Centro Cultural y de Comercio proyecto estructurante

Trabajo de gradoEl proyecto le da un valor significativo al sector generando un nuevo carácter al espacio dándole identidad al lugar propiciando una nueva imagen la cual le brinda al visitante y al habitante del lugar más identidad, debido a las condiciones del sector. Es así que el centro cultural está ligado al concepto formando parte fundamental del eje cultural y de comercio del sector reactivando la economía y la imagen de la ciudad. En el planteamiento del centro cultural se han abordado los tres diseños urbano, arquitectónico y constructivo como ejes concurrentes y de estos análisis han surgido unos objetivos los cuales le han generado a la ciudad una imagen nueva con diversidad espacios dedicados a la cultura específicamente en el centro, obteniendo una mayor riqueza cultural de todos los habitantes del sector y de extranjeros que la visitan. Recuperando y rehabilitando el Centro histórico de Bogotá incorporando el espacio público que se encontraba en mal estado con los equipamientos logrando una relación perceptual que nos articula la cultura del sector reactivando el interés y la calidad de vida de la población que vive y visita el sector. La respuesta del proyecto al sector es la articulación del tejido urbano existente, aprovechando los recursos culturales del lugar como punto de partida en la transformación de las costumbres de los habitantes aplicadas al lugar de intervención respondiendo a una necesidad que está ligada al comercio integrando dos actividades, las cuales benefician toda la población flotante y del sector dándole al usuario más posibilidades de poder divertirse, recorrer y comprar a través del eje comercial y cultural plateado.1. INTRODUCCIÓN 2. CONTEXTO 3. PROCESO 4. PROYECTO 5. CONCLUSIONES 6. BIBLIOGRAFÍA 7. ANEXOSPregradoArquitect

A feasible and automatic free tool for T1 and ECV mapping

Purpose: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is a useful non-invasive tool for characterizing tissues and detecting myocardial fibrosis and edema. Estimation of extracellular volume fraction (ECV) using T1 sequences is emerging as an accurate biomarker in cardiac diseases associated with diffuse fibrosis. In this study, automatic software for T1 and ECV map generation consisting of an executable file was developed and validated using phantom and human data. Methods: T1 mapping was performed in phantoms and 30 subjects (22 patients and 8 healthy subjects) on a 1.5T MR scanner using the modified Look-Locker inversion-recovery (MOLLI) sequence prototype before and 15 min after contrast agent administration. T1 maps were generated using a Fast Nonlinear Least Squares algorithm. Myocardial ECV maps were generated using both pre- and post-contrast T1 image registration and automatic extraction of blood relaxation rates. Results: Using our software, pre- and post-contrast T1 maps were obtained in phantoms and healthy subjects resulting in a robust and reliable quantification as compared to reference software. Coregistration of pre- and post-contrast images improved the quality of ECV maps. Mean ECV value in healthy subjects was 24.5% ± 2.5%. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that it is possible to obtain accurate T1 maps and informative ECV maps using our software. Pixel-wise ECV maps obtained with this automatic software made it possible to visualize and evaluate the extent and severity of ECV alterations

Moral Networks: A Sociological Study on Illicit Self-Cultivation of Cannabis for Psychoactive use in Brazil

The use of psychoactive drugs is a social practice commonly observed in all societies. This article aims to present the moral grammar of actors who grow marijuana for their own use in Brazil. This study employed a qualitative methodology based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews. Regarding research ethics, all institutional principles were considered, like obtaining informed consent and guaranteeing the privacy of participants and the confidentiality of information. We found that these actors establish a sui generis morality through their practices. From this perspective, it can be conjectured that this network of actors who grow their own marijuana configures a specific moral grammar through the language devices they mobilize in response to the judgments, criticisms and moral accusations they face, whether formal or informal. Moreover, through the interviews, it was possible to verify how the relations of mutual assistance in this moral network of actors who grow their own marijuana are shaped by the actions, interactions, associations and moral aggregations among them. In this way, the relations of reciprocity and cooperation among these moral actors configure a kind of solidarity specific to this network. Therefore, the home cultivation of marijuana is analyzed as a legitimate moral feeling of liberation in relation to the formal and informal repressions faced by these actors

Effects of Cellulose Nano-fiber as an Additive on Performance of Asphalt Binders and Mixes

Findings of a study conducted on asphalt binders and mixes modified by addition of cellulose nanofiber (CNF) to evaluate the feasibility of them as an additive is presented in the current thesis. Cellulose Acetate (CA) is an ester of cellulose and is obtained by the reaction of cellulose with acetic anhydride and acetic acid in the presence of sulfuric acid. Due to its high temperature sensitivity, high ductility, large surface area, high strain resistance, and low electrical resistivity, cellulose acetate can be used for several application. The question is if CNF can be used as an additive in the asphalt, with the goal of improving the pavement properties. Asphalt binder and asphalt mix properties, including adhesion, resistance to cracking by measurement of energy absorption, viscosity, moisture induced damage, fatigue resistance, and rutting were evaluated by conducting rotation viscometer (RV) test, Izod impact strength test, binder bond strength (BBS) test, tensile strength ratio (TSR) test, semi-circular bend (SCB) test, and Hamburg wheel tracking (HWT) test. Cellulose nanofiber (CNF) production and evaluation, asphalt binders containing cellulose nanofiber evaluation, and asphalt mixes containing cellulose nanofiber evalujation are the three major parts of the study. For the CNF production and evaluation, two different electrospinning techniques as well as five different solutions were evaluated to find out which technique and solution produced the nanofiber suitable for the study. CNF fibers were produced with two different electrospinning techniques, namely static and rotating electrospinning. Produced fibers’ morphology, microstructure and strength properties were evaluated by conducting laser scan microscopy (LSM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and tensile strength test. After fiber production and evaluation, the CNF produced with the suitable technique was selected and was mixed with asphalt binder and asphalt mix for further evaluation. Three different asphalt binders, namely PG 58-28, PG 64-34, and PG 70-28 were used for the asphalt binder evaluation. For the asphalt mix evaluation, a hot mix asphalt (HMA) containing 20% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) was used. From the fiber production and evaluation, it was found that fibers produced using static electrospinning from a solution containing CA plus the solvent system acetone/water (Solution 5) and tested at a non-production direction had the highest average tensile strength. It was found that the average tensile strength for Solution 5 was 9.05 N, the highest among other alternatives. In addition to the average tensile strength of the produced fiber, the roughness and the average dimeter were evaluated using LSM and SEM techniques, respectively. It was found from these tests that the selected CNF had the roughest texture and the highest average diameter (1.756 μm). Overall, electrospun CNF produced using the abovementioned solution and technique was the roughest, the thickest and the strongest among all the tested fibers. Based on that it was the selected CNF to be used as an asphalt additive to improve the mechanical properties of asphalt binders and asphalt mixes. For the asphalt binder evaluation, blends of three different binders, namely PG 58- 28, PG 64-34, and PG 70-28 were mixed with different concentrations of CNF (0%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.5% and 0.7% by the weight of binder). For RV and BBS tests, binder blends containing 0%, 0.3%, and 0.7% CNF were used. For Izod impact strength binder blends containing 0%, 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.5% and 0.7% CNF by the weight of binder were used. It was found that the addition of CNF to asphalt binders resulted in an increase in viscosity of the asphalt binders, the higher the concentration of added CNF the higher the viscosity of the binder. A similar trend of variation in fracture toughness values with the increase in CNF concentration was also observed from Izod impact strength test. Furthermore, the BBS test results showed that for the majority of the cases addition of 0.7% CNF resulted in a higher BBS ratio compared to other combinations. It was found that for all the tested aggregates, granite, quartzite, and gravel, in contact with a PG 58-28 had the highest BBS ratio. For quartzite and gravel the addition of 0.3% CNF resulted in a reduction or no chance in BBS ratio values compared to binders without any CNF. However, for granite the addition of 0.3% and 0.7% CNF resulted in almost the same increase in BBS ratio value compared to the neat binder. The highest BBS ratio found was for PG 70-28 +0.7 CNF when tested in gravel. For the asphalt mix evaluation, three different concentration of fibers on the RAP 20 Mix were evaluated (RAP 20 containing 0%, 0.3%, and 0.7% cellulose acetate nanofibers). For SCB test, used to evaluate the cracking resistance through determining the critical strain energy release rate (Jc), the addition of fibers improved the Jc value. It was found that the higher amount of added fibers resulted in the higher Jc value. Since the SCB test relates the Jc value with the fatigue cracking resistance, RAP20+0.7% CNF had the highest fatigue cracking resistance. For the TSR test, it was found that the addition of fibers decreases the TSR ratio. The TSR test evaluates the resistance to moisture-induced damage of the mix. Based only on the TSR ratio, the addition of CNF causes the mix to be more susceptible to moisture induced damage. However, it was found that even though the TRS ratio decreases the addition of 0.3% and 0.7% CNF improved the dry conditioned tensile strength and the addition of 0.7% CNF improved the moisture conditioned tensile strength. So, based on the abovementioned fact it can say that the addition of fibers improves the resistance to moisture induced damage. For the HWT test, used to evaluate the moisture induced damage through determining the rutting and the stripping point, the addition of 0.7% CNF improved the rutting and increased the stripping point value. However, the addition of 0.3% CNF caused the asphalt mix to perform worse than the control asphalt mix. It was found that the results of HWT test, TSR test, and BBS test supports the idea that the addition of fibers improve the moisture induced damage of the asphalt. However, an optimum quantity of fibers needs to be added to the asphalt for it to start performing better. It was proved that 0.3% CNF was not enough for the asphalt to perform better, it caused the opposite, the asphalt performs worse. From the results of Izod impact strength test and SCB it was clear that the addition of any quantity of fiber improved the resistance to fatigue cracking. For the RV test it was proved that the addition of CNF will requires more compaction efforts while paving. Overall, the study promoted valuable information that will help the development of cellulose acetate nanofibers as additives in asphalt binder and asphalt mix. However, future research is necessary to further understand and master the production of nanofibers and to allow a better selection of CNF to be added onto the asphalt

Exploratory Data Analysis of Volunteered Geographic Information: case study in the Manuela Sáenz administrative zone of Quito

Technological development during the first decade of this century provoked a boom of user-generated, web-shared media. In geography, such trend is called Volunteered Geographic Information; OpenStreetMap (OSM) is its most famed project. While several research has been made about OSM -particularly, concerning its quality-, none of such has been made in Ecuador in despite that, indeed, there has been mapping in this country. This paper proposes an Exploratory Data Analysis as first approach to understanding the features of OSM. Study area is the Manuela Sáenz administrative zone of Quito. Free GIS and programming software were used, while applying non-graphic and graphic methods. Results are displayed in several plots and phenomena are discussed, regarding number of keys and nodes, area condition, and building, highway and source keys. The paper concludes identifying OSM aspects for further research

Design, Fabrication, and Test of a Single Rotor Modular Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Algae Bloom Monitoring of Lake Erie

Every summer, runoff pollution is causing algae in Lake Erie to grow out of control, impacting the health of the lake, suffocating fish, making water unsafe for swimming, deterring tourists, and damaging local economies. Given these facts, the current study proposed a swarm of single rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (SRUAV) for health monitoring of Lake Erie. Traditionally, for such a task, a single drone is designed with complicated structure and control modules resulting in high costs of design, construction and maintenance. A single unit design can be very vulnerable and costly to maintain. Robotic swarms can achieve the same ability through cooperation and have the advantage of reusability of the simple agents and the low cost of construction and maintenance. Robotic swarms also have the advantage of high parallelism, which is especially suitable for large scale tasks. In the present work, as the first phase of the overall project, design, fabrication and test of a single agent from the envisioned swarm is detailed. The simple agent will be equipped with a modular payload fitted with either a camera or sampling/dispenser device and will be responsible for the aerial photography and sampling of algae blooms in Lake Erie. The current practice for the research data collection is either relying on the US-based research centers data or conducting manual field investigations. The long-term goal of the proposed research is to provide an alternative low-cost solution for the health monitoring of Lake Erie, with other potential use cases, which could benefit local Canadian researchers including UWindsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and enhance the productivity and efficiency of the monitoring practices

X-ray emission from stellar jets by collision against high-density molecular clouds: an application to HH 248

We investigate the plausibility of detecting X-ray emission from a stellar jet that impacts against a dense molecular cloud. This scenario may be usual for classical T Tauri stars with jets in dense star-forming complexes. We first model the impact of a jet against a dense cloud by 2D axisymmetric hydrodynamic simulations, exploring different configurations of the ambient environment. Then, we compare our results with XMM-Newton observations of the Herbig-Haro object HH 248, where extended X-ray emission aligned with the optical knots is detected at the edge of the nearby IC 434 cloud. Our simulations show that a jet can produce plasma with temperatures up to 10 MK, consistent with production of X-ray emission, after impacting a dense cloud. We find that jets denser than the ambient medium but less dense than the cloud produce detectable X-ray emission only at the impact onto the cloud. From the exploration of the model parameter space, we constrain the physical conditions (jet density and velocity, cloud density) that reproduce well the intrinsic luminosity and emission measure of the X-ray source possibly associated with HH 248. Thus, we suggest that the extended X-ray source close to HH 248 corresponds to the jet impacting on a dense cloud.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. (12 pages, 12 figures