High soil carbon efflux rates in several ecosystems in southern Sweden

Soil C effluxes were measured at five forest stands with different vegetation and a meadow in southeastern Sweden (57¡5«N, 16¡7«E). Exponential regressions of soil respiration against air and soil temperatures were used to model soil respiration at forests stands. For the meadow, a light response curve with gross primary production (GPP) against PAR and a cubic regression with GPP against air temperature were used to model GPP. Soil water content limited soil respiration in all ecosystems but spruce where the limitation appeared only at high soil water content. In the forest ecosystems, the forest floor vegetation was scarce and its C uptake had no significant effect on soil C effluxes. Annual soil respiration in all sites was between 2.05 and 4.34 kg CO2 m–2 yr–1, which is large as compared with that reported in many other studies. Annual GPP of meadow was between 1.81 and 1.99 kg CO2 m–2 yr–1, which gives a NEE between 1.39 and 2.41 kg CO2 m–2 yr–1, i.e. a significant loss of C

Driver Response to Automatic Braking under Split Friction Conditions

At normal pedal braking on split-μ a driver can actively steer or adjust brake level to control lateral drift. The same driver response and thus lateral deviation cannot be assumed when brakes are automatically triggered by a collision mitigation system, since the driver can be expected as less attentive. To quantify lateral deviation in this scenario a test was run at 50 km/h with 12 unaware drivers in a heavy truck. Brakes were configured to emulate automatic braking on split-μ. Results show that the produced maximum lateral deviation from the original direction was 0.25 m on average. Two drivers deviated by 0.5 m. This can be compared to 2.2 m which was reached when steering was held fixed

Applicability of leaf area index products for boreal regions of Sweden

Leaf area index (LAI) of boreal ecosystems were estimated with optical instruments at the Laxemar and the Forsmark investigation areas in Sweden. The aim was to study the relationship between LAI and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Landsat-5 and SPOT and evaluate the applicability of the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) LAI product for small boreal regions. Relationships between ground-estimated LAI and NDVI were significant for coniferous, deciduous and mixed forest sites in Laxemar. For Forsmark, effective LAI was correlated to NDVI for all sites. LAI estimated from NDVI was also used for evaluating accuracy of the MODIS LAI product. The comparison showed no correlation between MODIS LAI and NDVI-based LAI in Forsmark whereas there was in Laxemar. MODIS LAI was on average 2.28 higher than NDVI-based LAI and it also showed larger scatter. Scale issues were the main explanation to high MODIS LAI, since the heterogeneous landscapes with open areas (given a value of zero in the NDVI estimates) was seen as forest in the large pixels of the MODIS LAI product. Therefore, we do not recommend using the MODIS LAI product in small boreal regional landscapes, such as the Forsmark and Laxemar investigation areas

Combining Coordination of Motion Actuators with Driver Steering Interaction

Objective: A new method is suggested for coordination of vehicle motion actuators; where driver feedback and capabilities become natural elements in the prioritization. </br></br> Methods: The method is using a weighted least squares control allocation formulation, where driver characteristics can be added as virtual force constraints. The approach is in particular suitable for heavy commercial vehicles that in general are over actuated. The method is applied, in a specific use case, by running a simulation of a truck applying automatic braking on a split friction surface. Here the required driver steering angle, to maintain the intended direction, is limited by a constant threshold. This constant is automatically accounted for when balancing actuator usage in the method. </br></br> Results: Simulation results show that the actual required driver steering angle can be expected to match the set constant well. Furthermore, the stopping distance is very much affected by this set capability of the driver to handle the lateral disturbance, as expected. </br></br> Conclusion: In general the capability of the driver to handle disturbances should be estimated in real-time, considering driver mental state. By using the method it will then be possible to estimate e.g. stopping distance implied from this. The setup has the potential of even shortening the stopping distance, when the driver is estimated as active, this compared to currently available systems. The approach is feasible for real-time applications and requires only measurable vehicle quantities for parameterization. Examples of other suitable applications in scope of the method would be electronic stability control, lateral stability control at launch and optimal cornering arbitration

First assessment of the plant phenology index (PPI) for estimating gross primary productivity in African semi-arid ecosystems

The importance of semi-arid ecosystems in the global carbon cycle as sinks for CO2 emissions has recently been highlighted. Africa is a carbon sink and nearly half its area comprises arid and semi-arid ecosystems. However, there are uncertainties regarding CO2 fluxes for semi-arid ecosystems in Africa, particularly savannas and dry tropical woodlands. In order to improve on existing remote-sensing based methods for estimating carbon uptake across semi-arid Africa we applied and tested the recently developed plant phenology index (PPI). We developed a PPI-based model estimating gross primary productivity (GPP) that accounts for canopy water stress, and compared it against three other Earth observation-based GPP models: the temperature and greenness model, the greenness and radiation model and a light use efficiency model. The models were evaluated against in situ data from four semi-arid sites in Africa with varying tree canopy cover (3 to 65 percent). Evaluation results from the four GPP models showed reasonable agreement with in situ GPP measured from eddy covariance flux towers (EC GPP) based on coefficient of variation, root-mean-square error, and Bayesian information criterion. The PPI-based GPP model was able to capture the magnitude of EC GPP better than the other tested models. The results of this study show that a PPI-based GPP model is a promising tool for the estimation of GPP in the semi-arid ecosystems of Africa.Comment: Accepted manuscript; 12 pages, 4 tables, 9 figure

Real-time performance of control allocation for actuator coordination in heavy vehicles

This paper shows how real-time optimisation for actuator coordination, known as control allocation, can be a viable choice for heavy vehicle motion control systems. For this purpose, a basic stability control system implementing the method is presented. The real-time performance of two different control allocation solvers is evaluated and the use of dynamic weighting is analysed. Results show that sufficient vehicle stability can be achieved when using control allocation for actuator coordination in heavy vehicle stability control. Furthermore, real-time simulations indicate that the optimisation can be performed with the computational capacity of today's standard electronic control units. © 2009 IEEE

Utbildning, Värderingar och Demokrati: Utbildning som konsoliderande kraft

Följande skrivning ämnar undersöka kopplingen mellan utbildning och demokrati, genom att studera enkätresultat världen över samt ställa detta mot andra forskares fynd på området. Högre nivåer av utbildning verkar samvariera med mer positiva inställningar gentemot demokrati men även hur pass aktiv man är som medborgare tycks korrelera positivt med utbildningsnivå. Både distribution av utbildning i en befolkning samt dess karaktär och utformning visade sig vara andra viktiga aspekter. Ungern undersöks som ett fall av demokratisk recession och denna uppsats finner en koppling mellan framför allt utformningen av Ungersk utbildning och bristen på aktivt medborgarskap i landet. Formell utbildning och tycks alltså kunna kopplas till en demokratis välmående