Search results for "Adaptive"
showing 10 items of 792 documents
Vernacular and bioclimatic architecture and indoor thermal comfort implications in hot-humid climates: An overview
2018
Abstract Sustainable urban development, especially in disadvantaged regions, has increasingly gained a major strategic priority. New settlements and urban regeneration programs have to achieve an improvement of social life quality, promote economic growth and increase environmental protection practices and proper use of local resources. In this framework, building environment development must exploit natural resources with responsible approach by using local materials and traditional techniques. In this end, indoor comfort and energy consumption have to match the territories needs. Low energy and passive heating/cooling techniques should be considered as a valid option in many building proj…
New Technologies for Adaptive Architecture
2019
Since the 1980s, the bioclimatic architecture has had the historical merit of having raised public and experts’ awareness on the importance of designing buildings with the purpose of solving the problem of energy saving. Nowadays, in the light of the most recent energy strategies policies, in force on an international and European scale, codified in EC Directive 31/2010 concerning the implementation of the Nearly Zer-Energy Buildings (NZEB), (Deru et al. 2006), the need for a new approach to redevelopment that focuses on environmental, climate and energy objectives with innovative technological solutions emerges, aimed at optimizing the passive bioclimatic behaviour of a building. In the wo…
New Objective Refraction Metric Based on Sphere Fitting to the Wavefront
2017
Purpose. To develop an objective refraction formula based on the ocular wavefront error (WFE) expressed in terms of Zernike coefficients and pupil radius, which would be an accurate predictor of subjective spherical equivalent (SE) for different pupil sizes.Methods. A sphere is fitted to the ocular wavefront at the center and at a variable distance,t. The optimal fitting distance,topt, is obtained empirically from a dataset of 308 eyes as a function of objective refraction pupil radius,r0, and used to define the formula of a new wavefront refraction metric (MTR). The metric is tested in another, independent dataset of 200 eyes.Results. For pupil radiir0≤2 mm, the new metric predicts the equ…
A Bacterial-Based Algorithm to Simulate Complex Adaptative Systems
2014
Paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior which took place at Castellón, Spain in 2014, July 22-25. Bacteria have demonstrated an amazing capacity to overcome envi-ronmental changes by collective adaptation through genetic exchanges. Using a distributed communication system and sharing individual strategies, bacteria propagate mutations as innovations that allow them to survive in different envi-ronments. In this paper we present an agent-based model which is inspired by bacterial conjugation of DNA plasmids. In our approach, agents with bounded rationality interact in a common environment guided by local rules, leading to Complex Adaptive Syste…
Simulations of stellar/pulsar wind interaction along one full orbit
2012
The winds from a non-accreting pulsar and a massive star in a binary system collide forming a bow-shaped shock structure. The Coriolis force induced by orbital motion deflects the shocked flows, strongly affecting their dynamics. We study the evolution of the shocked stellar and pulsar winds on scales in which the orbital motion is important. Potential sites of non-thermal activity are investigated. Relativistic hydrodynamical simulations in two dimensions, performed with the code PLUTO and using the adaptive mesh refinement technique, are used to model interacting stellar and pulsar winds on scales ~80 times the distance between the stars. The hydrodynamical results suggest the suitable lo…
The 2-μm spectroscopy of Huygens probe landing site on Titan with Very Large Telescope/Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System Near-Infrared Imager and Spectr…
2007
[1] Several ground-based telescopes followed the event of the Huygens probe descent through Titan's atmosphere (14 January 2005). We used the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics System Near-Infrared Imager and Spectrograph (NACO) adaptive optics system at the UT-4 of the Very Large Telescope in Chile to perform both spectroscopic and imaging measurements of Titan. We present here a selected sample of the spectra we acquired on 16 January 2005 in the K band between 2.03 and 2.40 μm. Our spectra include the Huygens landing site and surrounding dark and bright areas. We apply a radiative transfer code using new methane absorption coefficients calculated in the 2-μm region. The analysis of the data yields …
A spatially consistent downscaling approach for SMOS using an adaptive window
2017
The European Space Agency (ESA)'s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) is the first spaceborne mission using L-band radiometry to monitor the Earth's global surface soil moisture (SM). After more than 7 years in orbit, many studies have contributed to improve the quality and applicability of SMOS-derived SM maps. In this research, a novel downscaling algorithm for SMOS is proposed to obtain high-resolution (HR) SM maps at 1 km (L4), from the ∼40 km native resolution of the instrument. This algorithm introduces the concept of a shape adaptive moving window as an improvement of the current semi-empirical downscaling approach at SMOS Barcelona Expert Center, based on the “universal triangle…
Thermal sensation and cell adaptability
2013
Whole person adaptive comfort is discussed with reference to recent findings in molecular scale systems biology. The observations are upscaled to hypotheses relating to less traditional interpretations of thermal processes, which have new implications for indoor climate management and design. Arguments are presented for a revision of current focus, model and paradigm. The issue is seen as a problem of integrating theoretical development, conceptual modeling and as an investigation of the extent to which environments and acclimatization can be used to achieve individual fitness and health, not only at the subjective comfort level, as hitherto promoted. It is argued that there are many questi…
Theory of Mind Profiles in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Adaptive/Social Skills and Pragmatic Competence
2020
Theory of Mind (ToM) is one of the most relevant concepts in the field of social cognition, particularly in the case of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Literature showing that individuals with ASD display deficits in ToM is extensive and robust. However, some related issues deserve more research: the heterogeneous profile of ToM abilities in children with ASD and the association between different levels of ToM development and social, pragmatic, and adaptive behaviors in everyday life. The first objective of this study was to identify profiles of children with ASD without intellectual disability (ID), based on explicit and applied ToM knowledge, and compare these profiles with a group of ch…
Breeding success and mate retention in birds: a meta-analysis
2002
Several hypotheses about the adaptive value of divorce in birds predict a positive effect of breeding success on mate retention. Although some studies have provided direct support for this prediction, others have failed to demonstrate any significant influence of breeding success on mate retention. To date, no one has investigated the overall empirical evidence for such a relationship. We used a meta-analysis of published results to investigate whether the rate of divorce between consecutive breeding seasons differed between successful and unsuccessful breeders among monogamous bird species. The analysis was based on 38 studies involving 35 different species. The mean weighted effect size, …