Automatic System For Carpooling Proof Computation And Delivery

This document aims at providing a solution to edit a carpooling proof. The proposed solution aims at providing a fully integrated solution avoiding at maximum any manual action and the use of GPS interface which is power consuming and may not be accurate enough in case of low battery or non-synchronization with satellites

Type 2 diabetes and uric acid stones: A powder neutron diffraction investigation

International audienceBackground: Recent epidemiologic investigations have identified an association between type 2 diabetes and uric acid kidney stones. This association was more apparent in women than in men. However, male patients are more prone than women to form uric acid stones in upper and lower urinary tract. In addition, uric acid stone morphology may be different according to stone location. Finally, it was shown that uric acid stone prevalence is increasing with the patient’s age. Aim of the study: To compare uric acid crystal size as determined by powder neutron diffraction with clinical data and the gender of patients. Material and methods: Uric acid stones from 43 patients (24 males, 19 females) identified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were investigated using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy and Powder neutron diffraction.Results: Uric acid anhydrous was the main crystalline form of the stones. The mean size of the crystals was 91.3 ± 28.5 nm. No significant differences were found regarding uric acid crystal size in the stones by comparison to the stone location or the patient’s age. However, particle sizes of uric acid kidney stones were significantly different between male and female patients (84.7 ± 5.3 vs. 140.2 ± 6.7 nm, p < 0.000003) in the absence of diabetes mellitus. Interestingly, when type 2 diabetes appeared, this structural difference between male and female vanished (76.1 ± 3.9 vs. 78.8 ± 4.2 nm, not significant). Thus, the complete set of structural data is in line with observations regarding epidemiological data. Some explanations based on supersaturation are discussed

A finite element/quaternion/asymptotic numerical method for the 3D simulation of flexible cables

A flexible cable is modeled by a geometrically exact beam model with 3D rotations described using quaternion parameters. The boundary value problem is then discretized by the finite element method. The use of an asymptotic numerical method to solve the problem, quadratic equations, is well suited to the quaternion parametrization. This combination of methods leads to a fast, robust and accurate algorithm very well-adapted for the simulation of the assembly process of cables. This is proved by running many examples involving complicated solutions

A finite element/quaternion/asymptotic numerical method for the 3D simulation of flexible cables

A flexible cable is modeled by a geometrically exact beam model with 3D rotations described using quaternion parameters. The boundary value problem is then discretized by the finite element method. The use of an asymptotic numerical method to solve the problem, quadratic equations, is well suited to the quaternion parametrization. This combination of methods leads to a fast, robust and accurate algorithm very well-adapted for the simulation of the assembly process of cables. This is proved by running many examples involving complicated solutions

A computationally-guided non-equilibrium synthesis approach to materials discovery in the SrO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ phase field

Glass-crystallisation synthesis is coupled to probe structure prediction for the guided discovery of new metastable oxides in the SrO-Al2O3-SiO2 phase field, yielding a new ternary ribbon-silicate, Sr2Si3O8. In principle, this methodology can be applied to a wide range of oxide chemistries by selecting an appropriate non-equilibrium synthesis route

Global human footprint on the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in reef fishes

Copyright: © 2011 Mora et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Difficulties in scaling up theoretical and experimental results have raised controversy over the consequences of biodiversity loss for the functioning of natural ecosystems. Using a global survey of reef fish assemblages, we show that in contrast to previous theoretical and experimental studies, ecosystem functioning (as measured by standing biomass) scales in a non-saturating manner with biodiversity (as measured by species and functional richness) in this ecosystem. Our field study also shows a significant and negative interaction between human population density and biodiversity on ecosystem functioning (i.e., for the same human density there were larger reductions in standing biomass at more diverse reefs). Human effects were found to be related to fishing, coastal development, and land use stressors, and currently affect over 75% of the world's coral reefs. Our results indicate that the consequences of biodiversity loss in coral reefs have been considerably underestimated based on existing knowledge and that reef fish assemblages, particularly the most diverse, are greatly vulnerable to the expansion and intensity of anthropogenic stressors in coastal areas

The bii4africa dataset of faunal and floral population intactness estimates across Africa’s major land uses

Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented in global biodiversity datasets, particularly regarding the impact of land use on species’ population abundances. Drawing on recent advances in expert elicitation to ensure data consistency, 200 experts were convened using a modified-Delphi process to estimate ‘intactness scores’: the remaining proportion of an ‘intact’ reference population of a species group in a particular land use, on a scale from 0 (no remaining individuals) to 1 (same abundance as the reference) and, in rare cases, to 2 (populations that thrive in human-modified landscapes). The resulting bii4africa dataset contains intactness scores representing terrestrial vertebrates (tetrapods: ±5,400 amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) and vascular plants (±45,000 forbs, graminoids, trees, shrubs) in sub-Saharan Africa across the region’s major land uses (urban, cropland, rangeland, plantation, protected, etc.) and intensities (e.g., large-scale vs smallholder cropland). This dataset was co-produced as part of the Biodiversity Intactness Index for Africa Project. Additional uses include assessing ecosystem condition; rectifying geographic/ taxonomic biases in global biodiversity indicators and maps; and informing the Red List of Ecosystems