Forecasting Grain Production and Static Capacity of Warehouses Using the Natural Neighbor and Multiquadric Equations

The strategic logistics of agricultural production and storage aggregates information related to production and storage. In this sense, time, location, and distance from producer and consumer markets are considered, emphasizing the importance of grain storage and production logistics. The Natural Neighbor and multiquadric equation are spatial interpolation methods used to predict these variables value at non-sampled locations, for asymmetric and categorical data, respectively. This study investigated the spatial prediction of grain production (tons) (soybean, first crop corn, second-crop corn, and wheat) in the 2016/2017 growing season and qualitative data on the static capacity of warehouses in the 2017/2018 growing season. The result obtained through the spatial interpolation using the natural neighbor method was coherent, as it showed the high variability of grain production relative to the different meso-regions. Therefore, the method was appropriate because it allowed predicting the behavior of grain production in the 2016/2017 growing season in the state of Paraná-Brazil, making it possible to identify regions of higher or lower production. The result of the spatial interpolation using the multiquadric equations allowed identifying a higher predominance of storage units with a low static capacity of warehouses, but also enabled the detection of regions with a static capacity of warehouses that varied from the medium to the high category in the state of Paraná, Brazil.

The natural neighbor radial point interpolation method in the Elasto-Static analysis of Honeycomb-Shaped foams

Cellular solid materials are progressively becoming more predominant in lightweight structural applications as more technologies realize these materials can be improved in terms of performance, quality control, repeatability and production costs, when allied with fast developing manufacturing technologies such as Additive Manufacturing. In parallel, the rapid advances in computational power and the use of new numerical methods, such as Meshless Methods, in addition to the Finite Element Method (FEM) are highly beneficial and allow for more accurate studies of a wide range of topologies associated with the architecture of cellular solid materials. Since these materials are commonly used as the cores of sandwich panels, in this work, two different topologies were designed — conventional honeycombs and re-entrant honeycombs — for 7 different values of relative density, and tested on the linear-elastic domain, in both in-plane directions, using the Natural Neighbor Radial Point Interpolation Method (NNRPIM), a newly developed meshless method, and the Finite Element Method (FEM) for comparison purposes.

GEOTECNOLOGIAS APLICADAS A AQUICULTURA: ESTUDO DE CASO DO POTENCIAL AQUÍCOLA DO MUNICÍPIO DE CONCEIÇÃO DO ARAGUAIA-PA.

O presente estudo no município de Conceição do Araguaia no estado do Pará visando observar de forma espacial o estabelecimento de empreendimentos aquícolas e a possibilidade de ampliação da atividade, utilizando análise espacial ponderada. Foi verificado a distribuição espacial dos piscicultores existentes e suas respectivas produções, através de ferramentas geoestatísticas, entre as quais: Averagem Nearest Neighbor (ANN) e kernel, para análise de densidade e o método Natural Neighbor (NN) para avaliar as áreas mais produtivas. Para análise de ponderação a áreas propícias a construção de viveiros escavados utilizou a metodologia Weighted Overlay, que sobrepõem várias camadas com pesos atribuídos, de acordo com a sua participação no processo construção aquícola. Na análise de ponderação foram utilizadas imagens de satélite processadas de forma a representar relevos, hidrografia e uso do solo, em alguns mapas foi utilizado informações de instituições governamentais. Os resultados mostraram que a dispersão dos piscicultores se deu de forma agregada. Os aglomerados formados dentro de um raio de 5,0 km, constituíram 6 áreas, mas apenas duas com potencial para crescimento. As ponderações de áreas propicias, mostraram que 27,43% é regular e 16,65% são ideais, muito embora a atividade se desenvolveu nas áreas regulares.

TEC and Scintillations in the Ionosphere above Greenland

<p>Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals are affected by the media of the ionosphere when traversing it. Therefore, near real-time monitoring of the ionosphere and its scintillation can be an advantage for GNSS users. There can be strong phase scintillation in the Arctic region, however, there is no continuous real-time monitoring of the ionosphere above Greenland at the moment. This project investigates possibilities for real-time monitoring of the ionosphere above Greenland, based on data from geodetic GNSS stations. The novelty of the work is the application of the kriging method as basis for rate of total electron content index (ROTI) maps in the Arctic.</p><p>The GNSS data analyzed in this project is from seven selected GNSS receivers that are part of the Greenland GPS Network (GNET). The data is used for computing the phase scintillation index ROTI, which is then used for mapping the scintillation activity. First the spatial data coverage was examined to investigate the possibility of visualizing the ROTI values spatially. Further, the kriging and natural neighbor methods were tested for interpolating ROTI above Greenland.</p><p>In the project there were some large spatial data gaps, caused by the sparse distribution of the GNSS receiver stations. A relation between high ROTI values and low elevation angles was shown, and this relation was more prominent at geomagnetically quiet times. This indicated that a higher elevation cut-off angle might have been useful for the mapping if more data had been available. The test of the interpolation methods lead to the conclusion that kriging provided slightly better maps than the natural neighbor method at geomagnetically active times, while natural neighbor might be preferable at geomagnetically quiet times. Finally, it was found that receivers at all of the tested latitudes were affected by ionospheric phase scintillation, this was seen as an increase in the amount of cycle slips.</p><p>The conclusions drawn from this project can help indicate what the next step should be on the path towards real-time monitoring the ionosphere above Greenland. The general recommendation for future work is to install a network of GNSS Ionospheric Scintillation and TEC Monitor (GISTM) receivers in Greenland which can provide near real-time scintillation indices.</p>