Estimation of the Efficiency of Hydraulic Pumps

A sustainable design of water supply systems needs to account operational costs. When pumping is required, the energy consumed by the pumps plays a major part in the operational costs, and the efficiency of the pumps can greatly affect the energy expenses. How to properly estimate the value of pump efficiency is hence of great importance. The aim of this study is to study in depth the efficiency of hydraulic pumps, in relation with the other design variables (flow rate, pumping head, power, etc.). For that, 400 hydraulic pumps were analysed. A strong relationship between the flow rate and the pump efficiency was observed. This relationship was interpolated, and three empiric curves were defined (one for the average maximum and minimum expected value of pump efficiency). These curves can be easily used by designers in order to obtain an estimation of the efficiency of the hydraulic pumps

Redes alimentarias y nutrición infantil : una reflexión acerca de poder de las mujeres a través de las redes sociales y la protección nutricional de niños pequeños

Fil: Garrote, Nora L. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras; Argentina.Fil: Garrote, Nora L. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Secretaria de Ciencia y Técnica; Argentina.27 ref.En este artículo propongo pensar la construcción de redes alimentarias como una forma de articulación social producida por las mujeres capaces de sostener tácticas de protección nutricional para los niños pequeños. Desde el análisis del proceso alimentario deseo mostrar la obtención de alimentos por medio de la donación en espacios de actuación familiares y extrafamiliares. El nuevo poder de la mujer como constructora de relaciones de reciprocidad para la obtención del alimento por la devaluación del trabajo productivo cambia su posición dentro del reparto del poder familiar y se expresa en el control de los patrones alimentarios y la participación infantil en la comida cotidiana. Hablo de un poder limitado al ámbito de lo particular, un poder de organizar posibilidades nutricionales mejores para los niños pequeños porque en última instancia estos mecanismos de intercambios alimentarios reproducen y profundizan las diferencias sociales en la sociedad en su conjunto

Effect of radar rainfall time resolution on the predictive capability of a distributed hydrologic model

The performance of a hydrologic model depends on the rainfall input data, both spatially and temporally. As the spatial distribution of rainfall exerts a great influence on both runoff volumes and peak flows, the use of a distributed hydrologic model can improve the results in the case of convective rainfall in a basin where the storm area is smaller than the basin area. The aim of this study was to perform a sensitivity analysis of the rainfall time resolution on the results of a distributed hydrologic model in a flash-flood prone basin. Within such a catchment, floods are produced by heavy rainfall events with a large convective component. A second objective of the current paper is the proposal of a methodology that improves the radar rainfall estimation at a higher spatial and temporal resolution. Composite radar data from a network of three C-band radars with 6-min temporal and 2 × 2 km2 spatial resolution were used to feed the RIBS distributed hydrological model. A modification of the Window Probability Matching Method (gauge-adjustment method) was applied to four cases of heavy rainfall to improve the observed rainfall sub-estimation by computing new Z/R relationships for both convective and stratiform reflectivities. An advection correction technique based on the cross-correlation between two consecutive images was introduced to obtain several time resolutions from 1 min to 30 min. The RIBS hydrologic model was calibrated using a probabilistic approach based on a multiobjective methodology for each time resolution. A sensitivity analysis of rainfall time resolution was conducted to find the resolution that best represents the hydrological basin behaviour

The hydrometeorological forecasting in the framework of the european project FLASH

The principal objective of the European Project FLASH (Observations, Analysis and Modeling of Lightning Activity in Thunderstorms, for use in Short Term Forecasting of Flash Floods) is the improvement of flash flood forecasting. With this aim, the Spanish contribution is centred in the integration of radar and raingauge data, lightning data and MM5 outputs into the hydrological model RIBS (Real-time Interactive Basin Simulator). Eleven case studies which affected the coastal region of Catalonia, between 2000 and 2006, have been selected. This region is characterized by great vulnerability due to concentration of the major part of the population, tourism and agricultural activities. This contribution shows the data and methodology as well as some preliminary results obtained within the project

Usefulness of AEMET generated climate projections for climate change impact studies on floods at national-scale (Spain)

[EN] The preliminary assessment of flood risk should take into account the effect of climate change on flood hazards, according to the EU Floods Directive. Some climatic variables supplied by a set of global climate models have been regionalized by the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, AEMET) in Spain, by using two statistical downscaling methods. The usefulness of this regionalization can be assessed by their fitting to the observed data in the control period (1961-2000). A comparison based on a set of statistics has been conducted. Results show that although the fit is good for annual mean values, annual maximum values for both regionalization are not adequately simulated by AEMET models, since they provide lower extremes with a smaller variability. In addition, a great uncertainty in the characterization of these extremes values, in comparison with the observations, is observed.[ES] La evaluación preliminar del riesgo de inundación deberá tener en cuenta el efecto del cambio climático en la incidencia de inundaciones, según la Directiva de Inundaciones. La Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET) española ha regionalizado algunas variables suministradas por varios modelos climáticos globales en España, mediante dos métodos de regionalización estadística. La utilidad de esta regionalización, en cuanto a las precipitaciones, reside en el ajuste que tengan a los datos observados en el periodo de control (1961-2000). Para ello, se ha realizado una comparación en base a una serie de estadísticos. Los resultados muestran que, aunque el ajuste es bueno para valores medios anuales, los valores máximos anuales de precipitación para ambas regionalizaciones no son adecuados, ya que los modelos simulan un clima con precipitaciones máximas anuales inferiores, menor variabilidad de los extremos y una gran incertidumbre en la caracterización de los valores más extremos.Los autores agradecen la financiación del proyecto CGL2014-52570-R ‘Impacto del cambio climático en la ley de frecuencia bivariada de avenidas’ del Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad de España. Los autores también agradecen al Centro de Estudios Hidrográficos del CEDEX y a la Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET) por suministrar los datos de caudal y de las variables climáticas, respectivamente, usadas en este estudio.Garijo, C.; Mediero, L.; Garrote, L. (2018). Utilidad de las proyecciones climáticas generadas por AEMET para estudios de impacto del cambio climático sobre avenidas a escala nacional. Ingeniería del Agua. 22(3):153-166. https://doi.org/10.4995/ia.2018.9312SWORD153166223Álvarez, A.J., Mediero, L., García, C. 2014. Análisis y selección de modelos estadísticos para el ajuste de la ley de frecuencia de caudales máximos anuales en España. Ingeniería Civil, 174, 5-31.European Union. 2007. Directive 2007/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks. Official Journal of the European Union, L 288, 27-34.Garijo, C., Mediero, L. 2018. Influence of climate change on flood magnitude and seasonality in the Arga River catchment in Spain. Acta Geophysica, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-018-0143-0IPCC. 2014. Cambio climático 2014: Informe de síntesis. Contribución de los Grupos de trabajo I, II y III al Quinto Informe de Evaluación del Grupo Intergubernamental de Expertos sobre el Cambio Climático. Ginebra, Suiza. ISBN: 978-92-9169-343-6Jacob, D., Petersen, J., Eggert, B., Alias, A., Christensen, O. B., Bouwer, L. M., Braun, A., Colette, A., Déqué, M., Georgievski, G., Georgopoulou, E., Gobiet, A., Menut, L., Nikulin, G., Haensler, A., Hempelmann, N., Jones, C., Keuler, K., Kovats, S., Kröner, N., Kotlarski, S., Kriegsmann, A., Martin, E., van Meijgaard, E., Moseley, C., Pfeifer, S., Preuschmann, S., Radermacher, C., Radtke, K., Rechid, D., Rounsevell, M., Samuelsson, P., Somot, S., Soussana, J.-F., Teichmann, C., Valentini, R., Vautard, R., Weber, B., Yiou, P. 2014. EURO-CORDEX: new high-resolution climate change projections for European impact research. Regional Environmental Change, 14, 563-578, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0499-2Kundzewicz, Z.W., Krysanova, V., Dankers, R., Hirabayashi,Y., Kanae,S., Hattermann, F. F., Huang, S., Milly, P. C. D., Stoffel, M., Driessen, P. P. J., Matczak, P., Quevauviller, P., Schellnhuber, H.-J2017. Differences in flood hazard projections in Europe - their causes and consequences for decision making, Hydrological Sciences Journal 62, 1-14, https://doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2016.1241398Morata-Gasca, A. 2014. Guía de escenarios regionalizados de cambio climático sobre España a partir de los resultados del IPCCAR4. Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente, Madrid, España.Quintana Segui, P., Ribes, A., Martín, E., Habets, F., Boé, J. 2010.Comparison of three downscaling methods in simulating the impact of climate change on the hydrology of Mediterranean basins. Journal of Hydrology, 383, 111-124, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.09.050Teutschbein, C., Seibert, J. 2012. Bias correction of regional climate model simulations for hydrological climate-change impact studies: Review and evaluation of different methods. Journal of Hydrology, 16, 12-29, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.05.052Teutschbein, C., Seibert, J. 2013. Is bias correction of regional climate model (RCM) simulations possible for non-stationary conditions?. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences 17, 5061-5077, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-17-5061-2013.Themeßl, M.J., Gobiet, A., Leuprecht, A. 2011. Empirical-statistical downscaling and error correction of daily precipitation from regional climate models. International Journal of Climatology, 31, 1530-1544. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.216

Assessment of riverbank filtration performance for climatic change and a growing population

Data availability statement The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.Copyright © 2023 Abd-Elaty, Kuriqi, Ganayem, Ahmed, Saleh and Garrote. Riverbank filtration (RBF) consists of green drinking water production in many regions and is used as a pre-treatment phase. This study investigates the performance of the RBF in the Nile delta, Egypt, for climate change and population growth scenarios of 2030, 2040, and 2050. This study presents a new method for predicting the sharing of riverbanks considering three cases: i) the river stage controlling the water levels in the river, ii) increasing RBF pumping, and iii) changing the groundwater levels. This last scenario is achieved by changing the general head in the MODFLOW model. The results showed that RBF sharing (RBFS) is a proportion of the river leakage inflow, in which the decrease of the river stage due to the influence of climate change reduced the river leakage inflow and RBFS. In addition, increasing RBF pumping, decreasing RBF pumping, and lowering the groundwater levels due to the increase in the future drinking water pumping for the population growth increased the river leakage inflow and RBFS. Finally, combining the three cases decreased RBFS in the coming years of 2030, 2040, and 2050, respectively, due to more groundwater sharing than the river inflow. The results show that the water budget is a good tool to investigate RBFS compared with MT3D results. This technique can reduce the cost of water quality collection and analysis; moreover, it will help with the estimation of RBF and save time compared with solute transport modeling.AK is grateful for the Foundation for Science and Technology’s support through funding UIDB/04625/2020 from the research unit CERIS

Consolidating the concept of low-energy magnetic dipole decay radiation

We have made a thorough study of the low-energy behaviour of the $\gamma$-ray strength function within the framework of the shell model. We have performed large-scale calculations spanning isotopic and isotonic chains over several mass regions, with the purpose of studying the systematic behavior of the low-energy enhancement (LEE) for $M1$ transitions. There are clear trends in the calculations: From being all but absent in the lowest mass region, the LEE becomes steeper and more pronounced as the mass number increases, and for a given mass region it further increases towards shell closures. Moreover, the LEE is found to be steeper in regions near doubly-magic nuclei where proton particles couple to neutron holes. These trends enable us to consolidate several previous works on the LEE into a single, consistent concept. We compare the inferred trends to the available experimental data from the Oslo method, and find suppport for the systematic behaviour. Lastly we have compared the calculations to strength functions compiled from discrete, experimental lifetimes, and find excellent agreement; the discrete data are consistent with a LEE, and indicate that the slope varies as function of mass number.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure

Exopolysaccharide-producing Lacticaseibacillus paracasei strains isolated from kefir as starter for functional dairy products

Exopolysaccharides (EPS) produced by lactic acid bacteria are molecules of great interest for the dairy food industry. Lacticaseibacillus paracasei CIDCA 8339, CIDCA 83123, and CIDCA 83124 are potentially probiotic strains isolated from kefir grains whose EPS-production on MRS broth is dependent on incubation temperature. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the effect of fermentation temperature on the characteristics of EPS produced in milk by L. paracasei strains and the consequent impact on the rheological properties of the fermented products. Additionally, the protective effect of these EPS against Salmonella infection was evaluated in vitro. Acid gels with each strain were obtained by milk fermentation at 20°C, 30°C, and 37°C evidencing for all the strains a reduction in growth and acidification rate at lower temperature. Lacticaseibacillus paracasei CIDCA 83123 showed low fermentation rate at all temperatures requiring between 3 and 8 days to obtain acids gels, whereas CIDCA 8339 and 83124 needed between 24 and 48 h even when the temperature was 20°C. Fermentation temperature led to changes in crude EPS characteristics of the three strains, observing an increase in the relative amount of the high molecular weight fraction when the fermentation temperature diminished. Additionally, EPS83124 and EPS83123 presented modifications in monosaccharide composition, with a reduction of rhamnose and an increase of amino-sugars as temperature rise. These changes in the structure of EPS83124 resulted in an increase of the apparent viscosity of milks fermented at 20°C (223 mPa.s) and 30°C (217 mPa.s) with respect to acid gels obtained at 37°C (167 mPa.s). In order to deepen the knowledge on EPS characteristics, monosaccharide composition of low and high molecular weight EPS fractions were evaluated. Finally, it was evidenced that the preincubation of intestinal epithelial cells Caco-2/TC-7 with EPS8339 and EPS83124 partially inhibit the association and invasion of Salmonella. In light of these results, it can be concluded that the selection of the EPS-producing strain along with the appropriate fermentation conditions could be an interesting strategy to improve the technological properties of these L. paracasei fermented milks with potential protective effects against intestinal pathogens.The present work was supported by CONICET (PIP 2786), Universidad Nacional de La Plata (UNLP 18/X813), ANPCyT (PICT 2020-03973 and PICT 2020-3239), and the Basque Government (IT1662-22 and PIBA 2020_1_0032)