All you can measure at the Planetary Emissivity Laboratory (PEL) at DLR, in Berlin

The Institute for Planetary Research has an expertise in spectroscopy of minerals, rocks, meteorites, and organic matter, build up in more than two decades. The available equipment allows spectroscopy from the visible to TIR range using bi-conical reflection, transmission and emission spectroscopy. The institute has an outstanding heritage in designing and building infrared remote-sensing instruments for planetary missions. The PEL has been operating in various configurations for the last 10 years. The laboratory experimental facilities consist of the main emissivity spectrometer laboratory, a supporting spectrometer laboratory for reflectance and transmission measurements, sample preparation facilities and an extensive collection of rocks and minerals

An agent-based simulation model for business reopenings in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina

The empirical study of business responses to disasters is relatively scarce, despite that they are a fundamental part of the cities, providing services, jobs and, taxes that are essential for urban sustainability. This dissertation develops an agent-based simulation model to represent and understand the businesses reopening process in a dynamic environment in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The objectives are two-fold: 1) To identify the main reopening predictors involved and estimate their relative importance through time, using an empirical data set collected from another study; 2) To represent the business reopening process through a computer simulation model, using the parameters derived from the first objective. The results show that businesses located in flooded areas had lower reopening probabilities, however the effect was significant only in the first nine months after the disaster. Larger businesses had better reopening probabilities than smaller ones, although this variable stopped being significant after six months. Variables associated with higher social vulnerability, such as percent non-white population and percent population under 18, had a negative effect on the business reopening probabilities at different points of time. The influence of neighboring firms using 1-km buffer was found significantly positive only immediately after the disaster; it became significantly negative one year after the disaster. The simulation model developed proved to mimic the reopening process at a suitable level. The model was used to simulate two scenarios: 1) First, the flood depth was reduced by 1 meter as a way to represent the implementation of measures designed to increase the buildings and infrastructure resistance to floods. The simulation results indicate that there are specific areas that would obtain greater benefit from these measures, however ten months after the disaster the effect of the measures tends to diminish. 2) Second, the spatial effects of aids were simulated by making a limited number of businesses in specific locations totally resilient to the disaster. The results indicate that the beneficial effect is influenced by variables such as business density and socio-economic conditions of the area. The positive effect is perceivable until four months after the disaster, after this point it diminishes

Las Nuevas Amenazas e la Seguridad Nacional. Implicancias en las Fuerzas Armadas – Caso Peruano (Intervenção do Perú)

No contexto do Sistema Internacional, onde a globalização é uma realidade cada vez mais presente, as alterações das relações e estruturas do próprio sistema têm vindo a provocar alterações na segurança dos estados que dele são parte integrante. O terrorismo internacional, as guerras não convencionais, o narcotráfico são algumas das ameaças que tornam urgente um novo papel das Forças Armadas. A actuação militar deve sofrer alterações a nível estratégico, doutrinário, de instrução e de treino. No entanto, devem exercer as suas funções com base no respeito pelos Direitos Humanos, condição indispensável para legitimar a sua intervenção

Compressive Pattern Matching on Multispectral Data

We introduce a new constrained minimization problem that performs template and pattern detection on a multispectral image in a compressive sensing context. We use an original minimization problem from Guo and Osher that uses $L_1$ minimization techniques to perform template detection in a multispectral image. We first adapt this minimization problem to work with compressive sensing data. Then we extend it to perform pattern detection using a formal transform called the spectralization along a pattern. That extension brings out the problem of measurement reconstruction. We introduce shifted measurements that allow us to reconstruct all the measurement with a small overhead and we give an optimality constraint for simple patterns. We present numerical results showing the performances of the original minimization problem and the compressed ones with different measurement rates and applied on remotely sensed data.Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensin

Las políticas de paz en Colombia: un análisis de contexto entre los diálogos de paz bajo el gobierno de Andrés Pastrana y el de Juan Manuel Santos

Tesis de maestríaLas políticas de paz en Colombia han seguido dos orientaciones fundamentales desde los años 80: un enfoque maximalista, representado por los violentólogos y un enfoque minimalista, representado por la Teoría de Resolución de conflictos. Un tercer enfoque es el abordado actualmente en el actual proceso de paz al que llamamos intermedio pues incorpora las dos posturas adoptadas en el pasado. Se describe y analiza el contexto y las circunstancias que rodearon estos procesos entre el Estado colombiano y las insurgencias armadas. La delimitación temática está dada por las políticas de paz, las cuales se relacionan directamente con todas las políticas públicas, especialmente económicas y del sector externo. Los componentes de este trabajo son los enfoques teóricos adoptados en cada política de paz, los antecedentes históricos desde el gobierno de Belisario Betancur hasta el 2014 y el análisis de los procesos de paz bajo los gobiernos de Andrés Pastrana y el primer periodo de Juan Manuel Santos.MaestríaMagister en Ciencia Polític

Ultrafast reactivity and application in PET tracer synthesis

Humankind has always been seeking to understand biological processes within our body to diagnose and treat diseases. For a longtime, surgery was the only way to see what was going on inside a human body. That changed about a century ago with the emergence of molecular imaging, allowing us to observe processes at a molecular level, without the need for invasive procedures. Positron emission tomography (PET) is one of these techniques, which uses small molecules called tracers that are injected into the body and can be directed towards disease-specific markers. These tracers also contain a radioactive element ; this is essential as the radioactive decay of this element will emit a signal that travels through the human body and will be detected by a scanner. From the signal received by the scanner, it is possible to locate and quantify the amount of tracer present in the body and detect any abnormalities,which may possibly be indicative of a disease. Because these radioactive elements are unstable and rapidly degrade towards stable, non-radioactive elements, tracers cannot be bought or produced in advance, but instead they require on-site production. Carbon-11 and fluor-18 are two radioactive elements discussed in this thesis that can be used to make PET tracers. However,they degrade fast - within minutes to a few hours - and therefore they need to be incorporated into tracer molecules with ultrafast methods.The focus of this thesis was to discover new methodologies to incorporate the radioactive elements carbon-11 and fluor-18 into PET tracer molecules. These ultrafast reactions are not typically common in traditional synthetic chemistry, and if methods have been successfully translated to incorporate radioactive elements, the tracer molecules accessible are still restricted, creating a necessity for additional reactions

A Semantic Interoperability Model Based on the IEEE 1451 Family of Standards Applied to the Industry 4.0

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been growing recently. It is a concept for connecting billions of smart devices through the Internet in different scenarios. One area being developed inside the IoT in industrial automation, which covers Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and industrial communications with an automatic process, emerging the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) concept. Inside the IIoT is developing the concept of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). That represents the fourth industrial revolution and addresses the use of Internet technologies to improve the production efficiency of intelligent services in smart factories. I4.0 is composed of a combination of objects from the physical world and the digital world that offers dedicated functionality and flexibility inside and outside of an I4.0 network. The I4.0 is composed mainly of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The CPS is the integration of the physical world and its digital world, i.e., the Digital Twin (DT). It is responsible for realising the intelligent cross-link application, which operates in a self-organised and decentralised manner, used by smart factories for value creation. An area where the CPS can be implemented in manufacturing production is developing the Cyber-Physical Production System (CPPS) concept. CPPS is the implementation of Industry 4.0 and CPS in manufacturing and production, crossing all levels of production between the autonomous and cooperative elements and sub-systems. It is responsible for connecting the virtual space with the physical world, allowing the smart factories to be more intelligent, resulting in better and smart production conditions, increasing productivity, production efficiency, and product quality. The big issue is connecting smart devices with different standards and protocols. About 40% of the benefits of the IoT cannot be achieved without interoperability. This thesis is focused on promoting the interoperability of smart devices (sensors and actuators) inside the IIoT under the I4.0 context. The IEEE 1451 is a family of standards developed to manage transducers. This standard reaches the syntactic level of interoperability inside Industry 4.0. However, Industry 4.0 requires a semantic level of communication not to exchange data ambiguously. A new semantic layer is proposed in this thesis allowing the IEEE 1451 standard to be a complete framework for communication inside the Industry 4.0 to provide an interoperable network interface with users and applications to collect and share the data from the industry field.A Internet das Coisas tem vindo a crescer recentemente. É um conceito que permite conectar bilhões de dispositivos inteligentes através da Internet em diferentes cenários. Uma área que está sendo desenvolvida dentro da Internet das Coisas é a automação industrial, que abrange a comunicação máquina com máquina no processo industrial de forma automática. Essa interligação, representa o conceito da Internet das Coisas Industrial. Dentro da Internet das Coisas Industrial está a desenvolver o conceito de Indústria 4.0 (I4.0). Isso representa a quarta revolução industrial que aborda o uso de tecnologias utilizadas na Internet para melhorar a eficiência da produção de serviços em fábricas inteligentes. A Indústria 4.0 é composta por uma combinação de objetos do mundo físico e do mundo da digital que oferece funcionalidade dedicada e flexibilidade dentro e fora de uma rede da Indústria 4.0. O I4.0 é composto principalmente por Sistemas Ciberfísicos. Os Sistemas Ciberfísicos permitem a integração do mundo físico com seu representante no mundo digital, por meio do Gémeo Digital. Sistemas Ciberfísicos são responsáveis por realizar a aplicação inteligente da ligação cruzada, que opera de forma auto-organizada e descentralizada, utilizada por fábricas inteligentes para criação de valor. Uma área em que o Sistema Ciberfísicos pode ser implementado na produção manufatureira, isso representa o desenvolvimento do conceito Sistemas de Produção Ciberfísicos. Esse sistema é a implementação da Indústria 4.0 e Sistema Ciberfísicos na fabricação e produção. A cruzar todos os níveis desde a produção entre os elementos e subsistemas autónomos e cooperativos. Ele é responsável por conectar o espaço virtual com o mundo físico, permitindo que as fábricas inteligentes sejam mais inteligentes, resultando em condições de produção melhores e inteligentes, aumentando a produtividade, a eficiência da produção e a qualidade do produto. A grande questão é como conectar dispositivos inteligentes com diferentes normas e protocolos. Cerca de 40% dos benefícios da Internet das Coisas não podem ser alcançados sem interoperabilidade. Esta tese está focada em promover a interoperabilidade de dispositivos inteligentes (sensores e atuadores) dentro da Internet das Coisas Industrial no contexto da Indústria 4.0. O IEEE 1451 é uma família de normas desenvolvidos para gerenciar transdutores. Esta norma alcança o nível sintático de interoperabilidade dentro de uma indústria 4.0. No entanto, a Indústria 4.0 requer um nível semântico de comunicação para não haver a trocar dados de forma ambígua. Uma nova camada semântica é proposta nesta tese permitindo que a família de normas IEEE 1451 seja um framework completo para comunicação dentro da Indústria 4.0. Permitindo fornecer uma interface de rede interoperável com utilizadores e aplicações para recolher e compartilhar os dados dentro de um ambiente industrial.This thesis was developed at the Measurement and Instrumentation Laboratory (IML) in the University of Beira Interior and supported by the portuguese project INDTECH 4.0 – Novas tecnologias para fabricação, que tem como objetivo geral a conceção e desenvolvimento de tecnologias inovadoras no contexto da Indústria 4.0/Factories of the Future (FoF), under the number POCI-01-0247-FEDER-026653

Modeling Enrollment at a Regional University using a Discrete-Time Markov Chain

A discrete time Markov Chain is used to model enrollment at a regional university. A preliminary analysis is conducted on the data set in order to determine the classes for the Markov chain model. The semester, yearly, and long term results of the model are examined thoroughly. A sensitivity analysis of the probability matrix entries is then conducted to determine the overall greatest influence on graduation rates