Design and construction of an experimental pervious paved parking area to harvest reusable rainwater

Pervious pavements are sustainable urban drainage systems already known as rainwater infiltration techniques which reduce runoff formation and diffuse pollution in cities. The present research is focused on the design and construction of an experimental parking area, composed of 45 pervious pavement parking bays. Every pervious pavement was experimentally designed to store rainwater and measure the levels of the stored water and its quality over time. Six different pervious surfaces are combined with four different geotextiles in order to test which materials respond better to the good quality of rainwater storage over time and under the specific weather conditions of the north of Spain. The aim of this research was to obtain a good performance of pervious pavements that offered simultaneously a positive urban service and helped to harvest rainwater with a good quality to be used for non potable demands.     

LEGClust- a clustering algorithm based on layered entropic subgraphs.

Hierarchical clustering is a stepwise clustering method usually based on proximity measures between objects or sets of objects from a given data set. The most common proximity measures are distance measures. The derived proximity matrices can be used to build graphs, which provide the basic structure for some clustering methods. We present here a new proximity matrix based on an entropic measure and also a clustering algorithm (LEGClust) that builds layers of subgraphs based on this matrix, and uses them and a hierarchical agglomerative clustering technique to form the clusters. Our approach capitalizes on both a graph structure and a hierarchical construction. Moreover, by using entropy as a proximity measure we are able, with no assumption about the cluster shapes, to capture the local structure of the data, forcing the clustering method to reflect this structure. We present several experiments on artificial and real data sets that provide evidence on the superior performance of this new algorithm when compared with competing ones.     

Modeling and solving the rooted distance-constrained minimum spanning tree problem

In this paper we discuss models and methods for solving the rooted distance constrained minimum spanning tree problem which is defined as follows: given a graph G=(V,E)$G=(V,E)$ with node set V={0,1,…,n}$V=\{0,1,\dots ,n\}$ and edge set E$E$, two integer weights, a cost _ce$c_e$ and a delay _we$w_e$ associated with each edge e$e$ of E$E$, and a natural (time limit) number H$H$, we wish to find a spanning tree T$T$ of the graph with minimum total cost and such that the unique path from a specified root node, node 0, to any other node has total delay not greater than H$H$. This problem generalizes the well known hop-constrained spanning tree problem and arises in the design of centralized networks with quality of service constraints and also in package shipment with service guarantee constraints. We present three theoretically equivalent modeling approaches, a column generation scheme, a Lagrangian relaxation combined with subgradient optimization procedure, both based on a path formulation of the problem, and a shortest path (compact) reformulation of the problem which views the underlying subproblem as defined in a layered extended graph. We present results for complete graph instances with up to 40 nodes. Our results indicate that the layered graph path reformulation model is still quite good when the arc weights are reasonably small. Lagrangian relaxation combined with subgradient optimization procedure appears to work much better than column generation and seems to be a quite reasonable approach to the problem for large weight, and even small weight, instances.     

Optimal Trajectory Planning for Wheeled Mobile Robots Based on Kinematics Singularity

This research introduces a new optimality criterion for motion planning of wheeled mobile robots based on a cost index that assesses the nearness to singularity of forward and inverse kinematic models. Slip motions, infinite estimation error and impossible control actions are avoided escaping from singularities. In addition, high amplification of wheel velocity errors and high wheel velocity values are also avoided by moving far from the singularity. The proposed cost index can be used directly to complement path-planning and motion-planning techniques (e.g. tree graphs, roadmaps, etc.) in order to select the optimal collision-free path or trajectory among several possible solutions. To illustrate the applications of the proposed approach, an industrial forklift, equivalent to a tricycle-like mobile robot, is considered in a simulated environment. In particular, several results are validated for the proposed optimality criterion, which are extensively compared to those obtained with other classical optimality criteria, such as shortest-path, time-optimal and minimum-energy.     

Self-managed topologies in P2P networks

The problem of efficient resource location is an important open issue in P2P systems. This paper introduces DANTE, a self-adapting P2P system that changes its peer links to form topologies where resources are located in an efficient manner via random walks. Additionally, this same self-adaptation capacity makes DANTE capable of reacting to events like changes in the system load or attacks on well-connected nodes by adjusting the topology to the new scenario. This adaptive behavior emerges as the global result of the individual work of nodes, without the intervention of any central entity or the need for global knowledge. Simulations show that this adaptation process makes the system scalable, resilient to attacks, and tolerant to a high transitivity of peers. Simulations are also used to compare this solution with other well-known self-adapting P2P system. From these results it can be concluded that the topologies achieved by DANTE offer better performance.     

A new control scheme for visual servoing

This research presents a new control scheme for visual servoing that takes into account the delay introduced by image acquisition and image processing. Firstly, previous control schemes for visual servoing are discussed and then a new control scheme is proposed and fully described. Afterwards, the capabilities (steady-state errors, stability margins, step time response, etc.) of the proposed control scheme and of previous ones are analytically analyzed and compared. Next, several simulations and experimental results are provided to validate the analytical results and to illustrate the benefits of the proposed control scheme. In particular, it is shown that this new control scheme clearly improves the performance of the previous ones.     

Electro-optic high-resolution Fabry-Perot spectrometer

A single-crystal lithium niobate dtalon suitable for high-spectral-resolution studies has been operated successfully. This étalon with a 5-cm clear diameter and a gap equivalent to 2 cm in air has been found to have very linear response in wave number as a function of voltage. The combined advantages of adjustment-free operation, linearity in operation, and high luminosity in a small size (as a result of the μ(2) gain in the instrumental throughput caused by the large index of refraction of the lithium niobate substrate) make for a rugged instrument that is ideal for long-term unattended field operation.     

3D Semantic Scene Completion: A Survey

International Journal of Computer Vision - Semantic scene completion (SSC) aims to jointly estimate the complete geometry and semantics of a scene, assuming partial sparse input. In the last years...     

Photocatalytic activity of a new composite material of Fe (III) oxide nanoparticles wrapped by a matrix of polymeric carbon nitride and amorphous carbon

Polymeric carbon nitride was synthesized from urea and doped with Cu and Fe to act as co-catalysts. The material doped with Fe was a new composite material composed of Fe(III) oxides (acting as a co-catalyst) wrapped by the polymer layers and amorphous carbon. Furthermore, the copper doped material was described in a previous report. The photocatalytic degradation of the azo dye direct blue 1 (DB) was studied using as photocatalysts: pure carbon nitride (CN), carbon nitride doped with Cu (CN-Cu) and carbon nitride doped with Fe (CN-Fe). The catalysts were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller method (BET), etc. The adsorption phenomenon was studied using the Langmuir and Freundlich models. For the kinetic study, a solution of 500 mg L^?1 of DB1 was treated with each catalyst, visible light and H₂O₂. The dye concentration was measured by spectrophotometry at the wavelength of 565 nm, and the removal of the total organic content (TOC) was quantified. BET analysis yielded surface areas of 60.029, 20.116 and 70.662 m²g^?1 for CN, CN-Cu and CN-Fe, respectively. The kinetics of degradation were pseudo-first order, whose constants were 0.093, 0.039 and 0.110 min^?1 for CN, CN-Cu and CN-Fe, respectively. The total organic carbon (TOC) removal reached the highest value of 14.46% with CN-Fe.     

Carbon nano-onion composites: Physicochemical characteristics and biological activity

Carbon nano-onion/surfactant (CNO/surfactant) composites offer the possibility to easily produce the soluble nanostructures. That approach combines the hydrophilicity of surfactants with the robustness of carbon structures to produce composites with superior and unusual physicochemical properties. We used the following surfactants: hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (SDBS), 4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl)phenyl-polyethylene glycol (Triton X-100), and polyethylene glycol sorbitan monolaurate (Tween 20) to non-covalently modify CNO surfaces. The existence of stable CNO composites are clearly evidenced by direct transmission electron microscopy observations, which are also supported by thermogravimetric analyses. Dynamic light scattering and zeta potential confirmed their dispersion and stability. Additionally, the biological activity of well-dispersed CNO/surfactant composites against a strain of Escherichia coli was assayed. In vitro antimicrobial assays for the composites revealed that only the CNO/CTAB composite decreased cell viability. This activity could be assigned to the simple composite dissociation in water solutions, however antimicrobial properties of the composite are slightly better when compared with pure CTAB. This indicate some synergic effect with respect to the properties of the pure surfactant.