The Energetic Backpacks in BEC

What should the equipment for multifunctional building used simultaneously by thousands of people be like? Let’s start with the (architectural) logic: - Such a space must allow for people’s movement and carry out activity with total freedom, without the interference of the necessary and voluminous service shafts. - Services must be easily accessible for maintenance

Las mochilas energéticas del BEC

¿Cómo deben ser las instalaciones para un edificio de uso polivalente que será utilizado por miles de personas simultáneamente? Comencemos por la lógica (arquitectónica): Un espacio de estas características ha de permitir el movimiento de las personas y el desarrollo de sus actividades con libertad, sin que las servidumbres de las (numerosas y voluminosas) instalaciones supongan un problema. Las instalaciones han de ser fácilmente accesibles para gestionar su mantenimiento

Banco de Bilbao headquarters: First low-energy building in Spain?

Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza was perhaps the greatest architect of the twentieth century in Spain, and his masterpiece was the Banco de Bilbao Headquarters, located in the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid (Spain). Sáenz de Oíza was a university professor in the Installations and Energy Areas at the University of Madrid. For him, concepts such as indoor comfort, lighting, heat production, cooling, and solar houses were an indispensable part of the student’s learning and, of course, he included them in his building design. He applied these concepts in the Banco de Bilbao Headquarters. Therefore, the purpose of this paper will be to examine the Banco de Bilbao technical knowledge in depth—including its passive architectonical design—and to present the main good decisions (and mistakes) of this first low-energy Spanish building after almost 30 years of intensive use, to extend its lessons for future buildings

Acerca de los Apuntes de Salubridad e Higiene de Francisco Javier Sáenz de Oíza

El contenido de esas páginas, una documentación técnica del pasado, sigue siendo aplicable hoy en día, y nunca debería haber caído en el olvido pues, como dice Eduardo Mangada, su reedición "seguirá prestando un magnífico soporte disciplinar para los estudiantes de arquitectura" . Estos textos pertenecen a uno de los maestros de la Arquitectura española del siglo XX, y se puede decir que incluso es parte de la obra escrita de un maestro de maestros. El interés de los contenidos de los Apuntes, está en como condensan sobresalientemente los conocimientos e inquietudes intelectuales de Sáenz de Oíza

Distinguishing noise from chaos: objective versus subjective criteria using Horizontal Visibility Graph

A recently proposed methodology called the Horizontal Visibility Graph (HVG) [Luque {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. E., 80, 046103 (2009)] that constitutes a geometrical simplification of the well known Visibility Graph algorithm [Lacasa {\it et al.\/}, Proc. Natl. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 4972 (2008)], has been used to study the distinction between deterministic and stochastic components in time series [L. Lacasa and R. Toral, Phys. Rev. E., 82, 036120 (2010)]. Specifically, the authors propose that the node degree distribution of these processes follows an exponential functional of the form $P(\kappa)\sim \exp(-\lambda~\kappa)$, in which $\kappa$ is the node degree and $\lambda$ is a positive parameter able to distinguish between deterministic (chaotic) and stochastic (uncorrelated and correlated) dynamics. In this work, we investigate the characteristics of the node degree distributions constructed by using HVG, for time series corresponding to $28$ chaotic maps and $3$ different stochastic processes. We thoroughly study the methodology proposed by Lacasa and Toral finding several cases for which their hypothesis is not valid. We propose a methodology that uses the HVG together with Information Theory quantifiers. An extensive and careful analysis of the node degree distributions obtained by applying HVG allow us to conclude that the Fisher-Shannon information plane is a remarkable tool able to graphically represent the different nature, deterministic or stochastic, of the systems under study.Comment: Submitted to PLOS On

Optical spectra of selected Chamaeleon I young stellar objects

We present optical spectra of eight candidate brown dwarfs and a previously known T Tauri star (Sz 33) of the Chamaeleon I dark cloud. We derived spectral types based on the strength of the TiO or VO absorption bands present in the spectra of these objects as well as on the PC3 index of Martin et al. (1999). Photometric data from the literature are used to estimate the bolometric luminosities for these sources. We apply D'Antona & Mazzitelli (1997) pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks and isochrones to derive masses and ages. Based on the presence of Halpha in emission, we confirm that most of the candidates are young objects. Our sample however includes two sources for which we can only provide upper limits for the emission in Halpha; whereas these two objects are most likely foreground/background stars, higher resolution spectra are required to confirm their true nature. Among the likely cloud members, we detect one new sub-stellar object and three transition stellar/sub-stellar sources.Comment: 22 pages - manuscript forma

Redefining the role of obstacles in pedestrian evacuation

The placement of obstacles in front of doors is believed to be an effective strategy to increase the flow of pedestrians, hence improving the evacuation process. Since it was first suggested, this counterintuitive feature is considered a hallmark of pedestrian flows through bottlenecks. Indeed, despite the little experimental evidence, the placement of an obstacle has been hailed as the panacea for solving evacuation problems. In this work, we challenge this idea and experimentally demonstrate that the pedestrians flow rate is not necessarily altered by the presence of an obstacle. This result - which is at odds with recent demonstrations on its suitability for the cases of granular media, sheep and mice - differs from the outcomes of most of existing numerical models, and warns about the risks of carelessly extrapolating animal behaviour to humans. Our experimental findings also reveal an unnoticed phenomenon in relation with the crowd movement in front of the exit: in competitive evacuations, an obstacle attenuates the development of collective transversal rushes, which are hazardous as they might cause falls.Fil: Garcimartín, A.. Universidad de Navarra; EspañaFil: Maza, D.. Universidad de Navarra; EspañaFil: Pastor, J. M.. Focke Meler Gluing Solutions S.A.; EspañaFil: Parisi, Daniel Ricardo. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Martín Gómez, C.. Universidad de Navarra; EspañaFil: Zuriguel, I.. Universidad de Navarra; Españ

Los necesarios viajes técnicos del Capitol

Esta texto analiza la influencia que los viajes técnicos tienen en la génesis de proyectos arquitectónicos como el del Capitol, con una alta carga innovadora, tanto en términos constructivos como estructurales y de instalaciones