Spatial Analysis of Water Use in Oregon, USA, 1985–2005

Water use patterns are not distributed evenly over space and time. Determining the amount of water used within a region, as well as the various ways in which water is used is important for making adequate and sustainable water management policies and determining future water availability. We examined differences in spatial trends in Oregon freshwater use (total, municipal, and agricultural water withdrawals), by county, between the years 1985 and 2005. We also explored biophysical and socioeconomic factors that explain spatial patterns using Moran’s I, local index of spatial autocorrelation (LISA), and spatial regression models. There was a moderate positive spatial autocorrelation among counties that had similar total and irrigation withdrawals. LISA analysis identified hot spots between certain arid agricultural counties in the southeastern Oregon and cold spots between certain humid northwestern counties, including within the Portland metro area. Annual precipitation and income are negatively associated with total water withdrawals. Summer temperature and farm size is positively associated with irrigation water withdrawals, while net cash return and income are negatively associated with irrigation water withdrawals. When compared to ordinary least square regression models, spatial error models that take into account spatial dependence provide a more comprehensive explanation of the variations of water use, suggesting that water resource planning and management should incorporate spatial and neighborhood effects to effective manage limited natural resources.     

QoS Performance Bounds and Efficient Connection Admission Control for Heterogeneous Services in Wireless Cellular Networks

Quality-of-Service (QoS) performance and connection admission control (CAC) for heterogeneous services in wireless multiple access networks are investigated. The heterogeneous services include constant bit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR) and available bit rate (ABR) services. Multiple access control is handled by a polling-based scheme with non-preemptive priority. Tight delay variation (jitter) bounds for CBR connections and delay bounds for VBR connections are derived. A CAC scheme based on the derived bounds is developed. The CAC makes use of user mobility information to reserve an appropriate amount of system resources for potential handoff connections to achieve low handoff connection dropping rate (HCDR). Simulation results show that the proposed CAC scheme can achieve both low HCDR and high resource utilization.     

实现精密二分压电路功能的放大器

实现二分压电路的经典方法是使用两只阻值相等的电阻器。如果使用精度为1％的电阻器,则二分压器的输出电压精度为2％。对于大多数应用来说,这一精度经济实惠,足以满足所需。但是,当你需要极高的精度时,这种方法就需要相应精密的电阻器,因而可能需要增加成本。给仪表放大器加上反馈回路,便可获得一个二分压电路,而且具有缓冲输出的好处(图1)。这一电路的工作原理很简单。该仪表放大器具有单位增益的特点,     

出类拔萃的Eclipse

我对开发工具的初次体验--大约在1973年--是在一个PDP-8/L微型计算机上为一个微处理器编写代码,用Intel BNPF格式在纸带上打孔,然后将纸带装入Pro-LogEPROM编程器中,而它一次可以写入256个字节.虽然代码开发的难度现在已经降低,编程人员还是必须使用互不兼容的几种工具.随着工具厂商纷纷接受Eclipse框架,情况将得到改善.     

Reducing channel change delay in IPTV by predictive pre-joining of TV channels

One of the major concerns of IPTV network deployment is channel change delay (also known as zapping delay). This delay can add up to 2 s or more, and its main culprits are synchronisation and buffering of the media streams. Proving the importance of the problem is the already significant amount of literature addressing it. We start this paper with a survey of techniques proposed to reduce IPTV channel change delay.Then, by analysing an extensive dataset from an operational IPTV provider - comprising 255 thousand users, 150 TV channels, and covering a 6-month period - we have observed that most channel switching events are relatively predictable: users very frequently switch linearly, up or down to the next TV channel. This fact motivated us to use this dataset to analyse in detail a specific type of solutions to this problem, namely, predictive pre-joining of TV channels. In these schemes each set top box (STB) simultaneously joins additional multicast groups (TV channels) along with the one that is requested by the user. If the user switches to any of these channels the switching latency is virtually eliminated, not affecting therefore user's experience.We start by evaluating a simple scheme, where the neighbouring channels (i.e., channels adjacent to the requested one) are pre-joined by the STB during zapping periods. Notwithstanding the simplicity of this scheme, trace-driven simulations show that the zapping delay can be virtually eliminated for a significant percentage of channel switching requests. For example, when sending the previous and the next channel concurrently with the requested one, for only 1 min after a zapping event, switching delay is eliminated for close to half of all channel switching requests. Importantly, this result is achieved with a negligible increase of bandwidth utilisation in the access link. Other more complex schemes where user behaviour is tracked were also evaluated, but the improvement over the simple scheme was insignificant.     

应用直流导频自动增益控制的有线电视上游光接收机

有线电视系统的上游光链路一般是网络中最难于正确校准的部分。机顶盒和电缆调制解调器选择了“长环路”自动增益控制(AGC)(换言之，远端功率控制)，以标准化端到端的射频路径。校准是非常重要的，因为对于每分贝的无校正光损耗，在每一个传输节点都有2dB的光调制指数(OMI)偏差。当多个服务同时使用链路时，这很容易导致互调问题。主要的校准困难是在远端节点提供精确的测试信号，以便在考虑实际链路损耗时可以调整前端接收机。而由测试信号产生的OMI会有其它不确定性。一个完美的解决方案是把接收机中的直流光电流看作一个校准过的50％…     

Modeling shallow marine carbonate depositional systems

Geological Process Models (GPMs) have been used in the past to simulate the distinctive stratigraphies formed in carbonate sediments, and to explore the interaction of controls that produce heterogeneity. Previous GPMs have only indirectly included the supersaturation of calcium carbonate in seawater, a key physicochemical control on carbonate production in reef and lagoon environments, by modifying production rates based on the distance from open marine sources. We here use the residence time of water in the lagoon and reef areas as a proxy for the supersaturation state of carbonate in a new process model, Carbonate GPM. Residence times in the model are calculated using a particle-tracking algorithm. Carbonate production is also controlled by water depth and wave power dissipation. Once deposited, sediment can be eroded, transported and re-deposited via both advective and diffusive processes. We show that using residence time as a control on production might explain the formation of non-ordered, three-dimensional carbonate stratigraphies by lateral shifts in the locus of carbonate deposition on timescales comparable to so-called 5th-order sea-level oscillations. We also show that representing supersaturation as a function of distance from open marine sources, as in previous models, cannot correctly predict the supersaturation distribution over a lagoon due to the intricacies of the flow regime.     

Implementation and evaluation of nonparametric regression procedures for sensitivity analysis of computationally demanding models

The analysis of many physical and engineering problems involves running complex computational models (simulation models, computer codes). With problems of this type, it is important to understand the relationships between the input variables (whose values are often imprecisely known) and the output. The goal of sensitivity analysis (SA) is to study this relationship and identify the most significant factors or variables affecting the results of the model. In this presentation, an improvement on existing methods for SA of complex computer models is described for use when the model is too computationally expensive for a standard Monte-Carlo analysis. In these situations, a meta-model or surrogate model can be used to estimate the necessary sensitivity index for each input. A sensitivity index is a measure of the variance in the response that is due to the uncertainty in an input. Most existing approaches to this problem either do not work well with a large number of input variables and/or they ignore the error involved in estimating a sensitivity index. Here, a new approach to sensitivity index estimation using meta-models and bootstrap confidence intervals is described that provides solutions to these drawbacks. Further, an efficient yet effective approach to incorporate this methodology into an actual SA is presented. Several simulated and real examples illustrate the utility of this approach. This framework can be extended to uncertainty analysis as well.     

A practical clinical trial of coordinated care management to treat substance use disorders among public assistance beneficiaries.

This study tested whether coordinated care management (CCM), a continuity of care intervention for substance use disorders (SUD), improved rates of abstinence when compared with usual welfare management for substance-using single adults and adults with dependent children applying for public assistance. The study was designed as a practical clinical trial and was implemented in partnership with a large city welfare agency. Participants were 421 welfare applicants identified via SUD screening and assigned via an unbiased computerized allocation program to a site that provided either CCM (n = 232) or usual care (UC; n = 189). Outcomes were assessed for 1 year postbaseline with self-reports and biological measures of substance use. As hypothesized, for participants not enrolled in methadone maintenance programs (n = 313), CCM clients received significantly more services than did UC clients. Nonmethadone CCM also showed significantly higher abstinence rates (odds ratio = 1.75; 95% confidence interval = 1.12, 2.76; d = 0.31) that emerged early in treatment and were sustained throughout follow-up. In contrast, no treatment services or outcome effects were found for methadone maintenance clients (n = 108). Findings suggest that CCM is promising as a wraparound to SUD treatment for welfare recipients. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)