Scipedia: Documents published in 2016

The Bhutan Electric Vehicle Initiative : Scenarios, Implications, and Economic Impact

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:23:07 +0200

This report aims to help Bhutan think through various technical and policy issues of introducing electric vehicles in its own context. It analyses a variety of factors that will impact adoption of electric vehicles from technical, market and financial feasibility to consumer awareness and stakeholders capacity. It also addresses several policy questions which are at the heart of public debate such as affordability of the government to undertake the program, economic costs and benefits, distributional impact, fiscal, and macroeconomic implications.

Document type: Book

The Role of Regulation on Entry : Evidence from the Italian Provinces

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:13:51 +0200

This paper studies the effects of differences in local administrative burdens in Italy in the years 20052007 preceding a major reform that sped up firm registration procedures. Combining regulatory data from a survey on Italian provinces before the reform (costs and time to start a business) with industry-level entry rates of limited liability firms, it explores the effects of regulatory barriers on the average of the annual entry rates across industries with different natural propensities to enter the market. The estimates of the cross-sectional analysis show that lengthier and, to some extent, more costly procedures reduced entry in sectors with naturally high entry. A one-day delay in registration procedures reduces the entry rate in highly dynamic sectors by more than 1 percent. These results hold when I include measures of local financial development and of efficiency of bankruptcy procedures are included.

Document type: Book

Augmented Reality for the Control Tower: The RETINA Concept

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:10:32 +0200

The SESAR (Single European Sky Air Traffic Management Research) Joint Undertaking has recently granted the Resilient Synthetic Vision for Ad- vanced Control Tower Air Navigation Service Provision project within the framework of the H2020 research on High Performing Airport Operations. Here- after, we describe the project motivations, the objectives, the proposed method- ology and the expected impacts, i.e. the consequences of using virtual/augmented reality technologies in the control tower.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

The Impact of Convergence Cameras in a Stereoscopic System for AUVs

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:08:25 +0200

Underwater imaging is being increasingly helpful for the autonomous robots to reconstruct and map the marine environments which is fundamental for searching for pipelines or wreckages in depth waters. In this context, the accuracy of the information obtained from the environment is of extremely importance. This work presents a study about the accuracy of a reconfigurable stereo vision system while determining a dense disparity estimation for underwater imaging. The idea is to explore the advantage of this kind of system for underwater autonomous vehicles (AUV) since varying parameters like the baseline and the pose of the cameras make possible to extract accurate 3D information at different distances between the AUV and the scene. Therefore, the impact of these parameters is analyzed using a metric error of the point cloud acquired by a stereoscopic system. Furthermore, results obtained directly from an underwater environment proved that a reconfigurable stereo system can have some advantages for autonomous vehicles since, in some trials, the error was reduced by 0.05 m for distances between 1.125 and 2.675 m.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Global ATM Security Management - D6.10 - SACom Prototype Verification Report

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:07:41 +0200

Document type: Book

Comparing Signal Setting Design Methods Through Emission and Fuel Consumption Performance Indicators

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 15:00:49 +0200

In order to address the Signal Setting Design at urban level two main approaches may be pursued: the coordination and the synchronisation approaches depending on the steps considered for the optimisation of decision variables (two steps vs. one step). Furthermore, in terms of objective functions mono-criterion or multi-criteria may be adopted. In this paper the coordination approach is implemented considering the multi-criteria optimisation at single junctions and mono-criterion optimisation at network level whereas the synchronisation is implemented considering the mono-criterion optimisation. The main purpose of the paper is the evaluation of the performances of two strategies not only considering indicators such as the total delay, the queue length etc. but also considering other indicators such as the emissions and the fuel consumption. The methodological framework is composed by three stages: (i) the decision variables (green timings and offsets) computation through optimisation methods; (ii) the implementation of optimal signal settings in a microscopic traffic flow simulator (Simulation of Urban MObility-SUMO); (iii) the estimation of emissions and fuel consumption indicators.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

An integrated framework for business continuity management of critical infrastructures

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:59:15 +0200

International audience Business continuity of critical infrastructures (CIs) is exposed to various hazards including random failures, malicious threats, natural disasters and human errors, which could generate accidents with serious consequences (fatality, injury, environmental damage, business interruption and company reputation loss). We conceptualize the business continuity management (BCM) process as the integration of four active stages: prevention, mitigation, emergency and recovery. Integrated assessment and management is needed on all stages. On the contrary, the current approaches of BCM have not considered all phases in an integrated man-ner. We propose a new framework, which stands on an extension of the Bow-Tie model, to efficiently and effectively prevent and mitigate the potential consequences of an accident by properly designing and strengthening safety barriers for preventing and mitigating accidents, and making safety decisions for emer-gency and recovery. The proposed framework allows considering safety barriers and decisions in an integrated way. For operationalization, we explore the use of two complementary quantitative methods, Bayesian Network (BN) and Constraint Goal Method. BN takes the negative viewpoint of failure to determine the causes which lead to the final damage. CGM employs the positive perspective of the goal achievement process. An oil pipeline system is considered to show the application of the proposed approaches.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Thermal Infrared Imaging Experiments of C-Type Asteroid 162173 Ryugu on Hayabusa2

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:52:16 +0200

The thermal infrared imager TIR onboard Hayabusa2 has been developed to investigate thermo-physical properties of C-type, near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu. TIR is one of the remote science instruments on Hayabusa2 designed to understand the nature of a volatile-rich solar system small body, but it also has significant mission objectives to provide information on surface physical properties and conditions for sampling site selection as well as the assessment of safe landing operations. TIR is based on a two-dimensional uncooled micro-bolometer array inherited from the Longwave Infrared Camera LIR on Akatsuki (Fukuhara et al., 2011). TIR takes images of thermal infrared emission in 8 to 12 ?m with a field of view of \$16 \\times 12^{\\circ}\$ and a spatial resolution of \$0.05^{\\circ}\$ per pixel. TIR covers the temperature range from 150 to 460 K, including the well calibrated range from 230 to 420 K. Temperature accuracy is within 2 K or better for summed images, and the relative accuracy or noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) at each of pixels is 0.4 K or lower for the well-calibrated temperature range. TIR takes a couple of images with shutter open and closed, the corresponding dark frame, and provides a true thermal image by dark frame subtraction. Data processing involves summation of multiple images, image processing including the StarPixel compression (Hihara et al., 2014), and transfer to the data recorder in the spacecraft digital electronics (DE). We report the scientific and mission objectives of TIR, the requirements and constraints for the instrument specifications, the designed instrumentation and the pre-flight and in-flight performances of TIR, as well as its observation plan during the Hayabusa2 mission.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Intergenerational Education Mobility in Africa : Has Progress Been Inclusive?

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:50:42 +0200

This paper employs nationally representative household survey data on parents of adult individuals to analyze the intergenerational transmission of education in nine Sub-Saharan African countries. The paper provides the levels, trends, and patterns of intergenerational persistence of educational attainment over 50 years, with a special focus on gender differences. The study finds a declining cohort trend in the intergenerational educational persistence in all the countries, particularly after the 1960s. The increase in educational mobility coincides with drastic changes in educational systems and a huge investment in human capital accumulation in the region following independence. Nevertheless, the education of parents' remains a strong determinant of educational outcomes among the children in all the countries. Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and Uganda experienced the highest intergenerational mobility, and the Comoros and Madagascar the lowest. In all the sample countries, more mobility is observed in the lower tail of the distribution of education. Intergenerational educational persistence is strong from mothers to children, and the effect is more pronounced among daughters than sons. The results highlight the need for targeted redistributive policies that improve intergenerational mobility in the region.

Document type: Book

Overeducation and overskill in the Italian labour market: the role of fields of study

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:50:13 +0200

This paper investigates the role of skill heterogeneity in affecting differences in occupational mismatch across fields of study. By relying on measures of overeducation and overskill collected in the 2014 ISFOL survey, we test to which extent the two phenomena differ across fields of study and the role played by merit and non-cognitive skills. We find that having an excellent graduate curriculum significantly decreases over-education and over-skill, while non-cognitive skills do not matter.

Document type: Book

Towards an agent based model of passenger transportation

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:48:57 +0200

An agent-based simulation model for supporting the decision making in urban transport planning is presented. The model can be used to investigate how different transport infrastructure investments and policy instruments will affect the travel choices of passengers. We identified four main categories of factors influencing the choice of travel: cost, time, convenience, and social norm. However, travelers value these factors differently depending on their individual characteristics, such as age, income, work flexibility and environmental engagement, as well as on external factors, such as the weather. Moreover, instead of modeling the transport system explicitly, online web services are used to generate travel options. The model can support transport planners by providing estimations of modal share, as well as economical and environmental consequences. As a first step towards validation of the model, we have conducted a simple case study of three scenarios where we analyze the effects of changes to the public transport fares on commuters' travel choices in the Malmo-Lund region in Sweden.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

GoodsPooling: An Intelligent Approach for Urban Logistics

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:43:40 +0200

Models supported by ICT tools are developed to raise collaboration and share of resources in urban logistics process, in a kind of "Logistics-as-uber" concept, which allows implementing operations such as GoodsPooling con-cept, equivalent to carpooling concept: daily use of home/work trips to pick and deliver goods on the way. This solution can also be integrated with the use of Taxis or even persons in a public transportation in a sharing solution of persons and goods transportation. This project aims to develop a conceptual model based on already existing city mobility alternatives to reduce dedicated transportation of goods. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Agricultural Technology Choice and Transport

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:41:50 +0200

This paper addresses an old and recurring theme in development economics: the slow adoption of new technologies by farmers in many developing countries. The paper explores a somewhat novel link to explain this puzzle -- the link between market access and the incentives to adopt a new technology when there are non-convexities. The paper develops a theoretical model to guide the empirical analysis, which uses spatially disaggregated agricultural production data from Spatial Production Allocation Model and Living Standards Measurement Study survey data for Nigeria. The model is used to estimate the impact of transport costs on crop production, the adoption of modern technologies, and the differential impact on returns of modern versus traditional farmers. To overcome the limitation of data availability on travel costs for much of Africa, road survey data are combined with geographic information road network data to generate the most thorough and accurate road network available. With these data and the Highway Development Management Model, minimum travel costs from each location to the market are computed. Consistent with the theory, analysis finds that transportation costs are critical in determining technology choices, with a greater responsiveness among farmers who adopt modern technologies, and at times a perverse (negative) response to lower transport costs among those who employ more traditional techniques. In sum, the paper presents compelling evidence that the constraints to the adoption of modern technologies and access to markets are interconnected, and so should be targeted jointly.

Document type: Book

Travel in britain in 2035 future scenarios and their implications for technology innovation

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:37:17 +0200

Document type: Book

Haitian Cities

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:35:25 +0200

Today, more than half of Haitis population calls cities and towns their home, in a major shift from the 1950s when around 90 percent of Haitians lived in the countryside. Urbanization is usually paired with economic growth, increased productivity, and higher living standards, but in Haiti it has taken a different course. Potential benefits have been overshadowed by immense challenges, all of which require immediate action. To better understand the factors that constrain the sustainable and inclusive development of Haitian cities, this Urbanization Review organizes the challenges along three dimensions of urban development namely planning, connecting, and financing. Planning reviews the challenges in supporting resilient growth to create economically vibrant, environmentally sustainable, and livable cities. Connecting focuses on the obstacles of physically linking people to jobs and businesses to markets, while financing focuses on identifying the key capital, governance, and institutional constraints that are hurdles to successful planning and connecting.

Document type: Book

The Labor Content of Exports Database

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:33:37 +0200

This paper develops a novel methodology to measure the quantity of jobs and value of wages embodied in exports for a large number of countries and sectors for intermittent years between 1995 and 2011. The resulting Labor Content of Exports database allows the examination of the direct contribution of labor to exports as well as the indirect contribution via other sectors of the economy for skilled and unskilled labor. The analysis of the new data sets documents several new findings. First, the global share of labor value added in exports has been declining globally since 1995, but it has increased in low-income countries. Second, in line with the standard Hecksher-Ohlin trade model, the composition of labor directly contained in exports is skewed toward skilled labor in high-income countries relative to developing countries. However, that is not the case for the indirect labor content of exports. Third, manufacturing exports are a key source of labor demand in other sectors, especially in middle- and low-income countries. And the majority of the indirect demand for labor spurred by exports is in services sectors, whose workers are the largest beneficiaries of exporting activities globally. Fourth, differences in the labor value added in exports share across developing countries appears to be driven more by differences in the composition of exports rather than in sector labor intensities. Finally, average wages typically increase rapidly enough with the process of economic development to more than compensate the loss in jobs per unit of exports. The paper also includes the necessary information to build the Labor Content of Exports database from the original raw data, including stata do-files and matlab files, as well as descriptions of the variables in the data set.

Document type: Book

Sympathy for the Details: Dense Trajectories and Hybrid Classification Architectures for Action Recognition

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:32:15 +0200

Action recognition in videos is a challenging task due to the complexity of the spatio-temporal patterns to model and the difficulty to acquire and learn on large quantities of video data. Deep learning, although a breakthrough for image classification and showing promise for videos, has still not clearly superseded action recognition methods using hand-crafted features, even when training on massive datasets. In this paper, we introduce hybrid video classification architectures based on carefully designed unsupervised representations of hand-crafted spatio-temporal features classified by supervised deep networks. As we show in our experiments on five popular benchmarks for action recognition, our hybrid model combines the best of both worlds: it is data efficient (trained on 150 to 10000 short clips) and yet improves significantly on the state of the art, including recent deep models trained on millions of manually labelled images and videos.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:27:54 +0200

Argentinas path to economic prosperity is through efficient, sustainable and economically thriving cities. Not only are cities a spatial concentration of people, but also they generate agglomeration economies by concentrating ideas, talent, and knowledge. Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America, with 90 percent of Argentine people currently living in cities. Argentinas cities are geographically and economically diverse, and its largest urban area Metropolitan Buenos Aires is one of Latin Americas urban giants. Argentine cities need to address three main challenges to leverage their economic potential. Argentinas current patterns of urban development are characterized by (a) high primacy and unbalanced regional development, (b) limited global economic footprint of urban economies, with employment concentrated in nontradable and resource intensive sectors, and (c) unplanned low-density urban expansion. Argentine cities thus face the challenges of moving toward a more balanced regional development, transitioning from local to global cities, and from urban sprawl to articulated densities to take full advantage of the benefits of agglomeration economies. To address these challenges, Argentina needs the leadership of the federal government; the coordinating power of provinces; and the capacity of empowered, financially sound municipalities. Argentine cities also need system-wide policy reforms in areas such as territorial planning, municipal finance, housing, urban transport, and local economic development. Leveraging the Potential of Argentine Cities: A Framework for Policy Action aims to deepen our empirical understanding of the interplay between urbanization and agglomeration economies in Argentina by asking the following: (a) What are the main trends and spatial patterns of Argentinas urbanization that underlie agglomeration economies?, (b) Are urban policies leveraging or undermining the benefits of agglomeration economies?, and (c) Are Argentine cities fully reaping the benefits of agglomeration economies to deliver improvements in prosperity and livability? By addressing such questions and exploring their implications for action, this study provides a conceptual framework, empirical data, and strategic directions for leveraging the potential of Argentine cities.

Document type: Book

Formation Control of Multi-Agent Systems with Location Uncertainty

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:27:40 +0200

In this chapter the impact of realistic communication channels and uncertain location information on formation control of multi-agent systems aiming to achieve a common task is highlighted. First, the work is motivated by elucidating the need to incorporate realistic communication models as well as the need to model the agents location uncertainty. Second, it is discussed how control can be utilised to reduce the agents positioning error in cooperative systems to achieve a higher level goal, such as steering a group of agents towards a destination. Third, the impact of location uncertainty on channel gain prediction is addressed for formation control. Finally, conclusions and an outlook on future directions for controlled multi-agent systems are provided.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Satellite Navigation Systems

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:27:08 +0200

This chapter describes the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) used for positioning and navigation applications. Although a satellite navigation system is very complex, it is common to speak of a satellite navigation system sensor when referring to the tools that an end user needs in order to exploit the functionalities of a satellite navigation system, and this chapter will give a general survey of this topic. Firstly, the positioning problem within the framework of a positioning satellite system will be described. Then, general GNSS descriptions and prospects will be presented, outlining the main features of the American GPS GNSS gold standard; the Russian GLONASS (revived and modernized a few years ago); the European Galileo and the Chinese Bei Dou (formerly called Compass), both successfully developing; along with the Japanese QZSS and the Indian IRNSS regional navigation satellite systems. Following these will be sections that include sources of errors and receiver structures common to all GNSS. Modernization and augmentation (GBAS and SBAS) of satellite systems are treated in a specific paragraph. Finally, some brief outlines of the aerospace applications of satellite systems will conclude the chapter. Major attention has been paid to the principles of satellite positioning, to descriptions of the measurements that can be obtained from satellite signals, the way they are processed, the effects that affect the measurements and how they propagate. These choices were motivated by the fact that their principles are common to all the GNSS and can provide the reader with the tools to approach the following subject matter. Many references are also given in the bibliography for the study of particular topics in depth, but the most recent novelties are quickly outlined because the relevant research is still ongoing and new applications are emerging.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

On the evaluation of plug-in electric vehicle data of a campus charging network

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:26:53 +0200

The mass adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) requires the deployment of public charging stations. Such facilities are expected to employ distributed generation and storage units to reduce the stress on the grid and boost sustainable transportation. While prior work has made considerable progress in deriving insights for understanding the adverse impacts of PEV chargings and how to alleviate them, a critical issue that affects the accuracy is the lack of real world PEV data. As the dynamics and pertinent design of such charging stations heavily depend on actual customer demand profile, in this paper we present and evaluate the data obtained from a $17$ node charging network equipped with Level $2$ chargers at a major North American University campus. The data is recorded for $166$ weeks starting from late $2011$. The result indicates that the majority of the customers use charging lots to extend their driving ranges. Also, the demand profile shows that there is a tremendous opportunity to employ solar generation to fuel the vehicles as there is a correlation between the peak customer demand and solar irradiation. Also, we provided a more detailed data analysis and show how to use this information in designing future sustainable charging facilities.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Air transport in Africa : A portrait of capacity and competition in various market segments

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:23:29 +0200

Sub-Saharan Africa's air transport, though low in overall volume when compared to other regions in the world, has experienced significant growth in the last decade, both in international and domestic traffic. The sector, in part because of its relatively small size, still faces the challenges of high concentration in services and lack of competition, with only a few dominant airlines providing international services within the continent. In addition, Africa faces challenges in safety oversight, as well as having many smaller non-viable state-owned carriers.

Document type: Book

Supporting export competitiveness through port and rail network reforms a case study of south africa

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:22:16 +0200

Transport and logistics infrastructure is a critical determinant of the competitiveness of a country's producers and exporters. Well-functioning transport and logistics infrastructure relies not just on hardware, but critically on the operating environment that emerges from the interaction between private sector operators; national policies and regulatory regimes; and, in many countries, state-owned owners and operators of core infrastructure. This paper looks at the case of South Africa, where constraints in access, pricing, reliability, and network interfaces, particularly in the port and rail network, are eroding the competitiveness of South African exporters. The paper draws on interviews with a wide range of exporters along with secondary research to examine South Africa's port and rail network, and explores the underlying factors contributing to these constraints, including chronic underinvestment, an inadequate regulatory environment, insufficient private sector participation, and weak regional integration. The paper concludes with a review of the reforms needed to deliver a more broadly accessible and competitive rail and port sector based on international case examples. It highlights the need for institutional reforms to promote competitive pricing; private sector participation to increase investment and improve service delivery; information and coordination to address market failures and improve access; and cooperation to improve intermodal, interregional, and institutional interfaces.

Document type: Book

Estimation of the optimum speed to minimize the driver stress based on the previous behavior

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:22:01 +0200

Proceedings of 7th International Symposium on Ambient Intelligence (ISAmI 2016), Seville, Spain on June 1st3rd Stress is one of the most important factors in car accidents. When the driver is in this mental state, their skills and abilities are reduced. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to predict stress level on a road. Prediction model is based on deep learning. The stress level estimation considers the previous driver's driving behavior before reaching the road section, the road state (weather and traffic), and the previous driving made by the driver. We employ this algorithm to build a speed assistant. The solution provides an optimum average speed for each road stage that minimizes the stress. Validation experiment has been conducted using five different datasets with 100 samples. The proposal is able to predict the stress level given the average speed by 84.20% on average. The system reduces the heart rate (15.22%) and the aggressiveness of driving. The proposed solution is implemented on Android mobile devices and uses a heart rate chest strap. The research leading to these results has received funding from the HERMES-SMART DRIVER/CITIZEN projects TIN2013-46801-C4-2-R /1-R funded by the Spanish MINECO, from the grant PRX15/00036 from the Ministerio de Educación Cultura y Deporte.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

The more stringent the better

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:20:54 +0200

Document type: Book

Out of school and out of work a diagnostic of ninis in latin america

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:12:42 +0200

Using all the household survey data available in Latin America during the period 1992 to 2013, this paper estimates that in 2015, 20 million youth ages 15 to 24 years in the region were out of school and not working (making them ninis, for "ni estudian ni trabajan"). The share of out-ofschool, out-of-work youth in Latin America, at about 19 percent, is roughly equal to the global average of 22 percent. Although women make up over two-thirds of the ninis in the region, the number of male ninis grew by 46 percent between 1992 and 2010. As a result, the absolute number of ninis rose over the two-decade period, even as women's education and employment rates were improving. Global comparisons show that Latin America is the region of the world with the largest concentration of ninis among households in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. Coupled with the long-lasting harm it causes to the youth's future labor-market outcomes, the high incidence of ninis among the poorest households tends to lock in income disparities from one generation to the next, obstructing social mobility and poverty reduction in the region.

Document type: Book

Vasco Morgado's Empire in Lisbon

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:12:29 +0200

UID/EAT/00472/2013 This article aims to introduce the relationship between the mobility of music, symbolic power and urbanism in the context of an Entertainment Industry based on Commercial.Musical Theatre in Portugal. This relation will be shown through a Revista show entitled "Esta Lisboa que eu Amo", that premiered in September 24th, 1966 in the Monumental Theatre (Lisbon), promoted by Vasco Morgado's Company, the most prolific Impresario of theatre and music during the third quarters of the 20th Centurey. publishersversion published

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Vision Pipelines and Optimizations

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:07:36 +0200

This chapter explores some hypothetical computer vision pipeline designs to understand HW/SW design alternatives and optimizations. Instead of looking at isolated computer vision algorithms, this chapter ties together many concepts into complete vision pipelines. Vision pipelines are sketched out for a few example applications to illustrate the use of different methods. Example applications include object recognition using shape and color for automobiles, face detection and emotion detection using local features, image classification using global features, and augmented reality. The examples have been chosen to illustrate the use of different families of feature description metrics within the Vision Metrics Taxonomy presented in Chap. 5. Alternative optimizations at each stage of the vision pipeline are explored. For example, we consider which vision algorithms run better on a CPU versus a GPU, and discuss how data transfer time between compute units and memory affects performance.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

The Atlas of Rural Marginalized Areas and of Local Human Development in Romania

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:06:54 +0200

Romania aims to be a country in which all citizens are provided with an equal opportunity toparticipate in society, where their basic needs are met and their differences respected, and whereall people feel valued and can live in dignity.Our society is still far from this ideal. One in every five Romanian people is income poor. Most of the people living in relative poverty in Romania are in persistent poverty, meening that they have been in poverty for at least the last three years. Despite its relatively low unemployment rate, the country has a very high rate of poverty for in-work people, which is double the EU-27 rate (9 percent). As a response to this situation, the Government of Romania (GoR) has committed itself to lifting 580,000 people out of poverty by 20205 as part of the Europe 2020 Strategy.By 2020, Romania is committed to putting in place a set of policies and programs to (i) lift at least 580,000 people out of relative income poverty by 2020, compared to 2008; (ii) break the inter-generational cycle of poverty; (iii) prevent the recurrence of poverty and social exclusion; and (iv) ensure equal access to social assistance, cash transfers and services to strengthen social cohesion.the GoR asked for the World Banks support to develop detailed implementation plans for the 2015-2018 period in the form of nine Flagship Innitiatives that are expected to have the greatest impact in terms of reducing poverty and promoting social inclusion. This Atlas of Rural Marginalized Areas and Local Human Development in Romania represents the Flagship Initiative develop an instrument to identify poor villages and marginalized rural communities. Specifically the Banks technical assistance provided through this project has helped the GoR to develop: (i) a methodology for defining different types of rural marginalized areas based on a set of key criteria and indicators; (ii) detailed maps that present the spatial distribution of the rural marginalized communities by county; (iii) a methodology for defining degrees of local human development from low to comprehensive development, for rural and small urban settlements; and (iv) detailed county-level maps of local human development. In short, the Atlas helps to define which rural areas are marginalized, who lives in these areas (the profile of various disadvantaged groups), and where they are located in Romania.

Document type: Book

Decision Support System Design Requirements, Information Management, and Urban Logistics Efficiency

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:06:40 +0200

International audience; The task of feeding cities is a challenge that nowadays all governments face, which involves the coordination of multiple producers, distributors, logistics operators and traders of perishable foods. With the increasing population in cities, more food and better freight transport systems are required. This takes a particular importance in cities and urban zones, since the growing population needs to be fed, but freight transport is often seen as creating nuisances such as congestion or pollution, among others. In this context, several cities started to think on how improve the citys food supply system by combining proximity producers supply with advanced city logistics systems in order to decrease transport nuisances and improve the quality and sustainability of the food system.One of the possible actions is that of deploying proximity food hubs with a consequent urban food distribution system to supply the different urban zones of a city. However, this type of system is starting to be conceived and there is need of assessing the impacts of such alternative before thinking on its deployment possibilities. For this reason, this paper aims to propose a framework to assess different food delivery alternatives in the urban context focusing on a Food hub deployment and its impacts on urban development as a solution of urban consolidation center (UCC).The objective of this study is to enable municipalities to assess the consequences of food logistics flows centralization on an UCC-based food hub. Regarding the context of the research, the study focuses on a Food hub deployment to share the supplies for administrative restaurants of a city, following the sustainable food strategy of a French municipality. This municipality decided to show the example in terms of sustainable food supply and aims to increase the part of organic and local food for the administrative restaurants under its coordination. To do this, a specific food system needs to be conceived and assessed. To assess the suitability of such systems, it will be necessary to model both the demand and the logistics supply, to define the main indicators of sustainability and their estimation methods, then to construct the scenarios to assess and finally make the corresponding analyses.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Tramp Ship Routing and Scheduling with Voyage Separation Requirements

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:04:59 +0200

In this paper we explore tramp ship routing and scheduling. Tramp ships operate much like taxies following the available demand. Tramp operators can determine some of their demand in advance by entering into long-term contracts and then try to maximise profits from optional voyages found in the spot market. Routing and scheduling a tramp fleet to best utilise fleet capacity according to current demand is therefore an ongoing and complicated problem. Here we add further complexity to the routing and scheduling problem by incorporating voyage separation requirements that enforce a minimum time spread between some voyages. The incorporation of these separation requirements helps balance the conflicting objectives of maximising profit for the tramp operator and minimising inventory costs for the charterer, since these"br/"costs increase if similar voyages are not performed with some separation in time. We have developed a new and exact branch-and-price procedure for this problem. We use a dynamic programming algorithm to generate columns and describe a time window branching scheme used to enforce the voyage separation requirements which we relax in the master problem. Computational results show that our algorithm in general finds optimal solutions very quickly and performs much faster compared to an earlier a priori path generation method. Finally, we compare our method to an earlier adaptive large neighbourhood search heuristic and find that on similar-sized instances our approach generally uses less time to find the optimal solution than the adaptive large neighbourhood search method uses to find a heuristic solution.

Document type: Book

An effective video processing pipeline for crowd pattern analysis

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:04:44 +0200

With the purpose of automatic detection of crowd patterns including abrupt and abnormal changes, a novel approach for extracting motion textures from dynamic Spatio-Temporal Volume (STV) blocks formulated by live video streams has been proposed. This paper starts from introducing the common approach for STV construction and corresponding Spatio-Temporal Texture (STT) extraction techniques. Next the crowd motion information contained within the random STT slices are evaluated based on the information entropy theory to cull the static background and noises occupying most of the STV spaces. A preprocessing step using Gabor filtering for improving the STT sampling efficiency and motion fidelity has been devised and tested. The technique has been applied on benchmarking video databases for proof-of-concept and performance evaluation. Preliminary results have shown encouraging outcomes and promising potentials for its real-world crowd monitoring and control applications.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Rigorous Graphical Modelling of Movement in Collective Adaptive Systems

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:04:10 +0200

Formal modelling provides valuable intellectual tools which can be applied to the problem of analysis and optimisation of systems. In this paper we present a novel software tool which provides a graphical approach to modelling of Collective Adaptive Systems (CAS) with constrained movement. The graphical description is translated into a model that can be analysed to understand the dynamic behaviour of the system. This generated model is expressed in CARMA, a modern feature-rich modelling language designed specifically for modelling CAS. We demonstrate the use of the software tool with an example scenario representing carpooling, in which travellers group together and share a car in order to reach a common destination. This can reduce their travel time and travel costs, whilst also ameliorating traffic congestion by reducing the number of vehicles on the road.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Identifying the economic potential of indian districts

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:02:57 +0200

Despite its rapid growth in recent decades, GDP per capita in India remains at a relatively low level by international standards, and the country continues to be marked by large subnational disparities in levels of well-being. These large disparities naturally lead to interest in Indias spatial landscape of potential for economic development. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the results of an analysis of underlying variations in economic potential across Indian districts, where economic potential is defined as the extent to which a district possesses factors that are important determinants of the ability to experience a high level of productivity. The analysis is based on a simple composite Economic Potential Index, which is constructed from variables for which robust evidence exists of their importance as determinants of local productivity. From the analysis, a picture emerges of a heterogeneous landscape of economic potential characterized by strong geographic clustering of districts. The paper also reveals particularly high levels of underperformance, relative to potential, for districts in Uttar Pradesh.

Document type: Book

Leveraging spatial abstraction in traffic analysis and forecasting with visual analytics

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 14:01:24 +0200

A spatially abstracted transportation network is a graph where nodes are territory compartments (areas in geographic space) and edges, or links, are abstract constructs, each link representing all possible paths between two neighboring areas. By applying visual analytics techniques to vehicle traffic data from different territories, we discovered that the traffic intensity (a.k.a. traffic flow or traffic flux) and the mean velocity are interrelated in a spatially abstracted transportation network in the same way as at the level of street segments. Moreover, these relationships are consistent across different levels of spatial abstraction of a physical transportation network. Graphical representations of the flux-velocity interdependencies for abstracted links have the same shape as the fundamental diagram of traffic flow through a physical street segment, which is known in transportation science. This key finding substantiates our approach to traffic analysis, forecasting, and simulation leveraging spatial abstraction.\\ud \\ud We propose a framework in which visual analytics supports three high-level tasks, assess, forecast, and develop options, in application to vehicle traffic. These tasks can be carried out in a coherent workflow, where each next task uses the results of the previous one(s). At the 'assess' stage, vehicle trajectories are used to build a spatially abstracted transportation network and compute the traffic intensities and mean velocities on the abstracted links by time intervals. The interdependencies between the two characteristics of the links are extracted and represented by formal models, which enable the second step of the workflow, 'forecast', involving simulation of vehicle movements under various conditions. The previously derived models allow not only prediction of normal traffic flows conforming to the regular daily and weekly patterns but also simulation of traffic in extraordinary cases, such as road closures, major public events, or mass evacuation due to a disaster. Interactive visual tools support preparation of simulations and analysis of their results. When the simulation forecasts problematic situations, such as major congestions and delays, the analyst proceeds to the step 'develop options' for trying various actions aimed at situation improvement and investigating their consequences. Action execution can be imitated by interactively modifying the input of the simulation model. Specific techniques support comparisons between results of simulating different "what if" scenarios.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Achieving energy savings by intelligent transportation systems investments in the context of smart cities

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 13:59:19 +0200

Faced with the challenge of providing adequate transport services with limited resources, cities have, for several decades, been investing in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ITS utilize Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to make more efficient use of existing transport infrastructure with the aim of improving transport services and reducing congestion, accidents, and air pollution. In the past two decades, with the rapid advancement of ICT and intensive advocacy from big technology vendors, the concept of smart cities has gained great popularity and many cities have started to undertake a more holistic approach to improving urban services using technology in the name of smart city initiatives. Section two introduces these themes, which serve as the analytical framework to understand how smart mobility investments lead to energy savings. The comparison in the search for similarities among the case studies and interviews helped us develop a conceptual model, emphasizing cause and effect and presented in section three, of how ITS deployment and operation in the context of smart cities leads to energy saving benefits. This conceptual model is presented with detailed discussions of institutional, technological, and physical conditions at each step in the model. Section four focuses on energy savings with quantitative evidence of energy saving potential of ITS investments collected from literature and case studies. Section five links the results of this study to the Wuhan Integrated Transport Development Project and how the knowledge has been incorporated into project design. To further explore the energy efficiency potential of Wuhan and to mainstream ITS and smart transport solutions as a source of achieving energy efficiency using results of this study, a TRACE analysis was also completed as part of this research effort. This analysis focused on the passenger transport sector. Finally, policy recommendations on the major conditions under which ITS investments in the context of smart cities achieve energy savings are summarized in Section 6 with specific implications for cities in the developing countries.

Document type: Book

Transit oriented development

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 13:53:56 +0200

Although urban development around transit stations doesnt lead to a direct financial contribution for the Transit Agency (or other infrastructure or planning body) it is absolutely essential to the long term viability of the transit investment (SKMG 1996, p. 4). The transit accessible area around the stations is generally far larger than the Transit Companys real estate can reach. Many studies have been undertaken to define the influence zone of transit stations, i.e. the probability that at a certain distance from the station an employee or resident is ready to use transit as a transportation alternative for commuting or other travel purposes. Walking distance is the general qualification, that means five to fifteen minutes walking time, depending on the travel purpose, the travel alternatives and the system performance. It is obvious that the attraction is more important at stations of highly performing transit systems. Frequent Rapid Transit service has potentially more impact then Light Rail Service, especially when the Light Rail line is short and/or when the station is less frequented.

Document type: Book

Model Predictive Current Control of a Slow Battery Charger for Electric Mobility Applications

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 13:03:47 +0200

This paper presents a model predictive current control applied to a slow electric vehicle (EV) battery charger. Taking into account the similarities between the power converters inside the EV, it is possible to combine the battery charger and the motor driver in a single integrated converter, thus reducing the weight and volume of the proposed solution, and also contributing to reduce the final price of the EV. Due to the bidirectional power flow capability of the integrated power converter, when working as a slow EV battery charger it can operate in grid-to-vehicle (G2V) mode and in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) mode, contributing to make EVs an important assets in the future smart grids. The integrated power converter working as battery charger operates with sinusoidal current and unitary power factor, contributing to improve the power quality of the electrical grid. This paper provides simulation and experimental results that validate the model predictive control algorithm applied to the proposed integrated power converter working as slow EV battery charger. (undefined) info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Model predictive control of an on-board fast battery charger for electric mobility applications

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:56:07 +0200

Under the necessities of reducing emissions and air pollution, and also for increasing fuel economy, automotive companies have been developing electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Since these vehicles are parked when the batteries are being charged, it is possible to use the traction power converter as on-board charger, also allowing to reduce weight, volume and costs of components in the vehicle. In this context, this paper presents a model predictive control algorithm for an on-board fast battery charging that uses the traction power converter of an electric vehicle. Simulation results and system implementation are depicted, and finally, are presented some experimental results obtained with the proposed control system. (undefined) info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Mobility Management for Cellular Networks:From LTE Towards 5G

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:54:23 +0200

Document type: Book

The great recession and job loss spillovers impact of tradable employment shocks on supporting services

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:52:47 +0200

This paper explores the spillover effects of job losses via input linkages during the Great Recession. Exploiting exogenous variation in tradable employment shocks across U.S. counties, the paper finds that job losses in the tradable sectors cause further job losses in local supporting services. The result is not due to reverse causation, construction job losses, or credit shortages. In addition, the paper finds that logistic supporting services are relatively more affected by local tradable job losses, while professional supporting services, such as information technology and management consulting, are more affected by the job losses in neighboring counties.

Document type: Book

Structure and Dynamical Influence of Water Vapor in the Lower Tropical Troposphere

Scipedia content — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 12:45:59 +0200

In situ, airborne and satellite measurements are used to characterize the structure of water vapor in the lower tropical tropospherebelow the height, (Formula presented.) of the triple-point isotherm, (Formula presented.) The measurements are evaluated in light of understanding of how lower-tropospheric water vapor influences clouds, convection and circulation, through both radiative and thermodynamic effects. Lower-tropospheric water vapor, which concentrates in the first few kilometers above the boundary layer, controls the radiative cooling profile of the boundary layer and lower troposphere. Elevated moist layers originating from a preferred level of convective detrainment induce a profile of radiative cooling that drives circulations which reinforce such features. A theory for this preferred level of cumulus termination is advanced, whereby the difference between (Formula presented.) and the temperature at which primary ice forms gives a first-mover advantage to glaciating cumulus convection, thereby concentrating the regions of the deepest convection and leading to more clouds and moisture near the triple point. A preferred level of convective detrainment near (Formula presented.) implies relative humidity reversals below (Formula presented.) which are difficult to identify using retrievals from satellite-borne microwave and infrared sounders. Isotopologues retrievals provide a hint of such features and their ability to constrain the structure of the vertical humidity profile merits further study. Nonetheless, it will likely remain challenging to resolve dynamically important aspects of the vertical structure of water vapor from space using only passive sensors. © 2017 The Author(s)

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Agent-based simulation to assess the performance of intersections with pre-signals: comparison with roundabouts

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:05:36 +0200

Solving traffic congestion problems in intersections is a complex logistic problem that usually consists in building infrastructures, such as bridges, tunnels, or roundabouts, which represent the costliest solutions. Concerning the case of roundabouts, many parameters influence its performance, e.g. geometry and size. Thus, other less costlier solutions should be pondered. This paper introduces a low-cost approach to traffic intersections, by using pre-signals; and conducts simulation experiments to verify if this approach could be used to improve the performance of traffic intersections. In this sense, an agent-based traffic simulation model was developed that applies the object modelling paradigm of Simio to model the individual behaviour of vehicles. The simulation experiments results indicate that the flow of vehicles can be increased up to 20%, reducing the average queue sizes and crossing time per vehicle and saving the fuel consumed up to 64%. (undefined) info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Comparative analysis of public transport users' perception targeting sustainable transportation

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 10:02:09 +0200

Public transport is one of the main actors of sustainable transportation. To make an increase in the use of public transport systems and a decrease in private car usage are one of the main purposes of decision makers in many countries. Usage of public transport system has a strong relation with the quality of service. Service quality includes many parameters such as comfort, frequency, information system etc. Fare is another important parameter on demand for public transport systems. All of these parameters are varied by users' perceptions. This study focuses on public transport systems of Denizli, Turkey and investigates users ' perceptions. Bus and paratransit (minibus) modes are regarded in the study. The public survey is performed for these modes. In the surveys, different questions have been asked to participants. Answer of each question is evaluated separately and distribution of each question for gender, ages and jobs are analyzed. Results obtained are summarized and discussed. © 2017, IGI Global. All rights reserved.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Follow the greens the controllers point of view results from a sesar real time simulation with controllers

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:56:36 +0200

Although pilots are often supported by signage, markings and lighting when taxiing on the airport surface, navigation and monitoring remain workload intense tasks even in good weather conditions. Radio communication is near capacity limits on many airports today resulting in waiting times and delay. Apart from well-known safety issues this also constitutes a negative impact on the environment. The European aviation research program SESAR addressed this problem and came up with a solution: A new surface traffic management concept proposes the automated use of Airfield Ground Lighting with individually switched green taxiway centerline lights indicating the path to be followed. This paper presents official validation results indicating that SESAR developed a safer, quicker and greener surface traffic management concept.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Transport Policies and Development

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:56:21 +0200

This survey reviews the current state of the economic literature, assessing the impact of transport policies on growth, inclusion, and sustainability in a developing country context. The findings are summarized and methodologies are critically assessed, especially those dealing with endogeneity issues in empirical studies. The specific implementation challenges of transport policies in developing countries are discussed.

Document type: Book

Reactive Dynamic Assignment for a Bi-dimensional Traffic Flow Model

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:54:23 +0200

International audience This paper develops a graph-theoretic framework for large scale bi-dimensional transport networks and provides new insight into the dynamic traffic assignment. Reactive dynamic assignment are deployed to handle the traffic contingencies, traffic uncertainties and traffic congestion. New shortest paths problem in large networks is defined and routes cost calculation is provided. Since mathematical modelling of traffic flow is a keystone in the theory of traffic flow management, and then in the traffic assignment, it is convenient to elaborate a good model of assignment for large scale networks relying on an appropriate model of flow related to very large networks. That is the zone-based optimization of traffic flow model on networks developed by [8], completed and improved by [9].

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

An agent-based simulation framework to evaluate urban logistics schemes

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:54:08 +0200

Inefficient urban freight transport has a negative impact on both livability in cities and profit margins in the supply chain. Urban logistics schemes, consisting of governmental policies and company initiatives, attempt to address these problems. However, successful schemes are difficult to realize due to the divergent objectives of the agents involved in urban logistics. Traditional optimization techniques fall short when evaluating schemes, as they do not capture the required change in behavior of autonomous agents. To properly evaluate schemes, we develop an agent-based simulation framework that assesses the interaction between five types of autonomous agents. Compared to existing studies in this field, we contribute by (i) explicitly including company-driven initiatives, and (ii) adopting a supply chain-wide perspective. We illustrate the working of our framework by testing a number of schemes on a virtual network.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Portsmouth the island city 1 - mainline rail connectivity: a proposal for change

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:53:13 +0200

Proposals for a Portsmouth and Solent Region proposed mainline rail strategy. "br/"How Portsmouth and the Solent region with other south of England ring cities can inform future transportation strategy and development, to improve connectivity, sustainability and economic benefit.

Document type: Book

Short term traffic congestion forecasting using hybrid metaheuristics and rule based methods a comparative study

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:46:24 +0200

In this paper, a comparative study between a hybrid technique that combines a Genetic Algorithm with a Cross Entropy method to optimize Fuzzy Rule-Based Systems, and literature techniques is presented. These techniques are applied to traffic congestion datasets in order to determine their performance in this area. Different types of datasets have been chosen. The used time horizons are 5, 15 and 30 min. Results show that the hybrid technique improves those results obtained by the techniques of the state of the art. In this way, the performed experimentation shows the competitiveness of the proposal in this area of application.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Communication and Communication Problems Between Autonomous Vehicles and Human Drivers

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:43:14 +0200

Discussions of autonomous land vehicles often invoke the example of air traffic, where the autopilot is responsible for steering except for take-off and landing. The question arises: what can we learn from air traffic? What autonomously flying aircraft and autonomously driving vehicles have in common is that the pilot or driver bears the final responsibility. But, there are a number of differences between road traffic and air traffic (besides their type of locomotion) that make transferring the systems from one to the other impractical.

Document type: Part of book or chapter of book

Deep decarbonisation towards 1.5°C-2°C stabilisation

Scipedia content — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 09:42:56 +0200

Limiting global mean warming to well below 2°C or even 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels requires a major transformation of the energy system. The ADVANCE project has analysed this mitigation challenge in detail, from the implications of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions INDCs) to decarbonisation bottlenecks in energy end-use sectors, taking into account both technological as well as behavioural emission reduction measures. Our key fndings are: The implementation of the Paris Agreement initiates a low-carbon transition for major emitting countries but an intensifcation of global effort is still required in order to limit global warming well below 2°C. In 2030, the implementation of the INDCs is expected to reduce GHG emissions by 10% of pre-Paris Reference emission levels. However, the global emissions gap relative to cost-optimal reduction pathways remains at 14 [4-25]1 GtCO2eq for the 2°C target and 25 [13-30] GtCO2eq for the 1.5°C target. The decarbonisation of the power sector accounts for more than half the CO2 reductions achieved by the INDCs in 2030. It also holds the greatest potential for further near-term eductions which would put the world on track for 1.5-2°C stabilisation. In 2030, the INDCs are expected to generate an increase in the share of zero carbon power supply by 5% [1-12%] relative to pre-existing trends, achieving a total share of 48% [40-66%]. Optimal 2°C and 1.5°C scenarios feature 57% [50-90%] and 73% [57-93%] zero carbon power supply respectively. In contrast, the INDCs have little effect on near-term emissions from non-electric end-use, even though progress in abating emissions, particularly from industry and transportation, is important for 1.5-2°C-consistent climate stabilisation. The 1.5°C temperature target requires reductions in emissions from energy supply and demand as well as removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. A warming limit of 1.5°C requires adherence to a stringent carbon budget of around 400 Gt CO2 or lower over the 2011-2100 period. As the supply-side sector already needs to eliminate nearly all of its emissions by 2050 for 2°C stabilisation, most of the additional emission reductions need to occur on the demand side. Effciency improvements, as well as an accelerated electrifcation, will play a key role in achieving the 1.5C° target. However our analysis also shows that energy supply and demand will still combine to generate at least 1000 Gt of residual CO2 emissions over the 2011-2100 period. Accordingly, a 1.5°C-consistent budget will require cumulative carbon dioxide removal of at least 500 Gt CO2 over the course of the century. Renewable energy from wind and solar power has great potential to produce environmentally friendly and economical electricity supply. Reaping the benefts of high and low-cost emission reduction of the power sector at an early stage is essential for climate change mitigation. We fnd that the sector could be almost fully decarbonised through wind and solar power alone, without the use of nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS). This would require, however, considerable additional investments into grid infrastructure and storage systems. Most previous modelling studies have underestimated the role of wind and solar because of overly conservative assumptions on technology costs and the challenges related to coping with a variable renewable electricity supply. We also fnd that the low-carbon transformation yields substantial environmental co-benefts, which outweigh adverse environmental side-effects. Among the alternative decarbonisation pathways available, strategies relying heavily on wind and solar are superior to those with substantial CCS and nuclear deployment, in terms of minimising environmental impacts. Technological developments promoting effciency, electrifcation and use of low-carbon fuels are the key to demand-side emission reductions. Technology options that promote energy effciency, electrifcation and a switch to low-carbon fuels in primary energy demand sectors (transport, industry and buildings), become increasingly important if a climate target of below 2°C is to be achieved. This is despite the continuously increasing demand for energy services. In the long-term, conventional fuels will have to be almost completely phased out from transportation energy use. This will largely depend on the development and adoption of new technologies, but also on life-style changes towards low-carbon transport modes. Policies influencing consumers’ attitudes will need to support the energy transformation. Policies targeting consumers’ behaviour and preferences can encourage the adoption of advanced technologies and use of cleaner fuels. These will ultimately speed-up the transition to a low-carbon energy system. For instance, in the transport sector we find that consumers have different attitudes towards vehicle choice, apart from pure fnancial concerns. This is why a rise in the market in alternative fuel vehicles will critically depend on non-fnancial measures, such as vehicle effciency standards and mandates, refuelling infrastructure investments and exclusive access to parking spaces and roadways. Also, with regard to energy access in developing countries, we fnd that household cooking decisions largely depend on income. Therefore subsidies for cleaner fuels and stoves can speed up the transition to universal clean cooking and even offset the negative effects of rising fuel costs spurred by climate policy.

Document type: Book

Experimental Design of a Polymeric Solution to Improve the Mobility Ratio in a Reservoir previous implementation of a pilot project of EOR

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:20:10 +0200

This paper describes experimental formulations of polymeric solutions through lab evaluations with the objective of finding optimum solution concentration to fluid mobility in reservoirs as previous step before implementing a pilot project of enhanced oil recovery. The polymers, firstly, were selected based on the properties from fluids from reservoir. Two types of polymers were used TCC-330 and EOR909 and the experimental tests were: thermal stability, compatibility, adsorption, salinity, and displacement. The design with the best results was with polymer TCC-330 at 1,500 ppm concentration.

Natural coagulation for the decontamination of industrial effluents

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:59 +0200

Industrial and agricultural pollution has generated undoubtedly a high environmental impact on the natural resources of our planet. Deficiencies in the provision of water for human consumption due to pollution from natural sources are expected. In response to this, the application of iron and aluminum coagulants are the first choice for wastewater treatment. However, the abundant use of aluminum is subject of discussion because of the potential impact on humans. Therefore, this article highlights the latest advances in the field of natural coagulation, an ancestral technology used for water decontamination. Its proven effectiveness is based on electrokinetic destabilization mechanisms that remove turbidity up to 99%. Experimental evidence agrees that concentrations of tannins and mucilages allow the remediation of effluents from chemical industries such as textile and tanneries.

Design and implementation of a YAGI Microstrip antenna to 5.8 GHz

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:49 +0200

In this paper the design of a Yagi microstrip antenna will be done. Two well know design techniques will be analyzed: tables and mathematical equations. The design of microstrip antennas is compact, lightweight and relatively cheap. The material selection is overriding and the RO4003c substrate has been chosen due to its satisfactory operation at 5.8 GHz. Later tests are carried out in an anechoic chamber assembled to operate from DC to 10 GHz. Finally antenna parameters such as directivity, impedance, VSWR, return losses and radiation pattern are determined.

Influence of climatic variables on wireless: case study Base-Station Receiver

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:39 +0200

The development of this research is done with the aim of finding the relationship betweenweather conditions and the loss of wireless connection. The data were obtained by ameteorological center of the area and a telecommunications company that operates in the sameplace. We studied different models based on fuzzy logic due to the easy interpretation the easyinterpretation of the rules and data management. We used the Weka application that providestools for pre-processing of data and Keel software tool for data classification. Nine classifiersbased on fuzzy rules were applied, where the Furia-C was that better results obtained in orderto quality and quantity of rules. In this scenario, a preprocessing of data were computed, wheresome techniques to improve the information was performed. Some of the obtained rulerscorroborate the influence of heavy rain over the loss of the signal, but other relationships thatincorporate new knowledge in the area, such as dew point and the average relative humidityappear.

Use of membrane technology and resins for the separation and purification of polyphenols purple tree tomato (Solanum betaceum Cav)

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:28 +0200

The polyphenols fractionation of mesocarp juices, placenta and purple tree tomato peel using the pore size of the membrane as a means of selection was performed using micro and ultrafiltration tangential; tests made with HPLC showed that fractionation of phenolic compounds was not performed. The processes of concentration of the clarified juices of placenta and tree tomato peel by reverse osmosis obtained a volumetric concentration factor of 2 and 2.2 respectively. The polyphenol concentration increased by 1.5 times for placenta and 2.4 times for peel and antioxidant capacity increased by 2.4 times for both juices. The anthocyanins of placenta increased by 2.6 times. The use of the resin XA 5071 FG concentrated phenolic compounds with an increase of antioxidant capacity in a range between 4 and 5.5, and anthocyanins concentration was increased 1.8 times in the placenta juice. In conclusion the process of polyphenols concentration of tree tomato was more efficient using the resin XA 5071 FG than the reverse osmosis applied in this research.

Strategies for conservation of highland ecosystem in Pulinguí San Pablo and Chorrera Mirador, Ecuador

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:17 +0200

To drive conservation processes and sustainable use of an ecosystem implies, on the one hand, the understanding of the territory as a socio-ecosystem, and on the other hand, the application of the ecosystemic approach. For this reason, this is a tool that contributes to the highland ecosystem management of the communities Pulinguí San Pablo and Chorrera Mirador. This process was based on the socio-ecosystem characterization, determination of conservation elements and formulation of conservation and use of sustainable strategies. Data show that 186 habitants live in these socio-ecosystem and mainly benefit from three types of ecosystemic services: supply, regulation and cultural, carrying out agricultural, livestock and touristic activities. These settlements exert a moderated anthropic pressure in the socio-ecosystem due to the fact that only 98,65 hectares (out of 4567,20 hectares) are used for these activities. This is reflected in the state of the identified conservation elements that, evaluated according to their size, condition and landscaping context, obtained a mean of 3,3/4,0 (points) which means that they are in a decay process, nonetheless, their impacts may be diminished using established and executed strategies by local populations.

Effect of using hydrogen in the power and performance of an internal combustion engine

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:19:07 +0200

This study analyzed the real working parameters of an Otto cycle internal combustion engine, using as fuel hydrogen plus gasoline. Two stoichiometric equations were determined. In the first equation, the reagents are octane and air, in the second equation was added the quantity of 3.86 H2 moles obtained from a hydrogen cell. Two sets of equations, for consumption and power, were determined from the chemical equations, working at the conditions of Quito: altitude 2850 msnm, 72.794 kPa of atmospheric pressure and 300 K of temperature. A single cylinder engine powered with hydrogen plus gasoline was used for getting real data of engine power, using mixtures of air-gasoline and hydrogen; the theoretical power without H2 was 3.91 HP and with H2 5.41 HP, it increased 27.1%, the real power is 3.78 HP without H2 and 4.66 HP with H2, it increased 16.7%. Theoretical fuel consumption is 401.61 g/kWh and addition of H2 is less to 373.52 g/kWh, the actual consumption that indicates the manufacturer is 395 g/kWh.

Evaluation of a pilot aerobic reactor with polyetilenterephtalate (PET) as support material for dairy wastewater treatment

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:18:55 +0200

A pilot aerobic horizontal plug flow reactor filled with pieces of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), from plastic bottles was installed for treatment of a synthetic substrate prepared from lactic whey with COD values of 800 to 2100 mg/L. A bacterial inoculum previously acclimated to the substrate was used. Organic material removal efficiencies of 62.2%, 85% y 94% were obtained with retention times of 5.14, 6.01 and 8.01 hours, and with volumetric organic loads (Lv) of 7.68, 6.19 and 4.61 kg/day.m3, respectively. Also, the kinetic mass transfer constant (k) was calculated and it presented a value of 0.02 m/day. On the other hand, an F/M ratio of 0.4 was determined, indicating that the process had a similar performance to an extended aeration system. Finally, the biomass generated inside the reactor was analyzed, obtaining a value of 11560 mg /L, which is a higher value than those of conventional systems.

GPON networks certification, standard ITU G.984.x

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:18:45 +0200

This article describes the methodology to certify a FTTH GPON network, in order to minimize the errors that tend to show up during the execution of this process within an optical network. The work is based on national and international technical standards, ensuring optimal performance of the network. Empirical methods are used in the field through processes characterization, measurement and analysis of results, which will identify the factors allowing that measurements are within the range set with the use of tools and equipment properly configured and updated. The need for an effective regulation is established in the certification of a FTTH GPON network to bring maximum benefits for companies providing service in the country and meeting the demand for bandwidth of the end customer, ensuring the application of new technologies helping to optimize the use of convergence oriented service, the implementation of Next Generation Networks and towards infrastructure investment in strategic sectors.

Interaction Based on Drawing Gestures to Complement the Teaching-Learning Process

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:18:34 +0200

Interaction based on hand gestures has experienced a great progress in recent years. Its utility has been verified in several areas, particularly in the educational field, where it can contribute to enhance the quality of education. However, there are still some topics that have received little attention, such as the use of drawing gestures executed in the air with the hand. For this reason, this article analyzes the feasibility of using this type of gestures with educational purposes. With this aim, we conducted a study in which the participants interacted with the developed application by means of several drawing gestures. The obtained quantitative and qualitative results confirm the validity of our proposal. Specifically, the participants’ performance was acceptable according to the values of the used metrics. Moreover, the participants indicated the proposal is interesting and enjoyable. As a consequence, the use of applications of this type, in the classroom or at home, could contribute to increase the students’ interest in the corresponding subject, which should lead to obtain better marks.

Comparative study of emission of pollutant gases in vehicle M1, using fuel of the Andean Community

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:18:23 +0200

The environmental pollution is a problematics that concerns all countries about the world as result of this pollution there take place the phenomena of climate change, greenhouse effect, acid rain, and diseases in people. To delimit the issues, there were selected the countries that integrate the Andean Community, the project goal is compare by means of static and dynamic tests the values of emission of pollutant gases, with the fuel that is distributed in each of the selected countries. The process of measuring and testing of static tests were developed under NTE INEN 2203:1999 standard, considering the idle condition (820 rpm) and high engine speed (2500 RPM), in both these cases, an constant engine oil temperature of 94 ° C and dynamic tests carried out according to ASM 25/25 and ASM 50/15 cycles, the results that have been achieved with the different fuels in a vehicle Chevrolet Sail, the best-selling in the country. Based on tests developed, the evaluated vehicle will be able to circulate without any disadvantage with any of the fuels of the Andean Community according NTE INEN 2204:2002 standard. Accordingly, the fuel with the lowest levels of emissions of gaseous pollutants is the distributed one in Peru.

Data model management, with the use of artificial intelligence, for a geographic information system in the energetic sector

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:18:12 +0200

A Geographic Information System (GIS), named SIGOBE v 3.0, for the electric sector is development. The Integral Management System of the ECIE (SIGECIE) and the Integrated Network Management System (SIGERE) databases are taxed alfanumeric information. Studies determined the need for a model for data management, contributing to the GIS development, on a conceptual schema domain capable of responding to different user requests, through automatic query as support decision making. To provide the GIS with a conceptual basis an ontology is determined, which will be expressed by logical descriptive, to generate the traits of a case-based reasoning that allows automation of consultations. The final quality of GIS was verified according to the quality standards of the ISO-9126:2002 standard. The proposed model and its functionality contributes to: facilitate decision-making at different levels, perform risk analysis to have the defects of electrical installations, reduce the time of failure to the key areas of the country, organize the travel of trucks more efficiently and locate electrical faults more accurately.

Quality baseline of the castilla blackberry (Rubus glaucus) in its food chain

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:17:59 +0200

A proposal for improvement in the performance of the food chain of castilla blackberry (Rubus glaucus) in order to potentiate their productivity can only start from a baseline or situational diagnosis of the quality of the fruit and hence identify the main points of improvement. The food chain of the fruit identifies three stages, harvest, post-harvest (storage and transport) and marketing or sale. The diagnosis in each stage began with reverse mode. It was identified the most representative producer and the supplying for traders to the point of sale. The quality evaluation of the fruit was performed through chemical and physical characterization in the four stages. Weight loss or losses were evident in all stages, light no significant changes of color from bright red bluish hue in the collection stage until opaque bluish red or off, at the stage of sale due to the short cycle time and the characteristics non-climacteric fruit. However, at all stages of collection, storage, transportation and sale, they presented significant changes in the indices of maturity which meant an increase of sugars, decreased of pH, and increase acidity. The results indicate that the fruit changed its physicochemical characteristics during the stages of the food chain affecting its productivity.

The Simplex-Centroid Design and Desirability Function in optimizing the sensory acceptability of sweet bread enriched with Chenopodium quinoa

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:17:48 +0200

The aim of this study was to optimize the sensory acceptability (SA) of an andean sweet bread made with different percentages of wheat flour (WF), quinoa flour (QF) and sugar (S) was optimized through Simplex-Centroid Design (SCD) and Desirability Function (DF). Ten treatments were performed, in which the mixture of different percentages of WF (28% - 52.5%), QF (0% - 24.5%) and S (17.5% - 42%) accounted for 70% of the dough formula. The evaluation of the SA was conducted in triplicate with 20 consumer panelists of sweet bread, applying an unstructured scale from 0 to 10. Statistical analysis of SCD reported that a cubic model successfully explained the effect of WF, QF and S on SA (p = 0.0529 ≈ 0.05 and R2 = 94.49%), analyzing the response surface was observed that the ranges of the percentage that optimize the SA were: 35.35% - 41.97% of WF, 7.11% - 11.03% QF and 20.44% - 24.61% of S. By DF was determined that the percentages that optimize the SA were: 40.25% of WF, 9.05% QF and 20.70% of S.

Quality analysis of effluents from biodigesters in lodges located in the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:17:36 +0200

In the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve near Laguna Grande and Cuyabeno river, several ecological hotels have been built to meet the touristic demand; therefore these eco-lodges generate wastewaters. The Ministry of Environment, responsible for biodiversity conservation, has ordered the implementation of biodigesters for the treatment of these waters. After three years of implementing the system, it is proposed to check the quality of these waters, through the analysis of physical-chemical parameters: temperature, conductivity, pH, sulfates, nitrates and nitrites, detergents, COD, BOD5, oils and fats; and microbiological such as faecal coliforms. These results were compared with the current environmental legislation: TULSMA "Limits discharged to a body of fresh water." Sampling was subject to the provisions of standard Regulation INEN 2 169: 2013 and sampled at the time of high and low rainfall. The results determined that biodigesters only meet the standard regulations in three parameters: nitrates and nitrites; sulfates and temperature; and violate the following regulations: BOD5, COD and pH; while in the remaining four parameters, there is a variation among the results. In conclusion all digesters violate the regulations, at least on one of the parameters.

Determination of the efficiency of sawdust and coco fiber used as Biofilter for pollutant removal for the treatment of wastewater

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:17:19 +0200

Water is a resource used by mankind for industrial and domestic needs, which once used, is discharged into the public sewer system or septic tanks. This project proposes an ecological alternative for the treatment of wastewater from domestic use named Biofilter, which is built of living material (worms) and inert material (chip and gravel), which filters the wastewater; the biological filter has shown high efficiency in the removal of organic matter and pathogens. The field work was carried out with experimental biological filters, to ascertain the best composition of inert material, different variants were used. Two experimental Biofilters, one using sawdust and the other coco fiber were used in the treatment of domestic wastewater; treated samples from each reactor were subjected to laboratory analysis. The analysis and interpretation of results showed that the Biofilter using sawdust removed 53.53 % of pollutants and is outside the required norm for wastewater treatment and the Biofilter using coco fiber removed 82.37 % of contaminants and is within the Environmental Quality Norm and Effluent Discharge: Water Resource.

Soil and dasometric characterization of a Eucalyptus globulus Labill plantation and management proposal in the lower montane thorny steppe zone, Riobamba, Ecuador

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:17:09 +0200

There is limited information on the growth and yield of the Tasmanian blue gum plantation in Tunshi-ESPOCH homestead in varying physiographic conditions, soil properties and management; for this reason it was decided to assess its forest mass. Circular plots were installed with 12.62 m radius at an intensity of 5-6% ha-1. Through systematic unaligned sampling for lifting dasometric information and digging three pits stand-1, using stratified sampling for variables of the place. The application of statistical estimators, determined at an altitude of 2755 amsl, a total average tree volume estimated-1 of 2.32 m3 compared with 0.25 m3 at an altitude of 2929 amsl. Two areas of conservation and other forest use were defined. There are significant associations between total unit volume of T. blue against altitude, organic matter content, cationic exchange capacity at surface level and level of boron underlying level, generating a management strategy for each defined area.

Litterfall production under pine plantations in the southern Andes region of Ecuador

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:58 +0200

Litterfall research is an interesting aspect in environmental studies due to its significance in nutrient cycling specially in regions like the Andes where the interactions between biomass production and its decomposition is poorly understood. This study is focusing in the litterfall biomass production under pine plantations in southern Ecuador. The litterfall production was studied for five months at two-week intervals in three pine forest sites located in the southern Andes region of Ecuador. Monthly litterfall production ranged between 1067-1907 kg ha-1, in comparison with other coniferous stands around the world, this study revealed a higher litterfall production for tropical areas and particularly the highest production under pine plantations in the Andes region. This high litterfall production highlights the upmost importance of this forest component as a potential nutrient reservoir involved in the global nutrient cycling under landscapes dominated by this exotic forest specie in the tropical Andes.

Corn (Zea mays) growth in petroleum contaminated soil, remediated with orange (Citrus sinensis) peel extract

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:47 +0200

Soil pollution has a strong impact when oil activity takes place within a savanna ecosystem. Any oil spill affects agricultural soils. Biostimulation with orange peel extract (Citrus sinensis) is an alternative for remediation of soil contaminated with crude oil and in this research the corn plant (Zea mays) was used as a biomarker of contamination level of a savanna soil after their treatment. Three samples of savannah soil contaminated with oil light crude were treated with dissolutions 1, 3 and 5% of extract of orange peel in water at a dose of 150 mL per kg of soil treated. The content of oils and fats was measured every 7 days, up to 42 days. Corn seeds were planted in soil samples, their growth was measured every 5 days for a period of 35 consecutive days, comparing their growth with seeds planted in a soil sample without contamination. According to an analysis of rank contrast, the plant growth was statistically the same in all samples up to 20 days; from there, evident differences regarding the pattern were shown.

Details of large-panel buildings seismic analysis

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:39 +0200

The normative requirements of different European countries, USA, CIS, Canada, etc. codes on ensuring of buildings and structures safety at earthquakes are analyzed. The methodology based on non-elastic response spectrum of buildings and allows taking into account non-linear behaviour of structure are proposed in elaboration of Eurocode 8 requirements. The report provides the calculation examples of non-linear displacements of framed and frameless concrete buildings with application of that methodology.

Referential calculation of particulate matter in the air as a factor of environmental pollution in the urban area of the city of Pujilí

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:27 +0200

This is a preliminary investigation on the environmental quality of the city of Pujilí, made from the collection of samples of particulate matter and vehicular traffic counts on six points of the city. The methodology is based on the provisions of the Unified Text of Secondary Environmental Legislation for measuring atmospheric particulate matter, and the use of count tables for vehicle registration. The results reflect the impact of vehicular traffic, the characteristics of the rolling road layer, soil erosion, and climate on air pollution and its impact on the health of the population.

Anaerobic horizontal flow reactor with polyethylene terephthalate as support material

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:17 +0200

A pilot anaerobic reactor was installed to remove the organic load of wastewater from dairy industry. It uses a bacterial inoculum previously acclimated to the substrate. It was disposed horizontally and filled with pieces of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), from plastic bottles. The reactor was operated at room temperature, during 100 days, in three phases: 1) the reactor was stabilized with volumetric organic load from 0.013 to 0.500 kg/day.m³; 2) the hydraulic retention time was of 1 day and the volumetric organic load of 3 kg/day.m³; 3) the volumetric organic load was incremented from 4 to 6.6 kg/day.m³ and the hydraulic retention time was 1 day. Organic material removal efficiencies was of 85%, and approximately 75% were obtained in the second and third phase, respectively. The Y value was 0.15, indicating that 0.15 kg of biomass were generated by kg of QDO supplied to the reactor. Finally, the biomass generated inside the reactor was analyzed, obtaining a value of 18868 mg/L, which is a higher value than those of conventional systems.

Diversity of vascular flora at Andino's Choco area in Selva Virgen

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:16:06 +0200

The forest near the Hostería Selva Virgen, located in Pichincha, northwestern Andean Chocó area, is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world, reason that determined the analysis of the vascular flora in the zone. For this study we did a temporary transects of 50 x 4 and 50 x 2 m covering an area of 0.1 hectares. We calculated Sorensen, Simpson and Shannon indexes, using the Past software, obtaining the following results: 159 species (spp.) registered corresponding to 121 genera and 54 families. Families with more species were: 15 spp Moraceae, Rubiaceae 10 spp, Arecaceae 9 spp, Fabaceae 9 spp, Melastomataceae 8 spp and Meliaceae 8 spp. The diversity obtained has a value of 0.95. It is interpreted in the Simpson index as a high diversity. Richness was 0.33, interpreted as an average richness. Sorensen index identifies areas that share more species. Endemism is low: 6.25%. The high biodiversity found in the studied forest shows an important biological richness; therefore more studies are suggested, because this zone has been rarely explored from the biological point of view.

Device for measuring thermal conductivity of composites based on biomass waste

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:56 +0200

A standardized test bench has been designed, built and calibrated to determine the thermal conductivity of insulating building materials. The device, simple in design and economical, aims to become a replicable and useful tool for the development of multiple research on innovative materials based on waste or unvalued resources for the production of non-industrial and locally produced cheap thermal insulating materials which lead to the improvement of buildings energy efficiency. The main contribution of the test bench is the possibility of analyzing insulation compounds with more thickness and different formats thanks to the press design, which allows the setting and the pressure of the plates on the samples, holding these in the air and preventing any transmission by unwanted conduction.

Design and implementation of a control system to improve the quality of the combustion gases in the fire-tube boiler of 5 BHP

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:45 +0200

The goal of this paper is the design and implementation of a system for controlling the quality of the combustion gases in a fire-tube boiler of 5 BHP. Based on the percentage of O2 present in the combustion gases, measured by a lambda sensor, the percentage of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is determined. PID proportional control is responsible for the automatic regulation of the entry of air to the boiler by an actuator, according to the percentage of the oxygen concentration in the combustion gases. The control system has an HMI display and a modular PLC. The results achieved ensure pollutant gases emissions within the parameters established by current environmental standards, achieving the required quality of combustion gases and reducing the fuel consumption of the boiler.

Actuator prototype system by voice commands using free software

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:33 +0200

This prototype system is a software application that through the use of techniques of digital signal processing, extracts information from the user's speech, which is then used to manage the on/off actuator on a peripheral computer when vowels are pronounced. The method applies spectral differences. The application uses the parallel port as actuator, with the information recorded in the memory address 378H. This prototype was developed using free software tools for its versatility and dynamism, and to allow other researchers to base on it for further studies.

Security of IP Telephony in Ecuador: Online Analysis

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:23 +0200

Telephony is a global service and thus telephone networks have been a coveted target for criminals. Now that voice can be transported over IP and that multiple services are integrated in a convergent model through Internet, there are more incentives to attack and more attackers. Moreover, the development of open source telephone applications has encouraged the massive use of IP telephony, but not an increased awareness about embedded security risks. Due to the current and intensive adoption of IP telephony systems in Ecuador, we conducted an exploration based on public information to obtain statistics about telephone systems connected to Internet in Ecuador. Additionally, using a deliberately vulnerable IP telephony system, we collected more data to do a preliminary analysis of threats to such systems. We found that hundreds of telephone systems were publicly available on the Internet and using outdated versions of Asterisk-based applications. We also found thousands of malicious interactions on the IP telephony system we deployed on the Internet.

An evolutionary computational approach for the dynamic Stackelberg competition problems

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:12 +0200

Stackelberg competition models are an important family of economical decision problems from game theory, in which the main goal is to find optimal strategies between two competitors taking into account their hierarchy relationship. Although these models have been widely studied in the past, it is important to note that very few works deal with uncertainty scenarios, especially those that vary over time. In this regard, the present research studies this topic and proposes a computational method for solving efficiently dynamic Stackelberg competition models. The computational experiments suggest that the proposed approach is effective for problems of this nature.

Viability study of a system for filtercake remotion in pay zone of oil wells

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:15:00 +0200

This article describes the essential ideas of an experimental procedure performed in order to check the filter-cake removal system is suitable for use like filter-cake removal system for pay zone. This system is made on aqueous phase and its concentration depend of the quantity of filtercake estimated in the wellbore of horizontal wells. This optimized the wellbore cleaning and increase the worth of well. The results of tests show that system could work, but it needs further analysis for determine the compatibility with fluids and rock from reservoir.

Medicinal palms of the New World

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:14:47 +0200

The present investigation comprehends a bibliographical summary of the medicinal uses of the palms in the New World. This compilation is based on publications stating medicinal uses of palms since mid XIX century. There are described the species of palms and its medicinal uses in various places in America. A list of species and the medicinal uses of each one is also included.

Design and Implementation of an Automated Management Platform for P2P Transactions with Electronic Money

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:14:38 +0200

Electronic money is a payment tool implemented by the Ecuador’s Central Bank, it allows people to make commercial transactions using their cellphones; it can be used to pay into big chain stores like supermarkets, known as "macro agents", but it also can be employed for the consumption of goods and services into particular businesses such as restaurants or small shops by using “person to person” transfers known as P2P. However, the particular businesses present some disadvantages compared to the macro agents, the main one is the lack of a system that allows them to have a record of the transactions made with electronic money. This article details the design and implementation of a technological platform that allows all types of businesses and people to keep records of their P2P transactions into an automated system with the ability of generating payment’s balance sheets which can be easily viewed through Internet. A research was conducted in order to look for the most efficient technical solution to optimize the available resources. The use of this platform as an external tool extends the capabilities currently provided by the electronic money system.

Management of productive reserves in a SME of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:14:28 +0200

The development of a methodology for the organization of work in the SME, which enables the identification of existing productive reserves and thus a consequent improvement of the indica-tors of labor productivity is the goal of the present investigation. To achieve this objective a pro-cess adapted to the conditions of the object of practical study, which from a holistic approach al-lowed the realization of analysis for the proposed organization of work. The main results can be highlighted the following: the existence of a waste of working time 15% primarily determined by wasting time in the day, likewise it allowed identifying the limiting capacity of the production pro-cess of the natural medicine Prostageron, as well as problems associated with noise, vibration, lighting and ventilation were identified, although there are no major problems that could harm the health of workers. Finally he was able to increase labor productivity in 35.42% compared with the analysis developed linked to the detected limited capacity, while in this first analysis for field observation can indicate the possibility of a production increase of 327%

Modeling and numerical simulation of the Richards equation for infiltration problems

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:14:13 +0200

One of the most important natural resources we have is the soil and it is of great interest to the society to take care of them and not to pollute it. In the study of this issue, we are going to consider one of the most common forms of soil contamination due to an infiltration process. It is therefore that it is essential to address study and clearly understand this process by developing a mathematician model, which will be a representation of this physicist phenomenon. Then design and implement a computer program that simulates the infiltration of liquid pollutants in a given area. In this paper we will develop a mathematical model for two-dimensional infiltration in the saturated zone of porous media, based on the equation in nonlinear partial differential Richards Also, It will present a numerical solution through finite element method and first order This paper shows the computational implementation using a simulator that presents graphically the process of pollution afflicting the ground, exposed to certain pollutants, such as the oil spill in regions of eastern Ecuador, wastewater near industrial complexes, among others, over a certain period of time. Finally, this paper will allow for remedial studies in the case are already contaminated soils or preventive areas established as hazardous.

Composition and diversity of High Andean in the Fauna Production Reserve Chimborazo, Ecuador

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:14:04 +0200

The present study inquire the floristic diversity of 9 sampling in four plots of 1 m² of high andean in several locations in the “Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo”. For the development of this study, we used an adaptation of the method of plots “Gloria”. With coverage (%) in each of the plots, Further the diversity indices and similarity with respective analysis were obtained. The data obtained reflect a diversity that can range from medium to low, believe that this is due to anthropogenic activities that have taken place in these ecosistems. With the presence mostly Calamagrostis intermedia, it could establish that the type of vegetation is herbaceous in high andean is higher percentage; is the species that is almost always present in most types of vegetation of the RPF Chimborazo and high dominance that influences the results of low floristic diversity indices was found in the analysis. As a result the most abundant family Asteraceae is well Poaceae.

Biodegradation of organic contaminants from the dairy industry

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:13:53 +0200

One of the environmental aspects of high impact in dairy industries is the discharge of wastewaters, because of contaminating organic matter as well as the substantial generation of effluents. In the present study, a biofiltration of effluents from a dairy industry in San Miguel de Nono (Ecuador) with a pollution load of 10.000 mg/L in terms of chemical oxygen demand and turbidity of 799 NTU was implemented. The system with a capacity of 55 L per batch consisted of three biofilters in series and activated zeolite assisted clarification. Organic degradation reached 98,9%; turbidity removal was 95,2%, 94,4% of nitrogen and 89,1% of phosphorus. The presence of milk fat did not decrease the efficiency of the biofiltration but increased the removal of suspended matter and pH neutralisation in the clarification. The optimal operating time was 6 hours under aerobic conditions.

Dairy industry wastewater electrocoagulation

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:13:43 +0200

The dairy industry generates lots of water discharge processes, these wastewater are discharged directly into water sources without any pretreatment. . In order to solve this problem there is a treating technique called electrocoagulation that treat of waste water with high organic load. There are three factors to carry out the electrocoagulation process as: time, number of plates and system voltage. After completing the set up and running the experiment, the electrocoagulation treatment efficiency was evident, as the approximate percentage of COD removal was 93%, 82% of BOD5 and 76% of SS.

Implementation of lean manufacturing in a food enterprise

Scipedia content — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 10:13:32 +0200

The current industrial competitiveness requires companies to adopt better production methodologies, in order to reduce costs and maximize profits. This is where the adoption of lean manufacturing culture in organizations can generate changes in mentality that focus on free trade of all types of waste, without neglecting the quality. This research aimed to implement the thinking and principles of this philosophy in a food processing company to use resources efficiently, reduce costs and generate higher profits. More than performing a process map and detailed description of key operational processes, three tools of lean manufacturing were used. With 5s was established a clean and orderly work, with the tool just in time waste of different nature including cycle time production decreased; and with VSM the value chain and the new way of working was plotted, without waste.

Advanced solid elements for sheet metal forming simulation

María Jesús Samper — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 15:24:13 +0100

The solid-shells are an attractive kind of element for the simulation of forming processes, due to the fact that any kind of generic 3D constitutive law can be employed without any additional hypothesis.

The present work consists in the improvement of a triangular prism solid-shell originally developed by Flores. The solid-shell can be used in the analysis of thin/thick shell, undergoing large deformations. The element is formulated in total Lagrangian formulation, and employs the neighbour (adjacent) elements to perform a local patch to enrich the displacement field. In the original formulation a modified right Cauchy-Green deformation tensor (C) is obtained; in the present work a modified deformation gradient (F) is obtained, which allows to generalise the methodology and allows to employ the Pull-Back and Push-Forwards operations.

The element is based in three modifications: (a) a classical assumed strain approach for transverse shear strains (b) an assumed strain approach for the in-plane components using information from neighbour elements and (c) an averaging of the volumetric strain over the element. The objective is to use this type of elements for the simulation of shells avoiding transverse shear locking, improving the membrane behaviour of the in-plane triangle and to handle quasi-incompressible materials or materials with isochoric plastic flow.

A reduced order modeling approach for optimal allocation of Distributed Generation in power distribution systems

María Jesús Samper — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 15:14:48 +0100

This paper presents an “offline-online” strategy for optimal allocation and sizing of Distributed Generation. In traditional optimization approaches, each function evaluation requires the solution of a power flow problem, which makes global optimality a computationally challenging goal. In the proposed strategy the power flow solver is invoked only once and a parametric solution is constructed with a monolithic solver. Despite the fact that the parametrized power flow equations result in a high-dimensional problem, the proposed algorithm is specifically designed to circumvent the curse of dimensionality. This is achieved through the application of Model Reduction, in particular the Proper Generalized Decomposition combined with a nonlinear solver. Numerical examples are carried out for showing the validity of the proposed method.

Unified formulation of a family of iterative solvers for power system analysis

María Jesús Samper — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 14:59:54 +0100

This paper illustrates the construction of a new class of iterative solvers for power flow calculations based on the method of Alternating Search Directions. This method is fit to the particular algebraic structure of the power flow problem resulting from the combination of a globally linear set of equations and nonlinear local relations imposed by power conversion devices, such as loads and generators. The choice of the search directions is shown to be crucial for improving the overall robustness of the solver. A noteworthy advantage is that constant search directions yield stationary methods that, in contrast with Newton or Quasi-Newton methods, do not require the evaluation of the Jacobian matrix. Such directions can be elected to enforce the convergence to the high voltage operative solution. The method is explained through an intuitive example illustrating how the proposed generalized formulation is able to include other nonlinear solvers that are classically used for power flow analysis, thus offering a unified view on the topic. Numerical experiments are performed on publicly available benchmarks for large distribution and transmission systems.

Numerical modeling of undersea acoustics using a partition of unity method with plane waves enrichment

María Jesús Samper — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 14:44:33 +0100

A new 2D numerical model to predict the underwater acoustic propagation is obtained by exploring the potential of the Partition of Unity Method (PUM) enriched with plane waves. The aim of the work is to obtain sound pressure level distributions when multiple operational noise sources are present, in order to assess the acoustic impact over the marine fauna. The model takes advantage of the suitability of the PUM for solving the Helmholtz equation, especially for the practical case of large domains and medium frequencies. The seawater acoustic absorption and the acoustic reflectance of the sea surface and sea bottom are explicitly considered, and perfectly matched layers (PML) are placed at the lateral artificial boundaries to avoid spurious reflexions. The model includes semi-analytical integration rules which are adapted to highly oscillatory integrands with the aim of reducing the computational cost of the integration step. In addition, we develop a novel strategy to mitigate the ill-conditioning of the elemental and global system matrices. Specifically, we compute a low-rank approximation of the local space of solutions, which in turn reduces the number of degrees of freedom, the CPU time and the memory footprint. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the capabilities of the model and to assess its accuracy.

Adaptividade e estimativas de erro orientadas por metas aplicadas a um benchmark test de propagação de onda

María Jesús Samper — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 14:36:36 +0100

O objetivo deste artigo é estudar a eficiência e a robustez de técnicas adaptativas e estimativas de erro orientadas por metas para um benchmark test. As técnicas utilizadas aqui são baseadas em um simples pós-processo das aproximações de elementos finitos. As estimativas de erro orientadas por metas são obtidas por analisar o problema direto e um problema auxiliar, o qual está relacionado com a quantidade de interesse específico. O procedimento proposto é válido para quantidades lineares e não-lineares. Além disso, são discutidas diferentes representações para o erro e é analisada a influência do erro de dispersão. Os resultados numéricos mostram que as estimativas de erro fornecem boas aproximações ao erro real e que a técnica de refino adaptativo proposta conduz a uma redução mais rápida do erro.

The sisters of the Charity, first nurses of Barquisimeto

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:45 +0100

n 1578, twenty-five years after the city of Nueva Segovia de Barquisimeto was founded, the first sick care center was created in Lara State and Venezuela, which were attended by slaves, this sick shelter was called "Hospital de Santiago" organized by the Spanish conquerors and promoted by the Cleric Pedro del Castillo, it would later be called "Hospital of San Lazaro" that would prevail between 1812 and 1837. Then the "Hospital de La Caridad" was inaugurated in 1918 (Figures 1, 2 and 3) by its main promoter, Dr. Antonio María Pineda, built on the "solar or patio" where the former San Lázaro Hospital (1,2,3), on Obispo Street, (currently Carrera 15 between streets) 25 and 26 of Barquisimeto, Lara State, Venezuela), operating there until 1954, when it would move to its current headquarters north of Avenida Vargas de Barquisimeto, being for this moment the best hospital structure of Venezuela (Figure 4). The Director of the Hospital La Caridad, brought the sisters of La Caridad (Sisters of St. Joseph of Tarbes), who promoted the charity bazaars, organized by the Daughters of Charity Society, which Dr. Pineda himself trained in Barquisimeto, Cabudare , Quibor, Siquisique, Bobare, Yaritagua and Río Claro (Lara and Yaracuy states), where Las Daughters of La Caridad, not only collected money, but all kinds of objects that were raffled, highlighting especially an activity for the benefit of the Hospital carried out in the old Teatro Juárez (Barquisimeto, Venezuela), on April 19, 1918 (declared charity day) (1,2,3).

Amoebic granulomatous encephalitis in an immunocompetent patient

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:35 +0100

Granulomatous amoebic encephalitis is an infrequent clinical entity, usually present in immunocompromised persons,
where the few cases reported in the literature are due to infections by free-living amoebas present throughout the world,
standing out as the most common agents, the Acanthamoeba sp. and Balamuthia mandrillaris. It is characterized by an insidious clinical course,
that can be prolonged, but equally fatal. The clinic corresponds to that of intracerebral space occupying lesions, with
seizures and focal deficits such as hemiparesis and cranial nerve lesions. Alterations of the sensorium, headache and neck stiffness are
equally common, however, fever is usually sporadic and low grade. Occasionally there are pictures of pneumonitis,
kidney or liver failure and sepsis.

Notes for the history of health care in sarare, state of lara, venezuela.

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:27 +0100

This essay has the purpose of contributing to the historical reconstruction of the processes, protagonists and health care institutions of Sarare, in the Simón Planas municipality of the } Lara state between the 18th and 19th centuries; also contributing in this way to the social history, to the citizen identity and to the regional history of the medical sciences.

José María Margas: university reform in Caracas 1827-1829, medicine and public health

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:19 +0100

The object of the present work of documentary and bibliographic research is to reconstruct the academic and administrative process carried out by Jose Maria Vargas at the Central University in Caracas during the period 1827-1829 upon the implementation of the Decree on the reorganization of this University signed by Simón Bolívar on June 24, 1827. In this set of changes, the creation of the Anatomy Chair at the university is examined as part of the curriculum reform for the formation of the doctor. The importance of the Chair is emphasized because it constituted the essential unit that organized the university teaching work to grant the academic degrees of Senior, Bachelor, Master and Doctor in the professions of Medicine, Laws and Theology by then. In this order of ideas, aspects of the University reform including the issue of public health are identified as part of the preparation of the doctor. Written evidence is left of this documentary review about the projection and scope of the lectures conducted by Vargas when showing partial data of his disciples and with them cognitive and social institutionalization of Medicine in Venezuela during the nineteenth century.

Physical hazardous factors and demographic-labor characteristics in workers of an electrical factory

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:09 +0100

A cross-sectional study was conducted with the objective of analyzing the factors of physical hazards anddemographic-labor characteristics of the workers of an electric corporation in Barquisimeto, Lara State, 91persons attached to the departments of works and design were the population; it was considered a probabilisticsample of 75 workers through a stratified sampling by proportional affixation. A questionnaire was designed(validated according to the judgment of experts and with a Cronbach alpha coefficient = 0.847)

Clinical characteristics of the injuries by prevalent labor accidents in workers of a plastic company.

Scipedia content — Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:02:00 +0100

A cross-sectional investigation was carried out with the objective of analyzing the clinical characteristics of the injuries caused by work-related accidents prevalent in workers of a Plastics Company. The population consisted of 105 records of medical records of workers who suffered accidents at work; 86 records formed the sample estimated by probabilistic sampling, the selection was made with the table of random numbers.