High-level information fusion for risk and accidents prevention in pervasive oil industry environments

Proceedings of: 12th International Conference on Practical Applications of Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, University of Salamanca (Spain), 4th-6th June, 2014.Information fusion studies theories and methods to effectively combine data from multiple sensors and related information to achieve more specific inferences that could be achieved by using a single, independent sensor. Information fused from sensors and data mining analysis has recently attracted the attention of the research community for real-world applications. In this sense, the deployment of an Intelligent Offshore Oil Industry Environment will help to figure out a risky scenario based on the events occurred in the past related to anomalies and the profile of the current employee (role, location, etc.). In this paper we propose an information fusion model for an intelligent oil environment in which employees are alerted about possible risk situations while their are moving around their working place. The layered architecture, implements a reasoning engine capable of intelligently filtering the context profile of the employee (role, location) for the feature selection of an inter-transaction mining process. Depending on the employee contextual information he will receive intelligent alerts based on the prediction model that use his role and his current location. This model provides the big picture about risk analysis for that employee at that place in that moment.This work was partially funded by CNPq BJT Project 407851/2012-

YASA: yet another time series segmentation algorithm for anomaly detection in big data problems

Time series patterns analysis had recently attracted the attention of the research community for real-world applications. Petroleum industry is one of the application contexts where these problems are present, for instance for anomaly detection. Offshore petroleum platforms rely on heavy turbomachines for its extraction, pumping and generation operations. Frequently, these machines are intensively monitored by hundreds of sensors each, which send measurements with a high frequency to a concentration hub. Handling these data calls for a holistic approach, as sensor data is frequently noisy, unreliable, inconsistent with a priori problem axioms, and of a massive amount. For the anomalies detection problems in turbomachinery, it is essential to segment the dataset available in order to automatically discover the operational regime of the machine in the recent past. In this paper we propose a novel time series segmentation algorithm adaptable to big data problems and that is capable of handling the high volume of data involved in problem contexts. As part of the paper we describe our proposal, analyzing its computational complexity. We also perform empirical studies comparing our algorithm with similar approaches when applied to benchmark problems and a real-life application related to oil platform turbomachinery anomaly detection

Combining support vector machines and segmentation algorithms for efficient anomaly detection: a petroleum industry application

Proceedings of: International Joint Conference SOCO’14-CISIS’14-ICEUTE’14, Bilbao, Spain, June 25th–27th, 2014, ProceedingsAnomaly detection is the problem of finding patterns in data that do not conform to expected behavior. Similarly, when patterns are numerically distant from the rest of sample, anomalies are indicated as outliers. Anomaly detection had recently attracted the attention of the research community for real-world applications. The petroleum industry is one of the application contexts where these problems are present. The correct detection of such types of unusual information empowers the decision maker with the capacity to act on the system in order to correctly avoid, correct, or react to the situations associated with them. In that sense, heavy extraction machines for pumping and generation operations like turbomachines are intensively monitored by hundreds of sensors each that send measurements with a high frequency for damage prevention. For dealing with this and with the lack of labeled data, in this paper we propose a combination of a fast and high quality segmentation algorithm with a one-class support vector machine approach for efficient anomaly detection in turbomachines. As result we perform empirical studies comparing our approach to other methods applied to benchmark problems and a real-life application related to oil platform turbomachinery anomaly detection.This work was partially funded by CNPq BJT Project 407851/2012-7 and CNPq PVE Project 314017/2013-

Noble gas signals in corals predict submarine volcanic eruptions

Deep-water corals growing in close proximity to the 2011 submarine eruption at Tagoro (El Hierro Island; Canary Archipielago, Spain) have revealed their ability to record the magmatic helium (3He) signal during a period of months prior to the eruption with magmatic 3He/4He ratios of 3.6-5.0 RA This is similar to the range of He isotope values (3-10 Ra) obtained from olivine samples from basinites erupted during the 2011 Tagoro eruption. Whip-like black corals (Anthozoa: Antipatharia: Antipathidae: Stichopathes) growing on basaltic rocks trapped 3He within their skeletons. We used a theoretical growth rate to estimate the time of trapping of 3He between release from the magmatic source at depth to trapping by the aquatic organisms. Our findings suggest that magmatic 3He emission occurred a few months before the beginning of the seismic activity in the region, the latter occurring four months in advance of the beginning of the eruption. This discovery implies that corals living in submarine volcanic areas may act as archives of noble gases released before the beginning of an eruption, and that the continuous monitoring of 3He may help to constrain the arrival time of a subaqueous eruption with potential applications in volcano eruption forecasting.En prens

Non-isothermal model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A liquid crystalline transition

An extension to a high-order model for the direct isotropic/smectic-A liquid crystalline phase transition was derived to take into account thermal effects including anisotropic thermal diffusion and latent heat of phase-ordering. Multi-scale multi-transport simulations of the non-isothermal model were compared to isothermal simulation, showing that the presented model extension corrects the standard Landau-de Gennes prediction from constant growth to diffusion-limited growth, under shallow quench/undercooling conditions. Non-isothermal simulations, where meta-stable nematic pre-ordering precedes smectic-A growth, were also conducted and novel non-monotonic phase-transformation kinetics observed.Comment: First revision: 20 pages, 7 figure

Little effects of Insulin-like Growth Factor-I on testicular atrophy induced by hypoxia

BACKGROUND: Insulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I) supplementation restores testicular atrophy associated with advanced liver cirrhosis that is a condition of IGF-I deficiency. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of IGF-I in rats with ischemia-induced testicular atrophy (AT) without liver disease and consequently with normal serum level of IGF-I. METHODS: Testicular atrophy was induced by epinephrine (1, 2 mg/Kg intra-scrotal injection five times per week) during 11 weeks. Then, rats with testicular atrophy (AT) were divided into two groups (n = 10 each): untreated rats (AT) receiving saline sc, and AT+IGF, which were treated with IGF-I (2 μg.100 g b.w.(-1).day(-1), sc.) for 28d. Healthy controls (CO, n = 10) were studied in parallel. Animals were sacrificed on day 29(th). Hypophyso-gonadal axis, IGF-I and IGFBPs levels, testicular morphometry and histopathology, immuno-histochemical studies and antioxidant enzyme activity phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase (PHGPx) were assessed. RESULTS: Compared to controls, AT rats displayed a reduction in testicular size and weight, with histological testicular atrophy, decreased cellular proliferation and transferrin expression, and all of these alterations were slightly improved by IGF-I at low doses. IGF-I therapy increased signifincantly steroidogenesis and PHGPx activity (p < 0.05). Interestingly, plasma IGF-I did not augment in rats with testicular atrophy treated with IGF-I, while IGFBP3 levels, that reduces IGF-I availability, was increased in this group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: In testicular atrophy by hypoxia, condition without IGF-I deficiency, IGF-treatment induces only partial effects. These findings suggest that IGF-I therapy appears as an appropriate treatment in hypogonadism only when this is associated to conditions of IGF-I deficiency (such as Laron Syndrom or liver cirrhosis)

Antibody cooperative adsorption onto AuNPs and its exploitation to force natural killer cells to kill HIV-infected T cells

HIV represents a persistent infection which negatively alters the immune system. New tools to reinvigorate different immune cell populations to impact HIV are needed. Herein, a novel nanotool for the specific enhancement of the natural killer (NK) immune response towards HIV-infected T-cells has been developed. Bispecific Au nanoparticles (BiAb-AuNPs), dually conjugated with IgG anti-HIVgp120 and IgG anti-human CD16 antibodies, were generated by a new controlled, linker-free and cooperative conjugation method promoting the ordered distribution and segregation of antibodies in domains. The cooperatively-adsorbed antibodies fully retained the capabilities to recognize their cognate antigen and were able to significantly enhance cell-to-cell contact between HIV-expressing cells and NK cells. As a consequence, the BiAb-AuNPs triggered a potent cytotoxic response against HIV-infected cells in blood and human tonsil explants. Remarkably, the BiAb-AuNPs were able to significantly reduce latent HIV infection after viral reactivation in a primary cell model of HIV latency. This novel molecularly-targeted strategy using a bispecific nanotool to enhance the immune system represents a new approximation with potential applications beyond HIV.This study was supported by the Spanish Secretariat of Science and Innovation and FEDER funds (grants SAF2015-67334-R and RTI2018-101082-B-I00 [MINECO/FEDER]), American National Institutes of Health (grant R21AI118411 to M.B), an unrestricted research grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U (PfC-2015-AI424-564) to M.B, the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III” (ISCIII, PI17/01470) to M.G and the Spanish “Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III” (ISCIII, PI14/01058) to J.G.P, a research grant from Gilead Sciences (GLD17-00204 and GLD19-00084) to M.B, GeSIDA and the Spanish AIDS network “Red Temática Cooperativa de Investigación en SIDA” (RD16/0025/0007). The Miguel Servet program funded by the Spanish Health Institute Carlos III (CP17/00179) to M.B and J.G.P (CPII15/00014). The “Pla estratègic de recerca i innovació en salut” (PERIS), from the Catalan Government to M.G. The Spanish Secretariat of Science and Innovation Ph.D. fellowship to A.A-G (BES-2016-076382), AGAUR-FI-B-00582 Ph.D. fellowship from the Catalan Government to O.BL, and PIF-UAB Ph.D. fellowship from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona to R.SL.Peer reviewe

La facultad va a la escuela del barrio : Las Ciencias Naturales entre la universidad y la escuela primaria

Docentes, estudiantes e investigadores de distintas Unidades Académicas de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, nos acercamos a las Escuelas Públicas Estatales con la intención de enriquecer, contribuir y mejorar a la enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales, en el marco del proyecto de Extensión "La Facultad va a La Escuela del Barrio". A partir del compromiso de los directivos de las distintas instituciones realizamos un trabajo conjunto, dinámico y horizontal con los docentes, basado en la metodología taller, según sus intereses y la currícula escolar. Esta forma de trabajo no se reduce a una capacitación puntual o a una muestra llamativa de materiales y experimentos sino que, recupera y valora el saber particular de los maestros respecto a la "vida" en el aula y aporta nuestros conocimientos y metodologías, propias de una formación científico-profesional. A partir de esta "ida y vuelta" aportamos herramientas y estrategias permitiendo a los docentes llevar a cabo propuestas didácticas basadas en el trabajo de laboratorio y, a su vez, enriquecemos nuestra formación como profesionales críticos comprometidos con la sociedad.Trabajos del área Ciencias NaturalesDepartamento de Ciencias Exactas y Naturale

Aportes desde la extensión para revalorizar la ciencia en las escuelas

Este trabajo describe una intervención educativa que se llevó a cabo en el marco del Proyecto de Extensión “La Facultad va a la Escuela del Barrio” de la UNLP con un grupo de escuelas rurales próximas a la ciudad de La Plata. Nuestro objetivo es contribuir a mejorar la enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales en el nivel primario utilizando la experimentación como herramienta didáctica. La intervención se basó en una perspectiva reflexiva y se centró en la realización de talleres junto a los docentes, basados en la currícula escolar e incluyó tanto una planificación como una evaluación conjunta. Los talleres se constituyeron en un dispositivo analizador, no sólo de conocimientos teóricos, sino también de las prácticas docentes. La intervención apostó a que el docente se apropie de metodologías científicas y revalorice el conocimiento científico, principalmente en estas instituciones cuya comunidad se encuentra inmersa en una dura realidad socioeconómica. La constitución interdisciplinaria del grupo permitió responder a las inquietudes de las maestras, las cuáles abarcaron varias disciplinas. A partir de la evaluación se rescataron los siguientes indicadores: el impacto positivo que produce la implementación en el aula; la adquisición de equipamiento de laboratorio por parte de las escuelas; el efecto multiplicador hacia otras instituciones, nuestra incorporación al Proyecto Institucional.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació