Manoeuvring Experiments Using the MUN Explorer AUV

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are self-propelled robotic platforms that can perform a predetermined mission completely unmanned. A series of manoeuvring experiments were performed using the MUN Explorer AUV during the summer of 2006 and a selection of these experimental results are presented in this paper. The purpose of these experiments was to collect a set of useful data for validating a hydrodynamic model of the dynamic performance of the vehicle. This paper aims at explaining the methods and measures adopted in accomplishing this task. Apart from providing a data set for validation of the hydrodynamic model, the data record also shows the ability of the AUV to perform extreme manoeuvres and the accuracy with which it can follow a pre-planned mission

Manoeuvring Trials with the MUN Explorer AUV: Data Analysis and Observations

Manoeuvring trials are usually performed to determine the manoeuvring characteristics of a marine vehicle. It is through certain standard manoeuvres we evaluate the robustness, performance and limitations of the vehicle control system. A series of open-water manoeuvring trials were performed using the MUN Explorer AUV in the summer of 2006. The actual purpose of these experiments was to collect a set of experimental data in order to validate a hydrodynamic model of the dynamic performance of the vehicle. This paper presents the results and observations from the analysis of a set of manoeuvring trials data: in particular the results from straightline (acceleration – deceleration) tests and turning circles. It outlines briefly the method by which these tests were conducted and discusses the results and observations made. Apart from providing a data set for validation purposes, the results also indicate the ability of the vehicle to follow a pre-planned mission with precision

Trace Gas Measurements in Nascent, Aged, and Cloud-Processed Smoke from African Savanna Fires by Airborne Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (AFTIR)

[1] We measured stable and reactive trace gases with an airborne Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (AFTIR) on the University of Washington Convair-580 research aircraft in August/September 2000 during the SAFARI 2000 dry season campaign in Southern Africa. The measurements included vertical profiles of CO2, CO, H2O, and CH4 up to 5.5 km on six occasions above instrumented ground sites and below the TERRA satellite and ER-2 high-flying research aircraft. We also measured the trace gas emissions from 10 African savanna fires. Five of these fires featured extensive ground-based fuel characterization, and two were in the humid savanna ecosystem that accounts for most African biomass burning. The major constituents that we detected in nascent smoke were (in order of excess molar abundance) H2O, CO2, CO, CH4, NO2, NO, C2H4, CH3COOH, HCHO, CH3OH, HCN, NH3, HCOOH, and C2H2. These are the first quantitative measurements of the initial emissions of oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOC), NH3, and HCN from African savanna fires. On average, we measured 5.3 g/kg of OVOC and 3.6 g/kg of hydrocarbons (including CH4) in the initial emissions from the fires. Thus, the OVOC will have profound, largely unexplored effects on tropical tropospheric chemistry. The HCN emission factor was only weakly dependent on fire type; the average value (0.53 g/kg) is about 20 times that of a previous recommendation. HCN may be useful as a tracer for savanna fires. ΔO3/ΔCO and ΔCH3COOH/ΔCO increased to as much as 9% in \u3c1 h of photochemical processing downwind of fires. Direct measurements showed that cloud processing of smoke greatly reduced CH3OH, NH3, CH3COOH, SO2, and NO2 levels, but significantly increased HCHO and NO

Optimization and Simulation Modeling of Disaster Relief Supply Chain: A Literature Review

Recent natural and man-made disasters underscore the need of a resilient and agile disaster relief supply chain to mitigate the damages and save people’s lives. Optimization and simulation modeling have become powerful and useful tools to help decision makers tackle problems related to disaster relief supply chain. This paper reviews optimization and simulation models used in the field of disaster relief supply chain. We review the literature of the facility location optimization problems of disaster relief supply chain under different types of disastrous events. We review the literature of simulation models on supply chain design and disaster relief distribution operations. Finally, we propose two future research directions for disaster relief supply chain modeling

Optimization and Simulation Modeling of Disaster Relief Supply Chain: A Literature Review

Recent natural and man-made disasters underscore the need of a resilient and agile disaster relief supply chain to mitigate the damages and save people’s lives. Optimization and simulation modeling have become powerful and useful tools to help decision makers tackle problems related to disaster relief supply chain. This paper reviews optimization and simulation models used in the field of disaster relief supply chain. We review the literature of the facility location optimization problems of disaster relief supply chain under different types of disastrous events. We review the literature of simulation models on supply chain design and disaster relief distribution operations. Finally, we propose two future research directions for disaster relief supply chain modeling

Concealed Automated Trash Bin with Shredder for Solid Wastes

oai:ojs2.journals.cspc.edu.ph:article/45The common difficulty in populated developing countries like the Philippines is inappropriate waste management practices. The improper use of waste bins and waste segregation are some of those. One of the major causes is the irresponsibility of the people. As expected, the consequences are environmental and health risks experienced by people. The countermeasure to minimize these risks is the solution proposed by people, particularly the development of an automated segregation system. The waste bins are designed to be concealed to conserve space, slow down the decomposition rate and reduce the foul odor of waste. The design is fully automated to minimize direct contact with the waste. The classifying section is capable of collecting and segregating waste using a gripper, servo motors, ultrasonic, capacitive, and photoelectric sensors. To conserve power, the segregated waste is held in a storage bin prior to shredding. Shredded waste is routed to their respective transport bins for collection after shredding.The ultrasonic sensors provide data about the capacity of the transport bins and allow the GSM module to send an SMS informing the concerned authority regarding the bins’ status. These messages facilitate easier waste collection. Two tests were conducted to determine the performance of the prototype: response-time and garbage level detection tests. The result shows that the prototype performed well and can successfully achieve the desired function. It took 23.745 and 2.711 seconds to collect and segregate the waste, respectively. Likewise, the monitoring system successfully expedited the checking of the waste bins. However, it is recommended to include quality of output and SMS delay tests. These tests can improve the overall performance of the prototype

Emissions of Formaldehyde, Acetic Acid, Methanol, and Other Trace Gases from Biomass Fires in North Carolina Measured by Airborne Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

Biomass burning is an important source of many trace gases in the global troposphere. We have constructed an airborne trace gas measurement system consisting of a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) coupled to a “flow-through” multipass cell (AFTIR) and installed it on a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service King Air B-90. The first measurements with the new system were conducted in North Carolina during April 1997 on large, isolated biomass fire plumes. Simultaneous measurements included Global Positioning System (GPS); airborne sonde; particle light scattering, CO, and CO2; and integrated filter and canister samples. AFTIR spectra acquired within a few kilometers of the fires yielded excess mixing ratios for 10 of the most common trace gases in the smoke: water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, formaldehyde, acetic acid, formic acid, methanol, ethylene, and ammonia. Emission ratios to carbon monoxide for formaldehyde, acetic acid, and methanol were each 2.5±1%. This is in excellent agreement with (and confirms the relevance of) our results from laboratory fires. However, these ratios are significantly higher than the emission ratios reported for these compounds in some previous studies of “fresh” smoke. We present a simple photochemical model calculation that suggests that oxygenated organic compounds should be included in the assessment of ozone formation in smoke plumes. Our measured emission factors indicate that biomass fires could account for a significant portion of the oxygenated organic compounds and HOx present in the tropical troposphere during the dry season. Our fire measurements, along with recent measurements of oxygenated biogenic emissions and oxygenated organic compounds in the free troposphere, indicate that these rarely measured compounds play a major, but poorly understood, role in the HOx, NOx, and O3 chemistry of the troposphere

A Survey on Biometrics and Cancelable Biometrics Systems

Now-a-days, biometric systems have replaced the password or token based authentication system in many fields to improve the security level. However, biometric system is also vulnerable to security threats. Unlike password based system, biometric templates cannot be replaced if lost or compromised. To deal with the issue of the compromised biometric template, template protection schemes evolved to make it possible to replace the biometric template. Cancelable biometric is such a template protection scheme that replaces a biometric template when the stored template is stolen or lost. It is a feature domain transformation where a distorted version of a biometric template is generated and matched in the transformed domain. This paper presents a review on the state-of-the-art and analysis of different existing methods of biometric based authentication system and cancelable biometric systems along with an elaborate focus on cancelable biometrics in order to show its advantages over the standard biometric systems through some generalized standards and guidelines acquired from the literature. We also proposed a highly secure method for cancelable biometrics using a non-invertible function based on Discrete Cosine Transformation (DCT) and Huffman encoding. We tested and evaluated the proposed novel method for 50 users and achieved good results

Constraining Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions From Urban Area Using OCO‐2 Observations of Total Column CO2

Satellite observations of the total column dry‐air CO2 (XCO2) are expected to support the quantification and monitoring of fossil fuel CO2 (ffCO2) emissions from urban areas. We evaluate the utility of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO‐2) XCO2 retrievals to optimize whole‐city emissions, using a Bayesian inversion system and high‐resolution transport modeling. The uncertainties of constrained emissions related to transport model, satellite measurements, and local biospheric fluxes are quantified. For the first two uncertainty sources, we examine cities of different landscapes: “plume city” located in relatively flat terrain, represented by Riyadh and Cairo; and “basin city” located in basin terrain, represented by Los Angeles (LA). The retrieved scaling factors of emissions and their uncertainties show prominent variabilities from track to track, due to the varying meteorological conditions and relative locations of the tracks transecting plumes. To explore the performance of multiple tracks in retrieving emissions, pseudo data experiments are carried out. The estimated least numbers of tracks required to constrain the total emissions for Riyadh (<10% uncertainty), Cairo (<10%), and LA (<5%) are 8, 5, and 7, respectively. Additionally, to evaluate the impact of biospheric fluxes on derivation of the ffXCO2 enhancements, we conduct simulations for Pearl River Delta metropolitan area. Significant fractions of local XCO2 enhancements associated with local biospheric XCO2 variations are shown, which potentially lead to biased estimates of ffCO2 emissions. We demonstrate that satellite measurements can be used to improve urban ffCO2 emissions with a sufficient amount of measurements and appropriate representations of the uncertainty components.Key PointsInversion method is utilized to constrain whole‐city fossil fuel emissions with measurement and transport model errors consideredPotential of incorporating multiple tracks to obtain regular emission estimates is evaluated by pseudo data experimentsSignificant contribution of the biospheric fluxes variability to local XCO2 variation is demonstratedPeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154979/1/jgrd56150_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154979/2/jgrd56150.pd

Manoeuvring Experiments Using the MUN Explorer AUV

TesisLa demanda cada vez mayor de una adecuada educación de la sexualidad corno parte fundamental de la formación integral de la persona, obliga a poner en marcha nuevos modelos de enseñanza aprendizaje. Y uno de los problemas fundamentales lo constituye la escasa aplicación de técnicas didácticas efectivas de probada validez y confiabilidad. Es por ello que el propósito de la investigación fue aplicar un Modelo Didáctico Constructivista, mediante el conocimiento de las concepciones previas de los estudiantes, identificar el problema, desarrollar la búsqueda de información, plantear alternativas de solución y concluir con la generalización en un nuevo contexto. Modelo que fue aplicado en los estudiantes del curso de Educación Sexual de la Escuela de Obstetricia a través de un diseño cuasi experimental con dos grupos, demostrándose un claro efecto del modelo constructivista en el rendimiento académico de l@s estudiantes expresado en el mejoramiento del nivel de conocimientos, habilidades y en la modificación favorable de actitudes frente a la sexualidad en comparación al grupo de estudiantes que tuvieron enseñanza aprendizaje con el método tradicional. Además se comprobó que la evaluación de la asignatura por los estudiantes del grupo experimental, mostró una manifiesta aceptación, debido a los cambios positivos suscitados en los mismos. Estos resultados confirman que la educación sexual debe impartirse con metodologías activas desde una perspectiva que permita preparar a las nuevas generaciones, no sólo en el aspecto de conocimientos y habilidades, sino además el de fomentar actitudes, promover criterios de tolerancia frente a otras ideas y modelos culturales en lo concerniente a la sexualidad, como un aspecto y compromiso de cambio en nuestra sociedad