A research study has been conducted to simulate liquefaction in saturated sandy soil induced by nearby controlled blasts. The purpose of the study is to help quantify soil characteristics under multiple and consecutive high-magnitude shock environments similar to those produced by large earthquakes. The simulation procedure involved the modeling of a three-dimensional half-space soil region with pre-defined, embedded, and strategically located explosive charges to be detonated at specific time intervals. LS-DYNA, a commercially available finite element hydrocode, was the solver used to simulate the event. A new geo-material model developed under the direction of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration was applied to evaluate the liquefaction potential of saturated sandy soil subjected to sequential blast environments. Additional procedural enhancements were integrated into the analysis process to represent volumetric effects of the saturated soil's transition from solid to liquid during the liquefaction process. Explosive charge detonation and pressure development characteristics were modeled using proven and accepted modeling techniques. As explosive charges were detonated in a pre-defined order, development of pore water pressure, volumetric (compressive) strains, shear strains, and particle accelerations were carefully computed and monitored using custom developed MathCad and C/C++ routines. Results of the study were compared against blast-test data gathered at the Fraser River Delta region of Vancouver, British Columbia in May of 2005 to validate and verify the modeling procedure's ability to simulate and predict blast-induced liquefaction events. Reasonable correlations between predicted and measured data were observed from the study.

The standard processing architectures are enough to satisfy a lot of applications by employing already existing stream processing frameworks which are able to manage distributed data processing. In some specific cases, having geographically distributed data sources requires to distribute even more the processing over a large area by employing a geographically distributed architecture.‌ The issue addressed in this work is the reduction of data movement across the network which is continuously flowing in a geo-distributed architecture from streaming sources to the processing location and among processing entities within the same distributed cluster. Reduction of data movement can be critical for decreasing bandwidth costs since accessing links placed in the middle of the network can be costly and can increase as the amount of data exchanges increase. In this work we want to create a different concept to deploy geographically distributed architectures by relying on Apache Spark Structured Streaming and Apache Kafka. The features needed for an algorithm to run on a geo-distributed architecture are provided. The algorithms to be executed on this architecture apply the windowing and the data synopses techniques to produce a summaries of the input data and to address issues of the geographically distributed architecture. The computation of the average and the Misra-Gries algorithm are then implemented to test the designed architecture. This thesis work contributes in providing a new model of building geographically distributed architecture. The experimental results show that, for the algorithms running on top of the geo distributed architecture, the computation time is reduced on average by 70% compared to the distributed setup. Similarly, and the amount of data exchanged across the network is reduced on average by 99%, compared to the distributed setup. / Standardbehandlingsarkitekturer är tillräckligt för uppfylla behoven av många tillämpningar genom användning av befintliga ramverk för flödesbehandling med stöd för distribuerad databehandling. I specifika fall kan geografiskt fördelade datakällor kräva att databehandlingen fördelas över ett stort område med hjälp av en geografiskt distribuerad arkitektur. Problemet som behandlas i detta arbete är minskningen av kontinuerlig dataöverföring i ett nätverk med geo-distribuerad arkitektur. Minskad dataöverföring kan vara avgörande för minskade bandbreddskonstnader då åtkomst av länkar placerade i mitten av ett nätverk kan vara dyrt och öka ytterligare med tilltagande dataöverföring. I det här arbetet vill vi skapa ett nytt koncept för att upprätta geografiskt distribuerade arkitekturer med hjälp av Apache Spark Structured Streaming och Apache Kafka. Funktioner och förutsättningar som behövs för att en algoritm ska kunna köras på en geografisk distribuerad arkitektur tillhandahålls. Algoritmerna som ska köras på denna arkitektur tillämpar “windowing synopsing” och “data synopses”-tekniker för att framställa en sammanfattning av ingående data samt behandla problem beträffande den geografiskt fördelade arkitekturen. Beräkning av medelvärdet och Misra-Gries-algoritmen implementeras för att testa den konstruerade arkitekturen. Denna avhandling bidrar till att förse ny modell för att bygga geografiskt distribuerad arkitektur. Experimentella resultat visar att beräkningstiden reduceras i genomsnitt 70% för de algoritmer som körs ovanför den geo-distribuerade arkitekturen jämfört med den distribuerade konfigurationen. På liknande sätt reduceras mängden data som utväxlas över nätverket med 99% i snitt jämfört med den distribuerade inställningen.

Over the past decades, public concern about global environmental change has grown, following the progressive increase in both frequency and intensity of extreme events. Even though the problem is global, it has proved to have very different societal and environmental impacts at local level, further widening the gap between disadvantaged and advantaged communities, according to the degree of vulnerability of their social, economic and environmental systems. Among the various anthropogenic activities, the agricultural sector is particularly linked to global environmental change by a two-way relationship: on the one hand, intensive mono-cultures, together with intensive livestock production, compromise the environment and produce huge CO$_2$ emissions (one of the most important factors behind global warming); on the other hand, smallholder farming is one of the most endangered sectors by global environmental change, precisely because it depends heavily on the natural resources of the territory, including favourable weather and climate. Scientific research, supported by international institutions, has been working on this subject for several decades, analysing phenomena at global and local scale and providing medium and long-term forecasts capable of directing economic and political strategies. Such complex investigations become even more complex in contexts lacking reliable environmental data, where their low-quality and low representativeness weaken their reliability, compromising the reliability of the outcomes as well. This thesis seeks to respond to the increasing need of realistically addressing environmental phenomena that threaten rural communities and the environment on which they depend in low-income countries, by investigating two of the main environmental factors affecting tropical farming practices: river-floodplain dynamics and climate change. Despite data-related constraints, the environment of tropical rural areas still provides a unique opportunity to study several near-natural processes, such as the morphodynamics of mostly free-flowing rivers. Especially in foothill regions, unconfined or partially confined conditions of tropical rivers allow evaluating the natural dynamics of erodible river corridors, with erosion and accretion shaping their interactions with the adjacent floodplain and related human activities. At the same time, the complex terrain characterizing the river valleys at the foothills of high mountain chains also offers the opportunity to study interesting local meteorological processes, especially considering the interaction between synoptic-scale dynamics and local convective phenomena. In this context, local bottom-up initiatives and new and tailored-to-context strategies for adaptation to the ongoing environmental change are deepened following a multidisciplinary approach. This PhD research has been framed within an international cooperation project entitled “Sustainable Development and Fight against Climate Change in the Upper Huallaga basin (Peru)”, promoted by Mandacarù ONLUS, and funded by the Autonomous Province of Trento. The project aimed to enhance the resilience of the local farmers of the Upper Huallaga valley (Peru), facing the consequences of climate change and implementing new agricultural initiatives with a special attention to plantain and banana fields. Thanks to the support of the involved partners (Redesign by PROMER s.a.c., the Universidad Agraria Nacional de la Selva de Tingo Maria, in Peru, and the Edmund Mach Foundation of San Michele all’Adige, in Italy), the project provided the opportunity to carry out a consistent set of fieldwork activities over an 8-months period collecting hydro-morphological data, interviewing the local population, and installing two weather stations. The PhD thesis has been structured along two main parts, related to to the assessment of climate change effects on local agricultural practices, and the interplay between river-floodplain dynamics and floodplain agriculture. The part on the assessment of climate change includes two main research elements. First, a novel approach is used to evaluate climate change in data-scarce contexts: non-conventional data sources (population survey) are compared with conventional data sources (few local historical weather stations and global reanalysis data series – ERA5), to better account for the sub-daily time scale (local conventional sources only provide daily data), correlating weather changes perceived by farmers (more thunderstorms and longer drought periods) with climate variations deduced from quantitative data. Second, after having determined the most impacting meteorological variables on crops through the survey, a weather early-warning system has been developed to provide agro-meteorological forecasts to the \textit{bananeros} (banana farmers) of the Upper Huallaga valley. The system, based on the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, and enhanced with the assimilation of real-time observations from local meteorological stations installed during the project fieldwork, issues an alert when the predicted wind speed exceeds thresholds related to potential damage to the harvest, and spreads the warning via text messages. Such alerting system contains several novel features in relation to the socio-environmental context, allowing to discuss its potential for replication in analogous, vulnerable situations. The part on river-floodplain dynamics also includes two main research elements. First, a remote-sensing analysis is conducted at reach scale in two different reaches of the Huallaga River, quantifying geomorphological river trajectories and land use changes in the adjacent floodplain. The outcomes show that river morphology reacts differently depending on the agricultural systems (extensive or intensive) in the nearby floodplain, revealing a high geomorphological sensitivity of such a near-natural, highly dynamic river reach. Second, riverine agriculture within the erodible river corridor is analysed in association with riverine islands dynamics, at the geomorphic unit scale, evaluating the morphological evolution and agricultural suitability of two cultivated fluvial islands. The three main drivers of agricultural suitability within river erodible corridors, i.e. river disturbance, cultivation windows of opportunity, and soil suitability are quantified, allowing to generalize a process-based conceptual model of riverine islands as complex-adaptive-systems.

Access to clean water and improved sanitation are basic human right. This quantitative, descriptive study sought to establish current water and sanitation coverage in Chirumanzu and Shurugwi districts in Zimbabwe and develop methods of assessing coverage using Geographic Information Systems. Google Earth was used to identify homesteads. Personal digital assistant-based forms were used to collect geo-referenced data on all water points and selected households. Geospatial analysis methods were used to calculate borehole water coverage. Using Google Earth, 29375 homesteads were identified. The water survey mapped 4134 water points; 821 were boreholes; and only 548 were functional. Functional borehole water coverage was: 57.3%, 46.2%, and 33.5% for distance from household to water point of within 1500 m, 1000 m, and 500 m respectively. Sanitation coverage was 44.3%, but 96% of the latrines did not meet Blair Ventilated Pit latrine standards. / Health Studies / M.A. (Public Health) (Medical Informatics)

Recent genomic data indicate that RNA polymerase II (Pol II) function extends beyond conventional transcription of primarily protein-coding genes. Among the five snRNAs required for pre-mRNA splicing, only the U6 snRNA is synthesized by RNA polymerase III (Pol III). Here we address the question of how Pol II coordinates the expression of spliceosome components, including U6. We used chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and high-resolution mapping by PCR to localize both Pol II and Pol III to snRNA gene regions. We report the surprising finding that Pol II is highly concentrated ∼300 bp upstream of all five active human U6 genes in vivo. The U6 snRNA, an essential component of the spliceosome, is synthesized by Pol III, whereas all other spliceosomal snRNAs are Pol II transcripts. Accordingly, U6 transcripts were terminated in a Pol III-specific manner, and Pol III localized to the transcribed gene regions. However, synthesis of both U6 and U2 snRNAs was α-amanitin-sensitive, indicating a requirement for Pol II activity in the expression of both snRNAs. Moreover, both Pol II and histone tail acetylation marks were lost from U6 promoters upon α-amanitin treatment. The results indicate that Pol II is concentrated at specific genomic regions from which it can regulate Pol III activity by a general mechanism. Consequently, Pol II coordinates expression of all RNA and protein components of the spliceosome.

Understanding the conflict potential of climate variability is critical for assessing and dealing with the societal implications of climate change. Yet, it remains poorly understood under what circumstances – and how – extreme weather events and variation in precipitation patterns affect organized violence. This dissertation suggests that the impacts of climate variability on organized violence are conditional on specific climate patterns, the sensitivity of livelihoods, and state governance. These theoretical conjectures are subjected to novel empirical tests in four individual essays. Three essays investigate the relationship between climate variability and communal and civil conflict through sub-national quantitative analysis focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa. The fourth essay sheds light on causal mechanisms leading to participation in land-related conflict based on interview material on 75 ex-participants in violence from Mt. Elgon, Kenya. Essay I suggests that the exposure of vulnerable agricultural livelihoods to sustained drought increases the risk of civil conflict violence. Essay II indicates that rainfall anomalies increase the risk of communal violence, an effect which is amplified by political marginalization. Essay III finds support for the proposition that volatility in resource supply increases the risk of communal conflict over land and water in remote regions, which tend to have limited state presence. Essay IV proposes that individuals depending on agriculture are prone to participate in land-related conflict as they face impediments to leaving a conflict zone, and additionally have high incentives to partake in fighting for land. Taken together, the dissertation furthers our understanding of the specific economic and political context under which climate variability impacts armed conflict. This knowledge is important for conflict-sensitive adaptation to climate change and conflict prevention efforts.

Depuis la dissolution des deux blocs de la guerre froide, la mondialisation est apparue comme un phénomène incontestable en perpétuelle extension. L’évolution de cette mondialisation vers la sphère culturelle a été la source de nombreux problèmes. C’est dans cette optique, et de la même façon que des espaces géoéconomiques ont vu le jour afin de faciliter et d’harmoniser les échanges commerciaux entre différents pays, ou que des espaces géopolitiques ont été créés dans la perspective d’assurer une coexistence paisible entre les États, que le concept d’unions géoculturelles est né, ces unions devant constituer des espaces dédiés au troisième dialogue : celui des cultures. Afin de schématiser cette relation entre les États et les unions géoculturelles, nous avons pris le cas des relations du Maroc avec l’espace géoculturel Francophone. La Francophonie est une union qui se démarque par son refus de l’actuelle mondialisation et qui prône une mondialisation plus humaniste, respectueuse des peuples et de leurs différences. Le Maroc, pays pourvu d’une composante identitaire et linguistique particulière, a rejoint la Francophonie en 1981. Depuis, la relation entre le Royaume et la Francophonie n’a cessé d’évoluer, néanmoins elle suscite de nombreuses interrogations. / Since the Cold War bipolar dissolution, globalization has emerged as an incontestable, ever-expanding phenomenon. The evolution of globalization towards the cultural sphere has caused several issues. As geo-economic spheres have emerged in order to facilitate and harmonize commercial exchanges between countries; and as geopolitical spheres have been created with the view to ensure a peaceful coexistence between States – so in the same fashion has the concept of geo-cultural unions been birthed, with the vision to create spaces dedicated to the third dialogue, that of cultures. In order to illustrate this relationship between States and geo-cultural unions, we have studied the case of the relations between Morocco and the Francophone geo-cultural sphere. The Francophone world is a union that sets itself apart by its refusal of the current globalization and that promotes a more humanistic globalization, respectful of people groups and their differences. Since Morocco, a country laden with a very specific identity and a linguistic singularity, joined the Francophone union in 1981, the relationship between the Kingdom and the Francophone union has constantly evolved. It however gives birth to many interrogations.

Esta tese tem como objetivo analisar, de um lado, as relações entre geopolítica e igrejas e, de outro, as relações entre o termo grego anarquia e o crescimento da população crente sem religião no território brasileiro. A palavra igreja é utilizada de modo amplo e genérico (igreja, templo, centro espírita, etc), isto é, toda e qualquer instituição que se constitui como estrutura de poder religioso. A pesquisa identifica principalmente as geopolíticas das igrejas católica e evangélicas, as rivalidades de poderes e influências políticas no território brasileiro que ocorrem através de diversos meios, estratégias ou ações das igrejas, como nas eleições de deputados federais e até de presidente da República como aconteceu em 2010, inclusive com a disputa através dos meios de comunicação, especialmente a televisão e o rádio e no espaço virtual. Revela-se também um processo histórico-cultural de anarquia religiosa, que se dá, por um lado, com o crescimento do contingente de população religiosa sem religião e, por outro, com a existência de populações religiosas não praticantes, católica e evangélica, bem como as desobediências às normas, às doutrinas e às autoridades religiosas. Esse fenômeno está disperso em todo o território brasileiro, abrangendo pessoas de todos os níveis intelectuais, faixas etárias e de todas as classes sociais. Como compreender esta complexa metamorfose do espaço das populações religiosas e das igrejas no Brasil? Essa é a questão central desta tese, cuja análise se fundamenta numa geografia crítica pluralista que dialoga com o pensamento de geógrafos anarquistas, críticos pós-modernos e com a teoria da complexidade, propondo-se ao final deste trabalho uma reflexão sobre geoética. / This thesis aims at analyzing, on the one hand, the relationship between geopolitics and churches and, on the other, the relationships between the Greek term anarchy and the increase of the number of believers without a religion in Brazil. The word church is employed here as a broad and general term (church, temple, spiritist centers, etc.), i.e., any institution representing a structure of religious power. This investigation mainly identifies the geopolitics of the Catholic church and Protestant churches, the power-related rivalries, and the political influences across the Brazilian territory that took place in many ways, strategies and church action, such as during the 2010 elections of federal representatives, and even for president, including disputes that used the media especially the television, the radio and virtual space. It is also a cultural-historical process of religious anarchy, which, on the one hand, occurs with the increase of the contingent number of the religious population without religion and, on the other, with the existence of non-practicing - both in the Catholic and in the Protestant - religious populations, besides the disobedience to norms, doctrines and religious authorities. This phenomenon is spread throughout the Brazilian territory, encompassing people of all intellectual ranks, age groups and social classes. How can one understand this complex metamorphosis of religious loci and churches in Brazil? This is the main challenge in this thesis, whose analysis is based on a pluralist critical geography that dialogues with the thought of anarchist geographers, postmodern critics and the theory of complexity, resulting in the proposal of a reflection about geo-ethics.

The demand for sophisticated wireless applications capable of conveying information content represented in various forms such as voice, data, audio and video is ever increasing. In order to support such applications, either additional wireless spectrum is needed or advanced signal processing techniques must be employed by the next-generation wireless communication systems. An immediate observation that can be made regarding the first option is that radio frequency spectrum is a limited natural resource. Moreover, since existing spectrum allocation policies of several national regulatory agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restrict spectrum access to licensed entities only, it has been identified that most of the licensed spectrum across time and frequency is inefficiently utilized. To facilitate greater spectral efficiency, many national regulatory agencies are considering a paradigm shift towards spectrum allocation by allowing unlicensed users to temporarily borrow unused spectral resources. This concept is referred to a dynamic spectrum access (DSA). Although, several spectrum measurement campaigns have been reported in the published literature for quantitatively assessing the available vacant spectrum, there are certain aspects of spectrum utilization that need a deeper understanding. First, we examine two complementary approaches to the problem of characterizing the usage of licensed bands. In the first approach, a linear mixed-effects based regression model is proposed, where the variations in percentage spectrum occupancy and activity period of the licensed user are described as a function of certain independent regressor variables. The second approach is based on the creation of a geo-location database consisting of the licensed transmitters in a specific geographical region and identifying the coverage areas that affect the available secondary channels. Both of these approaches are based on the energy spectral density data-samples collected across numerous frequency bands in several locations in the United States. We then study the mutual interference effects in a coexistence scenario consisting of licensed and unclicensed users. We numerically evaluate the impact of interference as a function of certain receiver characteristics. Specifically, we consider the unlicensed user to utilize OFDM or NOFDM symbols since the appropriate subcarriers can be turned off to facilitate non- contiguous spectrum utilization. Finally, it has been demonstrated that multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antennas yield significant throughput while requiring no increase in transmit power or required bandwidth. However, the separation of spectrally overlapping signals is a challenging task that involves the estimation of the channel. We provide results concerning channel and symbol estimation in the scenario described above. In particular, we focus on the MIMO-OFDM transmission scheme and derive capacity lower bounds due to imperfect channel estimation.

Submitted by Eunice Novais (enovais@uepg.br) on 2017-09-06T23:22:17Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Silvia Mantuani.pdf: 1063712 bytes, checksum: fb17dc1ed6cea5a6dc334c161364c066 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-06T23:22:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Silvia Mantuani.pdf: 1063712 bytes, checksum: fb17dc1ed6cea5a6dc334c161364c066 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-07-10 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A segurança, qualidade e a origem dos alimentos são focos dos consumidores atuais, que buscam informações relacionadas ao sistema de produção e cuidados com o local de produção. Sistemas de rastreabilidade convencionais correspondem a uma tecnologia adequada para analisar informações do produto em qualquer etapa na cadeia produtiva, porém não disponibilizam os dados específicos em relação ao local e ao entorno onde os produtos ou lotes de produtos foram produzidos. A geo-rastreabilidade permite complementar essa carência dos sistemas de rastreabilidade, possibilitando abranger informações geográficas sobre o produto. A associação de indicadores geográficos e demais informações resulta na melhoria da segurança do produto rastreado. O RastroGrão é um framework de rastreabilidade de grãos que registra dados dos agentes da cadeia de produção para posterior consulta pelo consumidor final, porém não foi modelado para disponibilizar a geoinformação. O objetivo desta dissertação é apresentar a especificação da integração de dados geoespaciais para o RastroGrão. Essa pesquisa foi baseada nos regulamentos e normas para integração de dados geoespaciais, além de análise de sistemas de gestão de geoinformação e análise nos softwares web GeoTraceAgri, GTIS CAP, GeoFairTrade, GeoWine e GeoRastro, que implementam geoinformação integrada a dados de rastreabilidade de cadeias produtivas. Para integrar as informações geográficas existentes foi necessário utilizar a Infraestrutura de Dados Espaciais (IDE), para combinar diversas fontes de dados, originando informações sobre a área analisada. Com a integração dos dados geoespaciais, os agentes da cadeia produtiva e os consumidores têm informações precisas sobre os produtos que consomem, com verificação do local e entorno, onde foi produzido, transportado e armazenado o produto, além das práticas envolvidas na produção de determinado produto. Esta integração, com indicadores, auxilia na garantia da segurança do produto e proteção do ambiente, além de proporcionar controle agrícola sustentável. Palavras-chave: Geoinformação, Geo-Rastreabilidade, Dados Geoespaciais, Integração. / The safety, quality and origin of food are the focus of current consumers, who seek information related to the system of production and care with the place of production. Conventional traceability systems correspond to appropriate technology for analyzing product information at any stage in the production chain, but they do not make specific data available in relation to the location and environment in which the products or batches of products were produced. Geotraceability allows us to complement this lack of traceability systems, making it possible to cover geographic information about the product. The association of geographic indicators and other information results in improved security of the traced product. RastroGrão is a grain traceability framework that records data from the agents of the production chain for later consultation by the final consumer, but was not modeled to make geoinformation available. The objective of this dissertation is to present the specification of geospatial data integration for RastroGrão. This research was based on the regulations and standards for the integration of geospatial data, as well as analysis of geoinformation management systems and analysis in GeoTraceAgri, GTIS CAP, GeoFairTrade, GeoWine and GeoRastro web software, which implement integrated geoinformation to traceability data of productive chains. In order to integrate the existing geographic information, it was necessary to use the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to combine several data sources, giving information about the analyzed area. With the integration of geospatial data, the agents of the production chain and consumers have accurate information about the products they consume, with verification of the location and environment, where the product was produced, transported and stored, as well as the practices involved in the production of a given product. This integration, with indicators, assists in ensuring product safety and protection of the environment, as well as providing sustainable agricultural control.