Dual-Axis Solar Tracker

Renewable energies, and fuels that are not fossil fuel-based, are one of the prolific topics of debate in modern society. With climate change now becoming a primary focus for scientists and innovators of today, one of the areas for the largest amount of potential and growth is that of the capturing and utilization of Solar Energy. This method involves using a mechanical system to track the progression of the sun as it traverses the sky throughout the day. A dual-axis solar tracker such as the one designed and built for this project, can follow the sun both azimuthally and in elevation by use of a photoresistor sensor mounted on the top of the panel frame that senses when the sun has shifted position. If done in such a way that the system does not require large amounts of energy, it can increase solar energy production by an extra 20%. The key to this system working efficiently is in using as passive a system as possible so that it does not continually drain power from the panels as well. Testing will be done by comparing the amount of energy generated by the panel in its optimal fixed position to that of the energy generated while the panel is tracking the position of the sun. Three clear, sunny days of testing for each position were gathered and the results averaged before comparison

A METHOD FOR ESTIMATING FLOW IN A UTILITY SYSTEM

A utility usage detection system is used to monitor appliance usage in a household and provide an estimation of overall utility usage. The system estimates utility usage based on appliance usage and then notifies a user of the estimated utility usage. The system further receives user’s feedback on the estimated utility usage. Finally, the system modifies the estimated utility usage based on the user feedback

Dijagnostička pravda: testiranje na Covid-19

Diagnostic testing can be used for many purposes, including testing to facilitate the clinical care of individual patients, testing as an inclusion criterion for clinical trial participation, and both passive and active surveillance testing of the general population in order to facilitate public health outcomes, such as the containment or mitigation of an infectious disease. As such, diagnostic testing presents us with ethical questions that are, in part, already addressed in the literature on clinical care as well as clinical research (such as the rights of patients to refuse testing or treatment in the clinical setting or the rights of participants in randomized controlled trials to withdraw from the trial at any time). However, diagnostic testing, for the purpose of disease surveillance also raises ethical issues that we do not encounter in these settings, and thus have not been much discussed. In this paper we will be concerned with the similarities and differences between the ethical considerations in these three domains: clinical care, clinical research, and public health, as they relate to diagnostic testing specifically. Via an examination of the COVID-19 case we will show how an appeal to the concept of diagnostic justice helps us to make sense of the (at times competing) ethical considerations in these three domains.Dijagnostičko testiranje može se koristiti u mnoge svrhe, uključujući testiranje za olakšavanje kliničke skrbi pojedinačnih pacijenata, testiranje kao kriterij uključivanja za sudjelovanje u kliničkim ispitivanjima i pasivno i aktivno nadzorno testiranje opće populacije kako bi se olakšali ishodi javnog zdravlja, kao što su kao obuzdavanje ili ublažavanje zarazne bolesti. Kao takvo, dijagnostičko testiranje nam postavlja etička pitanja koja su dijelom već obrađena u literaturi o kliničkoj skrbi, kao i kliničkim istraživanjima (kao što su prava pacijenata da odbiju testiranje ili liječenje u kliničkom okruženju ili prava sudionika u randomiziranim kontroliranim ispitivanjima da se povuku iz ispitivanja u bilo kojem trenutku). Međutim, dijagnostičko testiranje, u svrhu nadzora bolesti, postavlja i etička pitanja s kojima se ne susrećemo u ovim okruženjima, pa se o njima nije puno raspravljalo. U ovom radu bavit ćemo se sličnostima i razlikama između etičkih razmatranja u ove tri domene: klinička skrb, klinička istraživanja i javno zdravstvo, jer se oni posebno odnose na dijagnostičko testiranje. Kroz ispitivanje slučaja COVID-19 pokazat ćemo kako nam pozivanje na pojam dijagnostičke pravde pomaže da shvatimo (ponekad suparnička) etička razmatranja u ove tri domene

Empowering the Defense to Confront the Government\u27s Powers: Virginia Criminal Justice Legal Reform

During the 2021 Session and 2021 Special Session, Virginia took steps to restore the balance between individuals ensnared in the criminal legal system and the government. These new laws allow people who are involved in the criminal legal system to emphasize their humanity and to hold the government to its various burdens at all stages of the case, including pre-trial, trials, sentencing, and appeal. This article discusses four of the most important changes to Virginia law that ensure a more level playing field between the government and the accused. First, eliminating the presumption against bail challenges the government’s power of pre-trial detention, as no longer is a person automatically considered dangerous just because of the name of their charge. Second, by creating a rule of evidence allowing introduction of mental condition evidence to negate intent at trial, people with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities will not be placed into the all-or-nothing unrealistic category of insanity. Third, jury sentencing reform will actually provide a meaningful right to a jury trial as the government will not be able to force the accused into a jury sentence. Finally, Virginians will join the rest of the country with a right to a merits review by an appellate court after conviction of a crime. While time will tell how effective these changes will be, all ensure that the system is fairer and more just for those facing trial in Virginia

High-resolution width-modulated pulse rebalance electronics for strapdown gyroscopes and accelerometers

Three different rebalance electronic loops were designed, implemented, and evaluated. The loops were width-modulated binary types using a 614.4 kHz keying signal; they were developed to accommodate the following three inertial sensors with the indicated resolution values: (1) Kearfott 2412 accelerometer - resolution = 260 micro-g/data pulse, (2) Honeywell GG334 gyroscope - resolution = 3.9 milli-arc-sec/data pulse, (3) Kearfott 2401-009 accelerometer - resolution = 144 milli-g/data pulse. Design theory, details of the design implementation, and experimental results for each loop are presented

A Techno-Economic Analysis of Current Cooling Techniques in Irish Data Centres

This research is part of a comprehensive study to determine reformative actions for cooling regimes within the Irish data centre market. To achieve this goal, preliminary Exergy, Entropy change and operational cost analyses are used. It is determined that there is no clear advantage for using one cooling method over another without knowing the data centres secondary function (e.g. district heating, energy generation). Air cooling technology is a good candidate for a highly reliable system due to the low exhaust temperatures of 30°C. Two-phase immersion is a possibility for economically viable data centres where operational costs are to be minimised, although the capital expenditure could outweigh operational expenditure. Hybrid cooling has a low waste heat rate of 2.569 kJ/s, slightly above the lowest waste heat from the passively cooled two-phase immersion cooling at 2.5 kJ/s. Hybrid cooling benefits from the combination of concentrated hot spot cooling and general air cooling has an Entropy change of 0.009 kJ/K

Northern Rivers GIG Phytobenthos Intercalibration Exercise

General issues associated with phytobenthos intercalibration exercises are addressed in the report on the CB GIG intercalibration exercise. The conclusions and recommendations listed in that report are all equally valid for the N GIG exercise. This section highlights a few points that are unique to the N GIG exercise. The CB GIG exercise involved 12 Member States; whilst the N GIG exercise is much smaller, with just four participants. An important implication is that the exercise has lower statistical power and it is not always clear if those MS that fall outside the ‘acceptable band’ do so because there are issues that those MS need to address or because the ‘acceptable band’ is itself based on a small (and potentially atypical sample). On the other hand, however, the ‘acceptable band’ should not be equated with ‘best practice’. MS that comply with the minimum requirements of the exercise are included in the acceptable band and the position of this band, therefore, reflects the consensus of those. This must affect how results from N GIG and other smaller intercalibration exercises are judged. In particular, a ‘Type 1 error’ (i.e. erroneous rejection of the [null] hypothesis that boundaries are the same) may lead to the conclusion that a MS needs to adjust boundaries when, in fact, the median value of the ICM (which anchors the acceptable band) is unlikely to be stable with such a small sample size. The approach adopted here was, therefore, to perform a suite of tests using different permutations of the statistical criteria and to make final judgements about the need (or otherwise) to adjust boundaries based on the weight of evidence. Whilst the CB GIG exercise evaluated two versions of the ICM (one based on the mean of component metrics, the other based on the minimum), the N GIG exercise used both versions. TISI-min favoured IE and UK, both of whose national metric was the TDI, which correlates more strongly with the nutrient-sensitive TI, whilst TISI-mean favoured FI and SE whose national metric was the IPS, which correlated more strongly with the SI. Whilst TISI-mean is not biased by a low value of one or other metric, TISI-min better embodies the ‘one out, all out’ principle used when comparing biological elements as part of status assessments. Three of the four MS taking part in this exercise were also involved in the CB GIG exercise. Boundaries calculated in this exercise are broadly consistent between the two exercises. For H/G, IE, SE and UK were all inside the acceptable band for the CB GIG exercise whilst, for N GIG, UK were inside whilst SE was above the acceptable band for TISI-min but inside for TISI-mean and IE was marginally below for TISI-mean. For G/M, UK and SE were inside the acceptable band whilst IE was above. For the N GIG exercise, IE and UK were inside the acceptable band on all occasions whilst SE was again above the acceptable band when TISI-min was used. In the case of IE, the relatively small size of the dataset plus the low number of poor quality sites may be responsible for the differences in regression equations. Whilst SE were above the acceptable band on two out of four occasions for each of H/G and G/M comparisons, it is only those MS that fall below the acceptable band that need to consider harmonisation. In this exercise, both IE and FI fell below the acceptable band on one out of four occasions, both were only marginally below the acceptable band on these occasions and we believe that there is no case for either MS to adjust their boundarie

PyCUDA and PyOpenCL: A Scripting-Based Approach to GPU Run-Time Code Generation

High-performance computing has recently seen a surge of interest in heterogeneous systems, with an emphasis on modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). These devices offer tremendous potential for performance and efficiency in important large-scale applications of computational science. However, exploiting this potential can be challenging, as one must adapt to the specialized and rapidly evolving computing environment currently exhibited by GPUs. One way of addressing this challenge is to embrace better techniques and develop tools tailored to their needs. This article presents one simple technique, GPU run-time code generation (RTCG), along with PyCUDA and PyOpenCL, two open-source toolkits that support this technique. In introducing PyCUDA and PyOpenCL, this article proposes the combination of a dynamic, high-level scripting language with the massive performance of a GPU as a compelling two-tiered computing platform, potentially offering significant performance and productivity advantages over conventional single-tier, static systems. The concept of RTCG is simple and easily implemented using existing, robust infrastructure. Nonetheless it is powerful enough to support (and encourage) the creation of custom application-specific tools by its users. The premise of the paper is illustrated by a wide range of examples where the technique has been applied with considerable success.Comment: Submitted to Parallel Computing, Elsevie

Swarm UAVs for Area Mapping in GPS-denied Locations

Utilizing small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) in mapping and cartography applications holds transformative potential, particularly in challenging and GPS-denied environments. Traditionally, mapping involved manual efforts using diverse tools, but there has been a fundamental shift towards autonomous vehicles capable of achieving efficient results in less time and with reduced human effort. Autonomous mapping typically relies on single a UAV employing Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) or photogrammetry alongside GPS. This research project seeks to leverage swarm robotics to map intricate landscapes and rugged terrains using SUASs with a faster, more accurate, and precise approach, eliminating dependence on GPS for global positioning. The mapping scope encompasses hard-to-access locations like cliffs, abandoned structures, and forests, as well as areas impractical for manual surveying, such as construction sites and expansive indoor spaces like warehouses, factories, or historical buildings resistant to modifications for survey purposes. The swarm will exhibit an emergent-like behavior to map any location efficiently, ensuring collision-free navigation among sUAS and ground objects