Smart and networking underwater robots in cooperation meshes : the swarms ECSEL : H2020 project

The work presented on this paper is aimed to explain the role that unmanned underwater vehicles (AUVs/ROVs) plays in the ECSEL-H2020 SWARMS project. The main goal of the project is to reduce the operational cost and increase the safety of tasks assigned to divers in these operations. This will be achieved enabling the AUVs/ROVs to work in a cooperative mesh. The challenge is to design and develop an integrated platform (a set of Software/Hardware components), incorporated into the current generation of underwater vehicles in order to improve autonomy, cooperation, robustness, cost-effectiveness, and reliability of the offshore operations. The first demonstration of the project will be performed at PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) where these technologies will be validated on its first stage.Peer Reviewe

Expanding ocean-monitoring capabilities in the Macaronesia with unmanned mobile platforms

The Macaronesia is a vast area playing a key role in the East boundary of the Central North-Atlantic ocean-circulation system. Despite a significant research activity in ocean monitoring for decades using a wide range of observing systems and methodologies, the area is still under-sampled, mainly due access and coverage constrains, as well as the observation sustainability. Ocean gliders offer a new approach in terms of capacity and sustainability, allowing undertake ocean-monitoring in spatiotemporal scales hitherto unavailable. The present work shows preliminary results from the latest mission with buoyancy-driven and surface ocean gliders in the area, whose main goal focuses on to improve and expand ocean observation capabilities strengthening glider endurance lines between archipelagos, as part of the global ocean-observation strategy conducted by the Marine & Maritime Network (R3M), as regional contribution directly aligned with European and international initiatives and strategies in the North Atlantic basin.Peer Reviewe

Smart sensing interoperability platforms in the scope of Atlantos

This paper aims to demonstrate the capabilities of a Smart Cable which aims to convert any commercial non-PUCK-enabled sensor in a Smart PUCK-enabled device. Through this development, it can be easily integrated on a sensor web platform in order to access the data in real time, and so there is no need to rely on each sensor manufacturer to comply with Sensor Web Enablement standards. The results presented in this paper were acquired during some real field experiments performed between the 24th and 28th of September at PLOCAN facilities in Gran Canaria. During these days three Turner Designs Cyclops sensors were successfully integrated and tested in a mission using an observing surface vehicle such as the Wave Glider SV-2.Peer Reviewe

Leishmaniose en Equateur : 6. Note épidémiologique et entomologique sur le foyer de leishmaniose de Zumba

La région de Zumba se trouve au sud de la province méridionale amazonienne d'Equateur de Zamora-Chinchipe, considérée comme la seconde zone d'endémie leishmanienne de ce pays. Une enquête clinico-épidémiologique a été effectuée sur 83 patients en détection passive. De plus, tous les biotopes du foyer de Zumba, dont les habitations, ont été échantillonés, de février à septembre 92, pour la récolte des phlébotomes au piège lumineux et sur appât humain (2.547 phlébotomes récoltés). La faune anthrophile est pauvre et trois espèces seulement ont été observées. #Lutzomyia serrana est une espèce abondante piquant même de jour. #Lu. maranonensis est une nouvelle espèce proche de #Lu. nevesi. Lu. castanea, autre nouvelle espèce, est rare. La localisation de nombreuses lésions à la face suggère, au moins en partie, une transmission domiciliaire, pour laquelle #Lu. serrana serait un candidat-vecteur possible étant donné son omniprésence et son anthropophile. (Résumé d'auteur

The WHaD diagram: Classifying the ionizing source with one single emission line

The usual approach to classify the ionizing source using optical spectroscopy is based on the use of diagnostic diagrams that compares the relative strength of pairs of collisitional metallic lines (e.g., [O iii] and [N ii]) with respect to recombination hydrogen lines (e.g., H{\beta} and H{\alpha}). Despite of being accepted as the standard procedure, it present known problems, including confusion regimes and/or limitations related to the required signal-to-noise of the involved emission lines. These problems affect not only our intrinsic understanding of inter-stellar medium and its poroperties, but also fundamental galaxy properties, such as the star-formation rate and the oxygen abundance, and key questions just as the fraction of active galactic nuclei, among several others. We explore the existing alternatives in the literature to minimize the confusion among different ionizing sources and proposed a new simple diagram that uses the equivalent width and the velocity dispersion from one single emission line, H{\alpha}, to classify the ionizing sources. We use aperture limited and spatial resolved spectroscopic data in the nearby Universe (z{\sim}0.01) to demonstrate that the new diagram, that we called WHaD, segregates the different ionizing sources in a more efficient way that previously adopted procedures. A new set of regions are defined in this diagram to select betweeen different ionizing sources. The new proposed diagram is well placed to determine the ionizing source when only H{\alpha} is available, or when the signal-to-noise of the emission lines involved in the classical diagnostic diagrams (e.g., H{\beta}).Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publishing in A&

CUPID-0: the first array of enriched scintillating bolometers for 0decay investigations

The CUPID-0 detector hosted at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Italy, is the first large array of enriched scintillating cryogenic detectors for the investigation of82Se neutrinoless double-beta decay (0). CUPID-0 aims at measuring a background index in the region of interest (RoI) for 0at the level of 10- 3 counts/(keV kg years), the lowest value ever measured using cryogenic detectors. CUPID-0 operates an array of Zn82Se scintillating bolometers coupled with bolometric light detectors, with a state of the art technology for background suppression and thorough protocols and procedures for the detector preparation and construction. In this paper, the different phases of the detector design and construction will be presented, from the material selection (for the absorber production) to the new and innovative detector structure. The successful construction of the detector lead to promising preliminary detector performance which is discussed here

Understanding and mitigating hydrogen embrittlement of steels: a review of experimental, modelling and design progress from atomistic to continuum

Hydrogen embrittlement is a complex phenomenon, involving several length- and timescales, that affects a large class of metals. It can significantly reduce the ductility and load-bearing capacity and cause cracking and catastrophic brittle failures at stresses below the yield stress of susceptible materials. Despite a large research effort in attempting to understand the mechanisms of failure and in developing potential mitigating solutions, hydrogen embrittlement mechanisms are still not completely understood. There are controversial opinions in the literature regarding the underlying mechanisms and related experimental evidence supporting each of these theories. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed review up to the current state of the art on the effect of hydrogen on the degradation of metals, with a particular focus on steels. Here, we describe the effect of hydrogen in steels from the atomistic to the continuum scale by reporting theoretical evidence supported by quantum calculation and modern experimental characterisation methods, macroscopic effects that influence the mechanical properties of steels and established damaging mechanisms for the embrittlement of steels. Furthermore, we give an insight into current approaches and new mitigation strategies used to design new steels resistant to hydrogen embrittlement

SSDSS IV MaNGA - Properties of AGN host galaxies

We present here the characterization of the main properties of a sample of 98 AGN host galaxies, both type-II and type-I, in comparison with those of about 2700 non-active galaxies observed by the MaNGA survey. We found that AGN hosts are morphologically early-type or early-spirals. For a given morphology AGN hosts are, in average, more massive, more compact, more central peaked and rather pressurethan rotational-supported systems. We confirm previous results indicating that AGN hosts are located in the intermediate/transition region between star-forming and non-star-forming galaxies (i.e., the so-called green valley), both in the ColorMagnitude and the star formation main sequence diagrams. Taking into account their relative distribution in terms of the stellar metallicity and oxygen gas abundance and a rough estimation of their molecular gas content, we consider that these galaxies are in the process of halting/quenching the star formation, in an actual transition between both groups. The analysis of the radial distributions of the starformation rate, specific star-formation rate, and molecular gas density shows that the quenching happens from inside-out involving both a decrease of the efficiency of the star formation and a deficit of molecular gas. All the intermediate data-products used to derive the results of our analysis are distributed in a database including the spatial distribution and average properties of the stellar populations and ionized gas, published as a Sloan Digital Sky Survey Value Added Catalog being part of the 14th Data Release: http://www.sdss.org/dr14/manga/manga-data/manga-pipe3d-value-added-catalog/Comment: 48 pages, 14 figures, in press in RMxA

The Dusty View of DI from ESO Chile

Around the time of the impact of NASA's Deep Impact (DI) mission at comet 9P/Tempel 1, in total 6 telescopes with altogether 7 different instruments, located at the La Silla (LSO) and Paranal (VLT) Observatories of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile, were used to characterize the dust properties before and after the event. The ejecta cloud expanded at an average speed of about 200 ms[SUP]-1[/SUP]during the first hours after the event. It reached stagnation distance of 25000 km about 3 days after impact. The pre-impact dust jet and fan activity (`porcupine' pattern) remained undisturbed after impact. In our measurements the jet activity can be traced to a few 100 km nucleus distance. In total 9 comastructures are identified which may originate from at least 4 regions of enhanced dust emission on the nucleus - one of this region may in fact be multiple. No obvious signatures of a new active region created by DI are found. The overall dust production during the impact compares to about 5-10 h of normal activity. The global expansion geometry of the DI cloud is compatible with a majority of dust grains in the micron size range. Indications exist for asymmetric brightness and colour distributions of the dust in the ejecta cloud. The dust temperature rose from about 280-290 K before to 330 K one day after the event and fell to pre-impact level the day thereafter. The dust reflected sunlight was found to be linearly polarized at about 7.5% in the visible and near-IR, at constant level within about 4000 km from the nucleus. No circular polarization of the dust is detected.Peer reviewe