Pedestrian simulation and distribution in urban space based on visibility analysis and agent simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ying, Shen; Li, Lin; Gao, Yurong

2009-10-01

Spatial visibility analysis is the important direction of pedestrian behaviors because our visual conception in space is the straight method to get environment information and navigate your actions. Based on the agent modeling and up-tobottom method, the paper develop the framework about the analysis of the pedestrian flow depended on visibility. We use viewshed in visibility analysis and impose the parameters on agent simulation to direct their motion in urban space. We analyze the pedestrian behaviors in micro-scale and macro-scale of urban open space. The individual agent use visual affordance to determine his direction of motion in micro-scale urban street on district. And we compare the distribution of pedestrian flow with configuration in macro-scale urban environment, and mine the relationship between the pedestrian flow and distribution of urban facilities and urban function. The paper first computes the visibility situations at the vantage point in urban open space, such as street network, quantify the visibility parameters. The multiple agents use visibility parameters to decide their direction of motion, and finally pedestrian flow reach to a stable state in urban environment through the simulation of multiple agent system. The paper compare the morphology of visibility parameters and pedestrian distribution with urban function and facilities layout to confirm the consistence between them, which can be used to make decision support in urban design.

LOG-NORMAL DISTRIBUTION OF COSMIC VOIDS IN SIMULATIONS AND MOCKS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Russell, E.; Pycke, J.-R., E-mail: er111@nyu.edu, E-mail: jrp15@nyu.edu

2017-01-20

Following up on previous studies, we complete here a full analysis of the void size distributions of the Cosmic Void Catalog based on three different simulation and mock catalogs: dark matter (DM), haloes, and galaxies. Based on this analysis, we attempt to answer two questions: Is a three-parameter log-normal distribution a good candidate to satisfy the void size distributions obtained from different types of environments? Is there a direct relation between the shape parameters of the void size distribution and the environmental effects? In an attempt to answer these questions, we find here that all void size distributions of thesemore » data samples satisfy the three-parameter log-normal distribution whether the environment is dominated by DM, haloes, or galaxies. In addition, the shape parameters of the three-parameter log-normal void size distribution seem highly affected by environment, particularly existing substructures. Therefore, we show two quantitative relations given by linear equations between the skewness and the maximum tree depth, and between the variance of the void size distribution and the maximum tree depth, directly from the simulated data. In addition to this, we find that the percentage of voids with nonzero central density in the data sets has a critical importance. If the number of voids with nonzero central density reaches ≥3.84% in a simulation/mock sample, then a second population is observed in the void size distributions. This second population emerges as a second peak in the log-normal void size distribution at larger radius.« less

Disease clusters, exact distributions of maxima, and P-values.

PubMed

Grimson, R C

1993-10-01

This paper presents combinatorial (exact) methods that are useful in the analysis of disease cluster data obtained from small environments, such as buildings and neighbourhoods. Maxwell-Boltzmann and Fermi-Dirac occupancy models are compared in terms of appropriateness of representation of disease incidence patterns (space and/or time) in these environments. The methods are illustrated by a statistical analysis of the incidence pattern of bone fractures in a setting wherein fracture clustering was alleged to be occurring. One of the methodological results derived in this paper is the exact distribution of the maximum cell frequency in occupancy models.

Integrated Design Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment - Aerodynamics, Aerothermodynamics, and Thermal Protection System Integration Module

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kamhawi, Hilmi N.

2011-01-01

This report documents the work performed during from March 2010 October 2011. The Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) environment is a collaborative environment based on an object-oriented, multidisciplinary, distributed environment using the Adaptive Modeling Language (AML) as the underlying framework. This report will focus on describing the work done in the area of extending the aerodynamics, and aerothermodynamics module using S/HABP, CBAERO, PREMIN and LANMIN. It will also detail the work done integrating EXITS as the TPS sizing tool.

A Java-Enabled Interactive Graphical Gas Turbine Propulsion System Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

1997-01-01

This paper describes a gas turbine simulation system which utilizes the newly developed Java language environment software system. The system provides an interactive graphical environment which allows the quick and efficient construction and analysis of arbitrary gas turbine propulsion systems. The simulation system couples a graphical user interface, developed using the Java Abstract Window Toolkit, and a transient, space- averaged, aero-thermodynamic gas turbine analysis method, both entirely coded in the Java language. The combined package provides analytical, graphical and data management tools which allow the user to construct and control engine simulations by manipulating graphical objects on the computer display screen. Distributed simulations, including parallel processing and distributed database access across the Internet and World-Wide Web (WWW), are made possible through services provided by the Java environment.

Less is More: DoD’s Strategy for Facility Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-05-22

Installations & Environment) E2S2 Symposium May 22, 2012 1 Report Documentation Page Form ApprovedOMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden...DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Approved for public release; distribution unlimited 13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES Presented at the NDIA Environment...Ensure compliance with federal mandates – Draw elements from ASHRAE 189.1 – Require life-cycle cost analysis of building design – Due out in

Infusing considerations of trophic dependencies into species distribution modelling.

PubMed

Trainor, Anne M; Schmitz, Oswald J

2014-12-01

Community ecology involves studying the interdependence of species with each other and their environment to predict their geographical distribution and abundance. Modern species distribution analyses characterise species-environment dependency well, but offer only crude approximations of species interdependency. Typically, the dependency between focal species and other species is characterised using other species' point occurrences as spatial covariates to constrain the focal species' predicted range. This implicitly assumes that the strength of interdependency is homogeneous across space, which is not generally supported by analyses of species interactions. This discrepancy has an important bearing on the accuracy of inferences about habitat suitability for species. We introduce a framework that integrates principles from consumer-resource analyses, resource selection theory and species distribution modelling to enhance quantitative prediction of species geographical distributions. We show how to apply the framework using a case study of lynx and snowshoe hare interactions with each other and their environment. The analysis shows how the framework offers a spatially refined understanding of species distribution that is sensitive to nuances in biophysical attributes of the environment that determine the location and strength of species interactions. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.

Monitoring of bioaerosol inhalation risks in different environments using a six-stage Andersen sampler and the PCR-DGGE method.

PubMed

Xu, Zhenqiang; Yao, Maosheng

2013-05-01

Increasing evidences show that inhalation of indoor bioaerosols has caused numerous adverse health effects and diseases. However, the bioaerosol size distribution, composition, and concentration level, representing different inhalation risks, could vary with different living environments. The six-stage Andersen sampler is designed to simulate the sampling of different human lung regions. Here, the sampler was used in investigating the bioaerosol exposure in six different environments (student dorm, hospital, laboratory, hotel room, dining hall, and outdoor environment) in Beijing. During the sampling, the Andersen sampler was operated for 30 min for each sample, and three independent experiments were performed for each of the environments. The air samples collected onto each of the six stages of the sampler were incubated on agar plates directly at 26 °C, and the colony forming units (CFU) were manually counted and statistically corrected. In addition, the developed CFUs were washed off the agar plates and subjected to polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) for diversity analysis. Results revealed that for most environments investigated, the culturable bacterial aerosol concentrations were higher than those of culturable fungal aerosols. The culturable bacterial and fungal aerosol fractions, concentration, size distribution, and diversity were shown to vary significantly with the sampling environments. PCR-DGGE analysis indicated that different environments had different culturable bacterial aerosol compositions as revealed by distinct gel band patterns. For most environments tested, larger (>3 μm) culturable bacterial aerosols with a skewed size distribution were shown to prevail, accounting for more than 60 %, while for culturable fungal aerosols with a normal size distribution, those 2.1-4.7 μm dominated, accounting for 20-40 %. Alternaria, Cladosporium, Chaetomium, and Aspergillus were found abundant in most environments studied here. Viable microbial load per unit of particulate matter was also shown to vary significantly with the sampling environments. The results from this study suggested that different environments even with similar levels of total microbial culturable aerosol concentrations could present different inhalation risks due to different bioaerosol particle size distribution and composition. This work fills literature gaps regarding bioaerosol size and composition-based exposure risks in different human dwellings in contrast to a vast body of total bioaerosol levels.

Multidisciplinary High-Fidelity Analysis and Optimization of Aerospace Vehicles. Part 2; Preliminary Results

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walsh, J. L.; Weston, R. P.; Samareh, J. A.; Mason, B. H.; Green, L. L.; Biedron, R. T.

2000-01-01

An objective of the High Performance Computing and Communication Program at the NASA Langley Research Center is to demonstrate multidisciplinary shape and sizing optimization of a complete aerospace vehicle configuration by using high-fidelity finite-element structural analysis and computational fluid dynamics aerodynamic analysis in a distributed, heterogeneous computing environment that includes high performance parallel computing. A software system has been designed and implemented to integrate a set of existing discipline analysis codes, some of them computationally intensive, into a distributed computational environment for the design of a high-speed civil transport configuration. The paper describes both the preliminary results from implementing and validating the multidisciplinary analysis and the results from an aerodynamic optimization. The discipline codes are integrated by using the Java programming language and a Common Object Request Broker Architecture compliant software product. A companion paper describes the formulation of the multidisciplinary analysis and optimization system.

Adaptability and phenotypic stability of common bean genotypes through Bayesian inference.

PubMed

Corrêa, A M; Teodoro, P E; Gonçalves, M C; Barroso, L M A; Nascimento, M; Santos, A; Torres, F E

2016-04-27

This study used Bayesian inference to investigate the genotype x environment interaction in common bean grown in Mato Grosso do Sul State, and it also evaluated the efficiency of using informative and minimally informative a priori distributions. Six trials were conducted in randomized blocks, and the grain yield of 13 common bean genotypes was assessed. To represent the minimally informative a priori distributions, a probability distribution with high variance was used, and a meta-analysis concept was adopted to represent the informative a priori distributions. Bayes factors were used to conduct comparisons between the a priori distributions. The Bayesian inference was effective for the selection of upright common bean genotypes with high adaptability and phenotypic stability using the Eberhart and Russell method. Bayes factors indicated that the use of informative a priori distributions provided more accurate results than minimally informative a priori distributions. According to Bayesian inference, the EMGOPA-201, BAMBUÍ, CNF 4999, CNF 4129 A 54, and CNFv 8025 genotypes had specific adaptability to favorable environments, while the IAPAR 14 and IAC CARIOCA ETE genotypes had specific adaptability to unfavorable environments.

Development and application of an empirical probability distribution for the prediction error of re-entry body maximum dynamic pressure

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lanzi, R. James; Vincent, Brett T.

1993-01-01

The relationship between actual and predicted re-entry maximum dynamic pressure is characterized using a probability density function and a cumulative distribution function derived from sounding rocket flight data. This paper explores the properties of this distribution and demonstrates applications of this data with observed sounding rocket re-entry body damage characteristics to assess probabilities of sustaining various levels of heating damage. The results from this paper effectively bridge the gap existing in sounding rocket reentry analysis between the known damage level/flight environment relationships and the predicted flight environment.

MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TOXICS (MEND-TOX): PART II, SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION AND CASE STUDIES

EPA Science Inventory

An integrated hybrid spatial-compartmental simulator is presented for analyzing the dynamic distribution of chemicals in the multimedia environment. Information obtained from such analysis, which includes temporal chemical concentration profiles in various media, mass distribu...

MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF TOXICS (MEND-TOX): PART I, HYBRID COMPARTMENTAL-SPATIAL MODELING FRAMEWORK

EPA Science Inventory

An integrated hybrid spatial-compartmental modeling approach is presented for analyzing the dynamic distribution of chemicals in the multimedia environment. Information obtained from such analysis, which includes temporal chemical concentration profiles in various media, mass ...

[Environmental Hazards Assessment Program annual report, June 1992--June 1993]. Use of diatom distributions to monitor environmental health

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Levine, R.H.

1993-12-01

A variety of approaches has been used in the past to assess the environmental impact of anthropogenic contaminants. One reliable index for aquatic environments is the analysis of diatom species distribution; the focus in this case being on the Savannah River. The completed objectives of this study were: (A) the development and use of procedures for measuring diatom distribution in the water column and (B) the development and evaluation of sediment sampling methods for retrospective analysis.

Multidisciplinary High-Fidelity Analysis and Optimization of Aerospace Vehicles. Part 1; Formulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walsh, J. L.; Townsend, J. C.; Salas, A. O.; Samareh, J. A.; Mukhopadhyay, V.; Barthelemy, J.-F.

2000-01-01

An objective of the High Performance Computing and Communication Program at the NASA Langley Research Center is to demonstrate multidisciplinary shape and sizing optimization of a complete aerospace vehicle configuration by using high-fidelity, finite element structural analysis and computational fluid dynamics aerodynamic analysis in a distributed, heterogeneous computing environment that includes high performance parallel computing. A software system has been designed and implemented to integrate a set of existing discipline analysis codes, some of them computationally intensive, into a distributed computational environment for the design of a highspeed civil transport configuration. The paper describes the engineering aspects of formulating the optimization by integrating these analysis codes and associated interface codes into the system. The discipline codes are integrated by using the Java programming language and a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) compliant software product. A companion paper presents currently available results.

40 CFR 1400.8 - Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal government officials.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... analysis information by Federal government officials. 1400.8 Section 1400.8 Protection of Environment... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Access to Off-Site Consequence Analysis Information by Government Officials. § 1400.8 Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal...

40 CFR 1400.8 - Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal government officials.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... analysis information by Federal government officials. 1400.8 Section 1400.8 Protection of Environment... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Access to Off-Site Consequence Analysis Information by Government Officials. § 1400.8 Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal...

40 CFR 1400.8 - Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal government officials.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... analysis information by Federal government officials. 1400.8 Section 1400.8 Protection of Environment... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Access to Off-Site Consequence Analysis Information by Government Officials. § 1400.8 Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal...

40 CFR 1400.8 - Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal government officials.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... analysis information by Federal government officials. 1400.8 Section 1400.8 Protection of Environment... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Access to Off-Site Consequence Analysis Information by Government Officials. § 1400.8 Access to off-site consequence analysis information by Federal...

Grain size analysis and depositional environment of shallow marine to basin floor, Kelantan River Delta

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Afifah, M. R. Nurul; Aziz, A. Che; Roslan, M. Kamal

2015-09-01

Sediment samples were collected from the shallow marine from Kuala Besar, Kelantan outwards to the basin floor of South China Sea which consisted of quaternary bottom sediments. Sixty five samples were analysed for their grain size distribution and statistical relationships. Basic statistical analysis like mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis were calculated and used to differentiate the depositional environment of the sediments and to derive the uniformity of depositional environment either from the beach or river environment. The sediments of all areas were varied in their sorting ranging from very well sorted to poorly sorted, strongly negative skewed to strongly positive skewed, and extremely leptokurtic to very platykurtic in nature. Bivariate plots between the grain-size parameters were then interpreted and the Coarsest-Median (CM) pattern showed the trend suggesting relationships between sediments influenced by three ongoing hydrodynamic factors namely turbidity current, littoral drift and waves dynamic, which functioned to control the sediments distribution pattern in various ways.

Particle Simulations of the Guard Electrode Effects on the Photoelectron Distribution Around an Electric Field Sensor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miyake, Y.; Usui, H.; Kojima, H.

2010-12-01

In tenuous space plasma environment, photoelectrons emitted due to solar illumination produce a high-density photoelectron cloud localized in the vicinity of a spacecraft body and an electric field sensor. The photoelectron current emitted from the sensor has also received considerable attention because it becomes a primary factor in determining floating potentials of the sunlit spacecraft and sensor bodies. Considering the fact that asymmetric photoelectron distribution between sunlit and sunless sides of the spacecraft occasionally causes a spurious sunward electric field, we require quantitative evaluation of the photoelectron distribution around the spacecraft and its influence on electric field measurements by means of a numerical approach. In the current study, we applied the Particle-in-Cell plasma simulation to the analysis of the photoelectron environment around spacecraft. By using the PIC modeling, we can self-consistently consider the plasma kinetics. This enables us to simulate the formation of the photoelectron cloud as well as the spacecraft and sensor charging in a self-consistent manner. We report the progress of an analysis on photoelectron environment around MEFISTO, which is an electric field instrument for the BepiColombo/MMO spacecraft to Mercury’s magnetosphere. The photoelectron guard electrode is a key technology for ensuring an optimum photoelectron environment. We show some simulation results on the guard electrode effects on surrounding photoelectrons and discuss a guard operation condition for producing the optimum photoelectron environment. We also deal with another important issue, that is, how the guard electrode can mitigate an undesirable influence of an asymmetric photoelectron distribution on electric field measurements.

40 CFR 1400.3 - Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

...-site consequence analysis information. 1400.3 Section 1400.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Public Access § 1400.3 Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information. (a) General. The Administrator and the...

40 CFR 1400.3 - Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

...-site consequence analysis information. 1400.3 Section 1400.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Public Access § 1400.3 Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information. (a) General. The Administrator and the...

40 CFR 1400.3 - Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

...-site consequence analysis information. 1400.3 Section 1400.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Public Access § 1400.3 Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information. (a) General. The Administrator and the...

40 CFR 1400.3 - Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

...-site consequence analysis information. 1400.3 Section 1400.3 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL... INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Public Access § 1400.3 Public access to paper copies of off-site consequence analysis information. (a) General. The Administrator and the...

Open Source Live Distributions for Computer Forensics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Giustini, Giancarlo; Andreolini, Mauro; Colajanni, Michele

Current distributions of open source forensic software provide digital investigators with a large set of heterogeneous tools. Their use is not always focused on the target and requires high technical expertise. We present a new GNU/Linux live distribution, named CAINE (Computer Aided INvestigative Environment) that contains a collection of tools wrapped up into a user friendly environment. The CAINE forensic framework introduces novel important features, aimed at filling the interoperability gap across different forensic tools. Moreover, it provides a homogeneous graphical interface that drives digital investigators during the acquisition and analysis of electronic evidence, and it offers a semi-automatic mechanism for the creation of the final report.

Analyzing coastal environments by means of functional data analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sierra, Carlos; Flor-Blanco, Germán; Ordoñez, Celestino; Flor, Germán; Gallego, José R.

2017-07-01

Here we used Functional Data Analysis (FDA) to examine particle-size distributions (PSDs) in a beach/shallow marine sedimentary environment in Gijón Bay (NW Spain). The work involved both Functional Principal Components Analysis (FPCA) and Functional Cluster Analysis (FCA). The grainsize of the sand samples was characterized by means of laser dispersion spectroscopy. Within this framework, FPCA was used as a dimension reduction technique to explore and uncover patterns in grain-size frequency curves. This procedure proved useful to describe variability in the structure of the data set. Moreover, an alternative approach, FCA, was applied to identify clusters and to interpret their spatial distribution. Results obtained with this latter technique were compared with those obtained by means of two vector approaches that combine PCA with CA (Cluster Analysis). The first method, the point density function (PDF), was employed after adapting a log-normal distribution to each PSD and resuming each of the density functions by its mean, sorting, skewness and kurtosis. The second applied a centered-log-ratio (clr) to the original data. PCA was then applied to the transformed data, and finally CA to the retained principal component scores. The study revealed functional data analysis, specifically FPCA and FCA, as a suitable alternative with considerable advantages over traditional vector analysis techniques in sedimentary geology studies.

Pilot Scale Application of a Method for the Analysis of Perfluorinated Compounds in Surface Soils

EPA Science Inventory

A growing number of studies now indicate that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are globally distributed in the environment. Their widespread distribution and presence in remote locations has led to questions about the importance of atmospheric and oceanic transport. Describing the...

Distribution and Diversity of Symbiotic Thermophiles, Symbiobacterium thermophilum and Related Bacteria, in Natural Environments

PubMed Central

Ueda, Kenji; Ohno, Michiyo; Yamamoto, Kaori; Nara, Hanae; Mori, Yujiro; Shimada, Masafumi; Hayashi, Masahiko; Oida, Hanako; Terashima, Yuko; Nagata, Mitsuyo; Beppu, Teruhiko

2001-01-01

Symbiobacterium thermophilum is a tryptophanase-positive thermophile which shows normal growth only in coculture with its supporting bacteria. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene (rDNA) indicated that the bacterium belongs to a novel phylogenetic branch at the outermost position of the gram-positive bacterial group without clustering to any other known genus. Here we describe the distribution and diversity of S. thermophilum and related bacteria in the environment. Thermostable tryptophanase activity and amplification of the specific 16S rDNA fragment were effectively employed to detect the presence of Symbiobacterium. Enrichment with kanamycin raised detection sensitivity. Mixed cultures of thermophiles containing Symbiobacterium species were frequently obtained from compost, soil, animal feces, and contents in the intestinal tracts, as well as feeds. Phylogenetic analysis and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of the specific 16S rDNA amplicons revealed a diversity of this group of bacteria in the environment. PMID:11525967

Distribution of Bathyarchaeota Communities Across Different Terrestrial Settings and Their Potential Ecological Functions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiang, Xing; Wang, Ruicheng; Wang, Hongmei; Gong, Linfeng; Man, Baiying; Xu, Ying

2017-03-01

High abundance and widespread distribution of the archaeal phylum Bathyarchaeota in marine environment have been recognized recently, but knowledge about Bathyarchaeota in terrestrial settings and their correlation with environmental parameters is fairly limited. Here we reported the abundance of Bathyarchaeota members across different ecosystems and their correlation with environmental factors by constructing 16S rRNA clone libraries of peat from the Dajiuhu Peatland, coupling with bioinformatics analysis of 16S rRNA data available to date in NCBI database. In total, 1456 Bathyarchaeota sequences from 28 sites were subjected to UniFrac analysis based on phylogenetic distance and multivariate regression tree analysis of taxonomy. Both phylogenetic and taxon-based approaches showed that salinity, total organic carbon and temperature significantly influenced the distribution of Bathyarchaeota across different terrestrial habitats. By applying the ecological concept of ‘indicator species’, we identify 9 indicator groups among the 6 habitats with the most in the estuary sediments. Network analysis showed that members of Bathyarchaeota formed the “backbone” of archaeal community and often co-occurred with Methanomicrobia. These results suggest that Bathyarchaeota may play an important ecological role within archaeal communities via a potential symbiotic association with Methanomicrobia. Our results shed light on understanding of the biogeography, potential functions of Bathyarchaeota and environment conditions that influence Bathyarchaea distribution in terrestrial settings.

Biogeography of anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria

PubMed Central

Sonthiphand, Puntipar; Hall, Michael W.; Neufeld, Josh D.

2014-01-01

Anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria are able to oxidize ammonia and reduce nitrite to produce N2 gas. After being discovered in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), anammox bacteria were subsequently characterized in natural environments, including marine, estuary, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. Although anammox bacteria play an important role in removing fixed N from both engineered and natural ecosystems, broad scale anammox bacterial distributions have not yet been summarized. The objectives of this study were to explore global distributions and diversity of anammox bacteria and to identify factors that influence their biogeography. Over 6000 anammox 16S rRNA gene sequences from the public database were analyzed in this current study. Data ordinations indicated that salinity was an important factor governing anammox bacterial distributions, with distinct populations inhabiting natural and engineered ecosystems. Gene phylogenies and rarefaction analysis demonstrated that freshwater environments and the marine water column harbored the highest and the lowest diversity of anammox bacteria, respectively. Co-occurrence network analysis indicated that Ca. Scalindua strongly connected with other Ca. Scalindua taxa, whereas Ca. Brocadia co-occurred with taxa from both known and unknown anammox genera. Our survey provides a better understanding of ecological factors affecting anammox bacterial distributions and provides a comprehensive baseline for understanding the relationships among anammox communities in global environments. PMID:25147546

Biogeography of anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria.

PubMed

Sonthiphand, Puntipar; Hall, Michael W; Neufeld, Josh D

2014-01-01

Anaerobic ammonia-oxidizing (anammox) bacteria are able to oxidize ammonia and reduce nitrite to produce N2 gas. After being discovered in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), anammox bacteria were subsequently characterized in natural environments, including marine, estuary, freshwater, and terrestrial habitats. Although anammox bacteria play an important role in removing fixed N from both engineered and natural ecosystems, broad scale anammox bacterial distributions have not yet been summarized. The objectives of this study were to explore global distributions and diversity of anammox bacteria and to identify factors that influence their biogeography. Over 6000 anammox 16S rRNA gene sequences from the public database were analyzed in this current study. Data ordinations indicated that salinity was an important factor governing anammox bacterial distributions, with distinct populations inhabiting natural and engineered ecosystems. Gene phylogenies and rarefaction analysis demonstrated that freshwater environments and the marine water column harbored the highest and the lowest diversity of anammox bacteria, respectively. Co-occurrence network analysis indicated that Ca. Scalindua strongly connected with other Ca. Scalindua taxa, whereas Ca. Brocadia co-occurred with taxa from both known and unknown anammox genera. Our survey provides a better understanding of ecological factors affecting anammox bacterial distributions and provides a comprehensive baseline for understanding the relationships among anammox communities in global environments.

Spatial distributions of Pseudomonas fluorescens colony variants in mixed-culture biofilms.

PubMed

Workentine, Matthew L; Wang, Siyuan; Ceri, Howard; Turner, Raymond J

2013-07-28

The emergence of colony morphology variants in structured environments is being recognized as important to both niche specialization and stress tolerance. Pseudomonas fluorescens demonstrates diversity in both its natural environment, the rhizosphere, and in laboratory grown biofilms. Sub-populations of these variants within a biofilm have been suggested as important contributors to antimicrobial stress tolerance given their altered susceptibility to various agents. As such it is of interest to determine how these variants might be distributed in the biofilm environment. Here we present an analysis of the spatial distribution of Pseudomonas fluorescens colony morphology variants in mixed-culture biofilms with the wildtype phenotype. These findings reveal that two variant colony morphotypes demonstrate a significant growth advantage over the wildtype morphotype in the biofilm environment. The two variant morphotypes out-grew the wildtype across the entire biofilm and this occurred within 24 h and was maintained through to 96 h. This competitive advantage was not observed in homogeneous broth culture. The significant advantage that the variants demonstrate in biofilm colonization over the wildtype denotes the importance of this phenotype in structured environments.

Quantifying Low Energy Proton Damage in Multijunction Solar Cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Messenger, Scott R.; Burke, Edward A.; Walters, Robert J.; Warner, Jeffrey H.; Summers, Geoffrey P.; Lorentzen, Justin R.; Morton, Thomas L.; Taylor, Steven J.

2007-01-01

An analysis of the effects of low energy proton irradiation on the electrical performance of triple junction (3J) InGaP2/GaAs/Ge solar cells is presented. The Monte Carlo ion transport code (SRIM) is used to simulate the damage profile induced in a 3J solar cell under the conditions of typical ground testing and that of the space environment. The results are used to present a quantitative analysis of the defect, and hence damage, distribution induced in the cell active region by the different radiation conditions. The modelling results show that, in the space environment, the solar cell will experience a uniform damage distribution through the active region of the cell. Through an application of the displacement damage dose analysis methodology, the implications of this result on mission performance predictions are investigated.

Multichannel/Multisensor Signal Processing In Uncertain Environments With Application To Multitarget Tracking.

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-05-22

NUMBER PR-98-1 T. SPONSORING / MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Office of Naval Research Ballston Center Tower One One North Quincy...unlimited. 12 b. DISTRIBUTION CODE 19980601 082 13. ABSTRACT (Maximum 200 words) This research project is concerned with two distinct aspects of analysis...Environments With Application To Multitarget Tracking This research project is concerned with two distinct aspects of analysis and processing of sig

Internet-based distributed collaborative environment for engineering education and design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Qiuli

2001-07-01

This research investigates the use of the Internet for engineering education, design, and analysis through the presentation of a Virtual City environment. The main focus of this research was to provide an infrastructure for engineering education, test the concept of distributed collaborative design and analysis, develop and implement the Virtual City environment, and assess the environment's effectiveness in the real world. A three-tier architecture was adopted in the development of the prototype, which contains an online database server, a Web server as well as multi-user servers, and client browsers. The environment is composed of five components, a 3D virtual world, multiple Internet-based multimedia modules, an online database, a collaborative geometric modeling module, and a collaborative analysis module. The environment was designed using multiple Intenet-based technologies, such as Shockwave, Java, Java 3D, VRML, Perl, ASP, SQL, and a database. These various technologies together formed the basis of the environment and were programmed to communicate smoothly with each other. Three assessments were conducted over a period of three semesters. The Virtual City is open to the public at www.vcity.ou.edu. The online database was designed to manage the changeable data related to the environment. The virtual world was used to implement 3D visualization and tie the multimedia modules together. Students are allowed to build segments of the 3D virtual world upon completion of appropriate undergraduate courses in civil engineering. The end result is a complete virtual world that contains designs from all of their coursework and is viewable on the Internet. The environment is a content-rich educational system, which can be used to teach multiple engineering topics with the help of 3D visualization, animations, and simulations. The concept of collaborative design and analysis using the Internet was investigated and implemented. Geographically dispersed users can build the same geometric model simultaneously over the Internet and communicate with each other through a chat room. They can also conduct finite element analysis collaboratively on the same object over the Internet. They can mesh the same object, apply and edit the same boundary conditions and forces, obtain the same analysis results, and then discuss the results through the Internet.

PERTS: A Prototyping Environment for Real-Time Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Jane W. S.; Lin, Kwei-Jay; Liu, C. L.

1991-01-01

We discuss an ongoing project to build a Prototyping Environment for Real-Time Systems, called PERTS. PERTS is a unique prototyping environment in that it has (1) tools and performance models for the analysis and evaluation of real-time prototype systems, (2) building blocks for flexible real-time programs and the support system software, (3) basic building blocks of distributed and intelligent real time applications, and (4) an execution environment. PERTS will make the recent and future theoretical advances in real-time system design and engineering readily usable to practitioners. In particular, it will provide an environment for the use and evaluation of new design approaches, for experimentation with alternative system building blocks and for the analysis and performance profiling of prototype real-time systems.

Supporting shared data structures on distributed memory architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Koelbel, Charles; Mehrotra, Piyush; Vanrosendale, John

1990-01-01

Programming nonshared memory systems is more difficult than programming shared memory systems, since there is no support for shared data structures. Current programming languages for distributed memory architectures force the user to decompose all data structures into separate pieces, with each piece owned by one of the processors in the machine, and with all communication explicitly specified by low-level message-passing primitives. A new programming environment is presented for distributed memory architectures, providing a global name space and allowing direct access to remote parts of data values. The analysis and program transformations required to implement this environment are described, and the efficiency of the resulting code on the NCUBE/7 and IPSC/2 hypercubes are described.

[Dynamic monitoring and analysis of ecological environment in Weinan City, Northwest China based on RSEI model].

PubMed

Song, Hui Min; Xue, Liang

2016-12-01

Based on the data of remote sensing images from Landsat in 1995 and 2015, this paper used the principal component analysis (PCA) method to determine the weights of four ecological indexes (greenness, dryness, wetness and heat), and then selected a evaluation model of remote sensing based ecological index (RSEI) to monitor and analyze the ecological environment quality of Weinan City from 1995 to 2015. The results showed that the mean values of RSEI in Weinan City increased from 0.489 to 0.556 during 1995-2015, which indicated the ecological environment qua-lity had been improved. The improved area of ecological quality was mainly distributed in the central area of Weinan City and its proportion was 49.6%. While the proportion of ecological environment degradation was 15.4%, and such areas were mainly distributed in some mine areas of Hancheng City and the southern Weinan (Weinan Section in North Qinling Mountains). The quality of ecolo-gical environment was greatly influenced by the urban planning and construction in the study area. Generally, the ecological condition of Weinan City had been improved, which benefited from the attention and investment of government.

Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment - Propulsion Related Module Development and Vehicle Integration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kamhawi, Hilmi N.

2013-01-01

This report documents the work performed during the period from May 2011 - October 2012 on the Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) environment. IDEA is a collaborative environment based on an object-oriented, multidisciplinary, distributed framework using the Adaptive Modeling Language (AML). This report will focus on describing the work done in the areas of: (1) Integrating propulsion data (turbines, rockets, and scramjets) in the system, and using the data to perform trajectory analysis; (2) Developing a parametric packaging strategy for a hypersonic air breathing vehicles allowing for tank resizing when multiple fuels and/or oxidizer are part of the configuration; and (3) Vehicle scaling and closure strategies.

Preparation, testing and analysis of zinc diffusion samples, NASA Skylab experiment M-558

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Braski, D. N.; Kobisk, E. H.; Odonnell, F. R.

1974-01-01

Transport mechanisms of zinc atoms in molten zinc were investigated by radiotracer techniques in unit and in near-zero gravity environments. Each melt in the Skylab flight experiments was maintained in a thermal gradient of 420 C to 790 C. Similar tests were performed in a unit gravity environment for comparison. After melting in the gradient furnace followed by a thermal soak period (the latter was used for flight samples only), the samples were cooled and analyzed for Zn-65 distribution. All samples melted in a unit gravity environment were found to have uniform Zn-65 distribution - no concentration gradient was observed even when the sample was brought rapidly to melting and then quenched. Space-melted samples, however, showed textbook distributions, obviously the result of diffusion. It was evident that convection phenomena were the dominant factors influencing zinc transport in unit gravity experiments, while diffusion was the dominant factor in near-zero gravity experiments.

Rapid Analysis of Mass Distribution of Radiation Shielding

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zapp, Edward

2007-01-01

Radiation Shielding Evaluation Toolset (RADSET) is a computer program that rapidly calculates the spatial distribution of mass of an arbitrary structure for use in ray-tracing analysis of the radiation-shielding properties of the structure. RADSET was written to be used in conjunction with unmodified commercial computer-aided design (CAD) software that provides access to data on the structure and generates selected three-dimensional-appearing views of the structure. RADSET obtains raw geometric, material, and mass data on the structure from the CAD software. From these data, RADSET calculates the distribution(s) of the masses of specific materials about any user-specified point(s). The results of these mass-distribution calculations are imported back into the CAD computing environment, wherein the radiation-shielding calculations are performed.

GIS-based poverty and population distribution analysis in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cui, Jing; Wang, Yingjie; Yan, Hong

2009-07-01

Geographically, poverty status is not only related with social-economic factors but also strongly affected by geographical environment. In the paper, GIS-based poverty and population distribution analysis method is introduced for revealing their regional differences. More than 100000 poor villages and 592 national key poor counties are chosen for the analysis. The results show that poverty distribution tends to concentrate in most of west China and mountainous rural areas of mid China. Furthermore, the fifth census data are overlaid to those poor areas in order to gain its internal diversity of social-economic characteristics. By overlaying poverty related social-economic parameters, such as sex ratio, illiteracy, education level, percentage of ethnic minorities, family composition, finding shows that poverty distribution is strongly correlated with high illiteracy rate, high percentage minorities, and larger family member.

Distribution and Diversity of Organic and Biological Signatures in Soils From the Atacama Desert

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sharma, Aditi

2005-01-01

The Atacama Desert is amongst the driest places on Earth. It is considered to be a suitable analog for the Martian surface in which to conduct studies of life and life detection. Soil samples were collected in June 2005 from the Atacama Desert and analyzed in the lab for amino acid content. HPLC was the primary tool used to analyze samples. The amino acids of interest are aspartic acid, serine, glutamic acid, glycine, and alanine. D and L isomers of each amino acid (except for glycine) were separated through HPLC. The purpose of this study is to find correlations between location of the sample collection sites and amino acid content as well as D/L isomer ratios in order to formulate theories of how different types of environments may affect the abundance and distribution of life forms. Initial analysis of data shows a general lack of or slight correlation between location and amino acid content. Some data appears to contradict the hypothesis that harsher environments would have lower amino acid content than less harsh environments. Further analysis of data is needed to come up with a more conclusive report of the distribution of amino acids in the Atacama Desert.

Atom Probe Tomographic Mapping Directly Reveals the Atomic Distribution of Phosphorus in Resin Embedded Ferritin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perea, Daniel E.; Liu, Jia; Bartrand, Jonah; Dicken, Quinten; Thevuthasan, S. Theva; Browning, Nigel D.; Evans, James E.

2016-02-01

Here we report the atomic-scale analysis of biological interfaces within the ferritin protein using atom probe tomography that is facilitated by an advanced specimen preparation approach. Embedding ferritin in an organic polymer resin lacking nitrogen provided chemical contrast to visualise atomic distributions and distinguish the inorganic-organic interface of the ferrihydrite mineral core and protein shell, as well as the organic-organic interface between the ferritin protein shell and embedding resin. In addition, we definitively show the atomic-scale distribution of phosphorus as being at the surface of the ferrihydrite mineral with the distribution of sodium mapped within the protein shell environment with an enhanced distribution at the mineral/protein interface. The sample preparation method is robust and can be directly extended to further enhance the study of biological, organic and inorganic nanomaterials relevant to health, energy or the environment.

Atom Probe Tomographic Mapping Directly Reveals the Atomic Distribution of Phosphorus in Resin Embedded Ferritin

PubMed Central

Perea, Daniel E.; Liu, Jia; Bartrand, Jonah; Dicken, Quinten; Thevuthasan, S. Theva; Browning, Nigel D.; Evans, James E.

2016-01-01

Here we report the atomic-scale analysis of biological interfaces within the ferritin protein using atom probe tomography that is facilitated by an advanced specimen preparation approach. Embedding ferritin in an organic polymer resin lacking nitrogen provided chemical contrast to visualise atomic distributions and distinguish the inorganic-organic interface of the ferrihydrite mineral core and protein shell, as well as the organic-organic interface between the ferritin protein shell and embedding resin. In addition, we definitively show the atomic-scale distribution of phosphorus as being at the surface of the ferrihydrite mineral with the distribution of sodium mapped within the protein shell environment with an enhanced distribution at the mineral/protein interface. The sample preparation method is robust and can be directly extended to further enhance the study of biological, organic and inorganic nanomaterials relevant to health, energy or the environment. PMID:26924804

Workers' Participation and the Distribution of Control as Perceived by Members of Ten German Companies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bartolke, Klaus; And Others

1982-01-01

A survey of 601 managers and workers in 10 German manufacturing companies studied the implications of workers' participation for the exercise of control. Statistical analysis of data on control over work environments, production organization, personnel, and finance indicated that, in more participative companies, distribution of control is more…

A distributed analysis and visualization system for model and observational data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilhelmson, Robert B.

1994-01-01

Software was developed with NASA support to aid in the analysis and display of the massive amounts of data generated from satellites, observational field programs, and from model simulations. This software was developed in the context of the PATHFINDER (Probing ATmospHeric Flows in an Interactive and Distributed EnviRonment) Project. The overall aim of this project is to create a flexible, modular, and distributed environment for data handling, modeling simulations, data analysis, and visualization of atmospheric and fluid flows. Software completed with NASA support includes GEMPAK analysis, data handling, and display modules for which collaborators at NASA had primary responsibility, and prototype software modules for three-dimensional interactive and distributed control and display as well as data handling, for which NSCA was responsible. Overall process control was handled through a scientific and visualization application builder from Silicon Graphics known as the Iris Explorer. In addition, the GEMPAK related work (GEMVIS) was also ported to the Advanced Visualization System (AVS) application builder. Many modules were developed to enhance those already available in Iris Explorer including HDF file support, improved visualization and display, simple lattice math, and the handling of metadata through development of a new grid datatype. Complete source and runtime binaries along with on-line documentation is available via the World Wide Web at: http://redrock.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ PATHFINDER/pathre12/top/top.html.

Population genetic analysis and bioclimatic modeling in Agave striata in the Chihuahuan Desert indicate higher genetic variation and lower differentiation in drier and more variable environments.

PubMed

Trejo, Laura; Alvarado-Cárdenas, Leonardo O; Scheinvar, Enrique; Eguiarte, Luis E

2016-06-01

Is there an association between bioclimatic variables and genetic variation within species? This question can be approached by a detailed analysis of population genetics parameters along environmental gradients in recently originated species (so genetic drift does not further obscure the patterns). The genus Agave, with more than 200 recent species encompassing a diversity of morphologies and distributional patterns, is an adequate system for such analyses. We studied Agave striata, a widely distributed species from the Chihuahuan Desert, with a distinctive iteroparous reproductive ecology and two recognized subspecies with clear morphological differences. We used population genetic analyses along with bioclimatic studies to understand the effect of environment on the genetic variation and differentiation of this species. We analyzed six populations of the subspecies A. striata subsp. striata, with a southern distribution, and six populations of A. striata subsp. falcata, with a northern distribution, using 48 ISSR loci and a total of 541 individuals (averaging 45 individuals per population). We assessed correlations between population genetics parameters (the levels of genetic variation and differentiation) and the bioclimatic variables of each population. We modeled each subspecies distribution and used linear correlations and multifactorial analysis of variance. Genetic variation (measured as expected heterozygosity) increased at higher latitudes. Higher levels of genetic variation in populations were associated with a higher variation in environmental temperature and lower precipitation. Stronger population differentiation was associated with wetter and more variable precipitation in the southern distribution of the species. The two subspecies have genetic differences, which coincide with their climatic differences and potential distributions. Differences in genetic variation among populations and the genetic differentiation between A. striata subsp. striata and A. striata subsp. falcata is correlated with differences in environmental climatic variables along their distribution. We found two distinct gene pools that suggest active differentiation and perhaps incipient speciation. The detected association between genetic variation and environment variables indicates that climatic variables are playing an important role in the differentiation of A. striata. © 2016 Botanical Society of America.

The YNP Metagenome Project: Environmental Parameters Responsible for Microbial Distribution in the Yellowstone Geothermal Ecosystem

PubMed Central

Inskeep, William P.; Jay, Zackary J.; Tringe, Susannah G.; Herrgård, Markus J.; Rusch, Douglas B.

2013-01-01

The Yellowstone geothermal complex contains over 10,000 diverse geothermal features that host numerous phylogenetically deeply rooted and poorly understood archaea, bacteria, and viruses. Microbial communities in high-temperature environments are generally less diverse than soil, marine, sediment, or lake habitats and therefore offer a tremendous opportunity for studying the structure and function of different model microbial communities using environmental metagenomics. One of the broader goals of this study was to establish linkages among microbial distribution, metabolic potential, and environmental variables. Twenty geochemically distinct geothermal ecosystems representing a broad spectrum of Yellowstone hot-spring environments were used for metagenomic and geochemical analysis and included approximately equal numbers of: (1) phototrophic mats, (2) “filamentous streamer” communities, and (3) archaeal-dominated sediments. The metagenomes were analyzed using a suite of complementary and integrative bioinformatic tools, including phylogenetic and functional analysis of both individual sequence reads and assemblies of predominant phylotypes. This volume identifies major environmental determinants of a large number of thermophilic microbial lineages, many of which have not been fully described in the literature nor previously cultivated to enable functional and genomic analyses. Moreover, protein family abundance comparisons and in-depth analyses of specific genes and metabolic pathways relevant to these hot-spring environments reveal hallmark signatures of metabolic capabilities that parallel the distribution of phylotypes across specific types of geochemical environments. PMID:23653623

Insights into the ecology, evolution, and metabolism of the widespread Woesearchaeotal lineages.

PubMed

Liu, Xiaobo; Li, Meng; Castelle, Cindy J; Probst, Alexander J; Zhou, Zhichao; Pan, Jie; Liu, Yang; Banfield, Jillian F; Gu, Ji-Dong

2018-06-08

As a recently discovered member of the DPANN superphylum, Woesearchaeota account for a wide diversity of 16S rRNA gene sequences, but their ecology, evolution, and metabolism remain largely unknown. Here, we assembled 133 global clone libraries/studies and 19 publicly available genomes to profile these patterns for Woesearchaeota. Phylogenetic analysis shows a high diversity with 26 proposed subgroups for this recently discovered archaeal phylum, which are widely distributed in different biotopes but primarily in inland anoxic environments. Ecological patterns analysis and ancestor state reconstruction for specific subgroups reveal that oxic status of the environments is the key factor driving the distribution and evolutionary diversity of Woesearchaeota. A selective distribution to different biotopes and an adaptive colonization from anoxic to oxic environments can be proposed and supported by evidence of the presence of ferredoxin-dependent pathways in the genomes only from anoxic biotopes but not from oxic biotopes. Metabolic reconstructions support an anaerobic heterotrophic lifestyle with conspicuous metabolic deficiencies, suggesting the requirement for metabolic complementarity with other microbes. Both lineage abundance distribution and co-occurrence network analyses across diverse biotopes confirmed metabolic complementation and revealed a potential syntrophic relationship between Woesearchaeota and methanogens, which is supported by metabolic modeling. If correct, Woesearchaeota may impact methanogenesis in inland ecosystems. The findings provide an ecological and evolutionary framework for Woesearchaeota at a global scale and indicate their potential ecological roles, especially in methanogenesis.

A Bayesian Poisson-lognormal Model for Count Data for Multiple-Trait Multiple-Environment Genomic-Enabled Prediction

PubMed Central

Montesinos-López, Osval A.; Montesinos-López, Abelardo; Crossa, José; Toledo, Fernando H.; Montesinos-López, José C.; Singh, Pawan; Juliana, Philomin; Salinas-Ruiz, Josafhat

2017-01-01

When a plant scientist wishes to make genomic-enabled predictions of multiple traits measured in multiple individuals in multiple environments, the most common strategy for performing the analysis is to use a single trait at a time taking into account genotype × environment interaction (G × E), because there is a lack of comprehensive models that simultaneously take into account the correlated counting traits and G × E. For this reason, in this study we propose a multiple-trait and multiple-environment model for count data. The proposed model was developed under the Bayesian paradigm for which we developed a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) with noninformative priors. This allows obtaining all required full conditional distributions of the parameters leading to an exact Gibbs sampler for the posterior distribution. Our model was tested with simulated data and a real data set. Results show that the proposed multi-trait, multi-environment model is an attractive alternative for modeling multiple count traits measured in multiple environments. PMID:28364037

SoS Notebook: An Interactive Multi-Language Data Analysis Environment.

PubMed

Peng, Bo; Wang, Gao; Ma, Jun; Leong, Man Chong; Wakefield, Chris; Melott, James; Chiu, Yulun; Du, Di; Weinstein, John N

2018-05-22

Complex bioinformatic data analysis workflows involving multiple scripts in different languages can be difficult to consolidate, share, and reproduce. An environment that streamlines the entire processes of data collection, analysis, visualization and reporting of such multi-language analyses is currently lacking. We developed Script of Scripts (SoS) Notebook, a web-based notebook environment that allows the use of multiple scripting language in a single notebook, with data flowing freely within and across languages. SoS Notebook enables researchers to perform sophisticated bioinformatic analysis using the most suitable tools for different parts of the workflow, without the limitations of a particular language or complications of cross-language communications. SoS Notebook is hosted at http://vatlab.github.io/SoS/ and is distributed under a BSD license. bpeng@mdanderson.org.

BioconductorBuntu: a Linux distribution that implements a web-based DNA microarray analysis server.

PubMed

Geeleher, Paul; Morris, Dermot; Hinde, John P; Golden, Aaron

2009-06-01

BioconductorBuntu is a custom distribution of Ubuntu Linux that automatically installs a server-side microarray processing environment, providing a user-friendly web-based GUI to many of the tools developed by the Bioconductor Project, accessible locally or across a network. System installation is via booting off a CD image or by using a Debian package provided to upgrade an existing Ubuntu installation. In its current version, several microarray analysis pipelines are supported including oligonucleotide, dual-or single-dye experiments, including post-processing with Gene Set Enrichment Analysis. BioconductorBuntu is designed to be extensible, by server-side integration of further relevant Bioconductor modules as required, facilitated by its straightforward underlying Python-based infrastructure. BioconductorBuntu offers an ideal environment for the development of processing procedures to facilitate the analysis of next-generation sequencing datasets. BioconductorBuntu is available for download under a creative commons license along with additional documentation and a tutorial from (http://bioinf.nuigalway.ie).

Development of a Dmt Monitor for Statistical Tracking of Gravitational-Wave Burst Triggers Generated from the Omega Pipeline

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jun-Wei; Cao, Jun-Wei

2010-04-01

One challenge in large-scale scientific data analysis is to monitor data in real-time in a distributed environment. For the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) project, a dedicated suit of data monitoring tools (DMT) has been developed, yielding good extensibility to new data type and high flexibility to a distributed environment. Several services are provided, including visualization of data information in various forms and file output of monitoring results. In this work, a DMT monitor, OmegaMon, is developed for tracking statistics of gravitational-wave (OW) burst triggers that are generated from a specific OW burst data analysis pipeline, the Omega Pipeline. Such results can provide diagnostic information as reference of trigger post-processing and interferometer maintenance.

Security Analysis of Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution in Collective-Rotation Noisy Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Na; Zhang, Yu; Wen, Shuang; Li, Lei-lei; Li, Jian

2018-01-01

Noise is a problem that communication channels cannot avoid. It is, thus, beneficial to analyze the security of MDI-QKD in noisy environment. An analysis model for collective-rotation noise is introduced, and the information theory methods are used to analyze the security of the protocol. The maximum amount of information that Eve can eavesdrop is 50%, and the eavesdropping can always be detected if the noise level ɛ ≤ 0.68. Therefore, MDI-QKD protocol is secure as quantum key distribution protocol. The maximum probability that the relay outputs successful results is 16% when existing eavesdropping. Moreover, the probability that the relay outputs successful results when existing eavesdropping is higher than the situation without eavesdropping. The paper validates that MDI-QKD protocol has better robustness.

An analysis of the orbital distribution of solid rocket motor slag

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horstman, Matthew F.; Mulrooney, Mark

2009-01-01

The contribution by solid rocket motors (SRMs) to the orbital debris environment is potentially significant and insufficiently studied. Design and combustion processes can lead to the emission of enough by-products to warrant assessment of their contribution to orbital debris. These particles are formed during SRM tail-off, or burn termination, by the rapid solidification of molten Al2O3 slag accumulated during the burn. The propensity of SRMs to generate particles larger than 100μm raises concerns regarding the debris environment. Sizes as large as 1 cm have been witnessed in ground tests, and comparable sizes have been estimated via observations of sub-orbital tail-off events. Utilizing previous research we have developed more sophisticated size distributions and modeled the time evolution of resultant orbital populations using a historical database of SRM launches, propellant, and likely location and time of tail-off. This analysis indicates that SRM ejecta is a significant component of the debris environment.

Optical granulometric analysis of sedimentary deposits by color segmentation-based software: OPTGRAN-CS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chávez, G. Moreno; Sarocchi, D.; Santana, E. Arce; Borselli, L.

2015-12-01

The study of grain size distribution is fundamental for understanding sedimentological environments. Through these analyses, clast erosion, transport and deposition processes can be interpreted and modeled. However, grain size distribution analysis can be difficult in some outcrops due to the number and complexity of the arrangement of clasts and matrix and their physical size. Despite various technological advances, it is almost impossible to get the full grain size distribution (blocks to sand grain size) with a single method or instrument of analysis. For this reason development in this area continues to be fundamental. In recent years, various methods of particle size analysis by automatic image processing have been developed, due to their potential advantages with respect to classical ones; speed and final detailed content of information (virtually for each analyzed particle). In this framework, we have developed a novel algorithm and software for grain size distribution analysis, based on color image segmentation using an entropy-controlled quadratic Markov measure field algorithm and the Rosiwal method for counting intersections between clast and linear transects in the images. We test the novel algorithm in different sedimentary deposit types from 14 varieties of sedimentological environments. The results of the new algorithm were compared with grain counts performed manually by the same Rosiwal methods applied by experts. The new algorithm has the same accuracy as a classical manual count process, but the application of this innovative methodology is much easier and dramatically less time-consuming. The final productivity of the new software for analysis of clasts deposits after recording field outcrop images can be increased significantly.

78 FR 79657 - Availability of an Environmental Assessment for Issuance of a Permit for Distribution and Sale of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-12-31

... DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service [Docket No. APHIS-2013-0093... environment. Based on the risk analysis and other relevant data, we have reached a preliminary determination... environment and that an environmental impact statement need not be prepared. We intend to authorize shipment...

Biodiversity and distribution of polar freshwater DNA viruses

PubMed Central

Aguirre de Cárcer, Daniel; López-Bueno, Alberto; Pearce, David A.; Alcamí, Antonio

2015-01-01

Viruses constitute the most abundant biological entities and a large reservoir of genetic diversity on Earth. Despite the recent surge in their study, our knowledge on their actual biodiversity and distribution remains sparse. We report the first metagenomic analysis of Arctic freshwater viral DNA communities and a comparative analysis with other freshwater environments. Arctic viromes are dominated by unknown and single-stranded DNA viruses with no close relatives in the database. These unique viral DNA communities mostly relate to each other and present some minor genetic overlap with other environments studied, including an Arctic Ocean virome. Despite common environmental conditions in polar ecosystems, the Arctic and Antarctic DNA viromes differ at the fine-grain genetic level while sharing a similar taxonomic composition. The study uncovers some viral lineages with a bipolar distribution, suggesting a global dispersal capacity for viruses, and seemingly indicates that viruses do not follow the latitudinal diversity gradient known for macroorganisms. Our study sheds light into the global biogeography and connectivity of viral communities. PMID:26601189

Job Superscheduler Architecture and Performance in Computational Grid Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shan, Hongzhang; Oliker, Leonid; Biswas, Rupak

2003-01-01

Computational grids hold great promise in utilizing geographically separated heterogeneous resources to solve large-scale complex scientific problems. However, a number of major technical hurdles, including distributed resource management and effective job scheduling, stand in the way of realizing these gains. In this paper, we propose a novel grid superscheduler architecture and three distributed job migration algorithms. We also model the critical interaction between the superscheduler and autonomous local schedulers. Extensive performance comparisons with ideal, central, and local schemes using real workloads from leading computational centers are conducted in a simulation environment. Additionally, synthetic workloads are used to perform a detailed sensitivity analysis of our superscheduler. Several key metrics demonstrate that substantial performance gains can be achieved via smart superscheduling in distributed computational grids.

Automated pattern analysis: A newsilent partner in insect acoustic detection studies

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

This seminar reviews methods that have been developed for automated analysis of field-collected sounds used to estimate pest populations and guide insect pest management decisions. Several examples are presented of successful usage of acoustic technology to map insect distributions in field environ...

CloudMan as a platform for tool, data, and analysis distribution.

PubMed

Afgan, Enis; Chapman, Brad; Taylor, James

2012-11-27

Cloud computing provides an infrastructure that facilitates large scale computational analysis in a scalable, democratized fashion, However, in this context it is difficult to ensure sharing of an analysis environment and associated data in a scalable and precisely reproducible way. CloudMan (usecloudman.org) enables individual researchers to easily deploy, customize, and share their entire cloud analysis environment, including data, tools, and configurations. With the enabled customization and sharing of instances, CloudMan can be used as a platform for collaboration. The presented solution improves accessibility of cloud resources, tools, and data to the level of an individual researcher and contributes toward reproducibility and transparency of research solutions.

Sources and proxy potential of long chain alkyl diols in lacustrine environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rampen, Sebastiaan W.; Datema, Mariska; Rodrigo-Gámiz, Marta; Schouten, Stefan; Reichart, Gert-Jan; Sinninghe Damsté, Jaap S.

2014-11-01

Long chain 1,13- and 1,15-alkyl diols form the base of a number of recently proposed proxies used for climate reconstruction. However, the sources of these lipids and environmental controls on their distribution are still poorly constrained. We have analyzed the long chain alkyl diol (LCD) composition of cultures of ten eustigmatophyte species, with three species from different families grown at various temperatures, to identify the effect of species composition and growth temperature on the LCD distribution. The results were compared with the LCD distribution of sixty-two lake surface sediments, and with previously reported LCD distributions from marine environments. The different families within the Eustigmatophyceae show distinct LCD patterns, with the freshwater family Eustigmataceae most closely resembling LCD distributions in both marine and lake environments. Unlike the other two eustigmatophyte families analyzed (Monodopsidaceae and Goniochloridaceae), C28 and C30 1,13-alkyl diols and C30 and C32 1,15-alkyl diols are all relatively abundant in the family Eustigmataceae, while the mono-unsaturated C32 1,15-alkyl diol was below detection limit. In contrast to the marine environment, LCD distributions in lakes did not show a clear relationship with temperature. The Long chain Diol Index (LDI), a proxy previously proposed for sea surface temperature reconstruction, showed a relatively weak correlation (R2 = 0.33) with mean annual air temperature used as an approximation for annual mean surface temperature of the lakes. A much-improved correlation (R2 = 0.74, p-value <0.001) was observed applying a multiple linear regression analysis between LCD distributions and lake temperatures reconstructed using branched tetraether lipid distributions. The obtained regression model provides good estimates of temperatures for cultures of the family Eustigmataceae, suggesting that algae belonging to this family have an important role as a source for LCDs in lacustrine environments, or, alternatively, that the main sources of LCDs are similarly affected by temperature as the Eustigmataceae. The results suggest that LCDs may have the potential to be applicable as a palaeotemperature proxy for lacustrine environments, although further calibration work is still required.

Distributed collaborative decision support environments for predictive awareness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McQuay, William K.; Stilman, Boris; Yakhnis, Vlad

2005-05-01

The past decade has produced significant changes in the conduct of military operations: asymmetric warfare, the reliance on dynamic coalitions, stringent rules of engagement, increased concern about collateral damage, and the need for sustained air operations. Mission commanders need to assimilate a tremendous amount of information, rapidly assess the enemy"s course of action (eCOA) or possible actions and promulgate their own course of action (COA) - a need for predictive awareness. Decision support tools in a distributed collaborative environment offer the capability of decomposing complex multitask processes and distributing them over a dynamic set of execution assets that include modeling, simulations, and analysis tools. Revolutionary new approaches to strategy generation and assessment such as Linguistic Geometry (LG) permit the rapid development of COA vs. enemy COA (eCOA). LG tools automatically generate and permit the operators to take advantage of winning strategies and tactics for mission planning and execution in near real-time. LG is predictive and employs deep "look-ahead" from the current state and provides a realistic, reactive model of adversary reasoning and behavior. Collaborative environments provide the framework and integrate models, simulations, and domain specific decision support tools for the sharing and exchanging of data, information, knowledge, and actions. This paper describes ongoing research efforts in applying distributed collaborative environments to decision support for predictive mission awareness.

A statistical approach to the interpretation of aliphatic hydrocarbon distributions in marine sediments

USGS Publications Warehouse

Rapp, J.B.

1991-01-01

Q-mode factor analysis was used to quantitate the distribution of the major aliphatic hydrocarbon (n-alkanes, pristane, phytane) systems in sediments from a variety of marine environments. The compositions of the pure end members of the systems were obtained from factor scores and the distribution of the systems within each sample was obtained from factor loadings. All the data, from the diverse environments sampled (estuarine (San Francisco Bay), fresh-water (San Francisco Peninsula), polar-marine (Antarctica) and geothermal-marine (Gorda Ridge) sediments), were reduced to three major systems: a terrestrial system (mostly high molecular weight aliphatics with odd-numbered-carbon predominance), a mature system (mostly low molecular weight aliphatics without predominance) and a system containing mostly high molecular weight aliphatics with even-numbered-carbon predominance. With this statistical approach, it is possible to assign the percentage contribution from various sources to the observed distribution of aliphatic hydrocarbons in each sediment sample. ?? 1991.

Distributed interactive communication in simulated space-dwelling groups.

PubMed

Brady, Joseph V; Hienz, Robert D; Hursh, Steven R; Ragusa, Leonard C; Rouse, Charles O; Gasior, Eric D

2004-03-01

This report describes the development and preliminary application of an experimental test bed for modeling human behavior in the context of a computer generated environment to analyze the effects of variations in communication modalities, incentives and stressful conditions. In addition to detailing the methodological development of a simulated task environment that provides for electronic monitoring and recording of individual and group behavior, the initial substantive findings from an experimental analysis of distributed interactive communication in simulated space dwelling groups are described. Crews of three members each (male and female) participated in simulated "planetary missions" based upon a synthetic scenario task that required identification, collection, and analysis of geologic specimens with a range of grade values. The results of these preliminary studies showed clearly that cooperative and productive interactions were maintained between individually isolated and distributed individuals communicating and problem-solving effectively in a computer-generated "planetary" environment over extended time intervals without benefit of one another's physical presence. Studies on communication channel constraints confirmed the functional interchangeability between available modalities with the highest degree of interchangeability occurring between Audio and Text modes of communication. The effects of task-related incentives were determined by the conditions under which they were available with Positive Incentives effectively attenuating decrements in performance under stressful time pressure. c2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Scaling to diversity: The DERECHOS distributed infrastructure for analyzing and sharing data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rilee, M. L.; Kuo, K. S.; Clune, T.; Oloso, A.; Brown, P. G.

2016-12-01

Integrating Earth Science data from diverse sources such as satellite imagery and simulation output can be expensive and time-consuming, limiting scientific inquiry and the quality of our analyses. Reducing these costs will improve innovation and quality in science. The current Earth Science data infrastructure focuses on downloading data based on requests formed from the search and analysis of associated metadata. And while the data products provided by archives may use the best available data sharing technologies, scientist end-users generally do not have such resources (including staff) available to them. Furthermore, only once an end-user has received the data from multiple diverse sources and has integrated them can the actual analysis and synthesis begin. The cost of getting from idea to where synthesis can start dramatically slows progress. In this presentation we discuss a distributed computational and data storage framework that eliminates much of the aforementioned cost. The SciDB distributed array database is central as it is optimized for scientific computing involving very large arrays, performing better than less specialized frameworks like Spark. Adding spatiotemporal functions to the SciDB creates a powerful platform for analyzing and integrating massive, distributed datasets. SciDB allows Big Earth Data analysis to be performed "in place" without the need for expensive downloads and end-user resources. Spatiotemporal indexing technologies such as the hierarchical triangular mesh enable the compute and storage affinity needed to efficiently perform co-located and conditional analyses minimizing data transfers. These technologies automate the integration of diverse data sources using the framework, a critical step beyond current metadata search and analysis. Instead of downloading data into their idiosyncratic local environments, end-users can generate and share data products integrated from diverse multiple sources using a common shared environment, turning distributed active archive centers (DAACs) from warehouses into distributed active analysis centers.

Statistical, Graphical, and Learning Methods for Sensing, Surveillance, and Navigation Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-06-28

harsh propagation environments. Conventional filtering techniques fail to provide satisfactory performance in many important nonlinear or non...Gaussian scenarios. In addition, there is a lack of a unified methodology for the design and analysis of different filtering techniques. To address...these problems, we have proposed a new filtering methodology called belief condensation (BC) DISTRIBUTION A: Distribution approved for public release

Multi-site calibration, validation, and sensitivity analysis of the MIKE SHE Model for a large watershed in northern China

Treesearch

S. Wang; Z. Zhang; G. Sun; P. Strauss; J. Guo; Y. Tang; A. Yao

2012-01-01

Model calibration is essential for hydrologic modeling of large watersheds in a heterogeneous mountain environment. Little guidance is available for model calibration protocols for distributed models that aim at capturing the spatial variability of hydrologic processes. This study used the physically-based distributed hydrologic model, MIKE SHE, to contrast a lumped...

Rare earth element geochemistry of shallow carbonate outcropping strata in Saudi Arabia: Application for depositional environments prediction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eltom, Hassan A.; Abdullatif, Osman M.; Makkawi, Mohammed H.; Eltoum, Isam-Eldin A.

2017-03-01

The interpretation of depositional environments provides important information to understand facies distribution and geometry. The classical approach to interpret depositional environments principally relies on the analysis of lithofacies, biofacies and stratigraphic data, among others. An alternative method, based on geochemical data (chemical element data), is advantageous because it can simply, reproducibly and efficiently interpret and refine the interpretation of the depositional environment of carbonate strata. Here we geochemically analyze and statistically model carbonate samples (n = 156) from seven sections of the Arab-D reservoir outcrop analog of central Saudi Arabia, to determine whether the elemental signatures (major, trace and rare earth elements [REEs]) can be effectively used to predict depositional environments. We find that lithofacies associations of the studied outcrop (peritidal to open marine depositional environments) possess altered REE signatures, and that this trend increases stratigraphically from bottom-to-top, which corresponds to an upward shallowing of depositional environments. The relationship between REEs and major, minor and trace elements indicates that contamination by detrital materials is the principal source of REEs, whereas redox condition, marine and diagenetic processes have minimal impact on the relative distribution of REEs in the lithofacies. In a statistical model (factor analysis and logistic regression), REEs, major and trace elements cluster together and serve as markers to differentiate between peritidal and open marine facies and to differentiate between intertidal and subtidal lithofacies within the peritidal facies. The results indicate that statistical modelling of the elemental composition of carbonate strata can be used as a quantitative method to predict depositional environments and regional paleogeography. The significance of this study lies in offering new assessments of the relationships between lithofacies and geochemical elements by using advanced statistical analysis, a method that could be used elsewhere to interpret depositional environment and refine facies models.

PID temperature controller in pig nursery: spatial characterization of thermal environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Souza Granja Barros, Juliana; Rossi, Luiz Antonio; Menezes de Souza, Zigomar

2018-05-01

The use of enhanced technologies of temperature control can improve the thermal conditions in environments of livestock facilities. The objective of this study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of the thermal environment variables in a pig nursery with a heating system with two temperature control technologies based on the geostatistical analysis. The following systems were evaluated: overhead electrical resistance with Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controller and overhead electrical resistance with a thermostat. We evaluated the climatic variables: dry bulb temperature (Tbs), air relative humidity (RH), temperature and humidity index (THI), and enthalpy in the winter, at 7:00, 12:00, and 18:00 h. The spatial distribution of these variables was mapped by kriging. The results showed that the resistance heating system with PID controllers improved the thermal comfort conditions in the pig nursery in the coldest hours, maintaining the spatial distribution of the air temperature more homogeneous in the pen. During the hottest weather, neither system provided comfort.

PID temperature controller in pig nursery: spatial characterization of thermal environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Souza Granja Barros, Juliana; Rossi, Luiz Antonio; Menezes de Souza, Zigomar

2017-11-01

The use of enhanced technologies of temperature control can improve the thermal conditions in environments of livestock facilities. The objective of this study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of the thermal environment variables in a pig nursery with a heating system with two temperature control technologies based on the geostatistical analysis. The following systems were evaluated: overhead electrical resistance with Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controller and overhead electrical resistance with a thermostat. We evaluated the climatic variables: dry bulb temperature (Tbs), air relative humidity (RH), temperature and humidity index (THI), and enthalpy in the winter, at 7:00, 12:00, and 18:00 h. The spatial distribution of these variables was mapped by kriging. The results showed that the resistance heating system with PID controllers improved the thermal comfort conditions in the pig nursery in the coldest hours, maintaining the spatial distribution of the air temperature more homogeneous in the pen. During the hottest weather, neither system provided comfort.

Launch Vehicle Debris Models and Crew Vehicle Ascent Abort Risk

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gee, Ken; Lawrence, Scott

2013-01-01

For manned space launch systems, a reliable abort system is required to reduce the risks associated with a launch vehicle failure during ascent. Understanding the risks associated with failure environments can be achieved through the use of physics-based models of these environments. Debris fields due to destruction of the launch vehicle is one such environment. To better analyze the risk posed by debris, a physics-based model for generating launch vehicle debris catalogs has been developed. The model predicts the mass distribution of the debris field based on formulae developed from analysis of explosions. Imparted velocity distributions are computed using a shock-physics code to model the explosions within the launch vehicle. A comparison of the debris catalog with an existing catalog for the Shuttle external tank show good comparison in the debris characteristics and the predicted debris strike probability. The model is used to analyze the effects of number of debris pieces and velocity distributions on the strike probability and risk.

45 CFR 153.700 - Distributed data environment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Distributed data environment. 153.700 Section 153... Distributed Data Collection for HHS-Operated Programs § 153.700 Distributed data environment. (a) Dedicated distributed data environments. For each benefit year in which HHS operates the risk adjustment or reinsurance...

45 CFR 153.700 - Distributed data environment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Distributed data environment. 153.700 Section 153... Distributed Data Collection for HHS-Operated Programs § 153.700 Distributed data environment. (a) Dedicated distributed data environments. For each benefit year in which HHS operates the risk adjustment or reinsurance...

Efficient Process Migration for Parallel Processing on Non-Dedicated Networks of Workstations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chanchio, Kasidit; Sun, Xian-He

1996-01-01

This paper presents the design and preliminary implementation of MpPVM, a software system that supports process migration for PVM application programs in a non-dedicated heterogeneous computing environment. New concepts of migration point as well as migration point analysis and necessary data analysis are introduced. In MpPVM, process migrations occur only at previously inserted migration points. Migration point analysis determines appropriate locations to insert migration points; whereas, necessary data analysis provides a minimum set of variables to be transferred at each migration pint. A new methodology to perform reliable point-to-point data communications in a migration environment is also discussed. Finally, a preliminary implementation of MpPVM and its experimental results are presented, showing the correctness and promising performance of our process migration mechanism in a scalable non-dedicated heterogeneous computing environment. While MpPVM is developed on top of PVM, the process migration methodology introduced in this study is general and can be applied to any distributed software environment.

Study of Solid State Drives performance in PROOF distributed analysis system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panitkin, S. Y.; Ernst, M.; Petkus, R.; Rind, O.; Wenaus, T.

2010-04-01

Solid State Drives (SSD) is a promising storage technology for High Energy Physics parallel analysis farms. Its combination of low random access time and relatively high read speed is very well suited for situations where multiple jobs concurrently access data located on the same drive. It also has lower energy consumption and higher vibration tolerance than Hard Disk Drive (HDD) which makes it an attractive choice in many applications raging from personal laptops to large analysis farms. The Parallel ROOT Facility - PROOF is a distributed analysis system which allows to exploit inherent event level parallelism of high energy physics data. PROOF is especially efficient together with distributed local storage systems like Xrootd, when data are distributed over computing nodes. In such an architecture the local disk subsystem I/O performance becomes a critical factor, especially when computing nodes use multi-core CPUs. We will discuss our experience with SSDs in PROOF environment. We will compare performance of HDD with SSD in I/O intensive analysis scenarios. In particular we will discuss PROOF system performance scaling with a number of simultaneously running analysis jobs.

LXtoo: an integrated live Linux distribution for the bioinformatics community

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Recent advances in high-throughput technologies dramatically increase biological data generation. However, many research groups lack computing facilities and specialists. This is an obstacle that remains to be addressed. Here, we present a Linux distribution, LXtoo, to provide a flexible computing platform for bioinformatics analysis. Findings Unlike most of the existing live Linux distributions for bioinformatics limiting their usage to sequence analysis and protein structure prediction, LXtoo incorporates a comprehensive collection of bioinformatics software, including data mining tools for microarray and proteomics, protein-protein interaction analysis, and computationally complex tasks like molecular dynamics. Moreover, most of the programs have been configured and optimized for high performance computing. Conclusions LXtoo aims to provide well-supported computing environment tailored for bioinformatics research, reducing duplication of efforts in building computing infrastructure. LXtoo is distributed as a Live DVD and freely available at http://bioinformatics.jnu.edu.cn/LXtoo. PMID:22813356

LXtoo: an integrated live Linux distribution for the bioinformatics community.

PubMed

Yu, Guangchuang; Wang, Li-Gen; Meng, Xiao-Hua; He, Qing-Yu

2012-07-19

Recent advances in high-throughput technologies dramatically increase biological data generation. However, many research groups lack computing facilities and specialists. This is an obstacle that remains to be addressed. Here, we present a Linux distribution, LXtoo, to provide a flexible computing platform for bioinformatics analysis. Unlike most of the existing live Linux distributions for bioinformatics limiting their usage to sequence analysis and protein structure prediction, LXtoo incorporates a comprehensive collection of bioinformatics software, including data mining tools for microarray and proteomics, protein-protein interaction analysis, and computationally complex tasks like molecular dynamics. Moreover, most of the programs have been configured and optimized for high performance computing. LXtoo aims to provide well-supported computing environment tailored for bioinformatics research, reducing duplication of efforts in building computing infrastructure. LXtoo is distributed as a Live DVD and freely available at http://bioinformatics.jnu.edu.cn/LXtoo.

RF Exposure Analysis for Multiple Wi-Fi Devices In Enclosed Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hwu, Shian U.; Rhodes, Bryan A.; deSilva, B. Kanishka; Sham, Catherine C.; Keiser, James R.

2013-01-01

Wi-Fi devices operated inside a metallic enclosure have been investigation in the recent years. A motivation for this study is to investigate wave propagation inside an enclosed environment such as elevator, car, aircraft, and spacecraft. There are performances and safety concerned that when the RF transmitters are used in the metallic enclosed environments. In this paper, the field distributions inside a confined room were investigated with multiple portable Wi-Fi devices. Computer simulations were performed using the rigorous computational electromagnetics (CEM). The method of moments (MoM) was used to model the mutual coupling among antennas. The geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD) was applied for the multiple reflections off the ground and walls. The prediction of the field distribution inside such environment is useful for the planning and deployment of a wireless radio and sensor system. Factors that affect the field strengths and distributions of radio waves in confined space were analyzed. The results could be used to evaluate the RF exposure safety in confined environment. By comparing the field distributions for various scenarios, it was observed that the Wi-Fi device counts, spacing and relative locations in the room are important factors in such environments. The RF Keep Out Zone (KOZ), where the electric field strengths exceed the permissible RF exposure limit, could be used to assess the RF human exposure compliance. As shown in this study, it s possible to maximize or minimize field intensity in specific area by arranging the Wi-Fi devices as a function of the relative location and spacing in a calculated manner.

A Bayesian Poisson-lognormal Model for Count Data for Multiple-Trait Multiple-Environment Genomic-Enabled Prediction.

PubMed

Montesinos-López, Osval A; Montesinos-López, Abelardo; Crossa, José; Toledo, Fernando H; Montesinos-López, José C; Singh, Pawan; Juliana, Philomin; Salinas-Ruiz, Josafhat

2017-05-05

When a plant scientist wishes to make genomic-enabled predictions of multiple traits measured in multiple individuals in multiple environments, the most common strategy for performing the analysis is to use a single trait at a time taking into account genotype × environment interaction (G × E), because there is a lack of comprehensive models that simultaneously take into account the correlated counting traits and G × E. For this reason, in this study we propose a multiple-trait and multiple-environment model for count data. The proposed model was developed under the Bayesian paradigm for which we developed a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) with noninformative priors. This allows obtaining all required full conditional distributions of the parameters leading to an exact Gibbs sampler for the posterior distribution. Our model was tested with simulated data and a real data set. Results show that the proposed multi-trait, multi-environment model is an attractive alternative for modeling multiple count traits measured in multiple environments. Copyright © 2017 Montesinos-López et al.

Agent-based Decision Support System for the Third Generation Distributed Dynamic Decision-making (DDD-III) Simulator

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-06-01

suitable form of organizational adaptation is effective organizational diagnosis and analysis. The organizational diagnosis and analysis involve...related to the mission environment, organizational structure, and strategy is imperative for an effective and efficient organizational diagnosis . The...not easily articulated nor expressed otherwise. These displays are crucial to facilitate effective organizational diagnosis and analysis, and

An interactive environment for the analysis of large Earth observation and model data sets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bowman, Kenneth P.; Walsh, John E.; Wilhelmson, Robert B.

1993-01-01

We propose to develop an interactive environment for the analysis of large Earth science observation and model data sets. We will use a standard scientific data storage format and a large capacity (greater than 20 GB) optical disk system for data management; develop libraries for coordinate transformation and regridding of data sets; modify the NCSA X Image and X DataSlice software for typical Earth observation data sets by including map transformations and missing data handling; develop analysis tools for common mathematical and statistical operations; integrate the components described above into a system for the analysis and comparison of observations and model results; and distribute software and documentation to the scientific community.

An interactive environment for the analysis of large Earth observation and model data sets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bowman, Kenneth P.; Walsh, John E.; Wilhelmson, Robert B.

1992-01-01

We propose to develop an interactive environment for the analysis of large Earth science observation and model data sets. We will use a standard scientific data storage format and a large capacity (greater than 20 GB) optical disk system for data management; develop libraries for coordinate transformation and regridding of data sets; modify the NCSA X Image and X Data Slice software for typical Earth observation data sets by including map transformations and missing data handling; develop analysis tools for common mathematical and statistical operations; integrate the components described above into a system for the analysis and comparison of observations and model results; and distribute software and documentation to the scientific community.

CloudMan as a platform for tool, data, and analysis distribution

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Cloud computing provides an infrastructure that facilitates large scale computational analysis in a scalable, democratized fashion, However, in this context it is difficult to ensure sharing of an analysis environment and associated data in a scalable and precisely reproducible way. Results CloudMan (usecloudman.org) enables individual researchers to easily deploy, customize, and share their entire cloud analysis environment, including data, tools, and configurations. Conclusions With the enabled customization and sharing of instances, CloudMan can be used as a platform for collaboration. The presented solution improves accessibility of cloud resources, tools, and data to the level of an individual researcher and contributes toward reproducibility and transparency of research solutions. PMID:23181507

Integrated Design Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment Automated Generation of Structured CFD Grids using Topology Methods

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kamhawi, Hilmi N.

2012-01-01

This report documents the work performed from March 2010 to March 2012. The Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) environment is a collaborative environment based on an object-oriented, multidisciplinary, distributed framework using the Adaptive Modeling Language (AML) as a framework and supporting the configuration design and parametric CFD grid generation. This report will focus on describing the work in the area of parametric CFD grid generation using novel concepts for defining the interaction between the mesh topology and the geometry in such a way as to separate the mesh topology from the geometric topology while maintaining the link between the mesh topology and the actual geometry.

The Hydrological Regimes Brought by the Three Gorges Project Affected Riparian Vegetation Distribution and Diversity in 2009 and 2010

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miao, Ling-Feng; Liu, Wei-Wei; Yang, Fan

2017-01-01

Post-dam riparian vegetations affected by the new hydrological regimes in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) were investigated in 2009 and 2010, respectively. The investigation in 2009 showed that about 231 vascular plant species belonging to 169 genera of 61 families were distributed in the water-level-fluctuation zone (WLFZ) of the (TGR). Three vegetation types, including Chuanjiang, Gorge, and other vegetation types, were classified efficiently via cluster analysis. Alpha diversity analysis indicated that species richness gradually decreased with decreasing elevation. Beta diversity analysis indicated that high environment heterogeneity was existed between the lower section and the other two sections, and environment homogeneity was also existed between middle section and upper section. Using the analysis of the field growth in the 2009 and 2010 field surveys as bases, we proposed a list of perennial herb species and woody species that may potentially occurred in the WLFZ of the TGR. In addition, we predicted plant community structural changes in the different altitude sections of WLFZ in the future.

High-Performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) Tools and Applications for Big Data Analysis.

PubMed

Simonyan, Vahan; Mazumder, Raja

2014-09-30

The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) is a high-throughput cloud-based infrastructure developed for the storage and analysis of genomic and associated biological data. HIVE consists of a web-accessible interface for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, share, annotate, compute and visualize Next-generation Sequencing (NGS) data in a scalable and highly efficient fashion. The platform contains a distributed storage library and a distributed computational powerhouse linked seamlessly. Resources available through the interface include algorithms, tools and applications developed exclusively for the HIVE platform, as well as commonly used external tools adapted to operate within the parallel architecture of the system. HIVE is composed of a flexible infrastructure, which allows for simple implementation of new algorithms and tools. Currently, available HIVE tools include sequence alignment and nucleotide variation profiling tools, metagenomic analyzers, phylogenetic tree-building tools using NGS data, clone discovery algorithms, and recombination analysis algorithms. In addition to tools, HIVE also provides knowledgebases that can be used in conjunction with the tools for NGS sequence and metadata analysis.

High-Performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) Tools and Applications for Big Data Analysis

PubMed Central

Simonyan, Vahan; Mazumder, Raja

2014-01-01

The High-performance Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE) is a high-throughput cloud-based infrastructure developed for the storage and analysis of genomic and associated biological data. HIVE consists of a web-accessible interface for authorized users to deposit, retrieve, share, annotate, compute and visualize Next-generation Sequencing (NGS) data in a scalable and highly efficient fashion. The platform contains a distributed storage library and a distributed computational powerhouse linked seamlessly. Resources available through the interface include algorithms, tools and applications developed exclusively for the HIVE platform, as well as commonly used external tools adapted to operate within the parallel architecture of the system. HIVE is composed of a flexible infrastructure, which allows for simple implementation of new algorithms and tools. Currently, available HIVE tools include sequence alignment and nucleotide variation profiling tools, metagenomic analyzers, phylogenetic tree-building tools using NGS data, clone discovery algorithms, and recombination analysis algorithms. In addition to tools, HIVE also provides knowledgebases that can be used in conjunction with the tools for NGS sequence and metadata analysis. PMID:25271953

Tracking and imaging humans on heterogeneous infrared sensor arrays for law enforcement applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Feller, Steven D.; Zheng, Y.; Cull, Evan; Brady, David J.

2002-08-01

We present a plan for the integration of geometric constraints in the source, sensor and analysis levels of sensor networks. The goal of geometric analysis is to reduce the dimensionality and complexity of distributed sensor data analysis so as to achieve real-time recognition and response to significant events. Application scenarios include biometric tracking of individuals, counting and analysis of individuals in groups of humans and distributed sentient environments. We are particularly interested in using this approach to provide networks of low cost point detectors, such as infrared motion detectors, with complex imaging capabilities. By extending the capabilities of simple sensors, we expect to reduce the cost of perimeter and site security applications.

Discrimination of particulate matter emission sources using stochastic methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szczurek, Andrzej; Maciejewska, Monika; Wyłomańska, Agnieszka; Sikora, Grzegorz; Balcerek, Michał; Teuerle, Marek

2016-12-01

Particulate matter (PM) is one of the criteria pollutants which has been determined as harmful to public health and the environment. For this reason the ability to recognize its emission sources is very important. There are a number of measurement methods which allow to characterize PM in terms of concentration, particles size distribution, and chemical composition. All these information are useful to establish a link between the dust found in the air, its emission sources and influence on human as well as the environment. However, the methods are typically quite sophisticated and not applicable outside laboratories. In this work, we considered PM emission source discrimination method which is based on continuous measurements of PM concentration with a relatively cheap instrument and stochastic analysis of the obtained data. The stochastic analysis is focused on the temporal variation of PM concentration and it involves two steps: (1) recognition of the category of distribution for the data i.e. stable or the domain of attraction of stable distribution and (2) finding best matching distribution out of Gaussian, stable and normal-inverse Gaussian (NIG). We examined six PM emission sources. They were associated with material processing in industrial environment, namely machining and welding aluminum, forged carbon steel and plastic with various tools. As shown by the obtained results, PM emission sources may be distinguished based on statistical distribution of PM concentration variations. Major factor responsible for the differences detectable with our method was the type of material processing and the tool applied. In case different materials were processed by the same tool the distinction of emission sources was difficult. For successful discrimination it was crucial to consider size-segregated mass fraction concentrations. In our opinion the presented approach is very promising. It deserves further study and development.

Conservation and possible reintroduction of an endangered plant based on an analysis of community ecology: a case study of Primulina tabacum Hance in China

Treesearch

Hai Ren; Qianmei Zhang; Zhengfeng Wang; Qinfeng Guo; June Wang; Nan Liu; Kaiming Liang

2010-01-01

The distribution of the rare and endangered perennial herb Primulina tabacum Hance is restricted to eight karst caves in southern China. To conserve P. tabacum and to evaluate possible reintroduction, we studied its historical distribution and conducted field surveys of both its biotic and physical environment. We used detrended...

Local Chemical Ordering and Negative Thermal Expansion in PtNi Alloy Nanoparticles.

PubMed

Li, Qiang; Zhu, He; Zheng, Lirong; Fan, Longlong; Wang, Na; Rong, Yangchun; Ren, Yang; Chen, Jun; Deng, Jinxia; Xing, Xianran

2017-12-13

An atomic insight into the local chemical ordering and lattice strain is particular interesting to recent emerging bimetallic nanocatalysts such as PtNi alloys. Here, we reported the atomic distribution, chemical environment, and lattice thermal evolution in full-scale structural description of PtNi alloy nanoparticles (NPs). The different segregation of elements in the well-faceted PtNi nanoparticles is convinced by extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). Atomic pair distribution function (PDF) study evidences the coexistence of the face-centered cubic and tetragonal ordering parts in the local environment of PtNi nanoparticles. Further reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) simulation with PDF data obviously exposed the segregation as Ni and Pt in the centers of {111} and {001} facets, respectively. Layer-by-layer statistical analysis up to 6 nm for the local atomic pairs revealed the distribution of local tetragonal ordering on the surface. This local coordination environment facilitates the distribution of heteroatomic Pt-Ni pairs, which plays an important role in the negative thermal expansion of Pt 41 Ni 59 NPs. The present study on PtNi alloy NPs from local short-range coordination to long-range average lattice provides a new perspective on tailoring physical properties in nanomaterials.

Distribution of triclosan-resistant genes in major pathogenic microorganisms revealed by metagenome and genome-wide analysis

PubMed Central

Khan, Raees; Roy, Nazish; Choi, Kihyuck

2018-01-01

The substantial use of triclosan (TCS) has been aimed to kill pathogenic bacteria, but TCS resistance seems to be prevalent in microbial species and limited knowledge exists about TCS resistance determinants in a majority of pathogenic bacteria. We aimed to evaluate the distribution of TCS resistance determinants in major pathogenic bacteria (N = 231) and to assess the enrichment of potentially pathogenic genera in TCS contaminated environments. A TCS-resistant gene (TRG) database was constructed and experimentally validated to predict TCS resistance in major pathogenic bacteria. Genome-wide in silico analysis was performed to define the distribution of TCS-resistant determinants in major pathogens. Microbiome analysis of TCS contaminated soil samples was also performed to investigate the abundance of TCS-resistant pathogens. We experimentally confirmed that TCS resistance could be accurately predicted using genome-wide in silico analysis against TRG database. Predicted TCS resistant phenotypes were observed in all of the tested bacterial strains (N = 17), and heterologous expression of selected TCS resistant genes from those strains conferred expected levels of TCS resistance in an alternative host Escherichia coli. Moreover, genome-wide analysis revealed that potential TCS resistance determinants were abundant among the majority of human-associated pathogens (79%) and soil-borne plant pathogenic bacteria (98%). These included a variety of enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (ENRs) homologues, AcrB efflux pumps, and ENR substitutions. FabI ENR, which is the only known effective target for TCS, was either co-localized with other TCS resistance determinants or had TCS resistance-associated substitutions. Furthermore, microbiome analysis revealed that pathogenic genera with intrinsic TCS-resistant determinants exist in TCS contaminated environments. We conclude that TCS may not be as effective against the majority of bacterial pathogens as previously presumed. Further, the excessive use of this biocide in natural environments may selectively enrich for not only TCS-resistant bacterial pathogens, but possibly for additional resistance to multiple antibiotics. PMID:29420585

Motion/imagery secure cloud enterprise architecture analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

DeLay, John L.

2012-06-01

Cloud computing with storage virtualization and new service-oriented architectures brings a new perspective to the aspect of a distributed motion imagery and persistent surveillance enterprise. Our existing research is focused mainly on content management, distributed analytics, WAN distributed cloud networking performance issues of cloud based technologies. The potential of leveraging cloud based technologies for hosting motion imagery, imagery and analytics workflows for DOD and security applications is relatively unexplored. This paper will examine technologies for managing, storing, processing and disseminating motion imagery and imagery within a distributed network environment. Finally, we propose areas for future research in the area of distributed cloud content management enterprises.

Short version of the "instrument for assessment of stress in nursing students" in the Brazilian reality.

PubMed

Costa, Ana Lúcia Siqueira; Silva, Rodrigo Marques da; Mussi, Fernanda Carneiro; Serrano, Patrícia Maria; Graziano, Eliane da Silva; Batista, Karla de Melo

2018-01-08

validate a short version of the Instrument for assessment of stress in nursing students in the Brazilian reality. Methodological study conducted with 1047 nursing students from five Brazilian institutions, who answered the 30 items initially distributed in eight domains. Data were analyzed in the R Statistical Package and in the latent variable analysis, using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, Cronbach's alpha and item-total correlation. The short version of the instrument had 19 items distributed into four domains: Environment, Professional Training, Theoretical Activities and Performance of Practical Activities. The confirmatory analysis showed absolute and parsimony fit to the proposed model with satisfactory residual levels. Alpha values ​​per factor ranged from 0.736 (Environment) to 0.842 (Performance of Practical Activities). The short version of the instrument has construct validity and reliability for application to Brazilian nursing undergraduates at any stage of the course.

Impacts of Environmental Heterogeneity on Moss Diversity and Distribution of Didymodon (Pottiaceae) in Tibet, China.

PubMed

Song, Shanshan; Liu, Xuehua; Bai, Xueliang; Jiang, Yanbin; Zhang, Xianzhou; Yu, Chengqun; Shao, Xiaoming

2015-01-01

Tibet makes up the majority of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, often referred to as the roof of the world. Its complex landforms, physiognomy, and climate create a special heterogeneous environment for mosses. Each moss species inhabits its own habitat and ecological niche. This, in combination with its sensitivity to environmental change, makes moss species distribution a useful indicator of vegetation alteration and climate change. This study aimed to characterize the diversity and distribution of Didymodon (Pottiaceae) in Tibet, and model the potential distribution of its species. A total of 221 sample plots, each with a size of 10 × 10 m and located at different altitudes, were investigated across all vegetation types. Of these, the 181 plots in which Didymodon species were found were used to conduct analyses and modeling. Three noteworthy results were obtained. First, a total of 22 species of Didymodon were identified. Among these, Didymodon rigidulus var. subulatus had not previously been recorded in China, and Didymodon constrictus var. constrictus was the dominant species. Second, analysis of the relationships between species distributions and environmental factors using canonical correspondence analysis revealed that vegetation cover and altitude were the main factors affecting the distribution of Didymodon in Tibet. Third, based on the environmental factors of bioclimate, topography and vegetation, the distribution of Didymodon was predicted throughout Tibet at a spatial resolution of 1 km, using the presence-only MaxEnt model. Climatic variables were the key factors in the model. We conclude that the environment plays a significant role in moss diversity and distribution. Based on our research findings, we recommend that future studies should focus on the impacts of climate change on the distribution and conservation of Didymodon.

Impacts of Environmental Heterogeneity on Moss Diversity and Distribution of Didymodon (Pottiaceae) in Tibet, China

PubMed Central

Song, Shanshan; Bai, Xueliang; Jiang, Yanbin; Zhang, Xianzhou; Yu, Chengqun

2015-01-01

Tibet makes up the majority of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, often referred to as the roof of the world. Its complex landforms, physiognomy, and climate create a special heterogeneous environment for mosses. Each moss species inhabits its own habitat and ecological niche. This, in combination with its sensitivity to environmental change, makes moss species distribution a useful indicator of vegetation alteration and climate change. This study aimed to characterize the diversity and distribution of Didymodon (Pottiaceae) in Tibet, and model the potential distribution of its species. A total of 221 sample plots, each with a size of 10 × 10 m and located at different altitudes, were investigated across all vegetation types. Of these, the 181 plots in which Didymodon species were found were used to conduct analyses and modeling. Three noteworthy results were obtained. First, a total of 22 species of Didymodon were identified. Among these, Didymodon rigidulus var. subulatus had not previously been recorded in China, and Didymodon constrictus var. constrictus was the dominant species. Second, analysis of the relationships between species distributions and environmental factors using canonical correspondence analysis revealed that vegetation cover and altitude were the main factors affecting the distribution of Didymodon in Tibet. Third, based on the environmental factors of bioclimate, topography and vegetation, the distribution of Didymodon was predicted throughout Tibet at a spatial resolution of 1 km, using the presence-only MaxEnt model. Climatic variables were the key factors in the model. We conclude that the environment plays a significant role in moss diversity and distribution. Based on our research findings, we recommend that future studies should focus on the impacts of climate change on the distribution and conservation of Didymodon. PMID:26181326

Off-the-shelf Control of Data Analysis Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wampler, S.

The Gemini Project must provide convenient access to data analysis facilities to a wide user community. The international nature of this community makes the selection of data analysis software particularly interesting, with staunch advocates of systems such as ADAM and IRAF among the users. Additionally, the continuing trends towards increased use of networked systems and distributed processing impose additional complexity. To meet these needs, the Gemini Project is proposing the novel approach of using low-cost, off-the-shelf software to abstract out both the control and distribution of data analysis from the functionality of the data analysis software. For example, the orthogonal nature of control versus function means that users might select analysis routines from both ADAM and IRAF as appropriate, distributing these routines across a network of machines. It is the belief of the Gemini Project that this approach results in a system that is highly flexible, maintainable, and inexpensive to develop. The Khoros visualization system is presented as an example of control software that is currently available for providing the control and distribution within a data analysis system. The visual programming environment provided with Khoros is also discussed as a means to providing convenient access to this control.

Enabling scientific teamwork

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hereld, Mark; Hudson, Randy; Norris, John; Papka, Michael E.; Uram, Thomas

2009-07-01

The Computer Supported Collaborative Work research community has identified that the technology used to support distributed teams of researchers, such as email, instant messaging, and conferencing environments, are not enough. Building from a list of areas where it is believed technology can help support distributed teams, we have divided our efforts into support of asynchronous and synchronous activities. This paper will describe two of our recent efforts to improve the productivity of distributed science teams. One effort focused on supporting the management and tracking of milestones and results, with the hope of helping manage information overload. The second effort focused on providing an environment that supports real-time analysis of data. Both of these efforts are seen as add-ons to the existing collaborative infrastructure, developed to enhance the experience of teams working at a distance by removing barriers to effective communication.

[Correlative analysis of the diversity patterns of regional surface water, NDVI and thermal environment].

PubMed

Duan, Jin-Long; Zhang, Xue-Lei

2012-10-01

Taking Zhengzhou City, the capital of Henan Province in Central China, as the study area, and by using the theories and methodologies of diversity, a discreteness evaluation on the regional surface water, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and land surface temperature (LST) distribution was conducted in a 2 km x 2 km grid scale. Both the NDVI and the LST were divided into 4 levels, their spatial distribution diversity indices were calculated, and their connections were explored. The results showed that it was of operability and practical significance to use the theories and methodologies of diversity in the discreteness evaluation of the spatial distribution of regional thermal environment. There was a higher overlap of location between the distributions of surface water and the lowest temperature region, and the high vegetation coverage was often accompanied by low land surface temperature. In 1988-2009, the discreteness of the surface water distribution in the City had an obvious decreasing trend. The discreteness of the surface water distribution had a close correlation with the discreteness of the temperature region distribution, while the discreteness of the NDVI classification distribution had a more complicated correlation with the discreteness of the temperature region distribution. Therefore, more environmental factors were needed to be included for a better evaluation.

Supporting Marine Corps Enhanced Company Operations: A Quantitative Analysis

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-01

by decomposition into simple independent parts. o Agents interact with each other in non-linear ways, and “ adapt ” to their local environment . (p...Center Co Company CoLT Company Landing Team CAS Complex Adaptive Systems CSV Comma-separated Value DO Distributed Operations DODIC Department...SUMMARY The modern irregular warfare environment has dramatically impacted the battle space assignments and mission scope of tactical units that now

Space Propulsion Hazards Analysis Manual (SPHAM). Volume 2. Appendices

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-10-01

lb. RESTRICTIVE MARKINGS UNCLASSIFIED 2a. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3 . DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Approved for public release...Volume I Chapter 2 - Requirementb and the Hazards Analysis Process .... Volume I Chapter 3 - Accident Scenarios...list of the hazardous materials that are discussed; 3 ) description of the failure scenarios; 4) type of post-accident environment that is discussed

40 CFR 1400.5 - Internet access to certain off-site consequence analysis data elements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 33 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Internet access to certain off-site... DISTRIBUTION OF OFF-SITE CONSEQUENCE ANALYSIS INFORMATION Public Access § 1400.5 Internet access to certain off... elements in the risk management plan database available on the Internet: (a) The concentration of the...

LABORATORY ANALYSIS OF BACK-CORONA DISCHARGE

EPA Science Inventory

The paper discusses an experimental research program to characterize back-corona generation and behavior in a range of environments and geometries common to electrostatic precipitators (ESPs). A wire-parallel plate device was used to monitor the intensity and distribution of back...

Toward an Integrated Executable Architecture and M&S Based Analysis for Counter Terrorism and Homeland Security

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-09-01

Lavoie, D. Kurts, SYNTHETIC ENVIRONMENTS AT THE ENTREPRISE LEVEL: OVERVIEW OF A GOVERNMENT OF CANADA (GOC), ACADEMIA and INDUSTRY DISTRIBUTED...vehicle (UAV) focused to locate the radiological source, and by comparing the performance of these assets in terms of various capability based...framework to analyze homeland security capabilities • Illustrate how a rapidly configured distributed simulation involving academia, industry and

Economic preparation of the environment: A selective empirical analysis of chinese investment in the Philippines

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited. ECONOMIC ...Leave blank) 2. REPORT DATE June 2017 3. REPORT TYPE AND DATES COVERED Master’s thesis 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE ECONOMIC PREPARATION OF THE...DISTRIBUTION CODE A 13. ABSTRACT (maximum 200 words) Over the past decade, the People’s Republic of China has increasingly used its economic might

A virtual data language and system for scientific workflow management in data grid environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yong

With advances in scientific instrumentation and simulation, scientific data is growing fast in both size and analysis complexity. So-called Data Grids aim to provide high performance, distributed data analysis infrastructure for data- intensive sciences, where scientists distributed worldwide need to extract information from large collections of data, and to share both data products and the resources needed to produce and store them. However, the description, composition, and execution of even logically simple scientific workflows are often complicated by the need to deal with "messy" issues like heterogeneous storage formats and ad-hoc file system structures. We show how these difficulties can be overcome via a typed workflow notation called virtual data language, within which issues of physical representation are cleanly separated from logical typing, and by the implementation of this notation within the context of a powerful virtual data system that supports distributed execution. The resulting language and system are capable of expressing complex workflows in a simple compact form, enacting those workflows in distributed environments, monitoring and recording the execution processes, and tracing the derivation history of data products. We describe the motivation, design, implementation, and evaluation of the virtual data language and system, and the application of the virtual data paradigm in various science disciplines, including astronomy, cognitive neuroscience.

Ground Systems Development Environment (GSDE) interface requirements analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Church, Victor E.; Philips, John; Hartenstein, Ray; Bassman, Mitchell; Ruskin, Leslie; Perez-Davila, Alfredo

1991-01-01

A set of procedural and functional requirements are presented for the interface between software development environments and software integration and test systems used for space station ground systems software. The requirements focus on the need for centralized configuration management of software as it is transitioned from development to formal, target based testing. This concludes the GSDE Interface Requirements study. A summary is presented of findings concerning the interface itself, possible interface and prototyping directions for further study, and results of the investigation of the Cronus distributed applications environment.

Traffic information computing platform for big data

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Duan, Zongtao, E-mail: ztduan@chd.edu.cn; Li, Ying, E-mail: ztduan@chd.edu.cn; Zheng, Xibin, E-mail: ztduan@chd.edu.cn

Big data environment create data conditions for improving the quality of traffic information service. The target of this article is to construct a traffic information computing platform for big data environment. Through in-depth analysis the connotation and technology characteristics of big data and traffic information service, a distributed traffic atomic information computing platform architecture is proposed. Under the big data environment, this type of traffic atomic information computing architecture helps to guarantee the traffic safety and efficient operation, more intelligent and personalized traffic information service can be used for the traffic information users.

2d Granular Gas in Knudsen Regime and in Microgravity Excited by Vibration: Velocity and Position Distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hou, M.; Liu, R.; Li, Y.; Lu, K.; Garrabos, Y.; Evesque, P.

2009-06-01

Dynamics of quasi-2d dissipative granular gas is studied in microgravity condition (of the order of 10-4 g) in the limit of Knudsen regime. The gas, made of 4 spheres, is confined in a square cell enforced to follow linear sinusoidal vibration in ten different vibration modes. The trajectory of one of the particles is tracked and reconstructed from the 2-hour video data. From statistical analysis, we find that (i) loss due to wall friction is small, (ii) trajectory looks ergodic in space, and (iii) distribution ρ(v) of speed follows an exponential distribution, i.e. ρ(v)≈exp(-v/vxo,yo), with vxo,yo being a characteristic velocity along a direction parallel (y) or perpendicular (x) to vibration direction. This law deviates strongly from the Boltzmann distribution of speed in molecular gas. Comparisons of this result with previous measurements in earth environment, and what was found in 3d cell [1] performed in 10-2 g environment are given.

Semantics-based distributed I/O with the ParaMEDIC framework.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Balaji, P.; Feng, W.; Lin, H.

2008-01-01

Many large-scale applications simultaneously rely on multiple resources for efficient execution. For example, such applications may require both large compute and storage resources; however, very few supercomputing centers can provide large quantities of both. Thus, data generated at the compute site oftentimes has to be moved to a remote storage site for either storage or visualization and analysis. Clearly, this is not an efficient model, especially when the two sites are distributed over a wide-area network. Thus, we present a framework called 'ParaMEDIC: Parallel Metadata Environment for Distributed I/O and Computing' which uses application-specific semantic information to convert the generatedmore » data to orders-of-magnitude smaller metadata at the compute site, transfer the metadata to the storage site, and re-process the metadata at the storage site to regenerate the output. Specifically, ParaMEDIC trades a small amount of additional computation (in the form of data post-processing) for a potentially significant reduction in data that needs to be transferred in distributed environments.« less

The CSM testbed software system: A development environment for structural analysis methods on the NAS CRAY-2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gillian, Ronnie E.; Lotts, Christine G.

1988-01-01

The Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM) Activity at Langley Research Center is developing methods for structural analysis on modern computers. To facilitate that research effort, an applications development environment has been constructed to insulate the researcher from the many computer operating systems of a widely distributed computer network. The CSM Testbed development system was ported to the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator (NAS) Cray-2, at the Ames Research Center, to provide a high end computational capability. This paper describes the implementation experiences, the resulting capability, and the future directions for the Testbed on supercomputers.

Distributed collaborative environments for virtual capability-based planning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McQuay, William K.

2003-09-01

Distributed collaboration is an emerging technology that will significantly change how decisions are made in the 21st century. Collaboration involves two or more geographically dispersed individuals working together to share and exchange data, information, knowledge, and actions. The marriage of information, collaboration, and simulation technologies provides the decision maker with a collaborative virtual environment for planning and decision support. This paper reviews research that is focusing on the applying open standards agent-based framework with integrated modeling and simulation to a new Air Force initiative in capability-based planning and the ability to implement it in a distributed virtual environment. Virtual Capability Planning effort will provide decision-quality knowledge for Air Force resource allocation and investment planning including examining proposed capabilities and cost of alternative approaches, the impact of technologies, identification of primary risk drivers, and creation of executable acquisition strategies. The transformed Air Force business processes are enabled by iterative use of constructive and virtual modeling, simulation, and analysis together with information technology. These tools are applied collaboratively via a technical framework by all the affected stakeholders - warfighter, laboratory, product center, logistics center, test center, and primary contractor.

Supercritical bedforms and sedimentary structures from field and core studies, Middle Eocene deep-marine base-of-slope environment, Ainsa Basin, Spanish Pyrenees

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cornard, Pauline; Pickering, Kevin

2017-04-01

In recent years, many researchers have focussed on supercritical- and subcritical-flow deposits using flume-tank experiments (e.g., Cartigny el al., 2011; Postma et al., 2014; Postma and Cartigny, 2014), or from direct observations on presently active deep-water systems (e.g., Hughes et al., 2012). Using outcrop and core examples from a base-of-slope environment in the Middle Eocene Ainsa Basin, Spanish Pyrenees, and with published experimental work, a range of deposits are interpreted as upper-flow regime sedimentary structures. This contribution focusses on the interpretation of several supercritical bedforms (antidunes and chutes-and-pools) observed on the field and upper-flow regime sedimentary structures recognized in cores. The spatial distribution of supercritical-flow deposits obtained from an analysis of field outcrops and core sedimentary logs are evaluated in relation to the depositional environment (channel axis, off-axis, margin and interfan). The frequency distributions of the bed thicknesses are also analysed in relation to supercritical versus subcritical bed-thickness distributions.

Analyzing Distributed Functions in an Integrated Hazard Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Morris, A. Terry; Massie, Michael J.

2010-01-01

Large scale integration of today's aerospace systems is achievable through the use of distributed systems. Validating the safety of distributed systems is significantly more difficult as compared to centralized systems because of the complexity of the interactions between simultaneously active components. Integrated hazard analysis (IHA), a process used to identify unacceptable risks and to provide a means of controlling them, can be applied to either centralized or distributed systems. IHA, though, must be tailored to fit the particular system being analyzed. Distributed systems, for instance, must be analyzed for hazards in terms of the functions that rely on them. This paper will describe systems-oriented IHA techniques (as opposed to traditional failure-event or reliability techniques) that should be employed for distributed systems in aerospace environments. Special considerations will be addressed when dealing with specific distributed systems such as active thermal control, electrical power, command and data handling, and software systems (including the interaction with fault management systems). Because of the significance of second-order effects in large scale distributed systems, the paper will also describe how to analyze secondary functions to secondary functions through the use of channelization.

Development of a Heterogenic Distributed Environment for Spatial Data Processing Using Cloud Technologies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garov, A. S.; Karachevtseva, I. P.; Matveev, E. V.; Zubarev, A. E.; Florinsky, I. V.

2016-06-01

We are developing a unified distributed communication environment for processing of spatial data which integrates web-, desktop- and mobile platforms and combines volunteer computing model and public cloud possibilities. The main idea is to create a flexible working environment for research groups, which may be scaled according to required data volume and computing power, while keeping infrastructure costs at minimum. It is based upon the "single window" principle, which combines data access via geoportal functionality, processing possibilities and communication between researchers. Using an innovative software environment the recently developed planetary information system (http://cartsrv.mexlab.ru/geoportal) will be updated. The new system will provide spatial data processing, analysis and 3D-visualization and will be tested based on freely available Earth remote sensing data as well as Solar system planetary images from various missions. Based on this approach it will be possible to organize the research and representation of results on a new technology level, which provides more possibilities for immediate and direct reuse of research materials, including data, algorithms, methodology, and components. The new software environment is targeted at remote scientific teams, and will provide access to existing spatial distributed information for which we suggest implementation of a user interface as an advanced front-end, e.g., for virtual globe system.

STABLE CHLORINE ISOTOPE ANALYSIS OF CHLORINATED ORGANIC CONTAMINANTS

EPA Science Inventory

The biogeochemical cycling of chlorinated organic contaminants in the environment is often difficult to understand because of the complex distributions of these compounds and variability of sources. To address these issues from an isotopic perspective, we have measured the, 37Cl...

Shielding Effectiveness in a Two-Dimensional Reverberation Chamber Using Finite-Element Techniques

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bunting, Charles F.

2006-01-01

Reverberation chambers are attaining an increased importance in determination of electromagnetic susceptibility of avionics equipment. Given the nature of the variable boundary condition, the ability of a given source to couple energy into certain modes and the passband characteristic due the chamber Q, the fields are typically characterized by statistical means. The emphasis of this work is to apply finite-element techniques at cutoff to the analysis of a two-dimensional structure to examine the notion of shielding-effectiveness issues in a reverberating environment. Simulated mechanical stirring will be used to obtain the appropriate statistical field distribution. The shielding effectiveness (SE) in a simulated reverberating environment is compared to measurements in a reverberation chamber. A log-normal distribution for the SE is observed with implications for system designers. The work is intended to provide further refinement in the consideration of SE in a complex electromagnetic environment.

Distributed Storage Algorithm for Geospatial Image Data Based on Data Access Patterns.

PubMed

Pan, Shaoming; Li, Yongkai; Xu, Zhengquan; Chong, Yanwen

2015-01-01

Declustering techniques are widely used in distributed environments to reduce query response time through parallel I/O by splitting large files into several small blocks and then distributing those blocks among multiple storage nodes. Unfortunately, however, many small geospatial image data files cannot be further split for distributed storage. In this paper, we propose a complete theoretical system for the distributed storage of small geospatial image data files based on mining the access patterns of geospatial image data using their historical access log information. First, an algorithm is developed to construct an access correlation matrix based on the analysis of the log information, which reveals the patterns of access to the geospatial image data. Then, a practical heuristic algorithm is developed to determine a reasonable solution based on the access correlation matrix. Finally, a number of comparative experiments are presented, demonstrating that our algorithm displays a higher total parallel access probability than those of other algorithms by approximately 10-15% and that the performance can be further improved by more than 20% by simultaneously applying a copy storage strategy. These experiments show that the algorithm can be applied in distributed environments to help realize parallel I/O and thereby improve system performance.

HEPLIB `91: International users meeting on the support and environments of high energy physics computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Johnstad, H.

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the current and future HEP computing support and environments from the perspective of new horizons in accelerator, physics, and computing technologies. Topics of interest to the Meeting include (but are limited to): the forming of the HEPLIB world user group for High Energy Physic computing; mandate, desirables, coordination, organization, funding; user experience, international collaboration; the roles of national labs, universities, and industry; range of software, Monte Carlo, mathematics, physics, interactive analysis, text processors, editors, graphics, data base systems, code management tools; program libraries, frequency of updates, distribution; distributed and interactive computing, datamore » base systems, user interface, UNIX operating systems, networking, compilers, Xlib, X-Graphics; documentation, updates, availability, distribution; code management in large collaborations, keeping track of program versions; and quality assurance, testing, conventions, standards.« less

HEPLIB 91: International users meeting on the support and environments of high energy physics computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Johnstad, H.

The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the current and future HEP computing support and environments from the perspective of new horizons in accelerator, physics, and computing technologies. Topics of interest to the Meeting include (but are limited to): the forming of the HEPLIB world user group for High Energy Physic computing; mandate, desirables, coordination, organization, funding; user experience, international collaboration; the roles of national labs, universities, and industry; range of software, Monte Carlo, mathematics, physics, interactive analysis, text processors, editors, graphics, data base systems, code management tools; program libraries, frequency of updates, distribution; distributed and interactive computing, datamore » base systems, user interface, UNIX operating systems, networking, compilers, Xlib, X-Graphics; documentation, updates, availability, distribution; code management in large collaborations, keeping track of program versions; and quality assurance, testing, conventions, standards.« less

Optimal sampling theory and population modelling - Application to determination of the influence of the microgravity environment on drug distribution and elimination

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Drusano, George L.

1991-01-01

The optimal sampling theory is evaluated in applications to studies related to the distribution and elimination of several drugs (including ceftazidime, piperacillin, and ciprofloxacin), using the SAMPLE module of the ADAPT II package of programs developed by D'Argenio and Schumitzky (1979, 1988) and comparing the pharmacokinetic parameter values with results obtained by traditional ten-sample design. The impact of the use of optimal sampling was demonstrated in conjunction with NONMEM (Sheiner et al., 1977) approach, in which the population is taken as the unit of analysis, allowing even fragmentary patient data sets to contribute to population parameter estimates. It is shown that this technique is applicable in both the single-dose and the multiple-dose environments. The ability to study real patients made it possible to show that there was a bimodal distribution in ciprofloxacin nonrenal clearance.

Flood return level analysis of Peaks over Threshold series under changing climate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, L.; Xiong, L.; Hu, T.; Xu, C. Y.; Guo, S.

2016-12-01

Obtaining insights into future flood estimation is of great significance for water planning and management. Traditional flood return level analysis with the stationarity assumption has been challenged by changing environments. A method that takes into consideration the nonstationarity context has been extended to derive flood return levels for Peaks over Threshold (POT) series. With application to POT series, a Poisson distribution is normally assumed to describe the arrival rate of exceedance events, but this distribution assumption has at times been reported as invalid. The Negative Binomial (NB) distribution is therefore proposed as an alternative to the Poisson distribution assumption. Flood return levels were extrapolated in nonstationarity context for the POT series of the Weihe basin, China under future climate scenarios. The results show that the flood return levels estimated under nonstationarity can be different with an assumption of Poisson and NB distribution, respectively. The difference is found to be related to the threshold value of POT series. The study indicates the importance of distribution selection in flood return level analysis under nonstationarity and provides a reference on the impact of climate change on flood estimation in the Weihe basin for the future.

Atom probe tomographic mapping directly reveals the atomic distribution of phosphorus in resin embedded ferritin

DOE PAGES

Perea, Daniel E.; Liu, Jia; Bartrand, Jonah A. G.; ...

2016-02-29

In this study, we report the atomic-scale analysis of biological interfaces using atom probe tomography. Embedding the protein ferritin in an organic polymer resin lacking nitrogen provided chemical contrast to visualize atomic distributions and distinguish organic-organic and organic-inorganic interfaces. The sample preparation method can be directly extended to further enhance the study of biological, organic and inorganic nanomaterials relevant to health, energy or the environment.

Elemental composition and size distribution of particulates in Cleveland, Ohio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

King, R. B.; Fordyce, J. S.; Neustadter, H. E.; Leibecki, H. F.

1975-01-01

Measurements were made of the elemental particle size distribution at five contrasting urban environments with different source-type distributions in Cleveland, Ohio. Air quality conditions ranged from normal to air pollution alert levels. A parallel network of high-volume cascade impactors (5-state) were used for simultaneous sampling on glass fiber surfaces for mass determinations and on Whatman-41 surfaces for elemental analysis by neutron activation for 25 elements. The elemental data are assessed in terms of distribution functions and interrelationships and are compared between locations as a function of resultant wind direction in an attempt to relate the findings to sources.

Elemental composition and size distribution of particulates in Cleveland, Ohio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leibecki, H. F.; King, R. B.; Fordyce, J. S.; Neustadter, H. E.

1975-01-01

Measurements have been made of the elemental particle size distribution at five contrasting urban environments with different source-type distributions in Cleveland, Ohio. Air quality conditions ranged from normal to air pollution alert levels. A parallel network of high-volume cascade impactors (5-stage) were used for simultaneous sampling on glass fiber surfaces for mass determinations and on Whatman-41 surfaces for elemental analysis by neutron activation for 25 elements. The elemental data are assessed in terms of distribution functions and interrelationships and are compared between locations as a function of resultant wind direction in an attempt to relate the findings to sources.

Characterizing and predicting species distributions across environments and scales: Argentine ant occurrences in the eye of the beholder

USGS Publications Warehouse

Menke, S.B.; Holway, D.A.; Fisher, R.N.; Jetz, W.

2009-01-01

Aim: Species distribution models (SDMs) or, more specifically, ecological niche models (ENMs) are a useful and rapidly proliferating tool in ecology and global change biology. ENMs attempt to capture associations between a species and its environment and are often used to draw biological inferences, to predict potential occurrences in unoccupied regions and to forecast future distributions under environmental change. The accuracy of ENMs, however, hinges critically on the quality of occurrence data. ENMs often use haphazardly collected data rather than data collected across the full spectrum of existing environmental conditions. Moreover, it remains unclear how processes affecting ENM predictions operate at different spatial scales. The scale (i.e. grain size) of analysis may be dictated more by the sampling regime than by biologically meaningful processes. The aim of our study is to jointly quantify how issues relating to region and scale affect ENM predictions using an economically important and ecologically damaging invasive species, the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). Location: California, USA. Methods: We analysed the relationship between sampling sufficiency, regional differences in environmental parameter space and cell size of analysis and resampling environmental layers using two independently collected sets of presence/absence data. Differences in variable importance were determined using model averaging and logistic regression. Model accuracy was measured with area under the curve (AUC) and Cohen's kappa. Results: We first demonstrate that insufficient sampling of environmental parameter space can cause large errors in predicted distributions and biological interpretation. Models performed best when they were parametrized with data that sufficiently sampled environmental parameter space. Second, we show that altering the spatial grain of analysis changes the relative importance of different environmental variables. These changes apparently result from how environmental constraints and the sampling distributions of environmental variables change with spatial grain. Conclusions: These findings have clear relevance for biological inference. Taken together, our results illustrate potentially general limitations for ENMs, especially when such models are used to predict species occurrences in novel environments. We offer basic methodological and conceptual guidelines for appropriate sampling and scale matching. ?? 2009 The Authors Journal compilation ?? 2009 Blackwell Publishing.

Adaptations to different habitats in sexual and asexual populations of parasitoid wasps: a meta-analysis.

PubMed

Amat, Isabelle; van Alphen, Jacques J M; Kacelnik, Alex; Desouhant, Emmanuel; Bernstein, Carlos

2017-01-01

Coexistence of sexual and asexual populations remains a key question in evolutionary ecology. We address the question how an asexual and a sexual form of the parasitoid Venturia canescens can coexist in southern Europe. We test the hypothesis that both forms are adapted to different habitats within their area of distribution. Sexuals inhabit natural environments that are highly unpredictable, and where density of wasps and their hosts is low and patchily distributed. Asexuals instead are common in anthropic environments (e.g., grain stores) where host outbreaks offer periods when egg-load is the main constraint on reproductive output. We present a meta-analysis of known adaptations to these habitats. Differences in behavior, physiology and life-history traits between sexual and asexual wasps were standardized in term of effect size (Cohen's d value; Cohen, 1988). Seeking consilience from the differences between multiple traits, we found that sexuals invest more in longevity at the expense of egg-load, are more mobile, and display higher plasticity in response to thermal variability than asexual counterparts. Thus, each form has consistent multiple adaptations to the ecological circumstances in the contrasting environments.

Adaptations to different habitats in sexual and asexual populations of parasitoid wasps: a meta-analysis

PubMed Central

van Alphen, Jacques J.M.; Kacelnik, Alex; Desouhant, Emmanuel

2017-01-01

Background Coexistence of sexual and asexual populations remains a key question in evolutionary ecology. We address the question how an asexual and a sexual form of the parasitoid Venturia canescens can coexist in southern Europe. We test the hypothesis that both forms are adapted to different habitats within their area of distribution. Sexuals inhabit natural environments that are highly unpredictable, and where density of wasps and their hosts is low and patchily distributed. Asexuals instead are common in anthropic environments (e.g., grain stores) where host outbreaks offer periods when egg-load is the main constraint on reproductive output. Methods We present a meta-analysis of known adaptations to these habitats. Differences in behavior, physiology and life-history traits between sexual and asexual wasps were standardized in term of effect size (Cohen’s d value; Cohen, 1988). Results Seeking consilience from the differences between multiple traits, we found that sexuals invest more in longevity at the expense of egg-load, are more mobile, and display higher plasticity in response to thermal variability than asexual counterparts. Discussion Thus, each form has consistent multiple adaptations to the ecological circumstances in the contrasting environments. PMID:28924495

Mechanical analysis of pipe-type cable under TMB

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Greenwood, A.N.; Levy, R.; Spillers, W.R.

1982-07-01

This paper summarizes recent work performed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on the mechanical response of pipe-type cable to the TMB environment. It deals with both the internal stress distribution at a point and gross cable moduli. Typical experimental results are included.

EVALUATING LANDSCAPE CHANGE AND HYDROLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES IN A SEMI-ARID ENVIRONMENT

EPA Science Inventory

During the past two decades, important advances in the integration of remote imagery, computer processing, and spatial analysis technologies have been used to better understand the distribution of natural communities and ecosystems, and the ecological processes that affect these ...

Distribution of some natural and man-made radionuclides in soil from the city of Veles (Republic of Macedonia) and its environs.

PubMed

Dimovska, Snezana; Stafilov, Trajce; Sajn, Robert; Frontasyeva, Marina

2010-02-01

A systematic study of soil radioactivity in the metallurgical centre of the Republic of Macedonia, the city of Veles and its environs, was carried out. The measurement of the radioactivity was performed in 55 samples from evenly distributed sampling sites. The gross alpha and gross beta radioactivity measurements were made as a screening, using a low background gas-flow proportional counter. For the analysis of (40)K, (238)U, (232)Th and (137)Cs, a P-type coaxial high purity germanium detector was used. The values for the activity concentrations of the natural radionuclides fall well within the worldwide range as reported in the literature. It is shown that the activity of man-made radionuclides, except for (137)Cs, is below the detection limit. (137)Cs originated from the atmospheric deposition and present in soil in the activity concentration range of 2-358 Bq kg(-1) is irregularly distributed over the sampled territory owing to the complicated orography of the land. The results of gamma spectrometry are compared to the K, U, and Th concentrations previously obtained by the reactor neutron activation analysis in the same soil samples.

Development and Application of the Collaborative Optimization Architecture in a Multidisciplinary Design Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Braun, R. D.; Kroo, I. M.

1995-01-01

Collaborative optimization is a design architecture applicable in any multidisciplinary analysis environment but specifically intended for large-scale distributed analysis applications. In this approach, a complex problem is hierarchically de- composed along disciplinary boundaries into a number of subproblems which are brought into multidisciplinary agreement by a system-level coordination process. When applied to problems in a multidisciplinary design environment, this scheme has several advantages over traditional solution strategies. These advantageous features include reducing the amount of information transferred between disciplines, the removal of large iteration-loops, allowing the use of different subspace optimizers among the various analysis groups, an analysis framework which is easily parallelized and can operate on heterogenous equipment, and a structural framework that is well-suited for conventional disciplinary organizations. In this article, the collaborative architecture is developed and its mathematical foundation is presented. An example application is also presented which highlights the potential of this method for use in large-scale design applications.

An Analysis of the Orbital Distribution of Solid Rocket Motor Slag

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horstman, Matthew F.; Mulrooney, Mark

2007-01-01

The contribution made by orbiting solid rocket motors (SRMs) to the orbital debris environment is both potentially significant and insufficiently studied. A combination of rocket motor design and the mechanisms of the combustion process can lead to the emission of sufficiently large and numerous by-products to warrant assessment of their contribution to the orbital debris environment. These particles are formed during SRM tail-off, or the termination of burn, by the rapid expansion, dissemination, and solidification of the molten Al2O3 slag pool accumulated during the main burn phase of SRMs utilizing immersion-type nozzles. Though the usage of SRMs is low compared to the usage of liquid fueled motors, the propensity of SRMs to generate particles in the 100 m and larger size regime has caused concern regarding their contributing to the debris environment. Particle sizes as large as 1 cm have been witnessed in ground tests conducted under vacuum conditions and comparable sizes have been estimated via ground-based telescopic and in-situ observations of sub-orbital SRM tail-off events. Using sub-orbital and post recovery observations, a simplistic number-size-velocity distribution of slag from on-orbit SRM firings was postulated. In this paper we have developed more elaborate distributions and emission scenarios and modeled the resultant orbital population and its time evolution by incorporating a historical database of SRM launches, propellant masses, and likely location and time of particulate deposition. From this analysis a more comprehensive understanding has been obtained of the role of SRM ejecta in the orbital debris environment, indicating that SRM slag is a significant component of the current and future population.

Applications of the pipeline environment for visual informatics and genomics computations

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background Contemporary informatics and genomics research require efficient, flexible and robust management of large heterogeneous data, advanced computational tools, powerful visualization, reliable hardware infrastructure, interoperability of computational resources, and detailed data and analysis-protocol provenance. The Pipeline is a client-server distributed computational environment that facilitates the visual graphical construction, execution, monitoring, validation and dissemination of advanced data analysis protocols. Results This paper reports on the applications of the LONI Pipeline environment to address two informatics challenges - graphical management of diverse genomics tools, and the interoperability of informatics software. Specifically, this manuscript presents the concrete details of deploying general informatics suites and individual software tools to new hardware infrastructures, the design, validation and execution of new visual analysis protocols via the Pipeline graphical interface, and integration of diverse informatics tools via the Pipeline eXtensible Markup Language syntax. We demonstrate each of these processes using several established informatics packages (e.g., miBLAST, EMBOSS, mrFAST, GWASS, MAQ, SAMtools, Bowtie) for basic local sequence alignment and search, molecular biology data analysis, and genome-wide association studies. These examples demonstrate the power of the Pipeline graphical workflow environment to enable integration of bioinformatics resources which provide a well-defined syntax for dynamic specification of the input/output parameters and the run-time execution controls. Conclusions The LONI Pipeline environment http://pipeline.loni.ucla.edu provides a flexible graphical infrastructure for efficient biomedical computing and distributed informatics research. The interactive Pipeline resource manager enables the utilization and interoperability of diverse types of informatics resources. The Pipeline client-server model provides computational power to a broad spectrum of informatics investigators - experienced developers and novice users, user with or without access to advanced computational-resources (e.g., Grid, data), as well as basic and translational scientists. The open development, validation and dissemination of computational networks (pipeline workflows) facilitates the sharing of knowledge, tools, protocols and best practices, and enables the unbiased validation and replication of scientific findings by the entire community. PMID:21791102

[Analysis of streamer properties and emission spectroscopy of 2-D OH distribution of pulsed corona discharge].

PubMed

Zhao, Lei; Gao, Xiang; Luo, Zhong-Yang; Xuan, Jian-Yong; Jiang, Jian-Ping; Cen, Ke-Fa

2011-11-01

Streamer plays a key role in the process of OH radical generation. The propagation of primary and secondary streamers of positive wire-plate pulsed corona discharge was observed using a short gate ICCD in air environment. The influence of the applied voltage on the properties was investigated. It was shown that the primary streamer propagation velocity, electric coverage and length of secondary streamer increased significantly with increasing the applied voltage. Then 2-D OH distribution was investigated by the emission spectrum. With the analysis of the OH emission spectra, the distribution of OH radicals showed a trend of decreasing from the wire electrode to its circumambience. Compared with the streamer propagation trace, the authors found that OH radical distribution and streamer are in the same area. Both OH radical concentration and the intensity of streamer decreased when far away from the wire electrode.

Comparing host and target environments for distributed Ada programs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Paulk, Mark C.

1986-01-01

The Ada programming language provides a means of specifying logical concurrency by using multitasking. Extending the Ada multitasking concurrency mechanism into a physically concurrent distributed environment which imposes its own requirements can lead to incompatibilities. These problems are discussed. Using distributed Ada for a target system may be appropriate, but when using the Ada language in a host environment, a multiprocessing model may be more suitable than retargeting an Ada compiler for the distributed environment. The tradeoffs between multitasking on distributed targets and multiprocessing on distributed hosts are discussed. Comparisons of the multitasking and multiprocessing models indicate different areas of application.

Cloud-Based Orchestration of a Model-Based Power and Data Analysis Toolchain

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Post, Ethan; Cole, Bjorn; Dinkel, Kevin; Kim, Hongman; Lee, Erich; Nairouz, Bassem

2016-01-01

The proposed Europa Mission concept contains many engineering and scientific instruments that consume varying amounts of power and produce varying amounts of data throughout the mission. System-level power and data usage must be well understood and analyzed to verify design requirements. Numerous cross-disciplinary tools and analysis models are used to simulate the system-level spacecraft power and data behavior. This paper addresses the problem of orchestrating a consistent set of models, tools, and data in a unified analysis toolchain when ownership is distributed among numerous domain experts. An analysis and simulation environment was developed as a way to manage the complexity of the power and data analysis toolchain and to reduce the simulation turnaround time. A system model data repository is used as the trusted store of high-level inputs and results while other remote servers are used for archival of larger data sets and for analysis tool execution. Simulation data passes through numerous domain-specific analysis tools and end-to-end simulation execution is enabled through a web-based tool. The use of a cloud-based service facilitates coordination among distributed developers and enables scalable computation and storage needs, and ensures a consistent execution environment. Configuration management is emphasized to maintain traceability between current and historical simulation runs and their corresponding versions of models, tools and data.

Studying the properties of massive galaxies in protoclusters using millimetre-wavelength observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeballos, M.; Hughes, D. H.; Aretxaga, I.; Wilson, G.

2011-10-01

We present an analysis of the number density and spatial distribution of the population of millimetre galaxies (MMGs) towards 17 high-z active galaxies using 1.1 mm observations taken with the AzTEC camera on the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE) and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT). The sample allows us to study the properties of MMGs in protocluster environments and compare them to the population in blank (unbiased) fields. The goal is to identify if these biased environments are responsible for differences in the number and distribution of dust-obscured star-forming galaxies and whether these changes support the suggestion that MMGs are the progenitors of massive (elliptical) galaxies we see today in the centre of rich clusters.

Full immersion simulation: validation of a distributed simulation environment for technical and non-technical skills training in Urology.

PubMed

Brewin, James; Tang, Jessica; Dasgupta, Prokar; Khan, Muhammad S; Ahmed, Kamran; Bello, Fernando; Kneebone, Roger; Jaye, Peter

2015-07-01

To evaluate the face, content and construct validity of the distributed simulation (DS) environment for technical and non-technical skills training in endourology. To evaluate the educational impact of DS for urology training. DS offers a portable, low-cost simulated operating room environment that can be set up in any open space. A prospective mixed methods design using established validation methodology was conducted in this simulated environment with 10 experienced and 10 trainee urologists. All participants performed a simulated prostate resection in the DS environment. Outcome measures included surveys to evaluate the DS, as well as comparative analyses of experienced and trainee urologist's performance using real-time and 'blinded' video analysis and validated performance metrics. Non-parametric statistical methods were used to compare differences between groups. The DS environment demonstrated face, content and construct validity for both non-technical and technical skills. Kirkpatrick level 1 evidence for the educational impact of the DS environment was shown. Further studies are needed to evaluate the effect of simulated operating room training on real operating room performance. This study has shown the validity of the DS environment for non-technical, as well as technical skills training. DS-based simulation appears to be a valuable addition to traditional classroom-based simulation training. © 2014 The Authors BJU International © 2014 BJU International Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Logistic Regression and Path Analysis Method to Analyze Factors influencing Students’ Achievement

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Noeryanti, N.; Suryowati, K.; Setyawan, Y.; Aulia, R. R.

2018-04-01

Students' academic achievement cannot be separated from the influence of two factors namely internal and external factors. The first factors of the student (internal factors) consist of intelligence (X1), health (X2), interest (X3), and motivation of students (X4). The external factors consist of family environment (X5), school environment (X6), and society environment (X7). The objects of this research are eighth grade students of the school year 2016/2017 at SMPN 1 Jiwan Madiun sampled by using simple random sampling. Primary data are obtained by distributing questionnaires. The method used in this study is binary logistic regression analysis that aims to identify internal and external factors that affect student’s achievement and how the trends of them. Path Analysis was used to determine the factors that influence directly, indirectly or totally on student’s achievement. Based on the results of binary logistic regression, variables that affect student’s achievement are interest and motivation. And based on the results obtained by path analysis, factors that have a direct impact on student’s achievement are students’ interest (59%) and students’ motivation (27%). While the factors that have indirect influences on students’ achievement, are family environment (97%) and school environment (37).

Safety of High Speed Magnetic Levitation Transportation Systems : Thermal Effects and Related Safety Issues of Typical Maglev Steel Guideways

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1994-09-01

This report presents a theoretical analysis predicting the temperature distribution, thermal deflections, and thermal stresses that may occur in typical steel Maglev guideways under the proposed Orlando FL thermal environment. Transient, finite eleme...

Cellular water distribution, transport, and its investigation methods for plant-based food material.

PubMed

Khan, Md Imran H; Karim, M A

2017-09-01

Heterogeneous and hygroscopic characteristics of plant-based food material make it complex in structure, and therefore water distribution in its different cellular environments is very complex. There are three different cellular environments, namely the intercellular environment, the intracellular environment, and the cell wall environment inside the food structure. According to the bonding strength, intracellular water is defined as loosely bound water, cell wall water is categorized as strongly bound water, and intercellular water is known as free water (FW). During food drying, optimization of the heat and mass transfer process is crucial for the energy efficiency of the process and the quality of the product. For optimizing heat and mass transfer during food processing, understanding these three types of waters (strongly bound, loosely bound, and free water) in plant-based food material is essential. However, there are few studies that investigate cellular level water distribution and transport. As there is no direct method for determining the cellular level water distributions, various indirect methods have been applied to investigate the cellular level water distribution, and there is, as yet, no consensus on the appropriate method for measuring cellular level water in plant-based food material. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review on the available methods to investigate the cellular level water, the characteristics of water at different cellular levels and its transport mechanism during drying. The effect of bound water transport on quality of food product is also discussed. This review article presents a comparative study of different methods that can be applied to investigate cellular water such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dilatometry. The article closes with a discussion of current challenges to investigating cellular water. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of System Architecture to Investigate the Impact of Integrated Air and Missile Defense in a Distributed Lethality Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-12-01

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE TO INVESTIGATE THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATED AIR AND MISSILE DEFENSE IN A DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY ENVIRONMENT by Justin K. Davis...TO INVESTIGATE THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATED AIR AND MISSILE DEFENSE IN A DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY ENVIRONMENT 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6. AUTHOR(S) Justin K...ARCHITECTURE TO INVESTIGATE THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATED AIR AND MISSILE DEFENSE IN A DISTRIBUTED LETHALITY ENVIRONMENT Justin K. Davis Lieutenant

Models and strategies for electricity distribution companies in emerging economies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zaragocin Espinosa, Leonardo Vicente

Unbundling and privatization have become key elements of restructuring in the Electric Power Industry of Emerging Economies. These processes have concentrated on the Generation and Transmission areas, leaving Distribution as lower priority. Based on a comparison between the old role of Distribution Companies (DISCOS) and its new potential role this study identifies the main issues and challenges that DISCOS will face in the new environment once structural and ownership changes are completed. For the specific case of DISCOS in Emerging Economies, regulatory policies are reviewed and strategies identified in order to facilitate the transition and to assist in the integration of DISCOS with other agents in the evolving electric power market. Of particular importance in this research is the analysis of the role of Energy Efficiency (EE) in the new structural and governance environment. A theoretical study of the effects of energy efficiency measures, specifically loss reduction, on price regulation is developed within a proposed regulatory regime of privatization together with Price-Cap Regulation. This theoretical benchmark is then used as a starting point for a case study, the Electric System of Ecuador, where an analysis of the current Ecuadorian price regulation scheme (the Distribution Value Added Charge, VAD, scheme) is presented and analyzed in detail. General recommendations for improving the application of the VAD pricing approach are advanced, with special reference to the current situation in Ecuador.

Scaling Bulk Data Analysis with Mapreduce

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-09-01

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE from the NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL September...2017 Approved by: Michael McCarrin Thesis Co-Advisor Marcus S. Stefanou Thesis Co-Advisor Peter J. Denning Chair, Department of Computer Science iii...98 xiii THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK xiv List of Acronyms and Abbreviations CART Computer Analysis and Response Team DELV Distributed Environment

Impacts of temperature and pH on the distribution of archaeal lipids in Yunnan hot springs, China

PubMed Central

Wu, Weiyan; Zhang, Chuanlun L.; Wang, Huanye; He, Liu; Li, Wenjun; Dong, Hailiang

2013-01-01

In culture experiments and many low temperature environments, the distribution of isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) commonly shows a strong correlation with temperature; however, this is often not the case in hot springs. We studied 26 hot springs in Yunnan, China, in order to determine whether temperature or other factors control the distribution of GDGTs in these environments. The hot springs ranged in temperature from 39.0 to 94.0°C, and in pH from 2.35 to 9.11. Water chemistry including nitrogen-, sulfur-, and iron species was also determined. Lipids from the samples were analyzed using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS). Distributions of GDGTs in these hot springs were examined using cluster analysis, which resulted in two major groups. Group 1 was characterized by the lack of dominance of any individual GDGTs, while Group 2 was defined by the dominance of GDGT-0 or thaumarchaeol. Temperature was the main control on GDGT distribution in Group 1, whereas pH played an important role in the distribution of GDGTs in Group 2. However, no correlations were found between the distribution of GDGTs and any of the nitrogen-, sulfur-, or iron species. Results of this study indicate the dominance of temperature or pH control on archaeal lipid distribution, which can be better evaluated in the context of lipid classification. PMID:24194734

PhyLIS: a simple GNU/Linux distribution for phylogenetics and phyloinformatics.

PubMed

Thomson, Robert C

2009-07-30

PhyLIS is a free GNU/Linux distribution that is designed to provide a simple, standardized platform for phylogenetic and phyloinformatic analysis. The operating system incorporates most commonly used phylogenetic software, which has been pre-compiled and pre-configured, allowing for straightforward application of phylogenetic methods and development of phyloinformatic pipelines in a stable Linux environment. The software is distributed as a live CD and can be installed directly or run from the CD without making changes to the computer. PhyLIS is available for free at http://www.eve.ucdavis.edu/rcthomson/phylis/.

PhyLIS: A Simple GNU/Linux Distribution for Phylogenetics and Phyloinformatics

PubMed Central

Thomson, Robert C.

2009-01-01

PhyLIS is a free GNU/Linux distribution that is designed to provide a simple, standardized platform for phylogenetic and phyloinformatic analysis. The operating system incorporates most commonly used phylogenetic software, which has been pre-compiled and pre-configured, allowing for straightforward application of phylogenetic methods and development of phyloinformatic pipelines in a stable Linux environment. The software is distributed as a live CD and can be installed directly or run from the CD without making changes to the computer. PhyLIS is available for free at http://www.eve.ucdavis.edu/rcthomson/phylis/. PMID:19812729

Network analysis of the COSMOS galaxy field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Regt, R.; Apunevych, S.; von Ferber, C.; Holovatch, Yu; Novosyadlyj, B.

2018-07-01

The galaxy data provided by COSMOS survey for 1°×1° field of sky are analysed by methods of complex networks. Three galaxy samples (slices) with redshifts ranging within intervals 0.88÷0.91, 0.91÷0.94, and 0.94÷0.97 are studied as two-dimensional projections for the spatial distributions of galaxies. We construct networks and calculate network measures for each sample, in order to analyse the network similarity of different samples, distinguish various topological environments, and find associations between galaxy properties (colour index and stellar mass) and their topological environments. Results indicate a high level of similarity between geometry and topology for different galaxy samples and no clear evidence of evolutionary trends in network measures. The distribution of local clustering coefficient C manifests three modes which allow for discrimination between stand-alone singlets and dumbbells (0 ≤ C ≤ 0.1), intermediately packed (0.1 < C < 0.9) and clique (0.9 ≤ C ≤ 1) like galaxies. Analysing astrophysical properties of galaxies (colour index and stellar masses), we show that distributions are similar in all slices, however weak evolutionary trends can also be seen across redshift slices. To specify different topological environments, we have extracted selections of galaxies from each sample according to different modes of C distribution. We have found statistically significant associations between evolutionary parameters of galaxies and selections of C: the distribution of stellar mass for galaxies with interim C differs from the corresponding distributions for stand-alone and clique galaxies, and this difference holds for all redshift slices. The colour index realizes somewhat different behaviour.

Network analysis of the COSMOS galaxy field

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Regt, R.; Apunevych, S.; Ferber, C. von; Holovatch, Yu; Novosyadlyj, B.

2018-03-01

The galaxy data provided by COSMOS survey for 1° × 1° field of sky are analysed by methods of complex networks. Three galaxy samples (slices) with redshifts ranging within intervals 0.88÷0.91, 0.91÷0.94 and 0.94÷0.97 are studied as two-dimensional projections for the spatial distributions of galaxies. We construct networks and calculate network measures for each sample, in order to analyse the network similarity of different samples, distinguish various topological environments, and find associations between galaxy properties (colour index and stellar mass) and their topological environments. Results indicate a high level of similarity between geometry and topology for different galaxy samples and no clear evidence of evolutionary trends in network measures. The distribution of local clustering coefficient C manifests three modes which allow for discrimination between stand-alone singlets and dumbbells (0 ≤ C ≤ 0.1), intermediately packed (0.1 < C < 0.9) and clique (0.9 ≤ C ≤ 1) like galaxies. Analysing astrophysical properties of galaxies (colour index and stellar masses), we show that distributions are similar in all slices, however weak evolutionary trends can also be seen across redshift slices. To specify different topological environments we have extracted selections of galaxies from each sample according to different modes of C distribution. We have found statistically significant associations between evolutionary parameters of galaxies and selections of C: the distribution of stellar mass for galaxies with interim C differ from the corresponding distributions for stand-alone and clique galaxies, and this difference holds for all redshift slices. The colour index realises somewhat different behaviour.

Spiral Arm Morphology in Cluster Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Isaac Yeoun-Gyu; Ann, Hong Bae

2011-10-01

We examine the dependence of the morphology of spiral galaxies on the environment using the KIAS Value Added Galaxy Catalog (VAGC) which is derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7. Our goal is to understand whether the local environment or global conditions dominate in determining the morphology of spiral galaxies. For the analysis, we conduct a morphological classification of galaxies in 20 X-ray selected Abell clusters up to z˜0.06, using SDSS color images and the X-ray data from the Northern ROSAT All-Sky (NORAS) catalog. We analyze the distribution of arm classes along the clustercentric radius as well as that of Hubble types. To segregate the effect of local environment from the global environment, we compare the morphological distribution of galaxies in two X-lay luminosity groups, the low-Lx clusters (Lx < 0.15×1044erg/s) and high-Lx clusters (Lx > 1.8×1044erg/s). We find that the morphology-clustercentric relation prevails in the cluster envirnment although there is a brake near the cluster virial radius. The grand design arms comprise about 40% of the cluster spiral galaxies with a weak morphology-clustercentric radius relation for the arm classes, in the sense that flocculent galaxies tend to increase outward, regardless of the X-ray luminosity. From the cumulative radial distribution of cluster galaxies, we found that the low-Lx clusters are fully virialized while the high-Lx clusters are not.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Urban Acoustic Environments with Binaural Psycho-Acoustical Considerations for IoT-Based Applications.

PubMed

Segura-Garcia, Jaume; Navarro-Ruiz, Juan Miguel; Perez-Solano, Juan J; Montoya-Belmonte, Jose; Felici-Castell, Santiago; Cobos, Maximo; Torres-Aranda, Ana M

2018-02-26

Sound pleasantness or annoyance perceived in urban soundscapes is a major concern in environmental acoustics. Binaural psychoacoustic parameters are helpful to describe generic acoustic environments, as it is stated within the ISO 12913 framework. In this paper, the application of a Wireless Acoustic Sensor Network (WASN) to evaluate the spatial distribution and the evolution of urban acoustic environments is described. Two experiments are presented using an indoor and an outdoor deployment of a WASN with several nodes using an Internet of Things (IoT) environment to collect audio data and calculate meaningful parameters such as the sound pressure level, binaural loudness and binaural sharpness. A chunk of audio is recorded in each node periodically with a microphone array and the binaural rendering is conducted by exploiting the estimated directional characteristics of the incoming sound by means of DOA estimation. Each node computes the parameters in a different location and sends the values to a cloud-based broker structure that allows spatial statistical analysis through Kriging techniques. A cross-validation analysis is also performed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed system.

A Disciplined Architectural Approach to Scaling Data Analysis for Massive, Scientific Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crichton, D. J.; Braverman, A. J.; Cinquini, L.; Turmon, M.; Lee, H.; Law, E.

2014-12-01

Data collections across remote sensing and ground-based instruments in astronomy, Earth science, and planetary science are outpacing scientists' ability to analyze them. Furthermore, the distribution, structure, and heterogeneity of the measurements themselves pose challenges that limit the scalability of data analysis using traditional approaches. Methods for developing science data processing pipelines, distribution of scientific datasets, and performing analysis will require innovative approaches that integrate cyber-infrastructure, algorithms, and data into more systematic approaches that can more efficiently compute and reduce data, particularly distributed data. This requires the integration of computer science, machine learning, statistics and domain expertise to identify scalable architectures for data analysis. The size of data returned from Earth Science observing satellites and the magnitude of data from climate model output, is predicted to grow into the tens of petabytes challenging current data analysis paradigms. This same kind of growth is present in astronomy and planetary science data. One of the major challenges in data science and related disciplines defining new approaches to scaling systems and analysis in order to increase scientific productivity and yield. Specific needs include: 1) identification of optimized system architectures for analyzing massive, distributed data sets; 2) algorithms for systematic analysis of massive data sets in distributed environments; and 3) the development of software infrastructures that are capable of performing massive, distributed data analysis across a comprehensive data science framework. NASA/JPL has begun an initiative in data science to address these challenges. Our goal is to evaluate how scientific productivity can be improved through optimized architectural topologies that identify how to deploy and manage the access, distribution, computation, and reduction of massive, distributed data, while managing the uncertainties of scientific conclusions derived from such capabilities. This talk will provide an overview of JPL's efforts in developing a comprehensive architectural approach to data science.

GIS-based spatial statistical analysis of risk areas for liver flukes in Surin Province of Thailand.

PubMed

Rujirakul, Ratana; Ueng-arporn, Naporn; Kaewpitoon, Soraya; Loyd, Ryan J; Kaewthani, Sarochinee; Kaewpitoon, Natthawut

2015-01-01

It is urgently necessary to be aware of the distribution and risk areas of liver fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini, for proper allocation of prevention and control measures. This study aimed to investigate the human behavior, and environmental factors influencing the distribution in Surin Province of Thailand, and to build a model using stepwise multiple regression analysis with a geographic information system (GIS) on environment and climate data. The relationship between the human behavior, attitudes (<50%; X111), environmental factors like population density (148-169 pop/km2; X73), and land use as wetland (X64), were correlated with the liver fluke disease distribution at 0.000, 0.034, and 0.006 levels, respectively. Multiple regression analysis, by equations OV=-0.599+0.005(population density (148-169 pop/km2); X73)+0.040 (human attitude (<50%); X111)+0.022 (land used (wetland; X64), was used to predict the distribution of liver fluke. OV is the patients of liver fluke infection, R Square=0.878, and, Adjust R Square=0.849. By GIS analysis, we found Si Narong, Sangkha, Phanom Dong Rak, Mueang Surin, Non Narai, Samrong Thap, Chumphon Buri, and Rattanaburi to have the highest distributions in Surin province. In conclusion, the combination of GIS and statistical analysis can help simulate the spatial distribution and risk areas of liver fluke, and thus may be an important tool for future planning of prevention and control measures.

Principal components analysis of the photoresponse nonuniformity of a matrix detector.

PubMed

Ferrero, Alejandro; Alda, Javier; Campos, Joaquín; López-Alonso, Jose Manuel; Pons, Alicia

2007-01-01

The principal component analysis is used to identify and quantify spatial distributions of relative photoresponse as a function of the exposure time for a visible CCD array. The analysis shows a simple way to define an invariant photoresponse nonuniformity and compare it with the definition of this invariant pattern as the one obtained for long exposure times. Experimental data of radiant exposure from levels of irradiance obtained in a stable and well-controlled environment are used.

Species composition, richness, and distribution of marine bivalve molluscs in Bahía de Mazatlán, México

PubMed Central

Esqueda-González, María del Carmen; Ríos-Jara, Eduardo; Galván-Villa, Cristian Moises; Rodríguez-Zaragoza, Fabian Alejandro

2014-01-01

Abstract We describe the composition and distribution of bivalve molluscs from the sandy and rocky intertidal and the shallow subtidal environments of Bahía de Mazatlán, México. The bivalve fauna of the bay is represented by 89 living species in 28 families, including 37 new records and four range extensions: Lithophaga hastasia, Adula soleniformis, Mactrellona subalata, and Strigilla ervilia. The number of species increases from the upper (44) and lower intertidal (53) to the shallow subtidal (76), but only 11 (17%) have a wide distribution in the bay (i.e., found in all sampling sites and environments). The bivalve assemblages are composed of four main life forms: 27 epifaunal species, 26 infaunal, 16 semi-infaunal, and 20 endolithic. A taxonomic distinctness analysis identified the sampling sites and environments that contribute the most to the taxonomic diversity (species to suborder categories) of the bay. The present work increased significantly (31%) to 132 species previous inventories of bivalves of Bahía de Mazatlán. These species represent 34% of the bivalve diversity of the southern Golfo de California and approximately 15% of the Eastern Tropical Pacific region. PMID:24843252

WaveJava: Wavelet-based network computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Kun; Jiao, Licheng; Shi, Zhuoer

1997-04-01

Wavelet is a powerful theory, but its successful application still needs suitable programming tools. Java is a simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture-neutral, portable, high-performance, multi- threaded, dynamic language. This paper addresses the design and development of a cross-platform software environment for experimenting and applying wavelet theory. WaveJava, a wavelet class library designed by the object-orient programming, is developed to take advantage of the wavelets features, such as multi-resolution analysis and parallel processing in the networking computing. A new application architecture is designed for the net-wide distributed client-server environment. The data are transmitted with multi-resolution packets. At the distributed sites around the net, these data packets are done the matching or recognition processing in parallel. The results are fed back to determine the next operation. So, the more robust results can be arrived quickly. The WaveJava is easy to use and expand for special application. This paper gives a solution for the distributed fingerprint information processing system. It also fits for some other net-base multimedia information processing, such as network library, remote teaching and filmless picture archiving and communications.

Geo-ethical dimension of community's safety: rural and urban population vulnerability analysis methodology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kostyuchenko, Yuriy; Movchan, Dmytro; Kopachevsky, Ivan; Yuschenko, Maxim

2016-04-01

Modern world based on relations more than on causalities, so communicative, socio-economic, and socio-cultural issues are important to understand nature of risks and to make correct, ethical decisions. Today major part of risk analysts declared new nature of modern risks. We faced coherent or systemic risks, realization of which leads to domino effect, unexpected growing of losses and fatalities. This type of risks originated by complicated nature of heterogeneous environment, close interconnection of engineering networks, and changing structure of society. Heterogeneous multi-agent environment generates systemic risks, which requires analyze multi-source data with sophisticated tools. Formal basis for analysis of this type of risks is developed during last 5-7 years. But issues of social fairness, ethics, and education require further development. One aspect of analysis of social issues of risk management is studied in this paper. Formal algorithm for quantitative analysis of multi-source data analysis is proposed. As it was demonstrated, using proposed methodological base and the algorithm, it is possible to obtain regularized spatial-temporal distribution of investigated parameters over whole observation period with rectified reliability and controlled uncertainty. The result of disaster data analysis demonstrates that about half of direct disaster damage might be caused by social factors: education, experience and social behaviour. Using data presented also possible to estimate quantitative parameters of the losses distributions: a relation between education, age, experience, and losses; as well as vulnerability (in terms of probable damage) toward financial status in current social density. It is demonstrated that on wide-scale range an education determines risk perception and so vulnerability of societies. But on the local level there are important heterogeneities. Land-use and urbanization structure influencing to vulnerability essentially. The way to calculate a distribution of losses connected with decision making in land-use is demonstrated. Rural community's vulnerability determines by water availability, quality of soils, effectiveness of land use (including climate change adaptation), intensity of pollutions, crop productivity variations during the period of crop rotation, annual national distribution of crops output, and distance to city centres. It should noted here that "distance to city centres" is not comprehensive indicator of market accessibility in general case: quality and availability of transport infrastructure should be described more detailed on the next stages of analysis. Urban population vulnerability determines by distribution of urban fractures and quality urban environment: density, quality and availability of infrastructure, balance between industrial, residential and recreational zones, effectiveness of urban land use and landscape management, and social policy, particularly, employment. Population density is closely connected with social density, with communications and decision making. Social learning, as the function of social communications, is the way to increase sustainability. Also it possible to say that social sustainability is a function of intensity and efficiency of communications between interlinked and interacted networks in the heterogeneous environment. Therefore the results of study demonstrated that risk management study should includes issues of risk and threats perception, which should be described in framework of appropriate tools and approaches connected with ethical dimension of vulnerability. For instance, problems of accessibility and availability of safety resources in view of social fairness and socio-economic dynamics should be included into future studies in field of risk analysis.

Host tolerance, not symbiont tolerance, determines the distribution of coral species in relation to their environment at a Central Pacific atoll

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wicks, L. C.; Gardner, J. P. A.; Davy, S. K.

2012-06-01

Tolerance of environmental variables differs between corals and their dinoflagellate symbionts ( Symbiodinium spp.), controlling the holobiont's (host and symbiont combined) resilience to environmental stress. However, the ecological role that environmental variables play in holobiont distribution remains poorly understood. We compared the drivers of symbiont and coral species distributions at Palmyra Atoll, a location with a range of reef environments from low to high sediment concentrations (1-52 g dry weight m-2 day-1). We observed uniform holobiont partnerships across the atoll (e.g. Montipora spp. with Symbiodinium type C15 at all sites). Multivariate analysis revealed that field-based estimates of settling sediment predominantly explained the spatial variation of coral species among sites ( P < 0.01). However, none of the environmental variables measured (sedimentation, temperature, chlorophyll concentration, salinity) affected symbiont distribution. The discord between environmental variables and symbiont distributions suggests that the symbionts are physiologically tolerant of the variable environmental regime across this location and that the distribution of different host-symbiont combinations present is largely dependent on coral rather than Symbiodinium physiology. The data highlight the importance of host tolerance to environmental stressors, which should be considered simultaneously with symbiont sensitivity when considering the impact of variations in environmental conditions on coral communities.

Distributed Engine Control Empirical/Analytical Verification Tools

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DeCastro, Jonathan; Hettler, Eric; Yedavalli, Rama; Mitra, Sayan

2013-01-01

NASA's vision for an intelligent engine will be realized with the development of a truly distributed control system featuring highly reliable, modular, and dependable components capable of both surviving the harsh engine operating environment and decentralized functionality. A set of control system verification tools was developed and applied to a C-MAPSS40K engine model, and metrics were established to assess the stability and performance of these control systems on the same platform. A software tool was developed that allows designers to assemble easily a distributed control system in software and immediately assess the overall impacts of the system on the target (simulated) platform, allowing control system designers to converge rapidly on acceptable architectures with consideration to all required hardware elements. The software developed in this program will be installed on a distributed hardware-in-the-loop (DHIL) simulation tool to assist NASA and the Distributed Engine Control Working Group (DECWG) in integrating DCS (distributed engine control systems) components onto existing and next-generation engines.The distributed engine control simulator blockset for MATLAB/Simulink and hardware simulator provides the capability to simulate virtual subcomponents, as well as swap actual subcomponents for hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) analysis. Subcomponents can be the communication network, smart sensor or actuator nodes, or a centralized control system. The distributed engine control blockset for MATLAB/Simulink is a software development tool. The software includes an engine simulation, a communication network simulation, control algorithms, and analysis algorithms set up in a modular environment for rapid simulation of different network architectures; the hardware consists of an embedded device running parts of the CMAPSS engine simulator and controlled through Simulink. The distributed engine control simulation, evaluation, and analysis technology provides unique capabilities to study the effects of a given change to the control system in the context of the distributed paradigm. The simulation tool can support treatment of all components within the control system, both virtual and real; these include communication data network, smart sensor and actuator nodes, centralized control system (FADEC full authority digital engine control), and the aircraft engine itself. The DECsim tool can allow simulation-based prototyping of control laws, control architectures, and decentralization strategies before hardware is integrated into the system. With the configuration specified, the simulator allows a variety of key factors to be systematically assessed. Such factors include control system performance, reliability, weight, and bandwidth utilization.

Ecogenomics: Ensemble Analysis of Gene Expression in Microbial Communities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sogin, Mitchell; DesMarais, David J.; Stahl, D. A.; Pace, Norman R.

2001-01-01

The hierarchical organization of microbial ecosystems determines process rates that shape Earth's environment, create the biomarker sedimentary and atmospheric signatures of life, and define the stage upon which major evolutionary events occurred. In order to understand how microorganisms have shaped the global environment of Earth and, potentially, other worlds, we must develop an experimental paradigm that links biogeochemical processes with ever-changing temporal and spatial distributions of microbial populations and their metabolic properties. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Equations for hydraulic conductivity estimation from particle size distribution: A dimensional analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Ji-Peng; François, Bertrand; Lambert, Pierre

2017-09-01

Estimating hydraulic conductivity from particle size distribution (PSD) is an important issue for various engineering problems. Classical models such as Hazen model, Beyer model, and Kozeny-Carman model usually regard the grain diameter at 10% passing (d10) as an effective grain size and the effects of particle size uniformity (in Beyer model) or porosity (in Kozeny-Carman model) are sometimes embedded. This technical note applies the dimensional analysis (Buckingham's ∏ theorem) to analyze the relationship between hydraulic conductivity and particle size distribution (PSD). The porosity is regarded as a dependent variable on the grain size distribution in unconsolidated conditions. It indicates that the coefficient of grain size uniformity and a dimensionless group representing the gravity effect, which is proportional to the mean grain volume, are the main two determinative parameters for estimating hydraulic conductivity. Regression analysis is then carried out on a database comprising 431 samples collected from different depositional environments and new equations are developed for hydraulic conductivity estimation. The new equation, validated in specimens beyond the database, shows an improved prediction comparing to using the classic models.

Comparative phyloinformatics of virus genes at micro and macro levels in a distributed computing environment.

PubMed

Singh, Dadabhai T; Trehan, Rahul; Schmidt, Bertil; Bretschneider, Timo

2008-01-01

Preparedness for a possible global pandemic caused by viruses such as the highly pathogenic influenza A subtype H5N1 has become a global priority. In particular, it is critical to monitor the appearance of any new emerging subtypes. Comparative phyloinformatics can be used to monitor, analyze, and possibly predict the evolution of viruses. However, in order to utilize the full functionality of available analysis packages for large-scale phyloinformatics studies, a team of computer scientists, biostatisticians and virologists is needed--a requirement which cannot be fulfilled in many cases. Furthermore, the time complexities of many algorithms involved leads to prohibitive runtimes on sequential computer platforms. This has so far hindered the use of comparative phyloinformatics as a commonly applied tool in this area. In this paper the graphical-oriented workflow design system called Quascade and its efficient usage for comparative phyloinformatics are presented. In particular, we focus on how this task can be effectively performed in a distributed computing environment. As a proof of concept, the designed workflows are used for the phylogenetic analysis of neuraminidase of H5N1 isolates (micro level) and influenza viruses (macro level). The results of this paper are hence twofold. Firstly, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of a graphical user interface system to design and execute complex distributed workflows for large-scale phyloinformatics studies of virus genes. Secondly, the analysis of neuraminidase on different levels of complexity provides valuable insights of this virus's tendency for geographical based clustering in the phylogenetic tree and also shows the importance of glycan sites in its molecular evolution. The current study demonstrates the efficiency and utility of workflow systems providing a biologist friendly approach to complex biological dataset analysis using high performance computing. In particular, the utility of the platform Quascade for deploying distributed and parallelized versions of a variety of computationally intensive phylogenetic algorithms has been shown. Secondly, the analysis of the utilized H5N1 neuraminidase datasets at macro and micro levels has clearly indicated a pattern of spatial clustering of the H5N1 viral isolates based on geographical distribution rather than temporal or host range based clustering.

Urbanization and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Industry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Didenko, N. I.; Skripnuk, D. F.; Mirolyubova, O. V.

2017-06-01

This article analyses the global environment. The article describes processes that characterize the global environment, specific indicators are suggested, that can be used to measure the change in the global environment. It is said that cities and all urbanized territories have a negative effect on the global environment. Originally, the authors wanted to call the article «City as a source of destruction of the global environment». But taking into account the fact that urbanization contributes to improving the economic efficiency of the state, cities are the centers of the economic, cultural and informational potential that provide a «breakthrough» into the development of the economy. The article assesses the impact of urbanization on the global environment. For the analysis of the impact of urbanization on the natural habitat, the autoregressive distributed lags (ADL-model) are chosen.

Clinical Physiologic Research Instrumentation: An Approach Using Modular Elements and Distributed Processing

PubMed Central

Hagen, R. W.; Ambos, H. D.; Browder, M. W.; Roloff, W. R.; Thomas, L. J.

1979-01-01

The Clinical Physiologic Research System (CPRS) developed from our experience in applying computers to medical instrumentation problems. This experience revealed a set of applications with a commonality in data acquisition, analysis, input/output, and control needs that could be met by a portable system. The CPRS demonstrates a practical methodology for integrating commercial instruments with distributed modular elements of local design in order to make facile responses to changing instrumentation needs in clinical environments. ImagesFigure 3

Random heteropolymers preserve protein function in foreign environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Panganiban, Brian; Qiao, Baofu; Jiang, Tao; DelRe, Christopher; Obadia, Mona M.; Nguyen, Trung Dac; Smith, Anton A. A.; Hall, Aaron; Sit, Izaac; Crosby, Marquise G.; Dennis, Patrick B.; Drockenmuller, Eric; Olvera de la Cruz, Monica; Xu, Ting

2018-03-01

The successful incorporation of active proteins into synthetic polymers could lead to a new class of materials with functions found only in living systems. However, proteins rarely function under the conditions suitable for polymer processing. On the basis of an analysis of trends in protein sequences and characteristic chemical patterns on protein surfaces, we designed four-monomer random heteropolymers to mimic intrinsically disordered proteins for protein solubilization and stabilization in non-native environments. The heteropolymers, with optimized composition and statistical monomer distribution, enable cell-free synthesis of membrane proteins with proper protein folding for transport and enzyme-containing plastics for toxin bioremediation. Controlling the statistical monomer distribution in a heteropolymer, rather than the specific monomer sequence, affords a new strategy to interface with biological systems for protein-based biomaterials.

Distribution analysis of airborne nicotine concentrations in hospitality facilities.

PubMed

Schorp, Matthias K; Leyden, Donald E

2002-02-01

A number of publications report statistical summaries for environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) concentrations. Despite compelling evidence for the data not being normally distributed, these publications typically report the arithmetic mean and standard deviation of the data, thereby losing important information related to the distribution of values contained in the original data. We were interested in the frequency distributions of reported nicotine concentrations in hospitality environments and subjected available data to distribution analyses. The distribution of experimental indoor airborne nicotine concentration data taken from hospitality facilities worldwide was fit to lognormal, Weibull, exponential, Pearson (Type V), logistic, and loglogistic distribution models. Comparison of goodness of fit (GOF) parameters and indications from the literature verified the selection of a lognormal distribution as the overall best model. When individual data were not reported in the literature, statistical summaries of results were used to model sets of lognormally distributed data that are intended to mimic the original data distribution. Grouping the data into various categories led to 31 frequency distributions that were further interpreted. The median values in nonsmoking environments are about half of the median values in smoking sections. When different continents are compared, Asian, European, and North American median values in restaurants are about a factor of three below levels encountered in other hospitality facilities. On a comparison of nicotine concentrations in North American smoking sections and nonsmoking sections, median values are about one-third of the European levels. The results obtained may be used to address issues related to exposure to ETS in the hospitality sector.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF ANNUAL THERMAL VARIABLES ON THE OCCURRENCE OF WARM WATER FISHES

EPA Science Inventory

A potential effect of climate change is modification of the geographic distribution of fish species. To predict this modification it is necessary to estimate temperature tolerances of fishes and then relate these tolerances to the changing environment. This technique will allow...

Hierarchical analysis of forest bird species-environment relationships in the Oregon Coast Range

Treesearch

Samuel A. Cushman; Kevin McGarigal

2004-01-01

Species in biological communities respond to environmental variation simultaneously across a range of organizational levels. Accordingly, it is important to quantify the effects of environmental factors at multiple levels on species distribution and abundance. Hierarchical methods that explicitly separate the independent and confounded influences of environmental...

A Three-Level Analysis of Collaborative Learning in Dual-Interaction Spaces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lonchamp, Jacques

2009-01-01

CSCL systems which follow the dual-interaction spaces paradigm support the synchronous construction and discussion of shared artifacts by distributed or colocated small groups of learners. The most recent generic dual-interaction space environments, either model based or component based, can be deeply customized by teachers for supporting…

Publications of the exobiology program for 1981: A special bibliography

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pleasant, L. G. (Compiler); Devincenzi, D. L. (Compiler)

1982-01-01

The exobiology program investigates the planetary events which were responsible for, or, related to, the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. The areas involved include: chemical evolution, organic geochemistry, origin and evolution of life, planetary environments, life in the universe, planetary protection, and Mars data analysis.

Distribution of Cr, Pb, Cd, Zn, Fe and Mn in Lake Victoria sediments, East Africa

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Onyari, J.M.; Wandiga, S.O.

1989-06-01

The presence of many metals at trace or ultra-trace levels in the human environment has received increased global attention. Sediments as a sink for pollutants are widely recognized pollution sources and diagenesis and biochemical transformations within the sediment may mobilize pollutants posing a threat to a wider biological community. The natural (background) concentrations of heavy metals in lake sediments can be estimated either by analysis of surface sediments in non-polluted regions or by analysis of core samples antedating modern pollution. The distribution pattern of heavy metals in tropical freshwater systems has been little studied. The authors found increased concentrations ofmore » lead and other trace metals in Lake Victoria. Thus this study was initiated in order to further investigate the distribution patterns of lead and other metals in Lake Victoria.« less

Measurement and analysis of operating system fault tolerance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, I.; Tang, D.; Iyer, R. K.

1992-01-01

This paper demonstrates a methodology to model and evaluate the fault tolerance characteristics of operational software. The methodology is illustrated through case studies on three different operating systems: the Tandem GUARDIAN fault-tolerant system, the VAX/VMS distributed system, and the IBM/MVS system. Measurements are made on these systems for substantial periods to collect software error and recovery data. In addition to investigating basic dependability characteristics such as major software problems and error distributions, we develop two levels of models to describe error and recovery processes inside an operating system and on multiple instances of an operating system running in a distributed environment. Based on the models, reward analysis is conducted to evaluate the loss of service due to software errors and the effect of the fault-tolerance techniques implemented in the systems. Software error correlation in multicomputer systems is also investigated.

Urban environment interventions linked to the promotion of physical activity. A mixed methods study applied to the urban context of Latin America

PubMed Central

Gomez, Luis F; Sarmiento, Rodrigo; Ordoñez, Maria Fernanda; Pardo, Carlos Felipe; de Sá, Thiago Hérick; Mallarino, Christina H; Miranda, J Jaime; Mosquera, Janeth; Parra, Diana Celmira; Reis, Rodrigo; Quistberg, Alex

2015-01-01

This study summarizes the evidence from quantitative systematic reviews that assessed the association between urban environment attributes and physical activity. It also documents sociopolitical barriers and facilitators involved in urban interventions linked with active living in the ten most populated urban settings of Latin America. The synthesis of evidence indicates that several attributes of urban environments are associated with physical activity, including land-use mix and cycling infrastructure. The documentary analysis indicated that despite the benefits and opportunities provided by the programs and existing infrastructure in the examined cities, an overall concern is the rising inequality in the coverage and distribution of the initiatives in the region. If these programs and initiatives are to achieve a real population level effect that helps to reduce health disparities, they need to examine their social and spatial distribution within the cities so they can reach underserved populations and develop to their full potential. PMID:25748111

Urban environment interventions linked to the promotion of physical activity: a mixed methods study applied to the urban context of Latin America.

PubMed

Gomez, Luis F; Sarmiento, Rodrigo; Ordoñez, Maria Fernanda; Pardo, Carlos Felipe; de Sá, Thiago Hérick; Mallarino, Christina H; Miranda, J Jaime; Mosquera, Janeth; Parra, Diana C; Reis, Rodrigo; Quistberg, D Alex

2015-04-01

This study summarizes the evidence from quantitative systematic reviews that assessed the association between urban environment attributes and physical activity. It also documents sociopolitical barriers and facilitators involved in urban interventions linked with active living in the ten most populated urban settings of Latin America. The synthesis of evidence indicates that several attributes of urban environments are associated with physical activity, including land-use mix and cycling infrastructure. The documentary analysis indicated that despite the benefits and opportunities provided by the programs and existing infrastructure in the examined cities, an overall concern is the rising inequality in the coverage and distribution of the initiatives in the region. If these programs and initiatives are to achieve a real population level effect that helps to reduce health disparities, they need to examine their social and spatial distribution within the cities so they can reach underserved populations and develop to their full potential. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Planning applications in image analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boddy, Mark; White, Jim; Goldman, Robert; Short, Nick, Jr.

1994-01-01

We describe two interim results from an ongoing effort to automate the acquisition, analysis, archiving, and distribution of satellite earth science data. Both results are applications of Artificial Intelligence planning research to the automatic generation of processing steps for image analysis tasks. First, we have constructed a linear conditional planner (CPed), used to generate conditional processing plans. Second, we have extended an existing hierarchical planning system to make use of durations, resources, and deadlines, thus supporting the automatic generation of processing steps in time and resource-constrained environments.

Preliminary synchrotron analysis of lead in hair from a lead smelter worker

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Martin, R.R.; Kempson, I.M.; Naftel, S.J.

2008-06-09

Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence has been used to study the distribution of lead in a hair sample collected from a lead smelter worker. A mathematical model was used to imitate the transverse scan signal based on the analysis volume and concentration profiles. The results suggest that the Pb originates both from ingestion and environmental exposure, however direct deposition from the environment is the more important source of hair lead. The model could apply equally to any other analysis involving a thin cylindrical sample.

Architectural Strategies for Enabling Data-Driven Science at Scale

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Crichton, D. J.; Law, E. S.; Doyle, R. J.; Little, M. M.

2017-12-01

The analysis of large data collections from NASA or other agencies is often executed through traditional computational and data analysis approaches, which require users to bring data to their desktops and perform local data analysis. Alternatively, data are hauled to large computational environments that provide centralized data analysis via traditional High Performance Computing (HPC). Scientific data archives, however, are not only growing massive, but are also becoming highly distributed. Neither traditional approach provides a good solution for optimizing analysis into the future. Assumptions across the NASA mission and science data lifecycle, which historically assume that all data can be collected, transmitted, processed, and archived, will not scale as more capable instruments stress legacy-based systems. New paradigms are needed to increase the productivity and effectiveness of scientific data analysis. This paradigm must recognize that architectural and analytical choices are interrelated, and must be carefully coordinated in any system that aims to allow efficient, interactive scientific exploration and discovery to exploit massive data collections, from point of collection (e.g., onboard) to analysis and decision support. The most effective approach to analyzing a distributed set of massive data may involve some exploration and iteration, putting a premium on the flexibility afforded by the architectural framework. The framework should enable scientist users to assemble workflows efficiently, manage the uncertainties related to data analysis and inference, and optimize deep-dive analytics to enhance scalability. In many cases, this "data ecosystem" needs to be able to integrate multiple observing assets, ground environments, archives, and analytics, evolving from stewardship of measurements of data to using computational methodologies to better derive insight from the data that may be fused with other sets of data. This presentation will discuss architectural strategies, including a 2015-2016 NASA AIST Study on Big Data, for evolving scientific research towards massively distributed data-driven discovery. It will include example use cases across earth science, planetary science, and other disciplines.

Analysis of doxorubicin distribution in MCF-7 cells treated with drug-loaded nanoparticles by combination of two fluorescence-based techniques, confocal spectral imaging and capillary electrophoresis.

PubMed

Gautier, Juliette; Munnier, Emilie; Soucé, Martin; Chourpa, Igor; Douziech Eyrolles, Laurence

2015-05-01

The intracellular distribution of the antiancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) was followed qualitatively by fluorescence confocal spectral imaging (FCSI) and quantitatively by capillary electrophoresis (CE). FCSI permits the localization of the major fluorescent species in cell compartments, with spectral shifts indicating the polarity of the respective environment. However, distinction between drug and metabolites by FCSI is difficult due to their similar fluorochromes, and direct quantification of their fluorescence is complicated by quantum yield variation between different subcellular environments. On the other hand, capillary electrophoresis with fluorescence detection (CE-LIF) is a quantitative method capable of separating doxorubicin and its metabolites. In this paper, we propose a method for determining drug and metabolite concentration in enriched nuclear and cytosolic fractions of cancer cells by CE-LIF, and we compare these data with those of FCSI. Significant differences in the subcellular distribution of DOX are observed between the drug administered as a molecular solution or as a suspension of drug-loaded iron oxide nanoparticles coated with polyethylene glycol. Comparative analysis of the CE-LIF vs FCSI data may lead to a tentative calibration of this latter method in terms of DOX fluorescence quantum yields in the nucleus and more or less polar regions of the cytosol.

Pilot Scale Application of a Method for the Analysis of ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

A growing number of studies now indicate that perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are globally distributed in the environment. Their widespread distribution and presence in remote locations has led to questions about the importance of atmospheric and oceanic transport. Describing their distribution in surface soils is also an essential but neglected element in developing a comprehensive understanding of their occurrence in the environment. Soils are the critical link between global atmospheric and hydrologic processes where both local and distant contaminants can accumulate and be released into aquatic and terrestrial communities. Because PFC concentrations in soils will influence ground and surface water, wildlife, and crops, methods to accurately measure PFCs in soil are clearly needed. To help answer this need, we developed a method for the analysis of nine perfluorinated carboxylic acids and four perfluorinated sulfonic acids in soil. Samples from six nations (n = 10 per nation) were analyzed by LC-MS/MS to demonstrate the method performance parameters and to make preliminary observations about the occurrence of the PFCs in soils in different parts of the world. The resulting method shows acceptable performance characteristics for the target compounds in most soils while documenting the widespread occurrence of PFCs in surface soils The National Exposure Research Laboratory′s (NERL) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in

Integrated analysis of numerical weather prediction and computational fluid dynamics for estimating cross-ventilation effects on inhaled air quality inside a factory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Murga, Alicia; Sano, Yusuke; Kawamoto, Yoichi; Ito, Kazuhide

2017-10-01

Mechanical and passive ventilation strategies directly impact indoor air quality. Passive ventilation has recently become widespread owing to its ability to reduce energy demand in buildings, such as the case of natural or cross ventilation. To understand the effect of natural ventilation on indoor environmental quality, outdoor-indoor flow paths need to be analyzed as functions of urban atmospheric conditions, topology of the built environment, and indoor conditions. Wind-driven natural ventilation (e.g., cross ventilation) can be calculated through the wind pressure coefficient distributions of outdoor wall surfaces and openings of a building, allowing the study of indoor air parameters and airborne contaminant concentrations. Variations in outside parameters will directly impact indoor air quality and residents' health. Numerical modeling can contribute to comprehend these various parameters because it allows full control of boundary conditions and sampling points. In this study, numerical weather prediction modeling was used to calculate wind profiles/distributions at the atmospheric scale, and computational fluid dynamics was used to model detailed urban and indoor flows, which were then integrated into a dynamic downscaling analysis to predict specific urban wind parameters from the atmospheric to built-environment scale. Wind velocity and contaminant concentration distributions inside a factory building were analyzed to assess the quality of the human working environment by using a computer simulated person. The impact of cross ventilation flows and its variations on local average contaminant concentration around a factory worker, and inhaled contaminant dose, were then discussed.

A cooperative model for IS security risk management in distributed environment.

PubMed

Feng, Nan; Zheng, Chundong

2014-01-01

Given the increasing cooperation between organizations, the flexible exchange of security information across the allied organizations is critical to effectively manage information systems (IS) security in a distributed environment. In this paper, we develop a cooperative model for IS security risk management in a distributed environment. In the proposed model, the exchange of security information among the interconnected IS under distributed environment is supported by Bayesian networks (BNs). In addition, for an organization's IS, a BN is utilized to represent its security environment and dynamically predict its security risk level, by which the security manager can select an optimal action to safeguard the firm's information resources. The actual case studied illustrates the cooperative model presented in this paper and how it can be exploited to manage the distributed IS security risk effectively.

Optimal atomic structure of amorphous silicon obtained from density functional theory calculations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pedersen, Andreas; Pizzagalli, Laurent; Jónsson, Hannes

2017-06-01

Atomic structure of amorphous silicon consistent with several reported experimental measurements has been obtained from annealing simulations using electron density functional theory calculations and a systematic removal of weakly bound atoms. The excess energy and density with respect to the crystal are well reproduced in addition to radial distribution function, angular distribution functions, and vibrational density of states. No atom in the optimal configuration is locally in a crystalline environment as deduced by ring analysis and common neighbor analysis, but coordination defects are present at a level of 1%-2%. The simulated samples provide structural models of this archetypal disordered covalent material without preconceived notion of the atomic ordering or fitting to experimental data.

Inter-cohort growth for three tropical resources: tilapia, octopus and lobster.

PubMed

Velázquez-Abunader, Iván; Gómez-Muñoz, Victor Manuel; Salas, Silvia; Ruiz-Velazco, Javier M J

2015-09-01

Growth parameters are an important component for the stock assessment of exploited aquatic species. However, it is often difficult to apply direct methods to estimate growth and to analyse the differences between males and females, particularly in tropical areas. The objective of this study was to analyse the inter-cohort growth of three tropical resources and discuss the possible fisheries management implications. A simple method was used to compare individual growth curves obtained from length frequency distribution analysis, illustrated by case studies of three tropical species from different aquatic environments: tilapia (Oreochromis aureus), red octopus (Octopus maya) and the Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus). The analysis undertaken compared the size distribution of males and females of a given cohort through modal progression analysis. The technique used proved to be useful for highlighting the differences in growth between females and males of a specific cohort. The potential effect of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on the organism's development as reflected in the size distribution of the cohorts is discussed.

Efficient and Flexible Climate Analysis with Python in a Cloud-Based Distributed Computing Framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gannon, C.

2017-12-01

As climate models become progressively more advanced, and spatial resolution further improved through various downscaling projects, climate projections at a local level are increasingly insightful and valuable. However, the raw size of climate datasets presents numerous hurdles for analysts wishing to develop customized climate risk metrics or perform site-specific statistical analysis. Four Twenty Seven, a climate risk consultancy, has implemented a Python-based distributed framework to analyze large climate datasets in the cloud. With the freedom afforded by efficiently processing these datasets, we are able to customize and continually develop new climate risk metrics using the most up-to-date data. Here we outline our process for using Python packages such as XArray and Dask to evaluate netCDF files in a distributed framework, StarCluster to operate in a cluster-computing environment, cloud computing services to access publicly hosted datasets, and how this setup is particularly valuable for generating climate change indicators and performing localized statistical analysis.

The implementation and use of Ada on distributed systems with high reliability requirements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Knight, J. C.

1984-01-01

The use and implementation of Ada in distributed environments in which reliability is the primary concern is investigated. Emphasis is placed on the possibility that a distributed system may be programmed entirely in ADA so that the individual tasks of the system are unconcerned with which processors they are executing on, and that failures may occur in the software or underlying hardware. The primary activities are: (1) Continued development and testing of our fault-tolerant Ada testbed; (2) consideration of desirable language changes to allow Ada to provide useful semantics for failure; (3) analysis of the inadequacies of existing software fault tolerance strategies.

Archaeal Diversity in Waters from Deep South African Gold Mines

PubMed Central

Takai, Ken; Moser, Duane P.; DeFlaun, Mary; Onstott, Tullis C.; Fredrickson, James K.

2001-01-01

A culture-independent molecular analysis of archaeal communities in waters collected from deep South African gold mines was performed by performing a PCR-mediated terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of rRNA genes (rDNA) in conjunction with a sequencing analysis of archaeal rDNA clone libraries. The water samples used represented various environments, including deep fissure water, mine service water, and water from an overlying dolomite aquifer. T-RFLP analysis revealed that the ribotype distribution of archaea varied with the source of water. The archaeal communities in the deep gold mine environments exhibited great phylogenetic diversity; the majority of the members were most closely related to uncultivated species. Some archaeal rDNA clones obtained from mine service water and dolomite aquifer water samples were most closely related to environmental rDNA clones from surface soil (soil clones) and marine environments (marine group I [MGI]). Other clones exhibited intermediate phylogenetic affiliation between soil clones and MGI in the Crenarchaeota. Fissure water samples, derived from active or dormant geothermal environments, yielded archaeal sequences that exhibited novel phylogeny, including a novel lineage of Euryarchaeota. These results suggest that deep South African gold mines harbor novel archaeal communities distinct from those observed in other environments. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of archaeal strains and rDNA clones, including the newly discovered archaeal rDNA clones, the evolutionary relationship and the phylogenetic organization of the domain Archaea are reevaluated. PMID:11722932

Recent benthic foraminifera and sedimentary facies distribution of the Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) coastline

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fiorini, Flavia; Lokier, Stephen W.

2014-05-01

The distribution of benthic foraminifera and sedimentary facies from Recent coastline environments adjacent to the coastline of Abu Dhabi (UAE) was studied in detail with the aim to: 1) provide reliable analogs for understanding and interpreting the depositional environment of ancient shallow-marine sediments from the UAE; 2) assess any modifications in the distribution of benthic environments and sedimentary facies in an area affected by significant anthropogenic activities - particular construction and land reclamation. A total of 100 sea-floor sediment samples were collected in different shallow-marine sedimentary environments (nearshore shelf, beach-front, channels, ooid shoals, lagoon and mangals) close to the coastline of Abu Dhabi Island. Where possible, we revisited the sampling sites used in several studies conducted in the middle of last century (prior to any significant anthropogenic activities) to assess temporal changes in Recent benthic foraminifera and sedimentary facies distribution during the last 50 years. Five foraminiferal assemblages were recognized in the studied area. Species with a porcellaneous test mainly belonging to the genera Quinqueloculina, Triloculina, Spiroloculina, Sigmoilinita are common in all studied areas. Larger benthic foraminifera Peneroplis and Spirolina are particularly abundant in samples collected on seaweed. Hyaline foraminifera mostly belonging to the genera Elphidium, Ammonia, Bolivina and Rosalina are also common together with Miliolidae in the nearshore shelf and beach front. Agglutinated foraminifera (Clavulina, Textularia, Ammobaculites and Reophax) are present in low percentages. The species belonging to the genera Ammobaculites and Reophax are present only in the finest grain samples particularly in lagoons and mangal environments and have not been reported previously in the studied area. The majority of the ooid shoal sediments, the coarser sediments of the beach-front and samples collected in dredged channels do not contain living foraminifera and the dead assemblage is mostly composed of a few specimens of coarse-sized Miliolidae with fragmented or abraded tests, probably transported from nearby environments. While the shallow-water settings of the Abu Dhabi coastline continue to be areas of active carbonate sedimentation, there have been significant changes in facies distributions over the last 50 years. In particular: × The opportunistic genera Ammonia and Elphidium have become more abundant. Reophax and Ammobaculites are reported in the area for the first time. × With anthropogenic activities some environments, such as inner lagoons, are lost whilst other areas show resilience to anthropogenic activities with little change in sedimentary facies distribution and foraminiferal assemblage. × No living foraminifera are found in dredged channels. The detailed analysis of these changes in foraminifera distribution and sedimentary facies allows us to further our understanding of the effects of anthropogenic activities on shallow-marine environments. By so doing, we are better able to distinguish between those changes that result from anthropogenic activities and those that are a result of naturally-occurring environmental perturbations.

Design of compact freeform LED flashlight capable of two different light distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Isaac, Annie Shalom; Neumann, Cornelius

2016-04-01

Free-form optical surfaces are designed for desired intensity requirements for applications ranging from general to automotive lighting. But a single compact free-form optics which satisfies two different intensity distributions is not presented so far. In this work, a compact LED flashlight fulfilling two different intensity requirements that could be used in potentially explosive atmospheres is designed and validated. The first target is selected after a study on visibility analysis in fog, dust, and smoke environments. Studies showed that a ring-like distribution (5°- 10°) have better visual recognition for short distances in smoky environments. The second target is selected to have a maximum intensity at the peak to provide visibility for longer distances. We realized these two different intensity requirements by moving the LED with respect to the optics along the optical axis. To fulfill the above- required intensity distributions, hybrid TIR optics was designed as free-form curves calculated by combining several geometric optic methods. We validated the free-form TIR hybrid optics using Monte Carlo ray trace simulation. The overall diameter of the optics is 29 mm and 10 mm in thickness. The simulated results showed an optical efficiency of about 84% to realize both target light distributions in a single optics. Then we designed a whole flashlight consisting of LED, PMMA hybrid optics, PC glass casing and a housing including the critical thermal management for explosive environments. To validate the results, a prototype for the designed optics was made. The measured results showed an overall agreement with the simulated results.

Exploring direct and indirect influences of physical work environment on job satisfaction for early-career registered nurses employed in hospitals.

PubMed

Djukic, Maja; Kovner, Christine T; Brewer, Carol S; Fatehi, Farida; Greene, William H

2014-08-01

We explored direct and indirect influences of physical work environment on job satisfaction in a nationally representative sample of 1,141 early-career registered nurses. In the fully specified model, physical work environment had a non-significant direct effect on job satisfaction. The path analysis used to test multiple indirect effects showed that physical work environment had a positive indirect effect (p < .05) on job satisfaction through ten variables: negative affectivity, variety, workgroup cohesion, nurse-physician relations, quantitative workload, organizational constraints, distributive justice, promotional opportunity, local and non-local job opportunities. The findings make important contributions to the understanding of the relationship between physical work environment and job satisfaction. The results can inform health care leaders' insight about how physical work environment influences nurses' job satisfaction. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Environment and human exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in India: a systematic review of recent and historical data.

PubMed

Sharma, Brij Mohan; Bharat, Girija K; Tayal, Shresth; Nizzetto, Luca; Cupr, Pavel; Larssen, Thorjørn

2014-05-01

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been used in a wide range of agricultural and industrial commodities, resulting in vigorous deterioration of environment and human health. A number of studies on the occurrence of POPs confirm their presence in various environmental compartments and human body. In order to deal with this global concern, India has recently prepared the National Implementation Plan (NIP) of the Stockholm Convention. Common beliefs point at India as a hot spot of POP contamination and human exposure; however no systematic analysis was ever performed so far considering all available past data on POP occurrence. This review aims to examine the distribution pattern of POPs in multicompartment environment and human samples, meta-analysis of time trends in exposure levels to environment and humans, and cross country comparison of POP contamination with China. Based on this review, it can be concluded that the Indian environment and human population are highly contaminated by DDTs and HCHs; however scarcity of data on other POPs makes it challenging to assess their nationwide human and environmental exposure. No evidence of a general decline in DDT and HCH residues in the environment and human body come out from the meta-analysis of time trend. While comparing contamination levels between India and China, tendency towards decline in POP contamination is visible in China, unlike India. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A μ analysis-based, controller-synthesis framework for robust bioinspired visual navigation in less-structured environments.

PubMed

Keshavan, J; Gremillion, G; Escobar-Alvarez, H; Humbert, J S

2014-06-01

Safe, autonomous navigation by aerial microsystems in less-structured environments is a difficult challenge to overcome with current technology. This paper presents a novel visual-navigation approach that combines bioinspired wide-field processing of optic flow information with control-theoretic tools for synthesis of closed loop systems, resulting in robustness and performance guarantees. Structured singular value analysis is used to synthesize a dynamic controller that provides good tracking performance in uncertain environments without resorting to explicit pose estimation or extraction of a detailed environmental depth map. Experimental results with a quadrotor demonstrate the vehicle's robust obstacle-avoidance behaviour in a straight line corridor, an S-shaped corridor and a corridor with obstacles distributed in the vehicle's path. The computational efficiency and simplicity of the current approach offers a promising alternative to satisfying the payload, power and bandwidth constraints imposed by aerial microsystems.

Pacific Northwest Laboratory annual report for 1980 to the DOE Assistant Secretary for Environment. Part 5. Environmental assessment, control, health and safety

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Baalman, R.W.; Hays, I.D.

1981-02-01

Pacific Northwest Laboratory's (PNL) 1980 annual report to the DOE Assistant Secretary for Environment describes research in environment, health, and safety conducted during fiscal year 1980. Part 5 includes technology assessments for natural gas, enhanced oil recovery, oil shale, uranium mining, magnetic fusion energy, solar energy, uranium enrichment and industrial energy utilization; regional analysis studies of environmental transport and community impacts; environmental and safety engineering for LNG, oil spills, LPG, shale oil waste waters, geothermal liquid waste disposal, compressed air energy storage, and nuclear/fusion fuel cycles; operational and environmental safety studies of decommissioning, environmental monitoring, personnel dosimetry, and analysis ofmore » criticality safety; health physics studies; and epidemiological studies. Also included are an author index, organization of PNL charts and distribution lists of the annual report, along with lists of presentations and publications. (DLS)« less

Distributed Research Center for Analysis of Regional Climatic Changes and Their Impacts on Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shiklomanov, A. I.; Okladnikov, I.; Gordov, E. P.; Proussevitch, A. A.; Titov, A. G.

2016-12-01

Presented is a collaborative project carrying out by joint team of researchers from the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Russia and Earth Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire, USA. Its main objective is development of a hardware and software prototype of Distributed Research Center (DRC) for monitoring and projecting of regional climatic and and their impacts on the environment over the Northern extratropical areas. In the framework of the project new approaches to "cloud" processing and analysis of large geospatial datasets (big geospatial data) are being developed. It will be deployed on technical platforms of both institutions and applied in research of climate change and its consequences. Datasets available at NCEI and IMCES include multidimensional arrays of climatic, environmental, demographic, and socio-economic characteristics. The project is aimed at solving several major research and engineering tasks: 1) structure analysis of huge heterogeneous climate and environmental geospatial datasets used in the project, their preprocessing and unification; 2) development of a new distributed storage and processing model based on a "shared nothing" paradigm; 3) development of a dedicated database of metadata describing geospatial datasets used in the project; 4) development of a dedicated geoportal and a high-end graphical frontend providing intuitive user interface, internet-accessible online tools for analysis of geospatial data and web services for interoperability with other geoprocessing software packages. DRC will operate as a single access point to distributed archives of spatial data and online tools for their processing. Flexible modular computational engine running verified data processing routines will provide solid results of geospatial data analysis. "Cloud" data analysis and visualization approach will guarantee access to the DRC online tools and data from all over the world. Additionally, exporting of data processing results through WMS and WFS services will be used to provide their interoperability. Financial support of this activity by the RF Ministry of Education and Science under Agreement 14.613.21.0037 (RFMEFI61315X0037) and by the Iola Hubbard Climate Change Endowment is acknowledged.

Genetic diversity assessment of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria by distance-based grouping analysis of pufM sequences.

PubMed

Zeng, Y H; Chen, X H; Jiao, N Z

2007-12-01

To assess how completely the diversity of anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (APB) was sampled in natural environments. All nucleotide sequences of the APB marker gene pufM from cultures and environmental clones were retrieved from the GenBank database. A set of cutoff values (sequence distances 0.06, 0.15 and 0.48 for species, genus, and (sub)phylum levels, respectively) was established using a distance-based grouping program. Analysis of the environmental clones revealed that current efforts on APB isolation and sampling in natural environments are largely inadequate. Analysis of the average distance between each identified genus and an uncultured environmental pufM sequence indicated that the majority of cultured APB genera lack environmental representatives. The distance-based grouping method is fast and efficient for bulk functional gene sequences analysis. The results clearly show that we are at a relatively early stage in sampling the global richness of APB species. Periodical assessment will undoubtedly facilitate in-depth analysis of potential biogeographical distribution pattern of APB. This is the first attempt to assess the present understanding of APB diversity in natural environments. The method used is also useful for assessing the diversity of other functional genes.

A Cooperative Model for IS Security Risk Management in Distributed Environment

PubMed Central

Zheng, Chundong

2014-01-01

Given the increasing cooperation between organizations, the flexible exchange of security information across the allied organizations is critical to effectively manage information systems (IS) security in a distributed environment. In this paper, we develop a cooperative model for IS security risk management in a distributed environment. In the proposed model, the exchange of security information among the interconnected IS under distributed environment is supported by Bayesian networks (BNs). In addition, for an organization's IS, a BN is utilized to represent its security environment and dynamically predict its security risk level, by which the security manager can select an optimal action to safeguard the firm's information resources. The actual case studied illustrates the cooperative model presented in this paper and how it can be exploited to manage the distributed IS security risk effectively. PMID:24563626

Orchestrating Bulk Data Movement in Grid Environments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vazhkudai, SS

2005-01-25

Data Grids provide a convenient environment for researchers to manage and access massively distributed bulk data by addressing several system and transfer challenges inherent to these environments. This work addresses issues involved in the efficient selection and access of replicated data in Grid environments in the context of the Globus Toolkit{trademark}, building middleware that (1) selects datasets in highly replicated environments, enabling efficient scheduling of data transfer requests; (2) predicts transfer times of bulk wide-area data transfers using extensive statistical analysis; and (3) co-allocates bulk data transfer requests, enabling parallel downloads from mirrored sites. These efforts have demonstrated a decentralizedmore » data scheduling architecture, a set of forecasting tools that predict bandwidth availability within 15% error and co-allocation architecture, and heuristics that expedites data downloads by up to 2 times.« less

Meteoroids and Orbital Debris: Effects on Spacecraft

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Belk, Cynthia A.; Robinson, Jennifer H.; Alexander, Margaret B.; Cooke, William J.; Pavelitz, Steven D.

1997-01-01

The natural space environment is characterized by many complex and subtle phenomena hostile to spacecraft. The effects of these phenomena impact spacecraft design, development, and operations. Space systems become increasingly susceptible to the space environment as use of composite materials and smaller, faster electronics increases. This trend makes an understanding of the natural space environment essential to accomplish overall mission objectives, especially in the current climate of better/cheaper/faster. Meteoroids are naturally occurring phenomena in the natural space environment. Orbital debris is manmade space litter accumulated in Earth orbit from the exploration of space. Descriptions are presented of orbital debris source, distribution, size, lifetime, and mitigation measures. This primer is one in a series of NASA Reference Publications currently being developed by the Electromagnetics and Aerospace Environments Branch, Systems Analysis and Integration Laboratory, Marshall Space Flight Center, National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Analysis of Numerical Models for Dispersion of Chemical/Biological Agents in Complex Building Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-11-01

variation in ventilation rates over time and the distribution of ventilation air within a building, and to estimate the impact of envelope air ... tightening efforts on infiltration rates. • It may be used to determine the indoor air quality performance of a building before construction, and to

Mission Assurance Analysis Protocol (MAAP): Assessing Risk in Complex Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-09-01

5 1.7 Focus on Risk .................................................................................. 6 2 Defining Risk ...20 CMU/SEI-2005-TN-032 4.4 Extrinsic and Intrinsic Risk ............................................................. 21 5 Operational Risk in...Section 5 , "Operational Risk in Distributed Processes," we look at the characteristics of operational risk in processes where management control is

Students' Experience of Synchronous Learning in Distributed Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stewart, Anissa R.; Harlow, Danielle B.; DeBacco, Kim

2011-01-01

This article reports on a two-year ethnographic study of learners participating in multi-site, graduate-level education classes. Classes sometimes met face-to-face in the same physical location; at other times part of the class met physically elsewhere. Yet all were linked through the virtual space. Ethnographic analysis of four data types…

Peer-to-peer model for the area coverage and cooperative control of mobile sensor networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Jindong; Xi, Ning

2004-09-01

This paper presents a novel model and distributed algorithms for the cooperation and redeployment of mobile sensor networks. A mobile sensor network composes of a collection of wireless connected mobile robots equipped with a variety of sensors. In such a sensor network, each mobile node has sensing, computation, communication, and locomotion capabilities. The locomotion ability enhances the autonomous deployment of the system. The system can be rapidly deployed to hostile environment, inaccessible terrains or disaster relief operations. The mobile sensor network is essentially a cooperative multiple robot system. This paper first presents a peer-to-peer model to define the relationship between neighboring communicating robots. Delaunay Triangulation and Voronoi diagrams are used to define the geometrical relationship between sensor nodes. This distributed model allows formal analysis for the fusion of spatio-temporal sensory information of the network. Based on the distributed model, this paper discusses a fault tolerant algorithm for autonomous self-deployment of the mobile robots. The algorithm considers the environment constraints, the presence of obstacles and the nonholonomic constraints of the robots. The distributed algorithm enables the system to reconfigure itself such that the area covered by the system can be enlarged. Simulation results have shown the effectiveness of the distributed model and deployment algorithms.

3D Visualization for Phoenix Mars Lander Science Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Edwards, Laurence; Keely, Leslie; Lees, David; Stoker, Carol

2012-01-01

Planetary surface exploration missions present considerable operational challenges in the form of substantial communication delays, limited communication windows, and limited communication bandwidth. A 3D visualization software was developed and delivered to the 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander (PML) mission. The components of the system include an interactive 3D visualization environment called Mercator, terrain reconstruction software called the Ames Stereo Pipeline, and a server providing distributed access to terrain models. The software was successfully utilized during the mission for science analysis, site understanding, and science operations activity planning. A terrain server was implemented that provided distribution of terrain models from a central repository to clients running the Mercator software. The Ames Stereo Pipeline generates accurate, high-resolution, texture-mapped, 3D terrain models from stereo image pairs. These terrain models can then be visualized within the Mercator environment. The central cross-cutting goal for these tools is to provide an easy-to-use, high-quality, full-featured visualization environment that enhances the mission science team s ability to develop low-risk productive science activity plans. In addition, for the Mercator and Viz visualization environments, extensibility and adaptability to different missions and application areas are key design goals.

Spatial distribution of marine crenarchaeota group I in the vicinity of deep-sea hydrothermal systems.

PubMed

Takai, Ken; Oida, Hanako; Suzuki, Yohey; Hirayama, Hisako; Nakagawa, Satoshi; Nunoura, Takuro; Inagaki, Fumio; Nealson, Kenneth H; Horikoshi, Koki

2004-04-01

Distribution profiles of marine crenarchaeota group I in the vicinity of deep-sea hydrothermal systems were mapped with culture-independent molecular techniques. Planktonic samples were obtained from the waters surrounding two geographically and geologically distinct hydrothermal systems, and the abundance of marine crenarchaeota group I was examined by 16S ribosomal DNA clone analysis, quantitative PCR, and whole-cell fluorescence in situ hybridization. A much higher proportion of marine crenarchaeota group I within the microbial community was detected in deep-sea hydrothermal environments than in normal deep and surface seawaters. The highest proportion was always obtained from the ambient seawater adjacent to hydrothermal emissions and chimneys but not from the hydrothermal plumes. These profiles were markedly different from the profiles of epsilon-Proteobacteria, which are abundant in the low temperatures of deep-sea hydrothermal environments.

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Urban Acoustic Environments with Binaural Psycho-Acoustical Considerations for IoT-Based Applications

PubMed Central

Montoya-Belmonte, Jose; Cobos, Maximo; Torres-Aranda, Ana M.

2018-01-01

Sound pleasantness or annoyance perceived in urban soundscapes is a major concern in environmental acoustics. Binaural psychoacoustic parameters are helpful to describe generic acoustic environments, as it is stated within the ISO 12913 framework. In this paper, the application of a Wireless Acoustic Sensor Network (WASN) to evaluate the spatial distribution and the evolution of urban acoustic environments is described. Two experiments are presented using an indoor and an outdoor deployment of a WASN with several nodes using an Internet of Things (IoT) environment to collect audio data and calculate meaningful parameters such as the sound pressure level, binaural loudness and binaural sharpness. A chunk of audio is recorded in each node periodically with a microphone array and the binaural rendering is conducted by exploiting the estimated directional characteristics of the incoming sound by means of DOA estimation. Each node computes the parameters in a different location and sends the values to a cloud-based broker structure that allows spatial statistical analysis through Kriging techniques. A cross-validation analysis is also performed to confirm the usefulness of the proposed system. PMID:29495407

A Distributed Simulation Software System for Multi-Spacecraft Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Burns, Richard; Davis, George; Cary, Everett

2003-01-01

The paper will provide an overview of the web-based distributed simulation software system developed for end-to-end, multi-spacecraft mission design, analysis, and test at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This software system was developed for an internal research and development (IR&D) activity at GSFC called the Distributed Space Systems (DSS) Distributed Synthesis Environment (DSE). The long-term goal of the DSS-DSE is to integrate existing GSFC stand-alone test beds, models, and simulation systems to create a "hands on", end-to-end simulation environment for mission design, trade studies and simulations. The short-term goal of the DSE was therefore to develop the system architecture, and then to prototype the core software simulation capability based on a distributed computing approach, with demonstrations of some key capabilities by the end of Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02). To achieve the DSS-DSE IR&D objective, the team adopted a reference model and mission upon which FY02 capabilities were developed. The software was prototyped according to the reference model, and demonstrations were conducted for the reference mission to validate interfaces, concepts, etc. The reference model, illustrated in Fig. 1, included both space and ground elements, with functional capabilities such as spacecraft dynamics and control, science data collection, space-to-space and space-to-ground communications, mission operations, science operations, and data processing, archival and distribution addressed.

Novel groups and unique distribution of phage phoH genes in paddy waters in northeast China

PubMed Central

Wang, Xinzhen; Liu, Junjie; Yu, Zhenhua; Jin, Jian; Liu, Xiaobing; Wang, Guanghua

2016-01-01

Although bacteriophages are ubiquitous in various environments, their genetic diversity is primarily investigated in pelagic marine environments. Corresponding studies in terrestrial environments are few. In this study, we conducted the first survey of phage diversity in the paddy ecosystem by targeting a new viral biomarker gene, phoH. A total of 424 phoH sequences were obtained from four paddy waters generated from a pot experiment with different soils collected from open paddy fields in northeast China. The majority of phoH sequences in paddy waters were novel, with the highest identity of ≤70% with known phoH sequences. Four unique groups (Group α, Group β, Group γ and Group δ) and seven new subgroups (Group 2b, Group 3d, Group 3e, Group 6a, Group 6b, Group 6c and Group 6d) were formed exclusively with the clones from the paddy waters, suggesting novel phage phoH groups exist in the paddy ecosystem. Additionally, the distribution proportions of phoH clones in different groups varied among paddy water samples, suggesting the phage community in paddy fields is biogeographically distributed. Furthermore, non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis indicated that phage phoH assemblages in paddy waters were distinct from those in marine waters. PMID:27910929

Analyzing ion distributions around DNA: sequence-dependence of potassium ion distributions from microsecond molecular dynamics

PubMed Central

Pasi, Marco; Maddocks, John H.; Lavery, Richard

2015-01-01

Microsecond molecular dynamics simulations of B-DNA oligomers carried out in an aqueous environment with a physiological salt concentration enable us to perform a detailed analysis of how potassium ions interact with the double helix. The oligomers studied contain all 136 distinct tetranucleotides and we are thus able to make a comprehensive analysis of base sequence effects. Using a recently developed curvilinear helicoidal coordinate method we are able to analyze the details of ion populations and densities within the major and minor grooves and in the space surrounding DNA. The results show higher ion populations than have typically been observed in earlier studies and sequence effects that go beyond the nature of individual base pairs or base pair steps. We also show that, in some special cases, ion distributions converge very slowly and, on a microsecond timescale, do not reflect the symmetry of the corresponding base sequence. PMID:25662221

Geographical Environment Factors and Risk Assessment of Tick-Borne Encephalitis in Hulunbuir, Northeastern China.

PubMed

Li, Yifan; Wang, Juanle; Gao, Mengxu; Fang, Liqun; Liu, Changhua; Lyu, Xin; Bai, Yongqing; Zhao, Qiang; Li, Hairong; Yu, Hongjie; Cao, Wuchun; Feng, Liqiang; Wang, Yanjun; Zhang, Bin

2017-05-26

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is one of natural foci diseases transmitted by ticks. Its distribution and transmission are closely related to geographic and environmental factors. Identification of environmental determinates of TBE is of great importance to understanding the general distribution of existing and potential TBE natural foci. Hulunbuir, one of the most severe endemic areas of the disease, is selected as the study area. Statistical analysis, global and local spatial autocorrelation analysis, and regression methods were applied to detect the spatiotemporal characteristics, compare the impact degree of associated factors, and model the risk distribution using the heterogeneity. The statistical analysis of gridded geographic and environmental factors and TBE incidence show that the TBE patients mainly occurred during spring and summer and that there is a significant positive spatial autocorrelation between the distribution of TBE cases and environmental characteristics. The impact degree of these factors on TBE risks has the following descending order: temperature, relative humidity, vegetation coverage, precipitation and topography. A high-risk area with a triangle shape was determined in the central part of Hulunbuir; the low-risk area is located in the two belts next to the outside edge of the central triangle. The TBE risk distribution revealed that the impact of the geographic factors changed depending on the heterogeneity.

CLUSTOM-CLOUD: In-Memory Data Grid-Based Software for Clustering 16S rRNA Sequence Data in the Cloud Environment.

PubMed

Oh, Jeongsu; Choi, Chi-Hwan; Park, Min-Kyu; Kim, Byung Kwon; Hwang, Kyuin; Lee, Sang-Heon; Hong, Soon Gyu; Nasir, Arshan; Cho, Wan-Sup; Kim, Kyung Mo

2016-01-01

High-throughput sequencing can produce hundreds of thousands of 16S rRNA sequence reads corresponding to different organisms present in the environmental samples. Typically, analysis of microbial diversity in bioinformatics starts from pre-processing followed by clustering 16S rRNA reads into relatively fewer operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The OTUs are reliable indicators of microbial diversity and greatly accelerate the downstream analysis time. However, existing hierarchical clustering algorithms that are generally more accurate than greedy heuristic algorithms struggle with large sequence datasets. To keep pace with the rapid rise in sequencing data, we present CLUSTOM-CLOUD, which is the first distributed sequence clustering program based on In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG) technology-a distributed data structure to store all data in the main memory of multiple computing nodes. The IMDG technology helps CLUSTOM-CLOUD to enhance both its capability of handling larger datasets and its computational scalability better than its ancestor, CLUSTOM, while maintaining high accuracy. Clustering speed of CLUSTOM-CLOUD was evaluated on published 16S rRNA human microbiome sequence datasets using the small laboratory cluster (10 nodes) and under the Amazon EC2 cloud-computing environments. Under the laboratory environment, it required only ~3 hours to process dataset of size 200 K reads regardless of the complexity of the human microbiome data. In turn, one million reads were processed in approximately 20, 14, and 11 hours when utilizing 20, 30, and 40 nodes on the Amazon EC2 cloud-computing environment. The running time evaluation indicates that CLUSTOM-CLOUD can handle much larger sequence datasets than CLUSTOM and is also a scalable distributed processing system. The comparative accuracy test using 16S rRNA pyrosequences of a mock community shows that CLUSTOM-CLOUD achieves higher accuracy than DOTUR, mothur, ESPRIT-Tree, UCLUST and Swarm. CLUSTOM-CLOUD is written in JAVA and is freely available at http://clustomcloud.kopri.re.kr.

CLUSTOM-CLOUD: In-Memory Data Grid-Based Software for Clustering 16S rRNA Sequence Data in the Cloud Environment

PubMed Central

Park, Min-Kyu; Kim, Byung Kwon; Hwang, Kyuin; Lee, Sang-Heon; Hong, Soon Gyu; Nasir, Arshan; Cho, Wan-Sup; Kim, Kyung Mo

2016-01-01

High-throughput sequencing can produce hundreds of thousands of 16S rRNA sequence reads corresponding to different organisms present in the environmental samples. Typically, analysis of microbial diversity in bioinformatics starts from pre-processing followed by clustering 16S rRNA reads into relatively fewer operational taxonomic units (OTUs). The OTUs are reliable indicators of microbial diversity and greatly accelerate the downstream analysis time. However, existing hierarchical clustering algorithms that are generally more accurate than greedy heuristic algorithms struggle with large sequence datasets. To keep pace with the rapid rise in sequencing data, we present CLUSTOM-CLOUD, which is the first distributed sequence clustering program based on In-Memory Data Grid (IMDG) technology–a distributed data structure to store all data in the main memory of multiple computing nodes. The IMDG technology helps CLUSTOM-CLOUD to enhance both its capability of handling larger datasets and its computational scalability better than its ancestor, CLUSTOM, while maintaining high accuracy. Clustering speed of CLUSTOM-CLOUD was evaluated on published 16S rRNA human microbiome sequence datasets using the small laboratory cluster (10 nodes) and under the Amazon EC2 cloud-computing environments. Under the laboratory environment, it required only ~3 hours to process dataset of size 200 K reads regardless of the complexity of the human microbiome data. In turn, one million reads were processed in approximately 20, 14, and 11 hours when utilizing 20, 30, and 40 nodes on the Amazon EC2 cloud-computing environment. The running time evaluation indicates that CLUSTOM-CLOUD can handle much larger sequence datasets than CLUSTOM and is also a scalable distributed processing system. The comparative accuracy test using 16S rRNA pyrosequences of a mock community shows that CLUSTOM-CLOUD achieves higher accuracy than DOTUR, mothur, ESPRIT-Tree, UCLUST and Swarm. CLUSTOM-CLOUD is written in JAVA and is freely available at http://clustomcloud.kopri.re.kr. PMID:26954507

Overlap of Spoilage-Associated Microbiota between Meat and the Meat Processing Environment in Small-Scale and Large-Scale Retail Distributions

PubMed Central

Stellato, Giuseppina; La Storia, Antonietta; De Filippis, Francesca; Borriello, Giorgia; Villani, Francesco

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT Microbial contamination in food processing plants can play a fundamental role in food quality and safety. The aims of this study were to learn more about the possible influence of the meat processing environment on initial fresh meat contamination and to investigate the differences between small-scale retail distribution (SD) and large-scale retail distribution (LD) facilities. Samples were collected from butcheries (n = 20), including LD (n = 10) and SD (n = 10) facilities, over two sampling campaigns. Samples included fresh beef and pork cuts and swab samples from the knife, the chopping board, and the butcher's hand. The microbiota of both meat samples and environmental swabs were very complex, including more than 800 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) collapsed at the species level. The 16S rRNA sequencing analysis showed that core microbiota were shared by 80% of the samples and included Pseudomonas spp., Streptococcus spp., Brochothrix spp., Psychrobacter spp., and Acinetobacter spp. Hierarchical clustering of the samples based on the microbiota showed a certain separation between meat and environmental samples, with higher levels of Proteobacteria in meat. In particular, levels of Pseudomonas and several Enterobacteriaceae members were significantly higher in meat samples, while Brochothrix, Staphylococcus, lactic acid bacteria, and Psychrobacter prevailed in environmental swab samples. Consistent clustering was also observed when metabolic activities were considered by predictive metagenomic analysis of the samples. An increase in carbohydrate metabolism was predicted for the environmental swabs and was consistently linked to Firmicutes, while increases in pathways related to amino acid and lipid metabolism were predicted for the meat samples and were positively correlated with Proteobacteria. Our results highlighted the importance of the processing environment in contributing to the initial microbial levels of meat and clearly showed that the type of retail facility (LD or SD) did not apparently affect the contamination. IMPORTANCE The study provides an in-depth description of the microbiota of meat and meat processing environments. It highlights the importance of the environment as a contamination source of spoilage bacteria, and it shows that the size of the retail facility does not affect the level and type of contamination. PMID:27129965

Arcade: A Web-Java Based Framework for Distributed Computing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chen, Zhikai; Maly, Kurt; Mehrotra, Piyush; Zubair, Mohammad; Bushnell, Dennis M. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Distributed heterogeneous environments are being increasingly used to execute a variety of large size simulations and computational problems. We are developing Arcade, a web-based environment to design, execute, monitor, and control distributed applications. These targeted applications consist of independent heterogeneous modules which can be executed on a distributed heterogeneous environment. In this paper we describe the overall design of the system and discuss the prototype implementation of the core functionalities required to support such a framework.

Energy conservation through optimum utilization of site energy sources for all season thermal comfort in new residential construction for single family attached (rowhouse/townhouse) designs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gerber, S.; Holsman, J. P.

1981-02-01

A proposed design analysis is presented of a passive solar energy efficient system for a typical three level, three bedroom, two story, garage under townhouse. The design incorporates the best, most performance proven and cost effective products, materials, processes, technologies, and subsystems which are available today. Seven distinct categories recognized for analysis are identified as: the exterior environment; the interior environment; conservation of energy; natural energy utilization; auxiliary energy utilization; control and distribution systems; and occupant adaptation. Preliminary design features, fenestration systems, the plenum supply system, the thermal storage party fire walls, direct gain storage, the radiant comfort system, and direct passive cooling systems are briefly described.

Outage Analysis of Dual-hop Cognitive Networks with Relay Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Zongsheng; Pi, Xurong

2014-09-01

In this paper, we investigate the outage performance of decode-and-forward cognitive relay networks for Nakagami-m fading channels, with considering both best relay selection and interference constraints. Focusing on the relay selection and making use of the underlay cognitive approach, an exact closed-form outage probability expression is derived in an independent, non-identical distributed Nakagami-m environment. The closed-form outage probability provides an efficient means to evaluate the effects of the maximum allowable interference power, number of cognitive relays, and channel conditions between the primary user and cognitive users. Finally, we present numerical results to validate the theory analysis. Moreover, from the simulation results, we obtain that the system can obtain the full diversity.

A comparison of regional flood frequency analysis approaches in a simulation framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganora, D.; Laio, F.

2016-07-01

Regional frequency analysis (RFA) is a well-established methodology to provide an estimate of the flood frequency curve at ungauged (or scarcely gauged) sites. Different RFA approaches exist, depending on the way the information is transferred to the site of interest, but it is not clear in the literature if a specific method systematically outperforms the others. The aim of this study is to provide a framework wherein carrying out the intercomparison by building up a virtual environment based on synthetically generated data. The considered regional approaches include: (i) a unique regional curve for the whole region; (ii) a multiple-region model where homogeneous subregions are determined through cluster analysis; (iii) a Region-of-Influence model which defines a homogeneous subregion for each site; (iv) a spatially smooth estimation procedure where the parameters of the regional model vary continuously along the space. Virtual environments are generated considering different patterns of heterogeneity, including step change and smooth variations. If the region is heterogeneous, with the parent distribution changing continuously within the region, the spatially smooth regional approach outperforms the others, with overall errors 10-50% lower than the other methods. In the case of a step-change, the spatially smooth and clustering procedures perform similarly if the heterogeneity is moderate, while clustering procedures work better when the step-change is severe. To extend our findings, an extensive sensitivity analysis has been performed to investigate the effect of sample length, number of virtual stations, return period of the predicted quantile, variability of the scale parameter of the parent distribution, number of predictor variables and different parent distribution. Overall, the spatially smooth approach appears as the most robust approach as its performances are more stable across different patterns of heterogeneity, especially when short records are considered.

AstroCloud, a Cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research: Cloud Computing Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, C.; Wang, J.; Cui, C.; He, B.; Fan, D.; Yang, Y.; Chen, J.; Zhang, H.; Yu, C.; Xiao, J.; Wang, C.; Cao, Z.; Fan, Y.; Hong, Z.; Li, S.; Mi, L.; Wan, W.; Wang, J.; Yin, S.

2015-09-01

AstroCloud is a cyber-Infrastructure for Astronomy Research initiated by Chinese Virtual Observatory (China-VO) under funding support from NDRC (National Development and Reform commission) and CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). Based on CloudStack, an open source software, we set up the cloud computing environment for AstroCloud Project. It consists of five distributed nodes across the mainland of China. Users can use and analysis data in this cloud computing environment. Based on GlusterFS, we built a scalable cloud storage system. Each user has a private space, which can be shared among different virtual machines and desktop systems. With this environments, astronomer can access to astronomical data collected by different telescopes and data centers easily, and data producers can archive their datasets safely.

An Intelligent System for Document Retrieval in Distributed Office Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mukhopadhyay, Uttam; And Others

1986-01-01

MINDS (Multiple Intelligent Node Document Servers) is a distributed system of knowledge-based query engines for efficiently retrieving multimedia documents in an office environment of distributed workstations. By learning document distribution patterns and user interests and preferences during system usage, it customizes document retrievals for…

Designing Distributed Learning Environments with Intelligent Software Agents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lin, Fuhua, Ed.

2005-01-01

"Designing Distributed Learning Environments with Intelligent Software Agents" reports on the most recent advances in agent technologies for distributed learning. Chapters are devoted to the various aspects of intelligent software agents in distributed learning, including the methodological and technical issues on where and how intelligent agents…

Hydrological analysis in R: Topmodel and beyond

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buytaert, W.; Reusser, D.

2011-12-01

R is quickly gaining popularity in the hydrological sciences community. The wide range of statistical and mathematical functionality makes it an excellent tool for data analysis, modelling and uncertainty analysis. Topmodel was one of the first hydrological models being implemented as an R package and distributed through R's own distribution network CRAN. This facilitated pre- and postprocessing of data such as parameter sampling, calculation of prediction bounds, and advanced visualisation. However, apart from these basic functionalities, the package did not use many of the more advanced features of the R environment, especially from R's object oriented functionality. With R's increasing expansion in arenas such as high performance computing, big data analysis, and cloud services, we revisit the topmodel package, and use it as an example of how to build and deploy the next generation of hydrological models. R provides a convenient environment and attractive features to build and couple hydrological - and in extension other environmental - models, to develop flexible and effective data assimilation strategies, and to take the model beyond the individual computer by linking into cloud services for both data provision and computing. However, in order to maximise the benefit of these approaches, it will be necessary to adopt standards and ontologies for model interaction and information exchange. Some of those are currently being developed, such as the OGC web processing standards, while other will need to be developed.

Container-Based Clinical Solutions for Portable and Reproducible Image Analysis.

PubMed

Matelsky, Jordan; Kiar, Gregory; Johnson, Erik; Rivera, Corban; Toma, Michael; Gray-Roncal, William

2018-05-08

Medical imaging analysis depends on the reproducibility of complex computation. Linux containers enable the abstraction, installation, and configuration of environments so that software can be both distributed in self-contained images and used repeatably by tool consumers. While several initiatives in neuroimaging have adopted approaches for creating and sharing more reliable scientific methods and findings, Linux containers are not yet mainstream in clinical settings. We explore related technologies and their efficacy in this setting, highlight important shortcomings, demonstrate a simple use-case, and endorse the use of Linux containers for medical image analysis.

Spatial-temporal Evolution of Vegetation Coverage and Analysis of it’s Future Trends in Wujiang River Basin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Jianyong; Bai, Xiaoyong; Zhou, Dequan; Qian, Qinghuan; Zeng, Cheng; Chen, Fei

2018-01-01

Vegetation coverage dynamics is affected by climatic, topography and human activities, which is an important indicator reflecting the regional ecological environment. Revealing the spatial-temporal characteristics of vegetation coverage is of great significance to the protection and management of ecological environment. Based on MODIS NDVI data and the Maximum Value Composites (MVC), we excluded soil spectrum interference to calculate Fractional Vegetation Coverage (FVC). Then the long-term FVC was used to calculate the spatial pattern and temporal variation of vegetation in Wujiang River Basin from 2000 to 2016 by using Trend analysis and Hurst index. The relationship between topography and spatial distribution of FVC was analyzed. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The multi-annual mean vegetation coverage reveals a spatial distribution variation characteristic of low value in midstream and high level in other parts of the basin, owing a mean value of 0.6567. (2) From 2000 to 2016, the FVC of the Wujiang River Basin fluctuated between 0.6110 and 0.7380, and the overall growth rate of FVC was 0.0074/a. (3) The area of vegetation coverage tending to improve is more than that going to degrade in the future. Grass land, Arable land and Others improved significantly; karst rocky desertification comprehensive management project lead to persistent vegetation coverage improvement of Grass land, Arable land and Others. Residential land is covered with obviously degraded vegetation, resulting of urban sprawl; (4) The spatial distribution of FVC is positively correlated with TNI. Researches of spatial-temporal evolution of vegetation coverage have significant meaning for the ecological environment protection and management of the Wujiang River Basin.

Divide and Conquer (DC) BLAST: fast and easy BLAST execution within HPC environments

DOE PAGES

Yim, Won Cheol; Cushman, John C.

2017-07-22

Bioinformatics is currently faced with very large-scale data sets that lead to computational jobs, especially sequence similarity searches, that can take absurdly long times to run. For example, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST and BLAST+) suite, which is by far the most widely used tool for rapid similarity searching among nucleic acid or amino acid sequences, is highly central processing unit (CPU) intensive. While the BLAST suite of programs perform searches very rapidly, they have the potential to be accelerated. In recent years, distributed computing environments have become more widely accessible andmore » used due to the increasing availability of high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Therefore, simple solutions for data parallelization are needed to expedite BLAST and other sequence analysis tools. However, existing software for parallel sequence similarity searches often requires extensive computational experience and skill on the part of the user. In order to accelerate BLAST and other sequence analysis tools, Divide and Conquer BLAST (DCBLAST) was developed to perform NCBI BLAST searches within a cluster, grid, or HPC environment by using a query sequence distribution approach. Scaling from one (1) to 256 CPU cores resulted in significant improvements in processing speed. Thus, DCBLAST dramatically accelerates the execution of BLAST searches using a simple, accessible, robust, and parallel approach. DCBLAST works across multiple nodes automatically and it overcomes the speed limitation of single-node BLAST programs. DCBLAST can be used on any HPC system, can take advantage of hundreds of nodes, and has no output limitations. Thus, this freely available tool simplifies distributed computation pipelines to facilitate the rapid discovery of sequence similarities between very large data sets.« less

Divide and Conquer (DC) BLAST: fast and easy BLAST execution within HPC environments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yim, Won Cheol; Cushman, John C.

Bioinformatics is currently faced with very large-scale data sets that lead to computational jobs, especially sequence similarity searches, that can take absurdly long times to run. For example, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST and BLAST+) suite, which is by far the most widely used tool for rapid similarity searching among nucleic acid or amino acid sequences, is highly central processing unit (CPU) intensive. While the BLAST suite of programs perform searches very rapidly, they have the potential to be accelerated. In recent years, distributed computing environments have become more widely accessible andmore » used due to the increasing availability of high-performance computing (HPC) systems. Therefore, simple solutions for data parallelization are needed to expedite BLAST and other sequence analysis tools. However, existing software for parallel sequence similarity searches often requires extensive computational experience and skill on the part of the user. In order to accelerate BLAST and other sequence analysis tools, Divide and Conquer BLAST (DCBLAST) was developed to perform NCBI BLAST searches within a cluster, grid, or HPC environment by using a query sequence distribution approach. Scaling from one (1) to 256 CPU cores resulted in significant improvements in processing speed. Thus, DCBLAST dramatically accelerates the execution of BLAST searches using a simple, accessible, robust, and parallel approach. DCBLAST works across multiple nodes automatically and it overcomes the speed limitation of single-node BLAST programs. DCBLAST can be used on any HPC system, can take advantage of hundreds of nodes, and has no output limitations. Thus, this freely available tool simplifies distributed computation pipelines to facilitate the rapid discovery of sequence similarities between very large data sets.« less

Privacy-preserving backpropagation neural network learning.

PubMed

Chen, Tingting; Zhong, Sheng

2009-10-01

With the development of distributed computing environment , many learning problems now have to deal with distributed input data. To enhance cooperations in learning, it is important to address the privacy concern of each data holder by extending the privacy preservation notion to original learning algorithms. In this paper, we focus on preserving the privacy in an important learning model, multilayer neural networks. We present a privacy-preserving two-party distributed algorithm of backpropagation which allows a neural network to be trained without requiring either party to reveal her data to the other. We provide complete correctness and security analysis of our algorithms. The effectiveness of our algorithms is verified by experiments on various real world data sets.

LYDIAN: An Extensible Educational Animation Environment for Distributed Algorithms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koldehofe, Boris; Papatriantafilou, Marina; Tsigas, Philippas

2006-01-01

LYDIAN is an environment to support the teaching and learning of distributed algorithms. It provides a collection of distributed algorithms as well as continuous animations. Users can combine algorithms and animations with arbitrary network structures defining the interconnection and behavior of the distributed algorithm. Further, it facilitates…

Occurrence, source analysis and risk assessment of androgens, glucocorticoids and progestagens in the Hailing Bay region, South China Sea.

PubMed

Liu, Shan; Chen, Hui; Zhou, Guang-Jie; Liu, Shuang-Shuang; Yue, Wei-Zhong; Yu, Shen; Sun, Kai-Feng; Cheng, Hefa; Ying, Guang-Guo; Xu, Xiang-Rong

2015-12-01

The occurrence and spatial distribution of 40 steroids in the environmental matrices of the Hailing Bay region, South China Sea, were investigated by rapid resolution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (RRLC-MS/MS). Seventeen, 14 and 11 of 40 steroids were detected with the concentrations ranging from 0.04 (testosterone) to 40.00 ng/L (prednisolone), 1.33 (4-hydroxy-androst-4-ene-17-dione) to 1855 ng/L (androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione) and <0.19 (androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione) to 2.37 ng/g (progesterone) in the seawater, the municipal sewage discharged effluent and the sediment samples, respectively. The concentrations and risk quotients (RQs) of the steroids detected in the water samples decreased in the order of municipal sewage discharge site>wharves~aquaculture zones~tourism areas>offshore areas. The distribution of steroids in the marine environment was significantly correlated with the levels of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N). Source analysis indicated that untreated municipal sewage was the main source of steroids in the marine environment. Furthermore, progesterone was found to be a reliable chemical indicator to surrogate different steroids in both the water and sediment phases based on the correlation analysis. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Final Report for DOE Award ER25756

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kesselman, Carl

2014-11-17

The SciDAC-funded Center for Enabling Distributed Petascale Science (CEDPS) was established to address technical challenges that arise due to the frequent geographic distribution of data producers (in particular, supercomputers and scientific instruments) and data consumers (people and computers) within the DOE laboratory system. Its goal is to produce technical innovations that meet DOE end-user needs for (a) rapid and dependable placement of large quantities of data within a distributed high-performance environment, and (b) the convenient construction of scalable science services that provide for the reliable and high-performance processing of computation and data analysis requests from many remote clients. The Centermore » is also addressing (c) the important problem of troubleshooting these and other related ultra-high-performance distributed activities from the perspective of both performance and functionality« less

Applying Multivariate Discrete Distributions to Genetically Informative Count Data.

PubMed

Kirkpatrick, Robert M; Neale, Michael C

2016-03-01

We present a novel method of conducting biometric analysis of twin data when the phenotypes are integer-valued counts, which often show an L-shaped distribution. Monte Carlo simulation is used to compare five likelihood-based approaches to modeling: our multivariate discrete method, when its distributional assumptions are correct, when they are incorrect, and three other methods in common use. With data simulated from a skewed discrete distribution, recovery of twin correlations and proportions of additive genetic and common environment variance was generally poor for the Normal, Lognormal and Ordinal models, but good for the two discrete models. Sex-separate applications to substance-use data from twins in the Minnesota Twin Family Study showed superior performance of two discrete models. The new methods are implemented using R and OpenMx and are freely available.

GES DISC Data Recipes in Jupyter Notebooks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, A.; Banavige, B.; Garimella, K.; Rice, J.; Shen, S.; Liu, Z.

2017-12-01

The Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project manages twelve Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) which are geographically dispersed across the United States. The DAACs are responsible for ingesting, processing, archiving, and distributing Earth science data produced from various sources (satellites, aircraft, field measurements, etc.). In response to projections of an exponential increase in data production, there has been a recent effort to prototype various DAAC activities in the cloud computing environment. This, in turn, led to the creation of an initiative, called the Cloud Analysis Toolkit to Enable Earth Science (CATEES), to develop a Python software package in order to transition Earth science data processing to the cloud. This project, in particular, supports CATEES and has two primary goals. One, transition data recipes created by the Goddard Earth Science Data and Information Service Center (GES DISC) DAAC into an interactive and educational environment using Jupyter Notebooks. Two, acclimate Earth scientists to cloud computing. To accomplish these goals, we create Jupyter Notebooks to compartmentalize the different steps of data analysis and help users obtain and parse data from the command line. We also develop a Docker container, comprised of Jupyter Notebooks, Python library dependencies, and command line tools, and configure it into an easy to deploy package. The end result is an end-to-end product that simulates the use case of end users working in the cloud computing environment.

Methodology for CFD Design Analysis of National Launch System Nozzle Manifold

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Haire, Scot L.

1993-01-01

The current design environment dictates that high technology CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis produce quality results in a timely manner if it is to be integrated into the design process. The design methodology outlined describes the CFD analysis of an NLS (National Launch System) nozzle film cooling manifold. The objective of the analysis was to obtain a qualitative estimate for the flow distribution within the manifold. A complex, 3D, multiple zone, structured grid was generated from a 3D CAD file of the geometry. A Euler solution was computed with a fully implicit compressible flow solver. Post processing consisted of full 3D color graphics and mass averaged performance. The result was a qualitative CFD solution that provided the design team with relevant information concerning the flow distribution in and performance characteristics of the film cooling manifold within an effective time frame. Also, this design methodology was the foundation for a quick turnaround CFD analysis of the next iteration in the manifold design.

Cost Study of Educational Media Systems and Their Equipment Components. Volume II, Technical Report. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

General Learning Corp., Washington, DC.

A common instructional task and a set of educational environments are hypothesized for analysis of media cost data. The analytic structure may be conceptulized as a three-dimensional matrix: the first vector separates costs into production, distribution, and reception; the second vector delineates capital (initial) and operating (annual) costs;…

Data-Intensive Scientific Management, Analysis and Visualization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goranova, Mariana; Shishedjiev, Bogdan; Juliana Georgieva, Juliana

2012-11-01

The proposed integrated system provides a suite of services for data-intensive sciences that enables scientists to describe, manage, analyze and visualize data from experiments and numerical simulations in distributed and heterogeneous environment. This paper describes the advisor and the converter services and presents an example from the monitoring of the slant column content of atmospheric minor gases.

Characteristics of Students in Traditional versus Alternative High Schools: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Enrollment in One Urban District

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perzigian, Aaron B.; Afacan, Kemal; Justin, Whitney; Wilkerson, Kimber L.

2017-01-01

Urban school districts are comprised of many diverse high school environments including comprehensive neighborhood schools as well as a variety of smaller alternative models that focus on innovative practices, behavior remediation, or academic recovery. In terms of enrollment distribution, urban school districts are increasingly offering…

Engineering High Assurance Distributed Cyber Physical Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-15

decisions: number of interacting agents and co-dependent decisions made in real-time without causing interference . To engineer a high assurance DART...environment specification, architecture definition, domain-specific languages, design patterns, code - generation, analysis, test-generation, and simulation...include synchronization between the models and source code , debugging at the model level, expression of the design intent, and quality of service

Describing the Labor Sectors in Jordan--The Factors That Attract Employees from Graduated Students' Perspectives

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

AL-Zou'bi, Dalal Mohamad

2014-01-01

This study aimed at exploring perceptions of Jordanian graduating students for the factors that attract them in the work environment based on porter's theory in motivation. A Questionnaire was distributed to a sample of 807 graduating students at three universities. Means, Frequencies, Percentage, Variance analysis and chi-square test were used to…

MEMORE: An Environment for Data Collection and Analysis on the Use of Computers in Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goldschmidt, Ronaldo; Fernandes de Souza, Isabel; Norris, Monica; Passos, Claudio; Ferlin, Claudia; Cavalcanti, Maria Claudia; Soares, Jorge

2016-01-01

The use of computers as teaching and learning tools plays a particularly important role in modern society. Within this scenario, Brazil launched its own version of the "One Laptop per Child" (OLPC) program, and this initiative, termed PROUCA, has already distributed hundreds of low-cost laptops for educational purposes in many Brazilian…

An Analysis of the Selection and Distribution of Knowledge in Massachusetts Music Teacher Preparation Programs: The Song Remains the Same

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Borek, Matthew

2012-01-01

Music teachers occupy a conflicted and contested position in many secondary schools, and music teacher education programs have been given the task of preparing students to enter this challenging environment. This qualitative dissertation study examined the explicit, implicit, and null curricula of music teacher preparation programs in…

Virtual Collaborative Environments for System of Systems Engineering and Applications for ISAT

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dryer, David A.

2002-01-01

This paper describes an system of systems or metasystems approach and models developed to help prepare engineering organizations for distributed engineering environments. These changes in engineering enterprises include competition in increasingly global environments; new partnering opportunities caused by advances in information and communication technologies, and virtual collaboration issues associated with dispersed teams. To help address challenges and needs in this environment, a framework is proposed that can be customized and adapted for NASA to assist in improved engineering activities conducted in distributed, enhanced engineering environments. The approach is designed to prepare engineers for such distributed collaborative environments by learning and applying e-engineering methods and tools to a real-world engineering development scenario. The approach consists of two phases: an e-engineering basics phase and e-engineering application phase. The e-engineering basics phase addresses skills required for e-engineering. The e-engineering application phase applies these skills in a distributed collaborative environment to system development projects.

Correlated Raman micro-spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy analyses of flame retardants in environmental samples: a micro-analytical tool for probing chemical composition, origin and spatial distribution.

PubMed

Ghosal, Sutapa; Wagner, Jeff

2013-07-07

We present correlated application of two micro-analytical techniques: scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and Raman micro-spectroscopy (RMS) for the non-invasive characterization and molecular identification of flame retardants (FRs) in environmental dusts and consumer products. The SEM/EDS-RMS technique offers correlated, morphological, molecular, spatial distribution and semi-quantitative elemental concentration information at the individual particle level with micrometer spatial resolution and minimal sample preparation. The presented methodology uses SEM/EDS analyses for rapid detection of particles containing FR specific elements as potential indicators of FR presence in a sample followed by correlated RMS analyses of the same particles for characterization of the FR sub-regions and surrounding matrices. The spatially resolved characterization enabled by this approach provides insights into the distributional heterogeneity as well as potential transfer and exposure mechanisms for FRs in the environment that is typically not available through traditional FR analysis. We have used this methodology to reveal a heterogeneous distribution of highly concentrated deca-BDE particles in environmental dust, sometimes in association with identifiable consumer materials. The observed coexistence of deca-BDE with consumer material in dust is strongly indicative of its release into the environment via weathering/abrasion of consumer products. Ingestion of such enriched FR particles in dust represents a potential for instantaneous exposure to high FR concentrations. Therefore, correlated SEM/RMS analysis offers a novel investigative tool for addressing an area of important environmental concern.

Use hyperspectral remote sensing technique to monitoring pine wood nomatode disease preliminary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qin, Lin; Wang, Xianghong; Jiang, Jing; Yang, Xianchang; Ke, Daiyan; Li, Hongqun; Wang, Dingyi

2016-10-01

The pine wilt disease is a devastating disease of pine trees. In China, the first discoveries of the pine wilt disease on 1982 at Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausoleum in Nanjing. It occurred an area of 77000 hm2 in 2005, More than 1540000 pine trees deaths in the year. Many districts of Chongqing in Three Gorges Reservoir have different degrees of pine wilt disease occurrence. It is a serious threat to the ecological environment of the reservoir area. Use unmanned airship to carry high spectrum remote sensing monitoring technology to develop the study on pine wood nematode disease early diagnosis and early warning and forecasting in this study. The hyper spectral data and the digital orthophoto map data of Fuling District Yongsheng Forestry had been achieved In September 2015. Using digital image processing technology to deal with the digital orthophoto map, the number of disease tree and its distribution is automatic identified. Hyper spectral remote sensing data is processed by the spectrum comparison algorithm, and the number and distribution of disease pine trees are also obtained. Two results are compared, the distribution area of disease pine trees are basically the same, indicating that using low air remote sensing technology to monitor the pine wood nematode distribution is successful. From the results we can see that the hyper spectral data analysis results more accurate and less affected by environmental factors than digital orthophoto map analysis results, and more environment variable can be extracted, so the hyper spectral data study is future development direction.

Modeling for IFOG Vibration Error Based on the Strain Distribution of Quadrupolar Fiber Coil

PubMed Central

Gao, Zhongxing; Zhang, Yonggang; Zhang, Yunhao

2016-01-01

Improving the performance of interferometric fiber optic gyroscope (IFOG) in harsh environment, especially in vibrational environment, is necessary for its practical applications. This paper presents a mathematical model for IFOG to theoretically compute the short-term rate errors caused by mechanical vibration. The computational procedures are mainly based on the strain distribution of quadrupolar fiber coil measured by stress analyzer. The definition of asymmetry of strain distribution (ASD) is given in the paper to evaluate the winding quality of the coil. The established model reveals that the high ASD and the variable fiber elastic modulus in large strain situation are two dominant reasons that give rise to nonreciprocity phase shift in IFOG under vibration. Furthermore, theoretical analysis and computational results indicate that vibration errors of both open-loop and closed-loop IFOG increase with the raise of vibrational amplitude, vibrational frequency and ASD. Finally, an estimation of vibration-induced IFOG errors in aircraft is done according to the proposed model. Our work is meaningful in designing IFOG coils to achieve a better anti-vibration performance. PMID:27455257

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Loftin, R. Bowen; Dryer, David; Major, Debra; Fletcher, Tom

2002-01-01

The ultimate goal of this research project is to develop a methodology for the assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments. This review provides the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent empirical work will be based. Our review of the team performance literature has identified the following 12 conceptually distinct team interaction processes as characteristic of effective teams. 1) Mission Analysis; 2) Resource Distribution; 3) Leadership; 4) Timing; 5) Intra-team Feedback; 6) Motivational Functions; 7) Team Orientation; 8) Communication; 9) Coordination; 10) Mutual Performance Monitoring; 11) Back-up Behaviors; and 12) Cooperation. In addition, this review summarizes how team task characteristics (i.e., task type, task complexity, motivation, and temporal changes), team characteristics (i.e., team structure and team knowledge), and individual team member characteristics (i.e., dispositions and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities) affect team interaction processes, determine the relevance of these processes, and influence team performance. The costs and benefits of distributed team collaboration are also considered. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the nature of collaborative team engineering tasks.

Environmental gamma radiation analysis for Ulsan city with the highest nuclear power plant density in Korea.

PubMed

Lee, UkJae; Bae, Jun Woo; Kim, Hee Reyoung

2017-11-01

This study presents a real-time measurement-based rapid radiation distribution visualization system for radionuclide recognition, which can quickly scan a contaminated environment. The system combines a portable detector with a digital map and a program for quick data treatment. Radiation information at the measurement location is transferred between a detector and a laptop. It includes environmental and artificial components, specific radionuclides, and total radionuclides. After scanning the area, the radiation distributions are comprehensively displayed in 2D and 3D maps corresponding to the measured area, all in a few tens of seconds. The proposed method was verified using the standard 137 Cs and 60 Co sources. The gamma radiation distribution of the areas measured in Ulsan city, which included non-destructive testing and radioisotope treatment facilities, hospitals, transportation spots, and residential and commercial areas, showed that Ulsan city has maintained safe levels of radiation. The system performed well. In addition, it was found that this system could detect unexpected hot spots quickly in affected environments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of dispersal on total biomass in a patchy, heterogeneous system: analysis and experiment.

USGS Publications Warehouse

Zhang, Bo; Liu, Xin; DeAngelis, Donald L.; Ni, Wei-Ming; Wang, G Geoff

2015-01-01

An intriguing recent result from mathematics is that a population diffusing at an intermediate rate in an environment in which resources vary spatially will reach a higher total equilibrium biomass than the population in an environment in which the same total resources are distributed homogeneously. We extended the current mathematical theory to apply to logistic growth and also showed that the result applies to patchy systems with dispersal among patches, both for continuous and discrete time. This allowed us to make specific predictions, through simulations, concerning the biomass dynamics, which were verified by a laboratory experiment. The experiment was a study of biomass growth of duckweed (Lemna minor Linn.), where the resources (nutrients added to water) were distributed homogeneously among a discrete series of water-filled containers in one treatment, and distributed heterogeneously in another treatment. The experimental results showed that total biomass peaked at an intermediate, relatively low, diffusion rate, higher than the total carrying capacity of the system and agreeing with the simulation model. The implications of the experiment to dynamics of source, sink, and pseudo-sink dynamics are discussed.

Research on Intelligent Synthesis Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Loftin, R. Bowen; Dryer, David; Major, Debra; Fletcher, Tom

2002-10-01

The ultimate goal of this research project is to develop a methodology for the assessment and continuous improvement of engineering team effectiveness in distributed collaborative environments. This review provides the theoretical foundation upon which subsequent empirical work will be based. Our review of the team performance literature has identified the following 12 conceptually distinct team interaction processes as characteristic of effective teams. 1) Mission Analysis; 2) Resource Distribution; 3) Leadership; 4) Timing; 5) Intra-team Feedback; 6) Motivational Functions; 7) Team Orientation; 8) Communication; 9) Coordination; 10) Mutual Performance Monitoring; 11) Back-up Behaviors; and 12) Cooperation. In addition, this review summarizes how team task characteristics (i.e., task type, task complexity, motivation, and temporal changes), team characteristics (i.e., team structure and team knowledge), and individual team member characteristics (i.e., dispositions and teamwork knowledge, skills, and abilities) affect team interaction processes, determine the relevance of these processes, and influence team performance. The costs and benefits of distributed team collaboration are also considered. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the nature of collaborative team engineering tasks.

Overview of DAN/MSL water and chlorine measurements acquired in Gale area for four years of surface observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Litvak, Maxim

2017-04-01

During more than 4 years MSL Curiosity rover (landed in Gale crater in August 2012) is traveling toward sedimentary layered mound deposited with phyllosilicates and hematite hydrated minerals. Curiosity already traversed more than 14 km and identified lacustrine deposits left from ancient lakes filled Gale area in early history of Mars. Along the traverse the Curiosity rover discovered unique signatures regarding how the Mars environment changed from ancient warm and wet conditions and probably habitable environment to the modern cold and dry climate. We have summarized numerous measurements from the Dynamic Albedo of Neutron (DAN) instrument on Curiosity rover to overview variations of subsurface bound water distribution from the wet to the dry locations, compared it with other MSL measurements and with possible distribution of hydrated minerals and sequence of geological units travelled by Curiosity. We have also performed joint analysis of water and chlorine distributions and compared bulk (down to 0.5 m depth) equivalent chlorine concentrations measured by DAN throughout the Gale area and APXS observations of corresponding local surface targets and drill fines.

Provenance and depositional environment of epi-shelf lake sediment from Schirmacher Oasis, East Antarctica, vis-à-vis scanning electron microscopy of quartz grain, size distribution and chemical parameters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shrivastava, Prakash K.; Asthana, Rajesh; Roy, Sandip K.; Swain, Ashit K.; Dharwadkar, Amit

2012-07-01

The scientific study of quartz grains is a powerful tool in deciphering the depositional environment and mode of transportation of sediments, and ultimately the origin and classification of sediments. Surface microfeatures, angularity, chemical features, and grain-size analysis of quartz grains, collectively reveal the sedimentary and physicochemical processes that acted on the grains during different stages of their geological history. Here, we apply scanning electron microscopic (SEM) analysis to evaluating the sedimentary provenance, modes of transport, weathering characteristics, alteration, and sedimentary environment of selected detrital quartz grains from the peripheral part of two epi-shelf lakes (ESL-1 and ESL-2) of the Schirmacher Oasis of East Antarctica. Our study reveals that different styles of physical weathering, erosive signatures, and chemical precipitation variably affected these quartz grains before final deposition as lake sediments. Statistical analysis (central tendencies, sorting, skewness, and kurtosis) indicates that these quartz-bearing sediments are poorly sorted glaciofluvial sediments. Saltation and suspension seem to have been the two dominant modes of transportation, and chemical analysis of these sediments indicates a gneissic provenance.

Stratigraphy, facies analysis and depositional environments of the Upper Unit of Abu Roash "E" member in the Abu Gharadig field, Western Desert, Egypt

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hewaidy, Abdel Galil; Elshahat, O. R.; Kamal, Samy

2018-03-01

Abu Roach "E" member is of an important hydrocarbon reservoir-producing horizon in the Abu Gharadig Field (north Western Desert, Egypt). This study is used to build facies analysis and depositional environments model for the Upper Unit of the Abu Roash "E" member in Abu Gharadig Field. This target has been achieved throughout the sedimentological, wire line logs, lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic analyses of more than 528 feet cores. The high-resolution biostratigraphic analysis provides a calibration for the paleo-bathymetry and depositional environmental interpretations. Biozonation and lithostratigraphic markers are used to constrain stratigraphic correlation. Integration between the core description and petorographic microfacies analysis by microscope examination provide an excellent indication for the rock types and depositional environments. Five depositional facies types are detected including carbonate inner ramp, tidal flats, tidal channels, supra-tidal and tide dominated delta facies. This model helps in the understanding of the Upper Unit of Abu Roash "E" member reservoir distribution as well as lateral and vertical facies changes that contribute to the development strategy for the remaining hydrocarbon reserves for this important oil reservoir.

Heavy-tailed distribution of the SSH Brute-force attack duration in a multi-user environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Jae-Kook; Kim, Sung-Jun; Park, Chan Yeol; Hong, Taeyoung; Chae, Huiseung

2016-07-01

Quite a number of cyber-attacks to be place against supercomputers that provide highperformance computing (HPC) services to public researcher. Particularly, although the secure shell protocol (SSH) brute-force attack is one of the traditional attack methods, it is still being used. Because stealth attacks that feign regular access may occur, they are even harder to detect. In this paper, we introduce methods to detect SSH brute-force attacks by analyzing the server's unsuccessful access logs and the firewall's drop events in a multi-user environment. Then, we analyze the durations of the SSH brute-force attacks that are detected by applying these methods. The results of an analysis of about 10 thousands attack source IP addresses show that the behaviors of abnormal users using SSH brute-force attacks are based on human dynamic characteristics of a typical heavy-tailed distribution.

Iron deposition in modern and archaeological teeth

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Williams, A.-M. M.; Siegele, R.

2014-09-01

Iron surface concentrations and profile maps were measured on the enamel of archaeological and modern teeth to determine how iron is deposited in tooth enamel and if it was affected by the post-mortem environment. Teeth from Australian children who died in the second half of the 19th century were compared with contemporary teeth extracted for orthodontic purposes. Surface analysis of the teeth was performed using the 3 MV Van Der Graff Accelerator at The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Sydney, Australia. A small sample of teeth were then cut in the mid sagittal plane and analysed using ANSTO High Energy Heavy Ion Microprobe. Maps and linear profiles were produced showing the distribution of iron across the enamel. Results show that both the levels and distribution of iron in archaeological teeth is quite different to contemporary teeth, raising the suggestion that iron has been significantly altered by the post-mortem environment.

Computing at h1 - Experience and Future

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eckerlin, G.; Gerhards, R.; Kleinwort, C.; KrÜNer-Marquis, U.; Egli, S.; Niebergall, F.

The H1 experiment has now been successfully operating at the electron proton collider HERA at DESY for three years. During this time the computing environment has gradually shifted from a mainframe oriented environment to the distributed server/client Unix world. This transition is now almost complete. Computing needs are largely determined by the present amount of 1.5 TB of reconstructed data per year (1994), corresponding to 1.2 × 107 accepted events. All data are centrally available at DESY. In addition to data analysis, which is done in all collaborating institutes, most of the centrally organized Monte Carlo production is performed outside of DESY. New software tools to cope with offline computing needs include CENTIPEDE, a tool for the use of distributed batch and interactive resources for Monte Carlo production, and H1 UNIX, a software package for automatic updates of H1 software on all UNIX platforms.

LEOPARD: A grid-based dispersion relation solver for arbitrary gyrotropic distributions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Astfalk, Patrick; Jenko, Frank

2017-01-01

Particle velocity distributions measured in collisionless space plasmas often show strong deviations from idealized model distributions. Despite this observational evidence, linear wave analysis in space plasma environments such as the solar wind or Earth's magnetosphere is still mainly carried out using dispersion relation solvers based on Maxwellians or other parametric models. To enable a more realistic analysis, we present the new grid-based kinetic dispersion relation solver LEOPARD (Linear Electromagnetic Oscillations in Plasmas with Arbitrary Rotationally-symmetric Distributions) which no longer requires prescribed model distributions but allows for arbitrary gyrotropic distribution functions. In this work, we discuss the underlying numerical scheme of the code and we show a few exemplary benchmarks. Furthermore, we demonstrate a first application of LEOPARD to ion distribution data obtained from hybrid simulations. In particular, we show that in the saturation stage of the parallel fire hose instability, the deformation of the initial bi-Maxwellian distribution invalidates the use of standard dispersion relation solvers. A linear solver based on bi-Maxwellians predicts further growth even after saturation, while LEOPARD correctly indicates vanishing growth rates. We also discuss how this complies with former studies on the validity of quasilinear theory for the resonant fire hose. In the end, we briefly comment on the role of LEOPARD in directly analyzing spacecraft data, and we refer to an upcoming paper which demonstrates a first application of that kind.

Lithological properties of sedimentary environments in the shallow subsurface of the Northern Netherlands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harting, Ronald; Bosch, Aleid; Gunnink, Jan

2014-05-01

Society has an increasing demand from the subsurface, which in the Dutch shallow subsurface (upper 30 to 40 meters) mainly focuses on natural aggregate resources, groundwater, infrastructure and dike safety. This stimulates the demand for knowledge about the composition and heterogeneity of the subsurface and its physical and chemical properties, including the uncertainties involved. Physical and chemical properties of sediments in the subsurface have been under investigation for decades; however, the usefulness of this data for applied research and the understanding of these properties is limited. This is due to several factors: studies consist mainly of separately collected datasets, targeted at a limited amount of parameters, focused on a small number of geological units, distributed unevenly with depth and usually collected from clustered drillings with limited spatial extent or are analysed with different techniques and methods, often on disturbed samples. These factors result in a heterogeneous and biased dataset not suitable to function as a reference dataset or to statistically determine regional characteristics of geological units. To overcome these shortcomings, the Geological Survey of the Netherlands is establishing a nation-wide reference dataset for physical and chemical properties. In 2006, a drilling campaign was started using cone penetration tests, cored drillings and geophysical well logs, choosing the sites for a good geographical distribution. The lithological properties of the undisturbed cores are visually described and interpreted for lithostratigraphy and inferred sedimentary environment based on lithofacies. The location of the samples in the cores are chosen based on this description and interpretation, resulting in an evenly distributed dataset of in situ samples with respect to geological units as well as an adequate number of samples suitable for statistical analysis. Analyses are uniformly performed for grain size distribution, permeability (both high and low permeable lithologies) and geochemical methods (X-Ray Fluorescence, Thermo-Gravimetric Analysis, Total Carbon, Total Sulphur and Total Organic Carbon). These analyses result in a large number of lithological, hydrological and geochemical parameters, i.e. clay content, sand median, vertical and horizontal permeability and CaCO3-content. We present the results from the analysis of lithological properties for the Northern Netherlands. Besides geology, these properties can be applied directly in studies concerning (amongst others) groundwater, natural aggregates and dike safety. We demonstrate the use of sedimentary environments based on lithofacies as a useful tool for comparison between lithostratigraphic units and lithofacies. These lithofacies match distinct parts of the marine, fluvial, glacial, eolian or organogenic environment, i.e. tidal channel sand, floodbasin clay and subglacial till. This results in lithological properties illustrating the heterogeneity within a geological unit and between equal depositional environments in different lithostratigraphic units. The acquired data have so far been used in several applied studies, i.e. improving parameterisation of 3D models leading to increased accuracy in groundwater models and dike safety studies concerning dike failure due to undermining. Recently, grain size distributions measured with different methods were recalibrated into a homogeneous dataset using this reference set, which greatly enlarged the dataset to be incorporated in the parameterisation of a 3D voxel model.

Internal iron biomineralization in Imperata cylindrica, a perennial grass: chemical composition, speciation and plant localization.

PubMed

Rodríguez, N; Menéndez, N; Tornero, J; Amils, R; de la Fuente, V

2005-03-01

* The analysis of metal distribution in Imperata cylindrica, a perennial grass isolated from the banks of Tinto River (Iberian Pyritic Belt), an extreme acidic environment with high content in metals, has shown a remarkable accumulation of iron. This property has been used to study iron speciation and its distribution among different tissues and structures of the plant. * Mossbauer (MS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to determine the iron species, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to locate iron biominerals among plant tissue structures, and energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDAX), X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) and inductively coupled plasma emission spectroscopy (ICP-MS) to confirm their elemental composition. * The MS spectral analysis indicated that iron accumulated in this plant mainly as jarosite and ferritin. The presence of jarosite was confirmed by XRD and the distribution of both minerals in structures of different tissues was ascertained by SEM-EDAX analysis. * The convergent results obtained by complementary techniques suggest a complex iron management system in I. cylindrica, probably as a consequence of the environmental conditions of its habitat.

imDEV: a graphical user interface to R multivariate analysis tools in Microsoft Excel.

PubMed

Grapov, Dmitry; Newman, John W

2012-09-01

Interactive modules for Data Exploration and Visualization (imDEV) is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet embedded application providing an integrated environment for the analysis of omics data through a user-friendly interface. Individual modules enables interactive and dynamic analyses of large data by interfacing R's multivariate statistics and highly customizable visualizations with the spreadsheet environment, aiding robust inferences and generating information-rich data visualizations. This tool provides access to multiple comparisons with false discovery correction, hierarchical clustering, principal and independent component analyses, partial least squares regression and discriminant analysis, through an intuitive interface for creating high-quality two- and a three-dimensional visualizations including scatter plot matrices, distribution plots, dendrograms, heat maps, biplots, trellis biplots and correlation networks. Freely available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. Implemented in R and VBA and supported by Microsoft Excel (2003, 2007 and 2010).

An Analysis of Security and Privacy Issues in Smart Grid Software Architectures on Clouds

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Simmhan, Yogesh; Kumbhare, Alok; Cao, Baohua

2011-07-09

Power utilities globally are increasingly upgrading to Smart Grids that use bi-directional communication with the consumer to enable an information-driven approach to distributed energy management. Clouds offer features well suited for Smart Grid software platforms and applications, such as elastic resources and shared services. However, the security and privacy concerns inherent in an information rich Smart Grid environment are further exacerbated by their deployment on Clouds. Here, we present an analysis of security and privacy issues in a Smart Grids software architecture operating on different Cloud environments, in the form of a taxonomy. We use the Los Angeles Smart Gridmore » Project that is underway in the largest U.S. municipal utility to drive this analysis that will benefit both Cloud practitioners targeting Smart Grid applications, and Cloud researchers investigating security and privacy.« less

Green valley galaxies as a transition population in different environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coenda, Valeria; Martínez, Héctor J.; Muriel, Hernán

2018-02-01

We present a comparative analysis of the properties of passive, star-forming and transition (green valley) galaxies in four discrete environments: field, groups, the outskirts and the core of X-ray clusters. We construct samples of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in these environments so that they are bound to have similar redshift distributions. The classification of galaxies into the three sequences is based on the UV-optical colour NUV - r. We study a number of galaxy properties: stellar mass, morphology, specific star formation rate and the history of star formation. The analysis of green valley (GV) galaxies reveals that the physical mechanisms responsible for external quenching become more efficient moving from the field to denser environments. We confirm previous findings that GV galaxies have intermediate morphologies; moreover, we find that this appears to be independent of the environment. Regarding the stellar mass of GV galaxies, we find that they tend to be more massive in the field than in denser environments. On average, GV galaxies account for ∼ 20 per cent of all galaxies in groups and X-ray clusters. We find evidence that the field environment is inefficient in transforming low-mass galaxies. GV galaxies have average star formation histories intermediate between passive and star-forming galaxies, and have a clear and consistent dependence on the environment: both, the quenching time and the amplitude of the star formation rate, decrease towards higher density environments.

Combining Agile and Traditional: Customer Communication in Distributed Environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Korkala, Mikko; Pikkarainen, Minna; Conboy, Kieran

Distributed development is a radically increasing phenomenon in modern software development environments. At the same time, traditional and agile methodologies and combinations of those are being used in the industry. Agile approaches place a large emphasis on customer communication. However, existing knowledge on customer communication in distributed agile development seems to be lacking. In order to shed light on this topic and provide practical guidelines for companies in distributed agile environments, a qualitative case study was conducted in a large globally distributed software company. The key finding was that it might be difficult for an agile organization to get relevant information from a traditional type of customer organization, even though the customer communication was indicated to be active and utilized via multiple different communication media. Several challenges discussed in this paper referred to "information blackout" indicating the importance of an environment fostering meaningful communication. In order to evaluate if this environment can be created a set of guidelines is proposed.

Preliminary application of tapered glass capillary microbeam in MeV-PIXE mapping of longan leaf for elemental concentration distribution analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Natyanun, S.; Unai, S.; Yu, L. D.; Tippawan, U.; Pussadee, N.

2017-09-01

This study was aimed at understanding elemental concentration distribution in local longan leaf for how the plant was affected by the environment or agricultural operation. The analysis applied the MeV-microbeam particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) mapping technique using a home-developed tapered glass capillary microbeam system at Chiang Mai University. The microbeam was 2-MeV proton beam in 130 µm in diameter. The studying interest was in the difference in the elemental concentrations distributed between the leaf midrib and lamina areas. The micro proton beam analyzed the leaf sample across the leaf midrib edge to the leaf lamina area for total 9 data requisition spots. The resulting data were colored to form a 1D-map of the elemental concentration distribution. Seven dominant elements, Al, S, Cl, K, Ca, Sc and Fe, were identified, the first six of which were found having higher concentrations in the midrib area than in the lamina area, while the Fe concentration was in an opposite trend to that of the others.

Research on the optimization of air quality monitoring station layout based on spatial grid statistical analysis method.

PubMed

Li, Tianxin; Zhou, Xing Chen; Ikhumhen, Harrison Odion; Difei, An

2018-05-01

In recent years, with the significant increase in urban development, it has become necessary to optimize the current air monitoring stations to reflect the quality of air in the environment. Highlighting the spatial representation of some air monitoring stations using Beijing's regional air monitoring station data from 2012 to 2014, the monthly mean particulate matter concentration (PM10) in the region was calculated and through the IDW interpolation method and spatial grid statistical method using GIS, the spatial distribution of PM10 concentration in the whole region was deduced. The spatial distribution variation of districts in Beijing using the gridding model was performed, and through the 3-year spatial analysis, PM10 concentration data including the variation and spatial overlay (1.5 km × 1.5 km cell resolution grid), the spatial distribution result obtained showed that the total PM10 concentration frequency variation exceeded the standard. It is very important to optimize the layout of the existing air monitoring stations by combining the concentration distribution of air pollutants with the spatial region using GIS.

An Internet Protocol-Based Software System for Real-Time, Closed-Loop, Multi-Spacecraft Mission Simulation Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davis, George; Cary, Everett; Higinbotham, John; Burns, Richard; Hogie, Keith; Hallahan, Francis

2003-01-01

The paper will provide an overview of the web-based distributed simulation software system developed for end-to-end, multi-spacecraft mission design, analysis, and test at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This software system was developed for an internal research and development (IR&D) activity at GSFC called the Distributed Space Systems (DSS) Distributed Synthesis Environment (DSE). The long-term goal of the DSS-DSE is to integrate existing GSFC stand-alone test beds, models, and simulation systems to create a "hands on", end-to-end simulation environment for mission design, trade studies and simulations. The short-term goal of the DSE was therefore to develop the system architecture, and then to prototype the core software simulation capability based on a distributed computing approach, with demonstrations of some key capabilities by the end of Fiscal Year 2002 (FY02). To achieve the DSS-DSE IR&D objective, the team adopted a reference model and mission upon which FY02 capabilities were developed. The software was prototyped according to the reference model, and demonstrations were conducted for the reference mission to validate interfaces, concepts, etc. The reference model, illustrated in Fig. 1, included both space and ground elements, with functional capabilities such as spacecraft dynamics and control, science data collection, space-to-space and space-to-ground communications, mission operations, science operations, and data processing, archival and distribution addressed.

Interpretation of aeromagnetic data over Abeokuta and its environs, Southwest Nigeria, using spectral analysis (Fourier transform technique)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olurin, Oluwaseun T.; Ganiyu, Saheed A.; Hammed, Olaide S.; Aluko, Taiwo J.

2016-10-01

This study presents the results of spectral analysis of magnetic data over Abeokuta area, Southwestern Nigeria, using fast Fourier transform (FFT) in Microsoft Excel. The study deals with the quantitative interpretation of airborne magnetic data (Sheet No. 260), which was conducted by the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency in 2009. In order to minimise aliasing error, the aeromagnetic data was gridded at spacing of 1 km. Spectral analysis technique was used to estimate the magnetic basement depth distributed at two levels. The result of the interpretation shows that the magnetic sources are mainly distributed at two levels. The shallow sources (minimum depth) range in depth from 0.103 to 0.278 km below ground level and are inferred to be due to intrusions within the region. The deeper sources (maximum depth) range in depth from 2.739 to 3.325 km below ground and are attributed to the underlying basement.

Analysis of the fluctuations of the tumour/host interface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Milotti, Edoardo; Vyshemirsky, Vladislav; Stella, Sabrina; Dogo, Federico; Chignola, Roberto

2017-11-01

In a recent analysis of metabolic scaling in solid tumours we found a scaling law that interpolates between the power laws μ ∝ V and μ ∝V 2 / 3, where μ is the metabolic rate expressed as the glucose absorption rate and V is the tumour volume. The scaling law fits quite well both in vitro and in vivo data, however we also observed marked fluctuations that are associated with the specific biological properties of individual tumours. Here we analyse these fluctuations, in an attempt to find the population-wide distribution of an important parameter (A) which expresses the total extent of the interface between the solid tumour and the non-cancerous environment. Heuristic considerations suggest that the values of the A parameter follow a lognormal distribution, and, allowing for the large uncertainties of the experimental data, our statistical analysis confirms this.

Collaborative Scheduling Using JMS in a Mixed Java and .NET Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, Yeou-Fang; Wax, Allan; Lam, Ray; Baldwin, John; Borden, Chet

2006-01-01

A viewgraph presentation to demonstrate collaborative scheduling using Java Message Service (JMS) in a mixed Java and .Net environment is given. The topics include: 1) NASA Deep Space Network scheduling; 2) Collaborative scheduling concept; 3) Distributed computing environment; 4) Platform concerns in a distributed environment; 5) Messaging and data synchronization; and 6) The prototype.

Assessing the spatial distribution of Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) eggs in open-field tomato cultivation through geostatistical analysis.

PubMed

Martins, Júlio C; Picanço, Marcelo C; Silva, Ricardo S; Gonring, Alfredo Hr; Galdino, Tarcísio Vs; Guedes, Raul Nc

2018-01-01

The spatial distribution of insects is due to the interaction between individuals and the environment. Knowledge about the within-field pattern of spatial distribution of a pest is critical to planning control tactics, developing efficient sampling plans, and predicting pest damage. The leaf miner Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) is the main pest of tomato crops in several regions of the world. Despite the importance of this pest, the pattern of spatial distribution of T. absoluta on open-field tomato cultivation remains unknown. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the spatial distribution of T. absoluta in 22 commercial open-field tomato cultivations with plants at the three phenological development stages by using geostatistical analysis. Geostatistical analysis revealed that there was strong evidence for spatially dependent (aggregated) T. absoluta eggs in 19 of the 22 sample tomato cultivations. The maps that were obtained demonstrated the aggregated structure of egg densities at the edges of the crops. Further, T. absoluta was found to accomplish egg dispersal along the rows more frequently than it does between rows. Our results indicate that the greatest egg densities of T. absoluta occur at the edges of tomato crops. These results are discussed in relation to the behavior of T. absoluta distribution within fields and in terms of their implications for improved sampling guidelines and precision targeting control methods that are essential for effective pest monitoring and management. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

The contribution of component variation and phytoplankton growth to the distribution variation of chromophoric dissolved organic matter content in a mid-latitude subtropical drinking water source reservoir for two different seasons.

PubMed

Sun, Qiyuan; Jiang, Juan; Zheng, Yuyi; Wang, Feifeng; Wu, Chunshan; Xie, Rong-Rong

2017-07-01

The distribution variation in chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) content in mid-latitude subtropical drinking water source reservoirs (MDWSRs) has great significance in the security of aquatic environments and human health. CDOM distribution is heavily influenced by biogeochemical processes and anthropogenic activity. However, little is known regarding the impact of component variation and phytoplankton growth on CDOM distribution variation in MDWSR. Therefore, samples were collected from a representative MDWSR (the Shanzai Reservoir) for analysis. CDOM absorption and fluorescence coupling with parallel factor analysis were measured and calculated. The results indicated that only two CDOM components were found in the surface water of Shanzai Reservoir, fulvic acid, and high-excitation tryptophan, originating from terrestrial and autochthonous sources, respectively. The types of components did not change with the season. The average molecular weight of CDOM increased in proportion to its fulvic acid content. The distribution variation in CDOM content mainly resulted from the variation in two CDOM components in summer and from high-excitation tryptophan in winter. Phytoplankton growth strongly influenced the distribution variation of CDOM content in summer; the metabolic processes of Cyanobacteria and Bacillariophyta consumed fulvic acid, while that of Cryptophyta produced high-excitation tryptophan.

Modeling and simulation of satellite subsystems for end-to-end spacecraft modeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schum, William K.; Doolittle, Christina M.; Boyarko, George A.

2006-05-01

During the past ten years, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been simultaneously developing high-fidelity spacecraft payload models as well as a robust distributed simulation environment for modeling spacecraft subsystems. Much of this research has occurred in the Distributed Architecture Simulation Laboratory (DASL). AFRL developers working in the DASL have effectively combined satellite power, attitude pointing, and communication link analysis subsystem models with robust satellite sensor models to create a first-order end-to-end satellite simulation capability. The merging of these two simulation areas has advanced the field of spacecraft simulation, design, and analysis, and enabled more in-depth mission and satellite utility analyses. A core capability of the DASL is the support of a variety of modeling and analysis efforts, ranging from physics and engineering-level modeling to mission and campaign-level analysis. The flexibility and agility of this simulation architecture will be used to support space mission analysis, military utility analysis, and various integrated exercises with other military and space organizations via direct integration, or through DOD standards such as Distributed Interaction Simulation. This paper discusses the results and lessons learned in modeling satellite communication link analysis, power, and attitude control subsystems for an end-to-end satellite simulation. It also discusses how these spacecraft subsystem simulations feed into and support military utility and space mission analyses.

Spatial distributions of core and intact glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) in the Columbia River basin, Washington: Insights into origin and implications for the BIT index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

French, David W.; Huguet, Carme; Wakeham, Stuart; Turich, Courtney; Carlson, Laura T.; Ingalls, Anitra E.

2015-04-01

Branched and isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are used to reconstruct carbon flow from terrestrial landscapes to the ocean in a proxy called the branched vs isoprenoid tetraether index, or BIT Index. The index is based on analysis of core GDGTs from non-living material that originate from the cell membranes of bacteria living in soils and archaea living primarily in the marine environment. However, uncertainty in the identity and location of branched GDGTs (BrGDGTs) producing organisms and the likely production of isoprenoid GDGTs (IsoGDGTs) in terrestrial environments hinders interpretation of the BIT Index. Since BrGDGTs remain our only tool to study BrGDGT producing organisms, it is particularly important to use the intact form of BrGDGTs, present in living cells, to infer organism distributions. In situ production within riverine, lacustrine, and marine environments is currently thought to be possible, yet few measures of intact BrGDGTs (I-BrGDGTs) are available to confirm this. Here we assess the spatial distribution of both core and intact GDGTs throughout the Columbia River basin and nearby areas in Washington and Oregon in order to elucidate source environments for these lipids. The presence of I-BrGDGTs throughout the studied soils, rivers and estuaries suggests in situ production across the continuum from soil to marine environments. Likewise, intact crenarchaeol, the marine endmember isoprenoidal GDGT used in the BIT index, was present in all samples. Widespread production of each GDGT class along terrestrial carbon transport paths likely alters the BIT Index along this continuum. The core to intact GDGT ratios and the weak correlation between I-GDGT derived BIT values and carbon isotope signatures suggest a mixture of allocthonous and autochthonous sources of GDGTs in riverine and marine environments. Our findings highlight the need for further work into the provenance of GDGTs to improve the BIT index and other environmental proxies that rely on these compounds.

New frontier, new power: the retail environment in Australia's dark market.

PubMed

Carter, S M

2003-12-01

To investigate the role of the retail environment in cigarette marketing in Australia, one of the "darkest" markets in the world. Analysis of 172 tobacco industry documents; and articles and advertisements found by hand searching Australia's three leading retail trade journals. As Australian cigarette marketing was increasingly restricted, the retail environment became the primary communication vehicle for building cigarette brands. When retail marketing was restricted, the industry conceded only incrementally and under duress, and at times continues to break the law. The tobacco industry targets retailers via trade promotional expenditure, financial and practical assistance with point of sale marketing, alliance building, brand advertising, and distribution. Cigarette brand advertising in retail magazines are designed to build brand identities. Philip Morris and British American Tobacco are now competing to control distribution of all products to retailers, placing themselves at the heart of retail business. Cigarette companies prize retail marketing in Australia's dark market. Stringent point of sale marketing restrictions should be included in any comprehensive tobacco control measures. Relationships between retailers and the industry will be more difficult to regulate. Retail press advertising and trade promotional expenditure could be banned. In-store marketing assistance, retail-tobacco industry alliance building, and new electronic retail distribution systems may be less amenable to regulation. Alliances between the health and retail sectors and financial support for a move away from retail dependence on tobacco may be necessary to effect cultural change.

Automatic extraction of tree crowns from aerial imagery in urban environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Jiahang; Li, Deren; Qin, Xunwen; Yang, Jianfeng

2006-10-01

Traditionally, field-based investigation is the main method to investigate greenbelt in urban environment, which is costly and low updating frequency. In higher resolution image, the imagery structure and texture of tree canopy has great similarity in statistics despite the great difference in configurations of tree canopy, and their surface structures and textures of tree crown are very different from the other types. In this paper, we present an automatic method to detect tree crowns using high resolution image in urban environment without any apriori knowledge. Our method catches unique structure and texture of tree crown surface, use variance and mathematical expectation of defined image window to position the candidate canopy blocks coarsely, then analysis their inner structure and texture to refine these candidate blocks. The possible spans of all the feature parameters used in our method automatically generate from the small number of samples, and HOLE and its distribution as an important characteristics are introduced into refining processing. Also the isotropy of candidate image block and holes' distribution is integrated in our method. After introduction the theory of our method, aerial imageries were used ( with a resolution about 0.3m ) to test our method, and the results indicate that our method is an effective approach to automatically detect tree crown in urban environment.

A digital protection system incorporating knowledge based learning

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watson, Karan; Russell, B. Don; McCall, Kurt

A digital system architecture used to diagnoses the operating state and health of electric distribution lines and to generate actions for line protection is presented. The architecture is described functionally and to a limited extent at the hardware level. This architecture incorporates multiple analysis and fault-detection techniques utilizing a variety of parameters. In addition, a knowledge-based decision maker, a long-term memory retention and recall scheme, and a learning environment are described. Preliminary laboratory implementations of the system elements have been completed. Enhanced protection for electric distribution feeders is provided by this system. Advantages of the system are enumerated.

Distributed-Memory Computing With the Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm (LAURA)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Riley, Christopher J.; Cheatwood, F. McNeil

1997-01-01

The Langley Aerothermodynamic Upwind Relaxation Algorithm (LAURA), a Navier-Stokes solver, has been modified for use in a parallel, distributed-memory environment using the Message-Passing Interface (MPI) standard. A standard domain decomposition strategy is used in which the computational domain is divided into subdomains with each subdomain assigned to a processor. Performance is examined on dedicated parallel machines and a network of desktop workstations. The effect of domain decomposition and frequency of boundary updates on performance and convergence is also examined for several realistic configurations and conditions typical of large-scale computational fluid dynamic analysis.

Mathematical 3D modelling and sensitivity analysis of multipolar radiofrequency ablation in the spine.

PubMed

Matschek, Janine; Bullinger, Eric; von Haeseler, Friedrich; Skalej, Martin; Findeisen, Rolf

2017-02-01

Radiofrequency ablation is a valuable tool in the treatment of many diseases, especially cancer. However, controlled heating up to apoptosis of the desired target tissue in complex situations, e.g. in the spine, is challenging and requires experienced interventionalists. For such challenging situations a mathematical model of radiofrequency ablation allows to understand, improve and optimise the outcome of the medical therapy. The main contribution of this work is the derivation of a tailored, yet expandable mathematical model, for the simulation, analysis, planning and control of radiofrequency ablation in complex situations. The dynamic model consists of partial differential equations that describe the potential and temperature distribution during intervention. To account for multipolar operation, time-dependent boundary conditions are introduced. Spatially distributed parameters, like tissue conductivity and blood perfusion, allow to describe the complex 3D environment representing diverse involved tissue types in the spine. To identify the key parameters affecting the prediction quality of the model, the influence of the parameters on the temperature distribution is investigated via a sensitivity analysis. Simulations underpin the quality of the derived model and the analysis approach. The proposed modelling and analysis schemes set the basis for intervention planning, state- and parameter estimation, and control. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Inc.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Perea, Daniel E.; Liu, Jia; Bartrand, Jonah A. G.

In this study, we report the atomic-scale analysis of biological interfaces using atom probe tomography. Embedding the protein ferritin in an organic polymer resin lacking nitrogen provided chemical contrast to visualize atomic distributions and distinguish organic-organic and organic-inorganic interfaces. The sample preparation method can be directly extended to further enhance the study of biological, organic and inorganic nanomaterials relevant to health, energy or the environment.

A temporal analysis of urban forest carbon storage using remote sensing

Treesearch

Soojeong Myeong; David J. Nowak; Michael J. Duggin

2006-01-01

Quantifying the carbon storage, distribution, and change of urban trees is vital to understanding the role of vegetation in the urban environment. At present, this is mostly achieved through ground study. This paper presents a method based on the satellite image time series, which can save time and money and greatly speed the process of urban forest carbon storage...

Language and Discourse Analysis with Coh-Metrix: Applications from Educational Material to Learning Environments at Scale

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dowell, Nia M. M.; Graesser, Arthur\tC.; Cai, Zhiqiang

2016-01-01

The goal of this article is to preserve and distribute the information presented at the LASI (2014) workshop on Coh-Metrix, a theoretically grounded, computational linguistics facility that analyzes texts on multiple levels of language and discourse. The workshop focused on the utility of Coh-Metrix in discourse theory and educational practice. We…

Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification patterns of side-necked turtles (Testudines: Pleurodira)

PubMed Central

Langer, Max C.; Sterli, Juliana

2018-01-01

Pleurodires or side-necked turtles are today restricted to freshwater environments of South America, Africa–Madagascar and Australia, but in the past they were distributed much more broadly, being found also on Eurasia, India and North America, and marine environments. Two hypotheses were proposed to explain this distribution; in the first, vicariance would have shaped the current geographical distribution and, in the second, extinctions constrained a previously widespread distribution. Here, we aim to reconstruct pleurodiran biogeographic history and diversification patterns based on a new phylogenetic hypothesis recovered from the analysis of the largest morphological dataset yet compiled for the lineage, testing which biogeographical process prevailed during its evolutionary history. The resulting topology generally agrees with previous hypotheses of the group and shows that most diversification shifts were related to the exploration of new niches, e.g. littoral or marine radiations. In addition, as other turtles, pleurodires do not seem to have been much affected by either the Cretaceous–Palaeogene or the Eocene–Oligocene mass extinctions. The biogeographic analyses highlight the predominance of both anagenetic and cladogenetic dispersal events and support the importance of transoceanic dispersals as a more common driver of area changes than previously thought, agreeing with previous studies with other non-turtle lineages. PMID:29657780

Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification patterns of side-necked turtles (Testudines: Pleurodira)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferreira, Gabriel S.; Bronzati, Mario; Langer, Max C.; Sterli, Juliana

2018-03-01

Pleurodires or side-necked turtles are today restricted to freshwater environments of South America, Africa-Madagascar and Australia, but in the past they were distributed much more broadly, being found also on Eurasia, India and North America, and marine environments. Two hypotheses were proposed to explain this distribution; in the first, vicariance would have shaped the current geographical distribution and, in the second, extinctions constrained a previously widespread distribution. Here, we aim to reconstruct pleurodiran biogeographic history and diversification patterns based on a new phylogenetic hypothesis recovered from the analysis of the largest morphological dataset yet compiled for the lineage, testing which biogeographical process prevailed during its evolutionary history. The resulting topology generally agrees with previous hypotheses of the group and shows that most diversification shifts were related to the exploration of new niches, e.g. littoral or marine radiations. In addition, as other turtles, pleurodires do not seem to have been much affected by either the Cretaceous-Palaeogene or the Eocene-Oligocene mass extinctions. The biogeographic analyses highlight the predominance of both anagenetic and cladogenetic dispersal events and support the importance of transoceanic dispersals as a more common driver of area changes than previously thought, agreeing with previous studies with other non-turtle lineages.

Population fluctuation and vertical distribution of meiofauna in the Red Sea interstitial environment.

PubMed

El-Serehy, Hamed A; Al-Misned, Fahad A; Al-Rasheid, Khaled A

2015-07-01

The composition and distribution of the benthic meiofauna assemblages of the Egyptian coasts along the Red Sea are described in relation to abiotic variables. Sediment samples were collected seasonally from three stations chosen along the Red Sea to observe the meiofaunal community structure, its temporal distribution and vertical fluctuation in relation to environmental conditions of the Red Sea marine ecosystem. The temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, and redox potential were measured at the time of collection. The water content of the sediments, total organic matters and chlorophyll a values were determined, and sediment samples were subjected to granulometric analysis. A total of 10 meiofauna taxa were identified, with the meiofauna being primarily represented by nematodes (on annual average from 42% to 84%), harpacticoids, polycheates and ostracodes; and the meiofauna abundances ranging from 41 to 167 ind./10 cm(2). The meiofaunal population density fluctuated seasonally with a peak of 192.52 ind./10 cm(2) during summer at station II. The vertical zonation in the distribution of meiofaunal community was significantly correlated with interstitial water, chlorophyll a and total organic matter values. The present study indicates the existence of the well diversified meiofaunal group which can serve as food for higher trophic levels in the Red Sea interstitial environment.

Electrical properties study under radiation of the 3D-open-shell-electrode detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Manwen; Li, Zheng

2018-05-01

Since the 3D-Open-Shell-Electrode Detector (3DOSED) is proposed and the structure is optimized, it is important to study 3DOSED's electrical properties to determine the detector's working performance, especially in the heavy radiation environments, like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and it's upgrade, the High Luminosity (HL-LHC) at CERN. In this work, full 3D technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulations have been done on this novel silicon detector structure. Simulated detector properties include the electric field distribution, the electric potential distribution, current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, capacitance-voltage (C-V) characteristics, charge collection property, and full depletion voltage. Through the analysis of calculations and simulation results, we find that the 3DOSED's electric field and potential distributions are very uniform, even in the tiny region near the shell openings with little perturbations. The novel detector fits the designing purpose of collecting charges generated by particle/light in a good fashion with a well defined funnel shape of electric potential distribution that makes these charges drifting towards the center collection electrode. Furthermore, by analyzing the I-V, C-V, charge collection property and full depletion voltage, we can expect that the novel detector will perform well, even in the heavy radiation environments.

Phylogenetic Distribution of the Capsid Assembly Protein Gene (g20) of Cyanophages in Paddy Floodwaters in Northeast China

PubMed Central

Jing, Ruiyong; Liu, Junjie; Yu, Zhenhua; Liu, Xiaobing; Wang, Guanghua

2014-01-01

Numerous studies have revealed the high diversity of cyanophages in marine and freshwater environments, but little is currently known about the diversity of cyanophages in paddy fields, particularly in Northeast (NE) China. To elucidate the genetic diversity of cyanophages in paddy floodwaters in NE China, viral capsid assembly protein gene (g20) sequences from five floodwater samples were amplified with the primers CPS1 and CPS8. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was applied to distinguish different g20 clones. In total, 54 clones differing in g20 nucleotide sequences were obtained in this study. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the distribution of g20 sequences in this study was different from that in Japanese paddy fields, and all the sequences were grouped into Clusters α, β, γ and ε. Within Clusters α and β, three new small clusters (PFW-VII∼-IX) were identified. UniFrac analysis of g20 clone assemblages demonstrated that the community compositions of cyanophage varied among marine, lake and paddy field environments. In paddy floodwater, community compositions of cyanophage were also different between NE China and Japan. PMID:24533125

Experimental study of gaseous and particulate contaminants distribution in an aircraft cabin

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Fei; Liu, Junjie; Pei, Jingjing; Lin, Chao-Hsin; Chen, Qingyan

2014-03-01

The environment of the aircraft cabin greatly influences the comfort and health of passengers and crew members. Contaminant transport has a strong effect on disease spreading in the cabin environment. To obtain the complex cabin contaminant distribution fields accurately and completely, which is also essential to provide solid and precise data for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model validation, this paper aimed to investigate and improve the method for simultaneous particle and gaseous contaminant fields measurement. The experiment was conducted in a functional MD-82 aircraft. Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) was used as tracer gas, and Di-Ethyl-Hexyl-Sebacat (DEHS) was used as particulate contaminant. The whole measurement was completed in a part of the economy-class cabin without heating manikins or occupied with heating manikins. The experimental method, in terms of pollutant source setting, sampling points and schedule, was investigated. Statistical analysis showed that appropriately modified sampling grid was able to provide reasonable data. A small difference in the source locations can lead to a significant difference in cabin contaminant fields. And the relationship between gaseous and particulate pollutant transport was also discussed through tracking behavior analysis.

Reconfiguring practice: the interdependence of experimental procedure and computing infrastructure in distributed earthquake engineering.

PubMed

De La Flor, Grace; Ojaghi, Mobin; Martínez, Ignacio Lamata; Jirotka, Marina; Williams, Martin S; Blakeborough, Anthony

2010-09-13

When transitioning local laboratory practices into distributed environments, the interdependent relationship between experimental procedure and the technologies used to execute experiments becomes highly visible and a focal point for system requirements. We present an analysis of ways in which this reciprocal relationship is reconfiguring laboratory practices in earthquake engineering as a new computing infrastructure is embedded within three laboratories in order to facilitate the execution of shared experiments across geographically distributed sites. The system has been developed as part of the UK Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation e-Research project, which links together three earthquake engineering laboratories at the universities of Bristol, Cambridge and Oxford. We consider the ways in which researchers have successfully adapted their local laboratory practices through the modification of experimental procedure so that they may meet the challenges of coordinating distributed earthquake experiments.

Advancements in Distributed Learning (ADL) Environment in Support of Transformation

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-01-01

REPORT TR-HFM-212 Advancements in Distributed Learning (ADL) Environment in Support of Transformation (Progrès en apprentissage distribué (ADL) à...l’appui de la transformation ) This report documents the findings of Task Group 212. The primary objective of this Task Group was to explore an agile...STO TECHNICAL REPORT TR-HFM-212 Advancements in Distributed Learning (ADL) Environment in Support of Transformation (Progrès en apprentissage

Multilocus sequence analysis for assessment of phylogenetic diversity and biogeography in Thalassospira bacteria from diverse marine environments.

PubMed

Lai, Qiliang; Liu, Yang; Yuan, Jun; Du, Juan; Wang, Liping; Sun, Fengqin; Shao, Zongze

2014-01-01

Thalassospira bacteria are widespread and have been isolated from various marine environments. Less is known about their genetic diversity and biogeography, as well as their role in marine environments, many of them cannot be discriminated merely using the 16S rRNA gene. To address these issues, in this report, the phylogenetic analysis of 58 strains from seawater and deep sea sediments were carried out using the multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) based on acsA, aroE, gyrB, mutL, rpoD and trpB genes, and the DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH) and average nucleotide identity (ANI) based on genome sequences. The MLSA analysis demonstrated that the 58 strains were clearly separated into 15 lineages, corresponding to seven validly described species and eight potential novel species. The DDH and ANI values further confirmed the validity of the MLSA analysis and eight potential novel species. The MLSA interspecies gap of the genus Thalassospira was determined to be 96.16-97.12% sequence identity on the basis of the combined analyses of the DDH and MLSA, while the ANIm interspecies gap was 95.76-97.20% based on the in silico DDH analysis. Meanwhile, phylogenetic analyses showed that the Thalassospira bacteria exhibited distribution pattern to a certain degree according to geographic regions. Moreover, they clustered together according to the habitats depth. For short, the phylogenetic analyses and biogeography of the Thalassospira bacteria were systematically investigated for the first time. These results will be helpful to explore further their ecological role and adaptive evolution in marine environments.

Multilocus Sequence Analysis for Assessment of Phylogenetic Diversity and Biogeography in Thalassospira Bacteria from Diverse Marine Environments

PubMed Central

Yuan, Jun; Du, Juan; Wang, Liping; Sun, Fengqin; Shao, Zongze

2014-01-01

Thalassospira bacteria are widespread and have been isolated from various marine environments. Less is known about their genetic diversity and biogeography, as well as their role in marine environments, many of them cannot be discriminated merely using the 16S rRNA gene. To address these issues, in this report, the phylogenetic analysis of 58 strains from seawater and deep sea sediments were carried out using the multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) based on acsA, aroE, gyrB, mutL, rpoD and trpB genes, and the DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH) and average nucleotide identity (ANI) based on genome sequences. The MLSA analysis demonstrated that the 58 strains were clearly separated into 15 lineages, corresponding to seven validly described species and eight potential novel species. The DDH and ANI values further confirmed the validity of the MLSA analysis and eight potential novel species. The MLSA interspecies gap of the genus Thalassospira was determined to be 96.16–97.12% sequence identity on the basis of the combined analyses of the DDH and MLSA, while the ANIm interspecies gap was 95.76–97.20% based on the in silico DDH analysis. Meanwhile, phylogenetic analyses showed that the Thalassospira bacteria exhibited distribution pattern to a certain degree according to geographic regions. Moreover, they clustered together according to the habitats depth. For short, the phylogenetic analyses and biogeography of the Thalassospira bacteria were systematically investigated for the first time. These results will be helpful to explore further their ecological role and adaptive evolution in marine environments. PMID:25198177

Effects of the duration and inorganic nitrogen composition of a nutrient-rich patch on soil exploration by the roots of Lolium perenne in a heterogeneous environment.

PubMed

Nakamura, Ryoji; Kachi, N; Suzuki, J-I

2010-05-01

We investigated the growth of and soil exploration by Lolium perenne under a heterogeneous environment before its roots reached a nutrient-rich patch. Temporal changes in the distribution of inorganic nitrogen, i.e., NO(3)(-)-N and NH(4)(+)-N, in the heterogeneous environment during the experimental period were also examined. The results showed that roots randomly explored soil, irrespective of the patchy distribution of inorganic nitrogen and differences in the chemical composition of inorganic nitrogen distribution between heterogeneous and homogeneous environments. We have also elucidated the potential effects of patch duration and inorganic nitrogen distribution on soil exploration by roots and thus on plant growth.

On the anisotropic satellite distribution around Milky-way-like galaxies in cosmological simulations.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kihm, Seoneui; Seo, Seongu; Yoon, Suk-jin

2018-01-01

The presence of "anisotropic satellite distribution (ASD)" around massive galaxies is often taken as evidence against the ΛCDM cosmology. To address whether such anisotropy can be reconciled with the standard cosmology, we examine the spatial distributions of satellites around central galaxies in the hydrodynamic cosmological simulation, Illustris. In an attempt to understand the ASD of our Galaxy, we limit our analysis to the systems consisting of a MW-sized host and at least 11 satellites. We find that ASDs are rather a common feature in the simulation and that ASD systems tend to possess a larger fraction of recently accreted satellites than isotropy systems. We discuss a possible link of ASD formation to the surrounding environment in the ΛCDM setting.

The Value of Transparency in Distributed Solar PV Markets

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

OShaughnessy, Eric J.; Margolis, Robert M.

Distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) markets are relatively non-transparent: PV price and product information is not readily available, searching for this information is costly (in terms of time and effort), and customers are mostly unfamiliar with the new technology. Quote aggregation, where third-party companies collect PV quotes on behalf of customers, may be one way to increase PV market transparency. In this paper, quote aggregation data are analyzed to study the value of transparency for distributed solar PV markets. The results suggest that easier access to more quotes results in lower prices. We find that installers tend to offer lower pricesmore » in more competitive market environments. We supplement the empirical analysis with key findings from interviews of residential PV installers.« less

Students' perception of the learning environment in a distributed medical programme.

PubMed

Veerapen, Kiran; McAleer, Sean

2010-09-24

The learning environment of a medical school has a significant impact on students' achievements and learning outcomes. The importance of equitable learning environments across programme sites is implicit in distributed undergraduate medical programmes being developed and implemented. To study the learning environment and its equity across two classes and three geographically separate sites of a distributed medical programme at the University of British Columbia Medical School that commenced in 2004. The validated Dundee Ready Educational Environment Survey was sent to all students in their 2nd and 3rd year (classes graduating in 2009 and 2008) of the programme. The domains of the learning environment surveyed were: students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of the atmosphere, and students' social self-perceptions. Mean scores, frequency distribution of responses, and inter- and intrasite differences were calculated. The perception of the global learning environment at all sites was more positive than negative. It was characterised by a strongly positive perception of teachers. The work load and emphasis on factual learning were perceived negatively. Intersite differences within domains of the learning environment were more evident in the pioneer class (2008) of the programme. Intersite differences consistent across classes were largely related to on-site support for students. Shared strengths and weaknesses in the learning environment at UBC sites were evident in areas that were managed by the parent institution, such as the attributes of shared faculty and curriculum. A greater divergence in the perception of the learning environment was found in domains dependent on local arrangements and social factors that are less amenable to central regulation. This study underlines the need for ongoing comparative evaluation of the learning environment at the distributed sites and interaction between leaders of these sites.

SU-E-T-50: Automatic Validation of Megavoltage Beams Modeled for Clinical Use in Radiation Therapy

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Melchior, M; Salinas Aranda, F; 21st Century Oncology, Ft. Myers, FL

2014-06-01

Purpose: To automatically validate megavoltage beams modeled in XiO™ 4.50 (Elekta, Stockholm, Sweden) and Varian Eclipse™ Treatment Planning Systems (TPS) (Varian Associates, Palo Alto, CA, USA), reducing validation time before beam-on for clinical use. Methods: A software application that can automatically read and analyze DICOM RT Dose and W2CAD files was developed using MatLab integrated development environment.TPS calculated dose distributions, in DICOM RT Dose format, and dose values measured in different Varian Clinac beams, in W2CAD format, were compared. Experimental beam data used were those acquired for beam commissioning, collected on a water phantom with a 2D automatic beam scanningmore » system.Two methods were chosen to evaluate dose distributions fitting: gamma analysis and point tests described in Appendix E of IAEA TECDOC-1583. Depth dose curves and beam profiles were evaluated for both open and wedged beams. Tolerance parameters chosen for gamma analysis are 3% and 3 mm dose and distance, respectively.Absolute dose was measured independently at points proposed in Appendix E of TECDOC-1583 to validate software results. Results: TPS calculated depth dose distributions agree with measured beam data under fixed precision values at all depths analyzed. Measured beam dose profiles match TPS calculated doses with high accuracy in both open and wedged beams. Depth and profile dose distributions fitting analysis show gamma values < 1. Relative errors at points proposed in Appendix E of TECDOC-1583 meet therein recommended tolerances.Independent absolute dose measurements at points proposed in Appendix E of TECDOC-1583 confirm software results. Conclusion: Automatic validation of megavoltage beams modeled for their use in the clinic was accomplished. The software tool developed proved efficient, giving users a convenient and reliable environment to decide whether to accept or not a beam model for clinical use. Validation time before beam-on for clinical use was reduced to a few hours.« less

Large Survey Database: A Distributed Framework for Storage and Analysis of Large Datasets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Juric, Mario

2011-01-01

The Large Survey Database (LSD) is a Python framework and DBMS for distributed storage, cross-matching and querying of large survey catalogs (>10^9 rows, >1 TB). The primary driver behind its development is the analysis of Pan-STARRS PS1 data. It is specifically optimized for fast queries and parallel sweeps of positionally and temporally indexed datasets. It transparently scales to more than >10^2 nodes, and can be made to function in "shared nothing" architectures. An LSD database consists of a set of vertically and horizontally partitioned tables, physically stored as compressed HDF5 files. Vertically, we partition the tables into groups of related columns ('column groups'), storing together logically related data (e.g., astrometry, photometry). Horizontally, the tables are partitioned into partially overlapping ``cells'' by position in space (lon, lat) and time (t). This organization allows for fast lookups based on spatial and temporal coordinates, as well as data and task distribution. The design was inspired by the success of Google BigTable (Chang et al., 2006). Our programming model is a pipelined extension of MapReduce (Dean and Ghemawat, 2004). An SQL-like query language is used to access data. For complex tasks, map-reduce ``kernels'' that operate on query results on a per-cell basis can be written, with the framework taking care of scheduling and execution. The combination leverages users' familiarity with SQL, while offering a fully distributed computing environment. LSD adds little overhead compared to direct Python file I/O. In tests, we sweeped through 1.1 Grows of PanSTARRS+SDSS data (220GB) less than 15 minutes on a dual CPU machine. In a cluster environment, we achieved bandwidths of 17Gbits/sec (I/O limited). Based on current experience, we believe LSD should scale to be useful for analysis and storage of LSST-scale datasets. It can be downloaded from http://mwscience.net/lsd.

OGC and Grid Interoperability in enviroGRIDS Project

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gorgan, Dorian; Rodila, Denisa; Bacu, Victor; Giuliani, Gregory; Ray, Nicolas

2010-05-01

EnviroGRIDS (Black Sea Catchment Observation and Assessment System supporting Sustainable Development) [1] is a 4-years FP7 Project aiming to address the subjects of ecologically unsustainable development and inadequate resource management. The project develops a Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Black Sea Catchment region. The geospatial technologies offer very specialized functionality for Earth Science oriented applications as well as the Grid oriented technology that is able to support distributed and parallel processing. One challenge of the enviroGRIDS project is the interoperability between geospatial and Grid infrastructures by providing the basic and the extended features of the both technologies. The geospatial interoperability technology has been promoted as a way of dealing with large volumes of geospatial data in distributed environments through the development of interoperable Web service specifications proposed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), with applications spread across multiple fields but especially in Earth observation research. Due to the huge volumes of data available in the geospatial domain and the additional introduced issues (data management, secure data transfer, data distribution and data computation), the need for an infrastructure capable to manage all those problems becomes an important aspect. The Grid promotes and facilitates the secure interoperations of geospatial heterogeneous distributed data within a distributed environment, the creation and management of large distributed computational jobs and assures a security level for communication and transfer of messages based on certificates. This presentation analysis and discusses the most significant use cases for enabling the OGC Web services interoperability with the Grid environment and focuses on the description and implementation of the most promising one. In these use cases we give a special attention to issues such as: the relations between computational grid and the OGC Web service protocols, the advantages offered by the Grid technology - such as providing a secure interoperability between the distributed geospatial resource -and the issues introduced by the integration of distributed geospatial data in a secure environment: data and service discovery, management, access and computation. enviroGRIDS project proposes a new architecture which allows a flexible and scalable approach for integrating the geospatial domain represented by the OGC Web services with the Grid domain represented by the gLite middleware. The parallelism offered by the Grid technology is discussed and explored at the data level, management level and computation level. The analysis is carried out for OGC Web service interoperability in general but specific details are emphasized for Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), Web Coverage Service (WCS), Web Processing Service (WPS) and Catalog Service for Web (CSW). Issues regarding the mapping and the interoperability between the OGC and the Grid standards and protocols are analyzed as they are the base in solving the communication problems between the two environments: grid and geospatial. The presetation mainly highlights how the Grid environment and Grid applications capabilities can be extended and utilized in geospatial interoperability. Interoperability between geospatial and Grid infrastructures provides features such as the specific geospatial complex functionality and the high power computation and security of the Grid, high spatial model resolution and geographical area covering, flexible combination and interoperability of the geographical models. According with the Service Oriented Architecture concepts and requirements of interoperability between geospatial and Grid infrastructures each of the main functionality is visible from enviroGRIDS Portal and consequently, by the end user applications such as Decision Maker/Citizen oriented Applications. The enviroGRIDS portal is the single way of the user to get into the system and the portal faces a unique style of the graphical user interface. Main reference for further information: [1] enviroGRIDS Project, http://www.envirogrids.net/

Design for cyclic loading endurance of composites

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shiao, Michael C.; Murthy, Pappu L. N.; Chamis, Christos C.; Liaw, Leslie D. G.

1993-01-01

The application of the computer code IPACS (Integrated Probabilistic Assessment of Composite Structures) to aircraft wing type structures is described. The code performs a complete probabilistic analysis for composites taking into account the uncertainties in geometry, boundary conditions, material properties, laminate lay-ups, and loads. Results of the analysis are presented in terms of cumulative distribution functions (CDF) and probability density function (PDF) of the fatigue life of a wing type composite structure under different hygrothermal environments subjected to the random pressure. The sensitivity of the fatigue life to a number of critical structural/material variables is also computed from the analysis.

Dashboard Task Monitor for Managing ATLAS User Analysis on the Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sargsyan, L.; Andreeva, J.; Jha, M.; Karavakis, E.; Kokoszkiewicz, L.; Saiz, P.; Schovancova, J.; Tuckett, D.; Atlas Collaboration

2014-06-01

The organization of the distributed user analysis on the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) infrastructure is one of the most challenging tasks among the computing activities at the Large Hadron Collider. The Experiment Dashboard offers a solution that not only monitors but also manages (kill, resubmit) user tasks and jobs via a web interface. The ATLAS Dashboard Task Monitor provides analysis users with a tool that is independent of the operating system and Grid environment. This contribution describes the functionality of the application and its implementation details, in particular authentication, authorization and audit of the management operations.

Estimation Accuracy on Execution Time of Run-Time Tasks in a Heterogeneous Distributed Environment.

PubMed

Liu, Qi; Cai, Weidong; Jin, Dandan; Shen, Jian; Fu, Zhangjie; Liu, Xiaodong; Linge, Nigel

2016-08-30

Distributed Computing has achieved tremendous development since cloud computing was proposed in 2006, and played a vital role promoting rapid growth of data collecting and analysis models, e.g., Internet of things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Big Data Analytics, etc. Hadoop has become a data convergence platform for sensor networks. As one of the core components, MapReduce facilitates allocating, processing and mining of collected large-scale data, where speculative execution strategies help solve straggler problems. However, there is still no efficient solution for accurate estimation on execution time of run-time tasks, which can affect task allocation and distribution in MapReduce. In this paper, task execution data have been collected and employed for the estimation. A two-phase regression (TPR) method is proposed to predict the finishing time of each task accurately. Detailed data of each task have drawn interests with detailed analysis report being made. According to the results, the prediction accuracy of concurrent tasks' execution time can be improved, in particular for some regular jobs.

Massively Parallel Processing for Fast and Accurate Stamping Simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gress, Jeffrey J.; Xu, Siguang; Joshi, Ramesh; Wang, Chuan-tao; Paul, Sabu

2005-08-01

The competitive automotive market drives automotive manufacturers to speed up the vehicle development cycles and reduce the lead-time. Fast tooling development is one of the key areas to support fast and short vehicle development programs (VDP). In the past ten years, the stamping simulation has become the most effective validation tool in predicting and resolving all potential formability and quality problems before the dies are physically made. The stamping simulation and formability analysis has become an critical business segment in GM math-based die engineering process. As the simulation becomes as one of the major production tools in engineering factory, the simulation speed and accuracy are the two of the most important measures for stamping simulation technology. The speed and time-in-system of forming analysis becomes an even more critical to support the fast VDP and tooling readiness. Since 1997, General Motors Die Center has been working jointly with our software vendor to develop and implement a parallel version of simulation software for mass production analysis applications. By 2001, this technology was matured in the form of distributed memory processing (DMP) of draw die simulations in a networked distributed memory computing environment. In 2004, this technology was refined to massively parallel processing (MPP) and extended to line die forming analysis (draw, trim, flange, and associated spring-back) running on a dedicated computing environment. The evolution of this technology and the insight gained through the implementation of DM0P/MPP technology as well as performance benchmarks are discussed in this publication.

Distribution and abundance of human-specific Bacteroides and relation to traditional indicators in an urban tropical catchment

PubMed Central

Nshimyimana, J P; Ekklesia, E; Shanahan, P; Chua, L H C; Thompson, J R

2014-01-01

Aims The study goals were to determine the relationship between faecal indicator bacteria (FIB), the HF183 marker and land use, and the phylogenetic diversity of HF183 marker sequences in a tropical urban watershed. Methods and Results Total coliforms, Escherichia coli, and HF183 were quantified in 81 samples categorized as undeveloped, residential and horticultural from the Kranji Reservoir and Catchment in Singapore. Quantitative-PCR for HF183 followed by analysis of variance indicated that horticultural areas had significantly higher geometric means for marker levels (4·3 × 104 HF183-GE 100 ml−1) than nonhorticultural areas (3·07 × 103 HF183-GE 100 ml−1). E. coli and HF183 were moderately correlated in horticultural areas (R = 0·59, P = 0·0077), but not elsewhere in the catchment. Initial upstream surveys of candidate sources revealed elevated HF183 in a wastewater treatment effluent but not in aquaculture ponds. The HF183 marker was cloned, sequenced and determined by phylogenetic analysis to match the original marker description. Conclusion We show that quantification of the HF183 marker is a useful tool for mapping the spatial distribution and potential sources of human sewage contamination in tropical environments such as Singapore. Significance and Impact A major challenge for assessment of water quality in tropical environments is the natural occurrence and nonconservative behaviour of FIB. The HF183 marker has been employed in temperate environments as an alternative indicator for human sewage contamination. Our study supports the use of the HF183 marker as an indicator for human sewage in Singapore and motivates further work to determine HF183 marker levels that correspond to public health risk in tropical environments. PMID:24460587

Distributed Observer Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Conroy, Michael; Mazzone, Rebecca; Little, William; Elfrey, Priscilla; Mann, David; Mabie, Kevin; Cuddy, Thomas; Loundermon, Mario; Spiker, Stephen; McArthur, Frank;

A statistical simulation model for field testing of non-target organisms in environmental risk assessment of genetically modified plants.

PubMed

Goedhart, Paul W; van der Voet, Hilko; Baldacchino, Ferdinando; Arpaia, Salvatore

2014-04-01

Genetic modification of plants may result in unintended effects causing potentially adverse effects on the environment. A comparative safety assessment is therefore required by authorities, such as the European Food Safety Authority, in which the genetically modified plant is compared with its conventional counterpart. Part of the environmental risk assessment is a comparative field experiment in which the effect on non-target organisms is compared. Statistical analysis of such trials come in two flavors: difference testing and equivalence testing. It is important to know the statistical properties of these, for example, the power to detect environmental change of a given magnitude, before the start of an experiment. Such prospective power analysis can best be studied by means of a statistical simulation model. This paper describes a general framework for simulating data typically encountered in environmental risk assessment of genetically modified plants. The simulation model, available as Supplementary Material, can be used to generate count data having different statistical distributions possibly with excess-zeros. In addition the model employs completely randomized or randomized block experiments, can be used to simulate single or multiple trials across environments, enables genotype by environment interaction by adding random variety effects, and finally includes repeated measures in time following a constant, linear or quadratic pattern in time possibly with some form of autocorrelation. The model also allows to add a set of reference varieties to the GM plants and its comparator to assess the natural variation which can then be used to set limits of concern for equivalence testing. The different count distributions are described in some detail and some examples of how to use the simulation model to study various aspects, including a prospective power analysis, are provided.

A statistical simulation model for field testing of non-target organisms in environmental risk assessment of genetically modified plants

PubMed Central

Goedhart, Paul W; van der Voet, Hilko; Baldacchino, Ferdinando; Arpaia, Salvatore

2014-01-01

Genetic modification of plants may result in unintended effects causing potentially adverse effects on the environment. A comparative safety assessment is therefore required by authorities, such as the European Food Safety Authority, in which the genetically modified plant is compared with its conventional counterpart. Part of the environmental risk assessment is a comparative field experiment in which the effect on non-target organisms is compared. Statistical analysis of such trials come in two flavors: difference testing and equivalence testing. It is important to know the statistical properties of these, for example, the power to detect environmental change of a given magnitude, before the start of an experiment. Such prospective power analysis can best be studied by means of a statistical simulation model. This paper describes a general framework for simulating data typically encountered in environmental risk assessment of genetically modified plants. The simulation model, available as Supplementary Material, can be used to generate count data having different statistical distributions possibly with excess-zeros. In addition the model employs completely randomized or randomized block experiments, can be used to simulate single or multiple trials across environments, enables genotype by environment interaction by adding random variety effects, and finally includes repeated measures in time following a constant, linear or quadratic pattern in time possibly with some form of autocorrelation. The model also allows to add a set of reference varieties to the GM plants and its comparator to assess the natural variation which can then be used to set limits of concern for equivalence testing. The different count distributions are described in some detail and some examples of how to use the simulation model to study various aspects, including a prospective power analysis, are provided. PMID:24834325

Solutions for Mining Distributed Scientific Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lynnes, C.; Pham, L.; Graves, S.; Ramachandran, R.; Maskey, M.; Keiser, K.

2007-12-01

Researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) are working on approaches and methodologies facilitating the analysis of large amounts of distributed scientific data. Despite the existence of full-featured analysis tools, such as the Algorithm Development and Mining (ADaM) toolkit from UAH, and data repositories, such as the GES DISC, that provide online access to large amounts of data, there remain obstacles to getting the analysis tools and the data together in a workable environment. Does one bring the data to the tools or deploy the tools close to the data? The large size of many current Earth science datasets incurs significant overhead in network transfer for analysis workflows, even with the advanced networking capabilities that are available between many educational and government facilities. The UAH and GES DISC team are developing a capability to define analysis workflows using distributed services and online data resources. We are developing two solutions for this problem that address different analysis scenarios. The first is a Data Center Deployment of the analysis services for large data selections, orchestrated by a remotely defined analysis workflow. The second is a Data Mining Center approach of providing a cohesive analysis solution for smaller subsets of data. The two approaches can be complementary and thus provide flexibility for researchers to exploit the best solution for their data requirements. The Data Center Deployment of the analysis services has been implemented by deploying ADaM web services at the GES DISC so they can access the data directly, without the need of network transfers. Using the Mining Workflow Composer, a user can define an analysis workflow that is then submitted through a Web Services interface to the GES DISC for execution by a processing engine. The workflow definition is composed, maintained and executed at a distributed location, but most of the actual services comprising the workflow are available local to the GES DISC data repository. Additional refinements will ultimately provide a package that is easily implemented and configured at additional data centers for analysis of additional science data sets. Enhancements to the ADaM toolkit allow the staging of distributed data wherever the services are deployed, to support a Data Mining Center that can provide additional computational resources, large storage of output, easier addition and updates to available services, and access to data from multiple repositories. The Data Mining Center case provides researchers more flexibility to quickly try different workflow configurations and refine the process, using smaller amounts of data that may likely be transferred from distributed online repositories. This environment is sufficient for some analyses, but can also be used as an initial sandbox to test and refine a solution before staging the execution at a Data Center Deployment. Detection of airborne dust both over water and land in MODIS imagery using mining services for both solutions will be presented. The dust detection is just one possible example of the mining and analysis capabilities the proposed mining services solutions will provide to the science community. More information about the available services and the current status of this project is available at http://www.itsc.uah.edu/mws/

Deriving movement properties and the effect of the environment from the Brownian bridge movement model in monkeys and birds.

PubMed

Buchin, Kevin; Sijben, Stef; van Loon, E Emiel; Sapir, Nir; Mercier, Stéphanie; Marie Arseneau, T Jean; Willems, Erik P

2015-01-01

The Brownian bridge movement model (BBMM) provides a biologically sound approximation of the movement path of an animal based on discrete location data, and is a powerful method to quantify utilization distributions. Computing the utilization distribution based on the BBMM while calculating movement parameters directly from the location data, may result in inconsistent and misleading results. We show how the BBMM can be extended to also calculate derived movement parameters. Furthermore we demonstrate how to integrate environmental context into a BBMM-based analysis. We develop a computational framework to analyze animal movement based on the BBMM. In particular, we demonstrate how a derived movement parameter (relative speed) and its spatial distribution can be calculated in the BBMM. We show how to integrate our framework with the conceptual framework of the movement ecology paradigm in two related but acutely different ways, focusing on the influence that the environment has on animal movement. First, we demonstrate an a posteriori approach, in which the spatial distribution of average relative movement speed as obtained from a "contextually naïve" model is related to the local vegetation structure within the monthly ranging area of a group of wild vervet monkeys. Without a model like the BBMM it would not be possible to estimate such a spatial distribution of a parameter in a sound way. Second, we introduce an a priori approach in which atmospheric information is used to calculate a crucial parameter of the BBMM to investigate flight properties of migrating bee-eaters. This analysis shows significant differences in the characteristics of flight modes, which would have not been detected without using the BBMM. Our algorithm is the first of its kind to allow BBMM-based computation of movement parameters beyond the utilization distribution, and we present two case studies that demonstrate two fundamentally different ways in which our algorithm can be applied to estimate the spatial distribution of average relative movement speed, while interpreting it in a biologically meaningful manner, across a wide range of environmental scenarios and ecological contexts. Therefore movement parameters derived from the BBMM can provide a powerful method for movement ecology research.

Dynamic shared state maintenance in distributed virtual environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamza-Lup, Felix George

Advances in computer networks and rendering systems facilitate the creation of distributed collaborative environments in which the distribution of information at remote locations allows efficient communication. Particularly challenging are distributed interactive Virtual Environments (VE) that allow knowledge sharing through 3D information. The purpose of this work is to address the problem of latency in distributed interactive VE and to develop a conceptual model for consistency maintenance in these environments based on the participant interaction model. An area that needs to be explored is the relationship between the dynamic shared state and the interaction with the virtual entities present in the shared scene. Mixed Reality (MR) and VR environments must bring the human participant interaction into the loop through a wide range of electronic motion sensors, and haptic devices. Part of the work presented here defines a novel criterion for categorization of distributed interactive VE and introduces, as well as analyzes, an adaptive synchronization algorithm for consistency maintenance in such environments. As part of the work, a distributed interactive Augmented Reality (AR) testbed and the algorithm implementation details are presented. Currently the testbed is part of several research efforts at the Optical Diagnostics and Applications Laboratory including 3D visualization applications using custom built head-mounted displays (HMDs) with optical motion tracking and a medical training prototype for endotracheal intubation and medical prognostics. An objective method using quaternion calculus is applied for the algorithm assessment. In spite of significant network latency, results show that the dynamic shared state can be maintained consistent at multiple remotely located sites. In further consideration of the latency problems and in the light of the current trends in interactive distributed VE applications, we propose a hybrid distributed system architecture for sensor-based distributed VE that has the potential to improve the system real-time behavior and scalability. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Confounding environmental colour and distribution shape leads to underestimation of population extinction risk.

PubMed

Fowler, Mike S; Ruokolainen, Lasse

2013-01-01

The colour of environmental variability influences the size of population fluctuations when filtered through density dependent dynamics, driving extinction risk through dynamical resonance. Slow fluctuations (low frequencies) dominate in red environments, rapid fluctuations (high frequencies) in blue environments and white environments are purely random (no frequencies dominate). Two methods are commonly employed to generate the coloured spatial and/or temporal stochastic (environmental) series used in combination with population (dynamical feedback) models: autoregressive [AR(1)] and sinusoidal (1/f) models. We show that changing environmental colour from white to red with 1/f models, and from white to red or blue with AR(1) models, generates coloured environmental series that are not normally distributed at finite time-scales, potentially confounding comparison with normally distributed white noise models. Increasing variability of sample Skewness and Kurtosis and decreasing mean Kurtosis of these series alter the frequency distribution shape of the realised values of the coloured stochastic processes. These changes in distribution shape alter patterns in the probability of single and series of extreme conditions. We show that the reduced extinction risk for undercompensating (slow growing) populations in red environments previously predicted with traditional 1/f methods is an artefact of changes in the distribution shapes of the environmental series. This is demonstrated by comparison with coloured series controlled to be normally distributed using spectral mimicry. Changes in the distribution shape that arise using traditional methods lead to underestimation of extinction risk in normally distributed, red 1/f environments. AR(1) methods also underestimate extinction risks in traditionally generated red environments. This work synthesises previous results and provides further insight into the processes driving extinction risk in model populations. We must let the characteristics of known natural environmental covariates (e.g., colour and distribution shape) guide us in our choice of how to best model the impact of coloured environmental variation on population dynamics.

Instructional Design Issues in a Distributed Collaborative Engineering Design (CED) Instructional Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koszalka, Tiffany A.; Wu, Yiyan

2010-01-01

Changes in engineering practices have spawned changes in engineering education and prompted the use of distributed learning environments. A distributed collaborative engineering design (CED) course was designed to engage engineering students in learning about and solving engineering design problems. The CED incorporated an advanced interactive…

Analyzing Study of Path loss Propagation Models in Wireless Communications at 0.8 GHz

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kadhim Hoomod, Haider; Al-Mejibli, Intisar; Issa Jabboory, Abbas

2018-05-01

The paths loss propagation model is an important tool in wireless network planning, allowing network planner to optimize the cell towers distribution and meet expected service level requirements. However, each type of path loss propagation model is designed to predict path loss in a particular environment that may be inaccurate in other different environment. In this research different propagation models (Hata Model, ICC-33 Model, Ericson Model and Coast-231 Model) have been analyzed and compared based on the measured data. The measured data represent signal strength of two cell towers placed in two different environments which obtained by a drive test of them. First one in AL-Habebea represents an urban environment (high-density region) and the second in AL-Hindea district represents a rural environment (low-density region) with operating frequency 0.8 GHz. The results of performing the analysis and comparison conclude that Hata model and Ericsson model shows small deviation from real measurements in urban environment and Hata model generally gives better prediction in the rural environment.

GISpark: A Geospatial Distributed Computing Platform for Spatiotemporal Big Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, S.; Zhong, E.; Wang, E.; Zhong, Y.; Cai, W.; Li, S.; Gao, S.

2016-12-01

Geospatial data are growing exponentially because of the proliferation of cost effective and ubiquitous positioning technologies such as global remote-sensing satellites and location-based devices. Analyzing large amounts of geospatial data can provide great value for both industrial and scientific applications. Data- and compute- intensive characteristics inherent in geospatial big data increasingly pose great challenges to technologies of data storing, computing and analyzing. Such challenges require a scalable and efficient architecture that can store, query, analyze, and visualize large-scale spatiotemporal data. Therefore, we developed GISpark - a geospatial distributed computing platform for processing large-scale vector, raster and stream data. GISpark is constructed based on the latest virtualized computing infrastructures and distributed computing architecture. OpenStack and Docker are used to build multi-user hosting cloud computing infrastructure for GISpark. The virtual storage systems such as HDFS, Ceph, MongoDB are combined and adopted for spatiotemporal data storage management. Spark-based algorithm framework is developed for efficient parallel computing. Within this framework, SuperMap GIScript and various open-source GIS libraries can be integrated into GISpark. GISpark can also integrated with scientific computing environment (e.g., Anaconda), interactive computing web applications (e.g., Jupyter notebook), and machine learning tools (e.g., TensorFlow/Orange). The associated geospatial facilities of GISpark in conjunction with the scientific computing environment, exploratory spatial data analysis tools, temporal data management and analysis systems make up a powerful geospatial computing tool. GISpark not only provides spatiotemporal big data processing capacity in the geospatial field, but also provides spatiotemporal computational model and advanced geospatial visualization tools that deals with other domains related with spatial property. We tested the performance of the platform based on taxi trajectory analysis. Results suggested that GISpark achieves excellent run time performance in spatiotemporal big data applications.

Reconstructing the deposition environment and long-term fate of Chernobyl 137Cs at the floodplain scale through mobile gamma spectrometry.

PubMed

Varley, Adam; Tyler, Andrew; Bondar, Yuri; Hosseini, Ali; Zabrotski, Viachaslau; Dowdall, Mark

2018-09-01

Cs-137 is considered to be the most significant anthropogenic contributor to human dose and presents a particularly difficult remediation challenge after a dispersal following nuclear incident. The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant meltdown in April 1986 represents the largest nuclear accident in history and released over 80 PBq of 137 Cs into the environment. As a result, much of the land in close proximity to Chernobyl, which includes the Polessie State Radioecology Reserve in Belarus, remains highly contaminated with 137 Cs to such an extent they remain uninhabitable. Whilst there is a broad scale understanding of the depositional patterns within and beyond the exclusion zone, detailed mapping of the distribution is often limited. New developments in mobile gamma spectrometry provide the opportunity to map the fallout of 137 Cs and begin to reconstruct the depositional environment and the long-term behaviour of 137 Cs in the environment. Here, full gamma spectrum analysis using algorithms based on the peak-valley ratio derived from Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the total 137 Cs deposition and its depth distribution in the soil. The results revealed a pattern of 137 Cs distribution consistent with the deposition occurring at a time of flooding, which is validated by review of satellite imagery acquired at similar times of the year. The results were also consistent with systematic burial of the fallout 137 Cs by annual flooding events. These results were validated by sediment cores collected along a transect across the flood plain. The true merit of the approach was confirmed by exposing new insights into the spatial distribution and long term fate of 137 Cs across the floodplain. Such systematic patterns of behaviour are likely to be fundamental to the understanding of the radioecological behaviour of 137 Cs whilst also providing a tracer for quantifying the ecological controls on sediment movement and deposition at a landscape scale. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Computational study of the heat transfer of an avian egg in a tray.

PubMed

Eren Ozcan, S; Andriessens, S; Berckmans, D

2010-04-01

The development of an embryo in an avian egg depends largely on its temperature. The embryo temperature is affected by its environment and the heat produced by the egg. In this paper, eggshell temperature and the heat transfer characteristics from one egg in a tray toward its environment are studied by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Computational fluid dynamics simulations have the advantage of providing extensive 3-dimensional information on velocity and eggshell temperature distribution around an egg that otherwise is not possible to obtain by experiments. However, CFD results need to be validated against experimental data. The objectives were (1) to find out whether CFD can successfully simulate eggshell temperature from one egg in a tray by comparing to previously conducted experiments, (2) to visualize air flow and air temperature distribution around the egg in a detailed way, and (3) to perform sensitivity analysis on several variables affecting heat transfer. To this end, a CFD model was validated using 2 sets of temperature measurements yielding an effective model. From these simulations, it can be concluded that CFD can effectively be used to analyze heat transfer characteristics and eggshell temperature distribution around an egg. In addition, air flow and temperature distribution around the egg are visualized. It has been observed that temperature differences up to 2.6 degrees C are possible at high heat production (285 mW) and horizontal low flow rates (0.5 m/s). Sensitivity analysis indicates that average eggshell temperature is mainly affected by the inlet air velocity and temperature, flow direction, and the metabolic heat of the embryo and less by the thermal conductivity and emissivity of the egg and thermal emissivity of the tray.

Spatial mismatch analysis among hotspots of alien plant species, road and railway networks in Germany and Austria

PubMed Central

Morelli, Federico

2017-01-01

Road and railway networks are pervasive elements of all environments, which have expanded intensively over the last century in all European countries. These transportation infrastructures have major impacts on the surrounding landscape, representing a threat to biodiversity. Roadsides and railways may function as corridors for dispersal of alien species in fragmented landscapes. However, only few studies have explored the spread of invasive species in relationship to transport network at large spatial scales. We performed a spatial mismatch analysis, based on a spatially explicit correlation test, to investigate whether alien plant species hotspots in Germany and Austria correspond to areas of high density of roads and railways. We tested this independently of the effects of dominant environments in each spatial unit, in order to focus just on the correlation between occurrence of alien species and density of linear transportation infrastructures. We found a significant spatial association between alien plant species hotspots distribution and roads and railways density in both countries. As expected, anthropogenic landscapes, such as urban areas, harbored more alien plant species, followed by water bodies. However, our findings suggested that the distribution of neobiota is strongest correlated to road/railways density than to land use composition. This study provides new evidence, from a transnational scale, that alien plants can use roadsides and rail networks as colonization corridors. Furthermore, our approach contributes to the understanding on alien plant species distribution at large spatial scale by the combination with spatial modeling procedures. PMID:28829818

Information Power Grid: Distributed High-Performance Computing and Large-Scale Data Management for Science and Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William E.; Gannon, Dennis; Nitzberg, Bill; Feiereisen, William (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

The term "Grid" refers to distributed, high performance computing and data handling infrastructure that incorporates geographically and organizationally dispersed, heterogeneous resources that are persistent and supported. The vision for NASN's Information Power Grid - a computing and data Grid - is that it will provide significant new capabilities to scientists and engineers by facilitating routine construction of information based problem solving environments / frameworks that will knit together widely distributed computing, data, instrument, and human resources into just-in-time systems that can address complex and large-scale computing and data analysis problems. IPG development and deployment is addressing requirements obtained by analyzing a number of different application areas, in particular from the NASA Aero-Space Technology Enterprise. This analysis has focussed primarily on two types of users: The scientist / design engineer whose primary interest is problem solving (e.g., determining wing aerodynamic characteristics in many different operating environments), and whose primary interface to IPG will be through various sorts of problem solving frameworks. The second type of user if the tool designer: The computational scientists who convert physics and mathematics into code that can simulate the physical world. These are the two primary users of IPG, and they have rather different requirements. This paper describes the current state of IPG (the operational testbed), the set of capabilities being put into place for the operational prototype IPG, as well as some of the longer term R&D tasks.

Environmental factors determining ammonia-oxidizing organism distribution and diversity in marine environments.

PubMed

Bouskill, Nicholas J; Eveillard, Damien; Chien, Diana; Jayakumar, Amal; Ward, Bess B

2012-03-01

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and archaea (AOA) play a vital role in bridging the input of fixed nitrogen, through N-fixation and remineralization, to its loss by denitrification and anammox. Yet the major environmental factors determining AOB and AOA population dynamics are little understood, despite both groups having a wide environmental distribution. This study examined the relative abundance of both groups of ammonia-oxidizing organisms (AOO) and the diversity of AOA across large-scale gradients in temperature, salinity and substrate concentration and dissolved oxygen. The relative abundance of AOB and AOA varied across environments, with AOB dominating in the freshwater region of the Chesapeake Bay and AOA more abundant in the water column of the coastal and open ocean. The highest abundance of the AOA amoA gene was recorded in the oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) of the Eastern Tropical South Pacific (ETSP) and the Arabian Sea (AS). The ratio of AOA : AOB varied from 0.7 in the Chesapeake Bay to 1600 in the Sargasso Sea. Relative abundance of both groups strongly correlated with ammonium concentrations. AOA diversity, as determined by phylogenetic analysis of clone library sequences and archetype analysis from a functional gene DNA microarray, detected broad phylogenetic differences across the study sites. However, phylogenetic diversity within physicochemically congruent stations was more similar than would be expected by chance. This suggests that the prevailing geochemistry, rather than localized dispersal, is the major driving factor determining OTU distribution. © 2011 Society for Applied Microbiology and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Research Analysis of temporal and spatial characteristics of eco-environmental vulnerability in the Xianshui River basin based on GIS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, Kun; Bai, Lin; Li, Xiao Ju; Wang, Xiao

2018-05-01

The Xianshui River basin is an important ecological barrier and water conservation area of Qinghai-Tibet plateau. To master the spatial and temporal differentiation of ecological environment is beneficial to the realization of the protection of regional ecological environment and the development of restoration measures. In this paper, the evaluation index system of ecological environment vulnerability was constructed from topography, climate, soil, land use and social economy. In this study, GIS and information entropy theory are combined to complete the analysis of spatial and temporal variation of vulnerability of ecological environment vulnerability in 2000-2015 years, and the main results are as follows: The ecological vulnerability of the watershed is characterized by the obvious vertical distribution, which is characterized by the gradual increase of the vulnerability of the south to the north. The evaluation results were classified as potential, micro, mild, moderate and severe, with the proportion of each grade being Micro > mild > potential > moderate > severity. The proportion of light and below accounts for more than 80% of the whole area, and the whole basin is at a medium vulnerable level. The change of overall trend indicates that the overall ecological environment of the basin has improved obviously in 15 years. The driving force factor analysis shows that the national environmental protection and restoration project is playing a significant role and plays a major driving role in the obvious improvement of the ecological environment in the basin area. However, there are still a few parts of the region that are deteriorating. This is mainly due to the special natural environment and over exploitation of hydropower resources.

Overlap of Spoilage-Associated Microbiota between Meat and the Meat Processing Environment in Small-Scale and Large-Scale Retail Distributions.

PubMed

Stellato, Giuseppina; La Storia, Antonietta; De Filippis, Francesca; Borriello, Giorgia; Villani, Francesco; Ercolini, Danilo

2016-07-01

Microbial contamination in food processing plants can play a fundamental role in food quality and safety. The aims of this study were to learn more about the possible influence of the meat processing environment on initial fresh meat contamination and to investigate the differences between small-scale retail distribution (SD) and large-scale retail distribution (LD) facilities. Samples were collected from butcheries (n = 20), including LD (n = 10) and SD (n = 10) facilities, over two sampling campaigns. Samples included fresh beef and pork cuts and swab samples from the knife, the chopping board, and the butcher's hand. The microbiota of both meat samples and environmental swabs were very complex, including more than 800 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) collapsed at the species level. The 16S rRNA sequencing analysis showed that core microbiota were shared by 80% of the samples and included Pseudomonas spp., Streptococcus spp., Brochothrix spp., Psychrobacter spp., and Acinetobacter spp. Hierarchical clustering of the samples based on the microbiota showed a certain separation between meat and environmental samples, with higher levels of Proteobacteria in meat. In particular, levels of Pseudomonas and several Enterobacteriaceae members were significantly higher in meat samples, while Brochothrix, Staphylococcus, lactic acid bacteria, and Psychrobacter prevailed in environmental swab samples. Consistent clustering was also observed when metabolic activities were considered by predictive metagenomic analysis of the samples. An increase in carbohydrate metabolism was predicted for the environmental swabs and was consistently linked to Firmicutes, while increases in pathways related to amino acid and lipid metabolism were predicted for the meat samples and were positively correlated with Proteobacteria Our results highlighted the importance of the processing environment in contributing to the initial microbial levels of meat and clearly showed that the type of retail facility (LD or SD) did not apparently affect the contamination. The study provides an in-depth description of the microbiota of meat and meat processing environments. It highlights the importance of the environment as a contamination source of spoilage bacteria, and it shows that the size of the retail facility does not affect the level and type of contamination. Copyright © 2016, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Release of plutonium isotopes into the environment from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident: what is known and what needs to be known.

PubMed

Zheng, Jian; Tagami, Keiko; Uchida, Shigeo

2013-09-03

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident has caused serious contamination in the environment. The release of Pu isotopes renewed considerable public concern because they present a large risk for internal radiation exposure. In this Critical Review, we summarize and analyze published studies related to the release of Pu from the FDNPP accident based on environmental sample analyses and the ORIGEN model simulations. Our analysis emphasizes the environmental distribution of released Pu isotopes, information on Pu isotopic composition for source identification of Pu releases in the FDNPP-damaged reactors or spent fuel pools, and estimation of the amounts of Pu isotopes released from the FDNPP accident. Our analysis indicates that a trace amount of Pu isotopes (∼2 × 10(-5)% of core inventory) was released into the environment from the damaged reactors but not from the spent fuel pools located in the reactor buildings. Regarding the possible Pu contamination in the marine environment, limited studies suggest that no extra Pu input from the FDNPP accident could be detected in the western North Pacific 30 km off the Fukushima coast. Finally, we identified knowledge gaps remained on the release of Pu into the environment and recommended issues for future studies.

Global gene expression analysis provides insight into local adaptation to geothermal streams in tadpoles of the Andean toad Rhinella spinulosa.

PubMed

Pastenes, Luis; Valdivieso, Camilo; Di Genova, Alex; Travisany, Dante; Hart, Andrew; Montecino, Martín; Orellana, Ariel; Gonzalez, Mauricio; Gutiérrez, Rodrigo A; Allende, Miguel L; Maass, Alejandro; Méndez, Marco A

2017-05-16

The anuran Rhinella spinulosa is distributed along the Andes Range at altitudes that undergo wide daily and seasonal variation in temperature. One of the populations inhabits geothermal streams, a stable environment that influences life history traits such as the timing of metamorphosis. To investigate whether this population has undergone local adaptation to this unique habitat, we carried out transcriptome analyses in animals from two localities in two developmental stages (prometamorphic and metamorphic) and exposed them to two temperatures (20 and 25 °C). RNA-Seq, de novo assembly and annotation defined a transcriptome revealing 194,469 high quality SNPs, with 1,507 genes under positive selection. Comparisons among the experimental conditions yielded 1,593 differentially expressed genes. A bioinformatics search for candidates revealed a total of 70 genes that are highly likely to be implicated in the adaptive response of the population living in a stable environment, compared to those living in an environment with variable temperatures. Most importantly, the population inhabiting the geothermal environment showed decreased transcriptional plasticity and reduced genetic variation compared to its counterpart from the non-stable environment. This analysis will help to advance the understanding of the molecular mechanisms that account for the local adaptation to geothermal streams in anurans.

Advanced air distribution: improving health and comfort while reducing energy use.

PubMed

Melikov, A K

2016-02-01

Indoor environment affects the health, comfort, and performance of building occupants. The energy used for heating, cooling, ventilating, and air conditioning of buildings is substantial. Ventilation based on total volume air distribution in spaces is not always an efficient way to provide high-quality indoor environments at the same time as low-energy consumption. Advanced air distribution, designed to supply clean air where, when, and as much as needed, makes it possible to efficiently achieve thermal comfort, control exposure to contaminants, provide high-quality air for breathing and minimizing the risk of airborne cross-infection while reducing energy use. This study justifies the need for improving the present air distribution design in occupied spaces, and in general the need for a paradigm shift from the design of collective environments to the design of individually controlled environments. The focus is on advanced air distribution in spaces, its guiding principles and its advantages and disadvantages. Examples of advanced air distribution solutions in spaces for different use, such as offices, hospital rooms, vehicle compartments, are presented. The potential of advanced air distribution, and individually controlled macro-environment in general, for achieving shared values, that is, improved health, comfort, and performance, energy saving, reduction of healthcare costs and improved well-being is demonstrated. Performance criteria are defined and further research in the field is outlined. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The artificial water cycle: emergy analysis of waste water treatment.

PubMed

Bastianoni, Simone; Fugaro, Laura; Principi, Ilaria; Rosini, Marco

2003-04-01

The artificial water cycle can be divided into the phases of water capture from the environment, potabilisation, distribution, waste water collection, waste water treatment and discharge back into the environment. The terminal phase of this cycle, from waste water collection to discharge into the environment, was assessed by emergy analysis. Emergy is the quantity of solar energy needed directly or indirectly to provide a product or energy flow in a given process. The emergy flow attributed to a process is therefore an index of the past and present environmental cost to support it. Six municipalities on the western side of the province of Bologna were analysed. Waste water collection is managed by the municipal councils and treatment is carried out in plants managed by a service company. Waste water collection was analysed by compiling a mass balance of the sewer system serving the six municipalities, including construction materials and sand for laying the pipelines. Emergy analysis of the water treatment plants was also carried out. The results show that the great quantity of emergy required to treat a gram of water is largely due to input of non renewable fossil fuels. As found in our previous analysis of the first part of the cycle, treatment is likewise characterised by high expenditure of non renewable resources, indicating a correlation with energy flows.

Population-Based Study on the Effect of a Forest Environment on Salivary Cortisol Concentration

PubMed Central

Park, Bum-Jin; Lee, Juyoung

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a forest environment on salivary cortisol concentration, particularly on the characteristics of its distribution. The participants were 348 young male subjects. The experimental sites were 34 forests and 34 urban areas across Japan. The subjects viewed the landscape (forest or urban environment) for a period of 15 min while sitting in a chair. Saliva was sampled from the participants at the end of this 15-min period and then analyzed for cortisol concentration. Differences in the skewness and kurtosis of the distributions between the two environments were tested by performing a permutation test. The cortisol concentrations exhibited larger skewness (0.76) and kurtosis (3.23) in a forest environment than in an urban environment (skewness = 0.49; kurtosis = 2.47), and these differences were statistically significant. The cortisol distribution exhibited a more peaked and longer right-tailed curve in a forest environment than in an urban environment. PMID:28820452

Population-Based Study on the Effect of a Forest Environment on Salivary Cortisol Concentration.

PubMed

Kobayashi, Hiromitsu; Song, Chorong; Ikei, Harumi; Park, Bum-Jin; Lee, Juyoung; Kagawa, Takahide; Miyazaki, Yoshifumi

2017-08-18

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a forest environment on salivary cortisol concentration, particularly on the characteristics of its distribution. The participants were 348 young male subjects. The experimental sites were 34 forests and 34 urban areas across Japan. The subjects viewed the landscape (forest or urban environment) for a period of 15 min while sitting in a chair. Saliva was sampled from the participants at the end of this 15-min period and then analyzed for cortisol concentration. Differences in the skewness and kurtosis of the distributions between the two environments were tested by performing a permutation test. The cortisol concentrations exhibited larger skewness (0.76) and kurtosis (3.23) in a forest environment than in an urban environment (skewness = 0.49; kurtosis = 2.47), and these differences were statistically significant. The cortisol distribution exhibited a more peaked and longer right-tailed curve in a forest environment than in an urban environment.

Detection and Diversity Evaluation of Tetracycline Resistance Genes in Grassland-Based Production Systems in Colombia, South America

PubMed Central

Santamaría, Johanna; López, Liliana; Soto, Carlos Yesid

2011-01-01

Grassland-based production systems use ∼26% of land surface on earth. However, there are no evaluations of these systems as a source of antibiotic pollution. This study was conducted to evaluate the presence, diversity, and distribution of tetracycline resistance genes in the grasslands of the Colombian Andes, where administration of antibiotics to animals is limited to treat disease and growth promoters are not included in animals’ diet. Animal (ruminal fluid and feces) and environmental (soil and water) samples were collected from different dairy cattle farms and evaluated by PCR for the genes tet(M), tet(O), tetB(P), tet(Q), tet(W), tet(S), tet(T), otr(A), which encode ribosomal protection proteins (RPPs), and the genes tet(A), tet(B), tet(D), tet(H), tet(J), and tet(Z), encoding efflux pumps. A wide distribution and high frequency for genes tet(W) and tet(Q) were found in both sample types. Genes tet(O) and tetB(P), detected in high frequencies in feces, were detected in low frequencies or not detected at all in the environment. Other genes encoding RPPs, such as tet(M), tet(S), and tet(T), were detected at very low frequencies and restricted distributions. Genes encoding efflux pumps were not common in this region, and only two of them, tet(B) and tet(Z), were detected. DGGE–PCR followed by comparative sequence analysis of tet(W) and tet(Q) showed that the sequences detected in animals did not differ from those coming from soil and water. Finally, the farms sampled in this study showed more than 50% similarity in relation to the tet genes detected. In conclusion, there was a remarkable presence of tet genes in these production systems and, although not all genes detected in animal reservoirs were detected in the environment, there is a predominant distribution of tet(W) and tet(Q) in both animal and environmental reservoirs. Sequence similarity analysis suggests the transmission of these genes from animals to the environment. PMID:22174707

The Influence of Spatial Configuration of Residential Area and Vector Populations on Dengue Incidence Patterns in an Individual-Level Transmission Model.

PubMed

Kang, Jeon-Young; Aldstadt, Jared

2017-07-15

Dengue is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that is endemic in tropical and subtropical countries. Many individual-level simulation models have been developed to test hypotheses about dengue virus transmission. Often these efforts assume that human host and mosquito vector populations are randomly or uniformly distributed in the environment. Although, the movement of mosquitoes is affected by spatial configuration of buildings and mosquito populations are highly clustered in key buildings, little research has focused on the influence of the local built environment in dengue transmission models. We developed an agent-based model of dengue transmission in a village setting to test the importance of using realistic environments in individual-level models of dengue transmission. The results from one-way ANOVA analysis of simulations indicated that the differences between scenarios in terms of infection rates as well as serotype-specific dominance are statistically significant. Specifically, the infection rates in scenarios of a realistic environment are more variable than those of a synthetic spatial configuration. With respect to dengue serotype-specific cases, we found that a single dengue serotype is more often dominant in realistic environments than in synthetic environments. An agent-based approach allows a fine-scaled analysis of simulated dengue incidence patterns. The results provide a better understanding of the influence of spatial heterogeneity on dengue transmission at a local scale.

Mathematical model of ambulance resources in Saint-Petersburg

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shavidze, G. G.; Balykina, Y. E.; Lejnina, E. A.; Svirkin, M. V.

2016-06-01

Emergency medical system is one of the main elements in city infrastructure. The article contains analysis of existing system of ambulance resource distribution. Paper considers the idea of using multiperiodicity as a tool to increase the efficiency of the Emergency Medical Services. The program developed in programming environment Matlab helps to evaluate the changes in the functioning of the system of emergency medical service.

Globus | Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR)

Cancer.gov

Globus software services provide secure cancer research data transfer, synchronization, and sharing in distributed environments at large scale. These services can be integrated into applications and research data gateways, leveraging Globus identity management, single sign-on, search, and authorization capabilities. Globus Genomics integrates Globus with the Galaxy genomics workflow engine and Amazon Web Services to enable cancer genomics analysis that can elastically scale compute resources with demand.

Bacillus Endospores Isolated from Granite: Close Molecular Relationships to Globally Distributed Bacillus spp. from Endolithic and Extreme Environments

PubMed Central

Fajardo-Cavazos, Patricia; Nicholson, Wayne

2006-01-01

As part of an ongoing effort to catalog spore-forming bacterial populations in environments conducive to interplanetary transfer by natural impacts or by human spaceflight activities, spores of Bacillus spp. were isolated and characterized from the interior of near-subsurface granite rock collected from the Santa Catalina Mountains, AZ. Granite was found to contain ∼500 cultivable Bacillus spores and ∼104 total cultivable bacteria per gram. Many of the Bacillus isolates produced a previously unreported diffusible blue fluorescent compound. Two strains of eight tested exhibited increased spore UV resistance relative to a standard Bacillus subtilis UV biodosimetry strain. Fifty-six isolates were identified by repetitive extragenic palindromic PCR (rep-PCR) and 16S rRNA gene analysis as most closely related to B. megaterium (15 isolates), B. simplex (23 isolates), B. drentensis (6 isolates), B. niacini (7 isolates), and, likely, a new species related to B. barbaricus (5 isolates). Granite isolates were very closely related to a limited number of Bacillus spp. previously found to inhabit (i) globally distributed endolithic sites such as biodeteriorated murals, stone tombs, underground caverns, and rock concretions and (ii) extreme environments such as Antarctic soils, deep sea floor sediments, and spacecraft assembly facilities. Thus, it appears that the occurrence of Bacillus spp. in endolithic or extreme environments is not accidental but that these environments create unique niches excluding most Bacillus spp. but to which a limited number of Bacillus spp. are specifically adapted. PMID:16597992

Ecology of Pseudallescheria and Scedosporium species in human-dominated and natural environments and their distribution in clinical samples.

PubMed

Kaltseis, J; Rainer, J; De Hoog, G S

2009-06-01

This study aims to determine the occurrence of Pseudallescheria and Scedosporium species in natural and human-dominated environments. Habitats (136 sampling sites) in a transect with increasing human impact were investigated (natural areas, agricultural soils, urban playgrounds, industrial areas). Physico-chemical parameters were measured to characterize the different areas included in this investigation. Fungal identification was performed by morphology and sequence data analysis. Comparative description of virulence was largely based on the database of the ECMM/ISHAM Working Group on Pseudallescheria/Scedosporium Infections. Pseudallescheria and Scedosporium species were most abundant in industrial areas, followed by urban playgrounds and agricultural areas. None of the species were isolated from natural habitats. The abundance of Pseudallescheria and Scedosporium species could be correlated with increasing nitrogen concentrations (P<0.01) and decreasing pH (P<0.05) within a pH range of 6.1-7.5. In general, frequency of the different Pseudallescheria and Scedosporium species in the environment is strongly enhanced by human activities, and largely differs from species distribution in clinical settings, suggesting that these species have different degrees of virulence. Pseudallescheria boydii is relatively frequently found as agent of human disease, while Scedosporium dehoogii is found almost exclusively in the environment. Scedosporium apiospermum is responsible for the majority of infections and is found at comparable frequency in the environment; S. aurantiacum and P. minutispora showed similar spectra, but at much lower frequencies.

A distributed programming environment for Ada

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Brennan, Peter; Mcdonnell, Tom; Mcfarland, Gregory; Timmins, Lawrence J.; Litke, John D.

1986-01-01

Despite considerable commercial exploitation of fault tolerance systems, significant and difficult research problems remain in such areas as fault detection and correction. A research project is described which constructs a distributed computing test bed for loosely coupled computers. The project is constructing a tool kit to support research into distributed control algorithms, including a distributed Ada compiler, distributed debugger, test harnesses, and environment monitors. The Ada compiler is being written in Ada and will implement distributed computing at the subsystem level. The design goal is to provide a variety of control mechanics for distributed programming while retaining total transparency at the code level.

Geographic patterns of cigarette butt waste in the urban environment.

PubMed

Marah, Maacah; Novotny, Thomas E

2011-05-01

This reports the initial phase of a study to quantify the spatial pattern of cigarette butt waste in an urban environment. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to create a weighted overlay analysis model which was then applied to the locations of businesses where cigarettes are sold or are likely to be consumed and venues where higher concentrations of butts may be deposited. The model's utility was tested using a small-scale litter audit in three zip codes of San Diego, California. We found that cigarette butt waste is highly concentrated around businesses where cigarettes are sold or consumed. The mean number of butts for predicted high waste sites was 38.1 (SD 18.87), for predicted low waste sites mean 4.8 (SD 5.9), p<0.001. Cigarette butt waste is not uniformly distributed in the urban environment, its distribution is linked to locations and patterns of sales and consumption. A GIS and weighted overlay model may be a useful tool in predicting urban locations of greater and lesser amounts of cigarette butt waste. These data can in turn be used to develop economic cost studies and plan mitigation strategies in urban communities.

Geographic patterns of cigarette butt waste in the urban environment

PubMed Central

Novotny, Thomas E

2011-01-01

Background This reports the initial phase of a study to quantify the spatial pattern of cigarette butt waste in an urban environment. Methods Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to create a weighted overlay analysis model which was then applied to the locations of businesses where cigarettes are sold or are likely to be consumed and venues where higher concentrations of butts may be deposited. The model's utility was tested using a small-scale litter audit in three zip codes of San Diego, California. Results We found that cigarette butt waste is highly concentrated around businesses where cigarettes are sold or consumed. The mean number of butts for predicted high waste sites was 38.1 (SD 18.87), for predicted low waste sites mean 4.8 (SD 5.9), p<0.001. Conclusions Cigarette butt waste is not uniformly distributed in the urban environment, its distribution is linked to locations and patterns of sales and consumption. A GIS and weighted overlay model may be a useful tool in predicting urban locations of greater and lesser amounts of cigarette butt waste. These data can in turn be used to develop economic cost studies and plan mitigation strategies in urban communities. PMID:21504924

Latitudinal variation in the shape of the species body size distribution: an analysis using freshwater fishes.

PubMed

Knouft, Jason H

2004-05-01

Many taxonomic and ecological assemblages of species exhibit a right-skewed body size-frequency distribution when characterized at a regional scale. Although this distribution has been frequently described, factors influencing geographic variation in the distribution are not well understood, nor are mechanisms responsible for distribution shape. In this study, variation in the species body size-frequency distributions of 344 regional communities of North American freshwater fishes is examined in relation to latitude, species richness, and taxonomic composition. Although the distribution of all species of North American fishes is right-skewed, a negative correlation exists between latitude and regional community size distribution skewness, with size distributions becoming left-skewed at high latitudes. This relationship is not an artifact of the confounding relationship between latitude and species richness in North American fishes. The negative correlation between latitude and regional community size distribution skewness is partially due to the geographic distribution of families of fishes and apparently enhanced by a nonrandom geographic distribution of species within families. These results are discussed in the context of previous explanations of factors responsible for the generation of species size-frequency distributions related to the fractal nature of the environment, energetics, and evolutionary patterns of body size in North American fishes.

Influence of the helicopter environment on patient care capabilities: Flight crew perceptions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Meyers, K. Jeffrey; Rodenberg, Howard; Woodard, Daniel

1994-01-01

Flight crew perceptions of the effect of the rotary wing environment on patient care capabilities have not been subject to statistical analysis. We hypothesized that flight crew perceived significant difficulties in performing patient care tasks during air medical transport. A survey instrument was distributed to a convenience sample of flight crew members from twenty flight programs. Respondents were asked to compare the difficulty of performing patient care tasks in rotary wing and standard (emergency department or intensive care unit) settings. Demographic data collected on respondents included years of flight experience, flights per month, crew duty position, and primary aircraft in which the respondent worked. Statistical analysis was performed as appropriate using Student's t-test, type 111 sum of squares, and analysis of variance. Alpha was defined as p is less than or equal to .05. Fifty-five percent of programs (90 individuals) responded. All tasks were rated significantly more difficult in the rotary wing environment. Ratings were not significantly correlated with flight experience, duty position, flights per month, or aircraft used. We conclude that the performance of patient care tasks are perceived by air medical flight crew to be significantly more difficult during rotary wing air medical transport than in hospital settings.

Influence of the helicopter environment on patient care capabilities: flight crew perceptions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myers, K. J.; Rodenberg, H.; Woodard, D.

1995-01-01

INTRODUCTION: Flight crew perceptions of the effect of the rotary-wing environment on patient-care capabilities have not been subject to statistical analysis. We hypothesized that flight crew members perceived significant difficulties in performing patient-care tasks during air medical transport. METHODS: A survey was distributed to a convenience sample of flight crew members from 20 flight programs. Respondents were asked to compare the difficulty of performing patient-care tasks in rotary-wing and standard (emergency department or intensive care unit) settings. Demographic data collected on respondents included years of flight experience, flights per month, crew duty position and primary aircraft in which the respondent worked. Statistical analysis was performed as appropriate using Student's t-test, type III sum of squares, and analysis of variance. Alpha was defined as p < 0.05. RESULTS: Fifty-five percent of programs (90 individuals) responded. All tasks were significantly rated more difficult in the rotary-wing environment. Ratings were not significantly correlated with flight experience, duty position, flights per month or aircraft used. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the performance of patient-care tasks are perceived by air medical flight crew to be significantly more difficult during rotary-wing air medical transport than in hospital settings.

Analyzing DNA curvature and its impact on the ionic environment: application to molecular dynamics simulations of minicircles

PubMed Central

Pasi, Marco; Zakrzewska, Krystyna; Maddocks, John H.

2017-01-01

Abstract We propose a method for analyzing the magnitude and direction of curvature within nucleic acids, based on the curvilinear helical axis calculated by Curves+. The method is applied to analyzing curvature within minicircles constructed with varying degrees of over- or under-twisting. Using the molecular dynamics trajectories of three different minicircles, we are able to quantify how curvature varies locally both in space and in time. We also analyze how curvature influences the local environment of the minicircles, notably via increased heterogeneity in the ionic distributions surrounding the double helix. The approach we propose has been integrated into Curves+ and the utilities Canal (time trajectory analysis) and Canion (environmental analysis) and can be used to study a wide variety of static and dynamic structural data on nucleic acids. PMID:28180333

Ultra-Sensitive Elemental Analysis Using Plasmas 5.Speciation of Arsenic Compounds in Biological Samples by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaise, Toshikazu

Arsenic originating from the lithosphere is widely distributed in the environment. Many arsenicals in the environment are in organic and methylated species. These arsenic compounds in drinking water or food products of marine origin are absorbed in human digestive tracts, metabolized in the human body, and excreted viatheurine. Because arsenic shows varying biological a spects depending on its chemical species, the biological characteristics of arsenic must be determined. It is thought that some metabolic pathways for arsenic and some arsenic circulation exist in aqueous ecosystems. In this paper, the current status of the speciation analysis of arsenic by HPLC/ICP-MS (High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass spectrometry) in environmental and biological samples is summarized using recent data.

The maternal body as environment in autism science.

PubMed

Lappé, Martine

2016-10-01

Research on autism and environmental risk factors has expanded substantially in recent years. My analysis draws attention to the regimes of perceptibility that shape how the environment is materialized in post-genomic science. I focus on how more complex narratives of autism's causes and social anxieties surrounding child development have helped situate autism risk in women's bodies before and during pregnancy. This has resulted in what I call the maternal body as environment in autism science. I show that this figure involves three characteristics: the molecularization of the environment, an individualization of risk, and the internalization of responsibility. I argue that these three features point to a new spatial and temporal politics of risk and responsibility that may heighten social and medical surveillance of women's bodies and decisions, eclipsing larger questions about the uneven distribution of exposures in society and more holistic understandings of health that include neurodiversity. I conclude by considering what the maternal body as environment signals for women, social justice, and the politics of environmental health in the post-genomic era.

Novel 16S rDNA primers revealed the diversity and habitats-related community structure of sphingomonads in 10 different niches.

PubMed

Huang, Yili; Feng, Hao; Lu, Hang; Zeng, Yanhua

2017-07-01

It is believed that sphingomonads are ubiquitously distributed in environments. However detailed information about their community structure and their co-relationship with environmental parameters remain unclear. In this study, novel sphingomonads-specific primers based on the 16S rRNA gene were designed to investigate the distribution of sphingomonads in 10 different niches. Both in silico and in-practice tests on pure cultures and environmental samples showed that Sph384f/Sph701r was an efficient primer set. Illumina MiSeq sequencing revealed that community structures of sphingomonads were significantly different among the 10 samples, although 12 sphingomonad genera were present in all samples. Based on RDA analysis and Monte Carlo permutation test, sphingomonad community structure was significantly correlated with limnetic and marine habitat types. Among these niches, the genus Sphingomicrobium showed strong positive correlation with marine habitats, whereas genera Sphingobium, Novosphingobium, Sphingopyxis, and Sphingorhabdus showed strong positive correlation with limnetic habitats. Our study provided direct evidence that sphingomonads are ubiquitously distributed in environments, and revealed for the first time that their community structure can be correlated with habitats.

Online System for Faster Multipoint Linkage Analysis via Parallel Execution on Thousands of Personal Computers

PubMed Central

Silberstein, M.; Tzemach, A.; Dovgolevsky, N.; Fishelson, M.; Schuster, A.; Geiger, D.

2006-01-01

Computation of LOD scores is a valuable tool for mapping disease-susceptibility genes in the study of Mendelian and complex diseases. However, computation of exact multipoint likelihoods of large inbred pedigrees with extensive missing data is often beyond the capabilities of a single computer. We present a distributed system called “SUPERLINK-ONLINE,” for the computation of multipoint LOD scores of large inbred pedigrees. It achieves high performance via the efficient parallelization of the algorithms in SUPERLINK, a state-of-the-art serial program for these tasks, and through the use of the idle cycles of thousands of personal computers. The main algorithmic challenge has been to efficiently split a large task for distributed execution in a highly dynamic, nondedicated running environment. Notably, the system is available online, which allows computationally intensive analyses to be performed with no need for either the installation of software or the maintenance of a complicated distributed environment. As the system was being developed, it was extensively tested by collaborating medical centers worldwide on a variety of real data sets, some of which are presented in this article. PMID:16685644

Effects of dispersal on total biomass in a patchy, heterogeneous system: Analysis and experiment.

PubMed

Zhang, Bo; Liu, Xin; DeAngelis, D L; Ni, Wei-Ming; Wang, G Geoff

2015-06-01

An intriguing recent result from mathematics is that a population diffusing at an intermediate rate in an environment in which resources vary spatially will reach a higher total equilibrium biomass than the population in an environment in which the same total resources are distributed homogeneously. We extended the current mathematical theory to apply to logistic growth and also showed that the result applies to patchy systems with dispersal among patches, both for continuous and discrete time. This allowed us to make specific predictions, through simulations, concerning the biomass dynamics, which were verified by a laboratory experiment. The experiment was a study of biomass growth of duckweed (Lemna minor Linn.), where the resources (nutrients added to water) were distributed homogeneously among a discrete series of water-filled containers in one treatment, and distributed heterogeneously in another treatment. The experimental results showed that total biomass peaked at an intermediate, relatively low, diffusion rate, higher than the total carrying capacity of the system and agreeing with the simulation model. The implications of the experiment to dynamics of source, sink, and pseudo-sink dynamics are discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A functional model of sensemaking in a neurocognitive architecture.

PubMed

Lebiere, Christian; Pirolli, Peter; Thomson, Robert; Paik, Jaehyon; Rutledge-Taylor, Matthew; Staszewski, James; Anderson, John R

2013-01-01

Sensemaking is the active process of constructing a meaningful representation (i.e., making sense) of some complex aspect of the world. In relation to intelligence analysis, sensemaking is the act of finding and interpreting relevant facts amongst the sea of incoming reports, images, and intelligence. We present a cognitive model of core information-foraging and hypothesis-updating sensemaking processes applied to complex spatial probability estimation and decision-making tasks. While the model was developed in a hybrid symbolic-statistical cognitive architecture, its correspondence to neural frameworks in terms of both structure and mechanisms provided a direct bridge between rational and neural levels of description. Compared against data from two participant groups, the model correctly predicted both the presence and degree of four biases: confirmation, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, and probability matching. It also favorably predicted human performance in generating probability distributions across categories, assigning resources based on these distributions, and selecting relevant features given a prior probability distribution. This model provides a constrained theoretical framework describing cognitive biases as arising from three interacting factors: the structure of the task environment, the mechanisms and limitations of the cognitive architecture, and the use of strategies to adapt to the dual constraints of cognition and the environment.

A Functional Model of Sensemaking in a Neurocognitive Architecture

PubMed Central

Lebiere, Christian; Paik, Jaehyon; Rutledge-Taylor, Matthew; Staszewski, James; Anderson, John R.

2013-01-01

Sensemaking is the active process of constructing a meaningful representation (i.e., making sense) of some complex aspect of the world. In relation to intelligence analysis, sensemaking is the act of finding and interpreting relevant facts amongst the sea of incoming reports, images, and intelligence. We present a cognitive model of core information-foraging and hypothesis-updating sensemaking processes applied to complex spatial probability estimation and decision-making tasks. While the model was developed in a hybrid symbolic-statistical cognitive architecture, its correspondence to neural frameworks in terms of both structure and mechanisms provided a direct bridge between rational and neural levels of description. Compared against data from two participant groups, the model correctly predicted both the presence and degree of four biases: confirmation, anchoring and adjustment, representativeness, and probability matching. It also favorably predicted human performance in generating probability distributions across categories, assigning resources based on these distributions, and selecting relevant features given a prior probability distribution. This model provides a constrained theoretical framework describing cognitive biases as arising from three interacting factors: the structure of the task environment, the mechanisms and limitations of the cognitive architecture, and the use of strategies to adapt to the dual constraints of cognition and the environment. PMID:24302930

The development of a collaborative virtual environment for finite element simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abdul-Jalil, Mohamad Kasim

Communication between geographically distributed designers has been a major hurdle in traditional engineering design. Conventional methods of communication, such as video conferencing, telephone, and email, are less efficient especially when dealing with complex design models. Complex shapes, intricate features and hidden parts are often difficult to describe verbally or even using traditional 2-D or 3-D visual representations. Virtual Reality (VR) and Internet technologies have provided a substantial potential to bridge the present communication barrier. VR technology allows designers to immerse themselves in a virtual environment to view and manipulate this model just as in real-life. Fast Internet connectivity has enabled fast data transfer between remote locations. Although various collaborative virtual environment (CVE) systems have been developed in the past decade, they are limited to high-end technology that is not accessible to typical designers. The objective of this dissertation is to discover and develop a new approach to increase the efficiency of the design process, particularly for large-scale applications wherein participants are geographically distributed. A multi-platform and easily accessible collaborative virtual environment (CVRoom), is developed to accomplish the stated research objective. Geographically dispersed designers can meet in a single shared virtual environment to discuss issues pertaining to the engineering design process and to make trade-off decisions more quickly than before, thereby speeding the entire process. This 'faster' design process will be achieved through the development of capabilities to better enable the multidisciplinary and modeling the trade-off decisions that are so critical before launching into a formal detailed design. The features of the environment developed as a result of this research include the ability to view design models, use voice interaction, and to link engineering analysis modules (such as Finite Element Analysis module, such as is demonstrated in this work). One of the major issues in developing a CVE system for engineering design purposes is to obtain any pertinent simulation results in real-time. This is critical so that the designers can make decisions based on these results quickly. For example, in a finite element analysis, if a design model is changed or perturbed, the analysis results must be obtained in real-time or near real-time to make the virtual meeting environment realistic. In this research, the finite difference-based Design Sensitivity Analysis (DSA) approach is employed to approximate structural responses (i.e. stress, displacement, etc), so as to demonstrate the applicability of CVRoom for engineering design trade-offs. This DSA approach provides for fast approximation and is well-suited for the virtual meeting environment where fast response time is required. The DSA-based approach is tested on several example test problems to show its applicability and limitations. This dissertation demonstrates that an increase in efficiency and reduction of time required for a complex design processing can be accomplished using the approach developed in this dissertation research. Several implementations of CVRoom by students working on common design tasks were investigated. All participants confirmed the preference of using the collaborative virtual environment developed in this dissertation work (CVRoom) over other modes of interactions. It is proposed here that CVRoom is representative of the type of collaborative virtual environment that will be used by most designers in the future to reduce the time required in a design cycle and thereby reduce the associated cost.

Problem-Based Learning and Problem-Solving Tools: Synthesis and Direction for Distributed Education Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friedman, Robert S.; Deek, Fadi P.

2002-01-01

Discusses how the design and implementation of problem-solving tools used in programming instruction are complementary with both the theories of problem-based learning (PBL), including constructivism, and the practices of distributed education environments. Examines how combining PBL, Web-based distributed education, and a problem-solving…

Some Technical Implications of Distributed Cognition on the Design on Interactive Learning Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dillenbourg, Pierre

1996-01-01

Maintains that diagnosis, explanation, and tutoring, the functions of an interactive learning environment, are collaborative processes. Examines how human-computer interaction can be improved using a distributed cognition framework. Discusses situational and distributed knowledge theories and provides a model on how they can be used to redesign…

Situational Awareness Issues in the Implementation of Datalink: Shared Situational Awareness in the Joint Flight Deck-ATC Aviation System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hansman, Robert John, Jr.

1999-01-01

MIT has investigated Situational Awareness issues relating to the implementation of Datalink in the Air Traffic Control environment for a number of years under this grant activity. This work has investigated: 1) The Effect of "Party Line" Information. 2) The Effect of Datalink-Enabled Automated Flight Management Systems (FMS) on Flight Crew Situational Awareness. 3) The Effect of Cockpit Display of Traffic Information (CDTI) on Situational Awareness During Close Parallel Approaches. 4) Analysis of Flight Path Management Functions in Current and Future ATM Environments. 5) Human Performance Models in Advanced ATC Automation: Flight Crew and Air Traffic Controllers. 6) CDTI of Datalink-Based Intent Information in Advanced ATC Environments. 7) Shared Situational Awareness between the Flight Deck and ATC in Datalink-Enabled Environments. 8) Analysis of Pilot and Controller Shared SA Requirements & Issues. 9) Development of Robust Scenario Generation and Distributed Simulation Techniques for Flight Deck ATC Simulation. 10) Methods of Testing Situation Awareness Using Testable Response Techniques. The work is detailed in specific technical reports that are listed in the following bibliography, and are attached as an appendix to the master final technical report.

Metagenomic analysis revealed the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in the gut and living environment of freshwater shrimp.

PubMed

Zhao, Yanting; Zhang, Xu-Xiang; Zhao, Zhonghua; Duan, Cuilan; Chen, Huangen; Wang, Miaomiao; Ren, Hongqiang; Yin, Ying; Ye, Lin

2018-05-15

Antibiotic resistance disseminating from animals and their environments is a public issue that poses significant threats to human health. In the present study, the diversity and abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in 15 samples from the guts and related aquaculture environments (water and sediment) of shrimp were investigated. In total, 60 ARGs, 102 ARGs and 67 ARGs primarily belonging to 13, 15 and 15 different types were detected in the shrimp gut, pond water and sediment samples, respectively. Efflux pump and target modification were the predominant resistance mechanisms in all samples. It was found that Aeromonas, Yersinia and Clostridium XlVb were significantly correlated with the distribution of the ARGs. Besides, the relative abundance of ARGs was positively correlated with the levels of mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Moreover, variation partitioning analysis showed that MGEs, contributing to 74.46% of the resistome variation, played an important role in the affecting of the antibiotic resistome than the bacterial communities and their joint effects. Collectively, this study provides comprehensive information to better understand the ARG dissemination in aquaculture environments and to improve the ecological management of aquatic ecosystems. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The implementation and use of Ada on distributed systems with high reliability requirements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Knight, J. C.

1988-01-01

The use and implementation of Ada were investigated in distributed environments in which reliability is the primary concern. In particular, the focus was on the possibility that a distributed system may be programmed entirely in Ada so that the individual tasks of the system are unconcerned with which processors are being executed, and that failures may occur in the software and underlying hardware. A secondary interest is in the performance of Ada systems and how that performance can be gauged reliably. Primary activities included: analysis of the original approach to recovery in distributed Ada programs using the Advanced Transport Operating System (ATOPS) example; review and assessment of the original approach which was found to be capable of improvement; development of a refined approach to recovery that was applied to the ATOPS example; and design and development of a performance assessment scheme for Ada programs based on a flexible user-driven benchmarking system.

Analysis of spatial distribution and transmission characters for highly pathogenic avian influenza in Chinese mainland in 2004

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Y. L.; Wei, C. J.; Yan, L.; Chi, T. H.; Wu, X. B.; Xiao, C. S.

2006-03-01

After the outbreak of highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in South Korea in the end of year 2003, estimates of the impact of HPAI in affected countries vary greatly, the total direct losses are about 3 billion US dollars, and it caused 15 million birds and poultry flocks death. It is significant to understand the spatial distribution and transmission characters of HPAI for its prevention and control. According to 50 outbreak cases for HPAI in Chinese mainland during 2004, this paper introduces the approach of spatial distribution and transmission characters for HPAI and its results. Its approach is based on remote sensing and GIS techniques. Its supporting data set involves normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and land surface temperature (Ts) derived from a time-series of remote sensing data of 1 kilometer-resolution NOAA/AVHRR, birds' migration routes, topology geographic map, lake and wetland maps, and meteorological observation data. In order to analyze synthetically using these data, a supporting platform for analysis Avian Influenza epidemic situation (SPAS/AI) was developed. Supporting by SPAS/AI, the integrated information from multi-sources can be easily used to the analysis of the spatial distribution and transmission character of HPAI. The results show that the range of spatial distribution and transmission of HPAI in China during 2004 connected to environment factors NDVI, Ts and the distributions of lake and wetland, and especially to bird migration routes. To some extent, the results provide some suggestions for the macro-decision making for the prevention and control of HPAI in the areas of potential risk and reoccurrence.

OhioView: Distribution of Remote Sensing Data Across Geographically Distributed Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramos, Calvin T.

1998-01-01

Various issues associated with the distribution of remote sensing data across geographically distributed environments are presented in viewgraph form. Specific topics include: 1) NASA education program background; 2) High level architectures, technologies and applications; 3) LeRC internal architecture and role; 4) Potential GIBN interconnect; 5) Potential areas of network investigation and research; 6) Draft of OhioView data model; and 7) the LeRC strategy and roadmap.

Cooperative Control of Distributed Autonomous Vehicles in Adversarial Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-08-14

COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN ADVERSARIAL ENVIRONMENTS Grant #F49620–01–1–0361 Final Report Jeff Shamma Department of...CONTRACT NUMBER F49620-01-1-0361 5b. GRANT NUMBER 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE COOPERATIVE CONTROL OF DISTRIBUTED AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES IN...single dominant language or a distribution of languages. A relation to multivehicle systems is understanding how highly autonomous vehicles on extended

Marine realms information bank: A distributed geolibrary for the ocean

USGS Publications Warehouse

Marincioni, F.; Lightsom, F.; ,

2002-01-01

The Marine Realms Information Bank (MRIB) is a prototype web-based distributed geolibrary that organizes, indexes, and delivers online information about the oceanic and coastal environments. It implements the distributed geolibrary concept to organize, index, and deliver online information about the oceanic and coastal environments. The significance of MRIB lies both in the utility of the information bank and in the implementation of the distributed geolibraries concept.

Class imbalance in unsupervised change detection - A diagnostic analysis from urban remote sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leichtle, Tobias; Geiß, Christian; Lakes, Tobia; Taubenböck, Hannes

2017-08-01

Automatic monitoring of changes on the Earth's surface is an intrinsic capability and simultaneously a persistent methodological challenge in remote sensing, especially regarding imagery with very-high spatial resolution (VHR) and complex urban environments. In order to enable a high level of automatization, the change detection problem is solved in an unsupervised way to alleviate efforts associated with collection of properly encoded prior knowledge. In this context, this paper systematically investigates the nature and effects of class distribution and class imbalance in an unsupervised binary change detection application based on VHR imagery over urban areas. For this purpose, a diagnostic framework for sensitivity analysis of a large range of possible degrees of class imbalance is presented, which is of particular importance with respect to unsupervised approaches where the content of images and thus the occurrence and the distribution of classes are generally unknown a priori. Furthermore, this framework can serve as a general technique to evaluate model transferability in any two-class classification problem. The applied change detection approach is based on object-based difference features calculated from VHR imagery and subsequent unsupervised two-class clustering using k-means, genetic k-means and self-organizing map (SOM) clustering. The results from two test sites with different structural characteristics of the built environment demonstrated that classification performance is generally worse in imbalanced class distribution settings while best results were reached in balanced or close to balanced situations. Regarding suitable accuracy measures for evaluating model performance in imbalanced settings, this study revealed that the Kappa statistics show significant response to class distribution while the true skill statistic was widely insensitive to imbalanced classes. In general, the genetic k-means clustering algorithm achieved the most robust results with respect to class imbalance while the SOM clustering exhibited a distinct optimization towards a balanced distribution of classes.

Statistics of natural binaural sounds.

PubMed

Młynarski, Wiktor; Jost, Jürgen

2014-01-01

Binaural sound localization is usually considered a discrimination task, where interaural phase (IPD) and level (ILD) disparities at narrowly tuned frequency channels are utilized to identify a position of a sound source. In natural conditions however, binaural circuits are exposed to a stimulation by sound waves originating from multiple, often moving and overlapping sources. Therefore statistics of binaural cues depend on acoustic properties and the spatial configuration of the environment. Distribution of cues encountered naturally and their dependence on physical properties of an auditory scene have not been studied before. In the present work we analyzed statistics of naturally encountered binaural sounds. We performed binaural recordings of three auditory scenes with varying spatial configuration and analyzed empirical cue distributions from each scene. We have found that certain properties such as the spread of IPD distributions as well as an overall shape of ILD distributions do not vary strongly between different auditory scenes. Moreover, we found that ILD distributions vary much weaker across frequency channels and IPDs often attain much higher values, than can be predicted from head filtering properties. In order to understand the complexity of the binaural hearing task in the natural environment, sound waveforms were analyzed by performing Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Properties of learned basis functions indicate that in natural conditions soundwaves in each ear are predominantly generated by independent sources. This implies that the real-world sound localization must rely on mechanisms more complex than a mere cue extraction.

Statistics of Natural Binaural Sounds

PubMed Central

Młynarski, Wiktor; Jost, Jürgen

2014-01-01

Binaural sound localization is usually considered a discrimination task, where interaural phase (IPD) and level (ILD) disparities at narrowly tuned frequency channels are utilized to identify a position of a sound source. In natural conditions however, binaural circuits are exposed to a stimulation by sound waves originating from multiple, often moving and overlapping sources. Therefore statistics of binaural cues depend on acoustic properties and the spatial configuration of the environment. Distribution of cues encountered naturally and their dependence on physical properties of an auditory scene have not been studied before. In the present work we analyzed statistics of naturally encountered binaural sounds. We performed binaural recordings of three auditory scenes with varying spatial configuration and analyzed empirical cue distributions from each scene. We have found that certain properties such as the spread of IPD distributions as well as an overall shape of ILD distributions do not vary strongly between different auditory scenes. Moreover, we found that ILD distributions vary much weaker across frequency channels and IPDs often attain much higher values, than can be predicted from head filtering properties. In order to understand the complexity of the binaural hearing task in the natural environment, sound waveforms were analyzed by performing Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Properties of learned basis functions indicate that in natural conditions soundwaves in each ear are predominantly generated by independent sources. This implies that the real-world sound localization must rely on mechanisms more complex than a mere cue extraction. PMID:25285658

STABILITY AND STOICHIOMETRY OF BILAYER PHOSPHOLIPID-CHOLESTEROL COMPLEXES: RELATIONSHIP TO CELLULAR STEROL DISTRIBUTION AND HOMEOSTASIS&

PubMed Central

Lange, Yvonne; Ali Tabei, S. M.; Ye, Jin; Steck, Theodore L.

2013-01-01

Does cholesterol distribute among intracellular compartments by passive equilibration down its chemical gradient? If so, its distribution should reflect the relative cholesterol affinity of the constituent membrane phospholipids as well as their ability to form stoichiometric cholesterol complexes. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing the reactivity to cholesterol oxidase of large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs) containing biological phospholipids plus varied cholesterol. The rates of cholesterol oxidation differed among the various phospholipid environments by roughly four orders of magnitude. Furthermore, accessibility to the enzyme increased by orders of magnitude at cholesterol thresholds that suggested stoichiometries of association of 1:1, 2:3 or 1:2 cholesterol:phospholipid (mol:mol). Cholesterol accessibility above the threshold was still constrained by its particular phospholipid environment. One phospholipid, 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphatidylserine, exhibited no threshold. The analysis suggested values for the relative stabilities of the cholesterol-phospholipid complexes and for the fractions of bilayer cholesterol not in complexes at the threshold equivalence points; predictably, the saturated phosphorylcholine species had the lowest stoichiometries and the strongest affinities for cholesterol. These results were in general agreement with the equilibrium distribution of cholesterol between the various LUVs and methyl-β-cyclodextrin. In addition, the properties of the cholesterol in intact human red blood cells matched predictions made from LUVs of the corresponding composition. These results support a passive mechanism for the intracellular distribution of cholesterol that can provide a signal for its homeostatic regulation. PMID:24000774

Reframing clinical workplace learning using the theory of distributed cognition.

PubMed

Pimmer, Christoph; Pachler, Norbert; Genewein, Urs

2013-09-01

In medicine, knowledge is embodied and socially, temporally, spatially, and culturally distributed between actors and their environment. In addition, clinicians increasingly are using technology in their daily work to gain and share knowledge. Despite these characteristics, surprisingly few studies have incorporated the theory of distributed cognition (DCog), which emphasizes how cognition is distributed in a wider system in the form of multimodal representations (e.g., clinical images, speech, gazes, and gestures) between social actors (e.g., doctors and patients) in the physical environment (e.g., with technological instruments and computers). In this article, the authors provide an example of an interaction between medical actors. Using that example, they then introduce the important concepts of the DCog theory, identifying five characteristics of clinical representations-that they are interwoven, co-constructed, redundantly accessed, intersubjectively shared, and substantiated-and discuss their value for learning. By contrasting these DCog perspectives with studies from the field of medical education, the authors argue that researchers should focus future medical education scholarship on the ways in which medical actors use and connect speech, bodily movements (e.g., gestures), and the visual and haptic structures of their own bodies and of artifacts, such as technological instruments and computers, to construct complex, multimodal representations. They also argue that future scholarship should "zoom in" on detailed, moment-by-moment analysis and, at the same time, "zoom out" following the distribution of cognition through an overall system to develop a more integrated view of clinical workplace learning.

Information Power Grid: Distributed High-Performance Computing and Large-Scale Data Management for Science and Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William E.; Gannon, Dennis; Nitzberg, Bill

2000-01-01

We use the term "Grid" to refer to distributed, high performance computing and data handling infrastructure that incorporates geographically and organizationally dispersed, heterogeneous resources that are persistent and supported. This infrastructure includes: (1) Tools for constructing collaborative, application oriented Problem Solving Environments / Frameworks (the primary user interfaces for Grids); (2) Programming environments, tools, and services providing various approaches for building applications that use aggregated computing and storage resources, and federated data sources; (3) Comprehensive and consistent set of location independent tools and services for accessing and managing dynamic collections of widely distributed resources: heterogeneous computing systems, storage systems, real-time data sources and instruments, human collaborators, and communications systems; (4) Operational infrastructure including management tools for distributed systems and distributed resources, user services, accounting and auditing, strong and location independent user authentication and authorization, and overall system security services The vision for NASA's Information Power Grid - a computing and data Grid - is that it will provide significant new capabilities to scientists and engineers by facilitating routine construction of information based problem solving environments / frameworks. Such Grids will knit together widely distributed computing, data, instrument, and human resources into just-in-time systems that can address complex and large-scale computing and data analysis problems. Examples of these problems include: (1) Coupled, multidisciplinary simulations too large for single systems (e.g., multi-component NPSS turbomachine simulation); (2) Use of widely distributed, federated data archives (e.g., simultaneous access to metrological, topological, aircraft performance, and flight path scheduling databases supporting a National Air Space Simulation systems}; (3) Coupling large-scale computing and data systems to scientific and engineering instruments (e.g., realtime interaction with experiments through real-time data analysis and interpretation presented to the experimentalist in ways that allow direct interaction with the experiment (instead of just with instrument control); (5) Highly interactive, augmented reality and virtual reality remote collaborations (e.g., Ames / Boeing Remote Help Desk providing field maintenance use of coupled video and NDI to a remote, on-line airframe structures expert who uses this data to index into detailed design databases, and returns 3D internal aircraft geometry to the field); (5) Single computational problems too large for any single system (e.g. the rotocraft reference calculation). Grids also have the potential to provide pools of resources that could be called on in extraordinary / rapid response situations (such as disaster response) because they can provide common interfaces and access mechanisms, standardized management, and uniform user authentication and authorization, for large collections of distributed resources (whether or not they normally function in concert). IPG development and deployment is addressing requirements obtained by analyzing a number of different application areas, in particular from the NASA Aero-Space Technology Enterprise. This analysis has focussed primarily on two types of users: the scientist / design engineer whose primary interest is problem solving (e.g. determining wing aerodynamic characteristics in many different operating environments), and whose primary interface to IPG will be through various sorts of problem solving frameworks. The second type of user is the tool designer: the computational scientists who convert physics and mathematics into code that can simulate the physical world. These are the two primary users of IPG, and they have rather different requirements. The results of the analysis of the needs of these two types of users provides a broad set of requirements that gives rise to a general set of required capabilities. The IPG project is intended to address all of these requirements. In some cases the required computing technology exists, and in some cases it must be researched and developed. The project is using available technology to provide a prototype set of capabilities in a persistent distributed computing testbed. Beyond this, there are required capabilities that are not immediately available, and whose development spans the range from near-term engineering development (one to two years) to much longer term R&D (three to six years). Additional information is contained in the original.

Mapping Arid Vegetation Species Distributions in the White Mountains, Eastern California, Using AVIRIS, Topography, and Geology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

VandeVen, C.; Weiss, S. B.

2001-01-01

Our challenge is to model plant species distributions in complex montane environments using disparate sources of data, including topography, geology, and hyperspectral data. From an ecologist's point of view, species distributions are determined by local environment and disturbance history, while spectral data are 'ancillary.' However, a remote sensor's perspective says that spectral data provide picture of what vegetation is there, topographic and geologic data are ancillary. In order to bridge the gap, all available data should be used to get the best possible prediction of species distributions using complex multivariate techniques implemented on a GIS. Vegetation reflects local climatic and nutrient conditions, both of which can be modeled, allowing predictive mapping of vegetation distributions. Geologic substrate strongly affects chemical, thermal, and physical properties of soils, while climatic conditions are determined by local topography. As elevation increases, precipitation increases and temperature decreases. Aspect, slope, and surrounding topography determine potential insolation, so that south-facing slopes are warmer and north-facing slopes cooler at a given elevation. Topographic position (ridge, slope, canyon, or meadow) and slope angle affect sediment accumulation and soil depth. These factors combine as complex environmental gradients, and underlie many features of plant distributions. Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data, digital elevation models, digitized geologic maps, and 378 ground control points were used to predictively map species distributions in the central and southern White Mountains, along the western boundary of the Basin and Range province. Minimum Noise Fraction (MNF) bands were calculated from the visible and near-infrared AVIRIS bands, and combined with digitized geologic maps and topographic variables using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA). CCA allows for modeling species 'envelopes' in multidimensional environmental space, which can then be projected across entire landscapes.

Two Dimensional Processing Of Speech And Ecg Signals Using The Wigner-Ville Distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boashash, Boualem; Abeysekera, Saman S.

1986-12-01

The Wigner-Ville Distribution (WVD) has been shown to be a valuable tool for the analysis of non-stationary signals such as speech and Electrocardiogram (ECG) data. The one-dimensional real data are first transformed into a complex analytic signal using the Hilbert Transform and then a 2-dimensional image is formed using the Wigner-Ville Transform. For speech signals, a contour plot is determined and used as a basic feature. for a pattern recognition algorithm. This method is compared with the classical Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) and is shown, to be able to recognize isolated words better in a noisy environment. The same method together with the concept of instantaneous frequency of the signal is applied to the analysis of ECG signals. This technique allows one to classify diseased heart-beat signals. Examples are shown.

Development of a web service for analysis in a distributed network.

PubMed

Jiang, Xiaoqian; Wu, Yuan; Marsolo, Keith; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2014-01-01

We describe functional specifications and practicalities in the software development process for a web service that allows the construction of the multivariate logistic regression model, Grid Logistic Regression (GLORE), by aggregating partial estimates from distributed sites, with no exchange of patient-level data. We recently developed and published a web service for model construction and data analysis in a distributed environment. This recent paper provided an overview of the system that is useful for users, but included very few details that are relevant for biomedical informatics developers or network security personnel who may be interested in implementing this or similar systems. We focus here on how the system was conceived and implemented. We followed a two-stage development approach by first implementing the backbone system and incrementally improving the user experience through interactions with potential users during the development. Our system went through various stages such as concept proof, algorithm validation, user interface development, and system testing. We used the Zoho Project management system to track tasks and milestones. We leveraged Google Code and Apache Subversion to share code among team members, and developed an applet-servlet architecture to support the cross platform deployment. During the development process, we encountered challenges such as Information Technology (IT) infrastructure gaps and limited team experience in user-interface design. We figured out solutions as well as enabling factors to support the translation of an innovative privacy-preserving, distributed modeling technology into a working prototype. Using GLORE (a distributed model that we developed earlier) as a pilot example, we demonstrated the feasibility of building and integrating distributed modeling technology into a usable framework that can support privacy-preserving, distributed data analysis among researchers at geographically dispersed institutes.

Development of a Web Service for Analysis in a Distributed Network

PubMed Central

Jiang, Xiaoqian; Wu, Yuan; Marsolo, Keith; Ohno-Machado, Lucila

2014-01-01

Objective: We describe functional specifications and practicalities in the software development process for a web service that allows the construction of the multivariate logistic regression model, Grid Logistic Regression (GLORE), by aggregating partial estimates from distributed sites, with no exchange of patient-level data. Background: We recently developed and published a web service for model construction and data analysis in a distributed environment. This recent paper provided an overview of the system that is useful for users, but included very few details that are relevant for biomedical informatics developers or network security personnel who may be interested in implementing this or similar systems. We focus here on how the system was conceived and implemented. Methods: We followed a two-stage development approach by first implementing the backbone system and incrementally improving the user experience through interactions with potential users during the development. Our system went through various stages such as concept proof, algorithm validation, user interface development, and system testing. We used the Zoho Project management system to track tasks and milestones. We leveraged Google Code and Apache Subversion to share code among team members, and developed an applet-servlet architecture to support the cross platform deployment. Discussion: During the development process, we encountered challenges such as Information Technology (IT) infrastructure gaps and limited team experience in user-interface design. We figured out solutions as well as enabling factors to support the translation of an innovative privacy-preserving, distributed modeling technology into a working prototype. Conclusion: Using GLORE (a distributed model that we developed earlier) as a pilot example, we demonstrated the feasibility of building and integrating distributed modeling technology into a usable framework that can support privacy-preserving, distributed data analysis among researchers at geographically dispersed institutes. PMID:25848586

Distributed Large Data-Object Environments: End-to-End Performance Analysis of High Speed Distributed Storage Systems in Wide Area ATM Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnston, William; Tierney, Brian; Lee, Jason; Hoo, Gary; Thompson, Mary

1996-01-01

We have developed and deployed a distributed-parallel storage system (DPSS) in several high speed asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) wide area networks (WAN) testbeds to support several different types of data-intensive applications. Architecturally, the DPSS is a network striped disk array, but is fairly unique in that its implementation allows applications complete freedom to determine optimal data layout, replication and/or coding redundancy strategy, security policy, and dynamic reconfiguration. In conjunction with the DPSS, we have developed a 'top-to-bottom, end-to-end' performance monitoring and analysis methodology that has allowed us to characterize all aspects of the DPSS operating in high speed ATM networks. In particular, we have run a variety of performance monitoring experiments involving the DPSS in the MAGIC testbed, which is a large scale, high speed, ATM network and we describe our experience using the monitoring methodology to identify and correct problems that limit the performance of high speed distributed applications. Finally, the DPSS is part of an overall architecture for using high speed, WAN's for enabling the routine, location independent use of large data-objects. Since this is part of the motivation for a distributed storage system, we describe this architecture.

RADECS Short Course Session I: The Space Radiation Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Xapsos, Michael; Bourdarie, Sebastien

2007-01-01

The presented slides and accompanying paper focus on radiation in the space environment. Since space exploration has begun it has become evident that the space environment is a highly aggressive medium. Beyond the natural protection provided by the Earth's atmosphere, various types of radiation can be encountered. Their characteristics (energy and nature), origins and distributions in space are extremely variable. This environment degrades electronic systems and on-board equipment in particular and creates radiobiological hazards during manned space flights. Based on several years of space exploration, a detailed analysis of the problems on satellites shows that the part due to the space environment is not negligible. It appears that the malfunctions are due to problems linked to the space environment, electronic problems, design problems, quality problems, other issues, and unexplained reasons. The space environment is largely responsible for about 20% of the anomalies occurring on satellites and a better knowledge of that environment could only increase the average lifetime of space vehicles. This naturally leads to a detailed study of the space environment and of the effects that it induces on space vehicles and astronauts. Sources of radiation in the space environment are discussed here and include the solar activity cycle, galactic cosmic rays, solar particle events, and Earth radiation belts. Future challenges for space radiation environment models are briefly addressed.

A distributed computing model for telemetry data processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barry, Matthew R.; Scott, Kevin L.; Weismuller, Steven P.

1994-05-01

We present a new approach to distributing processed telemetry data among spacecraft flight controllers within the control centers at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This approach facilitates the development of application programs which integrate spacecraft-telemetered data and ground-based synthesized data, then distributes this information to flight controllers for analysis and decision-making. The new approach combines various distributed computing models into one hybrid distributed computing model. The model employs both client-server and peer-to-peer distributed computing models cooperating to provide users with information throughout a diverse operations environment. Specifically, it provides an attractive foundation upon which we are building critical real-time monitoring and control applications, while simultaneously lending itself to peripheral applications in playback operations, mission preparations, flight controller training, and program development and verification. We have realized the hybrid distributed computing model through an information sharing protocol. We shall describe the motivations that inspired us to create this protocol, along with a brief conceptual description of the distributed computing models it employs. We describe the protocol design in more detail, discussing many of the program design considerations and techniques we have adopted. Finally, we describe how this model is especially suitable for supporting the implementation of distributed expert system applications.

A distributed computing model for telemetry data processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Barry, Matthew R.; Scott, Kevin L.; Weismuller, Steven P.

1994-01-01

We present a new approach to distributing processed telemetry data among spacecraft flight controllers within the control centers at NASA's Johnson Space Center. This approach facilitates the development of application programs which integrate spacecraft-telemetered data and ground-based synthesized data, then distributes this information to flight controllers for analysis and decision-making. The new approach combines various distributed computing models into one hybrid distributed computing model. The model employs both client-server and peer-to-peer distributed computing models cooperating to provide users with information throughout a diverse operations environment. Specifically, it provides an attractive foundation upon which we are building critical real-time monitoring and control applications, while simultaneously lending itself to peripheral applications in playback operations, mission preparations, flight controller training, and program development and verification. We have realized the hybrid distributed computing model through an information sharing protocol. We shall describe the motivations that inspired us to create this protocol, along with a brief conceptual description of the distributed computing models it employs. We describe the protocol design in more detail, discussing many of the program design considerations and techniques we have adopted. Finally, we describe how this model is especially suitable for supporting the implementation of distributed expert system applications.

Distributed and collaborative synthetic environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bajaj, Chandrajit L.; Bernardini, Fausto

1995-01-01

Fast graphics workstations and increased computing power, together with improved interface technologies, have created new and diverse possibilities for developing and interacting with synthetic environments. A synthetic environment system is generally characterized by input/output devices that constitute the interface between the human senses and the synthetic environment generated by the computer; and a computation system running a real-time simulation of the environment. A basic need of a synthetic environment system is that of giving the user a plausible reproduction of the visual aspect of the objects with which he is interacting. The goal of our Shastra research project is to provide a substrate of geometric data structures and algorithms which allow the distributed construction and modification of the environment, efficient querying of objects attributes, collaborative interaction with the environment, fast computation of collision detection and visibility information for efficient dynamic simulation and real-time scene display. In particular, we address the following issues: (1) A geometric framework for modeling and visualizing synthetic environments and interacting with them. We highlight the functions required for the geometric engine of a synthetic environment system. (2) A distribution and collaboration substrate that supports construction, modification, and interaction with synthetic environments on networked desktop machines.

Mapping the spatial distribution of star formation in cluster galaxies at z ~0.5 with the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vulcani, Benedetta

2015-08-01

What physical processes regulate star formation in dense environments? Understanding why galaxy evolution is environment dependent is one of the key questions of current astrophysics. I will present the first characterization of the spatial distribution of star formation in cluster galaxies at z~0.5, in order to quantify the role of different physical processes that are believed to be responsible for shutting down star formation. The analysis makes use of data from the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS), a large HST cycle-21 program targeting 10 massive galaxy clusters with extensive HST imaging from CLASH and the Frontier Field Initiative. The program consists of 140 primary and 140 parallel orbits of near-infrared WCF3 and optical ACS slitless grism observations, which result in 3D spectroscopy of hundreds of galaxies. The grism data are used to produce spatially resolved maps of the star formation density, while the stellar mass density and optical surface brightness are obtained from multiband imaging. I will describe quantitative measures of the spatial location and extend of the star formation rate, showing that about half of the cluster members with significant Halpha detection have diffused star formation, larger than the optical counterpart. This suggests that star formation occurs out to larger radii than the rest frame continuum. For some systems, nuclear star forming regions are found. I will also present a comparison between the Halpha distribution observed in cluster and field galaxies. The characterization of the spatial distribution of Halpha provides a new window, yet poorly exploited, on the mechanisms that regulate star formation and morphological transformation in dense environments.

Recent benthic foraminifera assemblages from mangrove swamp and channels of Abu Dhabi (UAE)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fiorini, Flavia; Lokier, Stephen W.; Odeh, Weaam A. S. Al; Paul, Andreas; Song, Jianfeng; Freeman, Mark; Michel, Françoise

2017-04-01

Zonation of Recent mangrove environments can be defined using benthic foraminifera, however, little is known about foraminifera from mangrove environments of the Persian/Arabian Gulf. The objective of this study is to produce a detailed micropaleontological and sedimentological analysis to identify foraminiferal associations from mangrove swamps and channels located on the eastern side of Abu Dhabi Island (UAE). Detailed sediment sampling collection in mangal environments of Eastern Abu Dhabi was carried out to assess the distribution of benthic foraminifera in different sedimentary facies in the mangal and in the surrounding natural environments of the upper and lower intertidal area (mud flats and channels). A 100 m transect across a natural channel in a mangal on the eastern side of Abu Dhabi Island was sampled in detail for sedimentological and foraminiferal analysis. Forty-seven samples were collected at 2 meter intervals along the transect in a number of different sedimentary facies including; fine sediment in areas exposed during low tide and close to mangrove trees (Avicennia marina), fine sediment rich in leaf material, coarse sediment in channels, and coarse sediments with a shell lag. At each sampling location environmental parameters were recorded, including water depth, salinity, temperature and pH. Samples collected for foraminiferal analysis were stained in rose Bengal in order to identify living specimens. Samples collected on the mud flat at the margin of the channel show a living foraminiferal assemblage characterised by abundant foraminifera belonging to the genera Ammonia, Elphidium, Cribroelphidium, Triloculina, Quinqueloculina, Sigmoilinita, Spiroloculina, Peneroplis and Spirolina. Samples collected in the lower (wet) intertidal area close to Avicennia marina roots, presented a low-diversity assemblage mostly comprising small-sized opportunistic foraminifera of the genera Ammonia and Cribroelphidium along with rare Triloculina and Quinqueloculina. Samples from the upper intertidal areas (often dry) close to Avicennia marina roots and leaf material, produced an assemblage exclusively composed of small-sized opportunistic Ammonia and Cribroelphidium, together with abundant specimensof agglutinated foraminifera belonging to the genera Trochammina. The samples collected in the higher energy settings (channels) were rich in foraminiferal tests, rare living forms were found in the coarser grained facies. The more abundant genera of foraminifera in these facies were miliolids belonging to the genera Triloculina, Quinqueloculina, Sigmoilina and epiphytic larger benthic foraminifera belonging to the genera Peneroplis, Spirolina and Sorites. The distribution of Recent benthic foraminifera from the mangrove environments of the Abu Dhabi region present a powerful tool for constructing a zonation of marine coastline environments and can be employed as a modern analogue for interpreting the depositional environment of ancient coastline sediments.

DataHub: Science data management in support of interactive exploratory analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Handley, Thomas H., Jr.; Rubin, Mark R.

1993-01-01

The DataHub addresses four areas of significant needs: scientific visualization and analysis; science data management; interactions in a distributed, heterogeneous environment; and knowledge-based assistance for these functions. The fundamental innovation embedded within the DataHub is the integration of three technologies, viz. knowledge-based expert systems, science visualization, and science data management. This integration is based on a concept called the DataHub. With the DataHub concept, science investigators are able to apply a more complete solution to all nodes of a distributed system. Both computational nodes and interactives nodes are able to effectively and efficiently use the data services (access, retrieval, update, etc), in a distributed, interdisciplinary information system in a uniform and standard way. This allows the science investigators to concentrate on their scientific endeavors, rather than to involve themselves in the intricate technical details of the systems and tools required to accomplish their work. Thus, science investigators need not be programmers. The emphasis on the definition and prototyping of system elements with sufficient detail to enable data analysis and interpretation leading to information. The DataHub includes all the required end-to-end components and interfaces to demonstrate the complete concept.

DataHub - Science data management in support of interactive exploratory analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Handley, Thomas H., Jr.; Rubin, Mark R.

1993-01-01

DataHub addresses four areas of significant need: scientific visualization and analysis; science data management; interactions in a distributed, heterogeneous environment; and knowledge-based assistance for these functions. The fundamental innovation embedded within the DataHub is the integration of three technologies, viz. knowledge-based expert systems, science visualization, and science data management. This integration is based on a concept called the DataHub. With the DataHub concept, science investigators are able to apply a more complete solution to all nodes of a distributed system. Both computational nodes and interactive nodes are able to effectively and efficiently use the data services (access, retrieval, update, etc.) in a distributed, interdisciplinary information system in a uniform and standard way. This allows the science investigators to concentrate on their scientific endeavors, rather than to involve themselves in the intricate technical details of the systems and tools required to accomplish their work. Thus, science investigators need not be programmers. The emphasis is on the definition and prototyping of system elements with sufficient detail to enable data analysis and interpretation leading to information. The DataHub includes all the required end-to-end components and interfaces to demonstrate the complete concept.

OH rotational temperature measurements via a two temperature distribution analysis in plasma with water microdroplets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsumaki, Masanao; Ito, Tsuyohito

2016-09-01

We study plasma processing with water/solution microdroplets for a new nanoparticle synthesis method. In the process, it is important to know gas temperature (Tg) for understanding the mechanism of the particle growth and controlling its properties. Since OH emissions are naturally observed in such plasma, the rotational temperature (Tr) of OH (A-X) is estimated and compared with Tr from N2 (C-B). The plasma is generated by dielectric barrier discharges in He with N2 (2.6%) gas flow, and microdroplets are generated by an ultrasonic atomizer and carried into He/N2 plasma. Optical emission spectroscopy revealed that with the increase of voltage and frequency of plasma generation, the Tr of N2 increases. While the good theoretical spectrum fit on N2 experimental spectrum could be achieved, it was hard to obtain a reasonable fit for the OH spectrum with a single rotational energy distribution. On the other hand, two rotational distribution analysis could reproduce the experimental spectrum of OH and the lower Tr agrees to Tr by N2. The results suggest that the lower Tr obtained with the two rotational temperature analysis of OH spectrum represents Tg of the environment.

Distributed Cognition on the road: Using EAST to explore future road transportation systems.

PubMed

Banks, Victoria A; Stanton, Neville A; Burnett, Gary; Hermawati, Setia

2018-04-01

Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) are set to revolutionise the way in which we use our transportation system. However, we do not fully understand how the integration of wireless and autonomous technology into the road transportation network affects overall network dynamism. This paper uses the theoretical principles underlying Distributed Cognition to explore the dependencies and interdependencies that exist between system agents located within the road environment, traffic management centres and other external agencies in both non-connected and connected transportation systems. This represents a significant step forward in modelling complex sociotechnical systems as it shows that the principles underlying Distributed Cognition can be applied to macro-level systems using the visual representations afforded by the Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork (EAST) method. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Unsuspected Diversity of Arsenite-Oxidizing Bacteria as Revealed by Widespread Distribution of the aoxB Gene in Prokaryotes ▿ †

PubMed Central

Heinrich-Salmeron, Audrey; Cordi, Audrey; Brochier-Armanet, Céline; Halter, David; Pagnout, Christophe; Abbaszadeh-fard, Elham; Montaut, Didier; Seby, Fabienne; Bertin, Philippe N.; Bauda, Pascale; Arsène-Ploetze, Florence

2011-01-01

In this study, new strains were isolated from an environment with elevated arsenic levels, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines (France), and the diversity of aoxB genes encoding the arsenite oxidase large subunit was investigated. The distribution of bacterial aoxB genes is wider than what was previously thought. AoxB subfamilies characterized by specific signatures were identified. An exhaustive analysis of AoxB sequences from this study and from public databases shows that horizontal gene transfer has likely played a role in the spreading of aoxB in prokaryotic communities. PMID:21571879

Improving the Aircraft Design Process Using Web-Based Modeling and Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Follen, Gregory J.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.; Follen, Gregory J. (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Designing and developing new aircraft systems is time-consuming and expensive. Computational simulation is a promising means for reducing design cycle times, but requires a flexible software environment capable of integrating advanced multidisciplinary and multifidelity analysis methods, dynamically managing data across heterogeneous computing platforms, and distributing computationally complex tasks. Web-based simulation, with its emphasis on collaborative composition of simulation models, distributed heterogeneous execution, and dynamic multimedia documentation, has the potential to meet these requirements. This paper outlines the current aircraft design process, highlighting its problems and complexities, and presents our vision of an aircraft design process using Web-based modeling and simulation.

Improving the Aircraft Design Process Using Web-based Modeling and Simulation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reed, John A.; Follen, Gregory J.; Afjeh, Abdollah A.

2003-01-01

Designing and developing new aircraft systems is time-consuming and expensive. Computational simulation is a promising means for reducing design cycle times, but requires a flexible software environment capable of integrating advanced multidisciplinary and muitifidelity analysis methods, dynamically managing data across heterogeneous computing platforms, and distributing computationally complex tasks. Web-based simulation, with its emphasis on collaborative composition of simulation models, distributed heterogeneous execution, and dynamic multimedia documentation, has the potential to meet these requirements. This paper outlines the current aircraft design process, highlighting its problems and complexities, and presents our vision of an aircraft design process using Web-based modeling and simulation.

Identification of Volcanic Landforms and Processes on Earth and Mars using Geospatial Analysis (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fagents, S. A.; Hamilton, C. W.

2009-12-01

Nearest neighbor (NN) analysis enables the identification of landforms using non-morphological parameters and can be useful for constraining the geological processes contributing to observed patterns of spatial distribution. Explosive interactions between lava and water can generate volcanic rootless cone (VRC) groups that are well suited to geospatial analyses because they consist of a large number of landforms that share a common formation mechanism. We have applied NN analysis tools to quantitatively compare the spatial distribution of VRCs in the Laki lava flow in Iceland to analogous landforms in the Tartarus Colles Region of eastern Elysium Planitia, Mars. Our results show that rootless eruption sites on both Earth and Mars exhibit systematic variations in spatial organization that are related to variations in the distribution of resources (lava and water) at different scales. Field observations in Iceland reveal that VRC groups are composite structures formed by the emplacement of chronologically and spatially distinct domains. Regionally, rootless cones cluster into groups and domains, but within domains NN distances exhibit random to repelled distributions. This suggests that on regional scales VRCs cluster in locations that contain sufficient resources, whereas on local scales rootless eruption sites tend to self-organize into distributions that maximize the utilization of limited resources (typically groundwater). Within the Laki lava flow, near-surface water is abundant and pre-eruption topography appears to exert the greatest control on both lava inundation regions and clustering of rootless eruption sites. In contrast, lava thickness appears to be the controlling factor in the formation of rootless eruption sites in the Tartarus Colles Region. A critical lava thickness may be required to initiate rootless eruptions on Mars because the lava flows must contain sufficient heat for transferred thermal energy to reach the underlying cryosphere and volatilize buried ground ice. In both environments, the spatial distribution of rootless eruption sites on local scales may either be random, which indicates that rootless eruption sites form independently of one another, or repelled, which implies resource limitation. Where competition for limited groundwater causes rootless eruption sites to develop greater than random NN separation, rootless eruption sites can be modeled as a system of pumping wells that extract water from a shared aquifer, thereby generating repelled distributions due to non-initiation or early cessation of rootless explosive activity at sites with insufficient access to groundwater. Thus statistical NN analyses can be combined with field observations and remote sensing to obtain information about self-organization processes within geological systems and the effects of environmental resource limitation on the spatial distribution of volcanic landforms. NN analyses may also be used to quantitatively compare the spatial distribution of landforms in different planetary environments and for supplying non-morphological evidence to discriminate between feature identities and geological formation mechanisms.

New frontier, new power: the retail environment in Australia's dark market

PubMed Central

Carter, S

2003-01-01

Objective: To investigate the role of the retail environment in cigarette marketing in Australia, one of the "darkest" markets in the world. Design: Analysis of 172 tobacco industry documents; and articles and advertisements found by hand searching Australia's three leading retail trade journals. Results: As Australian cigarette marketing was increasingly restricted, the retail environment became the primary communication vehicle for building cigarette brands. When retail marketing was restricted, the industry conceded only incrementally and under duress, and at times continues to break the law. The tobacco industry targets retailers via trade promotional expenditure, financial and practical assistance with point of sale marketing, alliance building, brand advertising, and distribution. Cigarette brand advertising in retail magazines are designed to build brand identities. Philip Morris and British American Tobacco are now competing to control distribution of all products to retailers, placing themselves at the heart of retail business. Conclusions: Cigarette companies prize retail marketing in Australia's dark market. Stringent point of sale marketing restrictions should be included in any comprehensive tobacco control measures. Relationships between retailers and the industry will be more difficult to regulate. Retail press advertising and trade promotional expenditure could be banned. In-store marketing assistance, retail–tobacco industry alliance building, and new electronic retail distribution systems may be less amenable to regulation. Alliances between the health and retail sectors and financial support for a move away from retail dependence on tobacco may be necessary to effect cultural change. PMID:14645954

Analysis of the spatial and temporal distribution of malaria in an area of Northern Guatemala with seasonal malaria transmission.

PubMed

Malvisi, Lucio; Troisi, Catherine L; Selwyn, Beatrice J

2018-06-23

The risk of malaria infection displays spatial and temporal variability that is likely due to interaction between the physical environment and the human population. In this study, we performed a spatial analysis at three different time points, corresponding to three cross-sectional surveys conducted as part of an insecticide-treated bed nets efficacy study, to reveal patterns of malaria incidence distribution in an area of Northern Guatemala characterized by low malaria endemicity. A thorough understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of malaria distribution is essential for targeted malaria control programs. Two methods, the local Moran's I and the Getis-Ord G * (d), were used for the analysis, providing two different statistical approaches and allowing for a comparison of results. A distance band of 3.5 km was considered to be the most appropriate distance for the analysis of data based on epidemiological and entomological factors. Incidence rates were higher at the first cross-sectional survey conducted prior to the intervention compared to the following two surveys. Clusters or hot spots of malaria incidence exhibited high spatial and temporal variations. Findings from the two statistics were similar, though the G * (d) detected cold spots using a higher distance band (5.5 km). The high spatial and temporal variability in the distribution of clusters of high malaria incidence seems to be consistent with an area of unstable malaria transmission. In such a context, a strong surveillance system and the use of spatial analysis may be crucial for targeted malaria control activities.

Impact of genetically modified organisms on aquatic environments: Review of available data for the risk assessment.

PubMed

Pott, Antonia; Otto, Mathias; Schulz, Ralf

2018-09-01

The aquatic environment is strongly connected to the surrounding agricultural landscapes, which regularly serve as sources of stressors such as agrochemicals. Genetically modified crops, which are cultivated on a large scale in many countries, may also act as stressors. Despite the commercial use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for over 20years, their impact on the aquatic environment came into focus only 10years ago. We present the status quo of the available scientific data in order to provide an input for informed aquatic risk assessment of GMOs. We could identify only 39 publications, including 84 studies, dealing with GMOs in the aquatic environment, and our analysis shows substantial knowledge gaps. The available information is restricted to a small number of crop plants, traits, events, and test organisms. The analysis of effect studies reveals that only a narrow range of organisms has been tested and that studies on combinatorial actions of stressors are virtually absent. The analysis of fate studies shows that many aspects, such as the fate of leached toxins, degradation of plant material, and distribution of crop residues in the aquatic habitat, are insufficiently investigated. Together with these research needs, we identify standardization of test methods as an issue of high priority, both for research and risk assessment needed for GMO regulation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Coupled transport-reaction pathways and distribution patterns between siliciclastic-carbonate sediments at the Ria de Vigo

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García, T.; Velo, A.; Fernandez-Bastero, S.; Gago-Duport, L.; Santos, A.; Alejo, I.; Vilas, F.

2005-02-01

This paper examines the linkages between the space-distribution of grain sizes and the relative percentage of the amount of mineral species that result from the mixing process of siliciclastic and carbonate sediments at the Ria de Vigo (NW of Spain). The space-distribution of minerals was initially determined, starting from a detailed mineralogical study based on XRD-Rietveld analysis of the superficial sediments. Correlations between the maps obtained for grain sizes, average fractions of either siliciclastic or carbonates, as well as for individual-minerals, were further stabilised. From this analysis, spatially organized patterns were found between carbonates and several minerals involved in the siliciclastic fraction. In particular, a coupled behaviour is observed between plagioclases and carbonates, in terms of their relative percentage amounts and the grain size distribution. In order to explain these results a conceptual model is proposed, based on the interplay between chemical processes at the seawater-sediment interface and hydrodynamical factors. This model suggests the existence of chemical control mechanisms that, by selective processes of dissolution-crystallization, constrain the mixed environment's long-term evolution, inducing the formation of self-organized sedimentary patterns.

Demonstration of NICT Space Weather Cloud --Integration of Supercomputer into Analysis and Visualization Environment--

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watari, S.; Morikawa, Y.; Yamamoto, K.; Inoue, S.; Tsubouchi, K.; Fukazawa, K.; Kimura, E.; Tatebe, O.; Kato, H.; Shimojo, S.; Murata, K. T.

2010-12-01

In the Solar-Terrestrial Physics (STP) field, spatio-temporal resolution of computer simulations is getting higher and higher because of tremendous advancement of supercomputers. A more advanced technology is Grid Computing that integrates distributed computational resources to provide scalable computing resources. In the simulation research, it is effective that a researcher oneself designs his physical model, performs calculations with a supercomputer, and analyzes and visualizes for consideration by a familiar method. A supercomputer is far from an analysis and visualization environment. In general, a researcher analyzes and visualizes in the workstation (WS) managed at hand because the installation and the operation of software in the WS are easy. Therefore, it is necessary to copy the data from the supercomputer to WS manually. Time necessary for the data transfer through long delay network disturbs high-accuracy simulations actually. In terms of usefulness, integrating a supercomputer and an analysis and visualization environment seamlessly with a researcher's familiar method is important. NICT has been developing a cloud computing environment (NICT Space Weather Cloud). In the NICT Space Weather Cloud, disk servers are located near its supercomputer and WSs for data analysis and visualization. They are connected to JGN2plus that is high-speed network for research and development. Distributed virtual high-capacity storage is also constructed by Grid Datafarm (Gfarm v2). Huge-size data output from the supercomputer is transferred to the virtual storage through JGN2plus. A researcher can concentrate on the research by a familiar method without regard to distance between a supercomputer and an analysis and visualization environment. Now, total 16 disk servers are setup in NICT headquarters (at Koganei, Tokyo), JGN2plus NOC (at Otemachi, Tokyo), Okinawa Subtropical Environment Remote-Sensing Center, and Cybermedia Center, Osaka University. They are connected on JGN2plus, and they constitute 1PB (physical size) virtual storage by Gfarm v2. These disk servers are connected with supercomputers of NICT and Osaka University. A system that data output from the supercomputers are automatically transferred to the virtual storage had been built up. Transfer rate is about 50 GB/hrs by actual measurement. It is estimated that the performance is reasonable for a certain simulation and analysis for reconstruction of coronal magnetic field. This research is assumed an experiment of the system, and the verification of practicality is advanced at the same time. Herein we introduce an overview of the space weather cloud system so far we have developed. We also demonstrate several scientific results using the space weather cloud system. We also introduce several web applications of the cloud as a service of the space weather cloud, which is named as "e-SpaceWeather" (e-SW). The e-SW provides with a variety of space weather online services from many aspects.

Parallel structure among environmental gradients and three trophic levels in a subarctic estuary

USGS Publications Warehouse

Speckman, Suzann G.; Piatt, John F.; Minte-Vera, C. V.; Parrish, Julia K.

2005-01-01

We assessed spatial and temporal variability in the physical environment of a subarctic estuary, and examined concurrent patterns of chlorophyll α abundance (fluorescence), and zooplankton and forage fish community structure. Surveys were conducted in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska, during late July and early August from 1997 through 1999. Principle components analysis (PCA) revealed that spatial heterogeneity in the physical oceanographic environment of lower Cook Inlet could be modeled as three marine-estuarine gradients characterized by temperature, salinity, bottom depth, and turbidity. The gradients persisted from 1997 through 1999, and PCA explained 68% to 92% of the variance in physical oceanography for each gradient-year combination. Correlations between chlorophyll α abundance and distribution and the PCA axes were weak. Chlorophyll was reduced by turbidity, and low levels occurred in areas with high levels of suspended sediments. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) was used to order the sample sites based on species composition and to order the zooplankton and forage fish taxa based on similarities among sample sites for each gradient-year. Correlations between the structure of the physical environment (PCA axis 1) and zooplankton community structure (DCA axis 1) were strong (r = 0.43-0.86) in all years for the three marine-estuarine gradients, suggesting that zooplankton community composition was structured by the physical environment. The physical environment (PCA) and forage fish community structure (DCA) were weakly correlated in all years along Gradient 2, defined by halocline intensity and surface temperature and salinity, even though these physical variables were more important for defining zooplankton habitats. However, the physical environment (PCA) and forage fish community structure (DCA) were strongly correlated along the primary marine-estuarine gradient (#1) in 1997 (r = 0.87) and 1998 (r = 0.82). The correlation was poor (r = 0.32) in 1999, when fish community structure changed markedly in lower Cook Inlet. Capelin (Mallotus villosus), walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), and arrowtooth flounder (Atheresthes stomias) were caught farther north than in previous years. Waters were significantly colder and more saline in 1999, a La Nina year, than in other years of the study. Interannual fluctuations in environmental conditions in lower Cook Inlet did not have substantial effects on zooplankton community structure, although abundance of individual taxa varied significantly. The abundance and distribution of chlorophyll α, zooplankton and forage fish were affected much more by spatial variability in physical oceanography than by interannual variability. Our examination of physical-biological linkages in lower Cook Inlet supports the concept of "bottom-up control," i.e., that variability in the physical environment structures higher trophic-level communities by influencing their distribution and abundance across space.

Parallel structure among environmental gradients and three trophic levels in a subarctic estuary

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Speckman, Suzann G.; Piatt, John F.; Minte-Vera, Carolina V.; Parrish, Julia K.

2005-07-01

We assessed spatial and temporal variability in the physical environment of a subarctic estuary, and examined concurrent patterns of chlorophyll α abundance (fluorescence), and zooplankton and forage fish community structure. Surveys were conducted in lower Cook Inlet, Alaska, during late July and early August from 1997 through 1999. Principle components analysis (PCA) revealed that spatial heterogeneity in the physical oceanographic environment of lower Cook Inlet could be modeled as three marine-estuarine gradients characterized by temperature, salinity, bottom depth, and turbidity. The gradients persisted from 1997 through 1999, and PCA explained 68% to 92% of the variance in physical oceanography for each gradient-year combination. Correlations between chlorophyll α abundance and distribution and the PCA axes were weak. Chlorophyll was reduced by turbidity, and low levels occurred in areas with high levels of suspended sediments. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) was used to order the sample sites based on species composition and to order the zooplankton and forage fish taxa based on similarities among sample sites for each gradient-year. Correlations between the structure of the physical environment (PCA axis 1) and zooplankton community structure (DCA axis 1) were strong ( r = 0.43-0.86) in all years for the three marine-estuarine gradients, suggesting that zooplankton community composition was structured by the physical environment. The physical environment (PCA) and forage fish community structure (DCA) were weakly correlated in all years along Gradient 2, defined by halocline intensity and surface temperature and salinity, even though these physical variables were more important for defining zooplankton habitats. However, the physical environment (PCA) and forage fish community structure (DCA) were strongly correlated along the primary marine-estuarine gradient (#1) in 1997 ( r = 0.87) and 1998 ( r = 0.82). The correlation was poor ( r = 0.32) in 1999, when fish community structure changed markedly in lower Cook Inlet. Capelin ( Mallotus villosus), walleye pollock ( Theragra chalcogramma), and arrowtooth flounder ( Atheresthes stomias) were caught farther north than in previous years. Waters were significantly colder and more saline in 1999, a La Niña year, than in other years of the study. Interannual fluctuations in environmental conditions in lower Cook Inlet did not have substantial effects on zooplankton community structure, although abundance of individual taxa varied significantly. The abundance and distribution of chlorophyll α, zooplankton and forage fish were affected much more by spatial variability in physical oceanography than by interannual variability. Our examination of physical-biological linkages in lower Cook Inlet supports the concept of “bottom-up control,” i.e., that variability in the physical environment structures higher trophic-level communities by influencing their distribution and abundance across space.

Neuroimaging Study Designs, Computational Analyses and Data Provenance Using the LONI Pipeline

PubMed Central

Dinov, Ivo; Lozev, Kamen; Petrosyan, Petros; Liu, Zhizhong; Eggert, Paul; Pierce, Jonathan; Zamanyan, Alen; Chakrapani, Shruthi; Van Horn, John; Parker, D. Stott; Magsipoc, Rico; Leung, Kelvin; Gutman, Boris; Woods, Roger; Toga, Arthur

2010-01-01

Modern computational neuroscience employs diverse software tools and multidisciplinary expertise to analyze heterogeneous brain data. The classical problems of gathering meaningful data, fitting specific models, and discovering appropriate analysis and visualization tools give way to a new class of computational challenges—management of large and incongruous data, integration and interoperability of computational resources, and data provenance. We designed, implemented and validated a new paradigm for addressing these challenges in the neuroimaging field. Our solution is based on the LONI Pipeline environment [3], [4], a graphical workflow environment for constructing and executing complex data processing protocols. We developed study-design, database and visual language programming functionalities within the LONI Pipeline that enable the construction of complete, elaborate and robust graphical workflows for analyzing neuroimaging and other data. These workflows facilitate open sharing and communication of data and metadata, concrete processing protocols, result validation, and study replication among different investigators and research groups. The LONI Pipeline features include distributed grid-enabled infrastructure, virtualized execution environment, efficient integration, data provenance, validation and distribution of new computational tools, automated data format conversion, and an intuitive graphical user interface. We demonstrate the new LONI Pipeline features using large scale neuroimaging studies based on data from the International Consortium for Brain Mapping [5] and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative [6]. User guides, forums, instructions and downloads of the LONI Pipeline environment are available at http://pipeline.loni.ucla.edu. PMID:20927408

Client - server programs analysis in the EPOCA environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Donatelli, Susanna; Mazzocca, Nicola; Russo, Stefano

1996-09-01

Client - server processing is a popular paradigm for distributed computing. In the development of client - server programs, the designer has first to ensure that the implementation behaves correctly, in particular that it is deadlock free. Second, he has to guarantee that the program meets predefined performance requirements. This paper addresses the issues in the analysis of client - server programs in EPOCA. EPOCA is a computer-aided software engeneering (CASE) support system that allows the automated construction and analysis of generalized stochastic Petri net (GSPN) models of concurrent applications. The paper describes, on the basis of a realistic case study, how client - server systems are modelled in EPOCA, and the kind of qualitative and quantitative analysis supported by its tools.

Using IMPRINT to Guide Experimental Design with Simulated Task Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-06-18

USING IMPRINT TO GUIDE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN OF SIMULATED TASK ENVIRONMENTS THESIS Gregory...ENG-MS-15-J-052 USING IMPRINT TO GUIDE EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN WITH SIMULATED TASK ENVIRONMENTS THESIS Presented to the Faculty Department...Civilian, USAF June 2015 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE; DISTRIBUTION UNLIMITED. AFIT-ENG-MS-15-J-052 USING IMPRINT

Students' perception of the learning environment in a distributed medical programme

PubMed Central

Veerapen, Kiran; McAleer, Sean

2010-01-01

Background The learning environment of a medical school has a significant impact on students' achievements and learning outcomes. The importance of equitable learning environments across programme sites is implicit in distributed undergraduate medical programmes being developed and implemented. Purpose To study the learning environment and its equity across two classes and three geographically separate sites of a distributed medical programme at the University of British Columbia Medical School that commenced in 2004. Method The validated Dundee Ready Educational Environment Survey was sent to all students in their 2nd and 3rd year (classes graduating in 2009 and 2008) of the programme. The domains of the learning environment surveyed were: students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of the atmosphere, and students' social self-perceptions. Mean scores, frequency distribution of responses, and inter- and intrasite differences were calculated. Results The perception of the global learning environment at all sites was more positive than negative. It was characterised by a strongly positive perception of teachers. The work load and emphasis on factual learning were perceived negatively. Intersite differences within domains of the learning environment were more evident in the pioneer class (2008) of the programme. Intersite differences consistent across classes were largely related to on-site support for students. Conclusions Shared strengths and weaknesses in the learning environment at UBC sites were evident in areas that were managed by the parent institution, such as the attributes of shared faculty and curriculum. A greater divergence in the perception of the learning environment was found in domains dependent on local arrangements and social factors that are less amenable to central regulation. This study underlines the need for ongoing comparative evaluation of the learning environment at the distributed sites and interaction between leaders of these sites. PMID:20922033

Using PVM to host CLIPS in distributed environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Myers, Leonard; Pohl, Kym

1994-01-01

It is relatively easy to enhance CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) to support multiple expert systems running in a distributed environment with heterogeneous machines. The task is minimized by using the PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine) code from Oak Ridge Labs to provide the distributed utility. PVM is a library of C and FORTRAN subprograms that supports distributive computing on many different UNIX platforms. A PVM deamon is easily installed on each CPU that enters the virtual machine environment. Any user with rsh or rexec access to a machine can use the one PVM deamon to obtain a generous set of distributed facilities. The ready availability of both CLIPS and PVM makes the combination of software particularly attractive for budget conscious experimentation of heterogeneous distributive computing with multiple CLIPS executables. This paper presents a design that is sufficient to provide essential message passing functions in CLIPS and enable the full range of PVM facilities.

Distributed Architecture for the Object-Oriented Method for Interoperability

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-03-01

Collaborative Environment. ......................121 Figure V-2. Distributed OOMI And The Collaboration Centric Paradigm. .....................123 Figure V...of systems are formed into a system federation to resolve differences in modeling. An OOMI Integrated Development Environment (OOMI IDE) lends ...space for the creation of possible distributed systems is partitioned into User Centric systems, Processing/Storage Centric systems, Implementation

Distributed expert systems for ground and space applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Buckley, Brian; Wheatcraft, Louis

1992-01-01

Presented here is the Spacecraft Command Language (SCL) concept of the unification of ground and space operations using a distributed approach. SCL is a hybrid software environment borrowing from expert system technology, fifth generation language development, and multitasking operating system environments. Examples of potential uses for the system and current distributed applications of SCL are given.

60-Hz electric and magnetic fields generated by a distribution network.

PubMed

Héroux, P

1987-01-01

From a mobile unit, 60-Hz electric and magnetic fields generated by Hydro-Québec's distribution network were measured. Nine runs, representative of various human environments, were investigated. Typical values were 32 V/m and 0.16 microT. The electrical distribution networks investigated were major contributors to the electric and magnetic environments.

Clinical learning environment and supervision: experiences of Norwegian nursing students - a questionnaire survey.

PubMed

Skaalvik, Mari Wolff; Normann, Hans Ketil; Henriksen, Nils

2011-08-01

To measure nursing students' experiences and satisfaction with their clinical learning environments. The primary interest was to compare the results between students with respect to clinical practice in nursing homes and hospital wards. Clinical learning environments are important for the learning processes of nursing students and for preferences for future workplaces. Working with older people is the least preferred area of practice among nursing students in Norway. A cross-sectional design. A validated questionnaire was distributed to all nursing students from five non-randomly selected university colleges in Norway. A total of 511 nursing students completed a Norwegian version of the questionnaire, Clinical Learning Environment, Supervision and Nurse Teacher (CLES+T) evaluation scale in 2009. Data including descriptive statistics were analysed using the Statistical Program for the Social Sciences. Factor structure was analysed by principal component analysis. Differences across sub-groups were tested with chi-square tests and Mann-Whitney U test for categorical variables and t-tests for continuous variables. Ordinal logistic regression analysis of perceptions of the ward as a good learning environment was performed with supervisory relationships and institutional contexts as independent variables, controlling for age, sex and study year. The participating nursing students with clinical placements in nursing homes assessed their clinical learning environment significantly more negatively than those with hospital placements on nearby all sub-dimensions. The evidence found in this study indicates that measures should be taken to strengthen nursing homes as learning environments for nursing students. To recruit more graduated nurses to work in nursing homes, actions to improve the learning environment are needed. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

[Use of indicators of geographical accessibility to primary health care centers in addressing inequities].

PubMed

De Pietri, Diana; Dietrich, Patricia; Mayo, Patricia; Carcagno, Alejandro; de Titto, Ernesto

2013-12-01

Characterize geographical indicators in relation to their usefulness in measuring regional inequities, identify and describe areas according to their degree of geographical accessibility to primary health care centers (PHCCs), and detect populations at risk from the perspective of access to primary care. Analysis of spatial accessibility using geographic information systems (GIS) involved three aspects: population without medical coverage, distribution of PHCCs, and the public transportation network connecting them. The development of indicators of demand (real, potential, and differential) and analysis of territorial factors affecting population mobility enabled the characterization of PHCCs with regard to their environment, thereby contributing to local and regional analysis and to the detection of different zones according to regional connectivity levels. Indicators developed in a GIS environment were very useful in analyzing accessibility to PHCCs by vulnerable populations. Zoning the region helped identify inequities by differentiating areas of unmet demand and fragmentation of spatial connectivity between PHCCs and public transportation.

imDEV: a graphical user interface to R multivariate analysis tools in Microsoft Excel

PubMed Central

Grapov, Dmitry; Newman, John W.

2012-01-01

Summary: Interactive modules for Data Exploration and Visualization (imDEV) is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet embedded application providing an integrated environment for the analysis of omics data through a user-friendly interface. Individual modules enables interactive and dynamic analyses of large data by interfacing R's multivariate statistics and highly customizable visualizations with the spreadsheet environment, aiding robust inferences and generating information-rich data visualizations. This tool provides access to multiple comparisons with false discovery correction, hierarchical clustering, principal and independent component analyses, partial least squares regression and discriminant analysis, through an intuitive interface for creating high-quality two- and a three-dimensional visualizations including scatter plot matrices, distribution plots, dendrograms, heat maps, biplots, trellis biplots and correlation networks. Availability and implementation: Freely available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. Implemented in R and VBA and supported by Microsoft Excel (2003, 2007 and 2010). Contact: John.Newman@ars.usda.gov Supplementary Information: Installation instructions, tutorials and users manual are available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/imdev/. PMID:22815358

Ensemble habitat mapping of invasive plant species

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stohlgren, T.J.; Ma, P.; Kumar, S.; Rocca, M.; Morisette, J.T.; Jarnevich, C.S.; Benson, N.

2010-01-01

Ensemble species distribution models combine the strengths of several species environmental matching models, while minimizing the weakness of any one model. Ensemble models may be particularly useful in risk analysis of recently arrived, harmful invasive species because species may not yet have spread to all suitable habitats, leaving species-environment relationships difficult to determine. We tested five individual models (logistic regression, boosted regression trees, random forest, multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS), and maximum entropy model or Maxent) and ensemble modeling for selected nonnative plant species in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, Wyoming; Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, California, and areas of interior Alaska. The models are based on field data provided by the park staffs, combined with topographic, climatic, and vegetation predictors derived from satellite data. For the four invasive plant species tested, ensemble models were the only models that ranked in the top three models for both field validation and test data. Ensemble models may be more robust than individual species-environment matching models for risk analysis. ?? 2010 Society for Risk Analysis.

Particle Acceleration and Fractional Transport in Turbulent Reconnection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Isliker, Heinz; Pisokas, Theophilos; Vlahos, Loukas; Anastasiadis, Anastasios

2017-11-01

We consider a large-scale environment of turbulent reconnection that is fragmented into a number of randomly distributed unstable current sheets (UCSs), and we statistically analyze the acceleration of particles within this environment. We address two important cases of acceleration mechanisms when particles interact with the UCS: (a) electric field acceleration and (b) acceleration by reflection at contracting islands. Electrons and ions are accelerated very efficiently, attaining an energy distribution of power-law shape with an index 1-2, depending on the acceleration mechanism. The transport coefficients in energy space are estimated from test-particle simulation data, and we show that the classical Fokker-Planck (FP) equation fails to reproduce the simulation results when the transport coefficients are inserted into it and it is solved numerically. The cause for this failure is that the particles perform Levy flights in energy space, while the distributions of the energy increments exhibit power-law tails. We then use the fractional transport equation (FTE) derived by Isliker et al., whose parameters and the order of the fractional derivatives are inferred from the simulation data, and solving the FTE numerically, we show that the FTE successfully reproduces the kinetic energy distribution of the test particles. We discuss in detail the analysis of the simulation data and the criteria that allow one to judge the appropriateness of either an FTE or a classical FP equation as a transport model.

Coal emissions adverse human health effects associated with ultrafine/nano-particles role and resultant engineering controls.

PubMed

Oliveira, Marcos L S; Navarro, Orlando G; Crissien, Tito J; Tutikian, Bernardo F; da Boit, Kátia; Teixeira, Elba C; Cabello, Juan J; Agudelo-Castañeda, Dayana M; Silva, Luis F O

2017-10-01

There are multiple elements which enable coal geochemistry: (1) boiler and pollution control system design parameters, (2) temperature of flue gas at collection point, (3) feed coal and also other fuels like petroleum coke, tires and biomass geochemistry and (4) fuel feed particle size distribution homogeneity distribution, maintenance of pulverisers, etc. Even though there is a large number of hazardous element pollutants in the coal-processing industry, investigations on micrometer and nanometer-sized particles including their aqueous colloids formation reactions and their behaviour entering the environment are relatively few in numbers. X-ray diffraction (XRD), High Resolution-Transmission Electron microscopy (HR-TEM)/ (Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy) EDS/ (selected-area diffraction pattern) SAED, Field Emission-Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM)/EDS and granulometric distribution analysis were used as an integrated characterization techniques tool box to determine both geochemistry and nanomineralogy for coal fly ashes (CFAs) from Brazil´s largest coal power plant. Ultrafine/nano-particles size distribution from coal combustion emissions was estimated during the tests. In addition the iron and silicon content was determined as 54.6% of the total 390 different particles observed by electron bean, results aimed that these two particles represent major minerals in the environment particles normally. These data may help in future investigations to asses human health actions related with nano-particles. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Modeling the Solar Dust Environment at 9.5 Solar Radii: Revealing Radiance Trends with MESSENGER Star Tracker Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Strong, S. B.; Strikwerda, T.; Lario, D.; Raouafi, N.; Decker, R.

2010-12-01

The main components of interplanetary dust are created through destruction, erosion, and collision of asteroids and comets (e.g. Mann et al. 2006). Solar radiation forces distribute these interplanetary dust particles throughout the solar system. The percent contribution of these source particulates to the net interplanetary dust distribution can reveal information about solar nebula conditions, within which these objects are formed. In the absence of observational data (e.g. Helios, Pioneer), specifically at distances less than 0.3 AU, the precise dust distributions remain unknown and limited to 1 AU extrapolative models (e.g. Mann et al. 2003). We have developed a model suitable for the investigation of scattered dust and electron irradiance incident on a sensor for distances inward of 1 AU. The model utilizes the Grün et al. (1985) and Mann et al. (2004) dust distribution theory combined with Mie theory and Thomson electron scattering to determine the magnitude of solar irradiance scattered towards an optical sensor as a function of helio-ecliptic latitude and longitude. MESSENGER star tracker observations (launch to 2010) of the ambient celestial background combined with Helios data (Lienert et al. 1982) reveal trends in support of the model predictions. This analysis further emphasizes the need to characterize the inner solar system dust environment in anticipation of near-Solar missions.

Staghorn: An Automated Large-Scale Distributed System Analysis Platform

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gabert, Kasimir; Burns, Ian; Elliott, Steven

2016-09-01

Conducting experiments on large-scale distributed computing systems is becoming significantly easier with the assistance of emulation. Researchers can now create a model of a distributed computing environment and then generate a virtual, laboratory copy of the entire system composed of potentially thousands of virtual machines, switches, and software. The use of real software, running at clock rate in full virtual machines, allows experiments to produce meaningful results without necessitating a full understanding of all model components. However, the ability to inspect and modify elements within these models is bound by the limitation that such modifications must compete with the model,more » either running in or alongside it. This inhibits entire classes of analyses from being conducted upon these models. We developed a mechanism to snapshot an entire emulation-based model as it is running. This allows us to \\freeze time" and subsequently fork execution, replay execution, modify arbitrary parts of the model, or deeply explore the model. This snapshot includes capturing packets in transit and other input/output state along with the running virtual machines. We were able to build this system in Linux using Open vSwitch and Kernel Virtual Machines on top of Sandia's emulation platform Firewheel. This primitive opens the door to numerous subsequent analyses on models, including state space exploration, debugging distributed systems, performance optimizations, improved training environments, and improved experiment repeatability.« less

Particle Acceleration and Fractional Transport in Turbulent Reconnection

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Isliker, Heinz; Pisokas, Theophilos; Vlahos, Loukas

We consider a large-scale environment of turbulent reconnection that is fragmented into a number of randomly distributed unstable current sheets (UCSs), and we statistically analyze the acceleration of particles within this environment. We address two important cases of acceleration mechanisms when particles interact with the UCS: (a) electric field acceleration and (b) acceleration by reflection at contracting islands. Electrons and ions are accelerated very efficiently, attaining an energy distribution of power-law shape with an index 1–2, depending on the acceleration mechanism. The transport coefficients in energy space are estimated from test-particle simulation data, and we show that the classical Fokker–Planckmore » (FP) equation fails to reproduce the simulation results when the transport coefficients are inserted into it and it is solved numerically. The cause for this failure is that the particles perform Levy flights in energy space, while the distributions of the energy increments exhibit power-law tails. We then use the fractional transport equation (FTE) derived by Isliker et al., whose parameters and the order of the fractional derivatives are inferred from the simulation data, and solving the FTE numerically, we show that the FTE successfully reproduces the kinetic energy distribution of the test particles. We discuss in detail the analysis of the simulation data and the criteria that allow one to judge the appropriateness of either an FTE or a classical FP equation as a transport model.« less

Ecological and physical barriers shape genetic structure of the Alpine porcini (Boletus reticuloceps).

PubMed

Feng, Bang; Liu, Jian Wei; Xu, Jianping; Zhao, Kuan; Ge, Zai Wei; Yang, Zhu L

2017-04-01

The Alpine porcini, Boletus reticuloceps, is an ectomycorrhizal mushroom distributed in subalpine areas of Southwest China, central China, and Taiwan Island. This distribution pattern makes it an ideal organism to infer how ectomycorrhizal fungi have reacted to historical tectonic and climatic changes, and to illustrate the mechanism for the disjunction of organisms between Southwest China and Taiwan. In this study, we explored the phylogeographic pattern of B. reticuloceps by microsatellite genotyping, DNA sequencing, ecological factor analysis, and species distribution modeling. Three genetic groups from the East Himalayas (EH), northern Hengduan Mountains (NHM), and southern Hengduan Mountains (SHM), were identified. The earlier divergent SHM group is found under Abies in moister environments, whereas the EH and NHM groups, which are physically separated by the Mekong-Salween Divide, are found mainly under Picea in drier environments. Samples from Taiwan showed a close relationship with the SHM group. High mountains did not form dispersal barriers among populations in each of the EH, NHM, and SHM groups, probably due to the relatively weak host specificity of B. reticuloceps. Our study indicated that ecological heterogeneity could have contributed to the divergence between the SHM and the NHM-EH groups, while physical barriers could have led to the divergence of the NHM and the EH groups. Dispersal into Taiwan via Central China during the Quaternary glaciations is likely to have shaped its disjunct distribution.

A Process for Comparing Dynamics of Distributed Space Systems Simulations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cures, Edwin Z.; Jackson, Albert A.; Morris, Jeffery C.

2009-01-01

The paper describes a process that was developed for comparing the primary orbital dynamics behavior between space systems distributed simulations. This process is used to characterize and understand the fundamental fidelities and compatibilities of the modeling of orbital dynamics between spacecraft simulations. This is required for high-latency distributed simulations such as NASA s Integrated Mission Simulation and must be understood when reporting results from simulation executions. This paper presents 10 principal comparison tests along with their rationale and examples of the results. The Integrated Mission Simulation (IMSim) (formerly know as the Distributed Space Exploration Simulation (DSES)) is a NASA research and development project focusing on the technologies and processes that are related to the collaborative simulation of complex space systems involved in the exploration of our solar system. Currently, the NASA centers that are actively participating in the IMSim project are the Ames Research Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Johnson Space Center (JSC), the Kennedy Space Center, the Langley Research Center and the Marshall Space Flight Center. In concept, each center participating in IMSim has its own set of simulation models and environment(s). These simulation tools are used to build the various simulation products that are used for scientific investigation, engineering analysis, system design, training, planning, operations and more. Working individually, these production simulations provide important data to various NASA projects.

Spatial distribution and ecological environment analysis of great gerbil in Xinjiang Plague epidemic foci based on remote sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Mengxu; Li, Qun; Cao, Chunxiang; Wang, Juanle

2014-03-01

Yersinia pestis (Plague bacterium) from great gerbil was isolated in 2005 in Xinjiang Dzungarian Basin, which confirmed the presence of the plague epidemic foci. This study analysed the spatial distribution and suitable habitat of great gerbil based on the monitoring data of great gerbil from Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the ecological environment elements obtained from remote sensing products. The results showed that: (1) 88.5% (277/313) of great gerbil distributed in the area of elevation between 200 and 600 meters. (2) All the positive points located in the area with a slope of 0-3 degree, and the sunny tendency on aspect was not obvious. (3) All 313 positive points of great gerbil distributed in the area with an average annual temperature from 5 to 11 °C, and 165 points with an average annual temperature from 7 to 9 °C. (4) 72.8% (228/313) of great gerbil survived in the area with an annual precipitation of 120-200mm. (5) The positive points of great gerbil increased correspondingly with the increasing of NDVI value, but there is no positive point when NDVI is higher than 0.521, indicating the suitability of vegetation for great gerbil. This study explored a broad and important application for the monitoring and prevention of plague using remote sensing and geographic information system.

Strain transfer analysis of optical fiber based sensors embedded in an asphalt pavement structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Huaping; Xiang, Ping

2016-07-01

Asphalt pavement is vulnerable to random damage, such as cracking and rutting, which can be proactively identified by distributed optical fiber sensing technology. However, due to the material nature of optical fibers, a bare fiber is apt to be damaged during the construction process of pavements. Thus, a protective layer is needed for this application. Unfortunately, part of the strain of the host material is absorbed by the protective layer when transferring the strain to the sensing fiber. To account for the strain transfer error, in this paper a theoretical analysis of the strain transfer of a three-layered general model has been carried out by introducing Goodman’s hypothesis to describe the interfacial shear stress relationship. The model considers the viscoelastic behavior of the host material and protective layer. The effects of one crack in the host material and the sensing length on strain transfer relationship are been discussed. To validate the effectiveness of the strain transfer analysis, a flexible asphalt-mastic packaged distributed optical fiber sensor was designed and tested in a laboratory environment to monitor the distributed strain and appearance of cracks in an asphalt concrete beam at two different temperatures. The experimental results indicated that the developed strain transfer formula can significantly reduce the strain transfer error, and that the asphalt-mastic packaged optical fiber sensor can successfully monitor the distributed strain and identify local cracks.

A Large-Scale Analysis of Variance in Written Language.

PubMed

Johns, Brendan T; Jamieson, Randall K

2018-01-22

The collection of very large text sources has revolutionized the study of natural language, leading to the development of several models of language learning and distributional semantics that extract sophisticated semantic representations of words based on the statistical redundancies contained within natural language (e.g., Griffiths, Steyvers, & Tenenbaum, ; Jones & Mewhort, ; Landauer & Dumais, ; Mikolov, Sutskever, Chen, Corrado, & Dean, ). The models treat knowledge as an interaction of processing mechanisms and the structure of language experience. But language experience is often treated agnostically. We report a distributional semantic analysis that shows written language in fiction books varies appreciably between books from the different genres, books from the same genre, and even books written by the same author. Given that current theories assume that word knowledge reflects an interaction between processing mechanisms and the language environment, the analysis shows the need for the field to engage in a more deliberate consideration and curation of the corpora used in computational studies of natural language processing. Copyright © 2018 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

An Improved Time-Frequency Analysis Method in Interference Detection for GNSS Receivers

PubMed Central

Sun, Kewen; Jin, Tian; Yang, Dongkai

2015-01-01

In this paper, an improved joint time-frequency (TF) analysis method based on a reassigned smoothed pseudo Wigner–Ville distribution (RSPWVD) has been proposed in interference detection for Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. In the RSPWVD, the two-dimensional low-pass filtering smoothing function is introduced to eliminate the cross-terms present in the quadratic TF distribution, and at the same time, the reassignment method is adopted to improve the TF concentration properties of the auto-terms of the signal components. This proposed interference detection method is evaluated by experiments on GPS L1 signals in the disturbing scenarios compared to the state-of-the-art interference detection approaches. The analysis results show that the proposed interference detection technique effectively overcomes the cross-terms problem and also preserves good TF localization properties, which has been proven to be effective and valid to enhance the interference detection performance of the GNSS receivers, particularly in the jamming environments. PMID:25905704

Risk analysis for biological hazards: What we need to know about invasive species

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stohlgren, T.J.; Schnase, J.L.

2006-01-01

Risk analysis for biological invasions is similar to other types of natural and human hazards. For example, risk analysis for chemical spills requires the evaluation of basic information on where a spill occurs; exposure level and toxicity of the chemical agent; knowledge of the physical processes involved in its rate and direction of spread; and potential impacts to the environment, economy, and human health relative to containment costs. Unlike typical chemical spills, biological invasions can have long lag times from introduction and establishment to successful invasion, they reproduce, and they can spread rapidly by physical and biological processes. We use a risk analysis framework to suggest a general strategy for risk analysis for invasive species and invaded habitats. It requires: (1) problem formation (scoping the problem, defining assessment endpoints); (2) analysis (information on species traits, matching species traits to suitable habitats, estimating exposure, surveys of current distribution and abundance); (3) risk characterization (understanding of data completeness, estimates of the “potential” distribution and abundance; estimates of the potential rate of spread; and probable risks, impacts, and costs); and (4) risk management (containment potential, costs, and opportunity costs; legal mandates and social considerations and information science and technology needs).

Tree growth and climate in the Pacific Northwest, North America: a broad-scale analysis of changing growth environments

Treesearch

Whitney L. Albright; David L. Peterson

2013-01-01

Climate change in the 21st century will affect tree growth in the Pacific Northwest region of North America, although complex climate–growth relationships make it difficult to identify how radial growth will respond across different species distributions. We used a novel method to examine potential growth responses to climate change at a broad geographical scale with a...

Analysis of Logistics Support via Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements and Contracted Support

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-12-01

of goods and services in a contested environment and the ability to train , integrate, account, and manage civilian contractors. Survivability is...because logisticians are tasked with delivering goods and services to forces that are distributed across the globe, completing a wide variety of missions...to understand 3 where the responsibilities of logistics requirements lie and how to procure goods and services in different theaters. In an

Radio Frequency Fingerprinting Techniques Through Preamble Modification in IEEE 802.11B

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-30

As such, RSSI– based approaches work best in static environments where the locality of each station remains consistent [Wri03]. 2.8.3 MAC Spoofing...DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE AIR UNIVERSITY AIR FORCE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Wright-Patterson Air Force Base , Ohio DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A: APPROVED...45 4.3.1 Analysis of Intel– Based Transceivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 4.3.2 Results of the Intel 3945 Series transceiver

Categorizing words using 'frequent frames': what cross-linguistic analyses reveal about distributional acquisition strategies.

PubMed

Chemla, Emmanuel; Mintz, Toben H; Bernal, Savita; Christophe, Anne

2009-04-01

Mintz (2003) described a distributional environment called a frame, defined as the co-occurrence of two context words with one intervening target word. Analyses of English child-directed speech showed that words that fell within any frequently occurring frame consistently belonged to the same grammatical category (e.g. noun, verb, adjective, etc.). In this paper, we first generalize this result to French, a language in which the function word system allows patterns that are potentially detrimental to a frame-based analysis procedure. Second, we show that the discontinuity of the chosen environments (i.e. the fact that target words are framed by the context words) is crucial for the mechanism to be efficient. This property might be relevant for any computational approach to grammatical categorization. Finally, we investigate a recursive application of the procedure and observe that the categorization is paradoxically worse when context elements are categories rather than actual lexical items. Item-specificity is thus also a core computational principle for this type of algorithm. Our analysis, along with results from behavioural studies (Gómez, 2002; Gómez and Maye, 2005; Mintz, 2006), provides strong support for frames as a basis for the acquisition of grammatical categories by infants. Discontinuity and item-specificity appear to be crucial features.

Theory of quantized systems: formal basis for DEVS/HLA distributed simulation environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zeigler, Bernard P.; Lee, J. S.

1998-08-01

In the context of a DARPA ASTT project, we are developing an HLA-compliant distributed simulation environment based on the DEVS formalism. This environment will provide a user- friendly, high-level tool-set for developing interoperable discrete and continuous simulation models. One application is the study of contract-based predictive filtering. This paper presents a new approach to predictive filtering based on a process called 'quantization' to reduce state update transmission. Quantization, which generates state updates only at quantum level crossings, abstracts a sender model into a DEVS representation. This affords an alternative, efficient approach to embedding continuous models within distributed discrete event simulations. Applications of quantization to message traffic reduction are discussed. The theory has been validated by DEVSJAVA simulations of test cases. It will be subject to further test in actual distributed simulations using the DEVS/HLA modeling and simulation environment.

Application of Multiple Imputation for Missing Values in Three-Way Three-Mode Multi-Environment Trial Data

PubMed Central

Tian, Ting; McLachlan, Geoffrey J.; Dieters, Mark J.; Basford, Kaye E.

2015-01-01

It is a common occurrence in plant breeding programs to observe missing values in three-way three-mode multi-environment trial (MET) data. We proposed modifications of models for estimating missing observations for these data arrays, and developed a novel approach in terms of hierarchical clustering. Multiple imputation (MI) was used in four ways, multiple agglomerative hierarchical clustering, normal distribution model, normal regression model, and predictive mean match. The later three models used both Bayesian analysis and non-Bayesian analysis, while the first approach used a clustering procedure with randomly selected attributes and assigned real values from the nearest neighbour to the one with missing observations. Different proportions of data entries in six complete datasets were randomly selected to be missing and the MI methods were compared based on the efficiency and accuracy of estimating those values. The results indicated that the models using Bayesian analysis had slightly higher accuracy of estimation performance than those using non-Bayesian analysis but they were more time-consuming. However, the novel approach of multiple agglomerative hierarchical clustering demonstrated the overall best performances. PMID:26689369

Application of Multiple Imputation for Missing Values in Three-Way Three-Mode Multi-Environment Trial Data.

PubMed

Tian, Ting; McLachlan, Geoffrey J; Dieters, Mark J; Basford, Kaye E

2015-01-01

It is a common occurrence in plant breeding programs to observe missing values in three-way three-mode multi-environment trial (MET) data. We proposed modifications of models for estimating missing observations for these data arrays, and developed a novel approach in terms of hierarchical clustering. Multiple imputation (MI) was used in four ways, multiple agglomerative hierarchical clustering, normal distribution model, normal regression model, and predictive mean match. The later three models used both Bayesian analysis and non-Bayesian analysis, while the first approach used a clustering procedure with randomly selected attributes and assigned real values from the nearest neighbour to the one with missing observations. Different proportions of data entries in six complete datasets were randomly selected to be missing and the MI methods were compared based on the efficiency and accuracy of estimating those values. The results indicated that the models using Bayesian analysis had slightly higher accuracy of estimation performance than those using non-Bayesian analysis but they were more time-consuming. However, the novel approach of multiple agglomerative hierarchical clustering demonstrated the overall best performances.

Evaluation of methods for the extraction of DNA from drinking water distribution system biofilms.

PubMed

Hwang, Chiachi; Ling, Fangqiong; Andersen, Gary L; LeChevallier, Mark W; Liu, Wen-Tso

2012-01-01

While drinking water biofilms have been characterized in various drinking water distribution systems (DWDS), little is known about the impact of different DNA extraction methods on the subsequent analysis of microbial communities in drinking water biofilms. Since different DNA extraction methods have been shown to affect the outcome of microbial community analysis in other environments, it is necessary to select a DNA extraction method prior to the application of molecular tools to characterize the complex microbial ecology of the DWDS. This study compared the quantity and quality of DNA yields from selected DWDS bacteria with different cell wall properties using five widely used DNA extraction methods. These were further selected and evaluated for their efficiency and reproducibility of DNA extraction from DWDS samples. Terminal restriction fragment length analysis and the 454 pyrosequencing technique were used to interpret the differences in microbial community structure and composition, respectively, from extracted DNA. Such assessments serve as a concrete step towards the determination of an optimal DNA extraction method for drinking water biofilms, which can then provide a reliable comparison of the meta-analysis results obtained in different laboratories.

New Educational Modules Using a Cyber-Distribution System Testbed

DOE PAGES

Xie, Jing; Bedoya, Juan Carlos; Liu, Chen-Ching; ...

2018-03-30

At Washington State University (WSU), a modern cyber-physical system testbed has been implemented based on an industry grade distribution management system (DMS) that is integrated with remote terminal units (RTUs), smart meters, and a solar photovoltaic (PV). In addition, the real model from the Avista Utilities distribution system in Pullman, WA, is modeled in DMS. The proposed testbed environment allows students and instructors to utilize these facilities for innovations in learning and teaching. For power engineering education, this testbed helps students understand the interaction between a cyber system and a physical distribution system through industrial level visualization. The testbed providesmore » a distribution system monitoring and control environment for students. Compared with a simulation based approach, the testbed brings the students' learning environment a step closer to the real world. The educational modules allow students to learn the concepts of a cyber-physical system and an electricity market through an integrated testbed. Furthermore, the testbed provides a platform in the study mode for students to practice working on a real distribution system model. Here, this paper describes the new educational modules based on the testbed environment. Three modules are described together with the underlying educational principles and associated projects.« less

To predict the niche, model colonization and extinction

USGS Publications Warehouse

Yackulic, Charles B.; Nichols, James D.; Reid, Janice; Der, Ricky

2015-01-01

Ecologists frequently try to predict the future geographic distributions of species. Most studies assume that the current distribution of a species reflects its environmental requirements (i.e., the species' niche). However, the current distributions of many species are unlikely to be at equilibrium with the current distribution of environmental conditions, both because of ongoing invasions and because the distribution of suitable environmental conditions is always changing. This mismatch between the equilibrium assumptions inherent in many analyses and the disequilibrium conditions in the real world leads to inaccurate predictions of species' geographic distributions and suggests the need for theory and analytical tools that avoid equilibrium assumptions. Here, we develop a general theory of environmental associations during periods of transient dynamics. We show that time-invariant relationships between environmental conditions and rates of local colonization and extinction can produce substantial temporal variation in occupancy–environment relationships. We then estimate occupancy–environment relationships during three avian invasions. Changes in occupancy–environment relationships over time differ among species but are predicted by dynamic occupancy models. Since estimates of the occupancy–environment relationships themselves are frequently poor predictors of future occupancy patterns, research should increasingly focus on characterizing how rates of local colonization and extinction vary with environmental conditions.

New Educational Modules Using a Cyber-Distribution System Testbed

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xie, Jing; Bedoya, Juan Carlos; Liu, Chen-Ching

At Washington State University (WSU), a modern cyber-physical system testbed has been implemented based on an industry grade distribution management system (DMS) that is integrated with remote terminal units (RTUs), smart meters, and a solar photovoltaic (PV). In addition, the real model from the Avista Utilities distribution system in Pullman, WA, is modeled in DMS. The proposed testbed environment allows students and instructors to utilize these facilities for innovations in learning and teaching. For power engineering education, this testbed helps students understand the interaction between a cyber system and a physical distribution system through industrial level visualization. The testbed providesmore » a distribution system monitoring and control environment for students. Compared with a simulation based approach, the testbed brings the students' learning environment a step closer to the real world. The educational modules allow students to learn the concepts of a cyber-physical system and an electricity market through an integrated testbed. Furthermore, the testbed provides a platform in the study mode for students to practice working on a real distribution system model. Here, this paper describes the new educational modules based on the testbed environment. Three modules are described together with the underlying educational principles and associated projects.« less

Decoding Size Distribution Patterns in Marine and Transitional Water Phytoplankton: From Community to Species Level

PubMed Central

Roselli, Leonilde; Basset, Alberto

2015-01-01

Understanding the mechanisms of phytoplankton community assembly is a fundamental issue of aquatic ecology. Here, we use field data from transitional (e.g. coastal lagoons) and coastal water environments to decode patterns of phytoplankton size distribution into organization and adaptive mechanisms. Transitional waters are characterized by higher resource availability and shallower well-mixed water column than coastal marine environments. Differences in physico-chemical regime between the two environments have been hypothesized to exert contrasting selective pressures on phytoplankton cell morphology (size and shape). We tested the hypothesis focusing on resource availability (nutrients and light) and mixed layer depth as ecological axes that define ecological niches of phytoplankton. We report fundamental differences in size distributions of marine and freshwater diatoms, with transitional water phytoplankton significantly smaller and with higher surface to volume ratio than marine species. Here, we hypothesize that mixing condition affecting size-dependent sinking may drive phytoplankton size and shape distributions. The interplay between shallow mixed layer depth and frequent and complete mixing of transitional waters may likely increase the competitive advantage of small phytoplankton limiting large cell fitness. The nutrient regime appears to explain the size distribution within both marine and transitional water environments, while it seem does not explain the pattern observed across the two environments. In addition, difference in light availability across the two environments appear do not explain the occurrence of asymmetric size distribution at each hierarchical level. We hypothesize that such competitive equilibria and adaptive strategies in resource exploitation may drive by organism’s behavior which exploring patch resources in transitional and marine phytoplankton communities. PMID:25974052

[Natural forming causes of China population distribution].

PubMed

Fang, Yu; Ouyang, Zhi-Yun; Zheng, Hua; Xiao, Yi; Niu, Jun-Feng; Chen, Sheng-Bin; Lu, Fei

2012-12-01

The diverse natural environment in China causes the spatial heterogeneity of China population distribution. It is essential to understand the interrelations between the population distribution pattern and natural environment to enhance the understanding of the man-land relationship and the realization of the sustainable management for the population, resources, and environment. This paper analyzed the China population distribution by adopting the index of population density (PD) in combining with spatial statistic method and Lorenz curve, and discussed the effects of the natural factors on the population distribution and the interrelations between the population distribution and 16 indices including average annual precipitation (AAP), average annual temperature (AAT), average annual sunshine duration (AASD), precipitation variation (PV), temperature variation (TV), sunshine duration variation (SDV), relative humidity (RH), aridity index (AI), warmth index ( WI), > or = 5 degrees C annual accumulated temperature (AACT), average elevation (AE), relative height difference (RHD), surface roughness (SR), water system density (WSD), net primary productivity (NPP), and shortest distance to seashore (SDTS). There existed an obvious aggregation phenomenon in the population distribution in China. The PD was high in east China, medium in central China, and low in west China, presenting an obvious positive spatial association. The PD was significantly positively correlated with WSD, AAT, AAP, NPP, AACT, PV, RH, and WI, and significantly negatively correlated with RHD, AE, SDV, SR, and SDTS. The climate factors (AAT, WI, PV, and NPP), topography factors (SR and RHD), and water system factor (WSD) together determined the basic pattern of the population distribution in China. It was suggested that the monitoring of the eco-environment in the east China of high population density should be strengthened to avoid the eco-environmental degradation due to the expanding population, and the conservation of the eco-environment in the central and west China with vulnerable eco-environment should also be strengthened to enhance the population carrying ability of these regions and to mitigate the eco-environmental pressure in the east China of high population density.

[Effect of environmental factors on bacterial community structure in petroleum contaminated soil of Karamay oil field].

PubMed

Liang, Jianfang; Yang, Jiangke; Yang, Yang; Chao, Qunfang; Yin, Yalan; Zhao, Yaguan

2016-08-04

This study aimed to study the phylogenetic diversity and community structure of bacteria in petroleum contaminated soils from Karamay oil field, and to analyze the relationship between the community variation and the environment parameters, to provide a reference for bioremediation of petroleum contaminated soils. We collected samples from petroleum contaminated soils in 5 cm, 20 cm and 50 cm depth layers, and measured the environment parameters subsequently. We constructed three 16S rRNA gene clone libraries of these soil samples, and then determined the operation taxonomy units (OTUs) restriction fragment length polymorphism method, and finally sequenced the representative clones of every OUT. The diversity, richness and evenness index of the bacteria communities were calculated by using Biodap software. Neighbor-Joining phylogenetic tree was constructed based on 16S rRNA gene sequences of bacteria from Karamay oil field and the references from related environments. Canonial correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to analyze the relationship between environment parameters and species by using CANOCO 4.5 software. Environment parameters showed that 50 cm deep soil contained the highest amount of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), whereas the 20 cm depth soil contained the lowest amount. The 5 cm depth soil contained the highest amount of total organic carbon (TOC), whereas the 50 cm depth soil contained the lowest amount. Among the 3 layers, 20 cm depth had the highest diversity and richness of bacteria, whereas the bacteria in 50 cm depth was the lowest. Phylogenic analyses suggested that the bacteria in Karamay oil field could be distributed into five groups at the level of phylum, Cluster I to V, respectively belong to Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicute, Bacteroidetes, Planctomycetes. Cluster I accounts for 78.57% of all tested communities. CCA results showed that TN, TP, TOC significantly affected the bacteria community structure. Especially, TOC content is significantly related to the distribution of Pseudomonas. The petroleum-contaminated soil inhabited abundant of bacteria. The diversity index and spatial distribution of these communities were affected by the environment parameters in the soil.

Dengue Vectors and their Spatial Distribution

PubMed Central

Higa, Yukiko

2011-01-01

The distribution of dengue vectors, Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus, is affected by climatic factors. In addition, since their life cycles are well adapted to the human environment, environmental changes resulting from human activity such as urbanization exert a great impact on vector distribution. The different responses of Ae. aegypti and Ae albopictus to various environments result in a difference in spatial distribution along north-south and urban-rural gradients, and between the indoors and outdoors. In the north-south gradient, climate associated with survival is an important factor in spatial distribution. In the urban-rural gradient, different distribution reflects a difference in adult niches and is modified by geographic and human factors. The direct response of the two species to the environment around houses is related to different spatial distribution indoors and outdoors. Dengue viruses circulate mainly between human and vector mosquitoes, and the vector presence is a limiting factor of transmission. Therefore, spatial distribution of dengue vectors is a significant concern in the epidemiology of the disease. Current technologies such as GIS, satellite imagery and statistical models allow researchers to predict the spatial distribution of vectors in the changing environment. Although it is difficult to confirm the actual effect of environmental and climate changes on vector abundance and vector-borne diseases, environmental changes caused by humans and human behavioral changes due to climate change can be expected to exert an impact on dengue vectors. Longitudinal monitoring of dengue vectors and viruses is therefore necessary. PMID:22500133

The portable UNIX programming system (PUPS) and CANTOR: a computational environment for dynamical representation and analysis of complex neurobiological data.

PubMed

O'Neill, M A; Hilgetag, C C

2001-08-29

Many problems in analytical biology, such as the classification of organisms, the modelling of macromolecules, or the structural analysis of metabolic or neural networks, involve complex relational data. Here, we describe a software environment, the portable UNIX programming system (PUPS), which has been developed to allow efficient computational representation and analysis of such data. The system can also be used as a general development tool for database and classification applications. As the complexity of analytical biology problems may lead to computation times of several days or weeks even on powerful computer hardware, the PUPS environment gives support for persistent computations by providing mechanisms for dynamic interaction and homeostatic protection of processes. Biological objects and their interrelations are also represented in a homeostatic way in PUPS. Object relationships are maintained and updated by the objects themselves, thus providing a flexible, scalable and current data representation. Based on the PUPS environment, we have developed an optimization package, CANTOR, which can be applied to a wide range of relational data and which has been employed in different analyses of neuroanatomical connectivity. The CANTOR package makes use of the PUPS system features by modifying candidate arrangements of objects within the system's database. This restructuring is carried out via optimization algorithms that are based on user-defined cost functions, thus providing flexible and powerful tools for the structural analysis of the database content. The use of stochastic optimization also enables the CANTOR system to deal effectively with incomplete and inconsistent data. Prototypical forms of PUPS and CANTOR have been coded and used successfully in the analysis of anatomical and functional mammalian brain connectivity, involving complex and inconsistent experimental data. In addition, PUPS has been used for solving multivariate engineering optimization problems and to implement the digital identification system (DAISY), a system for the automated classification of biological objects. PUPS is implemented in ANSI-C under the POSIX.1 standard and is to a great extent architecture- and operating-system independent. The software is supported by systems libraries that allow multi-threading (the concurrent processing of several database operations), as well as the distribution of the dynamic data objects and library operations over clusters of computers. These attributes make the system easily scalable, and in principle allow the representation and analysis of arbitrarily large sets of relational data. PUPS and CANTOR are freely distributed (http://www.pups.org.uk) as open-source software under the GNU license agreement.

The portable UNIX programming system (PUPS) and CANTOR: a computational environment for dynamical representation and analysis of complex neurobiological data.

PubMed Central

O'Neill, M A; Hilgetag, C C

2001-01-01

Many problems in analytical biology, such as the classification of organisms, the modelling of macromolecules, or the structural analysis of metabolic or neural networks, involve complex relational data. Here, we describe a software environment, the portable UNIX programming system (PUPS), which has been developed to allow efficient computational representation and analysis of such data. The system can also be used as a general development tool for database and classification applications. As the complexity of analytical biology problems may lead to computation times of several days or weeks even on powerful computer hardware, the PUPS environment gives support for persistent computations by providing mechanisms for dynamic interaction and homeostatic protection of processes. Biological objects and their interrelations are also represented in a homeostatic way in PUPS. Object relationships are maintained and updated by the objects themselves, thus providing a flexible, scalable and current data representation. Based on the PUPS environment, we have developed an optimization package, CANTOR, which can be applied to a wide range of relational data and which has been employed in different analyses of neuroanatomical connectivity. The CANTOR package makes use of the PUPS system features by modifying candidate arrangements of objects within the system's database. This restructuring is carried out via optimization algorithms that are based on user-defined cost functions, thus providing flexible and powerful tools for the structural analysis of the database content. The use of stochastic optimization also enables the CANTOR system to deal effectively with incomplete and inconsistent data. Prototypical forms of PUPS and CANTOR have been coded and used successfully in the analysis of anatomical and functional mammalian brain connectivity, involving complex and inconsistent experimental data. In addition, PUPS has been used for solving multivariate engineering optimization problems and to implement the digital identification system (DAISY), a system for the automated classification of biological objects. PUPS is implemented in ANSI-C under the POSIX.1 standard and is to a great extent architecture- and operating-system independent. The software is supported by systems libraries that allow multi-threading (the concurrent processing of several database operations), as well as the distribution of the dynamic data objects and library operations over clusters of computers. These attributes make the system easily scalable, and in principle allow the representation and analysis of arbitrarily large sets of relational data. PUPS and CANTOR are freely distributed (http://www.pups.org.uk) as open-source software under the GNU license agreement. PMID:11545702

PROS: An IRAF based system for analysis of x ray data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Conroy, M. A.; Deponte, J.; Moran, J. F.; Orszak, J. S.; Roberts, W. P.; Schmidt, D.

1992-01-01

PROS is an IRAF based software package for the reduction and analysis of x-ray data. The use of a standard, portable, integrated environment provides for both multi-frequency and multi-mission analysis. The analysis of x-ray data differs from optical analysis due to the nature of the x-ray data and its acquisition during constantly varying conditions. The scarcity of data, the low signal-to-noise ratio and the large gaps in exposure time make data screening and masking an important part of the analysis. PROS was developed to support the analysis of data from the ROSAT and Einstein missions but many of the tasks have been used on data from other missions. IRAF/PROS provides a complete end-to-end system for x-ray data analysis: (1) a set of tools for importing and exporting data via FITS format -- in particular, IRAF provides a specialized event-list format, QPOE, that is compatible with its IMAGE (2-D array) format; (2) a powerful set of IRAF system capabilities for both temporal and spatial event filtering; (3) full set of imaging and graphics tasks; (4) specialized packages for scientific analysis such as spatial, spectral and timing analysis -- these consist of both general and mission specific tasks; and (5) complete system support including ftp and magnetic tape releases, electronic and conventional mail hotline support, electronic mail distribution of solutions to frequently asked questions and current known bugs. We will discuss the philosophy, architecture and development environment used by PROS to generate a portable, multimission software environment. PROS is available on all platforms that support IRAF, including Sun/Unix, VAX/VMS, HP, and Decstations. It is available on request at no charge.

Acceleration Environment of the International Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McPherson, Kevin; Kelly, Eric; Keller, Jennifer

2009-01-01

Measurement of the microgravity acceleration environment on the International Space Station has been accomplished by two accelerometer systems since 2001. The Microgravity Acceleration Measurement System records the quasi-steady microgravity environment, including the influences of aerodynamic drag, vehicle rotation, and venting effects. Measurement of the vibratory/transient regime, comprised of vehicle, crew, and equipment disturbances, has been accomplished by the Space Acceleration Measurement System-II. Until the arrival of the Columbus Orbital Facility and the Japanese Experiment Module, the location of these sensors, and therefore, the measurement of the microgravity acceleration environment, has been limited to within the United States Laboratory. Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has developed a vibratory acceleration measurement system called the Microgravity Measurement Apparatus which will be deployed within the Japanese Experiment Module to make distributed measurements of the Japanese Experiment Module's vibratory acceleration environment. Two Space Acceleration Measurement System sensors from the United States Laboratory will be re-deployed to support vibratory acceleration data measurement within the Columbus Orbital Facility. The additional measurement opportunities resulting from the arrival of these new laboratories allows Principal Investigators with facilities located in these International Space Station research laboratories to obtain microgravity acceleration data in support of their sensitive experiments. The Principal Investigator Microgravity Services project, at NASA Glenn Research Center, in Cleveland, Ohio, has supported acceleration measurement systems and the microgravity scientific community through the processing, characterization, distribution, and archival of the microgravity acceleration data obtained from the International Space Station acceleration measurement systems. This paper summarizes the PIMS capabilities available to the International Space Station scientific community, introduces plans for extending microgravity analysis results to the newly arrived scientific laboratories, and provides summary information for known microgravity environment disturbers.

Note on the paleobiogeography of Compsognathidae (Dinosauria: Theropoda) and its paleoecological implications.

PubMed

Sales, Marcos A F; Cascon, Paulo; Schultz, Cesar L

2014-03-01

The paleobiogeography of the theropod clade Compsognathidae is here reaccessed in order to test the hypothesis of this taxon being adapted specifically to inhabit semi-arid environments. Data about localities where these fossils were collected and their paleoenvironments were gathered from the literature. Compsognathids seem to be found especially in sedimentary deposits known as Fossil Lagerstätten, which were formed under a set of specific conditions that allowed the preservation of the fragile bone remains of these animals. This bias limits an accurate analysis of the historical and/or ecological paleobiogeography of this taxon. Actually, it is possible that compsognathids had an almost worldwide distribution during the Mesozoic Era. Their occurrence in Lower Cretaceous rocks of China suggests that they also inhabited environments with moist conditions instead of being restricted to semi-arid to arid environments.

BioContainers: an open-source and community-driven framework for software standardization.

PubMed

da Veiga Leprevost, Felipe; Grüning, Björn A; Alves Aflitos, Saulo; Röst, Hannes L; Uszkoreit, Julian; Barsnes, Harald; Vaudel, Marc; Moreno, Pablo; Gatto, Laurent; Weber, Jonas; Bai, Mingze; Jimenez, Rafael C; Sachsenberg, Timo; Pfeuffer, Julianus; Vera Alvarez, Roberto; Griss, Johannes; Nesvizhskii, Alexey I; Perez-Riverol, Yasset

2017-08-15

BioContainers (biocontainers.pro) is an open-source and community-driven framework which provides platform independent executable environments for bioinformatics software. BioContainers allows labs of all sizes to easily install bioinformatics software, maintain multiple versions of the same software and combine tools into powerful analysis pipelines. BioContainers is based on popular open-source projects Docker and rkt frameworks, that allow software to be installed and executed under an isolated and controlled environment. Also, it provides infrastructure and basic guidelines to create, manage and distribute bioinformatics containers with a special focus on omics technologies. These containers can be integrated into more comprehensive bioinformatics pipelines and different architectures (local desktop, cloud environments or HPC clusters). The software is freely available at github.com/BioContainers/. yperez@ebi.ac.uk. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

BioContainers: an open-source and community-driven framework for software standardization

PubMed Central

da Veiga Leprevost, Felipe; Grüning, Björn A.; Alves Aflitos, Saulo; Röst, Hannes L.; Uszkoreit, Julian; Barsnes, Harald; Vaudel, Marc; Moreno, Pablo; Gatto, Laurent; Weber, Jonas; Bai, Mingze; Jimenez, Rafael C.; Sachsenberg, Timo; Pfeuffer, Julianus; Vera Alvarez, Roberto; Griss, Johannes; Nesvizhskii, Alexey I.; Perez-Riverol, Yasset

2017-01-01

Abstract Motivation BioContainers (biocontainers.pro) is an open-source and community-driven framework which provides platform independent executable environments for bioinformatics software. BioContainers allows labs of all sizes to easily install bioinformatics software, maintain multiple versions of the same software and combine tools into powerful analysis pipelines. BioContainers is based on popular open-source projects Docker and rkt frameworks, that allow software to be installed and executed under an isolated and controlled environment. Also, it provides infrastructure and basic guidelines to create, manage and distribute bioinformatics containers with a special focus on omics technologies. These containers can be integrated into more comprehensive bioinformatics pipelines and different architectures (local desktop, cloud environments or HPC clusters). Availability and Implementation The software is freely available at github.com/BioContainers/. Contact yperez@ebi.ac.uk PMID:28379341

Identification of Specialists and Abundance-Occupancy Relationships among Intestinal Bacteria of Aves, Mammalia, and Actinopterygii.

PubMed

Green, Hyatt C; Fisher, Jenny C; McLellan, Sandra L; Sogin, Mitchell L; Shanks, Orin C

2015-12-28

The coalescence of next-generation DNA sequencing methods, ecological perspectives, and bioinformatics analysis tools is rapidly advancing our understanding of the evolution and function of vertebrate-associated bacterial communities. Delineation of host-microbe associations has applied benefits ranging from clinical treatments to protecting our natural waters. Microbial communities follow some broad-scale patterns observed for macroorganisms, but it remains unclear how the specialization of intestinal vertebrate-associated communities to a particular host environment influences broad-scale patterns in microbial abundance and distribution. We analyzed the V6 region of 16S rRNA genes amplified from 106 fecal samples spanning Aves, Mammalia, and Actinopterygii (ray-finned fish). We investigated the interspecific abundance-occupancy relationship, where widespread taxa tend to be more abundant than narrowly distributed taxa, among operational taxonomic units (OTUs) within and among host species. In a separate analysis, we identified specialist OTUs that were highly abundant in a single host and rare in all other hosts by using a multinomial model without excluding undersampled OTUs a priori. We show that intestinal microbes in humans and other vertebrates display abundance-occupancy relationships, but because intestinal host-associated communities have undergone intense specialization, this trend is violated by a disproportionately large number of specialist taxa. Although it is difficult to distinguish the effects of dispersal limitations, host selection, historical contingency, and stochastic processes on community assembly, results suggest that intestinal bacteria can be shared among diverse hosts in ways that resemble the distribution of "free-living" bacteria in the extraintestinal environment. Copyright © 2016, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Ecological characterization of a tick community across a landscape gradient exhibiting differential anthropogenic disturbance in the Atlantic Forest ecoregion in Argentina.

PubMed

Lamattina, D; Venzal, J M; Costa, S A; Arrabal, J P; Flores, S; Berrozpe, P E; González-Acuña, D; Guglielmone, A A; Nava, S

2018-01-25

An ecological analysis of a tick (Ixodida: Ixodidae) community across a landscape gradient presenting differential anthropogenic disturbance in the Atlantic Forest ecoregion in Argentina was performed. Ticks were collected from vegetation and hosts between September 2014 and August 2016. A total of 12 697 free-living ticks and 3347 specimens from hosts were collected, including 317 ticks infesting humans. The values obtained show considerable species diversity in the forest environment accompanied by low equitability. The similarity index derived from a comparison of forest and agricultural environments was higher than that calculated by comparing forest and urban environments. The data suggest that although a cycle of one generation per year is apparent in some species, more than one cohort may co-exist within the populations of some of these species. Well-marked patterns of the seasonal distribution of free-living tick species emerged in environments with no anthropic modification. The results indicate that forest environments are more suitable habitats than agricultural and urban environments for many species of native tick, but are unsuitable for exotic species that have successfully established in environments that have been modified by man. © 2018 The Royal Entomological Society.

Analysis of Biogenic VOCs Emissions During the MAPS-Seoul Aircraft Field Campaign

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Y.; Woo, J. H.; Kim, Y.; Bu, C.; Kim, J.; Kim, H. K.; Lee, M. H.; Eo, Y.

2016-12-01

The MAPS-Seoul (Megacity Air Pollution Studies-Seoul) aircraft mission was conducted in May - June 2016 to understand atmospheric environment over the South Korea. BVOCs emissions forecasting, along with other components, were conducted daily in support of the aircraft mission planning. The biogenic emissions as well as anthropogenic ones were very important factor to model and analyze atmospheric environment since more than 80% of global VOCs emission comes from biogenic sources. This also could be true for South Korea, since more than 70% of its land area are vegetated such as forest, cropland. For modeling-based BVOC emission estimation, geographical distribution of PFT (plant functional type) and LAI (Leaf Area Index) are considered as very important driving variables. Most of cases, PFTs and LAI were derived from the low-resolution satellite-based information which are not quite ideal for relatively small area like South Korea. In this study, we developed the more reliable Korean PFT and LAI cover derived from Korean landcover maps and modeled satellite images. The WRF-MEGAN modeling framework over South Korea for the period of May to June 2016 was used to estimate re-analysis BVOCs emission field. Analysis of different PFT and LAI inputs affected local and national biogenic emission estimations will be presented at site. Acknowledgements : This subject is supported by Korea Ministry of Environment as "Climate Change Correspondence Program". This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Environment Research (NIER), funded by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of the Republic of Korea.

Complete distributed computing environment for a HEP experiment: experience with ARC-connected infrastructure for ATLAS

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Read, A.; Taga, A.; O-Saada, F.; Pajchel, K.; Samset, B. H.; Cameron, D.

2008-07-01

Computing and storage resources connected by the Nordugrid ARC middleware in the Nordic countries, Switzerland and Slovenia are a part of the ATLAS computing Grid. This infrastructure is being commissioned with the ongoing ATLAS Monte Carlo simulation production in preparation for the commencement of data taking in 2008. The unique non-intrusive architecture of ARC, its straightforward interplay with the ATLAS Production System via the Dulcinea executor, and its performance during the commissioning exercise is described. ARC support for flexible and powerful end-user analysis within the GANGA distributed analysis framework is also shown. Whereas the storage solution for this Grid was earlier based on a large, distributed collection of GridFTP-servers, the ATLAS computing design includes a structured SRM-based system with a limited number of storage endpoints. The characteristics, integration and performance of the old and new storage solutions are presented. Although the hardware resources in this Grid are quite modest, it has provided more than double the agreed contribution to the ATLAS production with an efficiency above 95% during long periods of stable operation.

Estimation Accuracy on Execution Time of Run-Time Tasks in a Heterogeneous Distributed Environment

PubMed Central

Liu, Qi; Cai, Weidong; Jin, Dandan; Shen, Jian; Fu, Zhangjie; Liu, Xiaodong; Linge, Nigel

2016-01-01

Distributed Computing has achieved tremendous development since cloud computing was proposed in 2006, and played a vital role promoting rapid growth of data collecting and analysis models, e.g., Internet of things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Big Data Analytics, etc. Hadoop has become a data convergence platform for sensor networks. As one of the core components, MapReduce facilitates allocating, processing and mining of collected large-scale data, where speculative execution strategies help solve straggler problems. However, there is still no efficient solution for accurate estimation on execution time of run-time tasks, which can affect task allocation and distribution in MapReduce. In this paper, task execution data have been collected and employed for the estimation. A two-phase regression (TPR) method is proposed to predict the finishing time of each task accurately. Detailed data of each task have drawn interests with detailed analysis report being made. According to the results, the prediction accuracy of concurrent tasks’ execution time can be improved, in particular for some regular jobs. PMID:27589753

Study of the marine environment of the northern Gulf of California

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hendrickson, J. R. (Principal Investigator)

1972-01-01

The author has identified the following significant results. Preliminary analysis of the first three months of ERTS-1 imagery have revealed that the MSS images have particular utility for study of turbidity patterns, current phenomena, and bathymetry throughout the test area. Early indications are that well defined spatial distributions of turbidity exist in the northern Gulf of California, and that for any one point in time, these distributions vary with depth. From a single set of images, as many as 3 turbidity maps may be generated, each indicating a vertical spatial relationship of the turbidity masses. The spatial distribution of turbidity masses depend partially upon the coincident currents. In the band of deepest penetration, a map can be gathered which roughly corresponds to the bathymetry of the area. The extreme tides in the northern Gulf of California result in vast areas which can be classified as intertidal mud flats. Information on the amount of exposure at the varying tidal states is important in analysis of these mud flat areas as nursery ground for Mexican commercial fisheries.

The Velocity and Density Distribution of Earth-Intersecting Meteoroids: Implications for Environment Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moorhead, A. V.; Brown, P. G.; Campbell-Brown, M. D.; Moser, D. E.; Blaauw, R. C.; Cooke, W. J.

2017-01-01

Meteoroids are known to damage spacecraft: they can crater or puncture components, disturb a spacecraft's attitude, and potentially create secondary electrical effects. Because the damage done depends on the speed, size, density, and direction of the impactor, accurate environment models are critical for mitigating meteoroid-related risks. Yet because meteoroid properties are derived from indirect observations such as meteors and impact craters, many characteristics of the meteoroid environment are uncertain. In this work, we present recent improvements to the meteoroid speed and density distributions. Our speed distribution is derived from observations made by the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar. These observations are de-biased using modern descriptions of the ionization efficiency. Our approach yields a slower meteoroid population than previous analyses (see Fig. 1 for an example) and we compute the uncertainties associated with our derived distribution. We adopt a higher fidelity density distribution than that used by many older models. In our distribution, meteoroids with TJ less than 2 are assigned to a low-density population, while those with TJ greater than 2 have higher densities (see Fig. 2). This division and the distributions themselves are derived from the densities reported by Kikwaya et al. These changes have implications for the environment: for instance, the helion/antihelion sporadic sources have lower speeds than the apex and toroidal sources and originate from high-T(sub J) parent bodies. Our on-average slower and denser distributions thus imply that the helion and antihelion sources dominate the meteoroid environment even more completely than previously thought. Finally, for a given near-Earth meteoroid cratering rate, a slower meteoroid population produces a comparatively higher rate of satellite attitude disturbances.

Effects of charge inhomogeneities on elementary excitations in La 2-xSr xCuO₄

DOE PAGES

Park, S. R.; Hamann, A.; Pintschovius, L.; ...

2011-12-12

Purely local experimental probes of many copper oxide superconductors show that their electronic states are inhomogeneous in real space. For example, scanning tunneling spectroscopic imaging shows strong variations in real space, and according to nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) studies, the charge distribution in the bulk varies on the nanoscale. However, the analysis of the experimental results utilizing spatially averaged probes often ignores this fact. We have performed a detailed investigation of the doping dependence of the energy and linewidth of the zone-boundary Cu-O bond-stretching vibration in La 2-xSr xCuO₄ by inelastic neutron scattering. Both our results as well as previouslymore » reported angle-dependent momentum widths of the electronic spectral function detected by angle-resolved photoemission can be reproduced by including the same distribution of local environments extracted from the NQR analysis.« less

High Level Analysis, Design and Validation of Distributed Mobile Systems with CoreASM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Farahbod, R.; Glässer, U.; Jackson, P. J.; Vajihollahi, M.

System design is a creative activity calling for abstract models that facilitate reasoning about the key system attributes (desired requirements and resulting properties) so as to ensure these attributes are properly established prior to actually building a system. We explore here the practical side of using the abstract state machine (ASM) formalism in combination with the CoreASM open source tool environment for high-level design and experimental validation of complex distributed systems. Emphasizing the early phases of the design process, a guiding principle is to support freedom of experimentation by minimizing the need for encoding. CoreASM has been developed and tested building on a broad scope of applications, spanning computational criminology, maritime surveillance and situation analysis. We critically reexamine here the CoreASM project in light of three different application scenarios.

Contamination of environment in the road surroudings - impact of road salting on Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hegrová, Jitka; Steiner, Oliver; Goessler, Walter; Tanda, Stefan; Anděl, Petr

2017-09-01

A comprehensive overview of the influence of transport on the environment is presented in this study. The complex analysis of soil and needle samples provides an extensive set of data, which presents elemental contamination of the environment near roads. Traffic pollution (including winter road treatment) has a significant negative influence on our environment. Besides sodium and chlorine from winter maintenance many other elements are emitted into the environment. Three possible sources of contamination are assumed for environmental contamination evaluation: car emission, winter maintenance and abrasion from breaks and clutches. The chemical analysis focused on the description of samples from inorganic point of view. The influence of the contamination potential on the sodium and chlorine content in the samples of 1st year-old and 2nd year-old needles of Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is discussed. Additional soil samples were taken from each sampling site and analyzed to get insight in the sodium and chlorine distribution. Statistical evaluation was used for interpretation of complex interaction patterns between element concentrations in different aged needles based on localities character including distance from the road and element concentration in soils. This species of needles were chosen because of its heightened sensitivity towards salinization. The study was conducted in different parts of the Czech Republic. The resulting database is a source of valuable information about the influence of transport on the environment.

An Empirical Study Analyzing Job Productivity in Toxic Workplace Environments

PubMed Central

Anjum, Amna; Ming, Xu; Siddiqi, Ahmed Faisal

2018-01-01

Purpose: This empirical study aims to determine the effects of a toxic workplace environment, which can negatively impact the job productivity of an employee. Methodology: Three hundred questionnaires were randomly distributed among the staff members of seven private universities in Pakistan with a final response rate of 89%. For analysis purposes, AMOS 22 was used to study the direct and indirect effects of the toxic workplace environment on job productivity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure the convergent and discriminant validity of the factors, while the Hayes mediation approach was used to verify the mediating role of job burnout between the four dimensions of toxic workplace environment and job productivity. A toxic workplace with multiple dimensions, such as workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, workplace harassment, and workplace bullying, was used in this study. Findings: By using the multiple statistical tools and techniques, it has been proven that ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying have direct negative significant effects on job productivity, while job burnout was shown to be a statistical significant mediator between the dimensions of a toxic workplace environment and job productivity. Finally, we concluded that organizations need to eradicate the factors of toxic workplace environments to ensure their prosperity and success. Practical Implications: This study encourages managers, leaders, and top management to adopt appropriate policies for enhancing employees’ productivity. Limitations: This study was conducted by using a cross-sectional research design. Future research aims to expand the study by using a longitudinal research design. PMID:29883424

An Empirical Study Analyzing Job Productivity in Toxic Workplace Environments.

PubMed

Anjum, Amna; Ming, Xu; Siddiqi, Ahmed Faisal; Rasool, Samma Faiz

2018-05-21

Purpose: This empirical study aims to determine the effects of a toxic workplace environment, which can negatively impact the job productivity of an employee. Methodology: Three hundred questionnaires were randomly distributed among the staff members of seven private universities in Pakistan with a final response rate of 89%. For analysis purposes, AMOS 22 was used to study the direct and indirect effects of the toxic workplace environment on job productivity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted to ensure the convergent and discriminant validity of the factors, while the Hayes mediation approach was used to verify the mediating role of job burnout between the four dimensions of toxic workplace environment and job productivity. A toxic workplace with multiple dimensions, such as workplace ostracism, workplace incivility, workplace harassment, and workplace bullying, was used in this study. Findings: By using the multiple statistical tools and techniques, it has been proven that ostracism, incivility, harassment, and bullying have direct negative significant effects on job productivity, while job burnout was shown to be a statistical significant mediator between the dimensions of a toxic workplace environment and job productivity. Finally, we concluded that organizations need to eradicate the factors of toxic workplace environments to ensure their prosperity and success. Practical Implications: This study encourages managers, leaders, and top management to adopt appropriate policies for enhancing employees’ productivity. Limitations: This study was conducted by using a cross-sectional research design. Future research aims to expand the study by using a longitudinal research design.

Distribution and Abundance of Hopanoid Producers in Low-Oxygen Environments of the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

PubMed

Kharbush, Jenan J; Kejriwal, Kanchi; Aluwihare, Lihini I

2016-02-01

Hopanoids are bacterial membrane lipid biomarker molecules that feature prominently in the molecular fossil record. In the modern marine water column, recent reports implicate bacteria inhabiting low-oxygen environments as important sources of hopanoids to marine sediments. However, the preliminary biogeography reported by recent studies and the environmental conditions governing such distributions can only be confirmed when the numerical abundance of these organisms is known with more certainty. In this study, we employ two different approaches to examine the quantitative significance of phylogenetically distinct hopanoid producers in low-oxygen environments. First, we develop a novel quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay for the squalene hopene cyclase (sqhC) gene, targeting a subset of hopanoid producers previously identified to be important in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. The results represent the first quantitative gene abundance data of any kind for hopanoid producers in the marine water column and show that these putative alphaproteobacterial hopanoid producers are rare, comprising at most 0.2 % of the total bacterial community in our samples. Second, a complementary analysis of existing low-oxygen metagenomic datasets further examined the generality of the qPCR observation. We find that the dominant sqhC sequences in these metagenomic datasets are associated with phyla such as Nitrospinae rather than Proteobacteria, consistent with the qPCR finding that alphaproteobacterial hopanoid producers are not very abundant in low-oxygen environments. In fact, positive correlations between sqhC gene abundance and environmental parameters in these samples identify nitrite availability as a potentially important factor in the ecology of hopanoid producers that dominate low-oxygen environments.

Spatial Structures of the Environment and of Dispersal Impact Species Distribution in Competitive Metacommunities

PubMed Central

Ai, Dexiecuo; Gravel, Dominique; Chu, Chengjin; Wang, Gang

2013-01-01

The correspondence between species distribution and the environment depends on species’ ability to track favorable environmental conditions (via dispersal) and to maintain competitive hierarchy against the constant influx of migrants (mass effect) and demographic stochasticity (ecological drift). Here we report a simulation study of the influence of landscape structure on species distribution. We consider lottery competition for space in a spatially heterogeneous environment, where the landscape is represented as a network of localities connected by dispersal. We quantified the contribution of neutrality and species sorting to their spatial distribution. We found that neutrality increases and the strength of species-sorting decreases with the centrality of a community in the landscape when the average dispersal among communities is low, whereas the opposite was found at elevated dispersal. We also found that the strength of species-sorting increases with environmental heterogeneity. Our results illustrate that spatial structure of the environment and of dispersal must be taken into account for understanding species distribution. We stress the importance of spatial geographic structure on the relative importance of niche vs. neutral processes in controlling community dynamics. PMID:23874815

Spatial structures of the environment and of dispersal impact species distribution in competitive metacommunities.

PubMed

Ai, Dexiecuo; Gravel, Dominique; Chu, Chengjin; Wang, Gang

2013-01-01

The correspondence between species distribution and the environment depends on species' ability to track favorable environmental conditions (via dispersal) and to maintain competitive hierarchy against the constant influx of migrants (mass effect) and demographic stochasticity (ecological drift). Here we report a simulation study of the influence of landscape structure on species distribution. We consider lottery competition for space in a spatially heterogeneous environment, where the landscape is represented as a network of localities connected by dispersal. We quantified the contribution of neutrality and species sorting to their spatial distribution. We found that neutrality increases and the strength of species-sorting decreases with the centrality of a community in the landscape when the average dispersal among communities is low, whereas the opposite was found at elevated dispersal. We also found that the strength of species-sorting increases with environmental heterogeneity. Our results illustrate that spatial structure of the environment and of dispersal must be taken into account for understanding species distribution. We stress the importance of spatial geographic structure on the relative importance of niche vs. neutral processes in controlling community dynamics.

Structure and Spatial Distribution of the Chironomidae Community in Mesohabitats in a First Order Stream at the Poço D'Anta Municipal Biological Reserve in Brazil

PubMed Central

Vescovi Rosa, Beatriz Figueiraujo Jabour; de Oliveira, Vívian Campos; Alves, Roberto da Gama

2011-01-01

The Chironomidae occupy different habitats along the lotic system with their distribution determined by different factors such as the substrate characteristics and water speed. The input of vegetable material from the riparian forest allows a higher habitat diversity and food to the benthic fauna. The main aim of this paper is to verify the structure and spatial distribution of the Chironomidae fauna in different mesohabitats in a first order stream located at a Biological Reserve in the southeast of Brazil. In the months of July, August, and September 2007, and in January, February, and March 2008, samples were collected with a hand net (250 µm) in the following mesohabitats: litter from riffles, litter from pools, and sediment from pools. The community structure of each mesohabitat was analyzed through the abundance of organisms, taxa richness, Pielou's evenness, Shannon's diversity, and taxa dominance. Similarity among the mesohabitats was obtained by Cluster analysis, and Chironomidae larvae distribution through the Correspondence analysis. Indicator species analysis was used to identify possible taxa preference for a determined mesohabitat. The analyzed mesohabitats showed high species richness and diversity favored by the large environmental heterogeneity. Some taxa were indicators of the type of mesohabitat. The substrate was the main factor that determined taxa distribution in relation to water flow differences (riffle and pool). Stream characteristics such as low water speed and the presence of natural mechanisms of retention may have provided a higher faunistic similarity between the areas with different flows. The results showed that the physical characteristics of each environment presented a close relationship with the structure and spatial distribution of the Chironomidae fauna in lotic systems. PMID:21529258

Demonstration of Cost-Effective, High-Performance Computing at Performance and Reliability Levels Equivalent to a 1994 Vector Supercomputer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Babrauckas, Theresa

2000-01-01

The Affordable High Performance Computing (AHPC) project demonstrated that high-performance computing based on a distributed network of computer workstations is a cost-effective alternative to vector supercomputers for running CPU and memory intensive design and analysis tools. The AHPC project created an integrated system called a Network Supercomputer. By connecting computer work-stations through a network and utilizing the workstations when they are idle, the resulting distributed-workstation environment has the same performance and reliability levels as the Cray C90 vector Supercomputer at less than 25 percent of the C90 cost. In fact, the cost comparison between a Cray C90 Supercomputer and Sun workstations showed that the number of distributed networked workstations equivalent to a C90 costs approximately 8 percent of the C90.

Modelling maximum river flow by using Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheong, R. Y.; Gabda, D.

2017-09-01

Analysis of flood trends is vital since flooding threatens human living in terms of financial, environment and security. The data of annual maximum river flows in Sabah were fitted into generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution. Maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) raised naturally when working with GEV distribution. However, previous researches showed that MLE provide unstable results especially in small sample size. In this study, we used different Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) based on Metropolis-Hastings algorithm to estimate GEV parameters. Bayesian MCMC method is a statistical inference which studies the parameter estimation by using posterior distribution based on Bayes’ theorem. Metropolis-Hastings algorithm is used to overcome the high dimensional state space faced in Monte Carlo method. This approach also considers more uncertainty in parameter estimation which then presents a better prediction on maximum river flow in Sabah.

40 CFR 745.84 - Information distribution requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 30 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Information distribution requirements. 745.84 Section 745.84 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential...

40 CFR 745.84 - Information distribution requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 32 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Information distribution requirements. 745.84 Section 745.84 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential...

40 CFR 745.84 - Information distribution requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 31 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Information distribution requirements. 745.84 Section 745.84 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential...

40 CFR 745.84 - Information distribution requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 32 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Information distribution requirements. 745.84 Section 745.84 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential...

40 CFR 745.84 - Information distribution requirements.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 31 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Information distribution requirements. 745.84 Section 745.84 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential...

Cloud-scale genomic signals processing classification analysis for gene expression microarray data.

PubMed

Harvey, Benjamin; Soo-Yeon Ji

2014-01-01

As microarray data available to scientists continues to increase in size and complexity, it has become overwhelmingly important to find multiple ways to bring inference though analysis of DNA/mRNA sequence data that is useful to scientists. Though there have been many attempts to elucidate the issue of bringing forth biological inference by means of wavelet preprocessing and classification, there has not been a research effort that focuses on a cloud-scale classification analysis of microarray data using Wavelet thresholding in a Cloud environment to identify significantly expressed features. This paper proposes a novel methodology that uses Wavelet based Denoising to initialize a threshold for determination of significantly expressed genes for classification. Additionally, this research was implemented and encompassed within cloud-based distributed processing environment. The utilization of Cloud computing and Wavelet thresholding was used for the classification 14 tumor classes from the Global Cancer Map (GCM). The results proved to be more accurate than using a predefined p-value for differential expression classification. This novel methodology analyzed Wavelet based threshold features of gene expression in a Cloud environment, furthermore classifying the expression of samples by analyzing gene patterns, which inform us of biological processes. Moreover, enabling researchers to face the present and forthcoming challenges that may arise in the analysis of data in functional genomics of large microarray datasets.

Biomonitoring of Air Condition in Urban Environment (with Regard to Irkutsk, Irkutsk region in Russia)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belykh, L. I.

2017-11-01

The paper deals with the results of investigation into the contents and distribution of cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene in the leaves of the trees that are common in the urban environment of Irkutsk. The degree of plant pollution is determined depending on the landscape and traffic exposure, on the mode of the plant material being prepared and on its type. The methodology for landscape geochemical biomonitoring is offered to be used at the stages of sample sorting and preparation and in the statistical treatment of the analysis results obtained. The possibility to use tree leaves as biotest materials for the urban atmosphere state control is considered in the paper.

Technology developments integrating a space network communications testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kwong, Winston; Jennings, Esther; Clare, Loren; Leang, Dee

2006-01-01

As future manned and robotic space explorations missions involve more complex systems, it is essential to verify, validate, and optimize such systems through simulation and emulation in a low cost testbed environment. The goal of such a testbed is to perform detailed testing of advanced space and ground communications networks, technologies, and client applications that are essential for future space exploration missions. We describe the development of new technologies enhancing our Multi-mission Advanced Communications Hybrid Environment for Test and Evaluation (MACHETE) that enables its integration in a distributed space communications testbed. MACHETE combines orbital modeling, link analysis, and protocol and service modeling to quantify system performance based on comprehensive considerations of different aspects of space missions.

The Fifteen-Year Attitude History of the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 Radiator and Collection Efficiencies for Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Anz-Meador, Phillip D.; Liou, Jer-Chyi; Cooke, William J.; Koehler, H.

2010-01-01

An examination of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC-2) radiator assembly was conducted at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) during the summer of 2009. Immediately apparent was a distinct biasing of the largest 45 impact features towards one side of the radiator, in contrast to an approximately uniform distribution of smaller impacts. Such a distribution may be a consequence of the HST s attitude history and pointing requirements for the cold radiator, or of environmental effects, such as an anisotropic distribution of the responsible population in that size regime. Understanding the size-dependent spatial distribution of impact features is essential to the general analysis of these features. We have obtained from GSFC a 15 minute temporal resolution record of the state vector (Earth Centered Inertial position and velocity) and HST attitude, consisting of the orientation of the velocity and HST-sun vectors in HST body coordinates. This paper reviews the actual state vector and attitude history of the radiator in the context of the randomly tumbling plate assumption and assesses the statistical likelihood (or collection efficiency) of the radiator for the micrometeoroid and orbital debris environments. The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center s Meteoroid Environment Model is used to assess the micrometeoroid component. The NASA Orbital Debris Engineering Model (ORDEM) is used to model the orbital debris component. Modeling results are compared with observations of the impact feature spatial distribution, and the relative contribution of each environmental component are examined in detail.

Remote Stratigraphic Analysis: Combined TM and AIS Results in the Wind River/bighorn Basin Area, Wyoming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lang, H. R.; Paylor, E. D.; Adams, S.

1985-01-01

An in-progress study demonstrates the utility of airborne imaging spectrometer (AIS) data for unraveling the stratigraphic evolution of a North American, western interior foreland basin. AIS data are used to determine the stratigraphic distribution of mineralogical facies that are diagnostic of specific depositional environments. After wavelength and amplitude calibration using natural ground targets with known spectral characteristics, AIS data identify calcite, dolomite, gypsum and montmorillonite-bearing strata in the Permian-Cretaceous sequence. Combined AIS and TM results illustrate the feasibility of spectral stratigraphy, remote analysis of stratigraphic sequences.

Resolution analysis of archive films for the purpose of their optimal digitization and distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fliegel, Karel; Vítek, Stanislav; Páta, Petr; Myslík, Jiří; Pecák, Josef; Jícha, Marek

2017-09-01

With recent high demand for ultra-high-definition (UHD) content to be screened in high-end digital movie theaters but also in the home environment, film archives full of movies in high-definition and above are in the scope of UHD content providers. Movies captured with the traditional film technology represent a virtually unlimited source of UHD content. The goal to maintain complete image information is also related to the choice of scanning resolution and spatial resolution for further distribution. It might seem that scanning the film material in the highest possible resolution using state-of-the-art film scanners and also its distribution in this resolution is the right choice. The information content of the digitized images is however limited, and various degradations moreover lead to its further reduction. Digital distribution of the content in the highest image resolution might be therefore unnecessary or uneconomical. In other cases, the highest possible resolution is inevitable if we want to preserve fine scene details or film grain structure for archiving purposes. This paper deals with the image detail content analysis of archive film records. The resolution limit in captured scene image and factors which lower the final resolution are discussed. Methods are proposed to determine the spatial details of the film picture based on the analysis of its digitized image data. These procedures allow determining recommendations for optimal distribution of digitized video content intended for various display devices with lower resolutions. Obtained results are illustrated on spatial downsampling use case scenario, and performance evaluation of the proposed techniques is presented.

Effects of interface pressure distribution on human sleep quality.

PubMed

Chen, Zongyong; Li, Yuqian; Liu, Rong; Gao, Dong; Chen, Quanhui; Hu, Zhian; Guo, Jiajun

2014-01-01

High sleep quality promotes efficient performance in the following day. Sleep quality is influenced by environmental factors, such as temperature, light, sound and smell. Here, we investigated whether differences in the interface pressure distribution on healthy individuals during sleep influenced sleep quality. We defined four types of pressure models by differences in the area distribution and the subjective feelings that occurred when participants slept on the mattresses. One type of model was showed "over-concentrated" distribution of pressure; one was displayed "over-evenly" distributed interface pressure while the other two models were displayed intermediate distribution of pressure. A polysomnography analysis demonstrated an increase in duration and proportion of non-rapid-eye-movement sleep stages 3 and 4, as well as decreased number of micro-arousals, in subjects sleeping on models with pressure intermediately distributed compared to models with over-concentrated or over-even distribution of pressure. Similarly, higher scores of self-reported sleep quality were obtained in subjects sleeping on the two models with intermediate pressure distribution. Thus, pressure distribution, at least to some degree, influences sleep quality and self-reported feelings of sleep-related events, though the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. The regulation of pressure models imposed by external sleep environment may be a new direction for improving sleep quality. Only an appropriate interface pressure distribution is beneficial for improving sleep quality, over-concentrated or -even distribution of pressure do not help for good sleep.

MTL distributed magnet measurement system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nogiec, J.M.; Craker, P.A.; Garbarini, J.P.

1993-04-01

The Magnet Test Laboratory (MTL) at the Superconducting Super collider Laboratory will be required to precisely and reliably measure properties of magnets in a production environment. The extensive testing of the superconducting magnets comprises several types of measurements whose main purpose is to evaluate some basic parameters characterizing magnetic, mechanic and cryogenic properties of magnets. The measurement process will produce a significant amount of data which will be subjected to complex analysis. Such massive measurements require a careful design of both the hardware and software of computer systems, having in mind a reliable, maximally automated system. In order to fulfillmore » this requirement a dedicated Distributed Magnet Measurement System (DMMS) is being developed.« less

Abscisic acid and other plant hormones: Methods to visualize distribution and signaling

PubMed Central

Waadt, Rainer; Hsu, Po-Kai; Schroeder, Julian I.

2015-01-01

The exploration of plant behavior on a cellular scale in a minimal invasive manner is key to understanding plant adaptations to their environment. Plant hormones regulate multiple aspects of growth and development and mediate environmental responses to ensure a successful life cycle. To monitor the dynamics of plant hormone actions in intact tissue, we need qualitative and quantitative tools with high temporal and spatial resolution. Here, we describe a set of biological instruments (reporters) for the analysis of the distribution and signaling of various plant hormones. Furthermore, we provide examples of their utility for gaining novel insights into plant hormone action with a deeper focus on the drought hormone abscisic acid. PMID:26577078

EMTP based stability analysis of space station electric power system in a test bed environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dravid, Narayan V.; Kacpura, Thomas J.; Oconnor, Andrew M.

1992-01-01

The Space Station Freedom Electric Power System (EPS) will convert solar energy into electric energy and distribute the same using an 'all dc', Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) System. Power conditioning devices (dc to dc converters) are needed to interconnect parts of this system operating at different nominal voltage levels. Operation of such devices could generate under damped oscillations (instability) under certain conditions. Criteria for instability are examined and verified for a single device. Suggested extension of the criteria to a system operation is examined by using the EMTP model of the PMAD DC test bed. Wherever possible, data from the test bed is compared with the modeling results.

EMTP based stability analysis of Space Station Electric Power System in a test bed environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dravid, Narayan V.; Kacpura, Thomas J.; O'Connor, Andrew M.

1992-01-01

The Space Station Freedom Electric Power System (EPS) will convert solar energy into electric energy and distribute the same using an 'all dc', Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) System. Power conditioning devices (dc to dc converters) are needed to interconnect parts of this system operating at different nominal voltage levels. Operation of such devices could generate under damped oscillations (instability) under certain conditions. Criteria for instability are examined and verified for a single device. Suggested extension of the criteria to a system operation is examined by using the EMTP model of the PMAD dc test bed. Wherever possible, data from the test bed is compared with the modeling results.

New insights from DEM's into form, process and causality in Distributive Fluvial Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scuderi, Louis; Weissmann, Gary; Hartley, Adrian; Kindilien, Peter

2014-05-01

Recent developments in platforms and sensors, as well as advances in our ability to access these rich data sources in near real time presents geoscientists with both opportunities and problems. We currently record raster and point cloud data about the physical world at unprecedented rates with extremely high spatial and spectral resolution. Yet the ability to extract scientifically useful knowledge from such immense data sets has lagged considerably. The interrelated fields of database creation, data mining and modern geostatistics all focus on such interdisciplinary data analysis problems. In recent years these fields have made great advances in analyzing the complex real-world data such as that captured in Digital Elevation Models (DEM's) and satellite imagery and by LIDAR and other geospatially referenced data sets. However, even considering the vast increase in the use of these data sets in the past decade these methods have enjoyed only a relatively modest penetration into the geosciences when compared to data analysis in other scientific disciplines. In part, a great deal of the current research weakness is due to the lack of a unifying conceptual approach and the failure to appreciate the value of highly structured and synthesized compilations of data, organized in user-friendly formats. We report on the application of these new technologies and database approaches to global scale parameterization of Distributive Fluvial Systems (DFS) within continental sedimentary basins and illustrate the value of well-constructed databases and tool-rich analysis environments for understanding form, process and causality in these systems. We analyzed the characteristics of aggradational fluvial systems in more than 700 modern continental sedimentary basins and the links between DFS within these systems and their contributing drainage basins. Our studies show that in sedimentary basins, distributive fluvial and alluvial systems dominate the depositional environment. Consequently, we have found that studies of modern tributary drainage systems in degradational settings are likely insufficient for understanding the geomorphology expressed within these basins and ultimately for understanding the basin-scale architecture of dominantly distributive fluvial deposits preserved in the rock record.

Transcriptome profile and unique genetic evolution of positively selected genes in yak lungs.

PubMed

Lan, DaoLiang; Xiong, XianRong; Ji, WenHui; Li, Jian; Mipam, Tserang-Donko; Ai, Yi; Chai, ZhiXin

2018-04-01

The yak (Bos grunniens), which is a unique bovine breed that is distributed mainly in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, is considered a good model for studying plateau adaptability in mammals. The lungs are important functional organs that enable animals to adapt to their external environment. However, the genetic mechanism underlying the adaptability of yak lungs to harsh plateau environments remains unknown. To explore the unique evolutionary process and genetic mechanism of yak adaptation to plateau environments, we performed transcriptome sequencing of yak and cattle (Bos taurus) lungs using RNA-Seq technology and a subsequent comparison analysis to identify the positively selected genes in the yak. After deep sequencing, a normal transcriptome profile of yak lung that containing a total of 16,815 expressed genes was obtained, and the characteristics of yak lungs transcriptome was described by functional analysis. Furthermore, Ka/Ks comparison statistics result showed that 39 strong positively selected genes are identified from yak lungs. Further GO and KEGG analysis was conducted for the functional annotation of these genes. The results of this study provide valuable data for further explorations of the unique evolutionary process of high-altitude hypoxia adaptation in yaks in the Tibetan Plateau and the genetic mechanism at the molecular level.

Home is where the head is: a distributed cognition account of personal health information management in the home among those with chronic illness.

PubMed

Werner, Nicole E; Jolliff, Anna F; Casper, Gail; Martell, Thomas; Ponto, Kevin

2018-08-01

Managing chronic illness requires personal health information management (PHIM) to be performed by lay individuals. Paramount to understanding the PHIM process is understanding the sociotechnical system in which it frequently occurs: the home environment. We combined distributed cognition theory and the patient work system model to investigate how characteristics of the home interact with the cognitive work of PHIM. We used a 3D virtual reality CAVE that enabled participants who had been diagnosed with diabetes (N = 20) to describe how they would perform PHIM in the home context. We found that PHIM is distinctly cognitive work, and rarely performed 'in the head'. Rather, features of the physical environment, tasks, people, and tools and technologies present, continuously shape and are shaped by the PHIM process. We suggest that approaches in which the individual (sans context) is considered the relevant unit of analysis overlook the pivotal role of the environment in shaping PHIM. Practitioner Summary: We examined how Personal Health Information Management (PHIM) is performed in the homes of diabetic patients. We found that approaches to studying cognition that focus on the individual, to the exclusion of their context, overlook the pivotal role of environmental, social, and technological features in shaping PHIM.

Bayesian multiple-source localization in an uncertain ocean environment.

PubMed

Dosso, Stan E; Wilmut, Michael J

2011-06-01

This paper considers simultaneous localization of multiple acoustic sources when properties of the ocean environment (water column and seabed) are poorly known. A Bayesian formulation is developed in which the environmental parameters, noise statistics, and locations and complex strengths (amplitudes and phases) of multiple sources are considered to be unknown random variables constrained by acoustic data and prior information. Two approaches are considered for estimating source parameters. Focalization maximizes the posterior probability density (PPD) over all parameters using adaptive hybrid optimization. Marginalization integrates the PPD using efficient Markov-chain Monte Carlo methods to produce joint marginal probability distributions for source ranges and depths, from which source locations are obtained. This approach also provides quantitative uncertainty analysis for all parameters, which can aid in understanding of the inverse problem and may be of practical interest (e.g., source-strength probability distributions). In both approaches, closed-form maximum-likelihood expressions for source strengths and noise variance at each frequency allow these parameters to be sampled implicitly, substantially reducing the dimensionality and difficulty of the inversion. Examples are presented of both approaches applied to single- and multi-frequency localization of multiple sources in an uncertain shallow-water environment, and a Monte Carlo performance evaluation study is carried out. © 2011 Acoustical Society of America

Investigation on the dominant factors controlling the spatio-temporal distribution of soil moisture in experimental grasslands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwichtenberg, G.; Hildebrandt, A.; Samaniego-Eguiguren, L.; Kreutziger, Y.; Attinger, S.

2009-04-01

The spatio-temporal distribution of soil moisture in the unsaturated zone influences the vegetation growth, governs the runoff generation processes as well as the energy balance at the interface between biosphere and the atmosphere, by influencing evapotranspiration. A better understanding of the spatio-temporal variability and dependence of soil moisture on living versus abiotic environment would lead to an improved representation of the soil-vegetation-atmosphere processes in hydrological and climate models. The Jena Experiment site (Germany) was established October 2001 in order to analyse the interaction between plant diversity and ecosystem processes. The main experiment covers 92 plots of 20 x 20 m arranged into a grid, on which a mixture of up to 60 grassland species and of one to four plant functional groups have been seeded. Each of these plots is equipped with at least one measurement tube for soil moisture. Measurements have been conducted weekly for four growing seasons (SSF). Here, we use geostatistical methods, like variograms and multivariate regressions, to investigate in how far abiotic environment and ecosystem explain the spatial and temporal variation of soil moisture at the Jena Experiment site. We test the influence of the soil environment, biodiversity, leaf area index and groundwater table. The poster will present the results of this analysis.

Analysis of High Grazing Angle Sea-clutter with the KK-Distribution

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-11-01

work undertaken at the DSTO in characterising the maritime environment from high altitude airborne platforms. The focus of this report is to characterise...multichannel synthetic aperture radar through Adelaide University. He has worked at the DSTO as an RF engineer in the missile simulation centre, as a...with the Cooperative Research Centre for Sensor, Signal and Information Processing where he worked in the Pattern Recognition Group on the application

Mock Data Challenge for the MPD/NICA Experiment on the HybriLIT Cluster

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gertsenberger, Konstantin; Rogachevsky, Oleg

2018-02-01

Simulation of data processing before receiving first experimental data is an important issue in high-energy physics experiments. This article presents the current Event Data Model and the Mock Data Challenge for the MPD experiment at the NICA accelerator complex which uses ongoing simulation studies to exercise in a stress-testing the distributed computing infrastructure and experiment software in the full production environment from simulated data through the physical analysis.

Database Entity Persistence with Hibernate for the Network Connectivity Analysis Model

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-04-01

time savings in the Java coding development process. Appendices A and B describe address setup procedures for installing the MySQL database...development environment is required: • The open source MySQL Database Management System (DBMS) from Oracle, which is a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC...compliant DBMS • MySQL JDBC Driver library that comes as a plug-in with the Netbeans distribution • The latest Java Development Kit with the latest

Statistical Analysis of Wireless Networks: Predicting Performance in Multiple Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-06-01

The demonstration planned for May 2006 is an air, ground, and water- based scenario, occurring just north of Chiang Mai , Thailand. The scenario...will be fused, displayed, and distributed in real-time to local ( Chiang Mai ), theater (Bangkok), and global (Alameda, California) command and control...COASTS 2006 TOPOLOGY The 2006 version of the COASTS project occurred just north of Chiang Mai , Thailand, at the Mae Ngat Dam. COTS systems were

Analysis of Selected Functional Characteristics of Wetlands.

DTIC Science & Technology

1979-02-01

1978, Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium Budgets in Experimental- ly Enriched Salt Marsh Ecosystems, Eastern Coast, Mar. Sc.: Vol. 3, p. * 421-430. - -.q t...Sewage d and Retention of Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium by Marsh Sediments, Environ. Pollut., Vol. 7(Z), p. 149. Banus, M. D., et al., 1974, Export of Lead from...Hirshfield, H. 1., 1975, Cadmium in an Aquatic Ecosystem: Distribution and Effects, New York University, Medical Center, New York * Institute of Environmental

Design and fabrication of brayton cycle solar heat receiver

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mendelson, I.

1971-01-01

A detail design and fabrication of a solar heat receiver using lithium fluoride as the heat storage material was completed. A gas flow analysis was performed to achieve uniform flow distribution within overall pressure drop limitations. Structural analyses and allowable design criteria were developed for anticipated environments such as launch, pressure containment, and thermal cycling. A complete heat receiver assembly was fabricated almost entirely from the refractory alloy, niobium-1% zirconium.

Airspace Command and Control in the Contemporary Operating Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-05-07

entities including the TACPs, the Theater Battle Management Core System ( TBMCS ), and MIRC chat. The role of the TACPs was discussed in a previous...section under the elements of TAGS. Planners at the CAOC use TBMCS to build, distribute, and execute the ATO and ACO. TBMCS interfaces with AFATDS and... TBMCS , a validity check is conducted on all airspace users to determine potential conflicts. The deconfliction analysis uses take-off times, routes

Direct tissue analysis by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry: application to kidney biology.

PubMed

Herring, Kristen D; Oppenheimer, Stacey R; Caprioli, Richard M

2007-11-01

Direct tissue analysis using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI MS) provides in situ molecular analysis of a wide variety of biological molecules including xenobiotics. This technology allows measurement of these species in their native biological environment without the use of target-specific reagents such as antibodies. It can be used to profile discrete cellular regions and obtain region-specific images, providing information on the relative abundance and spatial distribution of proteins, peptides, lipids, and drugs. In this article, we report the sample preparation, MS data acquisition and analysis, and protein identification methodologies used in our laboratory for profiling/imaging MS and how this has been applied to kidney disease and toxicity.