Worming its way in—Polydora websteri (Annelida: Spionidae) increases the number of non-indigenous shell-boring polydorin pests of cultured molluscs in South Africa

Polychaete worms of the Polydora-complex (commonly referred to as polydorins) include some of the most common pests of cultured molluscs. Modern culture of molluscs, particularly oysters, is associated with large-scale movement of stock which facilitates movement of polydorins either as “hitchhikers” on the transported molluscs or in the packaging. In 2009, a species identified as Polydora cf. ciliata Johnston, 1838 was reported from oysters in a culture facility in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Since then, more specimens of this species were recorded on farmed oysters from Namibia, Kleinzee and Paternoster on the west coast of South Africa, but tentatively reidentified as Polydora cf. websteri Hartman in Loosanoff and Engle, 1943 based on morphology and limited genetic evidence. The main aim of this study is therefore to clarify the identity of these specimens by integrating morphological and genetic (mitochondrial COI, Cyt b and nuclear 18S rRNA) evidence. Specimens from South Africa match the morphology of the lectotype of P. websteri and are morphologically and genetically very similar to P. websteri from Australia, China, Japan, and the east, gulf and west coasts of the USA. This confirms the presence of P. websteri in South Africa, making this the second most widespread polydorin pest of aquaculture known. Understanding the full distribution range of the species will help to better understand its global route of invasion and consequently assist with preventing or at least minimising further spread. Polydora websteri increases the number of polydorin pests in South Africa to seven.

High-Level Path Planning for an Autonomous Sailboat Robot Using Q-Learning

Path planning for sailboat robots is a challenging task particularly due to the kinematics and dynamics modelling of such kinds of wind propelled boats. The problem is divided into two layers. The first one is global were a general trajectory composed of waypoints is planned, which can be done automatically based on some variables such as weather conditions or defined by hand using some human–robot interface (a ground-station). In the second local layer, at execution time, the global route should be followed by making the sailboat proceed between each pair of consecutive waypoints. Our proposal in this paper is an algorithm for the global, path generation layer, which has been developed for the N-Boat (The Sailboat Robot project), in order to compute feasible sailing routes between a start and a target point while avoiding dangerous situations such as obstacles and borders. A reinforcement learning approach (Q-Learning) is used based on a reward matrix and a set of actions that changes according to wind directions to account for the dead zone, which is the region against the wind where the sailboat can not gain velocity. Our algorithm generates straight and zigzag paths accounting for wind direction. The path generated also guarantees the sailboat safety and robustness, enabling it to sail for long periods of time, depending only on the start and target points defined for this global planning. The result is the development of a complete path planner algorithm that, together with the local planner solved in previous work, can be used to allow the final developments of an N-Boat making it a fully autonomous sailboat.

Rollover-Free Path Planning for Off-Road Autonomous Driving

Perception, planning, and control are three enabling technologies to achieve autonomy in autonomous driving. In particular, planning provides vehicles with a safe and collision-free path towards their destinations, accounting for vehicle dynamics, maneuvering capabilities in the presence of obstacles, traffic rules, and road boundaries. Existing path planning algorithms can be divided into two stages: global planning and local planning. In the global planning stage, global routes and the vehicle states are determined from a digital map and the localization system. In the local planning stage, a local path can be achieved based on a global route and surrounding information obtained from sensors such as cameras and LiDARs. In this paper, we present a new local path planning method, which incorporates a vehicle’s time-to-rollover model for off-road autonomous driving on different road profiles for a given predefined global route. The proposed local path planning algorithm uses a 3D occupancy grid and generates a series of 3D path candidates in the s-p coordinate system. The optimal path is then selected considering the total cost of safety, including obstacle avoidance, vehicle rollover prevention, and comfortability in terms of path smoothness and continuity with road unevenness. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed path planning method for various types of roads, indicating its wide practical applications to off-road autonomous driving.

Hybrid Dynamic Route Planning Model for Pedestrian Microscopic Simulation at Subway Station

To make agents’ route decision-making behaviours as real as possible, this paper proposes a layered navigation algorithm, emphasizing the coordinating of the global route planning at strategic level and the local route planning at tactical level. Specifically, by an improved visibility graph method, the global route is firstly generated based on static environment map. Then, a new local route planning (LRP) based on dynamic local environment is activated for multipath selection to allow pedestrian to respond changes at a real-time sense. In particular, the LRP model is developed on the basis of a passenger’s psychological motivation. The pedestrians’ individual preferences and the uncertainties existing in the process of evaluation and choice are fully considered. The suitable local path can be generated according to an estimated passing time. The LRP model is applied to the choice of ticket gates at a subway station, and the behaviours of gate choosing and rechoosing are investigated. By utilizing C++, the layered navigation algorithm is implemented. The simulation results exhibit agents’ tendency to avoid congestion, which is often observed in real crowds.

Energy-saving route optimizationin a software-defined wireless sensor network

Energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks is an important concern of ‘green’ Internet of Things. The existing energy-saving routing protocols usually compute the route in isolation, which is disadvantageous to globally optimize the energy consumption. In this article, we propose a novel energy-saving route optimization solution based on the software-defined wireless sensor network. In our proposed solution, the controller obtains the overall information about the network topology and the existing routes. Based on the above information, this solution centrally optimizes the routes in a global manner. In contrast to the existing energy-saving routing protocols, the central route optimization better reduces the energy consumption from an overall perspective. The global route optimization tends to reduce the overall energy consumption using a small number of sensors, which can improve the effectiveness of the used sensors. However, using a small number of sensors leads to high energy consumption of related sensors. To solve the above problem, our proposed solution uses a routing evasion mechanism to balance the energy consumption between sensors.

Gastronomia: cerveja dos sabores amazônicos como elemento atrativo para o turismo em Belém (PA)

O presente trabalho faz reflexões quanto a problemática do entendimento e valorização da gastronomia paraense a partir da apreciação e produção de cervejas artesanais que utilizam insumos regionais, visando destacar a cultura cervejeira e os sabores amazônicos no contexto do turismo. O objetivo é analisar a potencialidade destas bebidas como um produto indutor para o turismo em Belém. Para o alcance dos objetivos, a pesquisa deu-se metodologicamente pelo levantamento bibliográfico documental e pesquisa de campo. A partir da aplicação de questionários tanto para o visitante da cidade de Belém, quanto para população local, à pesquisa de campo também aferiu os empreendimentos de alimentos e bebidas da cidade. Com base nestes procedimentos, contextualiza-se conceitualmente sobre cultura, turismo, gastronomia e cerveja no âmbito mundial, nacional, regional, os quais foram fundamentais para uma reflexão mais abrangente da problemática da pesquisa. Os resultados obtidos apontam que as cervejas artesanais dos sabores amazônicos têm um alto potencial atrativo, no entanto, ainda não há planejamento turístico especifico para valorização do produto. Desse modo contribuiu-se com os estudos acerca dessa relação que há entre o turismo e gastronomia na cidade de Belém. Ao final desse trabalho foi sugerida a ampliação da divulgação deste produto para população local, a criação de um roteiro cervejeiro. De modo, a colocar a cidade de Belém na rota mundial das cervejas artesanais. Gastronomy: beer amazonian flavors as attractive element for tourism in Belém (PA, Brazil) ABSTRACT This work entitled “Gastronomy: Beer Amazonian flavors as attractive element for tourism in Belém-Pa” shows how problematic the understanding and valorization of Pará cuisine from the appreciation and production of craft beers using regional raw materials, aiming to highlight the beer culture and the Amazonian flavors. So that aims to analyze the potential of these drinks as an inductor product for tourism in Belém. This work was methodological basis, bibliographic and documentary surveys and field research. From the questionnaires both for the visitor of the city of Belém and for the local population, the field research also gauged the enterprises of food and drinks of the city. Based on these procedures, it is contextualized on culture, tourism, gastronomy and beer in the world, national, regional, which were fundamental for a more comprehensive analysis of the problem of research. The results indicate that the craft beers of Amazonian flavors have an attractive potential, however, there is no specific tourism planning for this product. This research aims to contribute to the studies about the relation between tourism and gastronomy in the city of Belém. At the end of this work it was suggested expanding the dissemination of this product for the local population, creating a Beer route. In order to put Belém in the global route of microbrews. KEYWORDS: Tourism; Gastronomy; Belém; Beer And Flavors Amazon.

Local and Global Path Generation for Autonomous Vehicles Using Splines

Context: Before autonomous vehicles being a reality in daily situations, outstanding issues regarding the techniques of autonomous mobility must be solved. Hence, relevant aspects of a path planning for terrestrial vehicles are shown.Method: The approached path planning technique uses splines to generate the global route. For this goal, waypoints obtained from online map services are used. With the global route parametrized in the arc-length, candidate local paths are computed and the optimal one is selected by cost functions.Results: Different routes are used to show that the number and distribution of waypoints are highly correlated to a satisfactory arc-length parameterization of the global route, which is essential to the proper behavior of the path planning technique.Conclusions: The cubic splines approach to the path planning problem successfully generates the global and local paths. Nevertheless, the use of raw data from the online map services showed to be unfeasible due the consistency of the data. Hence, a preprocessing stage of the raw data is proposed to guarantee the well behavior and robustness of the technique.