Persistent Scatterers Interferometry detects and measures ground subsidence in Lisbon

Results from the application of Persistent Scatterers Interferometry in Lisbon Metropolitan Area revealed two previously unknown subsiding urban areas: one (Laranjeiras) is located in the center of Lisbon; another (Vialonga) is to be found toward the North, in an industrial region crossed by Lisbon's main highway and railway lines. The two subsiding sectors are bordered by sharp velocity gradients, and the subsidence pattern appears partially delimited by mapped geologic faults. Surface geology and urbanization alone are unable to explain the phenomena. In the Vialonga area, the historical record of water pore pressure shows a clear decline of the levels (up to 65 m in 27 years), providing evidence of over-exploitation of groundwater resources. Limited information from wells drilled inside and outside the subsidence area points to a spatial correlation between the subsidence and the water pressure levels, and suggests that faults could be acting as hydraulic barriers in the aquifer system. The surface subsidence detected is probably caused by compaction of a clay-rich Oligocene-aged aquitard, led by over-exploitation of adjacent aquifers. The same Oligocene aquitard layer is present in the Laranjeiras area, immediately bellow a multi-layered sand-clay-limestone Miocene aquifer, but further work is needed to diagnose the possibility of over-exploitation of groundwater here. In this work we were able to independently confirm the PSI results, by comparing autonomous PSI results processed for the same geographical areas, and by comparing PSI with leveling and continuous GPS derived subsidence velocities, whose close match provided further ground validation of the space-borne PSI technique.     

TinyPBC: Pairings for authenticated identity-based non-interactive key distribution in sensor networks

Key distribution in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is challenging. Symmetric cryptosystems can perform it efficiently, but they often do not provide a perfect trade-off between resilience and storage. Further, even though conventional public key and elliptic curve cryptosystems are computationally feasible on sensor nodes, protocols based on them are not, as they require the exchange and storage of large keys and certificates, which is expensive.Using Pairing-Based Cryptography (PBC) protocols parties can agree on keys without any interaction. In this work, we (i) show how security in WSNs can be bootstrapped using an authenticated identity-based non-interactive protocol and (ii) present TinyPBC, to our knowledge, the most efficient implementation of PBC primitives for 8, 16 and 32-bit processors commonly found in sensor nodes. TinyPBC is able to compute pairings, the most expensive primitive of PBC, in 1.90 s on ATmega128L, 1.27 s on MSP430 and 0.14 s on PXA27x.     

Simulations of extensional flow in microrheometric devices

We present a detailed numerical study of the flow of a Newtonian fluid through microrheometric devices featuring a sudden contraction–expansion. This flow configuration is typically used to generate extensional deformations and high strain rates. The excess pressure drop resulting from the converging and diverging flow is an important dynamic measure to quantify if the device is intended to be used as a microfluidic extensional rheometer. To explore this idea, we examine the effect of the contraction length, aspect ratio and Reynolds number on the flow kinematics and resulting pressure field. Analysis of the computed velocity and pressure fields show that, for typical experimental conditions used in microfluidic devices, the steady flow is highly three-dimensional with open spiraling vortical structures in the stagnant corner regions. The numerical simulations of the local kinematics and global pressure drop are in good agreement with experimental results. The device aspect ratio is shown to have a strong impact on the flow and consequently on the excess pressure drop, which is quantified in terms of the dimensionless Couette and Bagley correction factors. We suggest an approach for calculating the Bagley correction which may be especially appropriate for planar microchannels. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Digital Butterworth filter for subtracting noise from low magnitude surface electromyogram

This work presents a digital filter designed to delimitate the frequency band of surface electromyograms (EMG) and remove the mains noise and its harmonics, focusing the signal analysis during reduced muscle activity. A Butterworth filter was designed as the frequency-domain product of a second order, high-pass filter with cutoff frequency 10 Hz, an eighth order low-pass filter, with cutoff at 400 Hz and six stop-band filters, second order, centered at the 60 Hz mains noise and its harmonics until 360 Hz. The resulting filter was applied in both direct and reverse directions of the signals to avoid phase distortions. The performance was evaluated with a simulated EMG signal with additive noise in multiples of 60 Hz. A qualitative assessment was made with real EMG data, acquired from 16 subjects, with age from 20 to 32 years. Subjects were positioned in orthostatic position during 21s, being only the last second analyzed to assure stationarity. EMG were collected by Ag/AgCl electrodes on right lateral gastrocnemius, amplified with gain 5000, filtered in the band from 10 Hz to 1 kHz, and thus digitized with 2ksamples/s. The filter effectively removed the mains noise components, with attenuations greater than 96.6%. The attenuation of the simulated signal at frequencies below 15 Hz and at 60 Hz caused only a small reduction of total power, preserving the original spectrum. Thus, the filter resulted suitable to the proposed application.     

A semiotic engineering approach to user interface design

Designing software involves good perception, good reasoning, and a talent to express oneself effectively through programming and interactive languages. Semiotic theories can help HCI designers increase their power to perceive, reason and communicate. By presenting some of the results we have reached with semiotic engineering over the last few years, we suggest that the main contributions of semiotic theory in supporting HCI design are: to provide designers with new perceptions on the process and product of HCI design; to bind together all the stages of software development and use, giving them a unique homogeneous treatment; and to pose innovative questions that extend the frontiers of HCI investigations.     

Application of a transversely isotropic brittle rock mass model in roof support design

Accurate modelling of the potential failure modes in the rock mass is an essential task towards a robust design of roof support systems in coal mines. The use of generalised rock mass properties based on averaged properties (e.g. Hoek–Brown model) has been found to limit the capability to reproduce the actual rock mass behaviour which may include a wide range of interacting and complex failure mechanisms such as shear and tension fracturing of the intact rock and shear and separation of pre-existing discontinuities, including re-activation. Recent studies have also shown that traditional models, such as the Mohr–Coulomb, may not accurately describe the behaviour of the intact rock, particularly for stress induced failures where spalling and slabbing are observed. This is mainly due to the cohesion and friction components of the shear strength of the intact rock not being mobilised at the same rate with strain-softening of the former component playing an essential role in the post peak behaviour. In addition, coal measure rocks are often transversely isotropic, both by way of the preferred orientation of clay particles within the finer grained lithology and by bedding textures and bedding partings, and this is often ignored in computer simulations. A newly developed transversely isotropic brittle rock mass model is applied in the simulation of a hypothetical and simple roadway development. A Cohesion Weakening-Friction Strengthening (CWFS) approach is adopted to describe the intact rock where the mobilisation and strain-softening of the two shear strength components are linked to plastic deformation. The impacts of anisotropy and brittle rock on the development of the excavation disturbed zone or height of softening, as often referred to, are investigated and their implication in the roof support design discussed.     

Lognormal behaviour of untreated and treated wastewater constituents

This article presents an extensive study to select the theoretical probability distribution that represents the concentrations of major constituents from 35 wastewater treatment plants located in Brazil, as well as to verify the influence of the adopted treatment technology on the data distributions. Due to the lack of a solid basis for selecting the distributions that best fit the data, various distributions had to be tried and the choice was based on statistical tests and visual techniques, comprising a total of 3,444 tests undertaken. While comparing suitability of five distributions (normal, lognormal, gamma, exponential and rectangular) for analysis of data (influent and effluent biochemical oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, suspended solids, nitrogen, phosphorus, thermotolerant coliforms and flow), it was observed that the lognormal distribution was the most suitable, which is in agreement with the findings from other research studies. This conclusion requires a different position from the one currently adopted when analysing plant performance, in which symmetry of the data is generally implied, which has been shown not to be the case with the large array of data sets investigated.     

Degenerative process and cell death in salivary glands of Rhipicephalus sanguineus (Latreille, 1806) (Acari: Ixodidae) semi-engorged female exposed to the acaricide permethrin

Ticks are ectoparasites of great medical and veterinary importance around the world and synthetic chemicals such as permethrin have been used for their control. This study provides a cytochemistry analysis of both degenerative and cell death processes in salivary glands of the brown dog tick Rhipicephalus sanguineus semi-engorged females exposed to 206, 1,031, and 2,062 ppm of permethrin. The results presented herein demonstrate that permethrin is a potent chemical acaricide that would act on the glandular tissue's morphophysiology in this tick species by eliciting severe changes in the acinus shape, intense vacuolation of the acinar cells' cytoplasm, marked glandular tissue disorganization, culminating in an advanced degenerative stage with consequent formation of many apoptotic bodies (cell death). In addition, permethrin induced major changes in the acinar cells' nucleus, such as a change both in its shape and size, chromatin marginalization, nuclear fragmentation, and appearance of picnotic nuclei, especially when the highest concentrations of the product were used. Thus, permethrin induced early degeneration of this tissue characterized by significant changes in the structure of acinar cells and production of enzymes related to the cell death process, in addition to interfering directly in the genetic material of these cells.     

Hematopoietic progenitor constituents and adherent cell progenitor morphology isolated from black-rumped agouti (Dasyprocta prymnolopha, Wagler 1831) bone marrow

Stem cells are present in the adult tissues of most diverse species. Bone marrow is recognized to be the most exploited site to obtain stem cells and cell progenitors. The objective of the present study was to characterize hematopoietic progenitor (HP) morphology and analyze the performance of adherent cell progenitors (ACPs) cultivated in vitro from black‐rumped agouti bone marrow (Dasyprocta prymnolopha). Bone marrow aspirates were obtained from tibia crest and used to prepare histological slides and identify cell morphology. Cells were also scattered on culture plates for later isolation, expansion, and quantification. Smears obtained from bone marrow demonstrated HPs at different stages of maturity. In culture, these cells showed fibroblastoid morphology and a strong tendency to form colonies, demonstrated by the presence of cell aggregates, cytoplasmic elongations lying side by side. An 80% cell confluence was observed at 18 days in culture and progressive reduction in the percentage of nonadherent mononuclear cells. After eight passes, a mean cell viability of 96.07% was observed, from a pool of 1.6 × 10⁷ cells (ACP). Thirteen 25‐cm² culture bottles were trypsinized, resuspended in freezing medium, stored in 14 criotubes at a concentration of 1 × 10⁶ cells per milliliter, and placed in liquid nitrogen at ?196°C. Agouti bone marrow demonstrated high plasticity, moreover different HP lines, and a population of adherent cells demonstrated morphology similar to mesenchymal stem cells in culture. Microsc. Res. Tech. 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ore-blending optimization model for sintering process based on characteristics of iron ores

An ore-blending optimization model for the sintering process is an intelligent system that includes iron ore characteristics,expert knowledge and material balance.In the present work,14 indices are proposed to represent chemical composition,granulating properties and high temperature properties of iron ores.After the relationships between iron ore characteristics and sintering performance are established,the "two-step" method and the simplex method are introduced to build the model by distinguishing the calculation of optimized blending proportion of iron ores from that of other sintering materials in order to improve calculation efficiency.The ore-blending optimization model,programmed by Access and Visual Basic,is applied to practical production in steel mills and the results prove that the present model can take advantage of the available iron ore resource with stable sinter yield and quality performance but at a lower cost.