City in Suspension: New Orleans and the Construction of Ground

Underfoot, obscured from view, ground is the most fundamental material of construction and the urban landscape. As New Orleans has proved, we forget it at our peril. Shaped by the mound, the levee and most recently the pump, the ground of the Crescent City was neglected and overlooked even in areas of new development. Felipe Correa describes how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the thorough re-evaluation of the city's ground is a prerequisite to urban reorganisation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the notion of architectural hybridisation in Latin America

The notions of hybridity and of hybridisation have been used in so many contexts, and in such diverse senses that their definition has become unclear. They are associated with the inevitable process of cultural merging that results from the simultaneity of our global culture. They are also associated with debates on migration, diaspora, global economy, and information technology. Although hybridisation is not the only term that has been used to describe and to analyse transcultural processes, it appears to be adequate to examine the nature and dynamics of the current situation of Latin American architecture. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the notion of hybridisation has been thoroughly mistaken within recent architectural debates in Latin America. This is mainly due to the fact that theorists have limited themselves largely to an architectural field, and have failed to engage sufficiently with a broader range of cultural issues. As a consequence, the notion of hybridisation has lost political efficacy and has been reduced to a problem of aesthetic syncretism, which is exactly what architectural hybridisation, as a cultural concept, is not.     

Varietal discrimination of Chilean wines by direct injection mass spectrometry analysis combined with multivariate statistics

A simple, direct injection, electrospray ionization Fourier transform mass spectrometry (ESI FT-MS) method, in combination with multivariate statistics, was used for the characterization and sorting of Chilean wines. 47 commercial red wines labelled as Cabernet Sauvignon, Carménère, Syrah, and Pinot noir, and 25 white wines of the varieties Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc were diluted, directly infused into the mass spectrometer, and analyzed in negative ion mode. The signature ions used for statistical analyses were manually filtered out from the signals with m/z ratios over 10%. The results of principal component analysis allowed a good sorting of white wines, but not so in the case of reds. The main three principal components explained 96.82% and 85.65% of the variance for white and red wines, respectively. Instead, linear discriminant analysis, allowed the correct discrimination of 100.00% of white and 95.74% of red samples. The validation of these results using the leave-one-out cross-validation method gave lower percentages of correct classification (76.00% and 61.70% of white and red samples respectively), suggesting that some of the wine samples analyzed might have been blends of more than one variety. Consequently, ESI FT-MS direct injection analysis of wines can be used for sample discrimination, but requires a stronger mathematical model built with spectral information of pure and blended samples before improving the percentages of classification.     

Modeling of Drinking Water Distribution Networks Using Stochastic Demand

Residential water demand is one of the most difficult parameters to determine when modeling drinking water distribution networks. It has been proven to be a stochastic process that can be characterized as a series of rectangular pulses with a set intensity, duration and frequency. These parameters can be determined using stochastic models such as the Neyman-Scott Rectangular Pulse (NSRP) model. The NSRP model is based on the solution of a non-linear optimization problem. This solution involves theoretical moments that represent the synthetic demand series (equiprobable) and the observed moments (field measurements) that statistically establish the measured demand series. The NSRP model has been applied for residential demand, and the results have been published. However, this model has not been validated for a real distribution network or compared with traditional methods. The present study compared the results of synthetic stochastic demand series, which were calculated using the NSRP model, applied to the determination of pressures, flow rates and leaks; to the results obtained using traditional simulation methods, which use the curve of hourly variation in demand, and to actual pressure and flow rate measurements. The Humaya sector of Culiacan, Sinaloa, Mexico, was used as the study area.     

Execution profiling blueprints

Although traditional approaches to code profiling help locate performance bottlenecks, they offer only limited support for removing these bottlenecks. The main reason is the lack of detailed visual runtime information to identify and eliminate computation redundancy. We provide three profiling blueprints that help identify and remove performance bottlenecks. The structural distribution blueprint graphically represents the CPU consumption share for each method and class of an application. The behavioral distribution blueprint depicts the distribution of CPU consumption along method invocations and hints at method candidates for caching optimizations. The behavioral evolution blueprint compares profiles of different versions of a software system and highlights performance‐critical changes in the system. These three blueprints helped us to significantly optimize Mondrian, an open source visualization engine. Our implementation is freely available for the Pharo development environment and has been evaluated in a number of different scenarios. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient algorithm for optimal routing applied to convoy merging manoeuvres in urban environments

This paper describes an innovative routing strategy for intelligent transportation units willing to perform merging manoeuvres with a moving convoy. In particular, we consider a transportation unit located inside a city (pursuer unit), and which wishes to join a convoy that is constantly moving around the city. We first describe a solution that considers idealistic conditions, i.e., the traveling time along each street is constant. We then go on to improve our first approach to deal with the realistic random nature of the traveling times experienced by the pursuer and by the convoy leader. Our search strategy applies Dynamic Programming to achieve a meeting point that is optimal in two ways: on one hand, the optimal destination is the one closest to the current pursuer??s position; on the other hand, the optimal meeting point must minimize the time that elapses until the pursuer meets the convoy (considering that the pursuer must always arrive first). Calculating the optimal path to every possible destination is highly inefficient, error prone and time consuming. On the contrary, we propose an efficient search strategy that will achieve the meeting point and the path to it, both optimally and in a very short time. This enables the real-time application of our approach either for finding new solutions or for re-planning old ones owing to unexpected real-conditions.     

Commercialization of Intellectual Property at High-Tech Enterprises

Russian Engineering Research - The commercialization of intellectual property at high-tech enterprises is discussed. The participants in commercialization are identified. A three-component matrix...     

Work Standardization at High-Tech Enterprises in the Digital Era

Russian Engineering Research - Work standardization at Russian high-tech enterprises is considered, in the digital era. The new possibilities created by the digital economy permit increased...     

Computed microtomography evaluation of calcium hydroxide‐based root canal dressing removal from oval root canals by different methods of irrigation

The aim of this study was to evaluate the capacity of conventional irrigation, passive ultrasonic irrigation (PUI), and Easy Clean for removing calcium hydroxide‐based root canal dressing from oval root canals. Thirty mandibular uniradicular incisors with oval canals were used, and subjected to chemical–mechanical preparation with Reciproc R40 instruments. The main canal was filled with a paste based on Ca(OH)₂ P.A., iodoform and propylene glycol in the ratio of 3:1:1. The teeth were stored in 100% humidity at a temperature of 37°C for 14 days. Afterwards, the teeth were divided into three groups (n = 10) according to the method of irrigation used (conventional irrigation, PUI, and Easy Clean). The specimens were analyzed by computed microtomography at three time intervals: before placing the root canal dressing, with the root canal dressing in place, and after application of the irrigation methods for removing it. The data were submitted to Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn tests for analyzing the canal as a whole, and Friedman and Dunn for analyzing the root thirds. The results showed that conventional irrigation was less efficient for removing the root canal dressing in comparison with the methods that agitated the irrigant solution (p < .05). When the root canal was analyzed as a whole, Easy Clean, and PUI were similar (p > .05). In analysis of the thirds, Easy Clean was more efficient than conventional irrigation in all the thirds, while PUI showed this behavior only in the cervical third (p < .05). The authors concluded that in oval canals, none of the irrigation methods were capable of removing all the root canal dressing, however, the methods that agitated the irrigant solution were more efficient than conventional irrigation.