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When Energy Issues Are Land Use Issues: Estimating Preferences for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Siting
Get PDFAlthough solar energy receives broad support in general, utility-scale solar arrays can be contentious because at the siting stage, it becomes a land use issue replete with potential disamenities and trade-offs. We conduct a choice experiment survey to estimate preferences for attributes of utility-scale solar arrays in Rhode Island, United States. Our results suggest that the largest indicator of solar development approval is prior land use, with residents willing to pay an additional 21 in monthly utility bills for developments in commercial, industrial, brownfield, and covered landfill areas, and 49 to avoid developments on farm and forest land
Rapid Design and Production of Soft Actuators using Dynamic Modeling and Additive Manufacturing for Underwater Soft Actuators
No full textSoft robotic actuators have repeatedly demonstrated their utility for underwater manipulation, particularly in the deep sea with delicate biological creatures and fragile artifacts. Up to this point, soft robotic actuators and gripping modules have been limited to relatively small prototypes that are on the same scale as a human hand. Scaling soft robotic grippers to larger sizes is a non-trivial task due to two major challenges: design and manufacturing. In this work, we present a complete and streamlined workflow of modeling, manufacturing, and testing scalable soft actuators that are directly produced using additive manufacturing methods and finite element modeling (FEA). The presented workflow is an iterative approach that uses information gathered from the FEA\u27s simulation to further improve the simplified known initial model. To demonstrate this new workflow, a series of soft actuator designs were modeled, created and tested. Additionally, a more complex theoretical actuator design that has a non-uniform bending geometry is created and modeled. Once the actuator design matches what is desired, additive manufacturing is used to physically create it. Using this full process, an actuator design is easily scaled to almost three times its original length and is manufactured in under 36 hours. The scaled up actuators are arranged in a custom full gripping array to grasp a cylinder underwater in a predictive manner
CMM Stylus Cleaning Solution
Get PDFCMM machines are an integral part of quality assurance within the industry of manufacturing. The work throughout this report supports the most essential aspects of solving the main dilemma in the CMM world: cleaning the styli. This is done using an electric motor design to create a whirlpool of IPA solution to clean any styli.
In order to fulfill the needs of Hexagon, the cleaning apparatus must either proactively and/or reactively clean the stylus. The apparatus must clean 95 percent of all styli, fit in the CMM workspace, and cost less than $2000. These design requirements, along with customer requirements were used to create a list of design specifications. After using strategies such as proof of concept generation, Pugh analysis, and QFD analysis, the team developed one hundred twenty individual unique design ideas. After much deliberation, one final design was settled on. This final design selected, was a three dimensional printed container to withstand a motor generated whirlpool of IPA solution.
After running various tests with the prototype model made, the team decided that this was a viable solution to cleaning CMM styli. Not only did it meet the financial requirements and the Hexagon company requirements, but it was an effective way of cleaning any type of styli
Methodology of Deployment for a UAV from a UUV
Get PDFWith the advancements of technology in modern times, the use of remote or unmanned expeditions and surveillance systems has risen in prevalence in the military industry. The ability to accomplish objectives without jeopardizing human lives has become paramount to military operations. To accomplish this, the military has used unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and unmanned underwater vehicles, or UUVs. These vehicles take the form of drones, equipped with cameras and/or sensors, that are controlled remotely to obtain information without directly involving human lives. It has recently become of interest to combine the two drones, to be able to allow for simultaneous, far reaching, aerial and underwater surveillance. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center, or NUWC, has taken steps to accomplish this goal. A capsule was previously developed with the capability of containing a small UAV and deploying it remotely from the capsule once the UAV has reached the surface. Team 17 was tasked with a continuation of this project, developing a methodology for deploying this capsule from a UUV carried by a submarine.
To accomplish this, the design must: be capable of fitting a cylindrical payload with a 3 inch diameter and 12 inch length, incorporate a “soft” launch such that the payload remains intact, fit inside a selected UUV, be able to withstand seawater pressure at a depth of 200 feet, and be both visibly and audibly discreet such that the location of the launch is not revealed. This list of requirements was used to develop a more specific set of engineering requirements, which were then used to develop concepts for product designs. These design concepts were then compared using Pugh and QFD analyses to determine the best design to achieve the goal. As a proof of concept, a functional launch methodology was developed for a simulated UUV in air, which will be implemented in the final design underwater along with a process to equalize internal and external pressure at the proposed 200 foot depth
Encouraging Curiosity and Experimentation with Ungrading
No full textResearch has shown that traditional grading methods often bear a negative impact on student learning. Traditional grading encourages students to value the grade over the learning process, and it disadvantages students who come to the classroom with less knowledge or experience with course content. This book chapter examines how specifications grading, a form of “ungrading,” can be implemented in credit-bearing information literacy courses to encourage students to engage with class content and assignments with increased curiosity and experimentation, providing a unique opportunity to explore how library educators can rethink past approaches to grading and envision a new way forward that better supports the learning and curiosity of college students
News Consumption Helps Readers Identify Model-Generated News
No full textText-generation to produce journalistic content is increasing. In parallel, there is public concern about the misuse of language generation to disseminate disinformation. In this focused evaluation study, we report on an IRB-Approved experiment carried out online with non-expert news audiences to study their perception of English and Spanish news-like content generated by GPT-3 versus news stories written by journalists. We explore how readers assessed news quality in terms of linguistic coherence/readability, journalistic expertise, and credibility when they perceived articles to be model-generated vs. journalist-written. We also reveal how news consumption may impact readers\u27 capacity to identify generated text
High-resolution measurements of the epipelagic and mesopelagic ocean by a profiling vehicle equipped with environmental sensors and a broadband echosounder
No full textCollecting detailed surveys of the environmental and biological distributions in the epipelagic and mesopelagic ocean is important for understanding the basic processes that govern these expansive habitats and influence the earth system at large. Common ocean sampling platforms (e.g., net systems, moored, and shipboard sensors), are often unable to resolve marine biota at scales comparable to the variability associated with their own behavior or that of their physical environment. Newer approaches using mobile robotic systems carrying multiple environmental sensors have enabled detailed interrogation of the fine and sub-mesoscale distribution of animals and have provided more context for the water column structure. We integrated a dual-frequency broadband split-beam echosounder (Simrad EK80 with 70 and 200 kHz transducers) into the Wire Flyer profiling vehicle to achieve concurrent hydrographic and acoustic sections in the midwater environment (0–1000 m) at novel scales. The Wire Flyer provides high-resolution repeat profiling (0–2.5 m s−1 up and down velocity) within specified water column depth bands typically spanning 300–400 m. This system can provide acoustic backscatter data at depths unavailable to shipboard surveys due to attenuation limits and can be operated in tandem with conventional shipboard echosounders to provide overlapping acoustic coverage with concurrent hydrographic sections. The side-looking transducer orientation, as opposed to the traditional vertically oriented arrangement on ships, samples orthogonal to the vehicle\u27s profiling survey path and provides a direct measurement of animal distributions in the horizontal. The processed data have demonstrated the system\u27s capacity to track migrating layers and resolve coherent biological patches and single targets in the horizontal, rising seafloor gas plumes, and scattering layer distributions tightly coupled to measured sub-mesoscale features such as strong vertical oxygen gradients
New insights on black carbon in pelagic Atlantic sediments
Get PDFBlack carbon (BC) is ubiquitous in pelagic sediments and presumed to have an older radiocarbon age due to long ocean residence times and pre-aging in terrestrial soils. Here, we analyzed sediments from five regions in the subtropical Atlantic Ocean to quantify the black carbon fraction of the total organic carbon pool. Black carbon, derived from the chemothermal oxidation method, comprised between 17 ± 6% of the sedimentary organic carbon in the Northwest Argentina Basin and 65 ± 18% in the Amazon Delta. Black carbon sediment accumulation rates were six times greater in the Sierra Leone Rise (8.4 ± 4.1 mg cm−2 kyr−1) compared to the remote Northwest Argentina Basin (1.3 ± 0.4 mg cm−2 kyr−1), possibly due to enhanced regional atmospheric deposition from annual African grassland fires. The radiocarbon age for BC from subtropical Atlantic sediments were more modern compared to the bulk total organic carbon, and BC source was apportioned as biomass burning byproducts from their stable carbon isotopic signatures and characteristic ratios of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. This study demonstrated that subtropical Atlantic Ocean sediments serve as an important sink for young BC
Perspective: Dimensions of Environment and Health in Arctic Communities
Get PDFIn the Arctic, environment and health are linked in myriad ways. A key emphasis has been on numerous long-lived contaminants in traditional foods, particularly marine mammals, and their well-documented impacts on human, animal and environmental health (“One health approach”). More recent concerns for Indigenous communities focus on the (side) effects of the switch to a modern, processed diet, which is accompanied by a loss of tradition and emerging health impacts. Furthermore, the availability of traditional foods is increasingly threatened by the impacts of climate change, which also causes the emergence and spread of new and old diseases, such as anthrax. Climate change, including thawing permafrost and new forest fire regimes, threatens the built environment and infrastructure. In particular, well-built, planned, and healthy housing is urgently needed, given that much time is spent indoors. Health care, particularly for remote and Indigenous communities, is sparse, and often ignores traditional knowledge and local languages. Indigenous communities in the Arctic continue to suffer from marginalization, resource colonization/extraction, and the impacts of racism. Recent examples of the green energy transition, such as in Norway, continue a pattern of ignoring Indigenous rights and lifestyles. Overall, the connection between environment and health in the Arctic is multifaceted and complex, and investigations and solutions ought to embrace an interdisciplinary and holistic approach toward improving Environmental and Human Health in the region