omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Masterplan Beira 2035. Masterplan Beira 2035 is a program meant to overhaul the water management infrastructure for the city of Beira, Mozambique, with the intent of allowing for future urban development. The plan was created in partnership primarily between the city of Beira and the Dutch engineering and consultancy firm Witteveen+Bos. This perceived urban renewal is to help mitigate the effects of the increasing ferocity and frequency of environmental phenomena in the region, which has been heavily influenced by climate change.

Background
Beira is a coastal city that sits at a very low elevation, one that is only slightly above sea level. Due to this fact, as well as Mozambique's vulnerability to climate change, the city is becoming more susceptible to flooding and other water related issues. Furthermore, the city's coastal tide and sea overflow defenses, both natural and artificial, are failing. This has resulted in Coastal erosion, leading to severe flooding, which has numerous impacts on the community,  including disruptions in movement and accessibility, economic damages, environmental degradation, and health problems, such as increased cases of Malaria and Cholera.

In order to combat these problems, Masterplan Beira 2035 designed a new urban drainage scheme and reinforced coastal defenses. In regards to stormwater and flooding alleviation, Beira plans on building deeper drainage channels, which will flow into a new 150 hectare Retention basin connected to the outer-lying wetlands and ocean. In order to address coastal defenses, the city aims to dredge the harbor, duo remove the increased sediment left by the higher sea level. The recovered sand from the Dredging process will be reused to reinforce natural coast protection areas. The built-up sand and debris has impeded large trade ships from accessing the crucial port, suppressing the city's economic potential. Additionally these projects will also help spur the tourism industry, as the retention basin will also serve as a lagoon while the sand removed will be used in part to create bigger beaches.

In addition to these changes in infrastructure, the plan also aims to address current land use issues, especially in areas prone to flooding. Due to the city's population growth over the last couple years, and its future projections, Masterplan Beira 2035 plans on implementing changes to land ownership and development policies, in an attempt to stop settlements, which usually lack basic infrastructure, from being constructed in flood prone areas. This could minimize future relief costs as well as protect people's economic and transportation mobility.

There seems to be little opposition to this plan, however, a major setback occurred in March 2019. Cyclone Idai inflicted substantial damage to the city, destroying around 90% of the area. Furthermore, hundreds of people were killed, and thousands were displaced, resulting in additional problems with safe and sustainable housing. Beira plans to utilize the masterplan during and after the relief plan.

References

Water management
Steve Jurczyk. Stephen G. Jurczyk (February 20, 1962 – November 23, 2023) was an American engineer who served as the Acting Administrator of NASA. He previously worked at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Education and career 
Jurczyk was a graduate of the University of Virginia where he received Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1984 and 1986. He was an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Jurczyk began his NASA career in 1988 at Langley Research Center in the Electronic Systems Branch as a design, integration and testing engineer developing several space-based Earth remote sensing systems. From 2002 to 2004, Jurczyk was director of engineering, and from 2004 to 2006 he was director of research and technology at Langley where he led the organizations’ contributions to a broad range of research, technology and engineering disciplines contributing to all NASA mission areas. From August 2006, Jurczyk served as Langley's Deputy Center Director. In May 2014, Jurczyk was appointed as Director at NASA’s Langley Research Center. There, he headed NASA’s first field Center, which plays a critical role in NASA’s aeronautics research, exploration and science missions.

After Langley, Jurczyk was the associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, since June 2015.  In this position he formulated and executed the agency’s Space Technology programs, focusing on developing and demonstrating transformative technologies for human and robotic exploration of the solar system in partnership with industry and academia. In May 2018, Jurczyk became NASA's associate administrator, the agency's highest-ranking civil servant position.

Jurczyk became acting NASA administrator following Jim Bridenstine's resignation on January 20, 2021.

Jurczyk retired from NASA on May 14, 2021. He was replaced by astronaut and John F. Kennedy Space Center director Robert D. Cabana.

On August 25, 2021, emails surfaced on a hacking forum allegedly showing United Launch Alliance Vice President Robbie Sabathier being critical of NASA administrators. At the time the email was sent, the acting NASA Administrator position was filled by Steve Jurczyk. Among many statements made, Sabather stated, "NASA HQ’s A-Suite leadership is currently incompetent and unpredictable". ULA has not commented on the authenticity of the emails but has stated it is "taking this alleged cyber crime seriously".

Steve Jurczyk died from pancreatic cancer on November 23, 2023, at the age of 61.

Honors and awards 
Jurczyk received several awards during his NASA career, including two NASA Outstanding Leadership Medals, the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive in 2006, and the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Executive in 2016—the highest honors attainable for federal government leadership.

References

Further reading 

 

 

1962 births
2023 deaths
University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni
American electrical engineers
American people of Polish descent
NASA people
Deaths from pancreatic cancer in Virginia
Chang Kai. Chang Kai (; born August 1964) is a Chinese physicist currently serving as research fellow at the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Biography
Chang was born in Qianshan, Anhui in August 1964. In 1984 he graduated from Fuyang Normal University. In 1986 he graduated from Beijing Normal University, earning his Doctor of Science degree. He was a postdoc at the State Key Laboratory of Superlattice, Institute of Semiconductors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In 1998 he became a visiting scholar at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, he remained there until 2001. He is now a research fellow at the Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Honours and awards
 2004 State Natural Science Award (Second Class)
 2013 Huang Kun Solid State and Semiconductor Physics Award ()
 2019 Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

References

1964 births
People from Qianshan, Anhui
Living people
Fuyang Normal University alumni
Beijing Normal University alumni
Physicists from Anhui
Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Oskar von Stryk. Oskar von Stryk is professor of simulation, system optimization and robotics at the department of computer science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. He is known for his research on robotics.

Life 
From 1984 to 1989 Stryk studied mathematics and computer science at the Technical University of Munich. In 1994 he received his doctorate in mathematics and then habilitated at the university. He was then postdoctoral researcher at TU Munich. Since 2000 he is professor of simulation, system optimization and robotics at the department of computer science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. From April 2011 to March 2013 he was dean of the department. He was visiting professor and lecturer at the University of California, San Diego, and the Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil. Stryk is vice president of Robocup. Since 2018 he has been building the German Rescue Robotics Centre.

Roboter 

He competed in two different teams Hector and ViGIR in the final of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Team Hector competed with the robot Johnny 05 and ViGIR with Florian.

The search and rescue robot Hector (Heterogeneous Cooperating Team Of Robots) of the Technische Universität Darmstadt competed in 2014 in Rescue Robot League of RoboCup, the oldest and world's largest competition for intelligent robots in various application scenarios, and took first place there. The robot Hector took 1st place in the category Best in Class Autonomy, the most intelligent robot, in the Rescue Robot League in the years from 2012 to 2015 and 2018 to 2019.

In 2017, the Argonaut robot, developed by a team led by Stryk, won the ARGOS Challenge for intelligent inspection robots on oil and gas platforms, which the company Total S.A. had launched. The prize was half a million euros. Argonaut is a variant of Taurob tracker and the first fully autonomous, mobile inspection robot for oil and gas plants.

In 2018, Hector competed at the World Robot Summit in Tokyo in the category Plant Disaster Prevention Challenge and won 1st place.

Publications 

 von Stryk, O. & Bulirsch, R. Ann Oper Res (1992) 37: 357. DOI: 10.1007/BF02071065
 von Stryk O. (1993) Numerical Solution of Optimal Control Problems by Direct Collocation. In: Bulirsch R., Miele A., Stoer J., Well K. (eds) Optimal Control. ISNM International Series of Numerical Mathematics, vol 111. Birkhäuser Basel. 
 S. Kohlbrecher, O. von Stryk, J. Meyer and U. Klingauf, "A flexible and scalable SLAM system with full 3D motion estimation," 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics, Kyoto, 2011, pp. 155–160. DOI: 10.1109/SSRR.2011.6106777

References 

German computer scientists
Academic staff of Technische Universität Darmstadt
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
Melissa Jones. Melissa Jones is the NASA landing and recovery director for the Exploration Ground Systems Program. She leads retrieval of NASA flight crew and module hardware.

Early life and education 
Jones was born in Oak Hill, Florida. Her parents and grandparents worked in different aspects of space programs at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. During junior high school, Jones was an intern at the Kennedy Space Center, where she worked on processing for Unity node. She studied electrical engineering at the University of Central Florida. She returned in 2016 and earned a master's degree in engineering management.

Career 

Jones join the Space Shuttle program as a contractor in 2004. In 2007 she was appointed as lead orbiter project engineering for . In this role she looked to get Endeavour in a fit state to fly.

She led system engineering for NASA Ground and Mission Operations the Commercial Crew Program. This included ensuring operations were ready for the launch and integrated systems verification. Jones was part of the New Horizons flyby team in 2015.

In 2017 Jones was awarded a Rotary International National Award for Space Achievement Stellar Award. She serves as an expert for The Planetary Society.

Jones will lead the recovery team of Artemis 1 (previously Exploration Mission-1) that will work with the United States Navy to recover the Orion crew module. The recovery will take place in the ocean near San Diego, and Jones is responsible for the creation of a ship, with a landing platform, that can recover flight crews from open water. She has worked for the Underway Recovery Test 5 (URT-5). Jones was involved with the USS John P. Murtha Orion spacecraft recovery tests.

Personal life 
Jones is married with two children.

References 

Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American electrical engineers
NASA people
University of Central Florida alumni
Earl R. Parker. Earl Randall Parker (November 22, 1912 — May 9, 1998) was an American engineer and professor. Parker began his metallurgy career in the mid 1930s as a researcher for the General Electric Research Laboratory. In the mid 1940s, Parker began teaching metallurgy at the University of California, Berkeley and remained in his teaching position until 1978. While at Berkeley, Parker was chair of the material sciences department and director of engineering research between the 1950s and 1960s. For awards, Parker received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1960 and was named a National Medal of Science recipient in 1979.

Early life and education
On November 22, 1912, Parker was born in Denver, Colorado. For his post-secondary education, Parker graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a  metallurgy degree in 1935.

Career
After graduating, Parker was a metallurgy researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory from 1935 to 1944. During this time period, Parker conducted research on copper, silver and steel to determine their mechanical properties. In 1944, Parker studied Liberty ships at the University of California, Berkeley to determine the cause of their damages. During the mid-1940s, Parker began teaching metallurgy at Berkeley as an associate professor before being promoted to professor in 1949. Parker remained at Berkeley as a professor until his retirement in 1978 and held the position of professor emeritus from 1978 to 1988. Apart from academics, Parker was the chair of the material sciences department for Berkeley from 1953 to 1957. After directing Berkeley's school of engineering research between 1957 and 1964, Parker returned to his chair position with the material sciences department for two additional years.

Awards and honors
In 1960, Parker was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in engineering. In 1979, Parker was named a recipient of the National Medal of Science.

Personal life
Parker died on May 9, 1998, in Sacramento, California. He was married and had two children.

References

1912 births
1998 deaths
University of California, Berkeley faculty
National Medal of Science laureates
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Lu Xiyun. Lu Xiyun (; born April 1963) is a Chinese physicist currently serving as director of the School of Engineering Science, University of Science and Technology of China.

Biography
Lu was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu in April 1963. He completed his doctor's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1992.

He was a visiting scholar at Pennsylvania State University, University of Houston, University of Tennessee, University of Tokyo, Northeastern University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and National University of Singapore since 1992.

He is now the director of the School of Engineering Science, University of Science and Technology of China.

Honours and awards
 "Chang Jiang Scholar" (or "Yangtze River Scholar") 
 November 22, 2019 Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

References

External links
 

1963 births
Living people
People from Taizhou, Jiangsu
Physicists from Jiangsu
University of Science and Technology of China alumni
Academic staff of the University of Science and Technology of China
Members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Victa R-2. The Victa R-2 was a prototype Australian single-engine four-seat light aircraft built by Victa Ltd in the early 1960s. A single example was built, first flying in February 1961, but no production followed.

Design and development

In September 1959, the Australian engineering company Victa Consolidated Industries, a major manufacturer of motor lawnmowers, established an aviation department. The first intended product was the Victa R-2, a four-seat single-engine light aircraft designed by Luigi Pellarini. Pellarini's design was a low-winged, all metal tractor configuration monoplane with a T-tail, powered by a  Lycoming O-360 flat-four piston engine driving a constant-speed propeller. The prototype's wings were braced by struts, although production aircraft may have had fully cantilever wings. The wingtips and tail were raked to reduce drag. A retractable tricycle landing gear was fitted, although the production of versions with fixed landing gear was considered for operations in the bush.

A prototype first flew on 15 February 1961, by which time Victa had received several orders for the R-2. Despite these orders, no production followed. Victa had committed to production of the two-seat Airtourer (which had been ordered in much larger numbers than the R-2), and chose to develop a four-seater derivative of the Airtrainer, the Aircruiser, which was expected to be cheaper to build than the R-2, instead of continuing to develop the R-2. Pellarini left Victa, and later went on to design the Transavia PL-12 Airtruk agricultural biplane, although attempts by Pellarini to build a development of the R-2 as the Transavia PL-13 were unsuccessful.

Specifications (Performance estimated)

References

External links
Victa R-2 Aircraft

1960s Australian civil utility aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1961
R-2
Low-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft
Aircraft with retractable tricycle landing gear
Allison de Fren. Allison de Fren is a writer, professor and media scholar based in Los Angeles, California. Appointed in 2010, de Fren teaches new media theory and practice at Occidental College.

Her documentary film The Mechanical Bride examines the modern-day impulse of creating artificial humanistic dolls for sex and companionship. It is narrated by Julie Newmar with music composed by Rich Ragsdale and features interviews with people who own sex-dolls, engineers who create them, artists who depict them as well as information on historical automatons and female robots portrayed in cinema. The film takes its title from the book of the same name by Marshall McLuhan.

In 2010, the Science Fiction Research Association gave her the Pioneer Award for her essay “The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow’s Eve.” She regularly publishes video essays on subjects related to technology, media representation and gender.

She received her doctorate from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and has been awarded fellowships from the Annenberg Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the American Association of University Women.

References

External links 
de Fren, Allison. "The Anatomical Gaze in Tomorrow's Eve." Science Fiction Studies (2009): 235–265.

Living people
American women writers
Filmmakers from California
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century American women
Huang He Plain mixed forests. The Huang He Plain mixed forests ecoregion (WWF ID: PA0424) covers the flat lower ranges of the Yellow River ("Huang He" means Yellow River).   This area is generally known as the North China Plain.  While there is some forest habitat, the region has mostly been converted to agriculture, being one of the most populous areas in the world (approximately 190 million people).

Location and description 

The Huang He Mixed Forests ecoregion covers the North China plain, a large alluvial plain which collects the deposits of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, the Huai River, and the Hai River.  The plain is very flat, and averages only 50 meters above sea level.  Almost 3% of the land area is urbanized.

Climate 
The climate of the ecoregion is Humid continental climate, hot summer (Köppen climate classification (Dwa)), with a dry winter.  This climate is characterized by large seasonal temperature differentials and a hot summer (at least four months averaging over , at least one month averaging over , and cold winters having monthly precipitation less than one-tenth of the wettest summer month.

Flora and fauna 
The dominant trees in this ecoregion is Quercus acutissima, Quercus mongolica, Larix gmelinii, Larix sibirica, Larix × czekanowskii, Betula dahurica, Betula pendula, Pinus koraiensis, Pinus sibirica, Pinus sylvestris, Picea obovata, Abies sibirica,  Ginkgo biloba, Prunus serrulata, Prunus padus, Tilia amurensis, Salix babylonica, Acer palmatum, Populus tremula, Ulmus davidiana,  Ulmus pumila, Pinus pumila, Haloxylon ammodendron, Elaeagnus angustifolia, Tamarix ramosissima, Juglans regia, and Prunus sibirica. As of 2012, only 15% of the surface area (about 65,000 km2) of the ecoregion was in its natural state; the majority of the land is devoted to agriculture.   A 2005 conservation study reported that the Huang He ecoregion was only 3.29% covered by protected areas, and that the area is "now so populated and degraded that options for PA [protected area] development are very limited".

See also 
 List of ecoregions in China

References 

Palearctic ecoregions
Ecoregions of China
Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests
Moxa Technologies. Moxa Technologies is a Taiwanese technology company specializing in edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure solutions.

Overview
Moxa specializes in edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure solutions. They are headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan.

History
In 2005 Moxa sponsored an international essay contest to discover novel applications of wireless device servers.

By 2005 Moxa was a $30 million dollar company, by 2008 they were a $100 million dollar company. In response to competition the company has been forced to climb the technology value chain and focus on high end products. 

In November 2018 Moxa and Trend Micro announced the formation of a joint-venture corporation named TXOne Networks which will focus on the security needs of the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

In 2019 Moxa teamed up with National Taiwan University to launch a research and development lab called the MOXA-NTU Networking Innovation Lab. The primary focus of the lab will be on Time-Sensitive Networking.

Moxa Americas Inc.
Moxa Americas Inc. is Moxa’s American subsidiary with headquarters in Brea, CA. Moxa Americas Inc. was founded in 1992 and employs approximately 800 people.

See also
 List of companies of Taiwan

References

Taiwanese companies established in 1987
Taiwanese brands
Electronics companies of Taiwan
Defence companies of Taiwan