Ethnobotany in Mexico: An Annotated Bibliography

The discovery of the New World resulted in the discovery and subsequent utilization of many new species of plants, such as potato, avocado, chocolate, and coca. Ethnobotany, the study of the use of plants by native people and the relationship to their environment, has been a part of the literature of the New World since the sixteenth century. Bernardino de Sahagún, a Franciscan friar, was first to examine the plant use of the Nahua. Since then, many others have studied the relationship of the people of Mexico to their environment. The publications listed here are located in the Benson Latin American Collection stacks, unless otherwise indicated.UT Librarie

De Ruimte van de Cartografie

There is a type of contemporary space which, as such, remains practically unnoticed even by those who are responsible for its creation. This could be explained by the fact that these spaces have no specific location, their essence being of a sym-bolic, conceptual kind. I’m referring to maps, the forms for the graphic representation of spatial milieu. As it will be explained below, maps are themselves places that substitute those of the represented reality; they are surrogate spaces operating primarily through analogy and abstraction. The production and use of this peculiar space have important consequences in the actual configuration of physic milieus on any scale, be it architectural, urban or territorial. Cartographic historians and critics insist in the fact that maps, whatever be their medium or the quantity of infor-mation contained in them, do not possible present the depicted milieu directly or transparently – despite the alleged objectivity of the most advanced georeferenced information systems. Instead, maps are powerful and sophisticated instruments that allow us to structure our environ-ment by ‘providing versions of truth for human minds to apprehend’. The idea of every form of spatial representation entailing the performance of a particular action over the depicted object underpins the ensuing inquiry about cartographic production and its transformational capabilities.Er bestaat een soort hedendaagse ruimte die als zodanig nauwelijks wordt opgemerkt, zelfs niet door degenen die verantwoordelijk zijn voor de creatie ervan. Dit valt te verklaren door het feit dat die ruimtes geen specifieke locatie hebben aange-zien ze in de kern symbolisch, conceptueel van aard zijn. Ik heb het over landkaarten, de vorm die wordt gebruikt voor de grafische weergave van een ruimtelijk milieu. Zoals ik hieronder zal toelichten, zijn kaarten zélf plaatsen die de plaats innemen van de weergegeven werkelijkheid, het zijn surrogaatruimtes waarvan de werking in de eerste plaats berust op analogie en abstractie. Hoe die bijzondere ruimte wordt geprodu-ceerd en gebruikt, heeft belangrijke consequen-ties voor de vormgeving van feitelijke fysieke mili-eus op elk schaalniveau, architectonisch, stedelijk of regionaal. Historici en critici van de cartografie onderstrepen het inzicht dat kaarten, ongeacht het medium of de hoeveelheid informatie die ze bevatten, het afgebeelde milieu onmogelijk recht-streeks of transparant kunnen weergeven, hoe objectief de meest geavanceerde gegeorefereerde informatiesystemen ook heten te zijn. Kaarten zijn wél krachtige en verfijnde instrumen-ten waarmee we structuur in onze omgeving kun-nen aanbrengen, want ze leveren ‘versies van de waarheid die de menselijke geest kan bevatten’. In de volgende beschouwing van de productie en het transformationele vermogen van kaarten wordt uitgegaan van de gedachte dat in elke vorm van ruimtelijke representatie het weergegeven object onvermijdelijk een bepaalde bewerking ondergaat

Bio-inspired design for engineering applications: empirical and finite element studies of biomechanically adapted porous bone architectures

Includes bibliographical references.2020 Summer.Trabecular bone is a porous, lightweight material structure found in the bones of mammals, birds, and reptiles. Trabecular bone continually remodels itself to maintain lightweight, mechanical competence, and to repair accumulated damage. The remodeling process can adjust trabecular bone architecture to meet the changing mechanical demands of a bone due to changes in physical activity such as running, walking, etc. It has previously been suggested that bone adapted to extreme mechanical environments, with unique trabecular architectures, could have implications for various bioinspired engineering applications. The present study investigated porous bone architecture for two examples of extreme mechanical loading. Dinosaurs were exceptionally large animals whose body mass placed massive gravitational loads on their skeleton. Previous studies investigated dinosaurian bone strength and biomechanics, but the relationships between dinosaurian trabecular bone architecture and mechanical behavior has not been studied. In this study, trabecular bone samples from the distal femur and proximal tibia of dinosaurs ranging in body mass from 23-8,000 kg were investigated. The trabecular architecture was quantified from micro-computed tomography scans and allometric scaling relationships were used to determine how the trabecular bone architectural indices changed with body mass. Trabecular bone mechanical behavior was investigated by finite element modeling. It was found that dinosaurian trabecular bone volume fraction is positively correlated with body mass like what is observed for extant mammalian species, while trabecular spacing, number, and connectivity density in dinosaurs is negatively correlated with body mass, exhibiting opposite behavior from extant mammals. Furthermore, it was found that trabecular bone apparent modulus is positively correlated with body mass in dinosaurian species, while no correlation was observed for mammalian species. Additionally, trabecular bone tensile and compressive principal strains were not correlated with body mass in mammalian or dinosaurian species. Trabecular bone apparent modulus was positively correlated with trabecular spacing in mammals and positively correlated with connectivity density in dinosaurs, but these differential architectural effects on trabecular bone apparent modulus limit average trabecular bone tissue strains to below 3,000 microstrain for estimated high levels of physiological loading in both mammals and dinosaurs. Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams (Ovis canadensis canadensis) routinely conduct intraspecific combat where high energy cranial impacts are experienced. Previous studies have estimated cranial impact forces up to 3,400 N and yet the rams observationally experience no long-term damage. Prior finite element studies of bighorn sheep ramming have shown that the horn reduces brain cavity translational accelerations and the bony horncore stores 3x more strain energy than the horn during impact. These previous findings have yet to be applied to applications where impact force reduction is needed, such as helmets and athletic footwear. In this study, the velar architecture was mimicked and tested to determine suitability as novel material architecture for running shoe midsoles. It was found that velar bone mimics reduce impact force (p < 0.001) and higher energy storage during impact (p < 0.001) and compression (p < 0.001) as compared to traditional midsole architectures. Furthermore, a quadratic relationship (p < 0.001) was discovered between impact force and stiffness in the velar bone mimics. These findings have implications for the design of novel material architectures with optimal stiffness for minimizing impact force

Santiago Roth and his scientific legacy: a reappraisal of the Swiss collections

The Pampean Region in the eastern central part of Argentina is today an agricultural zone, the main national food producer, and the base for a population that holds in big cities more than half of the 46 million inhabitants of the country. A century ago, Pampean landscapes were dominated by native grasslands, gallery forests confined to riverbanks, sparse dry forests towards the west of the area, and on the horizon of the flat Pampas, occasional isolated ombú trees (Phytolacca dioica) and eucalyptuses planted by the increasing population to provide shade in hot days and protection during storms for domesticated animals and people. Native birds, reptiles, and mammals, now replaced by humans and human activities, were certainly more frequent than today. However, these same riverbanks and lowlands were places where fossil hunters such as Santiago Roth could find bizarre extinct creatures that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. The main attractions were the bones and teeth of megamammals, such as huge ground sloths (Megatherium americanum) which weighed more than four tonnes; big armadillos, such as Panochthus tuberculatus, with the size of a small car; strange ungulates having nasal apertures on the top of the skull that likely sported a trunk, as in the case of Macrauchenia patachonica; predators with hyper-enlarged sabertooth canines like the felid Smilodon populator, all contemporaneous with local gigantic spectacled bear relatives; proboscideans; native horses; deer with elaborate antlers; and other creatures living in South America in the near past of the Pleistocene. The Pampean Region was and still is a region where the remaining of these lost species can be found. Radiocarbon dating has demonstrated that several of these megammamals coexisted with the first humans in the area around 12,000– 11,000 years ago. Did they interact? Did humans hunt them, and perhaps cause their extinction? Santiago Roth contributed to all of these topics by making new discoveries and publishing on them. Santiago Roth was a Swiss naturalist, explorer, and palaeontologist who spent most of his active life in Argentina, where he died at the age of 74 years. At the end of the nineteenth century, Santiago Roth (then 16 years) and his family moved from Switzerland to Argentina in search of better opportunities. In Argentina, he grew up in a young republic beset by war and social revolts, but ultimately accomplished a great deal in support of the scientific development of the country. In his young years, he started collecting objects of natural sciences, including fossils. Some of his palaeontological collections from the Pampean Region were sold in Europe. Six of them were associated with catalogues, in which a number identifies the specimen, taxonomic determination, material found, and provenance. Some of these collections are still kept intact in Copenhagen and Zurich. Other fossil specimens collected by Roth are today in natural history museums in Geneva and Lausanne. Santiago Roth was a multifaceted person. His contributions to science went well beyond palaeontology and embraced other disciplines, such as geology, geomorphology, and stratigraphy. Together with the founder Keywords Megafauna, Fossil, Vertebrate palaeontology, Exploration, Pampas, Argentina, Switzerlan

Extension and improvement of synchronous linear generator based point absorber operation in high wave excitation scenarios

[EN]The exploitation of marine wave energy resource has led to the design of numerous Wave Energy Converter (WEC) configurations. The power absorption of a WEC is tightly related to its physical properties and the characteristics of the incoming wave front. Additionally, the operational range of a WEC is limited to certain characteristics of the incoming waves. These restrictions are usually related to limitations in the maximum force of the Power Take-off (PTO) system and the safety of the WEC. As a result, the power production of the WEC must be stopped during sea states of high wave elevation. With the objective of improving the operation of a WEC during these sea states, a Field Weakening (FW) control functionality is proposed to be implemented in the control system of a single-body linear in heave oscillating point absorber with a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Linear Generator (PMSLG) based electrical PTO system. The aim of the aforementioned functionality is to attenuate the magnetic flux in the PMSLG during sea states of high wave elevation. The influence of the size of a WEC on the benefits of the proposed FW functionality is also studied. To that end, two point absorbers with different size are analysed with NEMOH and a wave-to-wire (W2W) model of each WEC is developed. This W2W model enables analysis of the performance and power production of the WECs at different sea states of interest. The obtained results show a remarkable improvement of the operation of a WEC with the implementation of the FW strategy during sea states of high excitation, which leads to an extension of its operation and subsequent additional energy/hydrogen generation.Authors acknowledge financial support by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Agencia Espanola de Investigacion (grant PID2020-116153RB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and the University of the Basque Country under the contract (UPV/EHU, GIU20/008)

Floating wind turbine energy and fatigue loads estimation according to climate period scaled wind and waves

Offshore wind power is one of the fastest-growing renewable energy sources, as it is expected to play a major role in the transition towards sustainability and net zero emissions. Despite its potential, the interaction of the turbines with the oceanic waves, especially in case of floating turbines, is one of the main drawbacks associated to it. In fact, mechanical oscillations caused by the waves could potentially alter the operation and lifetime of the turbines. Hence, while the characterization of the wind is sufficient for the long-term design of onshore wind turbines, the procedure is more complex in case of offshore turbines, since the height, period and direction of the waves will affect the lifetime of the turbine. In this paper, a methodology for the evaluation of the energy generation and fatigue mechanical loads of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) considering a 30-year period is proposed. To that end, meteorological data from 1991 to 2020 are characterized using a cluster analysis and reduced into a computationally affordable number of simulation cases. Results show negligible energy loss of a FOWT due to interaction with the oceanic waves. However, a substantial increment of the mechanical fatigue in the side-side and fore-aft bending moments of the tower are detected. Such analyses might be applied for the predictability of the lifetime of an offshore wind turbine, as well as the selection of potential optimal wind farm locations, based on climatic patterns and the evolution of meteorological data.The authors acknowledge grant PID2020-116153RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and, as appropriate, by “ERDF A way of making Europe”, by the “European Union” or by the “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”. Additionally, financial support by the University of the Basque Country under the contract (UPV/EHU project GIU20/008) has been received

Optimal strategies of deployment of far offshore co-located wind-wave energy farms

[EN] The most profitable offshore energy resources are usually found away from the coast. Nevertheless, the accessibility and grid integration in those areas are more complicated. To avoid this problematic, large scale hydrogen production is being promoted for far offshore applications. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the ability of wave energy converters to maximize hydrogen production in hybrid wind and wave far offshore farms. To that end, wind and wave resource data are obtained from ERA5 for different locations in the Atlantic ocean and a Maximum Covariance Analysis is proposed for the selection of the most representative locations. Furthermore, the suitability of different sized wave energy converters for auxiliary hydrogen production in the far offshore wind farms is also analysed. On that account, the hydrodynamic parameters of the oscillating bodies are obtained via simulations with a Boundary Element Method based code and their operation is modelled using the software tool Matlab. The combination of both methodologies enables to perform a realistic assessment of the contribution of the wave energy converters to the hydrogen generation of an hybrid energy farm, especially during those periods when the wind turbines would be stopped due to the variability of the wind. The obtained results show a considerable hydrogen generation capacity of the wave energy converters, up to 6.28% of the wind based generation, which could remarkably improve the efficiency of the far offshore farm and bring important economical profit. Wave energy converters are observed to be most profitable in those farms with low covariance between wind and waves, where the disconnection times of the wind turbines are prone to be more prolonged but the wave energy is still usable. In such cases, a maximum of 101.12 h of equivalent rated production of the wind turbine has been calculated to be recovered by the wave energy converters.This paper is part of project PID2020-116153RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. Authors also acknowledge financial support by the University of the Basque Country under the contract (UPV/EHU, GIU20/008)

Disuación de entrada, subastas repetidas y divisibilidad del objeto en venta

This paper analyzes entry deterrence strategies at sequential multi-unit English-type repeated auctions, motivated by entry deterrence observed at a series of yearly auctions of fishing rights occurring since the early 1990s in the Chilean Sea Bass industrial fishery. It analyzes parametric configurations under which incumbent firms may have followed non-cooperative entry deterrence strategies or else may have colluded for that purpose. A two-stage competition model is developed. In the first stage there occurs sequential auctioning of multiple fishing rights; in the second stage, production rights are used to compete in a homogeneous-good Cournot market. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the number of incumbents, sources of competitive advantage for them (relative to potential entrants) and the number and productive size of the multiple production rights in sale. The core of the analysis lies in answering how does the divisibility of the object(s) in sale affect the possibilities of incumbent firms for deterring the entry of new rivals.Collusion; Entry Deterrence; Repeated Auctions; Free Riding.

Auctions, Entry Deterrence and Divisibility of the Object for Sale

This paper analyzes entry deterrence strategies at sequential multi-unit English-type repeated auctions, based on entry deterrence observed at a series of yearly auctions of fishing rights occurring since the early 1990s in the Chilean sea bass fishery. It analyzes parametric configurations under which incumbent firms could have followed non-cooperative deterrence strategies or else may have colluded for that purpose. A two-stage competition model is developed. In the first stage there occurs sequential auctioning of multiple fishing rights; in the second stage, production rights are used to compete in a homogeneous-good Cournot market. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the number of incumbents, sources of competitive advantage for them, and the number and size of the rights for sale. The core of the analysis lies in answering how the divisibility of the object(s) for sale affects the possibilities of incumbents to deter new rivals’ entry.