations. The new version 10.0 of STRING covers more than 2000 organisms, which has necessitated novel, scalable algorithms for transferring interaction information between organisms. For this purpose, we have introduced hierarchical and self-consistent orthology annotations for all interacting proteins, grouping the proteins into families at various levels of phylogenetic resolution. Further improvements in version 10.0 include a completely redesigned prediction pipeline for inferring protein-protein associations from co-expression data, an API interface for the R computing environment and improved statistical analysis for enrichment tests in user-provided networks

Quantum over-barrier reflection effects manifested in the photodetachment cross sections

Photodetachment of H$^-$ near a potential barrier is studied. A new formula is presented for the cross sections induced by a barrier. The new formula describes two quantum effects near barrier tops. For energies near and above barrier tops, the quantum over-barrier reflection effects are included and the induced oscillations in the cross sections are still prominent; for energies near and below barrier tops, the quantum tunneling across barriers is taken into account and consequently the oscillations are weakened. For energies far away from the barrier tops, the new formula agrees with the standard closed-orbit theory. We demonstrate that a potential barrier of various width and location can be realized by placing a negative ion near a metal surface and applying an electric field pointing to the surface. The width and location of the barrier can be systematically changed by varying the electric field strength and the distance between the negative ion and the surface. Results are also presented for estimating the sizes and locations of aforementioned quantum effects in the cross sections

Structural Basis of Response Regulator Dephosphorylation by Rap Phosphatases

Crystallographic, biochemical, and genetic studies reveal the mechanism of Rap protein phosphatase activity within the phosphorelay pathway leading to sporulation in Bacillus species