Effect of Vinyl Flooring on the Modal Properties of a Steel Footbridge

Damping ratios associated with non structural elements play an important role in mitigating the pedestrian-induced vibrations of slender footbridges. In particular, this paper analyses the effect of vinyl flooring on the modal parameters of steel footbridges. Motivated by the unexpected high experimental damping ratios of the first vibration modes of a real footbridge, whose deck was covered by a vinyl flooring, this paper aims at assessing more accurately the experimental damping ratios generated by this non-structural element on steel footbridges. For this purpose, a laboratory footbridge was built and vinyl flooring was installed on it. Its numerical and experimental modal parameters without and with the vinyl flooring were determined. The operational modal analysis method was used to estimate experimentally the modal parameters of the structure. The damping ratios associated with the vinyl flooring were obtained via the substraction between the experimental damping ratios of the laboratory footbridge with and without the vinyl flooring. An average increase of the damping ratios of 2.069% was observed due to the vinyl flooring installed. According to this result, this type of pavement may be a useful tool to significantly increase the damping ratios of steel footbridges in order to reduce pedestrian-induced vibrationsMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2014-53947-RFondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional DPI2014-53947-

Towards Formal Interaction-Based Models of Grid Computing Infrastructures

Grid computing (GC) systems are large-scale virtual machines, built upon a massive pool of resources (processing time, storage, software) that often span multiple distributed domains. Concurrent users interact with the grid by adding new tasks; the grid is expected to assign resources to tasks in a fair, trustworthy way. These distinctive features of GC systems make their specification and verification a challenging issue. Although prior works have proposed formal approaches to the specification of GC systems, a precise account of the interaction model which underlies resource sharing has not been yet proposed. In this paper, we describe ongoing work aimed at filling in this gap. Our approach relies on (higher-order) process calculi: these core languages for concurrency offer a compositional framework in which GC systems can be precisely described and potentially reasoned about.Comment: In Proceedings DCM 2013, arXiv:1403.768

Estudio de los genes y las proteínas ASR en la tolerancia a estrés abiótico en cereales

104 p.Las plantas han desarrollado la capacidad de ejecutar un gran espectro de respuestas frente a condiciones de estrés abiótico, incluyendo cambios fisiológicos, bioquímicos y moleculares. Pese a la existencia de diversos ejemplos de cambios en el perfil de expresión génica en respuesta a distintos tipos de estrés, las posibles funciones de muchos genes que se inducen bajo estas condiciones son desconocidas. Entre éstos están los genes que codifican a las llamadas proteínas ASR, los cuales son inducidos por la fitohormona ácido abscísico (ABA), estrés y maduración. Las proteínas vegetales ASR se han convertido en un interesante grupo de proteínas con funciones aparentes en la protección de estructuras celulares y en la regulación de la expresión génica. Ambas respuestas son importantes para las plantas frente a estrés abiótico e, independientemente de las posibles funciones propuestas por algunos estudios, se conoce muy poco acerca de su papel en cereales. La presente tesis se enfocó en determinar el papel de las proteínas ASR en la regulación de la expresión de genes en cereales y en examinar su posible función en la tolerancia a estrés abiótico. Para lograr este objetivo, se han propuesto los siguientes objetivos: (1) caracterizar la regulación de la transcripción de los genes ASR por ABA, estrés abiótico y su expresión en diferentes tejidos en plantas de arroz y cebada; (2) identificar posibles genes blanco de la proteína HvASR en plantas de arroz que sobre-expresen el gen HvASR; (3) evaluar los efectos de sobre-expresión del gen HvASR en la tolerancia de plantas transgénicas de arroz a estrés hídrico y a bajas temperaturas. Aunque la transcripción de la mayoría de los genes OsASR fue regulada de manera transitoria por ABA exógeno, los genes presentaron una respuesta diferencial bajo condiciones de estrés por frio y sequía, así como una expresión específica en ciertos tejidos y órganos. Análisis de los elementos regulatorios en los promotores de los genes OsASR reveló la presencia de elementos cis de respuesta a hormonas, azúcar y estrés. Además, la expresión del gen reportero GUS dirigida por los promotores de OsASR1 y OsASR5, indicó una expresión preferente en raíz, antera y tejido escutelar de la semilla. Estos resultados aportan nuevas pistas acerca de su posible papel de estas proteínas durante el desarrollo y en respuesta a estrés. Por otro lado, aunque la sobre-expresión de HvASR5 en arroz no provocó fenotipos evidentes de tolerancia a estrés por frio y sequía en las condiciones evaluadas, un análisis transcripcional global mostró que la expresión de un importante número de genes relacionados con desarrollo reproductivo y con respuesta a estrés fue afectada en las plantas transgénicas/ABSTRACT:Plants have developed the ability to execute a wide spectrum of responses in order to cope with environmental adverse conditions, including physiological, biochemical and molecular changes. Despite several described examples of changes in the expression of genes in response to different stresses, the role of many genes that are induced under stress remain unknown. Among these, we can find the genes encoding for the so-called ASR proteins. The group of plant ASR proteins, whose genes are induced by the phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA), stress and ripening, have emerged as an interesting group of proteins with apparent roles in protecting cellular structures as well as putative regulators of gene expression. Both are important responses of plants to environmental stresses and, regardless of the proposed functions in some studies, little is known about their role in cereals. This thesis focused on determining the role of an ASR protein in the regulation of gene expression in cereals and on examining its putative role in conferring tolerance to abiotic stresses. To achieve this main objective, the following objectives were proposed: (1) to characterize the transcriptional regulation of the ASR genes by ABA, abiotic stresses and their expression in different tissues in rice and barley plants; (2) to identify possible target genes of HvASR in rice plants that over-express the HvASR gene; (3) to evaluate the effects of over-expressing HvASR on the tolerance to water deficit and low temperatures in transgenic rice plants. Although transcription of most OsASRs is transiently enhanced by ABA treatment, the genes presented a differential response under cold and drought stress as well as specific expression in certain tissues and organs. Analysis of their regulatory promoter elements uncovered hormonal, sugar and stress responsive cis-elements. In addition, GUS reporter gene expression driven by the promoters of OsASR1 and OsASR5 indicated specific expression in root, anther and seed scutellar tissue. These results provide new clues about the possible role of ASRs in plant development and stress responses. On the other hand, although the overexpression of HvASR5 in rice did not show evident phenotypes of enhanced tolerance to cold stress and drought under the tested conditions, a global transcription analysis revealed that the expression of a large number of genes related to reproductive development and stress response was affected in the transgenic plants

Conceptualizing a framework for cyber-physical systems of systems development and deployment

ABSTRACT Cyber-physical systems (CPS) refer to the next generation of embedded ICT systems that are interconnected, collaborative and that provide users and businesses with a wide range of smart applications and services. Software in CPS applications ranges from small systems to large systems, aka. Systems of Systems (SoS), such as smart grids and cities. CPSoS require managing massive amounts of data, being aware of their emerging behavior, and scaling out to progressively evolve and add new systems. Cloud computing supports processing and storing massive amounts of data, hosting and delivering services, and configuring selfprovisioned resources. Therefore, cloud computing is the natural candidate to solve CPSoS needs. However, the diversity of platforms and the low-level cloud programming models make difficult to find a common solution for the development and deployment of CPSoS. This paper presents the architectural foundations of a cloud-centric framework for automating the development and deployment of CPSoS service applications to converge towards a common open service platform for CPSoS applications. This framework relies on the well-known qualities of the microservices architecture style, the autonomic computing paradigm, and the model-driven software development approach. Its implementation and validation is on-going at two European and national projects

Highly Efficient Production of Heteroarene Phosphonates by Dichromatic Photoredox Catalysis

[EN] A new strategy to achieve efficient aerobic phosphorylation of five-membered heteraroenes with excellent yields using dichromatic photoredox catalysis in a gel-based nanoreactor is described here. The procedure involves visible aerobic irradiation (cold white LEDs) of a mixture containing the heteroarene halide, trisubstituted phospite, N,N-diisopropylethylamine (DIPEA) as sacrificial agent, and catalytic amounts of 9,10-dicyanoanthracene (DCA) in the presence of an adequate gelator, which permits a faster process than at the homogeneous phase. The methodology, which operates by a consecutive photoinduced electron transfer (ConPET) mechanism, has been successfully applied to the straightforward and clean synthesis of a number of different heteroarene (furan, thiophene, selenophene, pyrrole, oxazole, or thioxazole) phosphonates, extending to the late-stage phosphonylation of the anticoagulant rivaroxaban. Strategically, employment of cold white light is critical since it provides both selective wavelengths for exciting first DCA (blue region) and subsequently its corresponding radical anion DCA(center dot-) (green region). The resultant strongly reducing excited agent DCA(center dot-)* is capable of even activate five-membered heteroarene halides (Br, Cl) with high reduction potentials (similar to-2.7 V) to effect the C(sp(2))-P bond formation. Spectroscopic and thermodynamic studies have supported the proposed reaction mechanism. Interestingly, the rate of product formation has been clearly enhanced in gel media because reactants can be presumably localized not only in the solvent pools but also through to the fibers of the viscoelastic gel network. This has been confirmed by field-emission scanning electron microscopy images where a marked densification of the network has been observed, modifying its fibrillary morphology. Finally, rheological measurements have shown the resistance of the gel network to the incorporation of the reactants and the formation of the desired products.Financial support from the Generalitat Valenciana (CIDEGENT/2018/044) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-105391GB-C21, PID2019-105391GBC22, BES-2017-080215, and BEAGAL18/00166) is gratefully acknowledged. D.D.D. thanks NANOTech., INTech, Cabildo de Tenerife, and ULL for laboratory facilities. We also thank the Electron Microscopy Service from the UPV.Herrera-Luna, JC.; Díaz Díaz, D.; Jiménez Molero, MC.; Pérez-Ruiz, R. (2021). Highly Efficient Production of Heteroarene Phosphonates by Dichromatic Photoredox Catalysis. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. 13(41):48784-48794. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c14497S4878448794134

A Maple package to deal with the birationality of curves and surfaces parametrizations

Maple Conference 2020. Communications in Computer and Information Science book series (CCIS volume 1414)In this paper we present the Maple package Luroth for dealing with the birationality of curves and surfaces parametrizations. The procedures in the package decide whether a given, either curve or surface, parametrization is injective by computing its degree map. In addition, if the parametrization is not injective, it determines a birational reparametrization. For the curve case, the corresponding command always provides an optional answer. For the surface case, not all cases are covered. Nevertheless, we illustrate using Maple some new ideas on how to approach those surface cases not covered in the package.Agencia Estatal de Investigació

Hemodiálisis en tiempo de huracanes y desastres en cuba

La Enfermedad Renal Crónica (ERC)  es reconocida como un problema de salud y un reto internacionalmente, a considerar como “parte central del planeamiento de la salud pública  de cada Estado”,  por su complejidad, frecuencia y crecimiento epidémico. El número real de pacientes prevalentes en cualquier etapa evolutiva de ERC podría afectar a 10-14% de la población adulta. Sólo en métodos de diálisis y trasplante viven más de 2 millones de personas en todo el mundo. El presupuesto dedicado a estos enfermos es muy alto y existen enormes disparidades en su atención entre los países pobres y ricos, reconocidas internacionalmente.  El sistema de Salud Pública en Cuba, estatal, universal, gratuito y accesible para toda la población de más de 11 millones de habitantes, se mantiene en continuo desarrollo y perfeccionamiento para alcanzar la excelencia en la atención y cumple estos mismos preceptos en la garantía de la atención nefrológica. Necesidades y costos crecientes en tiempo de crisis económica, pese a que cada año más y más enfermos  requieren de terapia renal de reemplazo por diálisis y trasplante renal, lo cual alcanzó en 2007 un número de pacientes de 284.8 por millón de población en el país. Esta Organización se puso a prueba en los dos recientes huracanes que azotaron catastróficamente  a Cuba, lo cual significó una experiencia única en nuestro país y motivó escribir esta reseña.  Palabras clave: Enfermedad renal crónica, hemodiálisis, cuidados renales, huracanes, sistema vigilancia primera alerta

15 AÑOS DE ERITROPOYETINA RECOMBINANTE HUMANA CUBANA. BENEFICIOS Y RETOS

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