Monitoring of the water particle velocity field near the seabed under different wave and tidal scenarios: a real case

Monitoring of water particle velocity on the sea bed is crucial to study morphological shore changes in a coast at intermediate and shallow water depth under progressive surface waves and tidal flow current. Therefore, 3-D particle velocity was monitored continuously at the bottom of Santa Maria del Mar (SMM) beach (SW Spain) by means of a single point current meter during 3 weeks in 2007 since August 28. The current meter was placed at 0.45m above the seabed in order to acquire instantaneous velocity. Wave properties (height and period) were taken from the nearby wave buoy and tidal data were taken from a tidal gauge station. Wave-induced bottom particle velocities were obtained during spring and neap tides at a d/L (depth over wave length) parameter ranging from 0.06 to 0.3. Bottom water particle velocity near the seabed ranges from 0 to ± 0.5 m/sec of which about 82% does not exceed 0.2 m/sec during monitoring. Therefore, only 18% of the surveyed water particle velocities exceed the critical Shield parameter of the beach sand (d50 = 0.23mm) which is about 0.05-0.2 depending on Reynolds number. Results show that maximum horizontal speed is obviously lower during the slack tide (high or low tide) in comparison with flood tide and ebb tide. Moreover, speed is higher during ebb tide in comparison to adjacent flood tide, with steady wave climate. Finally and among other conclusions, the maximum real values of the bottom current surveyed in SMM, as well as the Shield parameter, substantially coincide with the theoretical estimates calculated for a given wave and tidal climate

Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.): A medicinal plant with myriad biological properties - A short review

The pomegranate, Punica granatum L., which can be found throughout the Mediterranean region, in Southeast Asia, California and Arizona in USA was in ancient times referred as possessing powers of fertility, abundance and good luck (fruit). The biological properties of extracts (antimicrobial, antioxidant, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, among other properties) obtained from several parts of pomegranate is reported in the present work. Due to such properties, the extracts have been used in therapeutics, such as in the prevention of infection, inflammation, cancer, among other applications. However, other aspects are also referred in the present work such as the good practices of culture and fruit preservation, search of new compounds, selection of cultivars through biotechnological techniques for obtaining juice or fruits ready to eat. Such compilation of information was based on the search in the ISI Web of Knowledge (Thomson Reuters) from 2009 up to the beginning of October 2010

Sustainability and New Technologies

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Morphology determined by waves in fluvial beaches. "La Concordia" in the Uruguay River, a case study.

Sediment characteristics and the direction and magnitude of the velocity of the current in the river, amongst other factors, usually established the pro file and the plan shape of fluvial beaches. However, in sorne cases, even far from its estuary or river mouth, this morphology can be determined by the incidence of the waves despite not being a marine environment. In this paper a qualitative methodology will be presented which will allow us to recognize the aspects that influence the existen ce of such morphologies. For this purpose a case study will be analyzed: the beach of La Concordia located on the left bank ofthe Uruguay River, 70 km upstreamfrom its mouth at the estuwy of Rio de la Plata. Furthermore, plan shape will be analyzed and its determination by wave action will be proved.Tanto el perfil como la forma en planta de las playas fluviales vienen establecidos por numerosos factores entre los que cabría destacar las características del sedimento y la dirección y módulo de la velocidad de la corriente en el río. Sin embargo, en ciertos casos, lejos incluso de su estuario o desembocadura, esta morfología puede estar determinada principalmente por la incidencia del oleaje pese a no tratarse de un entorno marítimo. Se presenta aquí una metodología cualitativa que nos permitirá reconocer los aspectos que influyen en la existencia de este tipo de morfologías. Para ello, se estudiará un caso particular, el de la playa de La Concordia ubicada en la margen izquierda del río Uruguay a 70 km de su desembocadura en el estuario del Rio de la Plata. Asimismo se analizará la forma en planta y se verificará que la misma está determinada por la acción del oleaje

Methodologies for teaching an engineering subject in different countries: comparison and results

Engineering or technical degrees are difficult to teach and, consequently, have always been characterized by a large number of academic failures. Therefore, continuous assessment has been applied to classes of similar content, related to Port and Coastal Engineering during these last years in three different Universities worldwide: University of La Republica (Montevideo, Uruguay), Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and Cadiz (Spain). This paper presents different methodologies used to teach and evaluate these courses at each University, together with the results of the evaluations of the students who were enrolled during the current and previous stages. Generally, a decrease in the number of students who abandon the classes has been noticed together with an increase in the percentage of students who pass and an improvement of their grades, except at the University Nova de Lisboa were the results have remained stable. In addition, changes experienced in the courses are discussed herein by comparing the percentage of success in the different locations. Moreover, influence of the different methodologies and the possible reasons for these changes are also presented and analysed. As a conclusion, the improvement in educational outcomes has been achieved through the concurrence of different factors: the existence of more frequent written and/or oral exams, practical examples of case studies as well as access to specific tools of new technology and to documentation specifically prepared for the classes and available online. Evidently, the above mentioned tasks require a strong commitment and great effort by the teaching staff. If human resources diminish, as it is happening in Spain and Portugal due to the budget reduction in education, two difficult questions arise: For how long will teachers’ current effort be maintained? What impact will have their complete devotion to teaching in their research performance

Utility of Prophylactic Percutaneous Gastrostomy in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer Receiving Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy: A Multicenter Analysis

Introduction: Patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) have an elevated incidence of cachexia and malnutrition due to the tumor's location interfering with oral feeding. Concurrent chemoradiation (CCRT) can have an emetic effect and cause dysphagia and oral mucositis. Adequate nutrition improves immunity, raises the response to therapy, reduces adverse effects, and improves survival. Numerous studies have suggested the utility of nutritional support from percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) in HNC patients. Although PEG is usually considered a safe procedure, it has a mortality rate of 0-2.2% and a risk of other procedure-related complications of 17-40%. Our work intends to evaluate the utility of PEG in patients with locally advanced HNC who underwent CCRT. Methods: We performed a cohort study at three institutions. We included patients with HNC who underwent definitive CCRT treatment from January 2013 to December 2022. The study consisted of an observational, descriptive, retrospective analysis of prespecified clinical data. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the data between the PEG group and the non-PEG group. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used for covariance analysis. Fisher's exact test was used to compare proportional data and Student's t-test was used to assess the differences in continuous data. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier estimator. P-values of <0.05 were considered to be indicative of statistical significance. The SPSS Statistics version 28.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used to perform all statistical evaluations. Results: We identified 90 eligible patients diagnosed with local advanced HNC who had received definitive CCRT with three weekly cycles of cisplatin as follows: 44 with a prophylactic PEG tube and 46 without a prophylactic PEG tube. Most patients were male (84.4%) and 50% of patients were diagnosed with stage IVa HNC at the time of diagnosis. There wasn't an effect of PEG placement on BMI at the end of CCRT after controlling for the effect of baseline BMI (F {1.84}=0.065 {p=0.799}). In the study population, BMI was significantly lower after CCRT (21.30 kg/m2 vs. 23.97 kg/m2), t (86)=12.389, p<0.001. In the subgroup with baseline BMI <18.5 kg/m2 (15 patients), 90% of patients with prophylactic PEG were able to complete the three planned cycles of chemotherapy vs. 66.7% in the non-PEG group. Ten patients in the PEG group (22.7%) referred feeding tube dependency. Patients with dysphagia were 3.2 times more likely to have placed prophylactic PEG (p=0.007). The difference in overall survival and progression-free survival between the two groups was not statistically significant (p=0.57 and p=0.497, respectively). Conclusion: In this study using real-world data, we found a potentially protective effect of PEG in underweight patients with locally advanced HNC performing CCRT in order to complete three cycles of treatment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

2-Amino-6-[(2,6-dichloro­phen­yl)imino]-3-oxocyclo­hexa-1,4-dienecarbaldehyde

The title compound, C13H8Cl2N2O2, was obtained by the oxidation of diclofenac {systematic name: 2-[2-(2,6-dichloro­phenyl­amino)­phen­yl]acetic acid}, an anti-inflammatory drug, with hydrogen peroxide catalysed by chlorido[5,10,15,20-tetra­kis­(2,6-dichloro­phen­yl)porphyrinato]manganese(III), using ammonium acetate as co-catalyst. The asymmetric unit contains two crystallographically independent mol­ecules of the title compound (Z′ = 2). The close packing of individual mol­ecules is mediated by a series of strong and rather directional N—H⋯Cl and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, plus weak π–π [distance between the individual double bonds of symmetry-related imino­quinone rings = 3.7604 (13) Å] and Cl⋯O inter­actions [3.0287 (18) Å]

Field campaign on pressure on the crown wall at the outer port of Punta Langosteira breakwater

[Abstract:] Punta Langosteira port, located in A Coruña (Spain), was monitored during the winters of 2017 and 2018, measuring wave pressure in the crown wall structure. Furthermore, the metocean variables were measured on a buoy located very close to the breakwater. This paper presents the real pressures measured at the crown wall of the breakwater during different storm events. These values are compared with the results of the application of state-of-the-art equations for the calculation of pressures on crown walls. The results obtained show the behaviour of the pressures with a crown wall fully protected by the armour, as is the case of Langosteira breakwater. Finally, several conclusions are made on the methodology for measuring the pressures using physical models and the relevance of the armour roughness.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT); PTDC/ECI-EGC/31090/201

Porphyrin-silica gel hybrids as effective and selective copper(II) adsorbents from industrial wastewater

Porphyrins are an important class of ligands with a tremendous ability to capture metal ions closely related to the rich coordination chemistry of porphyrins. Herein we use this characteristic to develop silica gel grafted derivatives for water remediation applications. Therefore, two porphyrin derivatives, one with three and the other with four mercaptopyridyl units were grafted on silica gel functionalized with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane. The new adsorbents Si3PyS and Si4PyS were characterized using a suitable set of techniques confirming the covalent attachment of the porphyrins to the silica surface. Additionally, microscopy and N2 adsorption analysis confirmed the structural integrity and preservation of the mesoporous structure of Si during surface modification. The results show that both hybrid materials exhibit good chemical and thermal stability and an outstanding Cu2+ removal capability, with a chemical adsorption capacity of 176.32 mg g–1 and 184.16 mg g–1, respectively. These materials have also been used in real water and industrial wastewater samples with minimal interference in their adsorption capabilities. Density Functional Theory calculations were performed to confirm the good performance of the hybrid materials Si3PyS and Si4PyS towards metal ions. The functionalization of silica surface with porphyrin-based ligands bearing additional binding motifs drastically improves the adsorption capability of the new hybrids towards metal ions. The presence of pyridyl units brings a meaningful advantage, since both porphyrin core and appended pyridyl groups are able of binding Cu2+ ions with high affinity, contributing to the enhancement of the chelating features of the adsorbents prepared when compared with other ligands supported in silica-based materials.publishe

Seguimiento continuado de un caso real de hundimiento de los bloques de hormigón de un dique sumergido

Para el diseño de obras marítimas construidas sobre fondos arenosos, suele hacerse una estimación del hundimiento de la misma para colocar un exceso de material que compense dicho efecto y permita mantener el francobordo de diseño. La gran repercusión económica de este fenómeno ha justificado el que se haya estudiado en ensayos de laboratorio la influencia de los procesos de socavación y/o licuefacción en el hundimiento de bloques o escolleras. Para un listado actualizado de los numerosos investigadores implicados y de sus respectivas publicaciones,puede acudirse a Sumer (2014). Sin embargo, debe destacarse que hay muy pocos datos sobre el hundimiento de bloques o escolleras en casos reales (una tabla recopilatoria puede consultarse en Muñoz-Perez et al., 2015). Más aún, que los autores conozcan, no se habían publicado hasta el momento datos continuados en el tiempo del descenso de bloques. El objetivode esta ponencia es la presentación de una metodología que permite el seguimiento continuado del hundimiento de bloques así como de los resultados obtenidos en el caso real de un dique sumergido