Environmental Effects of Hydro-Electric Power Generation in Africa and the Potential for Artificial Floods

Electricity is a fundamental requirement for economic growth, and hydro-electric power is often thought to be environmentally benign. However, the construction and operation of many hydro-power dams in Africa have had significant negative impacts on the environment and rural economies. Reduced downstream flooding has destroyed fisheries and starved the floodplain soils of moisture and nutrients. Often the worst-affected areas have no electrification and therefore do not benefit from power generation. New dams which are planned in Kenya and Tanzania have been specifically designed to make flood releases. This will allow electricity to be generated whilst maintaining a dynamic flooding pattern for the short-term economic importance of fisheries and agriculture and the longer-term importance of soil fertility and biodiversity. Involvement of local community representatives in deciding when flood waters should be released on the Phongolo River in South Africa has resulted in substantial benefits to floodplain users.     

Workflow technology-based monitoring and control for business process and project management

In this paper the application of workflow technology to monitor, control and coordinate business processes and projects is proposed. The conceptual characteristics of processes and projects as well as their management needs in the functions of planning, execution, monitoring and control are compared. The general design of the proposed system is then developed, with an application example. The proposed monitoring and control system provides proactive tracking of the flow of work and information, and of the utilization and commitment of resources. The design supports hierarchical management of the project and/or business process, allowing concerned persons to visualize and to utilize it in different levels of abstraction, as necessary. The application of workflow technology also provides additional benefits in facilitating communication, documentation and re-utilization.     

套管动力钳转矩监测系统

下套管作业时，套管螺纹联接质量的好坏直接影响着油井寿命，因此有必要研制一种套管动力钳转矩监测系统。以目前国内常用的ＴＱ－２０型套管动力钳为例，介绍了一种与之相配套的套管钳转矩监测系统的功能特点，测试原理，结构设计，并对实测各类紧扣曲线进行了分析。该系统采用主从机结构，主机为工业控制微机，从机为单片机系统，主从机采用远距离通信传输，大大地改善了工业控制微机的工况条件。该系统实现无人监控、自动记录、绘     

Monitoring of CdTe atomic layer epitaxy using in-situ spectroscopic ellipsometry

Atomic layer epitaxy or ALE has proven to be useful for the growth of epitaxial layers of high uniformity, good quality, and well-controlled thickness. In this study, we have carried out in-situ monitoring during the atmospheric pressure ALE of CdTe on GaAs (100) substrates using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The susceptor temperature, reactant partial pressures, as well as the flow and flush duration for each precursor are crucial process variables for ALE growth. Growth was carried out for 20–25 cycles under different sets of these process conditions during the experiment and in-situ SE was used to verify the presence of layer-by-layer growth, which enabled the quick determination of the process window. We observed ALE growth of CdTe at 300°C, supporting the explanation that the growth of CdTe occurs via a surface catalyzed decomposition of the Te precursor di-isopropyltelluride (DIPTe). Investigation of ALE mode growth behavior for different susceptor temperatures and DIPTe flush times indicated that the growth was limited by competition between desorption and reaction of the adsorbed DIPTe species on the Cd terminated surface.     

Light and color,some ethical issues

This is a comment to the editorial by J. Hutchings on “Talking about Color… and Ethics.” © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 233–235, 2007     

磷矿山环境污染的形成与防治

以湖北省黄麦岭、荆襄磷矿为研究对象，分析了造成磷矿山环境污染的污染源类型及特点，并从矿石特征、矿山生产环节、区域自然环境条件等方面，讨论了对矿山污染的制约和影响，以此，有针对性地提出防治矿山污染的对策和措施。     

Background-subtraction using contour-based fusion of thermal and visible imagery

We present a new background-subtraction technique fusing contours from thermal and visible imagery for persistent object detection in urban settings. Statistical background-subtraction in the thermal domain is used to identify the initial regions-of-interest. Color and intensity information are used within these areas to obtain the corresponding regions-of-interest in the visible domain. Within each region, input and background gradient information are combined to form a Contour Saliency Map. The binary contour fragments, obtained from corresponding Contour Saliency Maps, are then fused into a single image. An A^* path-constrained search along watershed boundaries of the regions-of-interest is used to complete and close any broken segments in the fused contour image. Lastly, the contour image is flood-filled to produce silhouettes. Results of our approach are evaluated quantitatively and compared with other low- and high-level fusion techniques using manually segmented data.     

电解铝侧插自焙槽技术改造与环境保护

电解铝侧插自焙槽属于落后的生产工艺，由于其能耗高、物料消耗大、劳动强度大、环境污染严重，在国内电解铝中已开始进行大规模的淘汰改造。采用先进的预焙电解槽生产技术，降耗节能、改善生产劳动强度，环境污染得到有效治理，各项环境指标达标排放，经济技术指标提高，食业面貌发生了巨大大变化。     

A process-control and diagnostic tool based on continuous fuzzy Petri nets

The use of Petri nets and fuzzy logic in intelligent process control has caught the attention of many researchers. In this paper, a Continuous Fuzzy Petri Net (CFPN) tool which integrates the three technologies of fuzzy control, Petri nets and real-time expert systems is presented. The CFPN approach can deal with real-time continuous inferencing, for the purpose of process monitoring and diagnostics, at a high level in the presence of uncertainty. This tool has been implemented in the G2 real-time expert-system environment and is currently being used by ESSO Canada.     

森林火情监测预报研究

对现行的森林火情监测方法进行了分析比较。根据实际存在的难题，提出了料为产用的实施方案及应采取的技术措施，进行了实地试验，取得较好的效果。