Identifying, Mapping and Overcoming Genomic Impediments to Intraspecific Genetic Improvement of Upland Cotton Through Interspecific Hybridization and Introgression

Cotton, the leading natural textile fiber, develops as modified seed trichomes, produced in copious amounts by genetically elite cultivars of two domesticated New World Upland tetraploid (2n=4x=52) species, Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) and Pima cotton (G. barbadense L.). Future cultivars must improve production sustainability, economic yield, and address the many challenges caused by global climate change. Their creation will require beneficial genetic diversity, relevant recombination, breeding, and selection. This work was undertaken [1] to better understand available diversity and natural constraints on its use, especially recombination, [2] to increase genetic diversity, and [3] to improve recombination as a tool for extracting value from diversity. Aside from transgenes and occasional mutations, induced or created, new cotton cultivars are created from fast-track breeding programs that rely exclusively on genetic variation among cultivars and elite breeding germplasm, not on wild intraspecific or interspecific accessions; cyclic re-use of elite germplasm is implicit. Using CottonSNP63K data and a long-read genomic assembly, I characterized the genomic distribution of genetic diversity by identifying, mapping, and comparing haplotypic structures and their diversity among 257 elite Upland lines and 71 non-elite G. hirsutum accessions. Independent analyses using comparable types of data for 9 at intra- and interspecific linkage mapping populations revealed their recombination patterns. Comparisons showed strong relationships between static haplotypic blocks and low experimental recombination rates. Genomic characterization of highly and lowly recombinant regions revealed significant associations and correlations between recombination and transposable element densities and biological pathways between three allotetraploid cotton species and G. hirsutum. An intriguing observation during linkage analyses was that hybridization with wild allotetraploid cotton species led to novel recombination events that disrupted long-standing haplotypic blocks. Such disruption and the recovery of novel genetic variation suggests potential for a new era in Upland cotton improvement involving extensive use interspecific hybridization to disrupt haplotypic blocks, as well as diversify genes. Indeed, this was demonstrated through recombination modeling and through the development of a chromosome segment substitution lines consisting of introgressed G. tomentosum chromatin. These findings indicate potentially major if not revolutionary ramifications for breeding Upland cotton, and likely Pima, as well

PI-based controller for low-power distributed inverters to maximise reactive current injection while avoiding over voltage during voltage sags

This paper is a postprint of a paper submitted to and accepted for publication in IET Power Electronics and is subject to Institution of Engineering and Technology Copyright. The copy of record is available at the IET Digital Library.In the recently deregulated power system scenario, the growing number of distributed generation sources should be considered as an opportunity to improve stability and power quality along the grid. To make progress in this direction, this work proposes a reactive current injection control scheme for distributed inverters under voltage sags. During the sag, the inverter injects, at least, the minimum amount of reactive current required by the grid code. The flexible reactive power injection ensures that one phase current is maintained at its maximum rated value, providing maximum support to the most faulted phase voltage. In addition, active power curtailment occurs only to satisfy the grid code reactive current requirements. As well as, a voltage control loop is implemented to avoid overvoltage in non-faulty phases, which otherwise would probably occur due to the injection of reactive current into an inductive grid. The controller is proposed for low-power rating distributed inverters where conventional voltage support provided by large power plants is not available. The implementation of the controller provides a low computational burden because conventional PI-based control loops may apply. Selected experimental results are reported in order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.Peer ReviewedPostprint (updated version

SPREAD: A high-resolution daily gridded precipitation dataset for Spain – an extreme events frequency and intensity overview

A high-resolution daily gridded precipitation dataset was built from raw data of 12 858 observatories covering a period from 1950 to 2012 in peninsular Spain and 1971 to 2012 in Balearic and Canary islands. The original data were quality-controlled and gaps were filled on each day and location independently. Using the serially complete dataset, a grid with a 5 × 5 km spatial resolution was constructed by estimating daily precipitation amounts and their corresponding uncertainty at each grid node. Daily precipitation estimations were compared to original observations to assess the quality of the gridded dataset. Four daily precipitation indices were computed to characterise the spatial distribution of daily precipitation and nine extreme precipitation indices were used to describe the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events. The Mediterranean coast and the Central Range showed the highest frequency and intensity of extreme events, while the number of wet days and dry and wet spells followed a north-west to south-east gradient in peninsular Spain, from high to low values in the number of wet days and wet spells and reverse in dry spells. The use of the total available data in Spain, the independent estimation of precipitation for each day and the high spatial resolution of the grid allowed for a precise spatial and temporal assessment of daily precipitation that is difficult to achieve when using other methods, pre-selected long-term stations or global gridded datasets. SPREAD dataset is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.20350/digitalCSIC/7393

Real-Time Implementation of qZSC for MVDC to Microgrids Link

Nowadays, power systems require new solutions to integrate renewable energies. In this paper, microgrids linked to MVDC are proposed through quasi-impedance-source converters to improve system reliability. Several prototypes are implemented using real-time platforms to analyze the system behavior, but the real-time implementation of the shoot-through state of the qZSC requires a very low time-step and sample time, which is not easy to achieve. The results obtained with these prototypes are included. Finally, a satisfactory solution is presented, implementing the power system in Typhoon HIL-402, the qZSC control in dSPACE MicroLabBox, and generating the gate signals in the FPGA included in the MicroLabBox platform. © 2022, European Association for the Development of Renewable Energy, Environment and Power Quality (EA4EPQ). All rights reserved

Control strategy for distribution generation inverters to maximize the voltage support in the lowest phase during voltage sags

IEEE Voltage sags are considered one of the worst perturbations in power systems. Distributed generation power facilities are allowed to disconnect from the grid during grid faults whenever the voltage is below a certain threshold. During these severe contingencies, a cascade disconnection could start, yielding to a blackout. To minimize the risk of a power outage, inverter-based distributed generation systems can help to support the grid by appropriately selecting the control objective. Which control strategy performs better when supporting the grid voltage is a complex decision that depends on many variables. This paper presents a control scheme that implements a smart and simple strategy to support the fault: the maximum voltage support for the lowest phase voltage. Therefore, the faulted phase that is more affected by the sag can be better supported since this phase voltage increases as much as possible, reducing the risk of under-voltage disconnection. The proposed controller has the following features: a) maximizes the voltage in the lowest phase, b) injects the maximum rated current of the inverter, and c) balances the active and reactive power references to deal with resistive and inductive grids. The control proposal is validated by means of experimental results in a laboratory prototype.Postprint (author's final draft

Epidemiology of Time-Loss Injuries in Senior and Under-18 Portuguese Male Rugby Players

Rugby union has one of the highest injury incidence rates in team sports, however, most of the available data focus on the epidemiology of injuries in countries where rugby is popular. We aimed to report the incidence rate and relevant epidemiological aspects of injuries occurred in a group of Portuguese male rugby players. A prospective cohort study was conducted with a group of 45 senior and 32 under-18 male players (total of 77 players). Outcome measures included injury incidence, position, type, location and severity of injuries. The match injury incidence for all players was 55.84 per 1000 player match-hours (66.66 for seniors, 42.85 for under-18), while mean time-loss for injury was 20.79 days. No statistical differences were found between groups. Lower limb injuries accounted for 60.5% of all injuries, while joint/ligament injuries were the most prevalent type. Contact events were responsible for 65.1% of injuries. Despite the limitations, the obtained data are consistent with the literature. Time-loss injuries seem highly prevalent in rugby union and the incidence rates found in this Portuguese-based study were lower than the reported for international and senior men's professional rugby union, but higher than those occurring in community rugby in tier-1 countries. The authors believe these data reinforce the need to develop and implement effective injury surveillance and prevention programs.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Climate and population: risk exposure to precipitation concentration in mainland Spain (1950-2010)

The term risk exposure combines the notions of natural hazard and the human exposure to that hazard. Spatial and temporal variations in risk exposure, therefore, can be caused by changes in hazard, in expo sure, or both. In this work a novel methodology for computing and representing risk exposure and its temporal changes are presented, and applied to the analysis of risk exposure to extreme rainfall in mainland Spain between 1950 and 2010. For that, two com plementary high-resolution gridded datasets, one of population potentials and another one of precipitation concentration, are combined. Despite a great spatial variability over time, the highest exposure was consistently found in the surrounding areas of t he largest cities and along the Mediterranean coast. The relative influence of population changes and precipitation concentration evolution is analyzed. Results suggest that hazard (precipitation concentration) changes led most of the observed changes in risk exposure, except in those decades where population movements were massive and widespread. El término exposición al riesgo combina las nociones de peligro natural y exposición humana a ese peligro. Las variaciones espaciales y temporales en esa exposición al riesgo, por tanto, pueden ser causadas por cambios en el peligro, la exposición, o en ambos. En este trabajo, se presenta una novedosa metodología para el cálculo y representación de la exposición al riesgo y sus cambios a lo largo del tiempo, aplicada al análisis de la exposición al riesgo de la precipitación extrema en la España peninsular entre 1950 y 2010. Para ello, se combinan dos bases de datos complementarias de alta resolución, una de potenciales de población y otra de concentración de la precipitación. A pesar de la gran variabilidad espacial a lo largo del tiempo, la exposición más alta se encontró de manera consistente en el entorno de las grandes ciudades y en la costa mediterránea. Se analizó la influencia relativa, en el tiempo, de los cambios en la población y de la concentración de la precipitación. Los resultados sugieren que los cambios en el peligro (concentración de la precipitación) son responsables de la mayoría de los cambios observados en la exposición al riesgo, excepto en aquellas décadas donde los movimientos de la población fueron masivos y generalizados

A genetic algorithm for mobile robot localization using ultrasonic sensors

A mobile robot requires the perception of its local environment for position estimation. Ultrasonic range data provide a robust description of the local environment for navigation. This article presents an ultrasonic sensor localization system for autonomous mobile robot navigation in an indoor semi-structured environment. The proposed algorithm is based upon an iterative non-linear filter, which utilizes matches between observed geometric beacons and an a-priori map of beacon locations, to correct the position and orientation of the vehicle. A non-linear filter based on a genetic algorithm as an emerging optimization method to search for optimal positions is described. The resulting self-localization module has been integrated successfully in a more complex navigation system. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in real world applications.Publicad

Imbalance-voltage mitigation in an inverter-based distributed generation system using a minimum current-based control strategy

©2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Voltage imbalances are one of the most severe challenges in electrical networks, which negatively affect their loads and other connected equipment. This paper proposes a voltage support control strategy to mitigate the voltage imbalance in inverter-based low voltage distribution networks. The control scheme is derived taking in mind the following control objectives: a) to increase the positive sequence voltage as much as possible, b) to decrease the negative sequence voltage as much as possible, c) to inject the power generated by the primary source, and d) to minimize the output current of the inverter. The innovative contribution of the proposed solution is based on the design of a control algorithm that meets the aforementioned objectives without resorting to communications with other grid components. The theoretical results are experimentally validated by selected tests on a laboratory setup with X/R ratio close to one.This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain and in part by the European Regional Development Fund under Project RTI2018-100732-B-C22.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Finite control set model predictive control for a three-phase shunt active power filter with a kalman filter-based estimation

In this paper, the finite control set model predictive control is combined with the vector operation technique to be applied in the control of a three-phase active power filter. Typically, in the finite control set technique applied to three-phase power converters, eight different vectors are considered in order to obtain the optimum control signal by minimizing a cost function. On the other hand, the vector operation technique is based on dividing the grid voltage period into six different regions. The main advantage of combining both techniques is that for each region the number of possible voltage vectors to be considered can be reduced to a half, thus reducing the computational load employed by the control algorithm. Besides, in each region, only two phase-legs are switching at high frequency while the remaining phase-leg is maintained to a constant dc-voltage value during this interval. Accordingly, a reduction of the switching losses is obtained. Unlike the typical model predictive control methods which make use of the discrete differential equations of the converter, this method considers a Kalman filter in order to improve the behavior of the closed-loop system in noisy environments. Selected experimental results are exposed in order the demonstrate the validity of the control proposalPostprint (published version