Methodology for Part Visualization Problem Solving - the Importance of the Process

Part visualization is a fundamental skill in engineering. It comprises the reading, interpretation and creation of industrial technical drawings, understanding the different views (multi-view) of an object/piece represented in any technical drawing. The ability to mentally visualize and manipulate objects and situations is an essential need in many jobs and careers. It is estimated that at least 84 majors consider visualization a fundamental need, and in technical jobs, many of them related to the different types of engineering, the ability to visualize has a crucial importance. Educators have often pointed out the difficulties of most students in graphic courses when trying to visualize an object using multi-view drawings. This is mainly due to the inexistence of a systematic process to analyze complex forms. A thorough review of the literature in technical drawing textbooks has not been successful in finding a clear, concise, and properly developed method of solving visualization problems by means of procedural contents. In collaboration with several experts and for the first time, a problem solving model for visualization has been designed and developed for all kind of industrial objects (Methodology for Part Visualization Problem Solving) within a constructivist didactic framework. This Problem Solving model is the key to all technical knowledge and is an application of the scientific method. In order to solve visualization problems in any kind of industrial object, comprehension indicators have been defined and a Teaching Unit has been developed with the help of dynamic images (power point and CAD files) as well as physical models. They may be applied by drawing up a programme of specific tasks which takes into account the theoretical contents and procedures involved in part visualization as well as the students\\u27 main difficulties and deficiencies when faced with this kind of problem. This teaching strategy has been applied over the last two years in the first year of Industrial Engineering at the Department of Engineering in Bilbao at the University of the Basque Country with good results

Land cover effects on hydrologic services under a precipitation gradient

Climate change impacts on the hydrological cycle are altering the quantity, quality, and temporal distribution of riverine discharge, necessitating a more rigorous consideration of changes in land cover and land use. This study establishes relationships between different land cover combinations (e.g. percentages of forest – both native and exotic – and pastureland) and hydrological services, using hydrological indices estimated at annual and seasonal timescales in an area with a steep precipitation gradient (900–2600&thinsp;mm&thinsp;yr−1). Using discharge data from 20 catchments in the Bay of Biscay, a climate transition zone, the study applied multiple regression models to better understand how the interaction between precipitation and land cover combinations influence hydrological services. Findings showed the relationship between land cover combinations and hydrological services is highly dependent on the amount of precipitation, even in a climatically homogeneous and relatively small area. In general, in the Bay of Biscay area, the greater presence of any type of forests is associated with lower annual water resources, especially with greater percentages of exotic plantations and high annual precipitation. Where precipitation is low, forests show more potential to reduce annual and winter high flows than pasturelands, but this potential decreases as annual or seasonal precipitation increases. As annual precipitation increases, low flows increase as the percentage of exotic plantations decreases and pasturelands increase. Results obtained in this study improve understanding of the multiple effects of land cover on hydrological services, and illustrate the relevance of land planning to the management of water resources, especially under a climate change scenario.</p

The resurgence of commons and the governance of traditional commons systems at risk: The case of Enirio-Aralar

The study of commons has resurged vigorously. In this context the analysis of traditional grazing commons whose governance is subject to great challenges associated with changing socio-economic conditions and the co-existence of multiple uses is of particular interest. In this article we analyze the case of Eniriro-Aralar Community (Gipuzkoa, Basque Country), where a strong socio-ecological conflict emerged due to the multiple uses that co-exist in the area and the governance of its traditional common systems. The study shows that the subsistence of the area as a common will depend in the adaptive capacity of the community to the increasing intervention of European and regional institutions in rural planning and the satisfaction of new social demands.Esta investigación ha sido financiada mediante el proyecto del MINECO AGL2013-48361-C2-1-R

Application Dependent End-of-Life Threshold Definition Methodology for Batteries in Electric Vehicles

The end-of-life event of the battery system of an electric vehicle is defined by a fixed end-of-life threshold value. However, this kind of end-of-life threshold does not capture the application and battery characteristics and, consequently, it has a low accuracy in describing the real end-of-life event. This paper proposes a systematic methodology to determine the end-of-life threshold that describes accurately the end-of-life event. The proposed methodology can be divided into three phases. In the first phase, the health indicators that represent the aging behavior of the battery are defined. In the second phase, the application specifications and battery characteristics are evaluated to generate the end-of-life criteria. Finally, in the third phase, the simulation environment used to calculate the end-of-life threshold is designed. In this third phase, the electric-thermal behavior of the battery at different aging conditions is simulated using an electro-thermal equivalent circuit model. The proposed methodology is applied to a high-energy electric vehicle application and to a high-power electric vehicle application. The stated hypotheses and the calculated end-of-life threshold of the high-energy application are empirically validated. The study shows that commonly assumed 80 or 70% EOL thresholds could lead to mayor under or over lifespan estimations.The iModBatt project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for research and innovation under Grant Agreement No. 770054

Establishing a governance threshold in small-scale fisheries to achieve sustainability

The lack of effective governance is a major concern in small-scale fisheries. The implementation of governance that encompasses the three pillars of sustainability (social, economic, and ecological) is still a worldwide challenge. We examined nine stalked barnacle fisheries (Pollicipes pollicipes) across Southwest Europe to better understand the relationship between governance elements and sustainability. Our results show that nested spatial scales of management, the access structure, co- management, and fisher’s participation in monitoring and surveillance promote sustainability. However, it is not the mere presence of these elements but their level of implementation that drives sustainability. Efforts should be placed in the accomplishment of a minimum combination of local scales of management, access rights through individual quotas, instructive-consultative co- management and functional participation. Surpassing this threshold in future governance structures will start to adequately promote social, economic and ecologically sustainability in small-scale fisheries

RAPID DETECTION OF ROTAVIRUS AND CORONAVIRUS IN ALPACA CRIAS (VICUGNA PACOS) WITH DIARRHEA IN THE CUSCO REGION, PERU

La diarrea es una de las causas más importantes de mortalidad en crías de alpacas, por lo que la definición de patógenos asociados a la diarrea de crías cobra una importancia especial para formular medidas de control efectivas. Muestras de heces colectadas de crías con diarrea aguda y contenidos intestinales de crías muertas fueron examinadas por presencia de antígenos de rotavirus o coronavirus mediante pruebas inmunocromatográficas rápidas. Tres de 14 muestras de heces de alpaca fueron positivas a rotavirus mientras que los contenidos intestinales fueron negativos. Cinco de 14 muestras de heces resultaron positivas a coronavirus mientras que ningún contenido intestinal fue positivo. Estos resultados sugieren que rotavirus y coronavirus están asociados con una proporción de casos de diarrea en crías de alpacas pero no descartan la posibilidad de co-infección con otros patógenos. La prevalencia de estos virus y el impacto causado requieren investigación adicional.Diarrhea is one of the leading causes of alpaca cria mortality in Peru and elsewhere. Defining infectious pathogens involved in morbidity and mortality from diarrhea in crias is of significant importance for its appropriate control. This study reports the detection of rotavirus and coronavirus antigens in feces collected from crias with acute diarrhea and intestinal contents from dead crias. The fecal samples were screened for rotavirus or coronavirus antigens by rapid immunochromatographic methods. Three of the 14 fecal samples were positive for rotavirus antigen while the intestinal contents were all negative. Five of 14 fecal samples were positive for coronavirus and all the intestinal contents were negative. These results suggest that both rotavirus and coronavirus are associated with a proportion of cases of diarrhea in crias but do not rule out the possibility of co-infection with other pathogens. The actual prevalence and impact of these two viruses requires further investigation

rDock: A Fast, Versatile and Open Source Program for Docking Ligands to Proteins and Nucleic Acids

Identification of chemical compounds with specific biological activities is an important step in both chemical biology and drug discovery. When the structure of the intended target is available, one approach is to use molecular docking programs to assess the chemical complementarity of small molecules with the target; such calculations provide a qualitative measure of affinity that can be used in virtual screening (VS) to rank order a list of compounds according to their potential to be active. rDock is a molecular docking program developed at Vernalis for high-throughput VS (HTVS) applications. Evolved from RiboDock, the program can be used against proteins and nucleic acids, is designed to be computationally very efficient and allows the user to incorporate additional constraints and information as a bias to guide docking. This article provides an overview of the program structure and features and compares rDock to two reference programs, AutoDock Vina (open source) and Schrodinger's Glide (commercial). In terms of computational speed for VS, rDock is faster than Vina and comparable to Glide. For binding mode prediction, rDock and Vina are superior to Glide. The VS performance of rDock is significantly better than Vina, but inferior to Glide for most systems unless pharmacophore constraints are used; in that case rDock and Glide are of equal performance. The program is released under the Lesser General Public License and is freely available for download, together with the manuals, example files and the complete test sets, at http://rdock.sourceforge.net

Risk Assessment Methodologies to Safeguard Historic Urban Areas from the Effects of Climate Change

A systematic and critical review of the existing literature on climate-change riskassessment methodologies for historic urban areas is presented, in view of the increasing likelihood of extreme weather events. Key performance indicators are identified for use in future risk assessment methodologies that address both the elements of historic urban areas as a system and the potential impact of prolonged heat waves. To do so, a systematic search of the existing literature on Web of Science and Scopus was conducted, with the aim of identifying and characterizing existing methodologies on vulnerability and risk assessment for cultural heritage exposed to the effects of a changing climate. The main characteristics of the methodologies that need to be addressed in the near future and key knowledge gaps were identified, among them, the lack of holistic heat-wave risk-assessment methodologies for historic urban areas

Mortar-based systems for externally bonded strengthening of masonry

Mortar-based composite materials appear particularly promising for use as externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) systems for masonry structures. Nevertheless, their mechanical performance, which may significantly differ from that of Fibre Reinforced Polymers, is still far from being fully investigated. Furthermore, standardized and reliable testing procedures have not been defined yet. The present paper provides an insight on experimental-related issues arising from campaigns on mortar-based EBRs carried out by laboratories in Italy, Portugal and Spain. The performance of three reinforcement systems made out of steel, carbon and basalt textiles embedded in inorganic matrices has been investigated by means of uniaxial tensile coupon testing and bond tests on brick and stone substrates. The experimental results contribute to the existing knowledge regarding the structural behaviour of mortar-based EBRs against tension and shear bond stress, and to the development of reliable test procedures aiming at their homogenization/standardization