A new experiments-based methodology to define the stability threshold for any vehicle exposed to flooding

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Urban water journal on 2017, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1573062X.2017.1301501A vehicle exposed to flooding, after losing stability, becomes buoyant and may be washed away with potential injuries and fatalities. Such vehicles cause additional disruption to traffic that is already affected by flooding, which may lead to substantial indirect economic impact, especially in urban areas. Therefore, the analysis of the stability of vehicles exposed to flooding is important in order to make decisions to reduce damages and hazards. In this research, based on an experimental campaign that included a range of twelve car models, a new methodology to obtain the stability threshold for any real vehicle exposed to flooding is developed. A stability coefficient (SCmod) is derived with which the vehicles can be sorted by stability against water flows and their stability functions may be determined. The experiments were conducted with three different model scales (1:14, 1:18 and 1:24) and involved analysis of both friction and buoyancy effects, which made this the most comprehensive research study to date. This methodology enables the definition of a stable area in the flow depth-velocity domain for any real vehicle. A tool is provided that decision-makers in the field of urban flood risk management can employ and after defining a design vehicle they can obtain its corresponding stability threshold.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

VET students into technology companies: a microlearning digital course to train critical thinking skills

This microlearning course is designed to support VET graduates or students, especially those with fewer opportunities, who join a technology company at the beginning of their professional career. It has been developed within the framework of the Erasmus + project “VET STUDENTS İNTO TECHNOLOGY COMPANİES: A VET students mobility network in the technological sector through a virtual environment with specific materials for critical thinking”. This is an intiative co-financed by the Erasmus + Programme, with a personalized digital course format, to take into account both the previous training of the VET student or graduate and the type of company they will join. The course has in its sights to develop in the VET student the specific competences required by the technology company to address the problems typical of fields of leading technology innovation, as well as fitting in multidisciplinary teams. To do this, this course generates an innovative methodology in which the education itinerary is built based on previous knowledge of the student and the needs and work field of the technology company. Besides its contents strengthen critical thinking as an essential mechanism for work in both dynamic and technology sectors. For that purpose, the student is asked a series of questions in the form of problems that, in addition to being related to the study plans of VET studies, require for their solution the search for information, its analysis and many times the making of a decision or adopting a personal position on it. We aim with our training projects, within the Erasmus + program, to convince students that they are capable of going further and further in the development of their professional skills being the technology sector an acceptable option for them, making their work increasingly valuable for their inclusion, for their own personal development, for that of the company in which they work and for society. But for this certain skills are required, and one of the most important is learning to learn autonomously and to accurately analyse the information received and the decisions that are made from it. It is generally true that the problems that one encounters in professional practice are not going to be the ones that you were taught in your VET studies. Vocational training has to head for equipping students with the necessary tools to face the new problems that they will face in their job and to grow professionally every day. We intend to show how valuable critical thinking skills are in analysing our way of thinking and making decisions. In this paper we present examples of the exercises included in the course, how their approach and the processes that have led to a solution relate with the standards of critical thinking and the different levels of help that are offered to the student for their solution. The course is accessible from a digital educational software “ON YOUR SIDE: VIRTUAL ASSISTANT FOR EUROPEAN MOBILITIES IN TECHNOLOGICAL CENTERS” developed in the framework of this Erasmus+ project in order to develop cooperative work between students with fewer opportunities doing their internships in technology companies and their inclusion in new job posts. We will also present this software in a very summarized way in this article.This work has been funded by the Erasmus + program within the 2019-1-ES01-KA202-064569 project, Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE

Stability criteria for flooded vehicles: a state-of-the-art review

This is the accepted version of the following article: [Martínez-Gomariz, E., Gómez, M., Russo, B. and Djordjević, S. (2018), Stability criteria for flooded vehicles: a state-of-the-art review. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 11: S817–S826. doi: 10.1111/jfr3.12262], which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/jfr3.12262/abstract.Hazard conditions related to vehicular circulation are important in flood risk management. The knowledge of vehicles stability when those are exposed to flooding is crucial for an informed flood risk management in urban areas. After losing stability, the vehicle becomes buoyant and may be washed away with potential injuries and fatalities. Therefore, the analysis of the stability of vehicles exposed to flooding is important in order to make decisions to reduce the damages and hazards. Herein a comprehensive state-of-the-art on stability of vehicles exposed to flooding is presented. The different studies have been gathered in experimental, theoretical and guidelines proposals and all of them focusing on parked vehicles. There is a clear need to conduct more research in this field by testing a greater variety of models in order to offer a more general methodology to define stability threshold for any vehicle exposed to flooding. Nevertheless, in this work, it has been demonstrate that the most safety stability criterion for vehicles exposed to flooding up to now is the proposed in the Guide AR&R.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

A simple algorithm for optimization and model fitting: AGA (asexual genetic algorithm)

Context. Mathematical optimization can be used as a computational tool to obtain the optimal solution to a given problem in a systematic and efficient way. For example, in twice-differentiable functions and problems with no constraints, the optimization consists of finding the points where the gradient of the objective function is zero and using the Hessian matrix to classify the type of each point. Sometimes, however it is impossible to compute these derivatives and other type of techniques must be employed such as the steepest descent/ascent method and more sophisticated methods such as those based on the evolutionary algorithms. Aims. We present a simple algorithm based on the idea of genetic algorithms (GA) for optimization. We refer to this algorithm as AGA (Asexual Genetic Algorithm) and apply it to two kinds of problems: the maximization of a function where classical methods fail and model fitting in astronomy. For the latter case, we minimize the chi-square function to estimate the parameters in two examples: the orbits of exoplanets by taking a set of radial velocity data, and the spectral energy distribution (SED) observed towards a YSO (Young Stellar Object). Methods. The algorithm AGA may also be called genetic, although it differs from standard genetic algorithms in two main aspects: a) the initial population is not encoded, and b) the new generations are constructed by asexual reproduction. Results. Applying our algorithm in optimizing some complicated functions, we find the global maxima within a few iterations. For model fitting to the orbits of exoplanets and the SED of a YSO, we estimate the parameters and their associated errors.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics (in press

Impact of the vine water status on the berry and seed phenolic composition of 'Merlot' (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivated in a warm climate: Consequence for the style of wine

During 2005 and 2006 four irrigation treatments were assayed in a vineyard growing 'Merlot' grapes located in a warm climate region. The treatments were kept for two years and the wine was produced the second year so that the response of the wines to water constraint was consistent. The phenolic parameters of the wines were analysed. The phenolic composition of the seeds was studied for both years and more significant differences were observed in the second. The results showed that when the deficiency increased, so did the concentration of total polyphenols, flavan-3-ols and tannins in the seeds. Pre-dawn leaf water constraint integrals between 20 and 24 Mpa as opposed to levels of 9 to 14 caused statistically significant increases in total polyphenols, flavan-3-ols and the colour index of the wine. These differences were manifested in sensory terms by significant intensification of the colour and body of the wines.

Benchmarking of single‐virus genomics: a new tool for uncovering the virosphere

Metagenomics and single‐cell genomics have enabled the discovery of relevant uncultured microbes. Recently, single‐virus genomics (SVG), although still in an incipient stage, has opened new avenues in viral ecology by allowing the sequencing of one single virus at a time. The investigation of methodological alternatives and optimization of existing procedures for SVG is paramount to deliver high‐quality genomic data. We report a sequencing dataset of viral single‐amplified genomes (vSAGs) from cultured and uncultured viruses obtained by applying different conditions in each SVG step, from viral preservation and novel whole‐genome amplification (WGA) to sequencing platforms and genome assembly. Sequencing data showed that cryopreservation and mild fixation were compatible with WGA, although fresh samples delivered better genome quality data. The novel TruPrime WGA, based on primase‐polymerase features, and WGA‐X employing a thermostable phi29 polymerase, were proven to be with sufficient sensitivity in SVG. The Oxford Nanopore (ON) sequencing platform did not provide a significant improvement of vSAG assembly compared to Illumina alone. Finally, the SPAdes assembler performed the best. Overall, our results represent a valuable genomic dataset that will help to standardized and advance new tools in viral ecology.This work has been supported by Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant 5334) and Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (refs CGL2013‐40564‐R, RTI2018‐094248‐B‐I00 and SAF2013‐49267‐EXP). Work at CRG, BIST and UPF was in part funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013‐2017’ and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, ‘Centro de Excelencia Maria de Maeztu 2016‐2019’

Education and innovation - vet students into technology companies

VET education is an effective and accessible way for students, to improve their employability and inclusion possibilities. It allows them to train technically in a short time to do a job and try to access the labor market. However, not even obtaining a qualification aimed at vocational training ensures access to the labor market or real possibilities of emancipation. The success of VET graduates in their first work experience joining technology companies requires the development of many skills that are common to all professional careers, but also specific skills that derive from the innovative nature of the work method and objectives of these companies. For this reason, within the framework of the Erasmus + Program, the project VET STUDENTS İNTO TECHNOLOGY COMPANİES: A VET students mobility network in the technological sector through a virtual environment with specific materials for critical thinking is being developed with the aim of promoting employability and inclusion of VET students at risk of exclusion. The project focuses on the creation of virtual tools, collaborative work methodologies and virtual training materials that allow these young people to improve their critical thinking capacity and their technological and digital skills. The project's methodology is based on the combination of the creation of training materials and a network of mobility in high-tech centres, where students will carry out a first work experience. Regarding training materials, one of the main results of this project is PERSONALIZED DIGITAL COURSE FOR LABOR TRAINING IN A TECHNOLOGICAL CENTER. This course generates personalized learning based on the student's previous knowledge and the characteristics of the technological company in which they will carry out their internship. The course follows an innovative methodology based on microlearning, a learning characterized by the resolution of relatively small exercises (pills) that are focused on the development of technical and work skills and the reinforcement of critical thinking as a fundamental mechanism. The objective of this course is not so much to provide new knowledge as to develop skills that allow the students to face problems or tasks unknown to them until then: self-training skills, assess their own way of reasoning, set objectives, raise relevant questions, state hypothesis, search for information, intellectual integrity, oral and written communication, work in multidisciplinary teams. Along with this course, within the framework of this project, the result ON YOUR SIDE is being developed, a digital educational software available for mobile devices, which will accompany the student throughout the mobility process, providing useful information such as specific training resources focused on the company where they will carry out their mobility, linguistic resources, collaborative work tools, as well as social integration resources in the destination country, among others. From this App, students will be able to access the aforementioned course. In this paper we present how, through microlearning methodology and critical thinking, students can solve the content pills through their autonomy and self-discovery.This work has been funded by the Erasmus + program within the 2019-1-ES01-KA202-064569 project, Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE

Entanglement structure of quantum fields through local probes

We present a framework to study the entanglement structure of a quantum field theory inspired by the formalism of particle detectors in relativistic quantum information. This framework can in principle be used to faithfully capture entanglement in a QFT between arbitrary-shaped regions of spacetime without encountering UV divergences, bypassing many of the issues typically present in other approaches. Our results also establish the limits of the efficiency of entanglement harvesting, and may also be used to motivate an operational definition of entanglement between spacetime subregions in field theory.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures. RevTeX 4.