Constructing a geophysical test site for a coastal community's research and education activities

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-215
Author(s):  
Mohamed Ahmed ◽  
Ryan Turner ◽  
Michael Haley ◽  
Samantha Shyrigh ◽  
Dionel Colmenero ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Research Training ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Site Location ◽  
Geophysical Research ◽  
Shallow Subsurface ◽  
Steel Pipes ◽  
Corpus Christi ◽  
Steel Drums ◽  
Research And Education

A geophysical test site (GTS) contains subsurface targets of known materials, orientations, and depths. GTSs offer unique opportunities for geophysical research, training, and educational activities. They provide platforms to investigate the penetration and resolution of different geophysical techniques for characterizing the shallow subsurface. GTS-based field exercises represent an interesting, motivating, rewarding, and enjoyable experience for students and instructors. We have constructed a GTS at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi that contains several objects (e.g., steel drums, plastic drums, plastic buckets, steel pipes, and well covers) buried at depths ranging from 0.5 to 3 m to simulate real-life situations. In this article, we provide a thorough description of the site location, subsurface geology, surface topography, and construction methodology, as well as the types, locations, orientations, and depths of the subsurface targets. Research and education significance and implications of the GTS are also described. This article could serve as a reference for the construction of new GTSs worldwide.

Incubator Platform for Multidisciplinary Innovation in Research and Education

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 29-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethiopia Nigussie ◽  
Liang Guang ◽  
Alexey Boyko ◽  
Antti Hakkala ◽  
Petri Sainio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Real Life ◽  
System Level ◽  
Multicultural Teams ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Distributed Networking ◽  
Career Skills

In this article, an incubator platform concept is presented to demonstrate the authors’ approach in meeting the enormous challenges faced by future multidisciplinary research and education. The abstraction level of laboratory projects needs to be raised to a level where the researchers and students have the opportunity to deal with hands-on real-life system-level problems and decisions, while simultaneously various fundamental key technologies of the information society are integrated into the systems. Their approach is concretized by an Incubator experimental platform. Facilitated by this environment, researchers, engineers and students can join their efforts in developing next-generation products in a well-organized manner. The targeted products must meet the increasingly important special characteristics required for the digital era – self- and context-awareness, built-in information security, distributed networking, enormous scalability and device interoperability. Many projects are today developed by distributed multicultural teams, so it is a necessity that the development can also be implemented in co-operation of several universities in different countries, in order to promote the career skills of the students. The incubator platform proposed in this article is able to provide viable answers and solutions to all the mentioned challenges in engineering research and education, coupling the curriculum tightly to top-class academic research.

scholarly journals Borehole temperature log from the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site: a record of past changes to ground surface temperature caused by urban development

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean M. Watson ◽  
Rob Westaway
Keyword(s):  
Heat Flow ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Coal Mining ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Geothermal Heat ◽  
Surface Warming ◽  
Shallow Subsurface ◽  
History Of

As part of the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site (GGERFS) project, intended as a test site for mine-water geothermal heat, the GGC-01 borehole was drilled in the Dalmarnock area in the east of the city of Glasgow, starting in November 2018. It was logged in January 2019 to provide a record of subsurface temperature to 197 m depth, in this urban area with a long history of coal mining and industrial development. This borehole temperature record is significantly perturbed away from its natural state, in part because of the ‘permeabilizing’ effect of past nearby coal mining and in part due to surface warming as a result of the combination of anthropogenic climate change and creation of a subsurface urban heat island by local urban development. Our numerical modelling indicates the total surface warming effect as 2.7°C, partitioned as 2.0°C of global warming since the Industrial Revolution and 0.7°C of local UHI development. We cannot resolve the precise combination of local factors that influence the surface warming because uncertainty in the subsurface thermal properties trades against uncertainty in the history of surface warming. However, the background upward heat flow through the shallow subsurface is estimated as only c. 28–33 mW m−2, depending on choice of other model parameters, well below the c. 80 mW m−2 expected in the Glasgow area. We infer that the ‘missing’ geothermal heat flux is entrained by horizontal flow at depth beyond the reach of the shallow GGC-01 borehole. Although the shallow subsurface in the study area is warmer than it would have been before the Industrial Revolution, at greater depths – between c. 90 and >300 m – it is colder, due to the effect of reduced background heat flow. In future the GGERFS project might utilize water from depths of c. 90 m, but the temperature of the groundwater at these depths is maintained largely by the past effect of surface warming, due to climate change and urban development; it is thus a resource that might be ‘mined’ but not sustainably replenished and, being the result of surface warming rather than upward heat flow, arguably should not count as ‘geothermal’ heat in the first place. Our analysis thus indicates that the GGERFS site is a poor choice as a test site for mine-water geothermal heat.Supplementary material: A summary history of coal mining in the study area is available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4911495.v2

scholarly journals MolAR: Bringing Chemical Structures to Life with Augmented Reality and Machine Learning

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukolsak Sakshuwong ◽  
Hayley Weir ◽  
Umberto Raucci ◽  
Todd J. Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Augmented Reality ◽  
3D Structure ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Molecular Structures ◽  
Chemical Structures ◽  
Food And Drink ◽  
Research And Education

Visualizing three-dimensional molecular structures is crucial to understanding and predicting their chemical behavior. Existing visualization software, however, can be cumbersome to use, and, for many, hand-drawn skeletal structures remain the preferred method of chemical communication. Although convenient, the static, two-dimensional nature of these drawings can be misleading in conveying the molecule’s 3D structure, not to mention that dynamic movement is completely disregarded. Here, we combine machine learning and augmented reality (AR) to develop MolAR, an immersive mobile application for visualizing molecules in real-world scenes. The application uses deep learning to recognize hand-drawn hydrocarbons structures which it converts into interactive 3D molecules in AR. Users can also “hunt” for chemicals in food and drink to uncover molecules in their real-life environment. A variety of interesting molecules are pre-loaded into the application, and users can visualize molecules in PubChem by providing their name or SMILES string and proteins in the Protein Data Bank by providing their PDB ID. MolAR was designed to be used in both research and education settings, providing an almost barrierless platform to visualize and interact with 3D molecular structures in a uniquely immersive way.

First Brazilian Federal Police Test Site for Forensic Geophysical Research

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcelo de Lawrence Bassay BLUM ◽  
Daniel RUSSO ◽  
Márcio Maciel CAVALCANTI ◽  
Welitom Rodrigues BORGES
Keyword(s):  
Test Site ◽  
Geophysical Research

Distributed acoustic sensing for shallow seismic investigations and void detection

Geophysics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-69
Author(s):  
Yarin Abukrat ◽  
Moshe Reshef
Keyword(s):  
Vertical Component ◽  
Test Site ◽  
Wave Mode ◽  
Invasive Technique ◽  
S Wave ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Acoustic Sensing ◽  
Shallow Subsurface ◽  
Diffraction Imaging ◽  
Distributed Acoustic Sensing

During the last decade, fiber-optic-based distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) has emerged as an affordable, easy-to-deploy, reliable, and non-invasive technique for high-resolution seismic sensing. We show that fiber deployments dedicated to near-surface seismic applications, commonly employed for the detection and localization of voids, can be used effectively with conventional processing techniques. We tested a variety of small-size sources in different geological environments. These sources, operated on and below the surface, were recorded by horizontal and vertical DAS arrays. Results and comparisons to data acquired by vertical-component geophones demonstrate that DAS may be sufficient for acquiring near-surface seismic data. Furthermore, we tried to address the issue of directional sensing by DAS arrays and use it to solve the problem of wave-mode separation. Records acquired by a unique acquisition setup suggest that one can use the nature of DAS systems as uniaxial strainmeters to record separated wave modes. Lastly, we applied two seismic methods on DAS data acquired at a test site: multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW) and shallow diffraction imaging. These methods allowed us to determine the feasibility of using DAS systems for imaging shallow subsurface voids. MASW was used to uncover anomalies in S-wave velocity, whereas shallow diffraction imaging was applied to identify the location of the void. Results obtained illustrate that by using these methods we are able to accurately detect the true location of the void.

Charting the Course for the Future of Science in Healthcare Epidemiology: Results of a Survey of the Membership of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America

2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 669-675 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ninet Sinaii ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Training ◽  
Multidrug Resistant ◽  
Research Committee ◽  
Protected Time ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Additional Funding ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Gram Negative Organisms ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Healthcare Epidemiology

Objective.To describe the results of a survey of members of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) that (1) measured members' perceptions of gaps in the healthcare epidemiology knowledge base and members' priorities for SHEA research goals, (2) assessed whether members would be willing to participate in consortia to address identified gaps in knowledge, and (3) evaluated the need for training for the next generation of investigators in the field of healthcare epidemiology.Design.Electronic and paper survey of members of SHEA, a professional society formed to advance the science of healthcare epidemiology through research and education.Participants.All society members were invited to participate.Results.Of 1,289 SHEA members, 593 (46.0%) responded. Respondents identified the following issues as important for the Research Committee of SHEA: setting the scientific agenda for healthcare epidemiology, developing collaborative infrastructure to conduct research, and developing funding mechanisms for research. Respondents ranked multidrug-resistant gram-negative organisms, antimicrobial stewardship, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, adherence to effective hand hygiene guidelines, and Clostridium difficile infections as the most important scientific issues facing the field. Respondents ranked inadequate project funding, lack of protected time for research, and inability to obtain a grant, contract, and/or outside funding as the most significant barriers to conducting research. More than 92% of respondents support creating a SHEA research consortium; more than 40% would participate even if no additional funding were available; nearly 90% identified developing research training as a key function for SHEA.Conclusions.These data provide a road map for the SHEA Research Committee for the next decade.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document