Numerical and experimental study of atrium enclosure fires in a full scale fire test facility. Póster

For the present work, a 3-D numerical model has been implemented to simulate the thermal and fluid fields induced by an enclosure fire in an atrium and for smoke exhaust system assessment. This study is focused on the ‘Fire Atrium’, a new full-scale fire test facility of the Technological Metal Centre in Murcia, Spain. It is an aluminium prismatic squared base building of 19.5 m x 19.5 m x 20 m with several vents arranged in its walls and four exhaust fans at the roof

Contribution to real time stability monitoring in waves based in FFT algorithm

[Abstract] This paper describes a methodology to implement and operate an automatic onboard device destined to compute ship stability in real time. The system comprises a software based set of instruments linked to a PC computer which measure roll motions in waves and process acquired data supplying a value related with ship stability by means of an algorithm based in the frequency domain analysis of ships motions related with sea state parameter

Cognitive Biases in Human Causal Learning

El objetivo de este trabajo fue la búsqueda de sesgos cognitivos en la inferencia de relaciones causales para descubrir qué procesos psicológicos modulan el aprendizaje causal. A partir del efecto de la frecuencia de juicio, este trabajo presenta investigación consecuente sobre competición entre claves (ensombrecimiento, bloqueo o súper-condicionamiento) para demostrar cómo la fuerza de las creencias previas y la evidencia sobre la covariación de cada causa contribuyen aditivamente en los juicios causales y en la toma de decisiones, siendo su fuerza relativa modulada por la fiabilidad otorgada a cada tipo de información. Nuevos datos muestran también la incapacidad para detectar relaciones causales incidentales preventivas, pero no generativas. Esta “ceguera inatencional” parece deberse a un fallo en la codificación o recuperación de la información. Todos estos datos revelan que una arquitectura cognitiva del aprendizaje causal debe basarse en tres niveles. El primer nivel sería responsable de la codificación de los eventos en cada ensayo. El segundo nivel computaría la nueva evidencia a partir de la información recibida del primer nivel. En el tercer nivel, el individuo debe interpretar e integrar toda esta información con su conocimiento causal previo. En suma, los modelos sobre juicios de causalidad y toma de decisiones normalmente se han centrado en el efecto exclusivo de las “creencias y conocimiento causal” o de la “experiencia directa y covariación” entre causas y efectos. Este trabajo demuestra que ambos tipos de información se requieren e interactúan cuando se trata de explicar la complejidad y flexibilidad que implica el aprendizaje y la inferencia de relaciones causales en humanos.The main aim of this work was to look for cognitive biases in human inference of causal relationships in order to emphasize the psychological processes that modulate causal learning. From the effect of the judgment frequency, this work presents subsequent research on cue competition (overshadowing, blocking, and super-conditioning effects) showing that the strength of prior beliefs and new evidence based upon covariation computation contributes additively to predict causal judgments, whereas the balance between the reliability of both, beliefs and covariation knowledge, modulates their relative weight. New findings also showed “inattentional blindness” for negative or preventative causal relationships but not for positive or generative ones, due to failure in codifying and retrieving the necessary information for its computation. Overall results unveil the need of three hierarchical levels of a whole architecture for human causal learning: the lower one, responsible for codifying the events during the task; the second one, computing the retrieved information; finally, the higher level, integrating this evidence with previous causal knowledge. In summary, whereas current theoretical frameworks on causal inference and decision-making usually focused either on causal beliefs or covariation information, the present work shows how both are required to be able to explain the complexity and flexibility involved in human causal learning

Evaluation and control of marine vessels stability in waves

[Abstract] This paper presents the research results achieved by means of the preliminary design study and implementation of a Pc-based Expert System for Safely Navigation. PESSN. It consists in an advisory system related to the stability and motion of the vessels in waves, where environmental information and marine vehicle conditions are acquired by a set of sensors. A proper real time corrective action is taken by means of PESS

High performance PI(D) controller on ship steering with a conditional reset windup

In this work it is described some practical aspects of PI(D) controllers regarding to conditional integration as an alternative to classical reset windup. This contribution concerns to the integral action, which is managed as function of control error sign. The effect due to the action of reset to zero or clear integral action when sign error changes, is a drastic reduction in response overshoot to command inputs for a special type of common industrial control systems among which, are ship steering control. Such strategy take advantages over conventional reset windup of PI(D) controllers in some applications such as feedback control of second order processes with at least, one of the dominant roots located at the origin of complex plan

Manifiesto que da a la provincia de León el gefe [sic] político cesante don Miguel Antonio Camacho de los actos de su administración desde 10 de septiembre de 1837 en que tomó posesión de dicho gobierno, hasta el 7 de abril último en que fué separado

Copia digital. Valladolid : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 2010-201

Influence of different make-up air configurations on the fire-induced conditions in an atrium

This paper provides with a set of full-scale experimental data of atrium fires. These data could be used as benchmarks for future numerical validation studies. In particular, the influence of the make-up air velocity as well as the position and area of the vents in an atrium is assessed both experimentally and numerically. Experimentally, the effect of different make-up air supply positions and inlet area on the fire-induced inner conditions and smoke layer descent was studied by means of three full-scale fire tests conducted in a 20 m cubic atrium. Detailed transient measurements of gas and wall temperatures, as well as pressure drop through the exhaust fans and airflow at the inlets were recorded. Later computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of these tests were performed with the code Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS). Experimentally, the lack of symmetry in make-up air vents and the large inlet area turn the flame and plume into more sensitive to outer effects. However, no significant difference has been observed between the make-up air topologies assessed. Even make-up velocities higher than 1 m/s, with symmetric venting topology, have not induced important flame or plume perturbations. Numerically, the simulations agree well with the experiments for the cases with make-up air velocities lower than 1 m/s. Poor agreement has been found for the case with inlet velocities higher than 1 m/s

Relationships between Personality Traits and Brain Gray Matter Are Different in Risky and Non-risky Drivers

We would like to thank the support of the Andalusian Regional Government, and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), to the Brain, Behavior, and Health, scientific excellence unit (SC2), ref: SOMM17/6103/UGR. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness (PSI2016-80558-R) awarded to A.Ct. and a predoctoral fellowship of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU18/03263) to L.M. We would also like to thank the professional English proofreader, yourenglishlab, for her work.Personality traits such as impulsivity or sensitivity to rewards and punishments have been associated with risky driving behavior, but it is still unclear how brain anatomy is related to these traits as a function of risky driving. In the present study, we explore the neuroanatomical basis of risky driving behavior and how the level of risk-taking influences the relationship between the traits of impulsivity and sensitivity to rewards and punishments and brain gray matter volume. One hundred forty-four participants with different risk-taking tendencies assessed by real-life driving situations underwent MRI. Personality traits were assessed with selfreport measures. We observed that the total gray matter volume varied as a function of risky driving tendencies, with higher risk individuals showing lower gray matter volumes. Similar results were found for volumes of brain areas involved in the reward and cognitive control networks, such as the frontotemporal, parietal, limbic, and cerebellar cortices. We have also shown that sensitivity to reward and punishment and impulsivity are differentially related to gray matter volumes as a function of risky driving tendencies. Highly risky individuals show lower absolute correlations with gray matter volumes than less risk-prone individuals. Taken together, our results show that risky drivers differ in the brain structure of the areas involved in reward processing, cognitive control, and behavioral modulation, which may lead to dysfunctional decision-making and riskier driving behavior.Andalusian Regional GovernmentEuropean Commission PSI2016-80558-RSpanish Government FPU18/03263 SOMM17/6103/UG