Coupling GIS with Hydrologic and Hydraulic Flood Modelling

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been recognised as a powerful means to integrate and analyse data from various sources in the context of comprehensive floodplain management. As part of this comprehensive approach to floodplain management, it is very important to be able to predict the consequences of different scenarios in terms of flooded areas and associated risk. Hydrologic and hydraulic modelling plays a crucial role and there is much to gain in incorporating these modelling capabilities in GIS. This is still a rather complex task and research is being done on the full integration of these models. Interfacing between these models and GIS may be a very efficient way of overcoming the difficulties and getting very good results in terms of engineering practice. This paper presents results based on the use of Intergraph GIS coupled with Idrisi GIS. Using these two systems substantially increased the flexibility of using GIS as a tool for flood studies. A lumped (XSRAIN) and a distributed (OMEGA) hydrologic models were used to simulate flood hydrographs. The well known HEC-2 Hydraulic model was used to compute flooded areas. These models were applied in the Livramento catchment with very good results. The computation of flooded areas for different flood scenarios, and its representation in GIS, can be used in the assessment of affected property and associated damages. This is a very useful GIS-based approach to floodplain management.     

Kinetics of hydration properties of meat emulsions containing various fillers during smokehouse cooking

The cooking kinetics of meat emulsions containing various fillers was determined by monitoring changes in hydration properties such as cooking loss and water-holding capacity during smokehouse cooking. Press juice, consumer cook test and emulsion stability of cooked product were also determined. The fillers used were buttermilk powder, corn starch, microcrystalline cellulose, modified corn starch, modified wheat flour, soy-protein concentrate and whey-protein concentrate. The cooking process was modelled using reaction kinetics and Eyring's absolute reaction rate theory. Enthalpy and entropy changes of activation were calculated for various properties and fillers.     

A Dioid Model for Invariant Resource Sharing Problems

This paper proposes a model for invariant resource sharing problems in dioid algebra. A strong motivation for investigating the issue is the absence of a general systematic technique which can be used to tackle these problems. (min, +) constraints have been developed to handle resource sharing in Discrete-Event Dynamic Systems. In particular, the part that can be modeled by a Timed Event Graph induce (min, +)-linear equations which are constrained by the resource availability. The proposed algebraic model has been proved to describe the actual behavior of the systems dealt with. This paper will show two examples of systems that are modeled and controlled by means of this approach.     

Transmission power and data rate aware routing on wireless networks

Wireless networks can vary both the transmission power and modulation of links. Existing routing protocols do not take transmission power control (TPC) and modulation adaptation (also known as rate adaptation – RA) into account at the same time, even though the performance of wireless networks can be significantly improved when routing algorithms use link characteristics to build their routes. This article proposes and evaluates extensions to routing protocols to cope with TPC and RA. The enhancements can be applied to any link state or distance vector routing protocols. An evaluation considering node density, node mobility and link error show that TPC- and RA-aware routing algorithms improve the average latency and the end-to-end throughput, while consuming less energy than traditional protocols.     

Digitally-controlled array of solid-state microcoolers for use in surgery

This paper presents an approach for generating a well-defined cooling pattern over an area of tissue. An array of solid-state microcoolers is used, which could be included in a probe that provides local cooling. This medical instrument can be used for removal of scar tissue in the eye or for the rapid stopping of bleeding due to micro-cuts, which makes it a useful tool to medical doctors and could make surgery more secure to the patient. The array of microcoolers is composed of 64 independent thermo-electric elements, each controlled using an integrated circuit designed in CMOS. The independent control allows the flexible programming of the surface temperature profile. This type of control is very suitable in case abrupt temperature steps should be avoided. Cooling by lateral heat flow was selected in order to minimize the influence of heat by dissipation from the electronic circuits. Moreover, a thermo-electric component with lateral heat allows fabrication of the cooling elements using planar thin-film technology, lithography and wet etching on top of the silicon wafer. This approach is potentially CMOS compatible, which would allow for the fabrication of the thermo-electric elements on top of a pre-fabricated CMOS wafer as a post-process step. Each pixel is composed of thin-films of n-type bismuth telluride, Bi₂Te₃ and p-type antimony telluride, Sb₂Te₃, which are electrically interconnected as thermocouple. These materials have excellent thermoelectric characteristics, such as thermoelectric figures-of-merit, ZT, at room temperatures of 0.84 and 0.5, respectively, which is equivalent to power-factors, PF, of 3.62 × 10⁻³ W K⁻¹ m⁻² and 2.81 × 10⁻³ W K⁻¹ m⁻², respectively. The theoretical study presented here demonstrates a cooling capability of 15°C at room temperature (300 K ≈ 27°C). This cooling performance is sufficient to maintain a local tissue temperature at 25°C, which makes it suitable for the intended application. A first prototype was successfully fabricated to demonstrate the concept.     

Video editing with pen-based technology

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The manipulation of video content is still a difficult task due to its complexity and richness. This paper applies pen-based technology to video editing, with...     

Randomization can be a healer: consensus with dynamic omission failures

Wireless ad-hoc networks are being increasingly used in diverse contexts, ranging from casual meetings to disaster recovery operations. A promising approach is to model these networks as distributed systems prone to dynamic communication failures. This captures transitory disconnections in communication due to phenomena like interference and collisions, and permits an efficient use of the wireless broadcasting medium. This model, however, is bound by the impossibility result of Santoro and Widmayer, which states that, even with strong synchrony assumptions, there is no deterministic solution to any non-trivial form of agreement if n ? 1 or more messages can be lost per communication round in a system with n processes. In this paper we propose a novel way to circumvent this impossibility result by employing randomization. We present a consensus protocol that ensures safety in the presence of an unrestricted number of omission faults, and guarantees progress in rounds where such faults are bounded by ${f \,{\leq}\,\lceil \frac{n}{2} \rceil (n\,{-}\,k)\,{+}\,k\,{-}\,2}$ , where k is the number of processes required to decide, eventually assuring termination with probability 1.     

A flexible thin-film for powering stand alone electronic devices

This paper presents a flexible thin-film (FTF) composed by a photovoltaic (PV) cell, a flexible solid-state rechargeable battery and power management electronics. A flexible printed circuit board (fPCB) was used for providing physical support to the electronics and to the battery, whereas a PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) layer was used for providing mechanical adhesion between the PV cell and the fPCB. The high elasticity of the PDMS makes this material an excellent candidate for adapting two materials with different thermal expansions (fPCB and PV). The physical measurements showed a prototype with a thickness in the range 1.52 ± 0.10 mm, 10 g of weight and 37 × 114 mm of size. The electrical measurements showed ability to provide an output voltage of 3.8 V in a continuously form under these conditions: the PV providing DC power for solar irradiations higher than 6 W m⁻², and the battery providing DC power for solar irradiations above bellow 6 W m⁻² (value that has emerged during the twilight between sunset and dusk).