Potential of Modern Data Types for Future Water Resources Management

Abstract

Presently a change of paradigm in the field of planning and operation of water management schemes can be observed. The introduction of the principle of sustainable development by the United Nations and the principle of integrated river basin management postulated by the European Union play a major role in this context. Introduction of these new principles requires development of new planning tools, which in turn require a much better data basis than available hitherto. This paper deals with new data types already partly available now, partly to be expected to be developed in the medium-range future. The present data situation is discussed, along with the obvious deficits of conventional data. New data types will not be limited to point measurements, but rather must comprise information covering large areas with a higher resolution in time and space than presently available. Remote sensing data will play a more important role in the future. Furthermore, digital maps, digital elevation models, etc. are also of growing importance and will be processed, together with remote sensing and other data, within Geographical Information Systems of future generations also exposing the potential for working with multi-temporal imagery. In the paper it is shown that in the future more accurate data will be available, not only in terms of data quality, but also resolution in time and space. It is shown how the new types of hydrometeorological data postulate new types of hydrological models. Here, distributed system models are of growing importance. Furthermore, it is shown how the combination of remote sensing with other information leads to new data types that allow integrated planning of water resources systems. The potential of real time data is highlighted, particularly in the context of real time operation of water resources systems, especially for flood control. The potential of large-scale data schemes in the context of regional and continental water management schemes is discussed. Global atmospheric models coupled to hydrological models are discussed, and their potential to consider long-distance effects of certain phenomena (e.g., El Niño) are mentioned. For sustainable development of water resources, the potential of long-term data prediction scenarios is evaluated, and an example of this principle for planning future water supply systems is presented. The paper ends with a vision of future developments in planning water management schemes on the basis of new data types     

Force Curve Measurements with the AFM: Application to the In Situ Determination of Grafted Silicon-Wafer Surface Energies

The atomic force microscope (AFM) can be used to perform surface force measurements in the quasi-static mode (cantilever is not oscillating) to investigate nanoscale surface properties. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of literature proposing a complete systematic and rigorous experimental procedure that enables one to obtain reproducible and significant quantitative data. This article focuses on the fundamental experimental difficulties arising when making force curve measurements with the AFM in air. On the basis of this AFM calibration procedure, quantitative assessment values were used to determine, in situ, SAM (or Self Assembled Monolayer)-tip thermodynamic work of adhesion at a local scale, which have been found to be in good agreement with quoted values. Finally, determination of surface energies of functionalised silicon wafers (as received, CH₃, OH functionalised silicon wafers) with the AFM (at a local scale) is also proposed and compared with the values obtained by wettability (at a macroscopic scale). In particular, the effect of the capillary forces is discussed.     

Managing a Y2K project-starting now

As the year 2000 draws near, solutions to the Year 2000 (Y2K) problem seem both abundant and elusive. At this late date, Y2K problems require fast, flawless solutions. This article sets forth a practical work plan for assessing and correcting problems in existing application programs     

Windows 2000 security: A postmortem analysis

Introduction

After initially releasing Windows 2000 (W2K) in February 2000, Microsoft touted it as a secure operating system, one that was far improved over its predecessor, Windows NT(WNT). Yet even before Microsoft released W2K the software giant announced that it would release Service Pack 1 (SP1) for this operating system. The information security community immediately wondered whether the claims about the much improved security in W2K were true; many events and findings since then have reinforced this doubt. After a reign of three years as Microsoft's flagship operating system, last year Microsoft rolled out its newest server operating system, Windows Server 2003 (WS2003), signaling the end of an era for the W2K operating system. Windows XP (WXP) had already supplanted W2K Professional as the newest workstation operating system several years before. This is not to say that nobody uses W2K any more—to the contrary. But as W2K continues to increasingly take a proverbial back seat to newer Microsoft operating systems, now is a good time to take a retroactive look at W2K from a security viewpoint. Was it a success from a security perspective? What were its major failings and why? This paper addresses these issues.     

Minimizing L max for large-scale,job-shop scheduling problems

The academic literature in 2000 presented a procedure for solving the job-shop-scheduling problem of minimizing L _max. The iterative-adaptive simulation-based procedure is shown here to perform well on large-scale problems. However, there is potential for improvement in closing the gap between best-known solutions and the lower bound. In the present paper, a simulated annealing post-processing procedure is presented and evaluated on large-scale problems. A new neighbourhood structure for local searches in the job-shop scheduling problem is developed. The procedure is also evaluated using benchmark problems and new upper bounds are established.     

Quantifizierungen von Grundwassereintritten in städtische Abwassersysteme mittels stabiler Isotope

Infiltration of groundwater into sewer systems increases the costs for wastewater treatment plant operators. This study explores groundwater infiltration to urban sewer systems in the city of Nuremberg (Germany). Measurements of stable isotopes at the water works, storage tanks, groundwater, and the sewage network were carried out to define input end members for mass balance calculations. Only minor differences in oxygen stable isotopes (δ¹⁸O_H2O) were found between most sewer and drinking water samples which ranged around (??9.5?±?0.1) ‰. One exception was water from a water works at Genderkingen that is situated about 80 km south of Nuremberg. Here, drinking water from bank filtrate of the Lech River had more negative δ¹⁸O_H2O values of ??11.4?‰. This difference of 1.5?‰ revealed maximum possible groundwater contributions of 41?% by mass balance calculations. To obtain more accurate results, we suggest testing the use of deuterium-enriched water (D₂O) added to the sewer system.     

Breeding goal traits accounting for feed intake capacity and roughage or concentrate intake separately

Current breeding tools aiming to improve feed efficiency use definitions based on total dry matter intake (DMI); for example, residual feed intake or feed saved. This research aimed to define alternative traits using existing data that differentiate between feed intake capacity and roughage or concentrate intake, and to investigate the phenotypic and genetic relationships among these traits. The data set contained 39,017 weekly milk yield, live weight, and DMI records of 3,164 cows. The 4 defined traits were as follows: (1) Feed intake capacity (FIC), defined as the difference between how much a cow ate and how much she was expected to eat based on diet satiety value and status of the cow (parity and lactation stage); (2) feed saved (FS), defined as the difference between the measured and the predicted DMI, based on the regression of DMI on milk components within experiment; (3) residual roughage intake (RRI), defined as the difference between the measured and the predicted roughage intake, based on the regression of roughage intake on milk components and concentrate intake within experiment; and (4) residual concentrate intake (RCI), defined as the difference between the measured and the predicted concentrate intake, based on the regression of concentrate intake on milk components and roughage intake within experiment. The phenotypic correlations were ?0.72 between FIC and FS, ?0.84 between FS and RRI, and ?0.53 between FS and RCI. Heritability of FIC, FS, RRI, and RCI were estimated to be 0.21, 0.12, 0.15, and 0.03, respectively. The genetic correlations were ?0.81 between FS and FIC, ?0.96 between FS and RRI, and ?0.25 between FS and RCI. Concentrate intake and RCI had low heritability. Genetic correlation between DMI and FIC was 0.98. Although the defined traits had moderate phenotypic correlations, the genetic correlations between DMI, FS, FIC, and RRI were above 0.79 (in absolute terms), suggesting that these traits are genetically similar. Therefore, selecting for FIC is expected to simply increase DMI and RRI, and there seems to be little advantage in separating concentrate and roughage intake in the genetic evaluation, because measured concentrate intake was determined by the feeding system in our data and not by the genetics of the cow.     

Impact of Brownian motion on the particle settling in molten metals

Understanding the settling behavior of nanoparticles in molten metals/alloys is important as it will aid in achieving uniform dispersions of reinforcement particles in metal matrix nanocomposites. Uniform dispersions are necessary to activate the Orowan strengthening mechanism, which can increase yield strength without significant diminishment of ductility. In this work, an analytical model of particle size effects on settling is described that takes into account both deterministic Stokes’ law and stochastic Brownian motion. The model shows a clear transitional behavior where settling velocity follows Stokes’ law for large particles and then drops to zero for small particles implying that Brownian motion predominates. It indicated that, in the Brownian motion regime, where the discrete nature of the liquid must be considered, the random motion imparted by unbalanced collisions can overwhelm the motions normally imposed by forces such as gravity, viscous drag, and thermal/concentration gradients.